New start of the semester

Today was my first day teaching in the BIOSCI 107 lab. When I stepped into the lab this morning and was preparing for my lecture, I was determined to ensure that the students learnt how to use the microscope proficiently and able to do proper scientific drawings at the end of this lab. During the last hour of the lab, I was walking around looking at the students as they worked their way through their microscope and draw the rat's skeletal muscle, I am glad to say - I managed to achieve my goal! This semester I will be teaching two labs - BIOSCI 101 and BIOSCI 107, both are basic freshmen labs. I am glad to be able to teach these labs because I often find second and even third year students are very weak in their foundation lab skills. I hope to be part of the freshmen's experience in making their foundation lab skills more proficient.

The beginning of this semester also bring Hannah and I good news in our diving career.After a long three-day-weekend of dive training, we managed to pass the Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) Fundamental courses. Hannah secured a Recreational diver pass and I secured a Technical diver pass. Eventually Hannah will be tested again in order to get a Tech pass. GUE ( http://www.globalunderwaterexplorers.org/) has the highest standard in terms of dive training. Luckily, we have a GUE instructor in New Zealand, which makes logistics so much easier. The course was not easy - we had moments where we doubt ourselves! There was Hannah unable to remove her mask, I unable to hold my 6-meter mark in the water while shooting a bag, a total flood failure in my drysuit and our teamwork was going haywire! Our course was ran immediately after another Fundamentals course, and together there were six students, and I am proud to say that only Hannah and I managed to secure a pass! The rest of the students got provisional passes, meaning they have six months to work on some issues and re-take their test. Before GUE, it was unheard of that you could actually fail a diving test! However, given diving is an aggressive sport since we are in a harsh environment, why shouldn't our skills be more proficient. So, what's next after Fundamentals? That I will leave it for some other time :)

Lastly, after weeks of paperwork, I am finally a provisional PhD student of University of Auckland. Provisional because there are things I need to do before I am a confirmed student - such as attending student orientation etc, submit a research proposal and defend my proposal, scouting of the research location etc. Now  I start on the 3-year long journey on this route!

Looking back at the resolutions I made at the beginning of 2012, I may have already achieved a few of them! :)

1. Finish and publish the two papers I have been working on for the past 3 months.
2. Portions of the PhD research to be done : location recce, collaborators negotiation, literature review, experimental design.
3. Publish at least one paper from my PhD research before end of 2012.
4. Pass our GUE fundamentals (ACHIEVED)and Rec 3 (Trimix).
5. Conduct at least one exploration dive on the Blue Creek resurgence with TechDive NZ.
6. Clock a total of at least 40 recreational dives and 10 technical dives. 
7. Teach 2 labs per week (this will help with the monthly finances as well :) ) (ACHIEVED)
8. Stick to a strict exercise regime ( I already have a regime, but sticking to it is another story :P)
9. Run the Auckland Marathon.
10. Call home (Singapore) at least once every fortnight.
11. Go home (Singapore) at least one time in year 2012 (not counting the wedding date!).
12. Go back to Iron Mountain.