Work

Everybody keeps asking me what I do at work, and how work is going, so here's your answer people:

Work is going really well. For those that don't know (or have forgotten) I work at ETH/University of Zurich in the bioelectronics group (there's a pic of me on the staff page, woot!). I have been continuing with my main job of scanning mouse femurs and processing the images for analysis. Basiclly that means putting little mouse bones into a holder, putting that into the x-ray machine and then pressing some buttons. Then when the scans are done I rotate the images to the right alignment, and then cut out 3d sections so that density analysis can be done.

Some other projects that I have worked with are mouse mandibles(see left), mouse vertebrates(see below), human bone biopsies , snail poison (strange one...), and silicon samples. A couple weeks ago I got to dissect some mouse legs that were sent frozen to us (something that I wasn't expecting in my electrical engineering career, lol) and then scan them, that was really cool.


















Everyone I work with is really nice. There is a new guy sharing my office now, he's from Vancouver (yay, a fellow Canadian), it's nice having an office buddy. In September I am going to a conference in Lausanne, and am apparently presenting a poster...I need to find out more about that.

Some of us eating lunch by the River
from left: Philipp, Jess, me, Romain, Tom, Martin, Stefan, Phil, Harry







And to answer my 3 most commenly asked questions:
1) Do you work at Alstom or ABB? Neither, I work at in Zurich at ETH/University of Zurich
2) Zurich, why do you live in Baden then? Because all the other Calgarian interns live in Baden and I am a sheep
3) So if you're an electrical engineer, why are you working in a bio lab? I'm really interested in bioengeering, and because it's a bio-electronics lab, so they mostly do programming, not dissections and such. Actually almost everybody I work with is a electrical or mechanical engineer. Besides, I was offered a job in Switzerland, as if I'm going to turn it down for any reason

Swiss National Day

Happy Swiss Day!




Pre-firework kabobs

from left: Jay, Robin, Vance, Ed, Olivier, me, Warren







A bunch of us went to Zurich to celebrate Swiss National Day on August 1. Actually, Adrienn and I went straight there after the plane home from Prague. We checked our bags in lockers, had a picnic lunch, and then met people coming form baden. We all sat on a dock by the lake, and were surrounded by people with amature fireworks. I think it's lucky that none of us got hit actually, the people shooting the fireworks really didn't know what they were doing. We were waiting for the officail firework show, but it never happened (no idea why). It was still a really fun night though, just chillaxing by the lake.




Adrienn making her picnic sandwich, yummy!













Chillaxing on the dock. Check out the cool lit-up ferris wheel in the background!













George (new praktikant from Toronto) and Holgar (praktikant from Germany)

Prague

Took a trip to Prague from July30-Aug 1. It was the biggest group I have ever travelled with, there was 18 of us! The two celebrations of the trip were Jay's farewell (he's gone back to Canada now) and Evan's 21st b-day. Once again, I didn't take many photos, so these pics are courdesy of Adrienn, Vance and Tommy.


Group picture!

back row: Henry, Evan, Shane, Bernard, Robin (Jay's friend from Canada that was visiting), Warren, Vance, Travis, Richard, Jay, Tommy, Olivier
front row: Ed, Adrienn, me, Lindsey

missing: Ula and Mike (they didn't hang out with the group much)



We all arrived at differnt times, on different days, by different means. I took a plane out on Saturday afternoon with Adrienn, Vance, Ed, Olivier and Bernard. We arrived at our pre-booked hostel to discover that they had messed up our reservation and had no beds for 10 people of our group. The hostel management did nothing to make up for this, and we were pretty much on our own to find a new place. Luckily, Evan and Shane (who arrived by train that morning) had already delt with this problem, and booked us in a different hostel across town (horray Evan and Shane!)

We left our stuff at the hostel (we would check into our new hostel later) and headed downtown. We rented some paddleboats and cruised up and down the river, it was a fun way to see some sights.



Me and Vance on a paddleboat













Heading towards Charles Bridge (most famous bridge in Prague)












Me, Ed and Adrienn










After our boating fun, we got some dinner. It is amazing how cheap everything is in Prague! The currency is called the crown (wrong spelling) and 20 crown ~= 1$. You can get dinner for a few dollars, and beer for about $1.50.

Prague has some really good beer: Pilsner and Budwiser are actually good beer here (not that Pilsner isn't already awesome, woot), they taste much different than back home.









We we picked up our bags and met up with the others to go to our new hostel. It turned out to be really nice, but a bit of a walk from the downtown area. We got changed, and then went back to the other hostel to meet up with the rest of the group.

The night started out with some partying in the hostel common room. Ed, Evan and Travis shared a bottle of absinte in the true Prague spirit. We left and had an exciting journey through the pooring rain to get to a huge club. It had 5 floors, with different music on each floor (techno, trance, hip hop, rock, etc). It was a really fun night, though lots of time was spent going up and down the stairs trying to find people (good workout at least, lol). The large group was split up instantly, and people made it hoe in smaller groups throught the night. The evening ended on a bad note for me, got burned in the neck by somebody's cigerette (stupid smokers...), but I survived. We walked back to the hostel around 4, stopping for some awesome greasy cheap vendor food (Switzerland needs more all-night food stands like Prague) on the way.

The next morning we awoke to discover that we missed most of breakfast (boo), but there were still a few scraps left. The plan for the day was casual sightseeing, followed by a city tour. We wandered around downtown, enjoying the strange street art that is everywhere in Prague (I don't really know why it's there)




One of the main streets we frequently walked down











Cool pic that I can't take credit for (yay Tommy)


















Poor superman...

Seriously, what is with the strange statues?









I decided that I didn't feel like going on a 4 hour tour, and would rather spend the day shopping and wandering, so Ed and I split off from the group. We had a nice day hitting all the stores, I bought some skirts and shirts. We had lunch in an Irish pub, and watched some rugby and cricket (man, cricket is a messed up sport...I don't think that I will ever understand it) . It was a chillaxiful day, and then we met up with everyone at 6 to go out for dinner.

Now imagine this: 16 people (no Ula and Mike) trying to find a good, cheap place for dinner that has enough room for us. This is no easy task, we ended up walking around for over an hour. Luckily, I had eaten not too long before, but some of us were starving by the time we found a resturant. However, there were isseus at the resturant involving price differences, and extra fee for music...basically they were very rude to us, and we ended up walking out before ordering. The next place we found was great however, and we had a relly nice meal.

After dinner, some people went back to the hostel and a few of us went out to try and find a nice bar. This proved somewhat difficult, since it was 1am on a sunday night. We ended up walking around for awhile, and then just settleing for the hostel bar, which was open until 4am.

The next morning some people had to wake up at 7 to catch flights home. I was so happy I wasn't one of them, since we had been up until 6 the night before. The rest of us got up later (in time for a decent breakfast this time!) and then Adrienn and I went out to do some last minute shopping and sightseeing.

We watched the clock strike on the hour, which involves a cool show with lots of moving people. The clock itself is really cool too, it has parts for the different months and sun and moon phases. Hmm, I wish I could tell you more, or what it was even called, but I have no idea. Here's a pic at least:















We went to te airport to catch our 3:00 plane, and then travelled back to Switzerland. I got stung by a wasp on the bus :( Poor me...although, it didn't hurt anywhere near as much as I remember (I haven't been stung since I was a kid).

Ooo, one more highlight of the trip: bought some new shoes at the Zurich Airport. Gravis shoes (my alltime favorite brand of shoe) on sale for $40, reduced from $100.

As you can tell, this trip was not about sightseeing or history for me. But you might still want to see some of Prague, so I will pretend I was on the tour, and post some pics from all over Prague:

Rome pics - part 2

"When in Rome..."


Pictures from Rome taken by me, Bernard and Richard (thanks guys)





Group picture!
From left to rightish: Charles, Bernard, Vance Richard, Ed, Me Tommy, other people









Arrived at the hostel and was greeted by somebody: "Hey, don't worry about checking in yet, do you guys want a beer?"
It's going to be a gooood trip..










Tommy, me and Charles, ready to go out for the evening



















The Trevy Fountain at night















Fountain of the Naiads at Piazza Repubblica.
Here's where we met to take the Vatican tour.














Ed decides to relax while we wait for the tour to start



















The Bridge of Angels.













St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City is just down the road


















St. Peter's Basilica up close













Inside St. Peter's Basilica. It was hard to take very good pictures inside, so I didn't bother taking many.










Inside St. Peter's Basilica - looking up at the dome

















Vatican City - the Pope's window is second from the top right (if I remember correctly)









Inside the Vatican Museum. I would have liked to spend more time here. It was really interesting getting all the backgroud info about the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and learning the significance of all the details.










The Pantheon















Inside The Pantheon. The sun shining on the wall from the hole in the ceiling acts as a sun clock










Eating lunch (Charles, Tommy Ed). The 2 things you must must eat in Italy: Pizza....











...and Gelato !

This was our break on the Rome walking tour where we got a special deal on gelato. (Richard, 2 girls from our hostel, Ed).








Vittoriano Monument...nicknamed "The Wedding Cake"













Palatine Hill, with Circus Maximus in the foreground (not as cool looking as the name suggests, it's pretty much a big field)










Walked through the ruins on Palatine Hill. Ed, Bernard, me, Tommy.












All roads lead to Rome.


The Roman Forum (I didn't walk around through here, but some of the others did)














On our way to the Coliseum: Ed, me, Tommy, Charles












The Coliseum














Inside The Coliseum


















The beach that we spent a hour getting to, and 10 minutes actually at...so worth it!














Chaos at the airport...stupid EasyJet....












On the train home, sitting on uncomfertable seats in the narrow hallway... Tommy, Random Italian Guy (who we sort of became friends with...though he didn't speak any english and it was imossible to communicate), and Ed sleeping in the background.

Harry Potter

I finally bought the new Harry Potter book last Thursday...honestly, as a hardcore HP fan I'm pretty ashamed that it took me so long to get it. I guess that can be attributed to having so much to do over here, as well as spending all my money on all there is to do over here...is was pretty expensive, stupid Switzerland...

Anyways, bought the book before work and started it on the train to work. Wow, it's amazing how much reading I can get done on the commute too and from work. I have actually only spend about an hour reading the book at home, the rest has been on the commute to work or at lunch. Already about halfway done, and it's getting better by the page. I won't give away anything to spoil the experience for anybody else... I am actually pretty lucky that none of the other interns have bought it, so I can avoid accidentally hearing about the plot. Haha, everyone was just waiting for somebody else in the group to buy it so they didn't have to spend the money...there is already about a 4 person waiting list on who gets to read it after me.

Resisting the urge to write about the book...hopefully somebody else reads it soon so I can discuss the exciting plot developments in the series...haha, I'm a loser...