Cursed and Sleepy Children

I hate the cliché of describing the transition to Australia as an emotional roller-coaster. While I do think its an apt description, it makes it sound like we are just along for the ride. Sure, there are lots of things out of our control - the NS wildfires, Mark's death, large parts of the research process. But we still have a lot of say over how we fill our days. And this week, in stark contrast to last week, was so much fun!

As I've mentioned before, Justin loves the theater. One of the benefits of living in a big city is not only big theater productions, but ticket lotteries. Ticket lotteries are how theaters fill any seats that are available at the last minute. Every week, you put your name into a draw. They will do as many draws as they have tickets available. If your name is drawn, you have 24 hours to purchase tickets at a significant discount. Usually, the tickets are for odd seats, and you don't necessarily know where they are until you pick them up. But the discount makes it worth it. Last week, Justin's name was drawn, so we obviously bought tickets for the Sunday Matinee performance of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The show was great! The way they translated magic onto the stage was really impressive. There was all kinds of instances of things floating, lighting up, catching fire, etc. It was really well done. The dementors in particular were spectacular! They were suspended in mid air, very ethereal and gauzy with lots of flowing robes. There were two that stayed floating above the stage, but one of them travelled out over the audience and floated around both of the upper balconies. Potential spoilers for the show: if the dementors 'caught' a character, the dementor would descend upon them and cover them with their robe. Then when the dementor floated back up, the character's body would be attached and float up with them. It was all very impressive. There was a little one sitting behind us who was maybe 4, and she was legitimately (and understandably) scared.

We were sitting very close to the front and there were times when the pyrotechnics were strong enough that Justin & I could feel the heat on our faces. Plus the costumes were great. Excellent use of cloaks for storytelling, dramatic effect, and stage transitions. I definitely found myself thinking 'Should I buy a cloak?' at multiple points during the show. As well as 'If I did have a cloak, where could I wear it?' Other highlights included the Patronus, which was made of a wire structure lit with actual blue flames, the 'lake' that they created with a pool under/level with the stage (so people climbed out on to the stage and were fully soaking wet and clearly climbing out of actual water), Moaning Myrtle's cameo, and the sound/visual warping effects they used to indicate time travel. Definitely would recommend.

I have mentioned in a few blog posts now that the research and actual work that I do during the week is going really well. This has stayed true this week, and I'm now officially gearing up to collect some preliminary data from a pilot study. My whole PhD project is on the intense side. When I do full data collection, it will be a production: very big, very involved, lots of moving pieces and hired hands to assist. To hopefully minimize the pain of that process, and to help make sure we are choosing the best tests and measures we can, we are running a mini-data collection in mid- to late-July. Without getting into too much detail, there is lots to do, but its all feeling very exciting!

In the midst of all that, I would say that most people in the building now know who I am, and what my background is. As such, there has been an influx of requests for me to join/help/participate in things. Now, lets be clear: I love this! As many of you know, I like being busy, preferably with lots of different things. I'm happiest when my time is split between multiple, highly varied activities. When I was approached this week to learn how to take blood samples from sleep lab participants, that was an obvious yes (to be honest, this was already in the works because I will need it for my own study). So I'm signed up to do that course next week.

Then, at some point I had mentioned to someone that I did a bunch of middle school science outreach activities when I was doing my undergrad in chemistry. Turns out the sleep lab has a high school outreach program that is in full swing right now. High schools who opt into the program get a 90 minute presentation about sleep and circadian rhythms. The highlight of the presentation is hooking a student up for polysomnography (essentially an abridged version of what I learned to do in the sleep lab a few weeks ago), and then sending them to a dark quiet place to see if we can get them to sleep while we look at their brain waves. The person who organizes the program was in a massive bind. She had a very large school that was scheduled for a day full of presentations and no one to run them. Of course I offered to help. I got a crash course in the presentation content and polysomnography refresh the day before. And then off I went to present to high schoolers, with some key people on standby in case anything went wrong.

The first presentation of the day required a small amount of in-the-moment trouble shooting via some hasty texts and picture messages. But otherwise the day went swimmingly! For the most part the kids were really engaged and asked great questions, plus I got to let my inner science dork completely take the wheel. All three of the student volunteers were able to fall asleep and everyone was very impressed by how obvious the brain wave changes were. I even got to partake in some tea and sweets in the staff room between presentations. It was a fantastic day all around while also being incredibly exhausting.

Conveniently, me & some others had already planned a grad student social for that evening. So after my day of presentations it was out for drinks to commiserate and celebrate the realities of being a grad student. Conversational highlights included swapping of stories of what its like to live in extreme climates. There were a couple of people there from the hot part of Australia, where the seasons are categorized along the lines of 'hot' and 'stupid fucking hot'. They told stories about needing to bring a spare shirt when you go out because you sweat so much. I explained to them what snow blindness is, and how you are actually able to see the crystal structure of the snow flakes (which I have heard is very impressive if you are new to snow). We also talked about the transition of going from a cannabis legal place to a non-cannabis legal place and what it feels like to live in a place where everything is slightly different than what you are used to. It was a great end to an already very satisfying day.

Not only was my week filled with fun stuff, but a lot of that fun stuff was paid work. Both the outreach and any blood sampling that I do is paid work. And because its essentially skilled labour, it pays pretty well. Also, you should all stay tuned for an eventual post on living wage vs minimum wage. Its in the works, but I will have to wait for a week when not much else is going on. There is so much good stuff happening right now. Lots of it is still feeling new and fresh again, which means its also really tiring. By Friday, I was exhausted. Justin was working all night so I literally put myself to bed at 7pm and slept for 11 hours. It was glorious.