My last days in Dublin were busy and involved mostly me running around the city trying to get things organised. What to bring back to Canada, what to leave behind, and how come no one has invented a retractable hockey stick? similar to one of those retractable walking sticks or a lightsaber.

The day before my flight out of the country there was sun. A very rare event in Dublin, similar to the medical condition aquagenic urticaria or the leafs winning the stanley cup, but I was ready to take advantage of the situation and went on a photo adventure around the city.

Okay, so clearly I am way to busy to make regular witty posts like I use to. But I will try to catch everything up with small picture posts. Last year was my first experience at the Detroit Marathon. It was a fun, if not knee destroying experience where I couldn’t walk properly for 2 weeks.

I hope to make one post a day until I catch up with my major activities to 2010

Thankfully I still know many grad students at UofW and was able to attend both the public lecture at night and the private, more scientific, lecture during the day. The talks were both entertaining and thought provoking as he opened up the discussion on the usefulness of oncogene targeted cancer therapies for research and if it is really where we should be focusing.

Since researchers at the lecture focus on this type of research (Spy1 and PTEN) and you could really feel the clash of ideas flowing. Dr. Mak’s lab of course does research on the areas he was suggesting people shouldn’t look into as well as areas he suggested they should. He also made note that the two greatest cancer drugs are targeted therapies (Herceptin and Gleevec) but believes the answer to curing cancer lies in targeting metabolic processes. His lecture was more about keeping an open mind about how we look to solve problems as well getting the whole picture and never stop questioning how things are done.

One of most memorable moments of the public talk (for me anyway) was referring to Archimedes’ passion for science and experimentation. When the roman’s finally captured Syracuse a guard came running up to him, sword drawn, and ready to kill. Archimedes asked the soldier to hold off killing him until he finished an experiment he was working on. The soldier didn’t understand and killed him. Dr. Mak remarks that it is this kind of passion for science that will shape tomorrow but as he puts it “if someone runs at you with a sword, run away!”

It was a real honour to meet Dr. Mak and I got that same feeling in my gut while talking to him as I did when I met Adam West (Batman). After the lecture we headed to the keg for some drinks and some discussion about potential cancer research targets. I’m not going lie, it was a great night.

Last week RTE One needed a Student to Interview on a puff piece about student life, and I happily obliged. As cheesy as it was, I really enjoy’ed it.

The show is broadcast live so I had to head into the studio early for rehearsal and mic check. Then a friendly stage manger led me from place to place and finally to the green room to wait for my big debut. I sat in comfy couches watching an Aussie soap opera and a gardening expert talk about what winter plants to grow. I laughed out loud when it clicked in my head that it was getting into ‘Irish winter weather’. After explaining my outburst to one of the hosts, she explained that Irish winter is cold, just a different kind of cold. I agreed with a comparison of Irish winter being ‘plant in your garden weather’ and Canadian winter being ‘build a snow man weather’.

The hosts and staff were super friendly, and if RTE gets pingbacks consider this my official thank you for everything.

I think the best part was just taking part in the fun of putting together the show. It reminded me of ’show night’ back in my theatre days. It was nice to see so many people enjoying their jobs as oppose to the stress I see on everyone’s faces in the hospitals and clinics.

‘The Afternoon Show’ airs live on weekdays @ 4:00pm on RTE One.
More Pics below

The girl from the previous bit was told to ‘look busy in the kitchen’ while we did ours.

Stripes are slimming no?

Is it just me or did Sheana dress to match her coffee mug? I knew I should have worn my blue fish shirt!

But there are those other times, when I’m standing on stage after a show breathless, or chasing the puck down the ice with every muscle aching, and even after a tough OSCE after a long night of studying. Those times, I feel, are the best part of living. Just doing things and experiencing the rush of life.

Besides, me + free time + six million toothpicks + 170 litres of glue would never produce this. I would start out making the Lost Boys armour from Hook, but then end up as man sized wooden porcupine. (It would make for quite the awesome nemesis for a balloon animal super hero though.)

PROBLEM: the dress code change starts immediately, short sleeve white coats arrive Sept 25th. Why not implement the dress code change once the new materials arrive instead of sending hoards of stressed medical students searching the shops and getting white coats altered in a craze to meet the new requirements? Just feel like it’s one more last minute thing to stress over and I assure you there is enough of those as it is.

On the lighter side of things check out this house made of LEGO! More photos here.

I just moved into the new apartment, and needed a desk. There was only one solution, Ikea time! The Ikea here in Dublin has just opened this summer so the store was full of first timers. It was like taking kids to their first trip to a theme park, lots of bubbling smiling Irish.

I was able to pick up a decent desk (69 Euro), desk chair (39 euro), plates, cutlery, mugs, and glasses much cheaper than the malls here.

More assembly pics below.

So many pieces. I think I will take a nap first.

My creation has legs!!

It’s looking like a desk.

Done! Who says I’m not handy? (Yes, I keep my pens in a roll of hockey tape)

I was out and just grabbing some gas before heading home. As I drove toward the Sunoco, the darkest cloud, which I can only assume was made up of a combination of the costumes from the matrix and lost dreams, swept over us. It didn’t take long for the lightning to start, first a few, then a few more strikes. Quickly it became strike after strike with no relenting.

The little voice on the radio informed us in a calm way that there were multiple tornado touch downs in North York. I got out of the car at the gas station, filled up, and ran inside to pay quickly. Naturally their debt was down, and for some reason I didn’t have my credit card with me. As I tried to stall while thinking of a way to pay for the 40 bucks of gas sitting in my tank that didnt belong to me yet the radio in the station started to drain out my panic.

REPORTER 1: ..and firefighters in the area are evacuating the homes.
REPORTER 2: How much damage is there already?
REPORTER 1: We don’t know. We go now to Jim who is there. Jim what do you see? How much damage is there?
REPORTER 1: JIM ARE YOU THERE? …. Jim?
REPORTER 1: We’ve lost Jim.

As I left the gas station, lightning still lighting the skies, I started wondering what happened to poor Jim. Was the storm merely blocking communications? Or was Jim scooped up by a tornado soon to venture in the land of Oz? Jim, if you’re out there, let us know.

Yesterday Jeff and I preformed at the Markham Jazz Festival. It was quite thrilling since I’m not really known for my musical talent. We played a song called 3.14159 written by Greg and based on the music from 867-5309/Jenny.

With only a week left till I return to Ireland, the count downs and crunch time have begun. Things are quickly being struck off the list of things I wanted to do this summer. No camping. No carpenter tool playing. and No film. *GASP* This will be the first summer in a long time without me and my friends creating a short film. There was just no time this summer for it. I had a 6 week break from school and spent half of that away from home (Windsor, Mexico, Spain).

Along with all the running, travelling, and working in clinics, I was able to make a dent in my personal web work. When it comes to web jobs, I always get them done. I’m pretty good at deadlines and buckling down, but when it comes to my own personal sites that don’t have deadlines or a paycheck things tend to move much slower. This site, for example, is very international space station like. Every blog post or so I also fix a CSS bug or add a some code and so on until 20 years from now it will be able to refuel ships in route to save the earth from a giant meteor, or whatever the blog equivalent is of that.

I recently added things to the site, Spain photos to my new flickr pro account, tag cloud since my categories are more than ambiguous, and also, what should be working now, support for openID commenting. Enjoy

Oh and also, AlphaCarbon Studios is offering an End of Summer sale on websites as mentioned in their newest post from the Markham Pedestrian Day.