Week 6 - Jaci

Another crazy week. Pete is in New York at the moment meeting up with his PhD supervisor - so you get an unedited blog from me this time! Actually Pete can edit this from New York so he may take out the good bits.

Big news that I forgot to tell you! Pete got permission to work in the US! We're still waiting on one document to arrive, but otherwise it is all go. Naturally he was devastated as he loved having an excuse not to work for a few months. I really like him not working too. He was often stressed in his last job and now he has much more time to spend with me! He is thinking that he will do some relief work part time till the school year starts in September.

OK, this is what we've been up to. Friday night began at a south east Asian night (which had free Thai food) with Tracy and Steve. We then went on to find a bar. I had an arguement with a bouncer who wouldn't let em in cos I didn't have ID - you have to look 28 otherwise they card you, which was actually quite flattering since I turned 28 the weekend before.

We ended up at a groovy bar/cafe called Cafe Bottega. It had an excellent jazz band (though they didn't know any Australian songs and were insulted that we asked). There was a gorgeous black woman there who took a bit of a shine to Pete and got him up dancing (something I've never been able to do). She then tried to teach Tracy and I to dance. Apparently 'Yo gotta dance like yo makin love to yor man.' I don't think Tracy and I were very good at it and I'm really going to have to rethink 'how I make love to ma man' cos I've never done it quite like that before!

Saturday we had lunch at George Veronis' house with another of the scientists here, Steve Sherwood and his family. George has delivered beer to our house a couple of times because we don't have a car. He has certainly won Pete! It seems the Australian beer drinking culture has preceeded us.

Saturday night I went out to a martini bar with the girls from the lab. It really is a novelty to have 'girls from the lab'. I suppose being joined with meteorology and geology helps that, instead of maths and computing.

So as you can see it was very much an alcohol weekend. Then on Sunday morning we went to the gym to try and burn some of it off.

Monday night - another night out I've just got back from dinner at Morys with some work people. This restaurant has to be seen to be believed! You have to be a member to get in. The walls are lined with photos of yale sporting heros and other groups that seem a bit random but they all look important. The bookshelves that line the walls are filled with year books. Then to top it off there is a special Yale boys choir that comes around to sing for you - songs about how good Yale is, and how Harvard isn't. Surprise surprise - they have a serious little sister complex here.

I've been discussing with a few people how the work culture is so different here and not what I expected. I'd been warned that US scientists work long hours under lots of pressure. This is totally NOT the case. They are so cruisy. Sure they work, but they're not stressed about it. CSIRO people were always running to management meetings and writing proposals. Here they come to tea and cookies every day and there are seminars on all the time that people attend even though they are often not in their field. You always feel like people have time to talk to you. Why is this? Are we so strapped for funding in Australia? Hmmm, there are aspects of the US I'm really starting to like...scary.

My job is good fun. At the moment I just get to read and talk and think...no programming or writing. Heaven!