Last week I applied for jobs at Sydney's new Apple Store. On Friday morning they phoned me, and I had an interview over the phone. They invited me to a seminar/group interview type thing on Monday, so I went to that too.

This morning they phoned me again and said I passed the group interview, and so now I'm going in for a one-on-one interview tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get the job, the Apple store would be an awesome place to work :)

Results came 8 hours early!

Molecules, cells & genes: 80 (distinction)
Environmental systems & processes: 78 (distinction)
Ecology & sustainability: 86 (high distinction!)
Chemistry: 52 (pass!!)

I'm so fucking relieved I passed chemistry. Never again do I have to worry about it <3

Totally happy now.

Chemistry went okay, I think. I probably just scraped a pass. All the organic stuff I was clueless on, but the inorganic and physical chemistry, I managed to answer most of it.

I really hope that's the last chemistry I'll have to do.



Apple's website is boasting about the new Apple Store opening tomorrow in Sydney, saying it's the first ever Apple retail store in Australia. What the hell? There used to be one on Flinders St, and then that one moved to Bondi Junction, and it's still there.

Stupid PR.

Tomorrow morning I will walk to Randwick Racecourse, where UNSW exams are being held, and fail chemistry. Then, I will call the Biological Sciences office and see if having no chemistry inhibits my course choices in future years. If so, then I will worry about retaking chemistry in 2009.

The new Coldplay album is utterly gorgeous. The production is immaculate, the songwriting is beautiful. I love it.

Also, I love how the back of the CD lists 10 tracks but really you get 13.

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Had my second exam today, Molecules Cells & Genes. It went so damn well. If we lived in a world where exam markers cared how students perform, whoever's marking mine would cream their jeans in ecstasy.

Unfortunately, Chemistry exam on Wednesday :(

Mitosis:
Peter Parker makes muffins and tea

DNA bases:
Addendum - Guan's thighs are excited

Redox reactions:
Leo & tiger

Tonicity:
PO
PER

RNA:
This guacamole has urine in it!

Horizontal transmission:
Freeform. Jug gets you plastered. Duck virus.

( What the fuck. )

My first exam (Ecology & Sustainability) is in 3 hours. I haven't slept, but I did try for like 2 hours and couldn't get to sleep. So I'll just drink lots of caffeine, eat some food, go do the exam (it's at 8:45am) then come back here and get some sleep.

I feel okay about the exam - I didn't really study but this subject is piss-easy and the exam is only multiple-choice and sentence-answer questions. No essays! I love science.

Other exams:
- Molecules, Cells & Genes in 4 days (I'll ace this one, it's my best subject)
- Fundamentals Of Chemistry in 6 days (gonna fail miserably)
- Environmental Systems & Processes in 11 days (feel reasonably confident for this)

Fuck, J-pop is the worst genre of music humanity's ever invented. Even Ukranian death polka must be better than this.

The guy in the room next to me at my college has been playing his new favourite J-pop song non-stop for about 4 days now, loud enough for me to hear it through the (quite thick) wall. It's this awful, wailing ballad.

And I mean literally non-stop. I put on my own music to drown it out, and in the gaps between every single song on every album I listen to, I hear the same song coming through the wall every time.

He's not even fucking Japanese, and I know he doesn't speak Japanese. What the hell is he getting out of that song so damn much? It's driving me crazy, I have so much studying to do and I can't think because all I can hear all day long is that fucking awful song.

Last night I graduated from my first degree (Digital Media). Kind of anticlimactic, seeing as I'm still at uni. But it's nice to have an actual, physical degree now. :3

This weekend I finish my training and become a fully fledged public educator at Taronga Zoo. Celebration dinner on Saturday night with all the other trainees.

Tomorrow night I'm going out on the town with a bunch of friends. Good times this week :)

It'd really fucking suck if this legislation got through.

Sunday I had work experience at Taronga Zoo, my first proper day on the job. It was great. I spent a bit of time manning the information centre, but the best parts (which were luckily the majority of the day) were going out into the zoo and doing some educating!

That involved:
• touch tables - setting up a variety of artifacts such as bones, furs, stuffed specimens, eggs etc for people to touch and look at, whilst we, the volunteers, gave them information and entertained them. The most interesting table I took part in was the "Confiscated by Customs" table, filled with bizarre and macabre fashion items made of animals that were confiscated at Australian airports and donated to the zoo. The weirdest was a handbag made out of an entire armadillo (head, claws, and all)
• animal handling - I still need further training so I didn't actually get to handle the animals this time around, but I stood with a more experienced volunteer, who had various animals such as a shingleback lizard and a diamond python, and we encouraged the visitors to come up and see/touch the animal. It was very fun and I can't wait to do the handling part myself.

My volunteer day is Sunday which is the busiest day of the zoo week. They can sometimes get in excess of 12000 visitors in one day, which is hectic for volunteers. There's usually a lot of guided tours happening, which is another of my roles, but there were none on my work experience day so that's something I've yet to experience.

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Tonight I'm going with Jess to see Neil Gaiman at a bookstore in the city, and get some books signed :)

More zoo training today. We did behind the scenes stuff at the carnivores, mostly in the big cat area, getting up nice and close. Lions were the best, naturally. :3

Tomorrow I have work experience there, my first proper day as a volunteer.

I bought some books today! The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

ack so much uni work to catch up on...

I'm failing chemistry. :(

I'm the Cate Blanchette of you.

Zoo training today was great. We went behind the scenes with the ungulates, got to feed the giraffes... which ended up in my hands coated with giraffe saliva. Kinda disgusting, but awesome :P

Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

ICE AGE THREE

DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE

*rageragesmash*



(note: there is nothing wrong with the actual picture, I was speaking figuratively)

Which is heavier, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

( it's )