Day 7: At Week's End

Here it is! The final entry to my second OVA: Sieban Chronicles.
I've already mentioned the name of this little OVA series. And if you've read the spoilers, it meant "seven" in German.
Sieben doesn't look very cool, but I can assure you, it sounds cooler.
For those of you who've never taken basic German before (e.g. me), it's pronounced as ZEE-bin.
I didn't really know what to call this when I first started.
'Chronicles' sounded cool so I thought I'd use that.
But what Chronicles?
I aimed for something simple and used the 'everything is more sexy in a foreign language' strategy.
I also recall the word being muttered by characters from an anime I was watching called Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works.
In the anime, magic and spells are cast and called out in German, not English nor Japanese.
"ZEE-bin," the main heroine would chant to activate the power of her jewels.
Maybe it just sounded cooler when pronounced with a Japanese accent with epic strings in the background.

As for the project, I had a lot of fun doing it: recording, editing and uploading.
Actually, that was a joke.
Editing took forever and uploading was just plain impossible!
But the recording part was definitely fun! It's a really great way to experiment around with different things.
And it might even help expand your Johari window!
I know it has helped me immensely: I say 'interesting' a lot of times when I'm nervous or at a lost for words, or maybe just all the time.
It would be a shame to stop vlogging altogether, so I think I would save this for my next holiday to see if this vlog project would be feasible.
I might even do one when I head back to Malaysia, as suggested by my friend Audrey (superb idea!).

Lastly, I'd like to thank everyone who took part in this vlog.
Having people other than myself appear (and sometimes, even speak) can add variety and dimension to a boring vlog.
I'm sure if you watched it, you'd be glad you're not staring at my face 24/7.
I'll see you in my next blog post. Hope you enjoy reading and watching my content.

Figure 1. A picture I took from my trip up to Wongan Hills. I really liked the shade of blue and the blue-white contrast of the sky. I decided to add some 'inspirational' short quotes to it but I turned into music names and lyrics. This probably shows how much I enjoy music.

Listening to Kings & Queens - Brooke Fraser

Sieben,

TK

Day 6: To Go Your Way

*WARNING: I am not an expert in what I will be talking about. Do not take this as gospel (unintentional pun).

Coming to Australia has made me realise that Christianity can be seen as a dying religion.
Back in Malaysia, the spread of the gospel is becoming stronger, which is always a good thing to see.
But over here, in Western countries, most people are starting to remove religious aspects from their lives.
As a result, what I imagine would be a shift in the Christian demography, away from the West and more towards the East.
Although it is disheartening to see people lose their faiths and all, I feel that sometimes stereotypes and other social misunderstandings and misinterpretations tend to blow things completely out of proportion.

Take same-sex marriage as an example.
The whole incident caused a massive uproar in the States, and to Christians worldwide.
But let's look at things on a more local level, some Christians take things way too extremely (coughWestborocough).  And as result, Christians all over get a bad rep.
Now, people stereotype and put all Christians in the same box.
When people attempt to preach the gospel on the streets, they might receive verbal abuse for all their good intentions (I haven't seen one yet but I'm sure it's very possible).
The very people who preached non-discrimination are now the discriminators.
So now we have Christian extremists going cray cray over same-sex marriage, and we have the converse as well.
Both these things act to polarise society from Christianity, vice versa. Positive feedback loop, anyone?
We have people voicing their disapproval over marriage equality; and people voicing their disapproval over religious dictations.

Now, this is just what I think, my opinion. For all I know, things could be wrong and I'm just spouting an impossible story. But this is what I've concluded from making my own observations.
I have 'identified' a problem, but not a solution. Simply because I don't know what the solution is.
There isn't a special cheat code I can give to fix things, but I think it's important to look at the situation from both sides.
This is only one of many challenges Christians face in reaching out in a modern world.
To fellow Christians out there, remember what's most important: Love the Lord and love your neighbour.

Figure 1. Something interesting and cute I found at Go-Fest. It was at a corner of the foyer where they sold clothes and faith-related books. It looks like a frame with polaroid pictures hanging from yarn strings. I assume this frame was not for sale. But if it was, I would totally buy it! Aesthetically-pleasing and I love how they shined a light at it from behind. Very classy indeed.

Listening to Brighter Days - Taylor Henderson

Sechs,

TK

Day 5: Bye Bye Wongan Hills

Going up to Wongan Hills wasn't just a complete break for me.
We still had to work, y'know. More specifically, we were showing kids how great science is.
We had them extract DNA from simple strawberries, which were visible and touchable.
In the end, I even gave a couple of presentations to the school.
It was a really fun experience working with children, one I think all people should be exposed to (just to see whether they'll love/hate it).
Although running the same mundane tasks school-after-school left everyone pretty tired, I actually felt invigorated and excited.
And I was doing what I loved: science.
Plus, some of the kids were quite into science. Some of them asked about forensics and SPOILERS splicing (I don't even know what that is!).

I suppose this is another form of science communication.
I've tried doing this by talking to the general public at events with our MicroBlitz stalls, but I think I prefer school-trips much more. Especially if they're in middle/high school.
Education has always been something of a last resort for me, in terms of career directions.
It might've been low on my list, but it was always there.
People keep telling me "We need more STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) teachers".
Of course, I've also learnt to take everything with a grain of salt because "every sector is growing and prospects are looking quite good", according to every career guide I've read.

People also fear that they'll be sent to teach in rural schools, which isn't very exciting.
I'm not sure how 'rural' Wongan Hills is, compared to some of the other schools. But if I'm assigned to that kinda town, sure accessing the Internet might be a little slow, but I think I can live with that.
And lucky me, there's a graduate program that fits all these criteria: Teach for Australia.
The basic gist of it is that you take an intensive course in teaching. After that, your study load is reduced but they assign you to a educationally-disadvantaged school to teach for (at least) two years.
Your teaching load is also reduced so you can juggle teaching and learning at the same time (but mostly teaching).
You can the full benefits (including salary) of a secondary teacher while working those two years. And at the end of it, you 'graduate' with a Masters of Education (Secondary). That's pree' sweet!
You literally get paid to get a degree.
Of course, I'm well aware that, like any other program which eats up funding, people criticise it for many flaws, including sending 'amateurs' into an already disadvantaged school.
But hey, I'm gonna take this opportunity if it comes along.
When I say 'if', I mean only a small portion of people actually get in (>10%?).
But I can still dream, can't I?
Might start volunteering for some uni organisations such as Teach Learn Grow and maybe some pedagogical research with ULTRIS next year to get a better picture of how these things actually work.

Figure 1. Blurry Photo Warning. Ex-chief scientist of Wa, Lyn Beazley speaking to middle school children at the Wheatbelt Science Forum (organised by the Inland Lighthouse Network) at Wongan Hills. After acting as chief scientist, Lyn still does research and is highly involved in communicating science to people of all sorts. She attends events, seminars and even gives lectures on how great science is and why WA is a great place to do science.

Listening to Telephone - James Blunt

Funf,

TK

Day 4: Of Digging and Extracting

MicroBlitz is a citizen-science project.
I'm not sure if I've said this before (but I'll say it again anyway), but citizen science is where ordinary people (even those without a degree, such as kids) help collect information for scientists.
This can be a cost-effective method of acquiring data; at the same time, it acts as an engaging and educating experience of citizen scientists. It's a win-win situation.
MicroBlitz enlists citizens to collect soil samples from all over Western Australia.
Volunteers (or better known as MicroBlitzers) are given a sample kit and simple instructions they can follow.
After grabbing a sample from wherever they want, they send it back to us for analysis.
And all this is done at no cost to MicroBlitzers. We pay for it all.
Eventually, by using PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and fancy bioinformatics, we can identify the microorganisms (microbes) in the soil.
The end result will be a base map of the different microbes available throughout the state, which will improve decision-making processes.
Click here for the MicroBlitz website.

More information on MicroBlitz:

1. http://phys.org/news/2015-01-dna-facility-dirty-wa-soil.html
2. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bushtelegraph/microblitz-creating-an-underground-map-in-wa/4933900
3. http://crowdresearch.uwa.edu.au/project/digging-deep-for-was-underground-inhabitants/
4. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/grey-nomads-get-the-dirt-on-western-australia-for-soil-study/story-e6frg6nf-1227050690808

Figure 1. Citizen science in progress! An image of me taking a soil sample for MicroBlitz. Notice the unique red soils, which is fairly characteristic of drier Australian soils. The top part is a little crusty, but after that, everything becomes sandy and easy to dig. Just think creme brulee! Both soil sample and spatial data (GPS coordinates) are important for constructing the microbial map back at the lab.

Another project happening at UWA is the Kwongan Foundation.
I'm not too familiar with this, but the general idea is that they're aiming to conserve the unique species of flora and fauna in WA.
Surprisingly, WA is one of the world's few biodiversity hotspot. This means we've got a lot of species that are not found anywhere else in the world.
The Foundation is garnering support to have the biologically-rich locations turned into UNESCO World Heritage List. Doing so will boost tourism and conservation efforts.
Aside from that, they are also geared towards science communication. On their Facebook page, Winthrop Professor Hans Lambers frequently shares images and news about our local biodiversity.
They also host workshops and presentations (which are too expensive for me to attend!).
Click here for the Kwongan Foundation website.

More information on the Kwongan Foundation:

1. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/getting-unesco-recognition-for-kwongan/6083870
2. http://rotundamedia.com.au/2015/03/07/south-west-was-kwongkan-region-facing-unesco-world-heritage-listing/

Figure 2. It is also characteristic of Australian vegetation to be shrubby and short. Although it doesn't look that impressive, the species richness found in these arid landscapes are able to rival those found in the Amazon rainforest. Due to the tough environmental conditions, the local flora have developed several unique strategies to adapt, which explains why there are more species around: there is no one clear way to survive in these environments.

Listening to Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran

Vier,

TK

Day 3: Road Trip

I've been living in WA for over two years now.
Lucky for me, my parents got us a place smack dab in the middle of the CBD area.
We were about 15-20 minutes walk to the city. Buses to the city were free. And we live in a highly professional area, where small environmental, legal and health-related firms are abundant.
We are about 5 minutes away from the renowned Kings Park. And my uni, UWA, is just on the other end of Kings Park.
How convenient is that!?

Not so lucky for me, I can safely say that I've been living within a 25km radius around the CBD area.
Not so fun for me now, is it?
I've attended high school up north for a year, but then uni pulled me right back into the busy city.
You also know that I don't do much travelling, because (SPOILERS) I am lazy.
Needless to say, I've never really been out travelling around WA.
I've been to the Pinnacles once. It sounds cool, but it's actually (SPOILERS) a dessert (obvious typo was unintentional). So that wasn't very fun either.

HOWEVER (do you see the positive-negative-positive trend going on here?), I've been lucky enough to head up to Beverly for a few hours with the MicroBlitz team.
At the time, we went up in the day and headed back down in the evening.
All we did was join the local Malleefowl Preservation Group for lunch and a quick presentation of our project.
THIS time, I got to do so much more. Again, thanks to the generous MicroBlitz project, I was able to spend three days up north, in Wongan Hills.
According to Wikipedia, the town has a population of about 600+ (back in 2006).
Most people would be bored to death to head up to an empty country town, but it was a real treat for me.
I got to go further inland and see how things were.
A real big surprise was how it reminded me (note: not resemble, just remind) of my dad's hometown, Kudat, back in Malaysia.
I used to head up there during my school holidays to live with my grandparents.
Life was slow, peaceful and stressless (not that there were any stress back in kindergarten).
Living up there might not be so bad after all.
Some peace and serenity sounds great after hearing the sound of traffic zooming past for the last two years (P.S. I can still hear it as I'm writing).

Figure 1. I'm not a big fan of travelling and all. But the sights were simply gorgeous! I'll never see this kind of sunsets in Perth. The tall vegetation spanning across the landscape gives me a very African/Lion King vibe when I see it. In a way, the 3-hour drive up to the Hills was in itself a treat.

Listening to Bad Blood - Taylor Swift

Drei,

TK