Confirmation and three minute thesis jessie

On Wednesday I have handed in my confirmation document! What a relief! Finally. Thursday I have read the articles that I have printed some time before... but I never had the time to read them...

I also worked on my presentation for the three minutes competition. This is a competition were the PhD students present in 3 minutes what their research is about. One slide (without transitions) can be used to support the presentation.  Next Wednesday the competition between 14 Bond students will be held. The winner get AU$ 500 cash, second prize $ 250 hotel voucher and third prize $ 100 restaurant voucher. The jury consists of three members. There are also three public prices (which are not given to the same people as the other prices). Every participant also receives a gift bag with a ticket for Dreamworld and some other gifts...  The winner of Bond University will compete against winners from other universities over Australia and New Zealand. The winner of the final competition will get $5000 prize money! On Friday there was a workshop about public speaking in order to improve the speech! It was very interesting! We have practiced our presentation and I got some good feedback. This is the slide:

I started practicing my presentation and it is getting better! If you go over the 3 minutes you are disqualified. Last time I have practiced it was 2min45sec....  Maybe the presentations will be filmed and than I will share my presentation with you! Everyone is welcome to the presentations on Wednesday. If you are in Belgium, you have a good excuse not to come, but please; fingers crossed!

Next week I will read some more literature and books and I will work on the presentation for my confirmation!

Cheers,
Jessie

Update

The rat
Last night Denis has put poison in the garage and we put poison in the room. During the night the we could hear the trap! We went to look and all the peanut butter was gone but the rat was not there. :-( During the night I found the new habitat of the rat... another drawer was full of poo and wee :-(. Happily it was an empty drawer. So I have put some poison in that drawer as well... It took a long tome before we could catch sleep again... The rat (or I think another rat) has eaten a lot of poison that was in the garage! So hopefully it will die soon but it takes up to 7 days before the rat will die after eating the poison.

Philippe
After we could hear the rat trap, Philippe was not feeling well. Sweating a lot, feeling cold, but no fever. It took a while before we could sleep again. During the morning we went to the doctor at Bond for some medicines for his soar throat.

Update Philippe hospital and jessie confirmation document phd

Bonjour tout le monde, hi everyone, dag allemaal, servus :-)

Phil stayed in the hospital during the night. In the morning they took his blood again for further examinations. They took his blood pressure different times but it was waiting for the results for a long time... At lunch time I went to the hospital to visit mon amour :-) We played some cards, took some pictures...

At 3pm the doctor came with some news. The blood tests showed that his adrenal glands (the glands that are located on the kidneys) don''t work well. They don't produce enough cortisol and adrenaline. Therefore he is loosing too much salt in his urine and is he feeling weak and tired all the time.... His Thyroid is functioning normal at the moment. So from now on he has to take 4 pills a day with different doses of adrenaline. Two in the morning, one at lunch and and one at dinner but not later than 6pm otherwise he has too much adrenaline during the night and he won't be able to sleep. The illness is called Addison's disease. Osama Bin Laden and John F Kennedy had this too. He also has to wear a medical ID bracelet that indicates that he has ADDISON in the case sth happens. THey told him that he could leave the hospital! They gave him his medicines and a first pill of adrenaline. I can tell you... it worked! He has too much energy now! Jumping in the room, not tired at all... He is back the old one :-)

Today I received my confirmation document back from my second supervisor. He  read the document for the first time and gave some good remarks mainly about the english grammar and spelling. When I was making the corrections I realised how stupid I was some times:
"the equitation" instead of "equation". Apparently, equitation has to do sth with horse riding :-)
"the study was innovatory" instead of "innovative" :-) The document (59pages) is sent for printing! Tomorrow I will bind the 6 versions!!!

Voila, c'est tout!

Regards,
Jessie

Rat and phil in the hospital

Friday after work I went to buy the new Iphone in Robina town centre. It was the australian release for the Iphone. At 5pm the Vodafone shop was sold out... But in the Three shop they were still available. I bought an Iphone with plan for 2 years. So I pay every month for it and what I pay can be used as credit to call. I am so happy with it.

On Friday night we could hear the rat in our room very clearly... :-( We went upstairs to ask for some help to catch it! Philippe and a friend of Isabelle were equipped with a box and a         golf club. We pulled away the drawer behind which the rat was hided... They tried to hit it but it ran away. It ran under the door and went upstairs and we lost track of it.

At four am, we could hear the rat again... We pulled  the drawer away again but we could not see it... :-( Half an hour later, again a lot of noise from the rat at the same place... so we pulled the drawer away again and no rat... BUT, we have a little ball (like a pingpongball but in rubber) in the room and the rat took this ball into his place! So he moved the ball for at least 10meters! And he was biting the ball in little peaces... For the first time we could also smell its wee... disgusting! After spending two hours trying to catch the rat, the sun had risen and we went to sleep.

Saturday, I went to Robina Town Centre to buy Rat poison. However, when I came home we decided not to use it as it will cause bleedings in the rat and I don’t want a room full of rat blood! So I went to another shop to buy big rat traps! Three of them. We have put peanut butter on them and we hided them in the room.

Philippe was not feeling well... He was a bit sick already since Thursday. At 5pm we decided to go to Robina Hospital. At 9pm we were still waiting... I went to buy some food and around 10pm I went home because I could not do much there. After 6.5hours waiting Philippe could go in.... they took his blood and decided to keep him there for the night because not everything was normal.

When I came back I uploaded a lot of Iphone applications with Denis. So much fun! When I was talking to Reece and Denis (housemates) in the kitchen... Reece suddenly saw a rat coming in through the door that was open for 10cm :-( And guess were the rat went... it could go everywhere... It went downstairs to mine and Philips room! :-(

SO I had to go to bed... no philippe in the room but a rat! I skyped with Philips dad and with my parents and at 3am I went to bed with music and with the lights on to keep the rat away. When I woke up in the morning, all the peanut butter was gone and the rat traps didn’t work! :-( HAAAATTTTTEEEEE it! It drives me crazy.

Around lunchtime I went to visit Philippe in the hospital. Philippe has a bag with cortisone and salted water. Earlier in the night they gave him Paracetamol and morphine. He has been transferred from the ER to another room at 7.30 in the morning. They found sth in his blood that could indicate that his anti bodies are damaging another organ than his thyroid which would prevent his adrenaline to circulate properly and therefore cause his fatigue, weakness, headache and fever. He has to stay for another night. He is going this afternoon for an Xray for his chest.

... I keep you up to date!

Jessie

update 8.21pm
In the afternoon I cleaned the whole room with Denis, a housemate. It smelled soo bad. We cleaned the floor with bleach. And we have put all the mess and boxed outside so that the rat cannot hide itself anymore. Affter cleaning I went to the hospital again with Denis and Laureen. Philippe was sleeping when we arrived. We played a card game and at 8pm we went back home. Phil had no more news from the doctor...

Bye!

PhD stuff and national day Belgium

Hi all!

The deadline for my confirmation document is coming closer and the stress is increasing... I have 12.500 words at the moment which is 2500 too much. I have banned my books and articles away from my desk because otherwise I keep on reading and finding new references. However, sometimes I really feel the need to look something up... My supervisor Popi is giving me lots of feedback which is good! Today and yesterday I worked from 8am-6.30pm so the working days are becoming longer and longer.... One more week... Next Tuesday I will organise the lay out and my references with the Endnote program. Tuesday night = printing 6 versions so that I can hand it in on Wednesday.

Here some funny cartoons about PhD and I can say: they are not too far from the truth!

The acknowledgements... always the first part that is done in my paper :-)

VERY applicable! 

Not me :-). 

Yeps! Reading an article that can be sooo important, and at the end realise that you actually can't use it...

Tuesday, I played tennis with Christian, a friend of our housemate Isabel. It went sooooo well!!! It was a long time ago that I played like that. The result: sore muscles today!

Wednesday... National Day of Belgium  and also at Bond this is celebrated! The Belgian flag at the roundabout and a Belgian meal at Bond Cafe.

In the evening we went to play volley ball. 

Bye!

xxx