“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.” - Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)

What a relevant post title. Kind of. Maybe if it read:

"There are journal articles of which the abstract and conclusion are by far the best parts."

Kitcat has spent the last two weeks reading journal articles. And for some articles, the abstract and conclusion are indeed the best parts. Getting through the remainder of the article is like walking through knee-deep mud. With cement shoes. And a screaming child wrapped around one ankle. While giving an elephant a piggy-back.

However, a great deal more of the articles are actually relevant to her Honours topic, and therefore she's finding them extremely interesting. *Neeeeeeerrrrd* Furthermore, as she finally has her literature review topic figured out, the reading has become more focused, which = more relevant, which = even more interesting. Winning. 

As for the actual topic:

"Are there long-term consequences for stress induced by management practices in mammals?"

Still lots of reading to go, but it's looking like there totes are long-term consequences. Which is good, as it gives Kit something to write about! And it's not just expected stuff like stress-induced weight loss either. One study on water voles found that if animals are deprived of food for as little as 16 hours during pregnancy, it completely skews the sex ratio of the next generation towards males (by higher abortion/re-absorption of the female embryos)! And not only that, when the food deprived mothers did produce female offspring, the daughters tended to have increased fecundity. Which is a good thing for the population if it's recovering from a food shortage, and therefore, reduced numbers!

Is that not totally cool and amazing and ohmigosh-nature-has-so-got-it-sorted-and-we-never-even-knew-ish?! 

Ahh, science. It's awesome. 

But in other (non-sciencey) news, Kitcat and Face have been doing stuff. Last weekend was filled with visits to the Salamanca markets (by Kit, Face opted to not spend hours wandering around stalls) and Bunnings. But the weekend before last saw Face and Kit take a trip to Richmond. And in Richmond there is a marvelous zoo. 

Where they have (white!) lions.

And tigers.

And piglets, oh my!

Face was delighted by the piglets (as you can see from the above photo, where he had just been bitten by one). And the fluffy bunnies. He loved the fluffy bunnies. Oh, and ask him about the marmosets. Face is a huge fan of monkeys.

There was a really interesting collection of animals out there! 

 (Yay!!)

Most unfortunately, Kit's camera died before she managed to take photos of every single animal. Therefore, another trip is in order. Darn. =D 

Kit does love her zooing time.

That's all for tonight! Silly ol' Kit decided to start sanding and whitewashing the bedside table this afternoon. Which probably wasn't the best thing to do the day before a house inspection. Consequently, Face and Kit have to be up super early to clean up all the mess she made. Lol-oops. 

Much love. xx

“I will not say that your mulberry trees are dead; but I am afraid they're not alive.” - Jane Austen

Today, dear readers, Kit plans to grace you all with a peak inside her (and Face's) home.

She will also reveal her latest (and most adorable) crochet project.

And all this will be done with some very poor examples of photography! Huzzah!

One of the great things about moving to Tasmania was selling off all the previously owned furniture and coming across the Bass Strait with absolutely nothing. 'Say whaaaaa'?!' you exclaim. 'Surely, Kit, that would be most inconvenient!' Indeed, it was. Face spent a few weeks squatting on the floor with his computer set up on a cardboard box, many a meal was enjoyed over the kitchen sink, and we are still sleeping on a floor-mattress. But one of the great advantages of starting with the minimalistic/we-can't-afford-to-buy-furniture looks is that it allows you to go shopping for new furniture! And that's uber fun.

There are still quite a few empty spaces in the home of Kitcat and Face (they only yesterday recycled the massive pile of cardboard boxes that had been acting as clothes storage in the absence of a chest of drawers), but it's slowly filling with stuff. And now that Kit has a substantial collection of furniture, she can start renovating (i.e., painting a different colour) all of it! 

Let's get started with Kit's list of projects, shall we?

Now, Kit would have loved to have a cute little wooden table like this:

But it turns out delightful cottage/country-esque tables such as the above don't come up on Gumtree all that often. Instead, Kit has this:

It's... Functional! In addition, it has potential! Kit just isn't quite sure how to unlock said potential... Squirrel (Kit's go-to decorating guru) has suggested spray-painting all the black pieces white, as she did with her lovely (and quite similar) table, which can be seen on her blog (what do you mean Kit has pretty much copied her blog-format? Pfft. Individualism is overrated anyway). Given that the black paint is all rather chipped and gross, that is seeming like an excellent idea. 

Or Kit could try and combine this table with her dream table, and spray-paint the legs of this table white, and each of the chairs (including the wooden seats?) a different colour. Any suggestions, interweb friends? Gimme yo thoughts.

On to the dresser!

Standard dresser, really. The mirror/top section make it look rather dated, but they aren't attached, so that was removed as soon as the photo was taken. Kit has also removed the mirror from the rest of the piece (she spent an hour fiddling around with a screw-driver before realising that the mirror slides out), and is thinking of painting the frame (aqua! Or black! Purple! Red! Oh! The decisions!) and hanging it above the dresser. Face insisted on this (the hanging the mirror part. He doesn't care about the painting part). Not due to any decorative desires of his, but because the only other mirrors in the house are in the bathroom and the study. Apparently this is highly inconvenience for him, as (without fail) whichever one Kit chooses to use for her makeup application always seems to be in the room that he wants to enter at that time. Since the mirrors in the study and bathroom are both situated in places that result in a blocked doorway when in use, Face has decided that this Simply Won't Do. What a drama-queen. 

Moving on! Kit hasn't quite made up her mind as to whether or not she wants to paint the dresser yet. She did toy with the idea of whitewashing it, but that apparently requires sanding the wood back. That sounds like hard work. Especially since Kit doesn't have any super cool sanding machines, so would have to do the work by hand with a teeny tiny square of sanding paper. Such an outdated way of sanding.

For now, the dresser will remain as is, with all Kit's junk piled on top. Maybe she'll get a sanding machine for Face for his birthday and borrow it. Oh, no, Face says he doesn't want a sanding machine. Problematic.  

And the final piece Kit is planning to attack with her limited supply of tools and paint:

Don't mind the icky, cheap colour. That will be gone soon. They should look pretty good when painted to match the bed frame (when it finally gets delivered). White, of course. If you haven't yet cottoned on, Kit's solution to any renovating dilemma is to paint it white. Outdated piece? Paint it white. Non-matching furniture? Paint it white. Stain on the couch? Paint it white.

Face doesn't understand Kit's obsession with white furniture at all. She has tried to explain the 'nordic' look to him, but just got blank stares in return. It probably would have helped if she fully understood what she was talking about. 

And that completes the Kitcat's projects section of tonight's blog! This weekend will see Kit taking a trip out to Bunnings, and then stuff will (probably) start happening from there. Probably. Depending on whether Kit can actually summon the motivation after a week of reading journal articles and writing ethics proposals. Ethics proposals are just the worst.

THE WORST.

In other news, the promised cute thing!!

 

OH GAWD. IT'S JUST SO CUTE.

With it's little hot air balloons and rainbow and cloud and birdy and happiness. So soothing to stare up at. Soothing...

Kit made this for Miss B. and her adorable bub. The pattern came from Inside Crochet (issue 46, October 2013). As it's an old issue, Kit had to visit every single newsagent in Hobart to find a copy of the magazine. Maybe not every single newsagent. But close to. Like, one off. 

As it turns out, mobiles are really fun to make. Which means that all the other people in Kit's life who have babies can expect one to arrive in the mail in the coming months. Even those without babies will probably end up getting one.

Anyway. Kit wants to go to bed. Nighty night lovely readers! xx

'“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”' - Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)

Oh, hullo there, internet world. How very interesting all your netting is. 

Why, just today Kitcat got tangled in said net for an hour and a half. She was busy looking up mouse-pads (she's torn between three. It's terribly nerve-wracking), instead of reading journal articles like a good Honours student would. But, to be honest, she's starting to doubt if she's the only 'bad' Honours kid in the Honours Room. At first she thought she was a disgrace to the post-graduate(-ish) profession - with her being distracted by birds, shiny objects and pretty much anything else when it came time to actually do productive things - as all the other Honours students were busy typing away at their computers. 

But.

Now that she's brave enough to look up from her screen, she's noticed that there seems to be a lot of Words With Friends and Bejeweled games underway in the Honours Room. 

Hurrah! She's not a 'bad' student, just a perfectly normal Honours kid! Normality! We love that!

In other news, she also had her first meeting with her supervisors today. Therefore, the actual Honours-ing process has begun! 

The project itself is still in the developing stages, but it will revolve around... Well, Tasmanian devils. You'll get more details as the project goes from vague ideas to definite ones.

For now, she has topics to research for her literature review! The lit review will be assessed, and will go towards a substantial chunk of her overall grade, so it's pretty darn important. It will also gift Kit with the necessary knowledge to understanding what's actually going on in her project. Therefore, to start, Kit will spend the next few weeks researching these topics:

• Personality as a trait in animals
• Responses to handling
• Coping styles of animals
• Reintroduction success
• Captive management and behavioural changes
• Non-genetic inherited factors
• Maternal effects
• Stress and translocation
• Genetic adaptations to captivity
• Captive monitoring of stress hormones

And that's just a sample of the ideas tossed around between the supervisors at the meeting (Kit didn't have much to say at the meeting as she was too busy writing furiously, trying to get everything down). All that research will somehow (hopefully) go into Kit's brain and the information will be squashed around and meshed together until an Honours project comes out of it. How exciting! 

That's enough about Kit (Ha! Never, you say! Oh, you flatterer. I like you.), onto the adventures of Face! 

Today, Face spent two hours waiting in line at Centrelink. Even worse, he forgot his gameboy. So he had to actually 'Wait' wait for two hours. Then when he finally got to the front of the queue, the poor Centerlink lady didn't know what to do with him. So she just took photocopies of his documents and sent him home.

Not unsurprisingly, he wasn't thrilled to arrive home to Kit exclaiming "There's a chest of drawers for sale on Gumtree (Kit loves Gumtree. She LOVES it.) and it's 40 minutes away and we have to go now!" Poor Face. What a trial of a day. But he did get a lovely-ish (functional) set of drawers out of it, and now his clothes have a home. That's sure to be a comfort to him. 

Or, you know, he doesn't care. But at least it's only another two days until the Internet Man cometh and installs the internet (Oooh, Fiber and superfast uploads and downloads and a million GB's and a free pony to boot! Except not really. Face is downstairs and Kit doesn't have a clue what the internets are going to be like. But at least they'll be. Going off phone data is kinda incredibly slow.)! Then he'll be able to catch-up on all the internet stuff he's missed over the past month, and play online games with all his chums. He'll also be able to distract Kit with funny YouTube clips. Then he'll finally have some peace and quiet. How's the serenity. 

Well, that's about it. Because Kit can hear Face downstairs washing the dishes, and she'll feel guilty if she doesn't help out. 

And just to really finish this post off, here's a picture of a baby sloth. 

   

P.S. Face says no, it's not a million GB and a free pony, it is Fiber on the NBN, 500 GB and a speed of 50/20 - for those of you who understand internet language and could therefore potentially be jealous. If it's worth being jealous over. It is, right? Anyway, suck on that, Mainland, we get Fiber. That's awesome (right?)!

"Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words." - Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South)

Today marked the start of Kitcat's Honour-ing! And it was really boring. Lots of orientation and introduction stuff, which she could have looked up herself. But probably wouldn't have, to be honest. So it was really just as well that the University kindly packed it all into a few sessions. 

Which are going to continue tomorrow.

And the day after.

And, in fact, all week long.

Huzzah.

Along with all the important need-to-know-to-function-here things there were a number of warning about how we don't have any time and need to start working on our research project right now. Which was very scary! Even scarier, a lot of the Honours kids took it extremely seriously and spent the entire afternoon looking up journal articles, while Kitcat checked her emails and facebook in the corner. 

Surely we don't need to actually do stuff in the first week? Surely not! When Face was doing Honours he spent the first month on YouTube looking at stupidly funny clips with C.! The hell? Kitcat wants to laugh at YouTube for a month! Unjust. 

Petty complaints aside, it was a good start to the year. There are 14 other students undertaking Honours (14! There were 3 in Face's year!), and none of them seem crazy. In fact, they were all really fun to talk to. And helpful! Do you know where to go to get an after-hours swipe card at UTas? They did. And now Kitcat do too! 

So what did Face do which Kit was off expanding her horizons? He battled with Centrelink. And lost lots of phone credit while doing so. It was tragic. Round II will come whenever he can obtain Kitcat's phone during business hours (due to fantastic plan, she gets lots of free calls). He also went fridge searching! The townhouse of Kit and Face did come with whitegoods included, but upon arrival it became apparent that one particular whitegood (i.e. the humongous fridge) actually belonged to the previous tenant - leaving Kitcat and Face with a bar-fridge. That ain't gunna fly. There's one pack of sausages in the freezer, and now nothing else will fit in. 

Kit was planning to do a Squirrel and Puffin (Squirrel is the cousin of Face who convinced Kit to blog about Tasmania and is her general go-to person about decorating dilemmas! Her blog is awesome, and hilarious. If you want to check it out [which Kit highly recommends you do] it can be found at: http://squirrelandpuffin.blogspot.com.au/) style post about the little projects around the house that Kit has planned. But her camera is... All the way over there. Maybe next time.

Instead, here's a run down of the exciting stuff Kitcat and Face have done since arrive in Tasmania! In photo form! Whoop, whoop!

Visited Devils@Cradle:

This little fellow is an Eastern quoll (Dasyurus viverrinus). They're not as cool as spotted-tailed quolls, cause these guys are kind of wussy in comparison to the pure bad-assness that is the spotties. Still pretty adorable though!

Kitcat got to hold a baby Wombat (cause she's got friends in the biz, yo). His name is Woody.

Watched Black Jack the devil chilling in the sun for a bit. He wasn't all that interested in us.

Observed pretty scenery:

Went on a short walk on the shore of Dove Lake. It was pretty.

Oh, hey, it's Face! We hate that guy. Lol, jokes. He's ok.

 Saw wildlife (this photo is here for the benefit of E.! What is it?! WHAT IS THIS BIRD, E.?!)

 Looked at Pencil Pine Falls. There was a distinct lack of falling pines and pencils, which disappointed Kit.

Traveled up Mt Wellington with the delightful J.

That's probably Bruny Island in the distance. Probably. But check out that single cloud and it's shadow! What a funny cloud.

Went to the beach, beach, we went and got a wave, wave (and chased seagulls with J.)

Kit wasted everyone's time as she spent ages trying to take pretentious, artsy shots. Which weren't nearly as pretentious or artsy as she hoped. 

Camping at Mt Field for the Australia Day long weekend:

We went on lots of walks to see lots of different waterfalls while at Mt Field. Look! This one is Russell Falls!

Face played a fun game of Wizards. Which he lost. Spectacularly. 

Kit did lots of crocheting! And she made something particularly cute. Which will be revealed once she gathers the necessary finishing ingredients.

Kitcat thought this tree was funny. It's all "Om nom nom, this other tree."

Face and Kit walked to Lady Barron Falls.

Kit hung out with a cool bug.

Photo-taking adventures with K.

Saw a pademelon and her joey! That was cool. Not the pademelon part - they're all over the place in Tassie. But the joey was smaller than the average pademelon, and therefore cuter. 

Finally, Kit again attempted to take artsy pictures. This time, of a noxious (probably) weed!

Thaaaaat's... Quite a few photos! Pretty good for Kit, though. You should see the number of photos she uploads to facebook. Damn, that girl knows how to clog up a wall.

Since taking photos all over the place, business has revolved around moving into the new place, finding furniture to fill the new place with, and sitting around watching Adventure Time! Face and Kit were without it for a good 3 weeks. It was hard. Thank god Face has his computer set up now!

“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.” - Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

Welcome to Kitcat and Face!

This blog will follow the lives of Kitcat and Face as they adventure their way through a year in Tasmania. Actually, more than a year. Hopefully. Kitcat loves it here. Face may still need a little convincing. 

Wow. That photo took ages to upload. Don't expect many more until our proper internet is connected.

Ahem. Kitcat and Face very recently moved to the Apple Isle so Kitcat could commence her honours project at the University of Tasmania (she starts tomorrow! Much excitement/nervousness/frantic last minute organisation in the house of Kitcat and Face). Her project is based around changes in behaviour and stress levels between wild, released and captive populations of Tasmanian devils. The finer details are yet to be worked out, but that's the basic plan she'll be working off. 

While Kitcat is off playing with devils, poor Face will be forced to work for bacon-money. Hopefully he'll be able to find a job which takes advantage of his university education, but the ol' job market in Tasmania isn't exactly thriving. Hobartians may end up being able to visit Face at the local McDonalds.

That would be sad - because Face is very smart and has lots of useful skills (hint, hint, potential employers out there). Why, just today he fixed the lionel in the kitchen after Kitcat accidentally sucked it all up into a bunch with her super-powered vacuum cleaner! Kitcat was very impressed. Keep your fingers crossed that he gets a job that he's qualified for, and interested in! 

Face has a Bachelor in Biological Science, and has already completed an honours project on top of that. His project involved the genetic diversity of river slime - "bio-film" - under different light and shade river conditions. Sounds awesome, huh? BUT NO WHERE NEAR AS AWESOME AS KITCAT'S PROJECT, YOU SAY? Well, you're right. 'Cause Kitcat gets to spend all her time learning about these:

Oh, gawd damn, could they be more adorable? Lookit the sleepy little guy! For those interested, his name is 'William' and he can be found at Devils@Cradle, the Tasmanian devil Sanctuary at Cradle Mountain where Kitcat undertook work placement in June/July in 2013. (Visit http://www.devilsatcradle.com/ for more information on the great work they do at the Sanctuary!)  

Since it's way past Kitcat's bedtime, that's all you get for now, bloggers! Stay tuned for future updates regarding Kitcat's first days of uni (!!), household occurrences, life lessons (probably not so many of those), crochet and crafty things that Kitcat gets up to, and many, many photos of Tasmania!

Love love. xx