Gosh, I honestly don’t know where the month has gone! Yes, I know you’re going to say that I say that literally every month. But I suppose time does fly quicker as you are getting older. Speaking of which, I turned 24 this month. My dad insisted on celebrating, but I think I am just getting to the age where I prefer to keep my birthday a quiet business and hide away. I got spoilt with some great presents and cake, of course! I had a lot of cake this month. I have had a few moments of hibernation this month, it does help with my internal struggle sometimes which is still ongoing, but I’m trying to deal with it in a different way (some of you would probably know about this from my previous monthly blogs).In terms of work, I have been juggling endless things this month. The student projects have been quite time-consuming, particularly because I needed to obtain ethics approval for one of them which needed a lot of work. The good news is that we were recently approved and currently recruiting for our focus groups! I’m also trying to work on my statistics paper, but it has been difficult to switch back and forth with this. I feel like statistics needs a mind of its own and I am still finding it really difficult to juggle it with other things. Unfortunately, I have not made substantial progress with this, really hope things change over the next couple of days.
In other news, I attended FameLab NSW as a semi-finalist (this was the news I mentioned last month). It was very exciting to be chosen for this. We received training for this on the day which made us feel even more underprepared! However, it was such a wonderful evening because I got to meet so many like-minded researchers from many disciplines and we talked about all things science. The presentation itself was very nerve-racking as it was given to a large unknown audience, but it was such a great learning experience. As a result of this, I also had the opportunity to attend two radio interviews with Dr Karl. Meeting this science legend was a very memorable and special experience; he was very supportive and so down-to-Earth. I’m honestly so grateful for the opportunities that I am getting from my PhD journey.
Click here to read about a media piece from this month on ‘The French secret to beating obesity’.
Finally, here are all my April eats :)
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| Curried sweet potato and cashew nut soup (recipe here) |
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| Snapper Saddletail curry with tomato and parsley |
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| Pearl barley and vegetable soup (recipe adapted from here) |
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| Roasted aubergines with yoghurt and mint (recipe adapted from here) |
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| Hearty lentil soup with tomato, carrot and capsicum |
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| Pearl barley, apple and almond bake (recipe adapted from here) |
