October 1st- First day of new job

Outside my work building

My desk

Today was my first official day of work. I had been into work a few times to take care of some paperwork and meetings. The day was quite uneventful as my boss was on vacation for the entire week for school holiday and I did not see the lab manager, he was likely in Brisbane where he works 50% of the time. I did get my desk area setup and organized after assembling the shelves. (Andrea, please note the giant Malaria parasite resting on my computer). I was able to get my work email up and running, catch up on emails, attend a student seminar, as well as read and perform literature searches regarding my new research area of malaria immunology. The office area has an open plan design and probably can hold a hundred plus postdocs and graduate students.

View from behind my desk into office area

To walk home it takes about 15 minutes and the university has its own bridge that crosses over the Smith Street Motorway. Like most days of the past two weeks it began to lightly rain on my walk home but luckily I had an umbrella.

University bridge

The Gold Coast is know for its 280 plus days of sunshine but we have had maybe one day without rain since arriving just over two weeks ago. It is spring here and supposedly the wettest on record since the 1950s. Everything is quite green which is nice but it has been raining and wet so we haven't done much exploring.