Catching up

There are a lot of things that I haven't been able to write about on my weblog due to a lack of time, inspiration or just because I didn't feel like writing. This is an attempt to give you a brief update on all these matters.

Lovely Yarraville
For example there was this ironic event when I had agreed to meet Michael (Taylor, friend from RMIT) in a bar in Yarraville, a suburb two train stops from Footscray. The general idea of Footscray is that it is not one of the best suburbs. There definitely is a drugs problem, but the overall idea that it wouldn't be save is just false. In all the time that I've been living there now, not a single disturbing event happened. It's just that the streets are deserted after midnight. That's most likely why people feel uncomfortable.

Anyway, I took the train to Yarraville and shortly arrived at the station, where I gave Michael a call and arranged to meet at the station. While waiting there I noticed from the corner of my eye the drunk guy who already had been very annoying on the train. Sensible as I though I was, I didn't pay any attention to him. Apparently that was just what he was looking for, as he approached me and started to make all kinds of irrational threats. At first I thought it would be best to still ignore him, but that only seemed to make him even more furious. Thus I replied on his question that I was OK (unlike him, but of course I didn't say that). My answer didn't seem to cool him down. Maybe I should have responded that I was NOT OK, in Eddy Murphy style (see Raw). Fortunately his sober friends prevented him from trying to beat me up. I doubt he would have succeeded in doing that though, as he had enough trouble standing straight. Probably taking one step backwards would have been enough to make him fall over. While he was dragged home by his friends, the cavalry (Michael) arrived, late as always. He was quite stunned when I told him what happened and at first he didn't believe me. He had never had any problems in Yarraville. Whatever people say, Footscray is my save suburb :-).

Melbourne Central
It might not surprise you (after I told you how big Melbourne Central shopping mall is) that I actually got lost inside in one of my first weeks in Melbourne. Well, actually you don't get lost, you just exit the shopping mall in a different street, in my case, two blocks away from where I needed to be. Strolling back to RMIT I came across a billboard with a advertisement for what had to be a Turkish restaurant run by a Chinese owner, as the name of the restaurant read: " Mr. Tulk".

Nacho Libre

Last night I went to the cinema with Paul. Paul had won gold class tickets at work a couple of weeks ago and we hadn't found a opportunity to go to see a movie until yesterday. I got to pick a movie and choose the most promising one, Nacho Libre. (I refuse to go see Snakes on a plane, just because of the most idiotic and least original title ever. Some friends at RMIT though were positively surprised about the story and plot of the movie.) But Nacho Libre turned out to be a very good choice. In the beginning you don't know quite what to expect and you're fearing it is going to be some boring movie, but it turned out to be a very entertaining story. I enjoyed the movie very much, but I'm not likely to ever spent 32 dollars on gold class, it's definitely not worth it. A possible dinner is not included and my 18 dollar expensive main tasted like nothing. I've had better dinners for just 10 dollars.


On the way back to Southern Cross train station we passed the five pillars along the Yarra river. Every hour several meters high flames shoot out of these pillars, releasing an enormous amount of heat and light. Paul already had told me about the pillars, but I hadn't seen them until now. It is magnificent to see how the fire crawls up on the turbulent gas cloud that sprouts from the top of the pillar. In just a few seconds every vortex along the path of the fire lights up and then dowses again.

3 weeks and counting

With only three more weeks to go it is time to start finishing things. I started writing my report almost at the first week of my project as I couldn’t start experimenting then. So at least the introduction, background and experimental setup chapters are almost finished now.

The results and conclusions chapters are a different story though. Ironically I haven’t been able to do any experiments apart from one day of experimenting. The results from those experiments are unfortunately not particularly interesting. As it turned out I closed the holes partially with glue when I mounted the cantilever. I’m now hoping to get it clean with some chemicals before this Wednesday. Chengi, a Chinese scientist at Melbourne University, is helping me now with my research and he has arranged beam time on Wednesday and Thursday. If everything goes according to plan (which is very unlikely) I’ll have some more results by the end of this week.

Two weeks ago I started on planning the cycle journey that Inge and I are starting in about four weeks. That means that from now on I also will be posting on http://going-down-under.blogspot.com. For the moment you’ll find there a first version of our travel schedule.

Experimenting doing nothing

Since I not able to do anything at the moment, I figured that I might as well tell you about what it is that I am actually doing (or supposed to do) at RMIT in Melbourne.

My research involves focussing an ion beam (beam of accelerated charged particles) by means of a very small hole, in general referred to as an aperture. Without the use of such an aperture the lower limit of a focussed beam spot is in the order of 500 nanometre. A nanometre is one millionth of a millimetre; by comparison a hair is typically 50 micrometers in diameter, which is one two hundredth of a millimetre. In other words, a very very very tiny spot. But we want to go to even smaller beam spots in order to make even smaller structures, up till structures of just a few atoms, or even single atoms implanted in some material.

The reason for creating such small structures is to develop a new kind of computer, mostly referred to as quantum computer. I won’t go into detail here about how such a device is supposed to work, but I want to stress that the accurate control of structures and individual atoms on a very small scale is essential.

Designing the aperture is a challenge on its own, as it is quite difficult to manufacture a suitable ‘hole’. As basis I use a silicon cantilever (think of it as a very small silicon diving board) connected to some holder. With the use of a different kind of focussed ion beam (using heavier particles) I can drill holes and structures in the cantilever (see picture). During drilling I discovered that the cantilever is not as thick as I thought it would be, 3 micrometre in stead of the expected 15. As the ions that I’m using in the experiment need at least 7 micrometre of silicon to be stopped, this cantilever is useless for experiments.

Nevertheless I decided to have a better look at the drilled cantilever in a machine called a scanning electron microscope (SEM). I wanted to see if the holes that I made in the cantilever were all the way through. Although it is not common to image cantilevers in a SEM, it has been done before. There was even a specially modified mounting probe available for this purpose. The mounting of the cantilever on the probe was successful (dropping it would quite possibly made the cantilever breaking off). Unfortunately the imaging itself was less successful and when we tried to get the probe out the SEM again, it appeared to be stuck. To summarize a long story: during the inserting of the probe the cantilever was smacked off the probe because with the holder of the cantilever stuck onto it, the probe was just a bit to high to enter the SEM properly. Conclusion: one day of work down the drain.

So you see, not everything is running smoothly at the moment.. I haven’t been able to conduct any experiments up till now, because of the reasons mentioned above. Hopefully I can drill some new thicker cantilevers tomorrow and conduct the first experiments later this week. I’ll keep you posted!

Home sweet home

So after a strange week in the hostel I finally found a permanent residence in Footscray.
Footscray has a bit of a reputation because of problems with drug addicts in the past. That is why most people responded a bit weird when I told them I had found a place to stay in Footscray.

I guess Footscray has changed the last few years, as I haven’t had any encounter with a drug addict so far and don’t particularly feel unsafe there. I guess what people dislike most is the fact that the suburb is totally deserted in the middle of the night, in contrast to the city and some other suburbs. But just because you don’t encounter any other living soul, there is nothing / no one to be afraid of.

Paul, 26 years young, has just moved to Melbourne from Sydney. He has been living with his parents in Sydney, but wanted to live on his own. Renting a house in Sydney is unaffordable, so he decided to move to Melbourne. Through his cousin he found a job at an internet provider.

At first I didn’t know what to think of Paul, but as I got to know him better I realized that I was very lucky to have found such a great roommate. He is a really nice guy with a great sense of humor. A part of him is clearly still a kid, which makes him very impulsive and creative. The photo here illustrates best what I mean; here you see him inflating a 5 by 5 meter wide and 2 meter high air castle that he bought for his little nephews and nieces inside his room.

That’s another funny aspect of our house; as there are only two bedrooms, Paul uses the garage as his bedroom. I must admit that it definitely could be an extra room, if you appropriately seal garage door by means of a fake wall. For the moment it is quit a cold space, because a lot of heat dissipates through the garage door in spite of the curtain that Paul hung in front of it.

But also if you’re in for a serious conversation about whatever, Paul is your guy. Even though he is a convinced Christian, he has an open mind, doesn’t try to convert you and is always willing to listen to your story. He is fascinated by physics, black holes in particular and loves sci-fi, especially Star Trek.

My other roommate is Michael, 22 years old and already has been married and divorced. He is ‘from the country’, which means that he speaks real genuine Australian. This has proved to be a kind of barrier in our conversations, as I frequently have to ask him to repeat what he said, before giving up trying to understand him. Luckily most of the times Paul is there to translate.

Nightmare

At the last moment I had decided to stay another night in the hostel. Jacqueline thought it would be ridiculous to pay for that night as she had a key of the room, so she thought up a plan to make it possible to spend the night in the hostel for free.

The basic idea was that she would let me into the hostel and room. The only thing we hadn’t thought about is how I was supposed to get out of the hostel the next day without being noticed, but we could worry about that later.

Jacqueline had promised some friends from the hostel to meet them in the bar and since I didn’t feel like going to bed yet, I joined her there. The bar goes with the hostel, but has a separate entrance. Most of the times you'll find a lot of male drunken backpackers there, hunting the few women that there are in the bar.

This night wasn’t different. Some guy, almost too drunk to stand without gripping onto something, obviously was interested in Jacqueline. I don’t think it was because of his problem to maintain his balance that he was touching Jacqueline all the time and soon it was starting to get very annoying.

When he was gone for a few rare seconds I asked Jacqueline if she wasn’t bothered by it all. He had asked her to have dinner with him and regrettably she had accepted, ensuring him that it was only going to be dinner and that she wasn’t interested in anything else. As always she was just too polite to actually tell the guy to leave. I explained her that the best thing was to use straight, clear language and tried to teach her short sentences like “fuck off” or “get lost”, but it was too much unlike her to use that kind of language.

Later that evening we were playing a game of pool against two older gentlemen, who seemed a bit lost. Mr. Irritating even managed, together with one of his friends, to deviously take over from our opponents, leaving them stupefied about the sudden switch. It was obvious that he was jealous of me, because I was talking to Jacqueline all the time and now even playing a game of pool with her.

My allergic reaction was now really reaching a level that was almost unbearable. My hands were getting all itchy and I could feel my muscles tightening. The easiest way to deal with it would have been to tell Mr. I-am-too-good-to-be-true how pathetic he was, but I chose for the more sensible option to go to bed. Sooner or later Jacqueline had to deal with the situation herself, so there was no point in getting involved myself.

Part one of the plan worked fine. Jacqueline piloted me into the hostel and into our room and then went back to the bar. She was still hoping for some nice danceable Latin music, otherwise she wouldn’t get rid of the alcohol in her blood and was likely to get drunk.

One hour later I was woken up by a reasonable tipsy Jacqueline, sitting on the floor next to my bed and illuminating my face with the light from her mobile phone. I told her to get some sleep and after 15 minutes she crawled in her bed.

Nearly 10 minutes later the silence was interrupted by a loud bang. For a moment I thought Jacqueline had fallen out of bed, but as she lay in a lower bed that couldn’t have made such a racket. It became clear that another guy in our room, David, had too much to drink and had fallen out of his upper(!) bed. When he regained consciousness he tried to find his way to the bathroom, but being totally disorientated and wasted ended up at Grams bed (remember Gram?), almost peeing all over him.

Gram, who of course also had been waken up by the loud bang, started yelling at him, calling him an idiot amongst other less kindly things. Eventually David found his way to the door, which he wisely left ajar since he wasn’t carrying a key. But somehow Gram always gets upset when the door is left open, and pissed ;-) as he already was, got out of bed and slammed the door.

With no key to get in David started banging on the door, first gently, but after a couple of minutes of no response, he was nearly breaking down the door. In the meantime a bad humored Ben had waken up and luckily went to the door to make the banging stop. It was about to get all quiet again in our room, but not before Ben en Gram had called David all sorts of names because of his asocial behavior.

I didn’t really get all the other things that happened that night, but as I was staying illegally in the hostel that night, I figured it was best to be as invisible as possible.
Jacqueline told me the next morning (after just a few effective hours of sleep) that there was some leak in the wall which had wet whole Ben’s bed. Apparently even the manager (!) had come to have a look at it in the middle of the night. Luckily he hadn’t noticed me.

Now there was only one challenge, to get out of the hostel without arousing suspicion. We came up with the idea that I had just come this morning to pick up my luggage which I left in Jacqueline’s room. That wouldn’t even be lying, it only wasn’t the whole truth.
Escaping from the hostel turned out to be not much of a challenge. The girl at the reception immediately bought my story and I was on my way to my new home.

Turning tides

I had told Paul, my house mate, that I probably wasn’t coming home before 11 pm or something. As much adversity I had last week with finding a place to stay, so much prosperity I had since yesterday. It started when I received I message trough a website for share houses. I had subscribed to this website back at home, but it hadn’t given me any real desirable rooms.

Now all of a sudden it seems to get me the best room I could ever wish for. Some guy Paul had responded on my ad, saying that he was looking for a roommate. I called him and arranged to even have a look the same day. Within 15 minutes after I had entered the almost brand new house it was settled, I had found myself a room. Tomorrow, I would be moving, goodbye crumbling hostel, hello nice house!

Today Jacqueline and I would have dinner in the city and then go to the observation deck together. I called Jacqueline from RMIT and arranged to meet her at Flinders street station at 6.10 pm. Eventually she turned up at 6:45 after sending me a dozen of messages that she wasn’t going to make it.

She wanted to go to Gopals, a vegetarian restaurant that I had discovered just a few days before. The restaurant provides very good meals for little money (about €5) and is run by Hara Krishna.

Observation deck
Around half past 9 we entered the elevator of the Rialto Towers which took us to the observation deck on the 55th floor in only 40 seconds. It was more than worth the money. Raised a 234 meters above ground level a see of millions of lights stretched out before our eyes.

Just as I mentioned that at the Eifel tower you can also go outside (so you are not bothered by the glass when taking photos), we discovered that there were two outside terraces, one on the north and one on the south side of the observation deck. This was a nice opportunity to make some awesome panoramic pictures!

It was not possible to walk all the way around, because a part of the observation deck had been marked out for special guests only. Just before we had entered the lift we already wondered about the formally dressed girls that passed us and it now started to make sense. Some spoiled rich kid clearly spent a lot of money to hire a part of the observation deck to throw a birthday party. That’s something to remember for my next birthday; mum, dad, I want to celebrate my 25th birthday here, can I? :-)

Insignia
On the first night in Melbourne I discovered this fantastic bar at the corner of Flinders and King street, called Insignia. Most of the times it is not very crowded, which is one of the reasons that it is such a fantastic bar to chill out. The interior consists mainly out of wood and is decorated with luxurious sofas and lounge chairs. The ceiling is relatively high, but somehow it creates a pleasant spacious environment without losing the warm atmosphere due to the wooden interior and the subtle lighting.

Jacqueline and I decided to order a bottle of red wine and have some anti paste dish. It was only a few hours since we ate, but I felt a bit hungry again. We had spent more than half an hour on the observation deck, gazing at whole greater Melbourne. Back on solid ground we got to see an impressive promotional video about Melbourne and the Great Ocean road and after that we had found our way to Insignia.

I could see this was getting late. It was already past 10 and we had still half a bottle of wine to finish. I wasn’t in the mood of hurrying and also didn’t feel like lugging all my baggage too my house at this time of the day. I called Paul and told him the move was postponed to next day. I felt it was a better idea to spent one more night in the hostel. If only I had known…

Remarkable people

The first week in Melbourne I spent in the All Nations Backpackers hostel on Spencer street. The advantage of the hostel was that it is in the center of the city. The major disadvantage is that you have to share the room with up to 8 people. That means you don’t have any privacy and always have to take into account that others could be there. This even restricts you on simple things like turning on the light, which makes finding things most of the times a real challenge.

But then again, you meet some remarkable persons. The day I arrived there were 3 people in the room that I was booked. They had been staying in the hostel for quite a while and had just moved from another room together because it had to be painted. Later I heard that it had more to do with the bugs that were terrorizing the room and, more annoyingly, the people in it.

Ben, a young typically Australian guy, works at a bar. That means he is sleeping most of the day and working at night, so I did not see him frequently. But he is always in for a chat, always cheerful and really nice to be around.

Gram, a guy in his mid 40’s, is a bit too convinced of himself, even arrogant most of the times. With his pretended life experiences he always tries to convince you he knows best. Apart from working in the hostel he spends his days watching movies on his laptop or sleeping. When we first met, it was clear that we wouldn’t be best friends, but after a incident (I was folding my laundry, not aware that Gram was in the room and apparently making too much noise) he started to just ignore me.

Jacqueline, is originally Malaysian, but her parents emigrated to New Zealand when she was 11. She had come to Melbourne with her boyfriend in February, because it had always been her dream to live in Australia, and especially Melbourne. Unfortunately things didn’t work out between her and her boyfriend. Luckily she recently has found a job and is now saving money to get herself a nice apartment. Probably because of her length you would estimate her age around 20, when in fact she is already 28!

One of the most annoying things of Gram is his concern for Jacqueline. At first sight it seems nice of him to take care of her as she is just alone in Australia, emotionally disturbed. But his looking after her turned out to be more of an attempt to control her life, watching every step she takes. At first I had the impression that Jacqueline didn’t really mind, but as I got to know her better it became clear that she really dislikes the way Gram is always watching her. I asked her why she didn’t tell him so, but she is a far too nice person to be that honest with people. She is more polite than is good for her.

The student room

Because Peter, my supervisor, is on a conference in Singapore for the week, I don’t have much to do this first week. I have already finished reading the article and paper that was recommended by Peter.

I’m going to try to give you an impression about the hard work that is done here. In total 7 students are seated here (including myself), of which 2 are PhD students.

Tasha, honor student, is to Tasmania for the week for a performance of the child choir that she’s part of. Normally she is sitting everywhere throughout the room, except at her own desk. Then there is Jarrad, aka Radar, who is very busy now tinkering a Mario question mark box. Matt, who seems to be hard working sometimes, but is easily distracted and has just joined Martin at the pc in his quest to protect his castle from pursuers: “These kamikaze guys are great!”

One of the PhD students is Michael, who is also a vegetarian (how coincidental is that) is busy installing Matlab when he feels the call of nature: “Jarrad, I need to urinate, can you go for me?” The other PhD student is Andrew, who has joined Peter to the conference.

As you can see we are all very hardworking here, so I better go have a look if there is some more coffee.

Superduper mega mall

Everything seems to be mega here in Melbourne, the streets, the sky scrapers, the city itself, the library, and so do the shopping malls. In the middle of the center of Melbourne, at the crossing of Swanston and Bourke street is Melbourne Central, a huge shopping center with underneath the central subway station. Beside shops the shopping center houses a lot of restaurants and other places to eat.

To keep things orderly and easy to find there are huge interactive TV screens on every floor. They provide you with a search engine for locating the place that you're looking for. After selecting your destination on the touch screen a animation shows you were it is located and a voice tells you how to get there.

The heart of the mall consists of a gigantic cone shaped glass dome with in the center an old brick tower. To provide the visitors of the mall with the time, there is a huge clock, or maybe I should say watch, hanging at a balcony, opposite of the tower.