I graduated on the 6th of October 2009 with my PhD in Chemistry.  It was a great day, bringing finality to the whole PhD experience, and what an experience it has been. 

I finally got to wear the floppy hat!  Here's a photo of me and my supervisor.  Last time I wore the gold tie with the atoms on it to a Chemistry event I got told off because they are an outdated Bohrian representation...

Ok, so that's it!  I am so pleased that I am not a student any more - in three days I will have been working for a year!  Work, to me, is so much more fulfilling than study ever was.  I love having a purpose and feeling like the chemistry I am doing, while much simpler and more established than my research was, is so much more practical and useful. 

I have found that the skills that I developed during my PhD - mainly a broad-based knowledge of chemistry, techniques and knowing how to think abstractly to solve problems - are incredibly useful in my day-to-day working life.  I intend to keep up the links with universities, I have a student now in the factory doing an energy and emissions audit, and I am planning on getting a summer student or a BE or BSc(Hons) student in to do some research on some neat little projects that I have around the factory. 

So life goes on, and it keeps getting better.  For those of you struggling through study - know that it can be done!  All it takes is a whole lot of perseverance, faith, and the love and support of those around you.  You will get there in the end - and one day you'll be proud of what you have accomplished.  Never give up.

Atomsmith out.

I've been meaning to blog about this for ages, but for one reason or another I haven't found my way to LJ.

On Wednesday the 12th of August 2009 I finally submitted The Brick!  I had to print and hard-bind five copies (2 for library, 1 for supervisor, 1 for me and 1 for Mum & Dad to be proud of) in the end.  It was 501 pages long and done in full colour.  The cost of printing was 25c per page but fortunately a few years ago the university changed its print quota system and (inadvertently) gave me $1000 of print credit.  I had to leaf through every copy by hand to make sure all the pages were there and that I hadn't printed anything twice.  It took bloody ages (about 5 hours) but it was a good thing that I did it because I found a few ink smears and some double-ups.  It looks beautiful.

I got it all hard-bound, with my personal copy bound in leather .  My supervisor has put a 2 year embargo on it, which means that the photo below is the closest anyone will get to it until August 2011!  He thinks that there is a small, but very real chance that we will get some cool IP from some of my work which is absolutely fantastic.  Now that I have finished up I am going to spend some time writing a paper for publication in an international journal about the macrocyclic work that I did.


With the exception of a photo from graduation (October 6th), I think that this probably brings this blog to its natural conclusion.  Thanks for reading folks.  There may be other words another day, but they will be on different topics.  Just remember that good things take time, if you set your mind to it, nearly anything is possible and as Peter Blake said - "If it's not hard, it's not worth doing".

Finally, as I put in my acknowledgements page;

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.” – Jude 1 v 24-25 (NIV)

Dr Atomsmith out.

I passed! 

I have to admit that it was a pretty nerve-wracking experience, I was quite on edge the whole time.  I got a few questions that I didn't know but on the whole it went well and the examiner was very complimentary about my work.  There were a few flaws, mainly in regard to some of my crystal structures, but nothing that was deemed serious.  I have a few corrections to make to the thesis and then I hand the final copy in at the end of the month.

There were four of us in the exam - the national examiner, my supervisor, a neutral observer and myself.  The exam took three and a quarter hours, which was quite long (it was a very long thesis though!).  About two and a half hours in my supervisor pointed out that we were only halfway through the thesis and that the examiner had a plane to catch, so could we please move it along.  The international examiner sat on the thesis for six months, then had no questions so reading between the lines he probably didn't even bother to read it.  Fine by me - less questions to answer.  The New Zealand examiner was extremely thorough however, even going over my experimental data (tables of numbers) with a fine-tooth comb! 

I have to say that I felt very sorry for the observer, she was from the medical school and so most of what we were talking about would have been totally incomprehensible to her.  She did her best to not look bored out of her brain but I could tell that it was killing her!  I think that she was mainly there to make sure that we didn't fight and that I didn't try to bribe the examiner or something.

So anyway I am putting in the corrections and then I'll find out if all my university print credit still exists or not.  At $125 per copy I am hoping like crazy that it is still there...

Doctor Mike signing off.

This is it!  After 6 months of deliberation my examiners have finally gotten back with their reports and today I have my oral exam.  I have had three days off work to study, which has been really helpful.  I have been over my thesis several times, trying to poke holes in it (and subsequently fill them with plausibility).  I've prepared a short presentation to start the session and I think I deserve a medal for managing to condense seven years of research into a ten minute Powerpoint slide show.

The exam's at 1pm.  I feel nervous, but confident at the same time.  I can't wait for it to be over so I can call myself Doctor!

Because I haven't posted in ages, and because I want to immortalise this list I post the following.  One of the strange things that I did when I was young and stupid was collect random bits and pieces.  In my first year of uni I kept all sorts of notes and other such rubbish and put them in a folder, which I rediscovered when we moved back to St Johns on the weekend (yes we moved from Howick after 5 weeks, good riddance).  One of the things in the folder was a list of names of some bands entered in the 1996 High School Rock Quest that I found quite amusing. 

Behold the creativity of youth;

1. The Angry Young Men
2. Like I Cared
3. Not Quite Naked
4. Ambitious Kung-Fu Guy
5. Burn Its Ass
6. Melvyn's Stoney Neighbours
7. Liquid Biscuit
8. Einstein's Illiterate Great-Grandchildren
9. Peasants With Pitchforks
10. Big Man With a Stick
11. D.V.8
12. Chimpus
13. Rapid Bowel Movement
14. The Son of Spank
15. Inbred
16. Soupstick
17. The Elephant's Nightmare

And my personal favourite - Harrison Ford and the Whistling Monkeys. 

I reckon it'd almost be worth forming a band for the express purpose of giving it one of these names.

I find myself wondering whether my blogging days are drawing to a close.  Since I have started work, the number of posts that I have written has dropped off a cliff.  I guess that this is probably because work is such a major part of life, and occupies such a large amount of my time.  Taken in conjunction with the golden rule - Never Blog About Work, and there's not a lot left over to write about to be honest.

I have to say though, I absolutely love my job.  I am so happy with how things are going, I'm never bored and it's a constant challenge.  We had a farewell dinner for my boss Mark last night, I will really miss him - he's been a fabulous manager.  He took a gamble on this academic and I'm going to make sure that it pays off.

In other news, we've moved to a bigger apartment in Howick.  Jeremy and Merinda moved into out old apartment and took over the groundskeeping duties so last weekend we helped each other move.  I think we were all completely exhausted on Sunday - moving two households in one day is not a job I'd rush to recommend.  I'm a bit wary of one set of our new neighbours, I think they could be a bit White Trash because when we arrived they had couches out on the lawn, music going and there was a broken bottle on the path the next day.  Still, it's been ok for the rest of the week - reasonably quiet and the reality is that we haven't bought this place, so if we don't like it we can just move!  One of the hidden benefits of renting.

Howick has a pub-to-people ratio that is completely disproportionate.  There are at least four pubs on the main street and last night there were so many teenies and drunks wandering around that it was shameful.  I'm not sure if Howick's still the quiet little seaside town that Anna grew up in.  Thus far it's been a bit like East meets West - you might be forgiven for thinking you were in Waitakere City...

The highlight of my Christmas break was going out on a chartered fishing trip with Dad on the Arline, out of Paihia.  We had a fabulous six hours out on the water for a very reasonable $80 per person.  Murray and Terry were our hosts, and if you're looking for an excellent day's fishing in a beautiful location I would highly recommend giving them a call.  Below is a photo of me with an 18 lb (8.2 kg) snapper that Dad and I caught simultaneously (it took both our baits at the same time) which actually was good because it made it easier to reel in!  Dad had a really good day, catching an 11 lb, 9 lb and a couple of smaller pan-sized snapper.

This was the biggest fish I've ever caught in my life, I was so stoked.  Dad just about passed out trying to fillet the thing.  With the price of snapper at approximately $35-$37 / kg, I figure the fish we caught would have a black market value of over $500.  The snapper got me street cred too, the number of comments I got walking back through Paihia was great.  I couldn't stop grinning.

I'll be back on the Arline next summer without a doubt.

Today, at 2:45 pm I handed in my PhD thesis entitled Metal Complexes of Acyclic and Macrocyclic Multifunctional Ligands.  From start to finish, it has taken me 7 years and 9 months of full time research.  My oral exam will probably be in around 6-10 weeks.

I'm so excited - tonight I'm going to party like it's 1999 (which would mean that I'm 20 again).

Little irony - I have a CD of crystallographic data appended to my thesis, the labels of which I had got printed at great expense (I got ripped off).  To make them look nice and official and to match the cover page of my thesis I had put the university logo on them.  However, when I handed it in I was informed that the logo shouldn't be on my thesis (and probably the CDs) because it's my work, not the university's!  I'm going to find out if it's Ok to keep it on the CDs and take it off the thesis, but I get the feeling that's $100 I'll never see again...  D'Oh!

I got four copies of it soft bound today and it looks beautiful.  When I picked it up, the binder said, "that's quite the brick you have there".  To which I replied, "Yes.  Yes it is."

I got the Ok to submit The Brick!  My supervisor gave me the green light the other day, with only a few changes to my abstract.  The body of the thesis survived intact.  The abstract, technically, is supposed to be 350 words long, but there was absolutely no way I could reduce mine below 670 without it becoming completely meaningless.

So yesterday afternoon I went in to Uni with Anna and printed out three copies to get soft bound.  After leafing through them page-by-page to make sure that they were all in the right order and that the colour pages have printed properly I discovered that there are a few changes that I need to make, so I'll head back in one night this week to print off the last little bits, and to make myself a copy (kind of important!).  For these examination copies I have printed it in black & white, with colour pages printed separately on the expensive colour laser in the information commons and interleaved by hand.  However, for some reason the colour printer prints the text slightly larger and the page numbers in a slightly different place, which is really annoying.  Anyway, small things really.

I have arranged an appointment with the Graduate Centre on Friday to submit it.  I'm really pleased that I'll be able to get it in this year!  I only have until March 09 to submit (that'll be the end of 8 years).  The only thing that concerns me a little is that once I submit, I get unenrolled and I'm scared that I will lose all the credit on my student printing account which I was planning on using to print the final copy after my oral exam.  At 25c per page, 502 pages per copy and 5 final copies needed it comes to $625, which I am not so keen to pay for out of my own pocket.  Then there's the hard binding costs on top of that (I'm hoping to get my personal copy done in leather).

Work's going well, keeping me very busy and tired, hence the lack of posting.  Pretty much the only posting I do these days is to update the status line on my Facebook page.  I have two weeks left before my predecessor retires and I am flying solo!  I am a bit nervous about this but I think that I have a much better idea of things now.  Thank goodness for the two month changeover period.  I've been off on a couple of business trips recently to Christchurch and Mt Maunganui which has been cool.  I'm starting to get a much bigger picture of where our business fits into the wider scheme of things. 

Ok that's enough for now!

Today, somewhere around 12 am in the bowels of the Chemistry Department I finished printing, interleaving and binding the final draft (colour copy) of The Brick for my supervisor.  Very tired, but happy.

I figure that it's about time that I posted something, I have been a bit slack.  However, I'm scratching my head a little to think of something that is worth posting about.  It seems that I haven't really been up to anything interesting at all recently, life now seems to mainly consist of working, eating, sleeping - and watching the occasional episode of Prison Break.  

However, I can't really complain, it's fabulous to be employed.  I still have loads to learn about the new job, and I figure that it is going to take me a while before I'm really firing on all four cylinders.  There I go, using engineering analogies already - what am I becoming?!  I went to a climate change breakfast seminar today, which was semi-useful for me.  At least I got free croissants (you can tell that I am still officially a student, I'm all about the free food) although there are some really pompous prats out there in the business world.  I met this lawyer today who I swear was the biggest full of himself numbnuts I have ever met.  Not doing the lawyer image any favours, mate.

The Brick is pretty much done now, I just need to go in to uni and print out a final draft for my supervisor before I submit it.  I am intending to do that one night this week.  It's absolutely incredible how it has receded from consuming my life completely to becoming a memory in the span of a month.  I know that this is why I need to get it in, and get it in quickly before it falls any further behind.  One of the other guys in my research group started a job in June, and still hasn't submitted his thesis yet.  Due to the long time it's taken me, I actually only have until next February to submit, not that I intend to push that deadline!!

For some reason I've had Billy Joel's The Downeaster Alexa (the greatest sea shanty you've never heard) going through my head constantly for the last week.  It's driving me nuts!

Ok, Atomsmith out.

One of the things I have been noticing about my new job are the various emails that fill up my inbox. I came across one today which made me crack a smile, but not because of its content. Rather, the way it was phrased made it appear to be some cryptic form of Haiku;




See what I mean?  I'm off to prune my bonsai and contemplate fire safety in the workplace.

Good news on the quartet front - my friend Jo (cellist extraordinaire) has indicated interest in getting a chamber music group together once her exams are finished, which just means that we'll need a viola player and another violinist.  This has really spurred my interest in finding some music, and because I have a thing for rock/classical crossovers I've been poking around the internet looking for some unconventional string quartet music.

I came across an interesting quartet called the Hampton Rock String Quartet, who arrange and perform covers of all sorts of classic rock groups including Led Zepplin, Cream, the Beatles, Queen, Jimi Hendrix etc.  What is especially cool though is that you can actually buy all of their sheet music online.  I definitely think that I'll get a couple of these to fill out my repertoire, (their arrangement of Aqualung by Jethro Tull sounds great and looks like a lot of fun to play).

The HSQ are in quite a similar vein to the unbelievably prolific Vitamin String Quartet, who seem to release string arrangements of pretty much everything under the sun including (but not limited to) Disturbed, Slayer, AC/DC, Dream Theater, Enya, Coldplay, Panic at the Disco and Kanye West.  I haven't listened to all of these in longer than the 30 second clips available on the iTunes Music Store but from what I've heard there seems to be a varying degree of how well the artist translates into chamber music.  To the best of my knowledge, the sheet music is unavailable, but I've emailed the record company to find out (who knows, I might have some success like I did at getting the Arcanum score).

Man it's been ages since I posted last. I don't really have much of an excuse to be honest, I have been at home for the last month, but now that I have pretty much finished off The Brick I am left with lots of time on my hands. I've had last week and this week off, which has been quite nice.

( General catchup stuff )

Ok love and ether to everyone.

Another milestone yesterday.  I handed in the first full draft of The Brick to my supervisor, 506 pages long.  I had to spiral bind it in two volumes with the largest binding combs I could find (46 mm).  It's turned out to be quite a tome.  So anyway, he said that he should be able to get it back to me in a week, so it looks like I'll probably be able to submit it before I start work.

I seem to be entering a period of celebration at the moment, with some upcoming causes including;

• Getting first job
• Handing in The Brick
• Passing oral exam
• 30th birthday
• Graduation

Bring it on I say!  I turned up to home group the other night and everyone had dressed in pink, and we had a pink coconut cake (courtesy of page_one ) and sparkling pink wine (this is all of great relevance if you know where I'll be working).  It was such a nice surprise.  My good friends Jeremy and Merinda gave me a bottle of cognac too, which is fabulous!

You know how you hear those stories about the grad student who is mere weeks away from submitting their thesis and then suddenly their computer crashes and they lose their thesis? Well, but for the grace of God, that guy is me.

One of the things that you should always do if you purchase a laptop is to get an extended warranty for at least three years. This is because around the three year mark, (probably in direct proportion to the mass of dead skin accumulating in the keyboard) things just start breaking down. Unfortunately for me, I bought my computer about three years ago and up until now, it'd been fine... Until the hard drive got bad sectors.

First stroke of luck - I am so paranoid about my data that I have it backed up in about seven places at any one time (hard drive, memory stick, ipod, phone, NMR server at uni, AFS backup at uni, allocated server space at uni) which means that in the unlikely event of global thermonuclear war, I should still be able to submit my PhD thesis for examination.

Second stroke of luck - my laptop still has two months remaining on the extended warranty! Yes! This means that I was able to get a new hard drive for free, the additional bonus being that the smallest that you can get these days is about 80 GB - twice the size of my old one. Schweet!! My experience with Visual Group was much better this time than the last one...

So anyway it's ended up taking another chunk of my time, and delayed my work yet again. Still, everything is back up and running and I am on track to be finished before you know it, dear invisible blog friends...

I've been riding the Auckland bus system now for about 10 years, and loving it.  The public transport system in this city gets so much crap from people yet I've had far more positive experience with it than negative.  Our bus is invariably on time every morning, and riding in listening to my iPod whilst cruising down the bus lanes along Tamaki Drive is actually a very real pleasure.  I would hate having to drive to work!  What a hassle having to pay megabucks for petrol, sitting around in gridlock traffic and then paying exorbitant fees for parking at the other end.  It's so much sweeter on the bus

People's reasons for disliking public transport are varied, but what really makes me mad is the prevailing attitude insisting that we desperately need more buses and trains - so that other people can use them, and I can keep driving to work.  That makes my blood boil. 

One of the funny things that I've found on the bus over the years (and I'm sure I'm not alone with this) is that Anna and I have all these made up names for the regulars who catch the same bus as us every morning. 

For example there's Cate Blanchett, the well-dressed spitting-image of the movie star who spends the entire trip carefully doing her makeup and hair.  There's the Loves - Daniel and Foxy.  Daniel looks like he wants to be an aviator, with his fleece-lined leather jacket, tightly wrapped scarf and his goggle-like glasses.  Foxy, his twig-thin wife, hails from the eastern bloc, if one is to judge by her accent.  Maybe Daniel met her there whilst flying an undercover mission?

Dave is a tall businessman with spiky grey hair and a trenchcoat who has an endearing habit of folding his newspaper pages in half lengthways as he reads it on the trip in.  Paul is a balding family man, never seen without his trusty polar fleece.  His wife and toddler stand on the pavement and wave him goodbye as he catches the bus every morning.  Blondie and Londie are the best of friends, and chat incessantly all the way in.  Courtney Love catches our bus too, at the same stop as the lady who times her morning routine so that she gets everything done except her hair, which she brushes on the way in.

What's quite funny is that it turns out that one of our Bus Buddies works at Anna's new workplace, and so we ended up learning her real name.  It feels a bit weird actually knowing what she is actually called after knowing her as "Sherid" for about a year.

I'd love to know what our Bus Buddies do, and what they are like.  I reckon that the imaginary versus the real would make a great short story, a la Love Actually.  Know what I mean?

I thought I'd provide photographic evidence of my injured ankle, for any skeptics out there. 



It's bruised really badly, but the swelling has gone down a lot and I can walk on it ok now, thanks largely to the donation of a bandage by Dr McB at home group and a good dose of prayer.  It's good to have friends who are medical professionals.  Still, it looks like I'll be off for the rest of the season (boohoo) so I'll have to go along and cheer loudly for the rest of the team.  Silver lining - I'm just grateful that I injured myself at the end of the season, rather than at the beginning.

Actually I forgot to say that on the night one of the opposition players must have been a keen med student because he was very quick to help me elevate it, ran and got me some ice and offered helpful medical advice, all under the quiet smile of our team captain Ben - a registrar who is doing a PhD in surgery.

This vid has been floating around the internet for a while so you've probably seen it by now, but it's so awesome I just have to post it here.  This is the 1970 footage of a dead sperm whale that had washed ashore in Oregon, USA being disposed of by local authorities using half a ton of dynamite.  It's so awesomely awesome - the awesomest thing ever!  Hug me!! 

Check out the raining chunks of putrid whale flesh and blubber at 1:40.