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Wednesday, 14 July 2010
FIELD TRIP TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA

You will find more photos at:

http://community.webshots.com/user/gismormucki


Posted by Mucki at 9:01 PM KDT
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Thursday, 1 April 2010
ON THE ROAD TO BORNEO

 

Borneo - hotspot for biodiversity, up there with the Galapagos, the Amazon and Australia. Primary rain-forest, amazing underwater world, massive cave systems, diverse wildlife, pygmy elephants, Orang utans, Proboscis monkeys, highest mountain in South-East-Asia (4095m), great food, friendly people and stunning beaches. At the same time logged down, dead reefs, endangered species due to human interference, high unemployment and exploitation by big companies with the money never returning to Borneo. Now in a time, where nothing is left to log, the economy focuses on alternative incomes: oil palm plantations and tourism.

 

Borneo, split between Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia, is coined by exploitation - similar as India is coined by capitalism, Australia by health and safety, and Sweden by its bikini team. And you feel this exploitation: to actually see the hot spots in Borneo you have to dig deep into your pockets, it seems the country does not really care if locals should have a right to see this beautiful sights as well and at the same time you also realize that the locals actually do not really seem to care. The few primary forests left are islands in an ocean of palm oil plantations, which produce an enormous capital - for a the few people, who own them.
 
However, seeing these hotspots are definitely worth your time and money - they are not only mind blowing compared to what you have seen before, but it also might be that you will not be able to see this in 10 years time. It is a race with time. Speaking about race - Borneo ended up a bit of a personal race for myself as well only having 12 days in my pocket. Hence I ended up on one day diving at 30m depth in Sipadan with schools of Barracudas, Jackfish, Parrot fish and sharks, watching turtles shag, with the next day getting attacked by my favorite friends the leeches without bringing neither a lighter nor salt. Not a good feeling, especially when they make it above the knee. Not much sleep and a few flights and bustrips later I was already adventuring in one of the most impressive cave systems of the world in Mulu/Sarawa, full of snakes, spiders and as little as 3 million bats, who exit the cave every day at dawn to hunt for food in the form of a chinese flying dragon - pretty impressive. The next day I was ready to tackle the 4095 m mountain - in a single day up and down - getting fully 'kinabalued', but pulling a similar stunt as years earlier on top of Mt. Kili... You would think there is no better timing for one of these famous full body massages, but that did not really pan out as anticipated. Getting oiled up by a little malay guy, I soon figured that massage doesnt go well with a massive sunburn and sore legs, but too late. I decided to go for the relaxing massage instead of a hard massage, but the relaxation stopped after 10 min when my malay guy was trying to suss out if I am gay. With the happy ending in mind I was left with 50 min of tension and it felt I have climbed the mountain a second time...
 
 
 
Pushing my limits further I decided to check out one of these jungle observation platforms ... sounded like a great idea, but it wasnt. a tiny ladder (0.5m wide) was nailed onto a 60m high tree with a couple of wooden boards nailed onto the branches forming the observation platform. I still haven't figured out why I started climbing this unsecured dodgy piece of something, especially with my bad vertigo. dont look down, dont look down, dont look down, looked down - panic mode. now I have never really realized how stupid this panic mode is as it does not do anything for your survival, rather the opposite, you start sweating, your muscle cramp up, your knees go soft, you dehydrate and your coordination just buggers off - all quite essential, when you are hanging 50 m above the ground - any idea how high feaking 50 m are? I already shit myself when I take off 4 m waves. This 50 m wipe out would have hurt a lot. I somehow convinced myself (well what were my options...) to manage the last 10 m only to realize that I had to get down somehow as well. To top everything, there was absolutely nothing to see up there, except more freakin trees. I somehow managed to get down again and believe me that bottle of whiskey at the end of the day with the chief scientist of the Danum Valley tasted extra good.

 

 
 
 
Hanging out with all the primates was fun - Orang Utans, red and silver leave monkey, the funny gonzo nose proboscis monkeys (only found in Borneo), long tail monkeys, Gibbons and Macaque monkeys. Believe me the nose size - schniedel size ratio is absolute bullocks ;-)

yep Borneo - would make a great destination for a field trip ;-) especially the Maliau Basin, deep primary forest, that has not seen a human footprint until the 80s and is still well preserved. Probably one of the most untouched places on Earth - lets hope it stays that way.

Markus

PS.: you ll find some fotos at http://community.webshots.com/user/gismormucki
 


Posted by Mucki at 12:01 AM KDT
Updated: Thursday, 8 April 2010 3:48 PM KDT
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Sunday, 28 February 2010
SHOULDNT HAVE BEEN SURFING THE TSUNAMI ...

Posted by Mucki at 1:56 PM JST
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Friday, 26 February 2010
ACDC CONCERT WAS JUST AWESOME
40000 people going mad over a 60 year old stripping to the right soundtrack ... I like it!

Posted by Mucki at 2:01 PM JST
Updated: Saturday, 6 March 2010 2:02 PM JST
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Thursday, 31 December 2009
The Year 2009

It's always good to look back and swift through memories that make you smile - the great ocean road, papua new guinea, graduation, lots of surfing, byron bay, novel discoveries, crazy halloween parties, new life and death, hard work and fun play; it certainly has been an eventful year, however I can already feel the urge of new adventures coming up - 2010 - I wonder what it brings and where I go ... but for now please enjoy the picture highlights of the year 2009.

http://community.webshots.com/user/gismormucki


Posted by Mucki at 1:35 PM JST
Updated: Tuesday, 12 January 2010 1:41 PM JST
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Saturday, 10 October 2009
Nokia E61 rocks

you can skype me now directly on my phone:

skypenick: muckimax


Posted by Mucki at 1:47 PM KDT
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Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Formal Graduation

That's it ....


Posted by Mucki at 7:03 PM KDT
Updated: Tuesday, 28 July 2009 7:05 PM KDT
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Sunday, 10 May 2009
PAPUA NEW GUINEA FOTOS ONLINE
http://community.webshots.com/user/gismormucki

Posted by Mucki at 3:01 PM KDT
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Tuesday, 14 April 2009
ON THE ROAD TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Certainly not a country for people, who like to play it save or do like to plan ahead. The country has quite a dangerous reputation that mainly originates from the two biggest cities Port Moresby and Lae -- we therefore avoided these cities and ended up with a completely different experience, far far away of dangerous -- PNG hosts some of the most friendliest people of the world.


We (Esteban and I) flew into Rabaul/New Britain, which a friend recommended us ... I think that friend had never been in Rabaul nor other parts of PNG, cause I would never ever recommend anyone to go there in the first place. Yet it still turned out to become a very interesting and exciting adventure.

The first shock were the prices - while it is dead cheap to fly into PNG (Virgin for $400) the flights in PNG are horrendously expensive, mainly due to the monopol of air ninguinie, so that short flights cost more than the international flight. The next shock were the guesthouse prices -- for a 5mx2m 2 bedroom shithole they literally charge you $200 a night -- WTF! yes, what are the alternatives? resorts/nice bushhuts for 400-800 bucks a night or sleeping on the streets. well i tell you, looking at our budget the second option became so attractive that we actually went for it.

rabaul had been blasted away in 1994 by a huge vulcanic eruption and 70% of the city i still 5m under the earth. the little beachtown everything moved to, to me described as a relaxed beachtown, is a bit of a ran down shithole itself, a place that certainly keeps you in your overpriced hotelroom after sunset. the region itself is quite breathtaking, sourrounded by 5 active vulcanos and amazing reefs, it really looks very beautiful, except for the fact that that one vulcano explodes every couple of years...

after the initial disappointment, we decided to take up the adventure and started to explore png on our own -- well there wasnt much other options as there does not exist any tourism - no trail, no nothing, which is actually exactly what i like, except i havent had it in years (colombia and parts of africa), so i had to get used to it again.

 
It turned out to be very very easy - we met these random people at the "harbor", who invited us to come to their village at the duke of york. taking up this invitation was the best thing that could have happened. so we ended up living in this village that actually never hosted a white person before ... we brought some food along, which the family prepared -- man the kids were so cute and fun. kind of everyone was the uncle mother sister or cousin of each other in that village haha, you d have to travel far to pick up a girlfriend i tell you. the curiosity was even, they were exactly as much interested in us as we were in them. we ended up teaching 200 kids about mexico, austria and science, climbed coconut trees, tried to make chocolate out of cacao plants, swam with dugongs and dolphins (in a local bay where just hundreds of them live ...), went fishing in wooden canoes, ate fruits i ve never seen before, made fire from wood, entertained the kids, learned the local dialect (very useful ....) and nearly got initiated to become a duk duk ...

the duk duk .. haha, that is the best. so they got their secret tribal tradition, the duk duks ... they are for men only, they have their own stretch of land, where noone is allowed to go near. they are all hunters and fishers with their full on tribal costumes and make-up (quite scary looking fellows). some of our friends talked to the eldest for permission to show us their secret place, unfortunately, well actually luckily they did not allow us -- would be pretty not so special, if they would just allow two random strangers into their supersecret society, yet at the same time it would have been wicked. it can get pretty rough there sometimes, as the son of the chief of the duk duks told me that someone poisoned his sister from the mainland and then the duk duks went out for revenge ... an eye for an eye, that is the rule here in png.

after that stay we moved on to new ireland. in little dinghies, on back of trucks and on old busses the journey went on through thick jungle in the middle of nowhere. well not exactly nowhere as they certainly had bottleshops on the bus route, so esteban and i decided to have a few beers to ease the pain of the 6h busride. after we ran out of the first 6, we thought to tank up at the next boozestop. the bus stops and esteban jumps out to get some more beer. it was all so clear for us that we never switched on our brains, thinking that it might be just a normal busstop rather than a bottleshop haha, so esteban ended up walking in this local hut of that family, who probably never ever seen a mexican before, at 11pm, pitch dark in the jungle -- asking for 6 beers haha ... brilliant. wish i d have seen the face of the tired mum opening the door and offering esteban a coffee instead, but esteban wont share that moment with me ;-)

up north of new ireland, in kavieng we ended up sleeping again with some locals. this part of the trip was still holidays, but at the same time i tried to suss out a field trip for a future work collaboration. turned out that this would open another couple of doors and by meeting the right people, they sorted us out with a boat and a 4x4 pickup truck in the name of science - so we ended up checking out all the good islands and reefs around kavieng and drove the car into the jungle, where we met a bush man that showed us amazing waterfalls and crickets the size of my arm. crazy. found a lot of conesnails, so i think it might be just a matter of time till i ll be back there, this time on a work trip.

the diving up there was also pretty good -- although many of the reefs been seriously damaged and overfished, some of the reefs are still mindblowing and full of fish. in general png is pretty lawless - there are no nationl parks etc, and it pretty much gets raped by other countries that just log and fish away and sell it to the locals in overpriced cans again. seems png is ruled by a few people that keep the currency strong due to exports of gold, minerals, oil, wood and fish,  and make a lot of money, while the rest of the country just lives into the day, just thinking about next week, with a democrazy in place that doesnt really work ... but i guess there are plenty of other countries just like that. png is/was certainly not ready for a democrazy yet. bit of a shame, especially when you look at what an amazing place they have ... and it just gets exploited by western countries -- shocking.

anyways, i m back in brisbane again, working hard, as more conferences, workshops and holidays are coming up soon and i still got some important deadlines coming up. i ll be sticking around australia at least till the end of the year and then i ll see what is happening, depending if i successfully make these deadlines ....

hope everything is good, always keen to get some updates,
i ll be in europe (austria, switzerland and barcelona) in june, so hope to catch up with some of you,

Mucki

Posted by Mucki at 8:17 PM KDT
Updated: Friday, 1 May 2009 8:55 PM KDT
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Thursday, 22 January 2009
THE JOYNT

you sit down next to a glass of wine and are set back to new orleans 1930 listening to live blues full of passion, fun and love. that little corner cafe i found the other day represents a very different kind of australian crowd. a crowd that you wont find in the sterile main stream ozzy ozzy oi oi oi type of pub, but which is very typical to the laid back area around west end. they all have one thing in common - their passion for music, which you can totally feel at their wednesday night jam sessions .... amazing spot - life music from wednesday through sunday till midnight - go check it out!

just a shame that this type of spots are hard to find here in brisbane, took me 3 years and believe me, i have been looking ;-) you find this spot at 48 Montague Road, South Brisbane

http://www.myspace.com/353556177


Posted by Mucki at 1:23 PM JST
Updated: Thursday, 22 January 2009 3:37 PM JST
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Sunday, 18 January 2009
ON THE ROAD TRAVEL DIARIES

you always wondered what a nonwarmduscher is? well then you should go and check out our homepage:

http://nonwarmduscher.tripod.com

 

what type of adventures I have when I am on the road? check out my on the road travel diaries:

http://nonwarmduscher.tripod.com/id20.html

 

too lazy to read? here we go, my on the road foto blog:

http://community.webshots.com/user/gismormucki


Posted by Mucki at 8:00 PM JST
Updated: Sunday, 18 January 2009 8:45 PM JST
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THE BEST JOB EVER...

caretaker of the islands in the whitsundays? yep, i cant miss out on that opportunity, can I ? so i sent in my little priate video ...

http://www.islandreefjob.com/applicants/watch/mB-p9EwEQEI

lets see some 5 star votes haha ;-)


 

 


Posted by Mucki at 12:01 AM JST
Updated: Thursday, 29 January 2009 2:55 PM JST
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Saturday, 17 January 2009
OXIDATIVE FOLDING OF PEPTIDES AND PROTEINS

My first book chapter got published. Feels good ;-) You can now buy it at amazon for only $161 instead of $189 .. a bargain ;-)

http://www.amazon.com/Oxidative-Peptides-Proteins-Biomolecular-Sciences/dp/0854041486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232210426&sr=8-1


Posted by Mucki at 1:43 AM JST
Updated: Sunday, 18 January 2009 8:19 PM JST
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CONTRACEPTION
yeah, picking the one out of a handful ... shocking ;-) well i am just testing a new and very promissing contraception method -- the brand is called Vollbart and so far it works super efficiently. i ll put some pics on soon ...

Posted by Mucki at 1:33 AM JST
Updated: Sunday, 18 January 2009 8:16 PM JST
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Monday, 12 January 2009
RELATIONSHIPS OUT OF CONVENIENCE ?
3.5 years in australia - around 30 active friends in their late 20s, all arriving in australia single from different parts of the world. now they are all hooked up, in relationships, engaged, married, parents. how did that happen?
 
when you live in your home town or in a place for a period of 3 years, you most likely have a job and a stack of good friends that will keep you pretty busy - so i would estimate that you meet around 30 people a year who you have something in common with and who you will hang out a couple of times with (unless you are robbie or just read the game). of course not everyone of these 30 people a year will end up being part of your close friend circle (actually only few will fit with your friends, family and busy schedule), but you end up knowing them well enough to consider them for a relationship. if you are not bisexual, out of 30 will become 20 as we naturally tend to meet more people of the opposite sex rather than the same sex. so lets say 20 people a year. over 3 years that makes 60 potential candidates ...
 
even if you think the number 20 per year is too low, double, triple , multiply it, adjust it to yourself, etc., and compare it with what is out there .... 500 million candidates (between the age of 20 and 35, one sex). so the 300 people you came across over 15 years represent 0.00006% plusminus depending on your number per year ;-)
now if you would want to invest all your money in one company and bind it for the rest of your life, you might  want to see more than 0.00006% of your options or wouldnt you?
 
and that is something that puzzles me. the world is so big and we have so much time, yet if you break it down it seems that we generally pick our partner for life out of a shockingly tiny percentage of possiblities.

but lets have a look at the selection filters we use: the experience filter and the friend filter.
 
the experience and judgement you acquire over the years certainly increase the selection quality and potential of the people you meet, yet at the same time the older you get the more specialized your environment gets and you often miss out on a wider spectrum. this can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your preference, eg.: you are a scientist and want to be with a scientist or you rather want to be with an artist or lawyer, with someone out of your field.
 
the friend/family filter: meet only friends of friends, then you can be pretty sure that these are trustworthy people, your mate can summarize their pros and cons and they most likely like and do what you do. now this is properly the most efficient and commonly used selection filter in our society, yet it once again puts you down the yellow line and you end up with more or less mirror images of who you are or what you present.
 
assuming our overall drive is to get kids and to give them a sheltered home in a healthy environment such as an intact realtionship with father and mother, then these filters look like good strategies, as we end up with people that have a lot in common with us, that have similar education levels, speak our language and often even have the same job. certainly you would disagree with your mirror image less than with anyone else.
 
so is this it? is our selection for a life partner restricted to 20 people per year? is this efficient enough or is it just convenience? wouldnt we drive better if we would aim for a more diverse selection pool? or would this diversity just be a waste of time as you would disagree with different people more than with your mirror images? 

Family, kids, parents - reproduction .... well I would say reproduction can be called the mayor theme of life and we have been doing this for quite a long time. everything else, such as the human society, rules, religion, love, speeddating, careers and sports is somehow influenced by sexual selection and evolved around it. Yet with all our experience and wisdom and million of years of evolution we still pick our partner for life out of a rather small selection of mirror images.
 
why? is it because it is the most efficient apporach or is it due to lack of liberties of the past (shorter life circles, harder life, more diseases, no birth control, supressed women, no free and easy travel, etc.)
will this change as we live now in an era of freedom and technologies? will a bigger and more diverse selection pool be an advantage for our kids?
 
lets have a look at one of these new liberties. in the past traveling wasnt so easy than it is today (unless you were Ghengis Khan, who's genes are still present in 0.5% of todays male population ....). if you live in a first world country and have a proper job then you can now easily travel to 70% of the world, in a short period of time and meet various different cultures.
 
when you travel you leave most of the times your job, your friends and family and your busy schedule at home. you expose yourself to exotic new places and the extra time and the curiosity combined with the fact that we do not like to be alone, will make you meet way more people than 20 per year with a much higher diversity than the diversity you find in your hometown.
 
having done a little bit of traveling myself and considering that this issue was obviously somehow present in my head i come to the following inconclusive conclusion ;-)
 
30 years old, over 80 different country visited, single. what does this tell us?
 
haha, yeah sure, something must be wrong with me. thank you very much, i will consider that ;-). the other options are, my biological clock is not ticking, i am above my hormones / dont fall in love easily, too much diversity does not work, or i am one of the 0.5% with the gene of Ghengis Khan....
 
in the end it doesnt really matter, cause one experience i took out of all my travles was that my partner selection could not really be changed. when it came down to meeting someone with potential for a longer relationship it was predominantly not someone local, but another traveler.
 
yet there is a little bit more diversity in this approach, as most of the travelers do come from around the world. on the other hand, i am still single and it can well happen that i fully end up with an austrian girl ;-)
 
so does diversity work? is diversity a good or bad thing for kids and a healthy family/relationship? is it worth the effort? wouldnt an arranged marriage like in india be a better approach? or a deeply religious marriage? it often seems that more rules, less freedom and someone who tells you what to do often leads to a longer working relationships. 
 
i dont know, but would be interesting to find out. maybe there are studies out there that crunch proper numbers, race relations to divorce rates, demographic analyses etc ... yet i think it is a nearly impossible task to get a proper study happening with divorce rates, race relations, and different cultural factors telling the full story on how happy the partners and the kids are. maybe a steve levitt should have a go at it, he is good at these type of questions (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/).
 
but what i do know is that on these numbers the dating websites build on. the problem is just that there is no trust or smell filter and you will generally find more desparate than high quality potentials there. they still make their money though -  a lot of money. yet the better option is obvious, yet often not too easy - it is to go out there and get into that group of 20 and chances are high that you become "the one" (or the  "one for the week", depends what you prefer ;-)). and this is what that brilliant book "the game" by neil strauss is all about - sometimes shocking, but it works amazingly well, especially due to the number game we just analyzed ...
 
meanwhile i ll just go with my instinct - life is diversity and i ll just do my part to keep it that way ;-)
 

Posted by Mucki at 9:08 AM JST
Updated: Monday, 19 January 2009 9:16 AM JST
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Tuesday, 6 January 2009
BEST OF AUSTRALIA 2008 IS OUT NOW

here we go, just follow the link and you ll see what i ve been up to ;-)

http://community.webshots.com/user/gismormucki

 


Posted by Mucki at 3:55 PM JST
Updated: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 9:40 AM JST
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Monday, 5 January 2009
DINOS FOTO BLOG

I really like this guys fotos ... happens to be that he is also a good friend of mine ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bvirdis/


Posted by Mucki at 9:41 AM JST
Updated: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 9:51 AM JST
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Saturday, 3 January 2009
ON THE ROAD DOWN THE EAST COAST


 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I was pretty surprised I have to say how beautiful the east coast was with its amazing beaches and national parks. Xmas in yamba and then chasing down the waves through places such as arrawarra, hat head np, crescent head, delicate nobby, point plomer, seal rocks, yagon, tea gardens and with new years in sydney. The firework was pretty though only 10 min long and did not fill the expectations ... plus at 12.30 everyone went home .... australians ;-)
On the way back we stopped at anna bay, nelson bay, south west rock, red rock, yuragir np and byron. Did a wicked dive in south west rock at fishrock - a 24m cave dive with plenty of sharks inside and outside the 80m cave -- one of the best dives in oz so far. 
Surf wise was a bit dodgy as i first learned how to break my board then how to fix it and then i tweaked a nerve in my back and was out of order for a week -- man, is this whats happening once you are 30+??? i hope not ;-)
 



Posted by Mucki at 8:59 AM JST
Updated: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 9:37 AM JST
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Thursday, 1 January 2009
2008

When I started thinking about 2008, it seemed to me a quite uneventful year, mainly due to the fact of all the crazy hours for months to finish my phd. but when i actually looked through my calender and screened the fotos, i wasnt able to claim that anymore ....

just the overseas trips alone were good fun - fiji, taiwan, st. anton, japan, austria, shanghai ... conferences on australian islands as well as in vienna ... surfaris on the east coast, people visiting ... things been actually not too bad. funny thing is that the main things on my mind were still finishing the phd and surfing a barrel. so far i have only achieved half of the tasks and i will have to stay close to the ocean until i have mastered the other task as well. 

what's next people ask me constantly and i guess after creating some images in my head i have to look what is reality out there - ideas such as barcelona, nyc, san diego and brisbane pop into my head, european fellowships, finding a job with more translation, more impact than academic science, so i guess i m screening from an academic postdoc fellowship to jobs with the UN, red cross, WHO or even just working in the field on a cruise ship to the antarctiaca ... well, yep, so i guess it is important to actually see what is real and possible and maybe i tumble over something even better that i didnt even know that it existed ;-) or maybe someone reads that and wants to employ me, who knows....


Posted by Mucki at 9:58 AM JST
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Monday, 22 December 2008
THESIS SUBMISSSION
Finally its off and I m off too now - heading down the east coast to sydney for new year's celebration. The thesis goes now to two examiners for about 8 weeks, then corrections back and that's it, I ll be Dr officially ;-)

Posted by Mucki at 12:01 AM JST
Updated: Wednesday, 7 January 2009 8:59 AM JST
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