hnpcc | more interview meme

This time with questions from

barrington. Usual thing, if you want to be interviewed, comment and ask and after a very long time I'll get back to you with 5 questions. Probably. :-)

1. Have you seen that film, A Very Long Engagement? By which I mean: it's taken this long to get engaged. Will I live to see you two married, or should I pass any invitation down to my grandchildren?

Heh. Given you didn't make it to the engagement party, what's the odds you'll make the wedding? ;-) It has and hasn't taken a long time to get engaged. Yes, we've been together for quite a while now (all guesses as to how long welcome) but for at least part of that I was very preoccupied with the postgraduate-experience-from-hell and not really focusing on longer term things. You will probably live to see us married, although actually seeing the wedding might not happen: there is still a good chance we'll go "oh buggerit, too much hassle" and elope. And grandchildren? You're reproducing then? ;-)

Actually if you've seen Coupling at all: sometimes I wonder just how much we are like that.

2. When did you know you wanted to be a scientist?

Ah. Difficult question to answer. I don't think I ever consciously decided that I wanted to be a scientist, not least because I didn't really have anything other than a vague idea of what a "scientist" did - thanks to the wonders of television I knew they generally had bad hair, were male and were often insane though. Oh and wore white lab coats, best not to forget that. During year 11 and 12 I did science subjects for two reasons - I was interested in them and the arts subjects I was interested in clashed with them and were likely to give me a lower Anderson score. (I still bought all the English lit books and read them though). Uni I did science because I got into it and I was still finding it interesting. I sort of moved from Physics/Chemistry into Biological sciences during 2nd year as I found Biochemistry and Microbiology more interesting, then got funneled into majoring in those areas. Much to my surprise I got into Honours (if you ever see my academic record you'll understand why that was a bit of a surprise) and found that I really enjoyed lab work and that I understood more molecular biology than I'd realised. So much so in fact that I decided to continue with science and went out and attempted to do a PhD. Now I'm a lot more ambivalent about things. I don't consider myself to be a scientist in actual fact - I tend to refer to myself as an RA more than anything else. Basically I sort of got here by a combination of interest and drifting, with the occasional actual decision made in the middle. Do I still want to be a scientist? Dunno. If I do then I probably need to do a PhD - *sigh* - and if I don't then I need to work out what the hell I do want to do.

3. Explain what you do, in your job, in a sentence. (It can be a long sentence, and you can assume a reasonably lay-knowledge of science.)

I express potential antigens from Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium yoelii in tobacco and lettuce plants with the eventual aim of creating a low cost, low tech, potentially oral (but probably either intra-nasal or injected) vaccine for malaria which can be easily produced in third world countries and safely used by infants.

Or I tamper in God's domain. Your choice :-)

4. Red Dwarf: as good as we remember? Or have you re-evaluated on DVD? (I know, I've asked someone else this as well, but I'd like a second opinion.)

We actually re-watched the first two series a couple of months ago and I was surprised to see how funny they actually are. I haven't re-watched any of the later series yet, and I've no intention of ever seeing series 8 again (unless it's my "Let's re-edit the first three episodes by committee - can't be worse than it already is" panel). I also re-read the first two books again - still like them. It's just that everything seems slightly tinged by sadness over how dire the last series was.

5. What idiocy - an idea, an opinion, an act - angers you the most?

Argh.

On a day to day basis it's people who can't merge that really bug me. How can you get a driver's license if you don't realise what the merging lane's for? They can't all have bribed Dandenong RTO.

On a federal basis the whole indefinite detention without trial of asylum seekers and other illegal immigrants disturbs me a lot. The idea - quite widespread in my former workplace - that all asylum seekers are members of Al-Queda also was very irritating - and bloody stupid.

Argh. What angers me the most.

It varies a lot. The homophobia in some parts of the community (and talkback radio) annoys me a lot. I don't get it. People who don't vaccinate their children annoy the crap out of me (seriously here, I know someone who's given their child a homeopathic tetanus "vaccine". Oh. My. God.) The whole vaccines cause autism - I don't believe that they do and frankly I'd rather take the risk than have them die in infancy of what are some pretty bloody horrible illnesses. If you've ever seen footage of a child with whooping cough.. it's not pretty.

What angers me the most overall though? People refusing to accept the possibility that their view might be wrong and holding on blindly. Refusing even to try and consider the other side's view. Yes, I know I do it too (ask Dean about that).

I might try answering these questions again in a year or so and see what's changed. :-)