First week= Success!

First week is over. What a whirlwind. Monday morning I met with my supervisor Dr. Phil Seddon at 9 am. We talked about research a bit and what I needed to do to get everything set up in the department. He took me on a tour of the Marples Building and Zoology complex. From Abbey, it will take me about 15-20 minutes to get to my office. It’s not right on the main campus and is actually one of the furthest buildings from Abbey, go figure. I was originally given a temporary office space in the Annex, a pretty separate, cold place attached to the building (it used to be an old scientific glass blowing laboratory). The room had four desks but no one else had claimed them. So I was along. Thankfully I met two great friends, one living in Abbey from India studying epilepsy in tadpoles (I will call her S) and one from the UK studying Takahe, an endangered bird native to New Zealand only (I will call him J). They were in an office with a desk that was vacant at the moment, as the person using it is away until August. They invited me to stay in there, which I gladly accepted.

So temporarily I am on the third floor, down the hall from Phil (although he is a very busy man and not in the office much). There are six desks total. It is really nice to have somewhere to go to every morning. So recap for the week:

• Met many people in the department
• Got my email hickcox@postgrad.otago.ac.nz. It is a mouthful but better than the student one
• Walked around campus more, met more people, made some friends
• Went to the grocery store and signed up for the discount card (super important!)
• Opened at Westpac bank account
• Did laundry for the first time
• Got my student card and access to a bunch of stuff
• Went to an orientation for new, international PhD students

I spent much of the week just getting acquainted with Dunedin, the university, the department, and Abbey. It all was a success!