Quick update and live in Queensland.

Hello everyone,

It has been a long while since I last blogged. I have sidetracked from my initial career goal which is to pursue a residency in veterinary pathology to the world of drugs instead. So many things have happened, and I recently moved up to Queensland to undertake an Honours project investigating topical pain-killers for cattle that would provide systemic effects i.e. something like fentanyl patches for cows. As long as I don't muck it up, I would be continuing the project as a PhD. It is a part of a project funded by a drug company and the Australian beef industry body, which is great to hear that they are taking an initiative step towards pain management of livestock.

In Australia, important husbandry procedures such as dehorning and castration are performed by non-veterinarians personnel, and analgesia or anaesthesia is often not provided to the animal. Whilst the animal is still under a certain age, there is no legal requirement to address the pain caused by the procedures. The methods of performing surgical husbandry procedures and the lack thereof analgesia remain controversial, and raise overwhelming responses from the general public. By the end of 2018, I do hope that my hardwork would pay off and he result of my research would contribute to bettering animal welfare and advancing the knowledge of the scientific community. I would then gain another nerdy title and become Dr. Dr.

The first guy from Jack'd and Melbourne

I had been doubting whether I should do a post like this. Perhaps, trying something new wouldn't hurt. Several weeks ago, my housemate C mentioned Jack'd to me and recommended downloading it. Then soon after, I was chatting to a guy (who turned out to be called C) about life and animals. He invited me for a coffee then it turned out we both got more than just coffee and soon we found ourselves cuddling in bed.

Crucial daily diet

Cuddling is so blissful and it is a great way to recover after some strenuous activities. Often enough I had good conversations and find out more about the person while cuddling. C talked about how he is originally from New South Wales and moved to Melbourne for work several years ago but ended up living here ever since. Melbourne is ranked quite highly again this year in term of livability. The city has a strong coffee culture and cycling community which are a match in heaven for me as a caffeinated cyclist enthusiast. When I think about that, it is definitely one of the cities I would settle down. But sadly everything in Australia is so far away and it takes a long time to travel to other parts of the world.

Self challenges

It is one of my good habits that I would try something new to challenge myself every year. This year challenges include hot yoga and couchsurfing. My mom has always been into yoga and she taught me and my sister to do it as well. At first, we both were rather skeptical. Glaring at her doing those yoga postures, I couldn't help wondering if it would be physically engaging at all. What a wimp and girly exercise. It turned out my sister and I were quite wrong, and we really enjoyed it. My shoulder pain from sitting down in front of a computer went away gradually after I started practising yoga. Then I stepped it up and tried hot yoga. It was both physically and mentally challenging that I almost fainted in my first class. Certainly, I have come a long way from that and it does really helps getting my body toned for the upcoming Australian summer!

Stretch and keep smiling (and sweating) :)

Let's surf

Recently, I had a road trip to Canberra en route to Sydney. The initial plan was that I would be staying with my old high school mate but it turned out that he couldn't host me. Couchsurfing suddenly came to my mind since I didn't want to stay in a hotel and would like a local to point me around. After searching on a couchsurfing web, there was a interesting profile of a female student and she had a number of good references from people who stayed at hers. We met in front of her place which was house shared between five other people, including her boyfriend and a cat. It was a great experience meeting new people in a total unfamiliar environment. I ended up staying with her again on my way back to Melbourne. We had great conversations over drinks about her sexuality, namely intersex, her open relationship with her current boyfriend, me being gay and how her friend's gaydar detected me etc. Sometimes, good friendships are built over some alcohol and pots. C'est la vie!

Next step?

I am back in Melbourne and it is great to be back though I struggled to cope with the weather at first. One thing that I miss dearly was the coffee culture. Yes, I am a coffee addict/snob. Nothing is better than cycling around for a decent cup of coffee. I think I actually owe my degree to coffee. If I didn't study to be a vet, I might have been a barista. Haha.

It sums up how I function.

Another thing is that I got into a master program at Edinburgh. So unless anything better pop up before the middle of 2014, I will be heading to Scotland!

Love is All You Need?

I am getting ready to travel back to Melbourne and I will just land back in time for the Melbourne International Film Festival 2013. The films shown on the festival are usually pretty weird and artsy in a good way. Somehow while I was browsing around, I stumbled across this interesting short film which is rather though provoking (well, for me at least). The film is a few years old and it is not MIFF though.

The film is called Love is All You Need? I couldn't help thinking that it would be quite nice if the world was actually like the film - GLBT being the 'normal' and the majority.

How one should live one's live?

I stumbled across this picture ages ago (and I can't recall where I found it). At that time, I was struggling through my veterinary course and I was quite lost. The message on the picture gave me courage and I would probably need that courage again when I start a job hunt. I have been travelling around and been really busy. Hopefully once I get a job and settle in, I will have more time to post regularly.

Yes, I have done the travel often part. I think I need to stop over analysing.

I'm not the only gay person in my family?!?

Nowadays, our mobile phone holds so much information about ourselves. Just checking the photo albums - they will speak thousands words about who we are and what we do. There are some rather private photos that would even provide too much information. Apart from that glancing through the search history provides clues of our personal interests. I can still be a tad more careful about these sort of information on my phone but sometimes it is a bother trying to cover all the traces. However, the thought of confidential stuff slipping through scares me. That is why I take precautions when passing my iPhone to anyone whether sharing a photo of food I devoured or a photo of a hot guy cuddling a kitten in bed though I am generally less concerned with my friends who know that I'm gay.

In Asia, talking about sex is a taboo so let alone talking to sexuality and being gay. Fortunately, it is becoming a lot more accepting in Thailand (after all, Thailand is considered a paradise for gay). People can be quite oblivious about this too so they never notice anything and my mum snuggles this group. The concepts of family structure between Western and Eastern cultures differ in a interesting way. Asians tend to be very family oriented  and usually include extended family members as our family too i.e. aunt, uncle, cousin etc. Recently I had just a little family lunch out - there were my mum, little cousin, uncle A (my mum's brother), uncle's friend P and me. A few pieces of fact about my uncle A and P - A has known P for more than 20 years and they met while working in a bank. So P is pretty much seen as part of the family and everyone in my family adores him. 

I hate stereotypes but they exist to categorise people and they work well at times. It is bad to generalise based on stereotypes but I often use them as a frame work of mind to build more information upon. I can say that A and P fit too many gay stereotypes. A and P have shared many important moments of life and spend a lot of time together. They bought an apartment next to each other and bought a house together. They are still single. Their sense of fashion, design, sensibility, manner, attitude towards life, open mindedness, wealth and love to travel surpass that of the straights.

What do the searches say about me?

I had always suspected A and P for ages but never really have a proof to confirm. Until on our way back to Bangkok after a delightful lunch, I was trying to search a famous kitchen showroom but I don't have internet on my phone. P was driving and told me that I could use his phone. However, I noticed a brief moment of hesitation before he passed his phone to me. It was that moment I realise there must be something private in his phone that he didn't want me to see. I was determined not to peek into his privacy so I just tapped into Safari and started keying on the search engine. Then the search history fanned out and there was a search phrase that caught my eyes "japan gay porn". That phrase only raises a lot of probabilities and questions. Now it is time to ponder - what is the chance of someone else using P's phone? It is extremely unlikely since P rarely lets anyone use his phone. Who else know the password to access P's phone? My uncle A and he often plays games on P's phone! What can I conclude? The person who typed the search phrase is probably either A or P. Even though what I found is not a concrete piece of evidence, it is the missing piece of jigsaw and everything makes sense.

Now should I tell them about my sexuality? Not yet, there is a few things I need to do before that but I talk to them before telling my mum. Another heart warming piece of fact is that my mum is quite close to my uncle A and is very fond of P.