Well, this time I’m being SMART, hopefully, and writing in word first.
Then copy and paste to Blogger, and hope that it doesn’t eat things.

For a longer explanation on my previous post.

Lion King Musical.

Our friend, Fengles, returned to the country at the start of the year to enroll as a Master of Teaching Student, as mentioned before in a long time ago post.
He worked for a year in CitiBank in Malaysia before returning as he needed to get some money and time for a visa to study here again.
He recently got a job at Officeworks (it’s a chain store that sells office supplies, computers, furniture etc) in their computer tech department.

For whatever incentive reason, he bought Kirsten and myself tickets to the Lion King.
They cost $99.50 EACH…………….
We owe him heaps.
He told us it was for thanks for being such good friends, but for us, it makes us still feel indebted to him, as friendship is something you give freely with only friendship expected in return.

Anyways, we went and watched it at the Capital Theatre in Sydney, at the 8pm session.

The musical itself was fantastic. Totally unreal.
Colourful costumes, live orchestral music with massive African drums and played by very good musicians (as you’d expect of course). The stage props and scenery were also fantastically designed and incorporated.
There were really only two scenes that didn’t work for me (and Kirsten agreed) which was when Simba sings “I can’t wait to be King” and the scene when he “returns” to pride rock after Nula finds him and he sees his father in himself (and of course the funny old monkey beating him over the head). They were out of place because their costumes were gaudy and ultra colourful. We thought they were trying to represent joyfulness and the vibrancy of the scene, but it just didn’t work for us.

There are some of the costumes that I would love to have, as well as the props. A very cute baby Simba doll, and their headpieces for Mufasa and Scar…. And the flying birds too…..

Next in chronological order.

The Brisbane Grammar Dinner.

Yes Luke, I am an Old Boy.
So you are too. Anyone who is a graduate of Grammar (regardless if they complete senior years) are technically counted as an old boy.
Sure, I have been the youngest Old Boy present at the 5 dinners I have been to in the last 6 years (I missed one year because I forgot about it, and the invite was buried under piles of paper…).
Kirsten came along with me, and it was $57/head including wine and dinner.
The two guest speakers were great. Geoffery Beams and Kevin Weldon (I think their names were).

Geoff Beams is a tourism and aviation expert, and he gave us a history of aviation and it’s relation to tourism, and the future of transport. Such as new Boeing class aircraft that will make a Sydney-London flight faster, cutting it down from the current 23-25 hour flight, down to 19 hours non-stop. As well as the expansion of some routes from Australia to the US across the ocean in the opposite direction to what is conventionally used.
As well as non stop flights across Antartica to South America.

Kevin Weldon is a renouned publisher and venture capitalist, and his speech was about people, dreams, politics and patriotism in regards to Australian identity.
I think it was what I thought was to be the most expressive speech regarding multi-culturalism of Australia I have ever heard before. His passion for continuing Australia as a predominant Christian heritage with Anglo-Saxon backgrounds but with at the same time the willingness to embrace our diversity *without* compromise of each culture was what struck me so.

In regarding the chat to Dr Lennox, or perhaps I should refer to him as Peter G Lennox, or ole PG as some of us used to call him at school, it was really good.
Spoke about the changes of education systems, and how some of the *top* schools in Sydney were going to Brisbane Grammar to learn about the Grammar “Dimensions of Learning” system, as it was the latest system that shows remarkable results and teaches cross curriculum incredibly well.

Luke may remember, the DOL system was tested on our year as a pre-cursor to it being openly used across the entire school two years later. It started with critical thinking and the 5 hats theory. Which is that everyone possesses 5 different hats, which can be interchanged and worn separately, or as top hats, stacked upon each other for cumulative abilities in situations and scenarios. Of course, these 5 hats have different properties of their own and the combination is what is important.

We also talked about Greg Howes becoming the new French teacher at Grammar, and that led onto Kirsten’s desire to be a teacher. I asked (for Kirsten as she was too embarrassed to ask herself) about the possibility of an interstate prac teaching session or internship, and PG was kind enough to say “sure, contact Brian Short about it when you’re ready” and gave Kirsten his business card.

Now, regarding the PhD.

I was talking with a friend of mine who is currently undertaking a PhD project on wood drying technology. In chemical engineering, as Chem Eng is concerned about small processes and turning them into mass production and large scale operations in a cost effect method (financially, environmentally, and labour).

She encountered a slight problem regarding her project, when they wanted to examine some wood samples under the microscope, but found their sawing processes had mushed the cells up. I had encountered the same problem previously and told her about my own project with Electron Microscopy for my Masters. And through that, I sent her a copy of my Masters Project.
She read it, and passed it to her Supervisor.
He read it, and then contacted me and asked if I wanted to do a PhD Project.

I had a chat with him, and learnt a bit about the project, and saw the facilities briefly.
And had a week to think about it.

In which I decided to take it on. However, it’s too late to enroll as a student right now so I have to wait until next year.
But to tide me over, I’m starting early and working as a research assistant for a small amount of money. I officially start work on the 8th October. But will be starting with induction and getting keys etc on the 1st October.

So in a nutshell, if things go to plan, in 3 years time, I’ll have a PhD in Chemical Engineering….

The project is regarding spray drying technology.

A Bachelor Science (Anatomy & Histology)
A Master of Applied Science (Microscopy & Microanalysis)
A Doctorate of Philosophy (Chemical Engineering)

That would look very funny in my resume…

Two Dr Chiou’s in one house…

~phone rings~ “May I speak with Dr Chiou please?”
~me or Herb answering~ “Which one”
~caller~ “Er… the one working on Spray drying technology”
~me/Herb~ “Asthmatic or Fruit extracts?”
hahahahaha
My brother is also working on spray drying technologies but with Pharmacy for asthma medications. But he is a PostDoctoral position as he is awaiting for the modifications to his PhD thesis to be complete and accepted before his official graduation as a PhD student.

Well, dinner calls, so I shall write more after dinner in another post.