Pictures of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Hanoi, Vietnam

I stopped in KL for 2 days on my way up to PP. I had a blast! I could so live there!


Petronas Towers-right out front of my hotel window!
















Orchid Nursery


Lily Pond at the Orchid Garden in the Lake District



Out front of the Hao Lo prison in Hanoi. Better known as the "Hanoi Hilton" Talk about propaganda. They have a huge picture of Jane Fonda in one of the 2 rooms they have set up for the exhibit about the American POWs. There is some major spin going on. Basically they said that they treated the prisoners better than the American's treated the VN POWs. They bragged about how well they fed and clothed the POWs and there was NEVER any tourture, despite what the US gov't says. I just cracked a wry smile and say "Riiiiigghhhht"






John McCain's flight suit and parachute






























Dinner with fellow UQ-Vietnamese students in Hanoi, the guy with the mustache is my advisor Peter!

Pictures of Cambodia

I have finally got around to posting these pictures. Just in time for my next trip in a month:)














Grand Palace in Phnom Penh













Sisowath Quay (main drag along the Mekong River)


Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum-Cambodia (used to be the Phnom Penh High School before the Khmer Rouge turned it into S-21) This is where the KR took suspected traitors, which was nearly everyone, to interrogate and torture. IF you survived the torture you were subsequently taken to the Killing Fields for execution


















Torture room-and yes those are blood stains under the cot

















Famous picture of mother and daughter taken in 1978 at Tuol Sleng


Choeung Ek Memorial at Killing Fields

































Looking into the memorial




















Looking up the memorial (view from inside) 4 stories of skulls


I will leave it at that now that I have thouroughly depressed myself this Sunday morning. I swear I do have happier pictures.

First Uterus Transplant in US

Yes, you read that correctly. A team of surgeons in NYC are planning the first human uterus transplant. Why you ask? Good question. It seems somewhere in our society we have attached a women's "worth" with her ability to bear children. This only seems to be reinforced by our own medical community. One doctor was quoted as saying "For many women being able to bear children is an essential part of their lives" Essential? Really? Will I die without having a child? Essential...Holy SHIT! They never told me that. Oh...he probably means essential in an emotional sense. Oh thank GOD, now wait...that is even more ludicrous! Alarm Alarm! We have crazy women who find it ESSENTIAL to bear children. Give me a fucking break. Shame on him and shame on those women! Both parties put suffrage back to the stone ages. "Oh Katia" you say, "we already had women's suffrage and that sentiment only exists in other cultures!" (I should mention that this whole uterus transplant thing started in Saudi Arabia but we seem to be propagating similar views on women...I won't say anymore.) Hello, lets examine our own culture today: many women think they will be beautiful when they are size 2. Yeah, right! Has anyone looked at that Beckham chic...ugly and she is a zero. Anyway, I am getting off track.

So I agree with one expert that our society puts too much emphasis on this 9 month incubation thing. A woman's identity should not rest on her ability to carry a child. Come on people, being pregnant will be the easiest part of parenting. I don't even need to be a parent to see that.

Secondly, is it really ethical to perform a major surgery that could impact the life of the mother and fetus, not to mention being on immunosuppressive drugs to stop organ rejection, all the in the name of "bearing a child"? This is non-medically necessary and it does not enhance a woman's biological condition. It might satisfy some emotional need but I say do what the rest of us do: have sex with multiple people and take drugs!! If this was really about having your own child than use your eggs, your partners sperm and get a surrogate! Many couples do it! It is the in thing. Shit, I probably could carry my own child, but due to my vanity and time constraints, I would prefer to have someone else carry that burden for me (no pun intended).

Thirdly, I hope these women get a THOROUGH psych eval. Anyone who is that desperate to bear a child has some hang ups. Granted we all have our own but it seems to me that if bearing live young somehow enhances a women's life than she has a sad life. Pathetic really. There are other ways to enhance one's life. Do I really have to name them?

Finally, I leave you with this. Kalhil Gibran said that "Children come not from you but through you" That through you can mean in utero but it can also be through one's heart. It should not matter how a child came to be but if they came to be. As of today the UN estimates that there are 15 million orphans in this world. That is a very sobering number. So while we spends millions of dollars to outfit a woman with a new uterus we could outfit a family with a needy child free of charge? This should not be a question of "can we" but "should we"?

New Pictures of my adventures

Todd and Greta at Halloween! This is what happens when I leave my husband in the care of my BEST FRIEND!














Dinner in Bulimba with G and the boys

Brad and John's new puppies!

Greta with pup

Katia trying not to steal a pup

Happy 2007

I have been a slack blogger, many apologies. Actually, I only like to blog if I have something to say and lately my mind has been strangely quiet. Blame it on the holiday booze!

Now that 2007 is upon me I am gearing up for a lot of travel. The ethics approval for my research is in the pipeline and it should hopefully be approved by the end of Jan. Then I will be free to begin my field research. I am planning to head back over to Cambodia in March for one month. Fingers crossed.

So the holidays were...whatever. Don't get me wrong we had a BLAST at all of our get togethers but I am looking for something different for next year. Next year we are going to skip the parties, dinners, etc and go on a bare foot windjammer cruise around the Whitsundays. This year Todd (home in Feb) and I (conference in DC in May)will both satisfy the family visits home but after that our feeling is "come to us". We are not going to spend anymore money or vacation going back to the US...EVER! It pains me to sink $2600 into a ticket to go back to a place where I came from. That same amount will give me 7 nights on a cruise around the Great Barrier Reef. Can you blame me people? Therefore, any visit to the US will be for my studies only and any extra vacation time will be spent in the QLD tropics.

On another note, I am taking a bread making class! One of my New Years resolutions is to be able to make authentic challa. I wonder if Australians even know HOW to make Jewish bread. At last count I think there were 2 Jews in Australia:)