Introducing...

Well I think that it’s about time for me to introduce myself: my name is Cameron O’Connor and that’s me in the middle down there.

Note: I'm going to be posting more or less random images of me from here on out

Now, because my lovely compatriots have decided to put up blogs updating all of you on what we’ve actually been doing, I am in the enviable position of having to write about pretty much anything I want. Thus I have decided to spend the next ten pages detailing the use of sepharose-glutathione columns in the purification of GST-fusion proteins expressed via E.Coli transfected with the pGEX6P-1 plasmid.

Did I scare everyone off yet? That was essentially a long winded way of letting you all know that I’m a biochemist by training. In fact I got my degree at the good ‘ol University of Alberta just before heading off on this fantastical adventure in Zambia. When I’m not threatening to bore people to death with technical explanations of standard modern biochemical techniques, I’m busy being a 22 year old guy that was born in Kingston Ontario before moving to Mississauga and then Kelowna where I went to school from kindergarten to grade 12 before leaving it all behind to go to the aforementioned institution of heavy drinking/higher learning.


Instead of ripping off a bunch of boring lists detailing my likes/dislikes/top ten X/most underappreciated cheeses/etc., I’ll jump right to talking about my personal thoughts about the trip thus far, leaving you, good reader, to parse out exactly what kind of a person I am, not by how I would describe myself, but how I describe my surroundings. Now, without further ado...

The setup sounds like what would happen if the Discovery channel decided to start a sitcom: three single young people, two female nurses and a male biochemist, go to Zambia to teach at a nursing college. Wackiness ensues! As it turns out, that description may be somewhat apt. I came into this project without ever having met Jess or Lianne, my only prior contact with them being a few short phone calls and a handful of e-mails, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. As it turns out, I think that we make a pretty good team. The vibe has been good and we have yet to hit any real snags, so it’s pretty hard to complain. In fact this trip has been pretty great thus far, and I’ve been extremely lucky to have two people with some travelling experience with me. Since this is the first time I’ve ever done any travelling without either my family or a large group of people, where pretty much everything was taken care of, it’s been great to have some people around that can let me know when I’m about to do something wrong/life threatening (just kidding mom, relax). Looking back on it, I must have been at least half cracked to agree to go on this trip: I had never met my companions, whom already knew each other quite well, had no clue where I would be staying or how I would be eating, had no experience whatsoever in teaching, barely even knew where Zambia was and could very well have been going in way over my head in pretty much any area that I could end up working in that you care to name.

What I’m really trying to say is that I really should have had more reservations than I did.

Regardless of what I “should have done”, I agreed to come and I haven’t looked back since. One of the big reasons I decided to do this trip was to learn some things, and I can most certainly tell you that I have done exactly that, possibly too much of that actually. It feels good to be doing some travelling, but I must admit that I’m anxious to get to work. All of this fun stuff has been, uh, fun, but it’s definitely time to do something constructive.

Still, it’s hard to not look at this next picture without wanting to go back to Victoria Falls.

I don’t want this to go on for too long, as I have a tendency to ramble, so I’ll finish up here. To all of Jess and Lianne’s family and friends: we’re staying safe, getting along swimmingly and I’m doing my best to watch out for them (although most of the time it seems like it’s them watching out for me as I get the hang of travelling). To my family and friends: I’ll be in Kelowna soon, but I’m seriously thinking about taking out a loan and coming back after spending a week or so at home.

We’ll see.

Well, it’s way past my bedtime. Good night!