Catherine (Cathy) Gao

6.30 AM

Alarm goes off, no time to brush my teeth, shower or eat, but excited to get a sweat on!

Usually, a loop around Lake Burley Griffin or maybe Gungahlin and Belconnen. The world is my oyster and I go where my heart desires on the day, in the moment! A ride with mates if I’m feeling social, or a solo ride to clear my head. I usually aim for 20-30km or an hour to get the blood pumping.

Unfortunately, I tore my ACL in basketball and my daily rides have been cut out of the schedule. Instead, I spend an hour focusing on quad, calf, and hamstring exercises in preparation for surgery, and I chuck in 15 minutes of abs to stay strong for kayaking.

A morning ride with mates before my ACL injury

7.30 AM

Given the upcoming Canoe Polo Summer Series Competitions (and the lack of any other sport I can currently do) …time for a paddle!

I drive down to Burley Griffin Canoe Club with my boat on the roof racks, I put my PFD and skirt on and carry my kayak to the water. I spend around 30/40mins paddling the Canoe Polo field before I hop out and load my kayak on the car, ready to drive home.

*Paddling in the morning is not something I do every day but only when there is good weather, I have the time and I had enough sleep*.

Canoe Polo training field on Molonglo Reach 

8.30 AM

Back home and in desperate need of a shower and a big breaky!

I put my wet paddling clothes in the laundry, and I hang my wet PDF and skirt out to dry. I then shower, brush my teeth, clean myself up and get dressed for work.    

For breakfast, I boil an egg, cook a packet of noodles with cabbage, then make a nice thick fruit smoothie with whatever I can find – for today, it’s some frozen passionfruit pulp, an orange, a very brown banana and half a leftover apple from yesterday.  

Breakfast! 

9.00 AM

In the car and driving to the office in Fairbairn.  

Because I have some flexibility with work arrangements, I choose to do a bit more exercise in the morning and start work a bit later (around 9:30 – this is something I discussed with my supervisor ahead of time).  While driving, I always think about how I keep meaning to take the bus, but logistics of playing polo straight after work always ends in me driving…I’m working on it, and I’ll figure out a way to get myself on the bus one of these days...

Perhaps TMI, but I rock out to the good ol’ Hamilton (the musical) original soundtrack while driving!

9.15 AM

Parked and walking to the office.

The walk from my carpark to the office is about 5minutes. I enter the building and pass the security desk. I say good morning to the security officer, and he gives me a smile in return (as usual). 

I take my time walking up the stairs to level 2. I choose a desk, take out and connect my laptop to the monitors, and the workday officially starts here!

The TGA lab offices are designed under NWOW (News Ways of Working) – put simply, you don’t have a designated desk, some might call it ‘hot-desking’. 

9.20 AM

Starting the workday!

I start the day by opening my Outlook, Webex, OneNote and TRIM (because it always takes a while to load). I prioritise my work at hand based on a balance between urgency and the amount of background work required to respond or compete the task (i.e., how quickly I can complete the task), starting with:

1. Webex messages
   • My acting director asked about completing the final anytime assessment for the graduate program. I let her know I will speak and organise this with my supervisor.
   • I organise with a co-worker to switch our Melbourne work trip next week as I have training and cannot travel. (We alternatively travel to Melbourne for RAT test testing).
   • I respond to a message about including me in the BioT maintenance roster as I will be using the cell culture rooms.
   • I catch up on team notices in the team chat and the section chat. 
   • I agree to meet my supervisor later in the afternoon due to last minute priorities (I usually have weekly 10am catchups with my supervisor).
2. Outlook emails (not too many emails today)
   • I accept a few meeting invites for later in the week (after checking there are no clashes) and I remove a few cancelled meetings from my calendar. 
   • I delete Sirus IT and building maintenance emails for today (since I work in TGA at Tindal) and skim Tindal building maintenance emails to see if anything affects my work today (it doesn’t). -     I read details about the final Divisional meeting for 2022. -        I vote for the section Christmas party event.
3. OneNote ‘TO DO’ list updated yesterday – I complete yesterday’s flow-on tasks based on priority and add incomplete/new tasks received today.
   • I scan and email my medical certificate for a previous sick day to my supervisor.
   • I email ELP team to check whether they have a copy of my final probation report (since I changed supervisors a few times at TGA, I had lost track of where my probation report was). Their response was quick, and we confirmed they have already received my probation report. 
   • I reach out to a few people from other teams about presenting at one of the BiomE training and development sessions I have been putting together, they all get back to me pretty quick, so I continue the discussion over Webex to smooth out details.
   • I add data entry for LOD reports to my OneNote. 
   • I update my ‘Day in The Life’ diary.

Since my normal day usually involves new tasks popping up throughout the day (for example a new COVID-19 RAT sample arrives at the TGA for sample receipting and visual inspection. This can come at any time and is not always a task I am delegated at the start of the day), by completing urgent and quick tasks in the morning, I find it much easier to manage my workload as the day progresses and I pick-up competing priorities. Additionally, I find satisfaction and accomplishment from starting the day completing work. 

10.30 AM

Solo work 

I fill my water bottle in the kitchen, use the bathroom and settle into my desk to start diving into more complicated and more time-consuming tasks or less urgent tasks. During this period, I have the time to respond to new emails as they come in. 

12.30 PM

Lunch time!

I usually alternate between having lunch with my team or with a group of graduate friends at the TGA. Lunch can be up to an hour but depending on the amount of work I have on my plate, l adjust the length of my lunch.

Today I’m meeting with some grads and since its quite windy outside, we eat at a table in the kitchen. They ended up surprising me with a birthday chocolate mousse pie! 

1:15pm

Into the labs to do some visual inspections

During the day, my supervisor reached out about a RAT sample needing Visual Inspection (VI). After lunch, I head downstairs to the VI lab and complete this process. I go back to my desk to complete the final data entry portion of the task then email my supervisor to let him know it’s completed.

2.00 PM

Impromptu training 

A co-worker in my team reaches out to run me through container safety evaluation which, combined with my questions, ends up taking us an hour. He assigns me an incomplete container safety evaluation and I add this task to my TO DO list.      

3.00 PM

Catch-up with my Supervisor (first meeting of the day) 

I grab my laptop and water bottle, walk pass the kitchen and fill my bottle, then head into the meeting room to meet my supervisor. My supervisor and I discuss:

• The tasks I currently have and that my current workload is manageable. 
• My planned leave dates in the next 3 months and leave required after my knee surgery.
• We discuss my final Anytime Review for the graduate program (due on Friday). I add my part of completing the anytime review to my TO DO list.
• I discuss a few issues I came across during the Limit of Detection (LOD) test report data entry this morning. 
• We discuss the training and development sessions I am organising, and we put together a list of ‘guest speakers’
• And my supervisor answers my questions about Container Safety Evaluation and cytotoxicity testing – an area of work I am newly getting trained to perform.

This catch-up is usually scheduled for an hour but we had a lot to cover today so it took 2hrs!

5.00 PM

Wrapping up work and finishing off the workday!

After the meeting, I go back to my desk and wrap up any loose ends, complete urgent or quick work and update my OneNote TO DO list. 

Since I start later in the morning, I usually finish later in the evening (around 5:30), but as I currently have some flex, I use that and finish earlier – I leave the office at 5:15pm today. 

With the current NWOW system, we are required to wipe down our desk, keyboard, and mouse with disinfectant wipes. I do this, say bye to those in the office and the workday ends here.

5.30 PM

Canoe polo training

I arrive at Burley Griffin Canoe Club carpark 5:30pm. I catch-up with everyone at training today while we put on our gear and untie our kayaks. 

Most Tuesdays I get off the water at 7pm so I can pack, change and drive to a weekly basketball comp in Belconnen.

Since my injury means I can’t play basketball (very sad), I stay on the water and paddle with everyone a bit longer. After training, we stay at the club for a hot choccy and a yarn before heading home around 8:30pm. 

8:45pm – My daily wind-up before the wind-down, or I like to call it “Me rushing around like a headless chook”

I get home and my roommate is already home and relaxing on the lounge. We chat about our day while I run around the apartment hanging out my PFD, skirt, and helmet (so they can dry before I use them tomorrow at the weekly games), I wash my paddling (and usually basketball) clothes, have a very quick rinse in the shower, get changed into pjs, hang up today’s work clothes, then make dinner.   

For dinner I have leftover dumpling filling and skins, so I fold and panfry enough dumplings for dinner and lunch then pack half the dumplings for tomorrow. 

9:30pm – The wind-down before bed 

I join my roommate on the lounge, and we chat while I take my time eating dinner. I brush my teeth and head into my room, I give my partner (who is currently flying choppers in Kununurra) a quick facetime while I finish writing this diary. By 10:15, its lights out! 

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