The return of the camera

So I took my camera out the other day for the first time in ages. the reason? Well when my super-awesome cousin brought me a present from Morocco and it looked like this:

I figured that not documenting it before opening would be some kind of travesty.

So without further ado I give you my collection of potentially (but not actually) illicit substances from overseas:

On the left is white powder from Thailand (it’s pure MSG, in case you were wondering) and on the right we have peppermint tea from Morocco.

I LOVE peppermint tea. I’m quite a tea nut anyway (tea is soup between meals, what’s not to love?) and I love anything minty, so to find peppermint tea is pretty much as good as it gets.

Plus the adventure of making loose-leaf tea:

(not to mention getting the leaves out of the spout afterwards)

and of course hunting through the cupboards for a glass cup, because half of the joy of interesting teas is the colour:

Mmmmm, tea!

Of course I felt that I should use the opportunity to photograph my dogs – the violent vicious one who bites vets (and boyfriends, but that’s another story)

(do you feel the rage?!)

And the timid fluffy one who I had shaved so that she looks like a gremlin/Gollum:

She refuses to stand still as she’s terrified of the camera shutter, so I had to sneak up to her while the other one was posing like a champion and wondering why she got all the attention

(once again, look at the scary scary puppy…)

Oh, and while I’m at it, I should show you all the reason why I whined about my feet hurting for most of Friday evening (to be fair they didn’t really hurt, but wooden-slat floors + heels = deathtrap)

Developments

So I’ve spent the last few days driving the long way to Pretoria to do labwork, which went fantastically well until… it didn’t. I’m facing a 6-week/indefinite delay and it feels like I’m never going to graduate sometimes. This time there’s nobody to blame, it was just incredibly unlucky, and I’ve been fortunate in that I emailed the wrong person about fixing it and he has been incredible in pulling out special contacts to get things moving faster (almost a-la-mafia-esque).

In the meantime I’m working on the write-up, which as a friend of mine says ‘steals your sanity, one penguin at a time.’

Therapy/counselling/sitting-in-a-small-room-with-a-captive-audience is going pretty well (I think). I’m getting used to the whole idea of talking about my feelings and she is very good at putting things into perspective or re-explaining what I’ve said in a slightly different way which makes me re-think it and figure things out.

On a personal note, my friends keep getting engaged! Seriously, three engagements in the last week – that’s a little bit excessive isn’t it? It makes me feel some weird kind of mix between very old and very young. I am very happy for them all though, particularly Joey who finally got her fairytale proposal.

And that’s basically all I can talk about right now, it’s back to work! Another evening in the lab, woooo!

My apologies

I don’t deal well with being angry and I’m feeling quite badly treated right now.

In an attempt to calm down I bring you:

And I finally saw Horton Hears a Hoo the other day (sorry Candice, I couldn’t wait any longer) and

not to mention the cuteness:

(image from here)

and with more cute kittens:

I learned today

That some people don’t fix things because they don’t want to.

That some people are unable to move on.

That some people don’t believe in friendship being more important than being right.

That some people aren’t worth knowing.

This is for you