bonding over lizards

Sea of no cares

2012-01-30T15:03:00.001+03:00

I rediscovered Great Big Sea this morning after listening to k’s choice on repeat made me stop focussing because I kept on either a) singing along, b) thinking about stuff, c) thinking enough about stuff to burst into happy tears and then have to explain to the maid that I’m actually ok (which I pulled off by discussing how much my niece looks like my mother –particularly when angry- and helping solve her rat problem at home).

Anyway it has been a while and I need a break from redoing ALL my graphs (again). How are things…?

Well I got a sewing machine for christmas which has been scratching a much-needed creative itch as well as making me scream, shout and throw tantrums. I have so far only made one item successfully which is awesome and I will post pictures when it is no longer a secret. I am also halfway through a top which has gathers that are making me pull my hair out, I have made 3 dresses (all of which are functional but make me look awful) and a bolero that is waiting for a fitting on CG.

I thin that is why the blogging has been falling away, I get my outlet by mangling pretty fabric.

But for the purposes of having a record one day, this is what is really happening;

I have to hand in my phd by the end of February. ie I have to get drafts in and out and corrected and rewritten, formatting done, paperwork done and somehow concentrate on the most boring thesis EVER. Really. I could have finished by now except that the superV has been difficult and I’m so fed-up I’m becoming lazy. And then I freak out because i can see the tuition fee bill and the all-nighters on the horizon.

Tomorrow marks two years with P1. I mean TWO YEARS? When did that happen? Write-up stress means that he often ends up with singed eyebrows for doing something that generally isn’t too bad but straws, camels and so on. I breathe a lot of fire lately. He is as stubborn as I am (so very), opinionated, occasionally belligerent and unbelievably patient with me (sometimes). And he is also kind, intelligent, generous and has a sense of humour just like me.

And two years ago tomorrow he picked me up to take me out and once we finally found a pace open on a Sunday evening we talked until we got kicked out, while I told him about nuclear physics and covered him in glitter (I still don’t know how I was covered in it but I had to spread the sparkly pain).

two years. sheeez.

In other news it’s my 10-year highschool reunion this year. I refuse to go unless I have graduated. I would skip it entirely but I have a few people to either thank or taunt.

Ten years? I’m getting so OLD!

2012-01-27T11:34:00.001+03:00

currently obsessed with

2011-11-11T10:56:00.001+03:00

This cover. Amazing how not having Cyndi Lauper’s voice makes it kind of heart-wrenchingly sad. In a totally awesome way of course.

this dress pattern. I’ve wanted something 50s-ish for AGES and I found patterns and now sewing machine is dead and I am sad. And aware that even if I made it it would probably be a disaster (my sewing was tremendous fun but also mild panic as I tried to keep up with my mini-machine, not get my finger sewn through and avoid its enthusiastic bouncing sending it into my lap).

Painted shoes! My Docs are still too shiny and look like school shoes so I am really keen to sand them down and paint them. There are also a bunch of awesome techniques for buying ugly heels and painting them with awesome patterns. I wish I was artistic AND brave. Anyone keen to spend a weekend making a mess?

Sleep. I’m not getting much these days. I seem to alternate between 6 hours of solid sleep one night and about 2 hours of broken sleep the next. I made coffee this morning and forgot to boil the kettle. It’s starting to get to me.

And of course, late night productivity spurts. Last night was insane! I think I did a week’s work in 4 hours.

Nameeeebia!

2011-11-10T13:31:00.000+03:00

This is way overdue. I blame swopping computers and not having the one with photos and an internet connection at the same time for a while.

Namibia was amazing and incredible and beautiful and unbelievably stressful. Being stuck in a confined space with my mother for 10 days was not easy. I have a lot of respect for her, but we are just too different and just don’t get along.

Getting to know my grandmother as an adult rather than grandbaby was interesting too. She certainly is incredible for someone nearly at 90.

It was also an opportunity for me to observe two very different women and how they do things: my mother with her ‘take-it-or-leave it’, straight out attitude, and my grandmother who is soft and gentle and ladylike (very much a girl of the 1920s/30s). While I am neither of them, it was like watching an excerpt of ‘how to win friends and influence people’ as I could see what they did and how people around them responded.

I was planning on writing about Namibia in detail but I am rushed with work and I can’t quite get my head around the amazing expanses of nothing and the extreme beauty of the place so I will leave you with some pictures instead.

So…

2011-11-03T15:57:00.001+03:00

I have been shouted at for ignoring the blog, and I do love the blog, it’s just that I have a thesis to finish I hit 80% of draft on Tuesday, helped by a giant lot of personal-life stress that make me insanely productive.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but I’m not sure how long or how far or how much sacrifice it will take me to get there.

In the meantime I’ve found love and kindness and encouragement and support in a lot of places. Last week was the first crisis that didn’t make me want to go to the lab. I feel like I’ve lost and gained immeasurably. Is that even English?

I deactivated my facebook account. then I reactivated it because I was tired of explaining to people that I wasn’t getting messages. I’m not seeing myself installing the app again though. And I don’t get notifications because I turned them off. So I might as well deactivate. but then that takes effort. So yes. No. Who knows?

I starting sewing and LOVED it, only to be terrified by the depressive tailspin when the machine broke (it was a pocket-sized adorable little machine but apparently being dropped a few times wasn’t good for it). I found myself with an urge to paint shoes last week. I think the relief of doing SOMETHING creative with obvious progress-markers was slightly addictive.

Anyway the salt-mines are calling.

How’ve you been?

yoh!

2011-09-19T20:34:00.001+03:00

My grandmother has the most impressive memory EVER! She has spent the last two days telling stories non-stop. I have custody of my dad's video camera in the back seat and occasionally I record some but mostly I just listen.It's kinda scary just how little I actually knew of my own family history!

Anyway, today we hung out in Windhoek, visited my granny's primary school (for the record, I loved it and if I ever have kids they're getting shipped straight over the border to a place that has hiking on the curriculum), did some museum-ing and found soup for lunch between going to see my great-grandmother's grave (she died very suddenly in 1945) and then settling down for tea and cake at a castle.

Things I have learned:

Well an entire family history in great detail. I knew vague details but coming back here has kicked my grandmother into memory lane and she hasn't even begin to run out of steam. For an 88-year-old she remembers details, names, stories, relationships between random people, the colours of the flowers on the mantelpiece.... EVERYTHING.
That my grandmother who has always been incredibly neat and tidy and gentle and conservative etc etc can giggle like a little kid when telling stories of childhood mischief.
There was childhood mischief. Who knew/
Windhoek is really pretty. There are flowers everywhere, it is clean and well maintained, the people have AWESOME accents and call everything 'beautiful'
There is free wifi all over the place.
It is really expensive, I think the big European tourist industry has pushed the pricing up. For a simple pub-style meal (something that would be R40-R50 in Joburg) you can expect to pay at least N$70-80
Namibian currency is... well to be honest I don't have any. 1R=1N$ and they accept south african money. Just make sure you get change in your own currency or you'll be stuck with something you can't spend.
The girls wear the most awesome skirts. I want one. Everything is light and airy because it's so flippin' hot.
they have WEIRD shops
pretending you can speak German to get into the Lutheran gingerbread church because you think its pretty might just lead to you being stuck in the back row during a history-of-namibia lesson. which would be cool if you actually spoke German.
There are German tourists everywhere. You can also eat German food everywhere
The lizards are totally adorable!

Anyway off to the dunes tomorrow! i can't wait to see real real REAL desert! Namib here we come!

ever think...?

2011-09-19T00:14:00.001+03:00

So I'm in namibia and I can't sleep and I have been working really
hard and am tired so I don't know why lately I'm not sleeping. Except
my mother and her vuvuzela practice during naptime but that is another
story.

I decided today that I might have a sudden-onset-flying-phobia.

Something about the noise of being right by an engine which didn't
sound 'normal' - not to mention the logical 'I'm in several hundred
tons of metal and the cars are TOO big, why are we so close to the
groud, we should be climbing, why aren't we climbing I'M GOING TO
DIE!!!!'

And the airport is outside the town so I was convinced we were going
to land on a farm.

It is strange, I always loved flying (I used to ask for turbulence as
a kid), but I think I've dealt with death too much over the last year
and I think I lost my immortality. It just sucks that there's a good
job as a trainee pilot going and I thinlk I might not be suitable
anymore...

Hi-bye!

2011-08-22T12:21:00.001+03:00

I have a draft to send in this week, and a trip to Namibia to finish planning, so no time to chat I’m afraid, in the meantime, enjoy this:

Also on my mind

2011-08-12T14:59:00.000+03:00

so after the rant (sorry, had to get it out my system) I was thinking about Dirty Dancing.

Yes they're remaking the movie and that's ok because we will all love the old one just as much and the new one might be awesome, and if not we'll have to watch the old one to compare them. Not to mention my personal philosophy that there will never be enough dance movies around and as long as it isn't made by Disney (because high School Musical doesn't count) I'm ok with it.

And in light of what I've been thinking for a while I realised that one part of Dirty Dancing that really hit home with me was that Baby Was Right. not a new concept I'm sure, but it was to me.

Her parents picked out the perfect guy for her who came from a wealthy family and said and did all the right things. But the coming of age was her seeing past that and falling for Patrick Swayze instead, even though he was the epitome of what her parents didn't want. And what made it special was that there was no sour relationship with her family, no need to go out and prove a point, she simply reached that stage in her life where she did what she wanted to do, she went out and learned and saw and made mistakes and fixed mistakes and did what she needed to do.

So yes, a remake may be something unwanted by my generation, but those are lessons that are important, and a remake is the only way that the next batch of little girls learns to make her own decisions. An how to carry a watermelon. And not get a dodgy abortion. You know, stuff.

My anthem right now

2011-08-12T10:37:00.000+03:00

One day this will be me!

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

something getting on my nerves right now

2011-08-12T07:46:00.000+03:00

Yes, this is a rant, and probably too long to read, but i needed to write it.

I was reading an article the other day (do yourself a favour and read it), and this stuck out at me:

Or there's the 14-year-old who was at the movies with her friends when a man in his 20s put his arm around her shoulder and asked her to come sit with him. She said no and he went away but she was shaken. Talking it through with her friends, there were suggestions that her outfit was ''kind of sexy'' and so maybe she shouldn't dress like that any more. Others in the group thought that was unfair: her outfit was amazing and she felt great in it. She just needed to be ready for men who thought she was older or looking for a boyfriend or whatever. Together, the girls came up with a strategy: the next time she (or any of them) had an adult man crack on to her she should say - very loudly - ''I'm 14!'' and if he persisted, she would - louder still - tell him he should be ashamed of himself for trying to pick up a child.
There's no doubt the ideas behind this solution came from a thousand conversations with adults and peers and from various forms of media. When it came to the crunch, the girls were able to talk it through, support each other and come up with a strategy that acknowledged unfortunate realities while refusing to cower in the face of them. Talk about empowering.
Unfortunately, when the girl told her parents about the incident, she was banned from going to the movies with her friends. Again, an understandable impulse but the girl feels punished for fighting her own battle and will either stop doing so or - more likely - will be sure to keep future battles a secret.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sugar-spice-and-stronger-stuff-20110805-1if1z.html#ixzz1UkA5wTRx

And that pretty much summed up my teenage years, even a lot of my life right now.

As a teenager I dealt with a lot of things, went to a lot of places and got up to a fairly normal amount of stuff. I still have a major issue with the fact that I had to do a considerable amount of lying in order to do the normal things that people my age were doing.

Nowadays I live with my parents and so they feel quite OK about tracking my car, having a tracker on my cellphone (which is used regularly, not just in case of emergency) and recently phoning my friends to find out where I am at 7pm because of the 'emergency' of needing to know if i would do laundry.

I have been out enough to have had a fair number of experiences that I'm sure would freak my mother out, because the world is a big ugly place and the chances are if you go out and have fun you will end up with 50-year-olds staring down your shirt or having a drink spiked or having a road-raged driver get out his car and spit in your face. It happens (all true stories).

What bothers me is that people are so busy trying to wrap their daughters in cotton-wool (and I say daughters because of the number of times I argues against unequal restrictions to hear 'but your brother is a boy so he can do more, it's not safe for a girl'

And my real point, besides the whining?

As a kid and teenager I was cotton-wooled within and inch of my life. As a young adult I am as controlled as they can manage. Guess what, it never stopped me anyway.

Can people stop trying to raise gentle delicate flowers and teach their kids to be tough and smart and have values that will stay with them long after they take control of their own safety. That little girl in the movie house was so strong and she dealt with the situation and came up with a game plan, and for that she got kept at home. Next time she will lie about where she's going and it will take things going very very wrong before she asks her parents for help.

pretty much the most accurate thing I've ever seen.

2011-08-11T20:38:00.001+03:00

click to enlarge, only about half of it shows here

image from here

2011-08-11T12:27:00.002+03:00

" You know that scene in Babe where the farmer clog-dances for the pig? Sometimes I'm the sick pig and I need a farmer to cheer me up. And when things get bad, my boyfriend does dance for me, and it never fails to make me laugh. He's a pretty snappy dancer." - Shirley Manson

In which my boyfriend gets way too much mileage out of a name

2011-08-04T22:27:00.003+03:00

So for my birthday the awesome Nes organised for a bunch of friends to chip in on a voucher for a Brazilian Blowout. And after much debating over haircuts and shampoo and other stuff I went on Wednesday.

So for the uninitiated, basically it's a treatment that relaxes curls a bit and removes frizz. Basically blowdrying/flatironing becomes ridiculously easy and your hair is soft and shiny and manageable for the next few months (yes months) to a point where you can even leave it and wear it without doing a bit of a Diana Ross.

The technical aspects are a bit more challenging. Basically they wash your hair (awesome salon, terrible basins), towel it off and the3n fetch a little container of what looks like woodglue and a paintbrush.

They paint it on, veeery carefully (on like 1cm wide ieces of hair) and comb it through and then blow dry. And hair goes WOOSH, Diana Ross! and I go 'That's what happens when you don't condition! and the stylist tells me to shut up and listen to her stories about her sisters boyfriend. I'm exaggerating, she was awesome.

After that the GHD came out and they flat-ironed the stuff in. Painstakingly. I'm talking 1cm wide sections of hair and going over it over and over and over. Apparently the product needs that or something. I have a lot of hair and I'm sure the poor girl had tennis-elbow, as just the straightening took about an hour and a half.

Once all that was done, my hair was amazingly silky and straight with a halo of static (apparently a normal byproduct over over-handled hair) that made me look like Alfalfa (of little rascals, not the grass) and I got The Talk.

Yes, it is a very expensive treatment (even being a groupon it was pricey, and I can't imagine paying the normal R2000 for a hair treatment), so I understand that it needs special care, but:

I have to use special shampoo (included in the deal which is awesome!)

For the next 72 hours you may not: tie hair up, tuck hair behind ears, put a hat on, get hair wet in any way whatsoever. this included avoiding showers and hot baths and bathing with hair up, and a shower cap on to avoid any kind of humidity. If any kind of moisture comes into contact with your hair you have to run screaming for a straightener and fry the moisture right out of it. I also have to straighten the bits at the back of my neck and around my face when I wake up as they are likely to curl.

I have been somewhat whiny about this, but then every now and then I walk past a mirror and get captivated by the shiny (it even seals split ends) and the prospect of not having to beat my hair into something manageable and then I get over it. Because I have tried a lot of products and lots of them work, but it has never been this shiny!

Shineeeee

now it just remains to wait until saturday to be able to shower and see how it turns out!

More weird stuff that collects on my computer

2011-07-27T16:22:00.001+03:00

I have a terrible right-click-save reflex. And this stuff adds up. In the spirit of not being a crazy hoarder I thought I’d share…

Something that makes me happy

2011-07-22T13:33:00.002+03:00

Driving through an intersection when the car 2 cars ahead turns left then the car in front of me turns right and I go straight. It's like driving in formation when the entourage peels away so I can lead the way into adventure.

strange

2011-07-21T19:12:00.002+03:00

I was reading a blog post on writing up this morning and one person said something along the lines of 'I'm listening to a lot of country music, is this normal'

Well whenever I'm depressed and working hard I turn to Josh Groban.

Is this normal?

Update

2011-07-14T15:50:00.001+03:00

False alarm, everything is ok. And I ca tell you that sitting up overnight knitting and listening to Keane has pretty amazing restorative powers. Everything is ok. Everything is ok.

on that note, please will someone remove my shiny new blackberry from me as I seem unable to put it down.

oh, and you HAVE to check out this site. It is so totally awesome!

Everything is ok.

sad panda

2011-07-12T16:21:00.000+03:00

So after going around in weird cycles between being very happy and having the same fight over and over and over again I decided that I wasn't prepared to be the only one working at it.

So the P1 and I broke up.

I'm in a weird place between relieved that the fighting is over, gutted that I've lost my best friend and upset over random stuff. Like losing out on a Coldplay ticket really shouldn't make me so sad.

In a weird case of "who has more self-righteous anger" I deleted him off BBM - more because there's no way (that I know) to sign out. So he blocked me off gChat. And the thought of not starting my day with a chat makes me sad.

At the same time things just weren't working. You can only have the same fight so many times before you realise that nothing is changing.

That doesn't stop me from really wanting to run after him and apologise. Why this all had to happen before a 6 hour work shift is just unfair. I've been doing the dontcrydontcrydontcry mantra for hours now.

Life is life I guess

Quiet feelings

2011-07-07T11:14:00.001+03:00

My apologies for yesterday’s rant. I finally managed to look through it again (with my hands over my eyes and peeping between the fingers, and besides being able to explain some things (and get them Okayed) and fix some others I know that i have a LOT of work to do, but it will be Ok. Eventually.

I promised myself that (besides the family trip to Namibia) I wouldn’t go on holiday until the complete first draft was sent off. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking of very little but this:

and this:

Only several gazillion rewrites and a chunk of labwork to go.

I need to get me a hammock!

Sigh

2011-07-06T12:58:00.001+03:00

So after waiting two months for my supervisor to bother reading a draft I got it back. And he hates it. I told P1 a while ago that the worst thing you can get back is something with almost no comments on it because it means that it’s beyond saving. I changed my mind. Worse than that is something with a solid column of red down one side which is a combination of chunks being deleted and comments such as ‘what is the point of this? why did you even do this study?’

Not to mention when he got too annoyed with doing that and started leaving comments like ‘this paragraph doesn’t fit. Delete.’ and then ‘read comments for above paragraph’

Which wouldn’t be all that bad – I mean at least I know where I’m going wrong (answer, pretty much everywhere) except that I’ve been waiting so long I actually had another draft ready to go and a third one almost there.

I’m just glad that the flu made me lazy and I didn’t get much done for the last week because I was too tire. Everything else from the last 8 weeks has just been deleted and started over.

And I pay R16000 a year for this?

If it wasn’t for the gaping 5 year hole in my CV I’d be halfway to Sweden by now. Either way I’d always expected the next time I cried myself to sleep to be over boy trouble or friend drama. I expected wrong.

Oh well. Back to work.

Not my day

2011-07-01T17:52:00.001+03:00

So I don’t know if I mentioned this but my grandmother grew up in Namibia, and I grew up hearing her stories of various people and places and adventures along the way. When my grandpa died on Christmas day, my father and I decided that we would take her back there so she could show us the places I’ve heard so much about (my dad took my grandparents there a few years ago).

Anyway after an awesome afternoon of looking over maps together I realised that I hadn’t looked at my passport recently and I remembered going when I was 16 so… uh oh… and I checked and saw that it expires next month.

So this morning saw me trotting off to home affairs, getting horribly lost and exploring johannesburg north for an hour or so and then arriving and being whisked away by Jacob (who gave me a business card and offered to get absolutely anything done, no queues for R200). Jacob was very nice when I rejected his offer, and because I’m a student and he has a daughter studying at the moment he decided to take me under his wing anyway.

Once he’s organised photos, photocopies and forms for me he left me in the queue and I sat for an hour and a half before I got to the counter (there were only 5 people ahead of me so who knows why it was so slow). There I found out that i had misread my passport and while it does expire in August, it’s August 2012, not next month.

Then I got back to P1’s car (mine is at panelbeaters) while on the phone, and struggling to manage all the ID book, papers, photos etc etc opened the car door right into my forehead (the corner of my door).

And then got stuck in traffic.

On the plus side my phone service provider called and promised to send me a shiny new purple phone next week! I bounced around for about an hour after the call before the headache got worse (it’s quite epic looking, I’m hoping nobody thinks I’m being beaten when they see the swelling).

on another note, i really want to do this:

and am regretting having the world’s darkest hair.

a post about elephants

2011-07-01T10:49:00.002+03:00

My so-called life

2011-06-30T20:35:00.001+03:00

I would blog, but I’m facing a personal crisis right now – a situation is approaching where I am going to have to be ‘the Bigger Person’ and I really don’t want to.

Meh.

Meet my little pwnie, Buttercup-the-Kickass. Made here.

Take that mr ex-stalker! Hoof to the FACE!

At least in cyber-space I can still be immature. and it feels GOOD.

I would include a cheesy quote about stars

2011-06-28T12:10:00.001+03:00

but I don’t want to.

(Dedicated to the people who knew that before I said it)

image from weheartit.com

The awesomeness of discovery

2011-06-27T16:04:00.001+03:00

So I discovered this morning that the boxing class at the gym is not actually a tae-bo style like I’ve done before. Nope. You get your punching bag and you beat it up.

Of course not knowing this I didn’t have boxing gloves (a relic from TOD) with me, but I joined in anyway and ended up a)with sore knuckles, b)exhilarated to the point of wanting to go running (I opted for a nap anyway) and c)with the trainer person insisting that I stay an extra half hour next week so he can teach me how to train in between. I may die.

Then after a long day of being victimised by someone with a vacuum cleaner (the lady who works for us is awesome, but seemingly eccentric and spent several hours vacuuming the tiles outside of the room where I was trying to work), I got changed for yoga (because you don’t spend an hour boxing and then maintain the ability to walk unless you do some heavy-duty stretching) and found that my gym shirt (it contains a shock-absorber and was my pride and joy for two days before I got bitten by the dog and couldn’t run):

IT HAS A POCKET!

for some reason finding hidden pockets in clothes is one of my favourite surprises (only ranking behind rediscovering hidden pockets and finding money I hid there)

I have a pocket and I am invincible!

this just about sums it up

2011-06-27T14:29:00.001+03:00

picture from here

Good times

2011-06-20T12:34:00.001+03:00

The therapist told me I was looking less miserable today. So here is why:

Thursday was a public holiday! We went hiking:

Fr the record I am SO unfit and nearly died, but I’m really keen to go hiking again soon, so it can’t have been that bad.

We found a restaurant with the best avo-cheese-bacon burgers EVER

Then on Friday I went off with La to an engagement party to provide moral support as La was the only other non-German at the German function. It was a lot of fun, we did some bonding and got a full-harmony concert of the boys singing folk songs. According to my friendly translator most of the songs were about how much they love beer, and how they are broke and can’t buy beer. And that they are happy and joyful. But the cockerel is dead. Pass the beer. It was an amazing peek into such a different group of people and I felt very privileged to be a part of the evening. Plus I learned the applications of a leafblower in braai-starting.

Saturday was pretty relaxed and plan-less, and ended up with P1 joining me for girls night since we were out anyway and he was driving. I’m not sure he knew quite what to expect but it was fun.

And Sunday was father’s day so I got to see my niece and brother (the niece is SO cute right now), hang out with my family and then head out to P1 to go for lunch with his family.

And then we watched this movie:

Which was SO sad that I almost wanted to stop watching it. Beautiful, but horribly sad.

So all in all a pretty good few days. How was your weekend?

Pretty shiny prizes!

2011-06-13T15:59:00.001+03:00

The super-awesome Nes has given me two LOVELY awards. Something about her… well IRL Nes is one of my favourite people in the whole world. I often think she’s not crazy at all – everyone else is. She’s someone who just loves the people she cares about, no matter how much they may hurt her. she’s always available when you need a shoulder to cry on, a pep talk, or just some girly gossip. She was the P1’s first cheerleader, and even co-conspirator who gave him the address to send flowers to my lab, and then called me to make sure I wasn’t freaking out when I got them.

Anway back to the shiny pink prizes:

They both follow pretty much the same drill: 7 random things about me and 5 awesome people to pass it on to.

Random things about me:

I have had a mild obsession with Bon Jovi since I was ten, and ever since the rumours of their coming to South Africa started I’ve checked their tour website at least once every two weeks.
The scariest thing that happened to me was babysitting for the first time and hearing my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth.
I am trying to visualise were I will be a year from now, but I can’t seem to imagine a complete picture.
Graduating is becoming something of an obsession (well graduation and sleep). My father is determined to get me to wear the horrible pouffy hat though.
I am desperate to see the phdcomics movie!
P1 is getting me seaquest, but that is not without judgement on his part (and on the housemates too)…
I’ve developed an unhealthy addiction to the tubs of candyfloss you can get at spar. The sugar makes me cranky but it’s just so tasty and I love having a blue tongue afterwards

So people to give it to… I think it’s about time the skinny-bitches got something pink and shiny. They can split it one each if it makes them happy, otherwise doubling-up is totally ok too.

Dating is my hobby: OK, I’m a bit of a lurker there but I just love her blog with the insightful experiences of growing up and settling down and enjoying the simple moments that make everything worthwhile. And the occasional panic which I can totally identify with.

Bonda84: besides being my email-advice giver, I am loving seeing her having fun and living her life after settling for not-good-enough.

Kath Lockett: For moving across the world and still making me laugh or cry. And for showing me that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved and happy which is better than perfect.

Po: for stopping blogging and making me so sad and then starting again. And for having awesome music taste (and not just the vuvuzela)

Important lessons

2011-06-09T10:15:00.001+03:00

I stole this from Caz who stole it from somewhere who stole it from the huffington post. And as I am whiny enough without having to endure pantless girls walking around, please use this chart before you leave the house so that I don’t have to put on my old lady voice and ask you if you aren’t cold.

(I linked to the blog pot I stole it from so click on the picture if the whole thing isn’t showing up, I’ve been fighting with it and it hates me)

Wild Wednesdays

2011-06-08T22:56:00.001+03:00

It seems to me that lately Wednesdays are the toughest day of the week. I have no idea why, they tend to be the day I get the most work done, no appointments, no meetings, no job-related work. They’re not Thursdays where I generally either relax or else frantically try to finish my goals for the week (depending on how well Wednesday went I suppose). But lately Wednesdays seem to be when things in general get under my skin and annoy me until I end up grumpy and irritable and snappish.

For instance this week:

It was cold and rainy and although I found a delightful coffee-shop (with free wifi) to work in, I hadn’t charged my netbook fully the night before (it has epic battery life usually but takes forever to charge) and the waitress started getting annoyed that I wasn’t leaving.
My sister-in-law (not my greatest fan since i struggled to get my family together for photos on her wedding day and she threw a full bridezilla fit at me) has told me that if I want to see my niece’s latest exploits I must wait for her to put a video on facebook. This from the woman who is always too busy to see me anyway and also lies to my brother about how often she tried to contact me and then tells him that I hate her. Usually I try to take a step back and remind myself that she is the mother and she gets to make those decisions, and I can’t ask my brother to check up on his wife, but today it just upset me (this all happened on Monday so maybe I needed some time to stew). It hurts me that her entire extended family gets to see the kid on a regular basis and I’m lucky to hold her once every other month.
It also hurts me that my mother’s time with her grandchild is so limited. As much as my mother and I don’t see eye to eye (we’re very different people), I really admire my mom. she’s the person who had cancer when I was 12 and went for surgery and radiation and everything and even though my dad was always working and she did most of the things we needed we never missed a day of school. I don’t even remember being scared, because as much as she tends to be sensitive and emotional she dealt with everything so calmly that the 12-year-old me had no idea there was anything to worry about. Surely that’s the kind of person you would want to have around your child?
I’m tired of people being childish. I tried to iron things out with my ex-stalker (who hasn’t spoken to me since I sat him down and very gently explained that I wasn’t going to date him, 18 months ago), mainly because I’m tired of people being nervous to invite us out to the same things. His response was “I’m not interested” and a walk-off before I even started.
I’m tired of being the plus-one. i hate not being able to read people, and lately I never do anything with P1s friends unless he’s going and I invite myself along. I’m sick of it. If they want to see me they must invite me themselves. These are the people who restored my faith in friendship when Leia pulled a few of her many stunts and it upsets me when I’m not sure where I stand with them too.
My super-v – after begging for drafts forever, I sent it to him and he went on holiday a week later without even skimming through it to see if i was on the right track. I’m paying R16000 in fees for this?
People keep telling me that if I leave academia once I graduate I will have wasted a huge chunk of my life. I don’t mind advice like that, as long as they have PhDs. Otherwise it’s none of their business and they have no idea what they’re talking about.
My friend begging me to do something with them yesterday and then cancelling at the last minute.

In short today I am fed up. I’m aching to find a backpack, and just head off and see where I end up. Have adventures away from the people and politics and silly superficial rubbish that they seem to love wading through. I just want to get away from everything and everyone and figure out where that person I am has gone to. I HATE being crabby and sensitive. It isn’t who I am.

Sorry for the long whiny rant. I think this is why I haven’t posted for so long, the aaargh factor tends to get quite longwinded.

Fill in the blanks Friday!

2011-06-03T13:01:00.001+03:00

OK, first tings first, blogger hates me and won’t let me comment. On My own Blog.

Secondly, it’s Friday! And rather than write about my mini/massive meltdown that resulted in me crying in the middle of a shopping centre while P1 got me lunch and tried to fend off the angry shoppers who thought he was being mean to me (phd depression, google it. I’m not alone), or about our accidentally ending up at kareoke-night with a bunch of awesome old guys (and my less-than sparkling kareoke debut), I decided to take the easy option.

As always it’s from here:

1. I love hairdye because it makes me feel like a new person when I’m having a sad day and don’t want to be ‘me’ for a while. I’m considering going red again.

2. A time that mama knew best was when she told me about the difference between assertive and aggressive. And that when I crashed my brother’s car the best thing was to et me take the dog for a walk. for about 4 hours.

3. My first kiss went a little like this ...not quite magical, it was a bit on the awkward side and I don’t think I ever spoke to that person again.

4. My celebrity crush is Joaquin Phoenix. Pre-weird phase. Also Hugh Jackman and john Cusak (before he started ageing badly).

5. My splurge of choice is makeup and earrings. It would be shoes but i have big feet and finding shoes that fit me and aren’t ugly is difficult and traumatic.

6. My biggest accomplishment is surviving my degree so far. And becoming who I am today (who is someone I might consider being friends with – well if the stupid tears stopped happening. I had to wear waterproof mascara for the last week to avoid the panda-style).

7. My dance jam of choice is cheesy old music, think Duran Duran, Journey, Bon Jovi. Alternatively anything garbage or Prodigy and I WILL dance.

Promise.

What’s news?

2011-06-01T15:22:00.001+03:00

Well after a weekend of working like a demon, having some pretty demonic mood-swings (they say writing a thesis is like giving birth, they may be right), and pulling a full 14-hour day on Monday I sent a huge chunk off to the superV. I had warned him it was coming and he had responded quite eagerly, so of course after sending it off and then sitting up overnight stressing about it, I shouldn’t have been surprised that he has stopped answering messages and hasn’t acknowledged receiving it.

Anyway I celebrated by going back to that random vintage place near my house (it’s here-ish by the way) and went through it and a slightly dodgier version a few shops down and found myself a lovely nicci cream crochet overdress thing that I’ve been looking for FOREVER. I also had to deal with my mother asking me if I was buying second-hand clothes because I was broke. And I realised that no matter what happens I will never buy a pair of second-hand shoes. Ick.

In the meantime MORE people are getting engaged. My mother has urged me to remember that even if I may have 60 years with the guy of my dreams, my ovaries aren’t going to last for too much longer. And (I quote) ‘your baby-making years are short and passing you by!”

Thanks mom.

I have discovered that while working in coffee shops is fantastic, I hate the vibe of 4th avenue during the day. And R40 for a toasted sandwich is ridiculous. Lucky Moo’s yumyum chinese food on the other had is worth every penny!

uuuuurgh

2011-05-29T18:02:00.002+03:00

I have spent my sunday working and writing the last bit of this chapter feels like going to a room full of knitting people and trying to bundle up all the wool while holding the ends and getting the colour coordination right.

I think I am going to give up for the day (to be fair it IS 5pm and go and make flapjacks with nutella for the boys (who have started calling me 'auntie' which feels like it should bother me more than it actually does...)

I have super-powers!

2011-05-25T14:38:00.000+03:00

Seriously, every time I log onto facebook someone else is engaged! it’s quite astonishing, the other day I logged on twice and TWO people were engaged!

I guess it’s the age I’m at, and Id better just get used to wearing uncomfortable shoes just in case I get invited to weddings and all of those fun things.

The funny part is how often the freshly-engaged tend to want to spread their happiness! I have been told:

“You’re next!” (x15 or so)

“It won’t be long! P1 was looking so happy the other day1”

“Don’t you wish you were engaged too? we could go dress shopping/venue hunting together!”

And the not-engaged ones tend to either moan about the doom of our generation, or else ask me if I’m jealous.

Am I?

Short answer… no.

Long answer… nope.

I am so happy for everyone who has decided to settle down. Every single one of them has found someone amazing and I couldn’t be less than thrilled that they’re so excited and in love.

I am also not ready for that yet. I am married to my degree and I have been for so long that I have a lot of life to live first.

Besides (touch wood) we have a long time (unless 2012 is really the apocalypse in which case I’ll post a retraction). The rest of your life is significantly more than like… a week (I hope).

Why rush into it? surely a few years is worth waiting if you get the next 60-odd?

The people with shiny new accessories (ok I AM a sucker for shiny things, so if anyone out there wants to send me alternative diamond accessories please feel free) are all exactly where they want to be.

And so am I.

Just less shiny.

My favourite things!

2011-05-24T15:11:00.000+03:00

I stole this from Jenty

Favourite Shop – I hate shopping, much more of a fleamarket type! I did find an obscure vintage place near my house that was very cool though!
Favourite chocolate – nutella!
Favourite food – soup, anything involving bacon (my mother has banned it from the house to ‘reduce our dependency on nitrates’ so I am a bacon hoover whenever I’m not home.
Favourite meal that I make – I guess ginger chicken stirfry. I made coconut lemon chicken the other day but it wasn’t well received (my family took exception to the 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper).
Favourite flower – daffodils, they’re dfferent, and I love yellow!
Favourite colour to wear – blue
Favourite shoes – right now I think its my death-butterfly skater shoes with 80-threw-up laces. I like pretty heels but my leg hsn’t recovered enough for me to wear them yet.
Favourite drink – in a G&T phase right now
Favourite lens – My old faithful 18-55
Favourite place to walk the dogs – Along the river near my house, they love it!
Favourite coffee for every day at home – Anything from grounds, I think if you’re organised enough you should never have to drink instant coffee (shudder). I also rarely drink coffee at home as I’m trying to avoid those caffeine-headaches by limiting t to work/lab only.
Favourite coffee shop – Cafe Vida!
Favourite pizza place – Luigi’s, or Col’Cacchios (which is where I learned that avocado is not entirely awful and should be eaten with biltong!)
Favourite place to take photos – anywhere, I love walking around with my camera, although that is much harder in the city than off in the bush somewhere.
Favourite place for holidays – Holiday? that seems like such a distant concept… I love going anywhere though, right now I have pipelined two hiking trip, a diving trips and a family trip to Namibia. Just need to finish a degree first…
Favourite joghurt – anything that doesn’t have disgusting chunks of ‘fruit’ in it. Lately I’ve been eating a lot of vanilla yoghurt with dried cranberries thrown in, but that’s more to do with it being in the fridge than my seeking it out.
Favourite website – the one where I get to see my niece everyday!

This needed to be said a long time ago

2011-05-23T16:26:00.002+03:00

I went to a workshop which addressed some of the issues you can have in a working (even student) environment. One of the sections described the types of people we have to work for/with, and one of the descriptions gave me quite a fright.

Paraphrased: The Passive-aggressive person is not openly hostile, and often claims to be a friend while sabotaging mainly by directing a combination of hostility and guilt. They promise everything but don’t keep their word and dislike any kind of obligation.

The lady running the course told us to be very aware of these people, as they are everywhere and they are often well hidden unless you are looking for them. And she warned us that they are toxic and if you are unlucky enough to end up in a working relationship with one of them, then to get out of there as soon as humanly possible.

After 21 years of friendship Leia called me dishonest, then admitted to lying to me, then told me she would fake being my friend but lose touch as soon as possible. She forced me to apologise for being angry, but refused to apologise to me for making me angry in the first place. And because I would not accept her ‘fake friend’ deal, I must be aware of the fact that I am the evil one who ended the friendship. Ignoring of course that even though she went out of her way to make my life difficult I still had to organise the sit-down-and-talk session.

She even mocked me for going to other people for advice when I am confused.

Then she proceeded to do a very good job of making sure that none of the people in the lab came near me ever again, and made sure that I can hear them giggling and having fun whenever I’m around. It’s interesting to watch the results as someone you used to trust trash-talks you to people you thought were friends. Even my therapist was stunned.

Did I mention that she has handed in and has no business being around in the first place? I was actually really excited to be able to do my work without her standing behind me having loud conversations while I try to concentrate. I’m guessing she will do a PhD because she’s safe being the queen bee in a lab of people who do whatever she tells them to do. All I know is that I need to graduate because being in the same room as her makes me nauseous.

This from the person I considered somewhere between a little sister and a best friend.

So to Leia: I hope that one day it comes back and bites you in the ass.

And to the others: Good luck. I hope you’re never happier or more successful than she is because she will destroy you. Probably while doing whatever she’s ‘punishing’ you for. Because the rules don’t apply to her.

I just wish it didn’t take me two decades to figure it out. The signs were actually there for a long time.

because we all love a good internet quiz!

2011-05-23T14:31:00.006+03:00

So I did a little quiz

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Language is Quality Time

My Detailed Results:

Quality Time:9

Words of Affirmation:8

Acts of Service:6

Physical Touch:5

Receiving Gifts:2

Makes sense (I think)

What's yours?

Take the Quiz!

Fill-in-the-blanks Friday

2011-05-20T16:44:00.001+03:00

As always from here

1. People always tell me I look like someone they know. I spend half of my life trying to figure out who everyone around me is, and how I know them (and IF I know them).

2. Friends don't let friends wear shirts and tights. Please guys, remember to put pants on!

3. A sunny day is perfect for sleeping in the sun. Particularly after going for a run and having a shower (with the added excuse of ‘drying my hair’)

4. My favorite accessory is my collection of hats. Also glow bangles, and dangly earrings.

5. If I could afford it I would travel all over the place.

6. The cure for boredom is to think about how many things you have to do and therefore reclassify boredom as ‘pre-productivity relaxation’

7. I am currently "in like" with mixed berry super-Cs, my big heavy patchwork quilt, sprite zero and anything involving bacon.

nowhere is home

2011-05-20T14:38:00.001+03:00

So the lab won a 'you are awesome' award from some university bigwigs. And the journalists descend...

Everyone is dressing up and cleaning up and getting excited for photographers.

And I wasn't included n the email, or the planning.

I'm guessing that being an honorary lab-member since my supervisor abandoned me is just that. Honorary.

I suppose I get next Friday morning off at least. I'm sure Leia will be doing a happy dance.

It always amazes me

2011-05-17T10:22:00.001+03:00

How people complain when you do something, but then complain when you stop.

and how communication can be a big issue of sighs and 'not again's,
but then they wonder why you don't tell them what's wrong.

which is quite funny because most of the issues that people have culd
be solved with the proper communication.

Call me domestic goddess (if you don’t mind)

2011-05-12T13:50:00.000+03:00

So the other day I really felt like cooking. And after a few Googles, a vague remembering-what-was-in-the-fridge session (aided by my having made mother’s day lunch), bolstered by my confidence from making awesome cheese sauce on the weekend…

I attempted lamb chops in pepper sauce (insert dramatic music).

And they came out super-well with mashed potato and creamed spinach. and as I kind of made the recipe by combining a bunch of other recipes (so it’s not mine, but not NOT mine either), I figured I should post the recipe to avoid it going the way of the tomato soup recipe (which was lost forever)…

Ingredients:

4 shallots, finely chopped (I only had 3 shallots so I used a couple of tiny baby onions too)
10 ml olive oil
a little bit of butter
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon of wine vinegar (all the recipes say this, I misread a label and bought malt vinegar and it worked just as well)
1 1/2 tablespoons of cracked black peppercorns (to crack them, put them in a ziplock bag,wrap the bag in a serviette and smack repeatedly with a hammer).
1 glass red wine (I used the arabella cabernet sauvignon which worked really nicely).
1 cup of brown gravy sauce stuff (there is a fancy name that I had never heard until yesterday)
100ml cream
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley (I used the Italian parsley with the bigger leaves, with the regular parsley I’d only use 1/4 cup. Finely chopping by smacking with a meat cleaver is also the most fun ever).
Lamb chops.

And the instructions:

Season chops with salt ad pepper. Heat olive oil in a pan (to hot hot) and cook chops for 30 seconds on each side (enough to sear but not cook). Set aside.
Melt butter in a pan and sautee shallots until they go transparent. Throw in peppercorns and vinegar.
Add wine, and cook until the volume halves (once again there are fancy terms, and once again I don’t know them). Sip on leftover wine while doing this.
Add in the brown sauce stuff and once again wait for the volume to halve. Add in parsley at some stage. There is a a proper time to do this but I find ‘Oh crap I forgot the parsley!’ works as a good indicator of the right time (throwing in a bit of salt occasionally as well as sprinkling in some sage and rosemary also makes you look like you know what you’re doing).
reduce heat to simmering and add cream. Sigh in relief as it starts resembling something you might actually eat.
once the cream is all mixed in and it’s simmering nicely put the meat into the sauce and leave it there to cook. It can’t dry out because it’s in sauce, so besides serving something still bleeding (my personal horror), you’re pretty much home free.
Serve over mashed potatoes
and of course don’t forget the veggies, I had screamed spinach ad eta and it was delicious.

It came out really nicely and I was totally proud of myself. Although to be fair I’m not much of a meat-eater, particularly when there are bones in it, so I ended up really enjoying the sauce on the accompanying mashed potato and giving most of my chop to P1 (who didn’t complain at all).

Verdict? it was insanely quick and nothing seemed to go wrong, plus you get to hit stuff with hammers, which makes it a winning experience all around!

Sshhhh… let me hide please

2011-05-10T13:27:00.000+03:00

I sat in the freezing cold, wrapped in a giant jacket (I love having a boyfriend who is 6 ft 3) discussing death with a plumber.

And as the discussion covered things like losing pets and then moved on to Alzheimer's, dementia and how many awful car accidents we’ve seen on the roads, the general consensus was a ‘live now we’ll die anyway’

Meanwhile I just wanted to hide under my bed in case anything horrible happens. After all, those terrible terrible things can’t happen to you if you stay at home (and really really reinforce it).

Right?

And just to clarify, I’m not being flippant about this. A year ago I’d never gone to the funeral of someone I’d known. Right now I’ve been to three. And I know now that death really really scares me. I’ve never really had to deal with it before.

And I don’t want to deal with it.

Girl-crisis

2011-05-09T13:17:00.000+03:00

I’m going for my first manicure/pedicure on Thursday and I’m a bit nervous.

a) will she judge me for the state that my hands and feet are in?

b) will I be able to deal with someone touching my feet without having a ticklish ‘episode’ and kicking her in the face.

That said I’ve been working really hard, so bring on the pampering!

Score one for girl-power

2011-05-08T16:08:00.001+03:00

I played Risk against a bunch of boys last night. One of them said before the time that (and I quote) “Girls just can’t strategise” – I did enjoy taking over three quarters of his territories in one turn.

This was after the guy-in-question’s girlfriend asked why I was placing last (unlucky dice-roll) when, as the only girl playing I “should have gone first automatically!”

I love them both but I hope they grow some sense before they have any daughters.

All I want for christmas is

2011-05-05T10:47:00.001+03:00

The guts to sit in this:

in an inflatable bubble-tent:

with a cosy pair of Freudian slippers:

that is all.

Awesomeness

2011-05-04T10:53:00.001+03:00

From Luke:

Books

2011-05-03T10:08:00.001+03:00

I’ve spent the last gazillion public holidays housesitting (my brother has a bull terrier that needs a lot of attention and a fair amount of discipline, but she is very cute) and rediscovering my love of reading.'

Everything from epic fantasy westerns:

To straight fantasy (because we were watching the series the other day):

to non-fiction:

to just plain ridiculous:

Ness and I were talking about our need for some mindless chick-lit and she lent me this:

And after about two days I was able to stop crying.

What have you been reading?

I have grown as a person. Can I have my boy back now please?

2011-04-24T14:31:00.004+03:00

It has been a week(end) of reconciliation - my brother and I hadn't been talking for a long time, and we sat down and sorted things out. Here's hoping it actually works, strangely enough we were both thinking the same thing but also both offended enough to not do anything.

Finally having a long talk with my mother about my issues with the church and why I don't often attend any more. I guess I can be a bit harsh on the church and the people there sometimes, but I have yet to find a church that doesn't make me angry so going to one that does upset me is a little bit counterproductive.

Going back to the zoo for the first time in probably over a year, and had the most incredible time playing with baby red pandas, tenrecs, sleepy duikers, owls, honey badgers and a whole bunch of things while hanging out with an old friend I haven't visited forever.

I spent an evening at CGs place with her and La and a bunch of people and it was really really nice.

P1 is away for the weekend, and I've been spending time with some of his friends too, who have started to become friends in their own right. I have spent time with them without P1 before, but usually just because he's off playing computer games or something, not left the city completely.

Oh, and EEbEE sent me this, which is awesome, and kind of fitting considering where the P1 is at the moment:

did you know 'eggshell' was a colour?

2011-04-22T11:49:00.002+03:00

I was reading this post on thelittlethingswedo, and it's made me think a bit about the other side of the coin.

I love the 'manly-man' side of my P1, the side that drives me around, gets angry when someone upsets me, stands around the fire prodding at it with sticks at any braai, the one who looks after me and laughs at me when I freak out and gives me a big hug to make things better.

But at the same time I wonder, do guys need girls to have a 'girly' side?

As someone who pulled a foot muscle wearing heels, who has lost her hairbrush (and cut her hair with a swiss army knife the other day), who spent the other morning ripping up skirting boards while discussing zombie movies, and can never wear a skirt again due to the giant black scabs that will soon be giant gougy scars from dog attack...

Is having a pink netbook enough to redeem my girliness?

I'm just glad that Oracle and I are going for manicures soon, I may need to kick-start with some pampering.

Maybe I should follow this.

Then again, I heard there was an awesome zombie movie on tomorrow...

new beginnings

2011-04-21T21:43:00.001+03:00

Easter to me was always more important than Christmas. Besides the religious angle which I try to avoid delving into here, I think it is important to see it as a rebirth - a time to start fresh and change things that you don't like - either about yourself, your situation, or even the world in general.

I guess today has (quite coincidentally) seen the resolution of a lot of floating issues - I sat down and chatted to my brother and we're going to try to work harder at being in each other's lives; he has a work crisis which is now all OK, I had a health scare (that became a parent-scare when the doctor phoned the wrong number off my file and spoke to my mother) and the test results came back ok.

Post dog-attack I had my first run (it was all of a kilometre but I was proud), and while it's far from healed I have also come to terms with the scar that I will have to live with. I was also growled at by a rottweiler and didn't freak out (last week had a couple of incidents).

I had a birthday that I didn't want to celebrate since the friend-scythe attacked and I felt very lost and unwanted. And as it happened I had an amazing day seeing both of my grandmothers, had a great lunch at home with my mother's world-famous (or it should be) soup, and then P1 and his best friend put in beyond the extra mile to give me an incredible birthday party that was everything I ever could have dreamed of (grammar nazi's GO).

I guess I realised that I do have a lot of people who care, and they are amazing and special and I'm glad that I was able to spend time with them while the others got scythed away.

And the weirdest new beginning of the last few days? I had a chat to my mother about some things that were bothering me, and rather than yell at me or freak out, she gave me decent sound advice and I left feeling better.

So here's to a year of new beginnings, I hope that all of you have a clean and fresh start with lots of joy and success and leaving behind the baggage that we all tend to tow behind us.

conversations at work

2011-04-20T10:48:00.001+03:00

Client: I feel so bad, we're going down to the coast and I won't have time to wash my dogs

Me: that's ok, they look fine

Client: I can just imagine the look on my mother's face

Me: she'll be happy to see you. And them!

Client: She does love her grand-dogs... is that silly?

Me: no ways, I have god-dogs.

Client: that's lovely!

Me: mostly it involves me feeding them treats and bossing the owner around

Client: you sound like a lovely dogmother!

True story...

I am

2011-04-12T23:23:00.001+03:00

Feeling silly for taking so log to figure out why my antivirus wasn’t updating and stuck sitting up waiting for it to finish.

Fed up with going through crisis after crisis. I hate that my attitude has gone from positive to gatvol and whiny. I didn’t ask to lose family members, get flu, get attacked by a dog, have major work issues and have some unbelievable lab setbacks. At the same time I’m tired of hearing myself whine about things. And I’m more tired of feeling like I’m some kind of emotional leech who needs support more than i can give it. And even more tired of people saying “It’s ok, you’ve had a rough time lately” – they’ve been saying it for too long now.

Amazed by the patience shown by the people who matter. P1 in particular never fails to cheer me up – either dropping by work to bring me lunch, giving me a blanket and a couch while he makes me dinner, letting me hijack his computer to play Dragon age (to be fair he created the monster he has to deal with it) and a million other silly little things that don’t feel silly. Or little.

To be fair I gave him a house. It was orange (gotta love my bosses and their weird choices in message paper combined with my burgeoning obsession with origami) and had sparkles on the roof.

Trying very hard to not poke at the scabs on my leg. I get around it by covering it in bandages during the day.

Feeling frustrated that I can’t run. I want my leg back. A runner-friend looked up and sent me a list of races for the rest of the year and I’m feeling frustrated that I can’t definitively plan a training schedule as long as I have what looks like an egg under the skin on my calf. Gotta love hematomas. I can sort-of cycle now, but it doesn’t go very fast or far before I need to limp home.

Planning a holiday. I’m thinking a long weekend in May where my main concern would be if my drink became room-temperature while I took a nap in a hammock.

Thinking about the farm a lot. Here are some pictures fro the last few trips.

I have learned

2011-04-06T13:26:00.001+03:00

I heal fast. Ridiculously fast. It’s hard to believe a week ago I had leg-innards falling out and now I’m trying to decide whether to try running tomorrow or not. Probably not, but more because I picked up a cold in the doctors waiting room and now I sound like Macy Gray.

People can be really nice. Particularly if you mess up and inconvenience them and have to phone them and apologise. It’s always awesome to have someone who says “Sure! No problem!” It makes me want to be a nicer person just because of how awesome they are.

There are a lot of antibiotics out there. I’m currently on type number 3 in 10 days. On the plus side I’m not dealing with an infected dogbite (and type three hasn’t made me sick yet), and if I get any kind of secondary infection from this cold it’s been well and truly nuked by now.

Easter makes me want chocolate. A lot.

And still no petite lap-giraffe. It makes me sad.

It was bound to happen eventually...

2011-03-30T21:41:00.000+03:00

So, on the most inconvenient day known to man, I got attacked by a rather large dog. To be fair he had growled a couple of times, but his owner was one of those lovely people who don't know the consulting hours pitched up early and then didn't want to go home, so I gave the dog a squeaky toy to keep it entertained. And of course it managed to send it rolling under a shelf and couldn't get it out.

So, figuring that he was far enough away for it to be safe I tried to kick it out and back to him. He took this as my going to ste the toy and launched himself at me, dragging his owner with him and attached himself to my leg.

After a brief tug-o-war where he refused to leg go and I refused to let him hold on, I spent the next ten minutes trying to calm the owner down, calling the vet and trying to stop getting blood all over the floor (by wiping it up really quickly), until I had the bright idea that maybe I should stop it pouring out of me first.

By that stage all kind of weird things were falling out of my leg, the vet took one look at me and decided I needed a doctor, covered me in bandages and called the other vet.

The next ten minutes involved my insisting I could drive myself to the hospital, selling dog food, tryng to calm people down, thanking the twenty million people who offered to take me to a doctor and finally being bundled into the vets car and off to the emergency room.

After an hour (you fill your name in and wait, they don't even seem to screen by seriousness of injury, only by medical aid or not), we were called up and told that as I didn't have the actual medical aid card on me, that i could be a nasty fraud and using someone else's medical aid. But pick up the phone for authorisation was too difficult so I would have to go home and email the med aid and ask for a certificate then I could go back and be treated.

I phoned my mother who went into a tail-spin, and insisted I leave immediately and go to my gp.

So about two and a half hours post-bite my GP and all his colleagues oohed and aahed over the bite, had a debate over techniques, sewed me up and gave me tetanus jabs and antibiotics and sent me on my way. I complained about my lack of camera phone (it looks so much less impressive all stitched up) and tried to get the doctor to squeeze more of the subcutaneous fat out (it was falling out already, and have you ever tried to change calf-size? it's impossible!).

I went home and off to gym (local anaesthetic on leg, it felt FINE), ate some dinner, took two painkillers and passed out with an ice-pack on the leg.

The next morning I stood up and almost passed out. The I had an exciting shower with one leg sticking out (and almost passed out), and then fed two excited dogs who jumped up against my legs (I saw spots, but only wobbled slightly) and then managed to drive off. It's slightly more painful tha admitting, particularly when I sit for too long and it gets all stiff.

The main issue is that the painkillers contain codeine AND a sedative (and a tiny bit of caffeine). I fell asleep at work several times, and was pretty much brainless when awake. Finally I went to the pharmacist and got something else and it's been a big improvement. I also got a first-aid qualified friend to check it out today and have it declared clean and (so far) infection free.

The strange this is that random people drop in at the vet now see how I'm doing. My answer is generally along the lines of "I'm very medicated, how are you?"

I guess I was rpetty lucky, it might not have been the best idea for me to be driving as I wasn't making logical sentences when I got home. And my bosses and the P1 and my mother have been very long-suffering in my whining, particularly when I haven't taken pain-meds for a while (I can only take them when I'm not planning on driving soon as I tend to go off into fairyland when I'm on them).

Oh, and if anyone can get me one of these for my birthday I would be the happiest girl alive! I NEEEEEED one!

Dreams

2011-03-25T14:00:00.000+03:00

It’s something that I’m relatively used to that I have a super-vivid dream life. I talk in my sleep, walk in my sleep, yell at people for stuff they’ve done in my dreams and often wake up when the phone rings and have a conversation related to my dream with the person on the other side.

Last night I had a dream that the cast of Dead Like Me (mainly Mason) hanging out in a train with Finn from Glee, discovering that there were newborn babies somehow psychically/telekinetically/voodoishly attached to them so that every time they moved the baby moved too. And i woke up with the tagline “I wanna party like a newborn” stuck in my head.

Not the point of the point of this post though. A while ago a ‘friend’ of mine treated me really really badly, and eventually told me that she would fake being half-friends with me for a while but eventually she’d lose touch on purpose and never speak to me again.

And she was in my dream and I went to her in front of a bunch of people in the train and i shouted at her. And I woke up feeling fantastic. And in traffic yesterday I realised why. In my attempt to avoid dragging our mutual friends (after we met 22 years ago most friends have been mutual) into the conflict she has basically been taking them away from me one by one. I don’t know what she tells them (although she told me to my face that she has lied to me and then accused me of being dishonest so I can imagine in her warped mind she must have invented all kinds of things).

so I think subconsciously I have been wanting to put my side of the story out there without being petty and hurting friends who shouldn’t have to choose between us. I feel like I’ve been treated unfairly and I can’t defend myself. and I feel like by being immature she’s actually winning. the high road hurts sometimes.

Who knows, all I can say is that I’m grateful for my dreams for letting me feel like I could do something about it, even if it didn’t really happen.

Stylish

2011-03-24T15:48:00.001+03:00

yay, it’s been forever since I got an award and now bonda84 from life, love and other everyday adventures has given me this shiny one:

Which might just drag me out of blogger apathy for a while (Not sure if ‘stylish’ really applies to me considering that the best part of my year so far has been running around with pink hair, but I do like shiny things so I think I’ll keep it). So the usual drill applies: 7 things about me, plus a bunch of people to give it to.

I love climbing trees but am actually not much good at it. I also tore my jeans on a tree on the weekend.
I love running to ridiculous music. The sillier the better. The joy of going to the gym is that I often wonder if anything ‘leaks’ out of my headphones. I never know if the funny looks are from the music they might be able to hear or from the way I giggle at certain stages while red-faced, sweaty and trying desperately to keep running.
I find pictures of animals doing human things (such as sitting at a computer) rather disturbing. Animals wearing clothes is even worse. I do not know how I worked at a petshop for 2 years without having a breakdown in the middle of the dog tracksuits.
there is a website called www.nooooooooooooooo.com . Seriously.
I got stung by a scorpion for the first time last weekend. It still hurts.
I use dog shampoo. It works fantastically well as well as being sulphate free, paraben free and soap free. It’s also a fraction of the price of the equivalent in human shampoo (and it wasn’t tested on animals either). So about that stylish award…
I have always been fascinated by the circus, and Cirque du Soleil was incredible enough to reawaken my old dream of running away and joining the circus. P1 said I bounced continuously for the full 2 hours.

So, who to give this to… I guess if you’re feeling more stylish than me (i.e. if you are a normal functioning human being) then feel free to take it if you’re someone who reads this and comments occasionally. just let me know please! And Vanessa, who just got her first blog and therefore requires a first award and will never take it unless it’s forced on her.

This makes me happy

2011-03-15T10:02:00.001+03:00

The happiest and vibiest random remix ever, had me chair-dancing!
Celebrating P1’s birthday with him again yesterday. I occasionally still find myself amazed that we’ve started getting to the stage of ‘traditions’ and that sort of thing (on a sad note the ridiculous stuffed-monkey I got for him for our anniversary (*ahem* long story) had its face eaten off by a friend’s dog though – not the dog that ate my shoes, a totally different one. On a creepier note its eyes were lined up very neatly next to the mangled head).
Seeing a bit more of the Oracle lately :)
appreciating my bed – after going away for the weekend and sleeping on something that must have been filled with concrete-powder (I have bruises) I’m really enjoying being back in my own bed!
Having the coolest dream where I was doing some insane rollerblading at a family reunion (while we were on a quest up a mountain) had me waking up smiling!

What makes you happy right now?

Fill in the blanks Friday!

2011-03-04T10:51:00.001+03:00

As we all know I’m a sucker for things like this! if you want to join in link to here.

1. The phrase or punctuation I overuse most is ellipses… definitely… I can irritate myself sometimes when I can’t stop using the little dots…

2. Today I am thankful for coffee. and for my dad who took one look at me this morning and brought me a cup.

3. My best friend is: well I don’t believe in the concept of best friends, people have different reasons that make me love them and they all fulfil very important roles in my life. In terms of the first person I call when something exciting happens, then it would be the P1.

4. A quirky thing about me is that I can only really exercise after 9pm, generally not too long after dinner. I actually like cold showers.

5. This weekend I am doing as little as possible. It’s my last weekend here for a while though so I can foresee it getting hectic. So far all I have scheduled is a birthday party.

6. Something that worries me is the way that everything is changing all the time but at the same time nothing seems to change at all. I worry that with everything moving around so much there won’t be anywhere for me anymore.

7. On my night stand you would find my glasses, a box crammed full of earrings, my antibiotics (2 days to go!), nail polish (always gravitates there), a lamp and enough things that I have to be careful rolling over during the night as that can start an avalanche is my duvet is at the wrong angle.

As some people have problems with uneven bullet points, I will add in another one:

8. The most awesome thing I have found today is:

Enter Sandman

2011-03-02T20:27:00.001+03:00

I. Am. Exhausted.

This week karma seems to be telling me that I am destiny-bound to take dead cats out of freezers (don’t ask), crazy cat ladies wait for me to be super-busy before wanting to chat (seriously) and occasionally to ask me to take dead cats out of freezers (really).

I just found out that I forfeit my public holiday by going camping with the KIDSes, P1 has had to put his couch in storage (major crisis) and that marking is just as much fun as I remember (not much).

I did a class at the gym yesterday followed by packing away half a ton of dog food (well helping to pack it away). Have lost the ability to move my upper body.

I’m loving this song right now (stolen from Not That Kind of Girl)

awesome, no?

I’ve been sitting in the lab organising class-lists for the last hour because the idea of driving home is too much work.

Wish me luck!

You know when you say ‘I have nothing to blog about’ and then people say ‘but what about ……?’ This is my list of ……

2011-02-22T12:40:00.001+03:00

I am exhausted at the moment. Despite getting regular exercise, eating properly (mostly) and making sure I get a scary number of hours of sleep every night I’ve been sleeping through my alarm most days and feeling like a zombie anyway. I feel the urge to make a bad joke about Trypanosomiasis, but will resist.
As a substitute for an alarm clock, P1 has been very kind and generally phones me in the morning to make sure I’m awake if I have somewhere to be. I think his enthusiasm has less to do with general kindness and a whole lot to do with the fact that when I’m half awake I tend to have trouble distinguishing my dreams from reality. for example the other day when he called I asked him why he was doing handstands on the lemons. He explained that he wanted lemonade, so I shouted at him for doing it on the floor. Yip, nothing like calling your boyfriend disgusting at 6:30 am because he’s doing gymnastics with the fruit.
The undergrads are back, and with them the nightmare of children with new cars who can’t park them. Yesterday it took me 20 minutes to get out of a parking bay because everyone around me was parked badly (not to mention that the security guards made me park with the children. It made me feel dirty).
my bosses’ kids are so incredibly cute at the moment, although they usually tend to come and visit me on days when I really am not feeling child-friendly. Although last time after a bad phone call the four-year-old gave me a huge hug and told me that she loved me – so that I wouldn’t be sad. As I said, incredibly cute right now.
My niece is smiling (apparently). Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to see her in a while, and when I did see her m mother swooped in and grabbed her before I got a chance to say hello (grumblegrumble)
I have been reading The Dark Tower series. I’m currently on book 5 and feeling very much sucked-in and enjoying it thoroughly. Not sure how I feel about them making a movie though, although I could imagine it being quite cool, I’m aware that I dislike westerns and by reading it I’m able to ignore the western aspect completely. Don’t judge me. To be fair I have never really likes Stephen King either so maybe this whole thing is supposed to be a learning experience?
We’re going to Cirque du Soleil next month! P1 bought tickets a year ago (not kidding) and has been waiting for March ever since. In a weird twist, whenever we have a fight he looks at the tickets and feels sad that he might have to go alone. Can I say that the circus has saved my relationship? (hugely simplified I know)

The return of the camera

2011-02-16T11:43:00.001+03:00

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)

Losing it

2011-02-14T17:43:00.001+03:00

I woke up this morning and reminded myself to pick up Luke’s birthday present (off my desk, 3 feet away) and then quite promptly left home without it.

I had a therapy session this morning and wound up running about half an hour overtime. Makes me wonder if I have huge issues or if she just wasn’t concentrating. she did ask me questions that I couldn’t answer so I will have to do some thinking.

I have no idea if i took my antibiotics this morning.

The kettle has boiled about six times and I still haven’t got around to making tea.

I took photos yesterday of my seemingly-but-not-actually illicit substances from overseas (watch this space) and forgot to transfer them from the memory card.

Remember those scary bodybuilders at the gym? one of them brought his pet rabbit into the vet last week. And recognised me. I (successfully) fought the urge to call him a bunnyhugger…

Truworths sale made me broke, but I took photos (and forgot them again) of the shoes I fell in love with, and then had a crisis over liking them, and then decided that I loved them, and then bought them and then wore them out to the worst possible place (wood-slat flooring + heels = getting stuck).

I did photograph them but forgot to transfer photos…

I think I just boiled the kettle…

Has anyone seen my keys?

And happy Valentines day to those of you who support it. And to P1 who may or may not be reading this now (long story), and who thinks that being called ‘P1’ is the coolest thing ever.

Developments

2011-02-09T18:34:00.001+03:00

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

2011-02-04T15:22:00.001+03:00

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

2011-02-04T15:05:00.001+03:00

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

Firsts

2011-01-31T13:37:00.001+03:00

It was a week of firsts:

The first family function (on my side of the family anyway) with my nice, uncle aunt, cousins and grandmother. It was my grandmother’s 89th birthday and I felt a horrible stab of guilt when she said “I love special occasions, I get to see you!” Bearing in mind that I spent at least one day a week with her as a kid and she’s a totally incredible lady, I really need to work at getting there more often. (plus I got to cuddle my niece, which is always awesome!)

a creepy cupcake collection. Because I can.

My first therapy session which was very interesting. I like the person I’ve been assigned to, she seems quite sensible and totally un-shockable and seems ok with the fact that I tend to think about things so when she asks me a question I explain everything, down to everyone’s motivations and coping mechanisms.
My first speeding ticket. Not bad that it took 7 years to get one, but pretty awful that it had to happen when I’m already struggling to pay my fees and parking. Fortunately I have some extra shifts coming up at the vet. On a worse not, when I went online to get the details I found out that I had a second fine on its way. For the SAME PLACE as the first one. AAARGH
My first anniversary with the P1. We went to Verdicchios in Montecasino and sat down in the cellar and had amazing food and then ended up sitting and talking about books and other stuff until about 1am.

The first hospital session of the year (my family must be jinxed) – my aunt and uncle came out from England on Friday and my uncle ended up spending Friday night in hospital with a nasty case of food poisoning. He seems better now though.

How was your weekend?

Cute things

2011-01-27T16:28:00.001+03:00

Kids trying to figure out old technology (to be fair I didn’t know some of the things). And the fact that they’re French just makes it cuter for some reason.

Pon & Zi

The Official Vuvuzela-song music video (10 points for recognising the location)

And of course, some random guy in Brazil playing it on his keyboard…

Moving on

2011-01-24T15:10:00.001+03:00

I often wonder whether the university offering free therapy is creepy or reassuring. What I can say is that it’s useful. There are times when you want or need to talk to someone and there are no friends who you want to burden with that information. and sometimes the issues are private.

A lot of things happened over the weekend. I had a fun Friday night with the girls, a fun Saturday afternoon playing the drums and learning to read guitar tabs for bass guitar. And then I headed off to two different birthday parties.

So anyway I was standing in Goth-world late on Saturday night, struggling to blink through the weight of my eyeliner, having just discovered that my usual leaping around on the dance floor is nearly impossible while wearing 4-inch heels (logic I know, but I can run in them so I figured I could dance in them…) when I saw a friend of mine giving the barman a lesson.

The friend in question is a bartender, and in general he’s pretty good. He’s the type who remembers your name, gets you ‘the usual’ after about two orders and has listened to me whining about the latest drama in my life often enough. He’s a nice guy.

But seeing him bossing around someone twice his age, with instructions that were actually a load of rubbish just to impress the latest in his adoring legion of female followers really got on my nerves.

And I thought: I don’t want this anymore.

I’m tired of going out all weekend and being exhausted on Mondays. I’m tired of going to places that only open after 10pm. I’m tired of dressing up and being the life and soul of the party when all I really want to do is sit on the couch and watch a movie.

Other stuff happened too. The weekend went steadily downhill and I ended up spending Sunday evening crying on La’s shoulder while she was amazingly patient and more open-minded than me.

I have a lot to think about at the moment, and a lot of pretty big decisions to make. The scary thing is that if it wasn’t my situation I’d have all the answers. I know what I should do, but not what I want to do. And I need to figure out how to get the two to combine and result in what I will do.

Bring on the therapy.

The lives that we’ll save…

2011-01-21T15:19:00.001+03:00

I don’t want to talk about the joys of studying in an institution that seems determined to keep me from graduating by charging exorbitant amounts of money just so that I can register to be tied here for the next year. Not to mention their not paying/underpaying/ not refunding money I spend on work means that I end up teaching for nothing and spending a lot of time doing things that won’t help me to graduate. AAAARGH.

So on a lighter note

I was looking for something in my old emails and found this on an old chat-log:

Oracle: we make such a great team: the Oracle and the Super-enlightened
we should go save the world.
i cover the world in fairy dust and you can give people music taste ;)
just think of the lives we would save- and the cool outfits
you already have the sparkles!

me: I do! we can sparkle-dust the world!
while playing cool music
with hats...

You rock! And when you submit your masters and I have a few hapter drafts sent off we will have a celebratory Glee marathon!

The Hustle just got overtaken

2011-01-20T13:41:00.001+03:00

It’s not secret that I find cheesy choreographed dance routines adorable and this is totally my new favourite!

It even overtakes the hustle (I love you headless-hustle-man!)

And that is bearing in mind the hustle scene in Vampires Suck.

And that is all.

This weekend I…

2011-01-17T14:56:00.001+03:00

Finished a whackload of work
Recovered from a not-very-triumphant (but oh-so-awesome) return to tai chi
Hung out with The Girls
Celebrated a year since P1 and I had out first real conversation. Had a crisis of being the girl who works these things out. I mean really?
Got a HUGE pile of fresh veggies from P1s parents (they live on a farm), and got to watch my mother spiral into crisis over what to do with 10kg of fresh tomatoes.
Went to my first ‘real’ cricket game – the SA vs India ODI. Nearly froze to death and had sore legs from jumping up and down every time something happened, but it was a fantastic day (except the losing part)
Had people over for post-cricket tea only to find my mother still up, making a giant pot of tomato chutney.
Made tomato soup from scratch (and it was incredible!).

That said, I’m pretty sure that tomatoes are going to be a feature in the next few weeks. and I get the feeling that I’m not entirely against the idea of making tomato soup regularly for that time.

The main issue is the internal debate – soup vs gemsquash? Maybe I can pour soup into gemsquash? But doesn’t that make it sauce?

Making a story…

2011-01-11T13:30:00.001+03:00

I remember on my 21st birthday (not the party, the actual birthday) my grandparents and aunt came for lunch and each of them told the stories of what they’d been doing the day I was born. The reactions, the mundane tasks. My parents had thought I would be a boy (they hadn’t asked the doctor but both suspected for some reason) so when I was a girl my dad ran out and got me a pink dress. My aunt told my brother about me, my mother was relieved that she’d changed her mind about my name (I’m pretty sure I was gripping the sides of the birth canal until she changed her mind) and so on.

So while I was attempting to stumble along the treadmill last night (darned festive season got me again) I thought about what I could tell little A when she gets old enough to ask about the day she came along.

Do I tell her:

I was so nervous all day my brain was mush and I was useless until I went home, where I read Steven King’s Dark Tower series until I ran out of books.
I got the message before my mother and she got all offended.
I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone until I’d been given the all clear (people have to be informed in a certain order to avoid offense and stuff, and leaking something before time can mess up a carefully constructed social network)
I broke the security boom at the hospital. Well not broke as much as I was the one that pushed the button as it began beeping long screeches and not going up. I got to park in visiting doctors parking for free!
After all that stress I forgot the word for ‘maternity ward’ and went to the front desk where I demanded that the young man on duty ‘show me the babies’ – he was somewhat alarmed, but did help me once I explained that my brother had just given birth and that I had to go and see him. In retrospect I’m still surprised that he didn’t casually misdirect me to the local psychiatrist for a straight-jacket fitting.
That that little girl is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and my brother and his wife just… fit. They’re the right parents for her, and she’s just completely and absolutely perfect.

progressing

2011-01-10T12:54:00.001+03:00

I’ve got the ‘authorities’ breathing down my neck right now – superVs, parents, friends… and I’m trying to work! I really am! It’s just exhausting with such an emotional festive season I’m completely drained right now.

I didn’t ever finish writing a round-up to 2010. I guess in retrospect it was a very exciting year. A lot of things happened, a lot of battles were fought, people were born, people died, relationships changed, work loomed, cars broke down. It was just so much so often that it was exhausting.

So ‘resolutions’ for 2011?

Get rid of this silly degree. I have a weird phobia of people readying my writing, which leads to most drafts being written and then deleted before they get to the people who are ‘eagerly’ awaiting them. I think it’s time to just write it and send it off and take the criticism as it comes. I’m tired of this.
become independent. While I am mostly independent, it kills me that I’m still relying on my parents as much as I am. I’m in tricky situation – I work, I study I do most of the things that people my age do, but I still live at home. I work to pay my fees, so I can’t use what I earn to make a place in the world for myself.
Figure out the work/life balance. Juggling friends, boyfriend, work, studies, exercise and sleep is getting increasingly difficult. I need to try and balance it more. Maybe even slightly weighted towards the ‘work’ part until I graduate, but not so much as to lose the relationships that I value.
Keep fit. I got a heart-rate monitor for Christmas and I’m having a ton of fun with it! That said, I’m totally unfit since I became a bit of a hermit over Christmas and didn’t really leave the house much. So health is a work-in progress (that said I’m still managing to remember to take my antibiotics!)
Take more photos. I tend to leave my camera at home a lot because, well SLRs are big, and heavy, and a far cry from the little point-and-shoots that most people carry in their bags. But I feel sad that I don’t take my camera out and play with it more often and sad that so many little moments aren’t documented. Seeing the gazillion pictures my brother is taking of his little girl has just made me determined to get back behind the camera.
Focus on family. I’ve never been part of a particularly close family, but I’ve seen more of them over the last year than normal. Of course that generally involved some form of tragedy, and that’s not something I want to relive. So I am planning on trying to be a little bit more involved this year, without the tragedy part. I really want my baby niece to know me as she grows up (she’s a week old today!).

In other news P1 and I are having our first anniversary in a few weeks. We decided to go with the first date as the official anniversary as meeting to relationship took around two or three months and that just gets confusing. It’s not something that’s ever mattered to me, but the girl in my kind of wants to make a fuss, in a total calm, no fuss kind of way (the poor boy, look what he gets to put up with!)

So happy 2011 everyone, may it be drama-free, productive and inspired for everyone!

update

2011-01-03T20:44:00.000+03:00

So I just met my niece for the first time.

And basically fell in love in less than a second.

Shes incredible!

4 weddings and a funeral, well three funerals actually

2011-01-03T16:00:00.002+03:00

I'm sorry I haven't done a 2010 round-up, I think if I tried to sum it up, my head might just explode...

Right now I'm as stressed out as I've ever been and I figured I would do a bit of a catch-up in the blogospe to try and take the edge off before I have a heart attack at a sudden noise or something.

Christmas was different. Rather than the entire family decensing on my house, way too much food and full-on traditional Chritmas dinner, we took Christmas dinnerto my granmother, who is wheel-chair bound and can't leave the retirement village where she les (the amount of pain involved in moving her into a car and out at the other side makes it completely awful).

My grandfather, at the ripe-ld age of almost 95 had collapsed suddenly on Christmas eve. I didn't know how serious it was until my dad didn't join us on Christmas day - he went to be with his family while the priest was there, making it my first Christmas without my father.

Later that evening once I'd calmed down from a pretty turbulent and drama-ridden lunch, I went with P1 to his brother's housewarming and chatted to his parents, when P1 got a call - I'd left my phone in my bag and my mother had called him when I didn't answer.

My Grandfather died on Christmas day.

This followed my sister-in-law's father dying ina horrible (is there any other description?) car accident, followed by her grandfather's death six weeks later. Six weeks later their soon-to-be child had just lost another great-grandfather.

The funeral was the first one I'd been to where I really knew the person. I'd been to the otehr two but I never really knew the,m and while it was heartbreaking, it was more to see the pain on the faces of people I love than for missing people I didn't really know. I felt sad to have missed the oppoirtunity but otherwise I was there to be support.

Saying goodbye to my grandpa was really hard.

I had to do a readin, which was what he always did in church. I was so completely convinced of my need to do it 'properly' for him that I freaked out and wound up paraphrasing (only the most well known funeral reading ever. Oops), and ended up howling into P1's shoulder after they drove off with the coffin afterwards.

And today?

Well my sister-in-law is in hospital having what my doctor-cousin terms 'a sunroof' put in -aka she's having a caesarian and we're finally going to meet my new niece/nephew.

I've been a compelte wreck all day, somehow made it through a moring at the vet (the morning person was kind enough to swap shifts so that I can be there in visiting hours) and then wandered home in a daze.

Visiting hours begin in an hour. We've ehard nothing yet.

And I'm hyperventilating.

Can 2011 be slightly less drama-ridden? Please?

Why I should never be hired as a house-sitter

2010-12-22T14:53:00.001+03:00

I am currently babysitting a house and five dogs.

I have already:

locked myself out the house (to be fair, I had the keys, but the lock was jammed)
set the burglar alarm off about 8 times, had the security company call the owners every time the alarm went off (which means they call me, and I apologise a lot)
Broke into the house by borrowing my bosses small children and sending one of them in through a window
Had a dog climb into my car and refuse to get out, including growling and snarling when I tried to coax her out before she drooled on my iPod too much
Had flu and spent a weekend on their couch in front of the TV.
Watched soccer for half an hour before I realised that it wasn’t cricket
left the dog beds out in a hailstorm (again to be fair, the summer storms here do come up pretty darn quickly, and I was on the couch with the flu at the time).
And had one of the dogs decide that chewing on the carpets is a fun pastime.

Ela-Ela!

2010-12-17T14:51:00.001+03:00

This is the awesomest song ever! I can’t believe it’s taken this long to find it… And I don’t care if it’s so last-July, the vuvu still ahs a special place for me. Plus if I’m thinking round-up thoughts, then the 2010 thing needs some reminiscing.

My dog is at the vet today, probably trying to attack my bosses (again), but he’s actually got some vaguely worrying symptoms and I’m hoping they can fix him.

To apologise for his impending day of stress (on Tuesday I took him to work with me and he scraped the top of his nose off on the cage and generally freaked out until he had an upset stomach, the P1 and I took him and my other dog for a long walk along the river yesterday. It’s insane, after two days of torrential rain the river was higher than I’d ever seen it, including little waterfalls and rapids!

Besides being all virtuous and walking dogs, we also went for breakfast, worked on a puzzle and ate a scary amount of macaroni cheese. My kind of public holiday!

On another note, these things are why I don’t have a credit card…

huggable sushi!

ninjabread men!

Rainbow showers!

Cleaning-slippers (and they’re pink!)

And the Schrodinger’s cat is dead/alive shirt just got beaten by this!

Onesies for adults!

OK enough random rubbish for today, I must go and rescue my puppy.

Well hello again!

2010-12-13T17:48:00.002+03:00

So I’ve been quiet. And I’m not sorry at all.

Because I was here:

And yes, it rained. A lot. And on the first full sunny day P1 managed to dislocate his shoulder in the sea and then passed out from anti-inflammatories so I ended up reading on the lawn and getting totally sun-nuked (evil karmic irony for my ‘my legs never burn!’ comment).

I flew a kite for the first time. Ordered a ‘Chicken Shitzel’ (really) from the local hole in the wall, while listening to the local old-folks-musos singing a version of ‘Ag Pleez Daddy’ involving greek salad and feta cheese.

I went for a walk while the boys were off fishing and got thinking – so much so that I ended up doing a 10km round trip on the beach. The sand scraped off the polish from my toenails. But I got to see this place:

A pretty lagoon, with the rusty old supports from an old bridge sitting in the water and looking kind of sad.

The following day P1 felt bad about letting me do a walk that long all alone, so we repeated it, together. It started raining once we got to the lagoon, so we explored the local area a little bit and ended up getting ice-cream from the local pub (who thought we were crazy) and then having a picnic in the rain.

That is an epic awesomeness-sandwich. With a thumbs-up obscured by all that avo.

So after 20km on the beach in 2 days my calf muscles decided to try and rip themselves off my legs, which resulted in my whining a lot.

I fished in the sea for the first time, which basically involved sitting on the rocks, holding a fishing rod and pretending to feel manly. Our host was quite upset that he hasn’t caught anything except for kelp in rather a long time.

I trained all three boys in the wonders of prep – the awesome multipurpose miracle-product that saw a lot of use considering the minimal amount of sun we had to nuke ourselves with (yes mom, I used spf30 and 40, it’s not my fault I have european ancestry and I spend 90% of my time indoors).

After a week of pretty hardcore relaxation the P1 and I said goodbye to the brothers and headed off here:

Where we met up with his family for a wedding. Although no wedding would be complete without taking a cousin and heading off exploring for the morning, where my death-butterfly shoes held up surprisingly well considering their plastic soles on wet vegetatiion. We found two pretty waterfalls, and a cave under one of them, which was very very cool.

From there we went to the wedding which was tremendous fun, insanely relaxed, oh, and held in a marquee during a mega rainstorm. By late evening I’d adopted a suit jacket, lost my shoes and stepped in enough mud-puddles to look like I was wearing boots. Brown ones.

P1 and I were also… you know those people who go ballistic on the dance floor and knock over small children while performing flaming guitar solos? That was us. And it was SO much fun!

So that’s where I’ve been lately.

Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese :)

Magnet-envy

2010-12-02T15:51:00.001+03:00

I am entirely aware that this is a very bad idea. A set of those rattler-magnets (the two bean-shaped magnets that you separate and throw up in the air and they rattle) nearly destroyed my third-year academic results.

But I WANT one!

In related news I went to the doctor today and he gave me a rather scary regimen of various antihistamines/antibiotics and all kind of fun things. As someone who has never been able to finish as much as a tub of multivitamins before their expiry date I’m kind of terrified of being stuck with a very long course of antibiotics. And hints on how to remember them? I’m thinking I might be forced to get one of these:

but they scare me.

Because I am addicted to this song, and other random stuff

2010-11-29T16:24:00.001+03:00

So I’ve mentioned before that I have a pretty insanely-vivid dream-life. I also tend to dream about people when I have unresolved issues with them.

Well for general background info, I haven’t heard a word from the people I thought were my ‘close’ friends in quite a few weeks. Actually the last time I saw them was when i had a fight with P1 and was really gut-wrenchingly upset and called one of them because I needed a friend. And they were so busy having fun that I ended up spending the evening sitting in the corner, fending off the Jamaican (he wants to marry me, and he doesn’t believe in showering, which makes for a highly unpleasant combo). I ended up just going home and eventually sorting things out with P1 quite quickly because I’d missed talking to him so much that we kind of put the fight on hold to have a conversation about nothing in particular until we could sit down properly, by which time fighting seemed silly.

Anyway yesterday, while lying on the couch I did the unthinkable and checked facebook, where I got to see how much fun they’d been having all weekend at various social functions, none-of-which I’d cracked an invitation to. Childish I know but it upset me, and stayed niggling the back of my mind for the rest of the day.

So unsurprisingly I spent the night dreaming about them. And not the normal escaping-from-the-giraffes-while-picking-blueberries kind of dreams. I dreamed about yelling at them, all of them, even Leia, who fought with me months ago, but it bothers me that she has made no effort to even try to sort things out.

I woke up feeling furious with everyone and I ended up having it out with about four different people today.

And now I’m exhausted. Being angry is hard work.

In the meantime I have storypeople, which has the most amazing little gems:

“the problem with polar fleece is that it gets absorbed into your body after a few months & even exercise won't get rid of it, she said, & there's nothing more depressing than a polar fleece body”

“She saw herself reflected in the store window & then the sun changed & she disappeared & all she could see was her eyes & she remembered thinking, I make a very nice floor lamp & that was the day she decided to quit her job.”

“I used to think about starting a religion until I figured out who'd be my followers & I wouldn't hang out with those people if you paid me.”

“I'm just going to hide here in this paper bag until death comes, she said. It could be a long time, I said. There was a pause & then her head popped out. You think I should have a hobby while I wait? she said.”

Maybe I should start walking to work?

2010-11-25T13:51:00.001+03:00

Well cycling isn’t an option as I maintain an (un)healthy fear of going downhill. I’ll cycle the ups and the flats (as long as there aren’t too many scary bumps and definitely no puddles) and then walk the downhill after shrieking and leaping off the bike in terror. And yet P1 insists on taking me mountain-biking regularly…

Anyway my brakes started squeaking a while ago. Nothing major, I waited until I had some spare time and washed my car, making sure to wash out the brakes at the same time. It was better for a week or tow, and then they started grinding. With payday approaching I drove even more like a grandmother than usual, with the occasional idiot of a driver on the roads giving me a wake-up call when i had to stop suddenly.

Six days ago I told my mother who panicked and offered to go with me to get them fixed, but i was really busy that day blahblahblah, thanks anyway (seriously, I had work and a function and had to run the dog around the neighbourhood first). Three days ago I told P1 who freaked out completely and offered to lend me the money if i went the next day. I meant to, really I did, but then I overslept and had to get to work and and and…

Anyway yesterday I went to put my laptop in the boot so I could go to work to find that the boot wouldn’t open. Apparently there’s an inherent weakness in the latch mechanism (I had to have it replaced on the old car too), not unlike the inherent weakness in the starter that got me stranded in a strange suburb one Sunday morning not so long ago (German engineers are not getting much respect from me right now).

So I put the laptop on the floor of the back seat, hid it with a jacket and a gym towel and drove off to work. Halfway there I realised that I couldn’t get my brakes fixed until I got into the boot, because the special lock-nut thingie is in my tool-bag, which is in there.

Cue really bad mood for the afternoon plus and hour or two of trying different unlock-lock-unlock-pull methods (no success).

Fortunately youtube has the answer for everything and I managed to get my boot open last night and retrieve the lock-nut, jack, spare-tyre, jumper cables and tow rope (I’m prepared) and put them all in my car, covered with enough random rubbish to make the car look like a bit of a tip, but I’m hoping not like something worth breaking-in to.

This morning I woke up early to check if the university had paid me (haha, funny) to find that we had no electricity. Cue bad mood number 2: no coffee. Eventually I heard something hum, leapt for the kettle like a ninja and logged on only to find that the internet connection dropped every time I attempted to sign in. After the fifth of so attempt I got a call from the bank. I was impressed that they were following-up on repeated logins so quickly, until I realised that they had no idea what I was talking about and were just trying to sell me a funeral plan.

As I finally logged in and waited for the page to load, I put on a load of washing to find that the machine wouldn’t turn on. Yip, another power-outage. I gave up and decided to go and see if they could fix my brakes as I had just enough to get the front ones fixed and I had the back ones replaced quite recently.

Only to find that the gate (which has a battery motor) kept closing by itself and so leaving the property involved some careful gauntlet-running, and that the power outage meant that we had no functional traffic-lights and so even with my slightly non-functional brakes I had to stop repeatedly.

Fortunately the place I was taking my car to is just down the road from P1, and so I knew enough short-cuts to get there with minimal traffic and the people were really nice and fixed my car right away, and I had just enough money to replace the brake pads and get the discs skimmed (yes, they were pretty ridiculously far gone). Now all I have in the world is about enough to buy a macdonalds meal, but my car stops when I want it to.

Next mission is getting the boot fixed, although I think that can wait until I’ve come back from the beach feeling a little bit less hopeless about transport in general.

Thing's I've learned

2010-11-19T18:05:00.001+03:00

Being busy and being productive are two very different things.
Photographing weddings is exhausting
exercising too much after a couple of weeks of couch-potatoeness is fine, until you overdo it on the core exercises. do you know how much you use your core muscles? Particularly the lower-back region...
threatening Paris Hilton moviesd Twilight is a good way of making people make movie-choices quickly ("the Hottie & the Nottie" anyone?)
How I Met Your Mother is hilarious. Suit up!
Driving in fog is scary. How do Capetonians manage it all the time?
Plants vs zombies is evil.
I'm officially c25k doomed. Getting past week 4 is an impossibility.
turns out that when you need to leave the house just before 6am, setting the alarm clock for 5:45 doesn't really work. Odd...
It took me 4 days to figure out why I was always late in the mornings.
Being friendly to crazy-cat ladies is the worst idea ever.
Woolworths makes amazing malva pudding. Now to try and find a recipe to make it at home...

The cutenessnessness!

2010-11-10T16:05:00.001+03:00

november blues

2010-11-04T12:58:00.001+03:00

Yes, this will be whiny. I’m not having a good day.

Maybe it’s all the Sodastream I’ve been listening to lately, but I’m in a sad mood and I can’t seem to shake it.

I’m missing the farm.

I’m feeling unappreciated, almost like I have to work really hard just to have people around me. P1 is completely confused, but he’s also pretty much taken by his midweek social-butterflying which doesn’t help.

I feel guilty that I’ve lost touch with so many of my friends. And angry that so many of them disowned me for not being on my own anymore.

I’m feeling sad that someone I was friends with for over 20 years treated me like I was worthless and hasn’t bothered to try and sort things out. I feel like I wasted a lot of time and energy and effort on her and didn’t get anything back.

I’m feeling frustrated that I can’t see to run more than 4m at the moment.

I’m mildly embarrassed by the amount of Hootie and the Blowfish I’ve been listening to.

I’m scared that the end of the year is so close.

I’m annoyed that the caffeine-intolerance headache has returned.

I feel like the self-respect that I’ve tried to hang onto and use in decision-making is slipping away.

mostly, I’m just tired. Drained. Exhausted.

And my nose is running.

Which really doesn’t help things.

I blame the paperclips for running out

2010-11-01T19:14:00.001+03:00

This followed a few hours of deathly-boring admin, when I lost the stapler and couldn’t attach notes to an unfileable form…

Helen: so if you were the stapler i used 2 minutes ago, where would you be hiding? dustbin, never mind

P1: hmmm, sneaky stapler... at the back of a drawer, or even better under a piece of paper. they would never find me there !

Helen: You don't want to staple? but then what is your purpose in life?

P1: living a life of comfort in my drawer with the other homies, punch and ruler

though I do really dislike staple remover

that dude messes with my shit

Helen: He stops your progress, talk about blocking career paths...

and he's ugly

P1: those teeth, serious buck tooth issues there

Helen: and so shiny, what's he trying to prove anyway?

P1: been around longer that he has, man I use to put some smack down on those biatches nails... now :/ pfff

Helen: gettling a bit long in the staple there?

reliving the glory days?

P1: you know it baby, almost time for my last staple refill :P

Helen: out in a blaze of collated glory

P1: at least I will know I have spread my wild staples in any number of fine pieces of paper, Glossy was always my favourite!

Helen: and multiple sheets in one go?

P1: hehe

Helen: do we win a prize for awesomeness right now?

P1: Damn straight we doo

I guess some people aren’t wired that way

2010-10-25T13:26:00.001+03:00

So on Friday evening P1 and I planned to go to the farm (he’s a farm boy, which makes visiting his parents very awesome), and take a quick walk to a nice spot and watch the sunset and have a picnic.

All in all a nice plan, even considering that he only finished work about 80 minutes before sunset and still had to collect me (I live just down the road from his office), stop off for picnic stuff and drive all the way there, to walk quite a distance. But hey, we could totally do it!

Until about 4pm when I was so wrapped up in work (really) that I nearly cancelled on him, and then made it home just in time to get picked up and yelled at by my mother for not changing and for us to get stuck in horrendous traffic, complete with people being very rude, getting cut off repeatedly and finally, when it all got too much for P1 and he started shouting, being told to ‘wash your mouth out with soap young man!’ by a very rude motorist who almost crashed into us when we wouldn’t let him push in.

So by the time we got to the farm it was almost dark, but we decided to go and see the spot anyway. So we took a couple of dogs and a torch and headed off, where we found the place with minimal being lost and we settled down on a big rock and talked about nothing in particular for a couple of hours and listened to the jackals.

After about an hour P1s best friend phoned, asked what we were up to and then yelled at him because “You almost made it to romantic and then you answered your phone? What is wrong with you? Bye!” which made me laugh so hard I nearly fell over.

Around this time we started worrying a bit – we’d seen the same 4x4 going along the same stretch of road for quite some time. A little bit later it stopped nearby (we were quite high above the road), someone got out and shone a torch at us and then another five or 6 vehicles arrive and men with torches jumped out and came towards us.

I’ve met enough crazy farmers in my time and so I was quite keen to run away, but P1 just shone our torch back and introduced us. Seems we’d got the local neighbourhood watch quite excited. After a bit of a chat (including ‘how’s your mother?’) with the neighbours they gave P1 and thumbs-up and a ‘Good luck!’ and we were on our way.

So in summary: a lovely sunset picnic became road-rage, awkward phone-calls and near-arrest.

Scarily enough I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in a long time!

Why marketing sucks (or rather I am such a sucker for it…)

2010-10-21T12:56:00.001+03:00

Note: this was written under the influence of antihistamines and should not be taken seriously. Or should it? I don’t know, I’m still taking them.

I hate marketing. Not so much the adverts and shiny sparkling things that make me buy things that I don’t need and generally shouldn’t be able to find a way to afford (and then leaves me scrabbling around my car for small change by the end of the month so that I can buy petrol). sparkly things are my kryptonite, right up there with blue things, yellow things, things that make a noise with you poke them (this includes people), hats and anything cute (including things so ugly that they are adorable).

No, I HATE special offers.

Exhibit A:

So I stopped on my way out the other night to buy petrol and a bottle of water. I can’t drive without sipping water at every robot along the way, but lately with the warm weather I keep leaving the current bottle in my car and coming back to find it inflated to roughly the shape of a rugby ball and then I start having BPA-induced paranoia. I bet BPAs are more marketing tools to get me to buy more water. anyway, not the story I was planning on telling.

Ahem. Anyway… they have a special promotion where every time you spend over a certain amount (like R15 or something) they give you sticker. Once you have 40 stickers you get to pay a ridiculous sum of money for a kind of ugly stuffed-toy of a dog. BUT if you get 75 of the stickers they give you one for free.

Despite all my weaknesses, I’m really not into stuffed toys. I have the sheep I got in Ireland, Elvis the travelling penguin, the teddy my dad gave me when I was born and the Jersey cow my mother got in Jersey (it’s kind of disturbing, with a MASSIVE hand the size of its head giving the thumbs up, and a normal hand on the other arm. Do cows even have hands? criticism aside I appreciate that on the last overseas trip she got me frog earrings and that documentary so she is learning and the effort much be appreciated and encouraging by proudly keeping the cow in my cupboard and hoping I don’t find it during one of my sleepwalks because I could go all Carrie on the world from shock). I used to work at a place that had one of those claw-machines and we played it enough for me to have a sizeable heap of them, which I have been giving away to random charities and stuff ever since (except for Elvis, he stays).

So I decided that it couldn’t hurt, I’d keep the sticker-book thingy in my car and if I happened to go to one of those outlets I’d get the sticker and one day if I ever get to 75 I’ll get the toy and give it to a charity or use it to distract a scary kid or something.

Which made sense until I drove about 5km out of my way to go to a garage that would have stickers yesterday. WTF?

Exhibit 2:

I bought airtime for my phone a while ago and got an sms to tell me that I got however many free minutes between midnight and 5am. Great. Thanks. Way to encourage drunk dialling? So is that why I organised to drive myself around on Saturday night, while keeping in constant phone-contact with a friend who could give the police details if anything happened? (and for you sticklers for safety, I had the phone in my lap, on speaker-phone).

I’m beginning to think that my weakness for ‘free’ stuff is getting out of hand. I bought an sms bundle today as I seem to be flying trough my phone credit far too quickly, and now I’m sitting and twitching, wondering who I can send messages to…

So if anyone wants to get me to go to an event? Make sure there’s free stuff. it doesn’t seem to matter if I like it or not, I’d probably go to a polka-revival event for a free decapitated barbie doll.

Because I NEEEEED it.

Which is why I should never have children.

Heads-up!

2010-10-20T15:59:00.001+03:00

So I got an email from my parents today. It was the standard: WOMEN WATCH OUT THE GANGS ARE OUT THERE AND WILL JUMP IN YOUR CAR AT PETROL STATIONS! PARANOIA IS BETTER THAN CARELESSNESS, THIS IS THE NEW GANG INITIATION, IT’S A TRUE STORY WATCHOUTWATCHOUTWATCHOUT and so on.

Scary stuff. Well it was 6 months ago when I got the same email. And two months before that. And a few months before THAT.

The thing that confuses me is that it’s not like one of the LOLcat emails that people have sitting in their inboxes and then randomly see and decide to ‘brighten my day.’

And if it was so scary you’d think it would be sent out quickly so that we were all aware and then it would stop.

So are the gangs copycatting each other so it all starts again? Or are some people just really slack with their forwarding?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to send out the occasional message to say “OK ladies, the crime stats are still pretty scary and Joburg is a pretty nasty place to be stuck alone on the side of the road at night. Please be careful.”

On a serious note, be careful and keep safe, or you might end up having your story repeated on email indefinitely.

I tried to find a picture of a lot of tissues ‘exploded’ over a room, but then I ended up seeing a lot of sad photos of people with injuries and now I feel like a bad person for being so overdramatic about my hayfever.

2010-10-19T12:40:00.001+03:00

That said, do they make tissues out of sandpaper? I may need to skin-graft my nose and it’s only day 3…

I think I am in love

2010-10-18T15:53:00.001+03:00

With Werner Herzog

Since Grizzly man introduced me to the joy of meeting the love of your life at a mediaeval-themed diner, and the song of the coyote:

if you didn’t get that far, listen to the song here instead:

I want to sing along in a helicopter too!

Anyway the point of all of this (besides sharing the total awesomeness of being completely random), my folks were overseas recently, and my mother got me a documentary by Werner Herzog called ‘Encounters at the end of the world’ –

basically he goes to Antarctica and interviews some rather interesting characters.

P1 says as much as they were all crazy, I’d totally fit in down there. I might have been offended if I didn’t agree.

Can I go and find interesting people now please?

ah, the joy of filling eager(?) young minds with knowledge

2010-10-15T18:05:00.001+03:00

Ok, so I may not be the most passionate, but I do try. and teaching, as much as I whine about it, is one of the very important parts of my life. After all, education is the only thing that can make things right in this country, and as a kid who had the best education that money could buy I figure that it’s my duty to pass that on and help where I can.

So when I’m not in the lab helping the kiddies build models out of plasticine (they won a contest and one of them rushed up and said “But we weren’t even competing! We were just being ourselves!” I was sad at the lack of hollywood-inspirational music at the time), or trying to convince them that drawing out of a textbook rather than using a microscope is a bad thing (you want to be a doctor? So what, you’ll take an appendix out of a dummy and ignore the sick person because it’s easier?) I am in a classroom with 16 of them, trying to shut them up and get them to concentrate.

When I’m not seething at the attitude-problems (they ARE teenagers after all) where they act as though their attendance is a favour to me, or trying to keep them quiet so that they don’t bother the class next door, we have had some interesting discussions.

We all know the famous one: “if you are not a virgin and you have to go to the doctor, you can fool them but shoving chicken livers and skin up-“ *ahem*, right…. I told them that if they were uncomfortable with talking about sex then they most definitely shouldn’t be having it.
“If Adam and Even were the first humans then their children would have interbred and left them disfigured. why aren’t we weird-looking?” “Well did you ever see Adam and Eve? Maybe we are. Now please do your assignment”
“If there is a green mamba in the toilet you should leave it there because it is an ancestor.” Sure, leave it there. Just run like hell while doing it, K?
“Poor people don’t sort their recycling”
“Poor people don’t cause global warming”
“It’s not fair that cars cause global warming because not everyone has a car so it’s not our fault. If we have cars we’ll deal with global climate change.”
“We don’t have the right proportion of genes in our group because our parents weren’t all purebred.”
“We should cull half the people on the planet. No! We should make it a sport and have people hunt people and if they get caught then the government should give money to their family.” (one of the other students stopped gasping in shock and pointed out that they’d already seen that movie).
“If I’m from a rural area and I become a doctor can I skip community service? I don’t want to work for poor people.”

To be fair, they’re good kids (mostly), if a bit lazy and looking a bit far ahead to the ferrari’s in their futures. They generally speak pretty good English and they don’t really show as much entitlement-mindset as a few of the previously-underprivileged kiddies I’ve taught before.

And, I’m finished with them now, so I can safely say that I will miss them – as long as I don’t get them back!

what to say

2010-10-14T11:35:00.001+03:00

Well, it's been a while... Sorry! Stuff... happened.

In the last few weeks I have two new cousins (and due to the weddingitis ended up spending two days in a dress and heels and whining like a girl about my feet hurting). My sister-in-law also had a huge family tragedy, which kind of took a lot of my time and energy and I didn't want to write about. Sometimes something can effect you deeply but it's not your story to tell. I also went to a funeral for the first time where I've known the person. When I was a kid I sang at a lot of funerals, but I've never been on the other side of things.

I developed a healthy addiction to Glee, and caught myself with goosebumps a few times and in tears at the end of the first season (the Rolling Stones, who knew?).

P1 has been fantastic, being there all the time, but never intruding unless I asked him to. And always having something fun and ridiculous to do at the end of an emotionally draining day.

He's also in the process of buying a house with some friends, which scares me more than I'd like to admit. It all makes me feel really young. I mean the numbers and bonds and all of that is pretty much meaningless to someone who doesn't earn enough to pay tax, and thinking about it in such a long-term way makes me all panicky. I don't like the idea of being trapped, and I don't like thinking about the future. and I don;t like that everyone around me is growing up and I'm somewhere between staying still and moving backwards.

I guess it's a combination of it all - needing to be emotional support, getting horrendously unfit (we went to this playground with trapezes and stuff and I couldn't do ANYTHING, we went mountain-biking again and I was appalling and jumped off the bike every few metres because I was scared), dealing with growing up, and having to think about The Future. I don't know where I'm going to be a year from now. Heck, I don't know where I'll be 6 months from now.

So all in all, not sure how to blog about stuff.

Except that I went zorbing and it was AWESOME!

You know when something seems like a good idea at the time?

2010-09-21T13:01:00.001+03:00

Like finishing a power-boxing class and deciding to stick around afterwards and try out Capoeira…

This is what its supposed to look like:

Me? Not so much.

Although I desperately want to learn to do cartwheels again, but I told them I’d only attempt handstands and walking on my hands if we were practising somewhere squishy. And I’m in a significant amount of pain today so I’m guessing it’s good for you… although I’m sure it’s not as much pain as the terrified old lady who was repeatedly kicked in the head…

In other news: I have officially bought a dress, but might have to go and swap it because I think it’s too big (and this makes the neckline somewhat inappropriate). CG took me shopping and it was much easier to make decisions, plus she has magic powers (if she is there everything you touch is on sale, it’s WEIRD).

And P1 took me to the cricket on Sunday (my first real live sports event) and I had a blast! I’m so glad my first sports thing was for a game I actually understand. On the downside I have a farmer-tan, but avoided bad sunburn by liberal reapplications of spf-40 and P1’s gift of a massive white hat (that combined with my sunglasses made me look like I was headed to a day at the races).

The guy he got it from said something like “Try it on darling, oh yes you look like a queen, quite fabulous, let me get my camera, we must get some shots of this!” which for a side-of road hawker was enough to keep me entertained for most of the walk to the stadium.

ces bottes sont faites pour marcher

2010-09-13T12:34:00.001+03:00

so what was setting up to be a horrible weekend was actually lovely!

A few issues from the week ironed out (I am pulling sheepish-face right now. Turns out I can be an overreacting female occasionally…), P1 took me out on Friday night for dinner and a movie. It was lots of fun, we had an awesome waiter (called ‘Express’), amazing food, and I really enjoyed just sitting back and talking to him. The movie was pretty cool too, I don’t know if I’ll ever grow out of 3D glasses!

Saturday was a crazy CRAZY day at work, but the hellhound/demon dog/destroyer of shoes came to visit me and it was nice to see the dog again! she loves the vet too and didn’t want to leave!

From there i went home and tried out using a high-pressure hose to wash my car. it’s quite cool because it uses air-pressure so you’re using a lot less water, but it really blasts the dust away (and it is bright yellow and makes me feel like a superhero), and then did some work before going to meet up with people in the evening where I got approached by random casting-agency girl who wanted me to talk to her manager.

Not going to happen, but I enjoyed the ego-boost of being called pretty by a random stranger :)

and Sunday I went shopping, went mildly crazy and nearly bought a dress, and was rescued by P1 coming to take me for lunch. I really hate shopping. Seriously, a dress? Me?

Weird

And after all that my cousins and brother ad sister-in-law and P1 came for dinner, and about five hours after they left my cousin went into labour, and a few hours later had a healthy baby boy! so I’m a semi-cousin-aunt-thing and I’m really excited!

So not a bad start to the week, I’m already making headway on my deadlines for the week and really getting into it, and I have this stuck in my head:

they were playing it during lunch yesterday…

Just so you know…

2010-09-08T18:29:00.001+03:00

I give up.

Great GIG guys!

2010-09-06T14:30:00.001+03:00

So on Friday we went off to celebrate P1’s BroFF’s birthday at a place that has live band playing most weekends.

It was strangely quiet – our little group and the first band were the only people there. The band decided to start a bit later just in case anyone else came along, while the doorman (who was about 16) wrote out music score on the back of the set-list.

After a while four kids got up on stage and started playing with a lot of enthusiasm (considering that their audience was… well us, and we were sitting around the corner so they probably couldn’t see us anyway). The sound was horrible (the place was more designed as a pizza-dive than a music venue I think), but the band seemed very energetic so P1 and I decided to go and watch them from the actual dance-floor area.

The lead singer might have been 15, the others around 16 or 17, and they played as if they had a crowd cheering them on. despite a few hiccups (I think the girl has to grow into her voice a bit, but I thought she had tons of potential), the band was good.

Afterwards, having played their hearts out to the two of us (and some distant cheering from around the corner) they called their parents and got picked up to go home, while the next band performed. The second band was amazing, but I found myself missing the energy that the kids had had, as much as I appreciated the technical skill and polish that the older group had.

Anyway, I decided to ‘like’ the kiddies band on Facebook, I’m curious to see how they do as they get a bit older and more experienced (maybe one day when they’re famous I’ll say I was half the audience back in the day). The next morning they wrote “Great GIG last night! And it was just about the cutest thing ever!

So here’s to youthful exuberance, having big dreams and playing anyway, just because there’s a stage and a couple of mildly curious people there.

Great gig guys!

Happy things!

2010-09-02T20:10:00.001+03:00

This week has been such a major improvement on last week it’s actually unbelievable. Last week I was feeling sick, and lonely and miserable and generally hating everything, this week I’m staying home because I’m getting really sucked into my work.
.
P1’s friends have been super-amazingly nice to me and made me feel totally welcome and at home and loved. And it’s been nice to be able to talk to him this week too even if he’s not here.
CG is back from the technological abyss, and we had a really awesome time going from breakfast/lunch/nairobi-style yesterday and having a good bonding session. I’ve missed hanging out with her.
I stopped drinking coffee and the 9-day long migraine is subsiding slightly. It’s not better by a long shot but I can focus without having to half-close one eye now.
Chalkboard-manifesto! I think I’m in love!
Other awesome friends like the sick one and the Oracle have been randomly checking in with me and having a quick chat every now and then which is really really nice. It’s nice to feel like I have ‘my’ friends back.
As I said, sucked into work. Best feeling EVER!
We provisionally booked the hike today, and we’ll confirm tomorrow! As much as the whole situation upset me, I’ve been amazed by just how everyone around me pulled together to make it happen for me, with or without the offending party. and it’s going to be a very interesting group and a LOT of fun!
I’m going to the cricket soon! I’ve never been to a real sports event ever so I’m really excited! And It’s a sport that I actually understand, thanks to spending a big chunk of my childhood watching with my grandmother (who never missed a game and always got excited for ‘her boys’).

I’m sorry for all the whining lately, but I’m trying to get over it and get on with it and let things happen when they happen. Which is fun for a control-freak like me!

wall-of-words

2010-09-01T18:02:00.001+03:00

I stole this from Kath Lockett, who stole it from someone else and so forth. Such is life!

What curse word do you use the most?
I generally don’t too much, I find trying to avoid it makes me more laid-back in general as I’m too busy trying to think of alternatives to get too upset. Crap I suppose… I’m a big wtf-er too…
Do you own an iPod?
Yes, I LOVE my ipod!I got it about 4 years ago when I was still on two scholarships instead of just one and I got a nice little salary for studying so I splashed out on it. It’s been through a lot and it’s quite beaten-up, but it still works and has saved my sanity many many times!
What person do you talk to on the phone the most?
P1 I guess, I hate talking on the phone though so I generally only when I’m at work talking to clients at the vet.
Do you still remember the first person you kissed?
yip, he actually studies at the same place as me now so I do a lot of random detours to avoid him!
Do you remember where you were on 11/9/01?
I was at a viola lesson and someone phoned my teacher and told him. I didn’t really understand the implications, so I kind of nodded sympathetically and then carried on with what I was doing. The next day was pretty much spent in front of CNN though.
What was the last movie you watched?
The Descent: part 2. Talk about a wtf ending! I love horror movies, the cheesier the better, although rewatching the first movie with P1 a couple of weeks ago made me take it a bit more seriously and I found myself getting quite into it.
Has anyone ever called you lazy?
Yip, but not in a bad way (or I refuse to see it that way).
Do you ever take medication to help you fall asleep?
I battled with insomnia for years but never tried anything more than some herbal supplement stuff from my mother. I got some over-the-counter stuff once before a long trip but was too scared to take the complete dose and it didn’t work.
Has anyone told you a secret this week?
Not that I can think of. and if they had I wouldn’t write it on the internet either ;)
What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
I’m not sure actually. I’m not one to stand at a bar and watch boys, in meeting them the first mega criterion is whether or not I can have a decent conversation with them, and I think I usually try to chat to people if I like their general disposition Sulking in a corner is generally not attractive, not sure where the emo-movement came from!
What are you looking forward to?
Going hiking with P1 and friends in October! And we’ll be back in time for Halloween which I’m super-excited about because I’ve been away on fieldwork for the last 4 and missed all the fun! So that’s 2 things!
Do you own any band t-shirts?
Not anymore, I had a Live one from my first concert ever and (I’ll admit it) a Westlife one from when I was 16. I tend to not get them as I never wear them and it feels a bit pointless.
What will you be doing in one hour?
workworkwork, maybe heading across to CG for some dinner.
Is anyone in love with you?
P1 is. And it’s very awesome, even if I find it very confusing sometimes.
Last time you cried?
Saturday night/Sunday morning. Last week was really really horrible, I had a migraine from Tuesday until Sunday, someone who I thought was a good friend acted in a completely unacceptable manner and really upset me, I had no idea where I would be over the weekend, I worked like a maniac, stopped sleeping almost completely because my head was so sore and had no contact whatsoever with P1, who is a huge part of my emotional support. Add in another good friend being MIA and another one with swine flu and I had a week of feeling completely lost, without a support system, stressed out and miserable (and then got accused by said ex-friend for not being understanding that she was a bit tired). and then I got my boy back and he gave me cable-ties (which glowed in UV light) and he and his friends were totally kind and friendly and supportive and just wonderful and I had several very good long crying sessions during the course of the day.
Are you on a desktop computer or a laptop?
Laptop, my desktop is upstairs in the other lab and it takes too much desk space for me to use it and write and scribble post-it notes and all that.
Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?
I have my ears pierced and that’s enough for now. I’m afraid of a tattoo as I don’t have any symbol I want to be stuck with forever.
Would you ever date anyone covered in tattoos?
No, I think it looks tacky. I like tattoos to mean something. And when people like being covered in them makes me feel like they want to scream out a statement that I don’t understand.
What were you doing before this?
Reading a very long scientific paper that gave me a headache, trading emails with the hiking people so that we can book today.
When is the last time you slept on the floor?
define ‘floor’ I have been camping quite recently but I’m quite a baby about taking along an inflatable mattress. Last time I really remember was about 2 New Years ago when I stayed at CG’s house and slept on the floor there because there weren’t enough beds and as the camper I don’t really mind too much.
How many hours of sleep do you need to function?
About 3 or 4 for a few nights before I get really exhausted. I’m getting old I think and I like to get around 7 a night at the moment (if my stupid brain will switch off).
Do you eat breakfast daily?
I try to, but I’m usually running late and grab a banana or something on my way out the door. I tend to have a midmorning snack though.
Are your days fast-paced?
They can be. the nature of what I’m doing is that I have to keep myself motivated so it depends a lot on whatever else is going on. I tend to thrive on the fast-paced, managing time scenario so I try to at least keep some things going to force me to structure my days a bit. My weekends have a nasty habit of becoming very fast-paced.
What did you do last night?
P1 is away on business for the week so his friends adopted me for the night and we sat around and talked rubbish for a few hours. It was actually a lot of fun, they’re really awesome people.
Do you use sarcasm?
Too much, but it is entertaining! I wish there was a sarcasm font, it would solve so many of the world’s problems!
How old will you be turning on your next birthday?
26. Oh dear, the late twenties are approaching!
Are you picky about spelling and grammar?
Yes, I try to be laid-back, but I have a lot (guess what, it’s TWO words!) of pet peeves, like mixing up ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ and so on.
Do you get along better with the same sex or the opposite sex?
Opposite. So much less drama. Unfortunately my being comfortable around them leads to a fair amount of misinterpretation so I tend to hang out with girls quite a lot.
Do you watch the news?
Not very often. I listen to it on the radio at work, and keep up online or by reading the paper. I’m not a big TV-watcher.
How did you get one of your scars?
I have one down the side of my calf from when I sliced it open falling down a sheet of granite while chasing a lizard. The nasty bugger got away too.
Who was the last person to make you mad?
The ‘friend’ who made me cry, and then blamed me for treating her badly because she’d had a bad week and been working hard (and apparently that’s not allowed for more than one person in any given week). I’m still waiting for her to grow up and talk to me, but apparently that’s too difficult.
What is the last big thing you purchased?
A tyre. I’m still amazed that someone with my grandmotherly-driving style could wreck a tyre in such a short time, but apparently our potholes are just that bad…
Who would you want to be tied to for 24 hours?
That is a very bizarre question. Probably a girl, as they tend to fart less than boys (but not the treadmill-farter from the gym last night).
What is a rumour someone has spread about you?
I can’t think of anything right now. At my ex-ex-ex-job the manager told the boss that I’d been opening up an hour late every day. The alternative staff were her kids and I think she wanted them to have my shifts. The boss didn’t believe me, but didn’t fire me either, and felt pretty darned stupid when I got a job next door with the people who had seen me working and trusted me because they had actually been around to see me do my job properly.
What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator?
Check my email probably. It’s a nasty habit that it’s the first thing I do whenever I’m standing still for more than a few minutes. Probably take a nap too.
T or F: All’s fair in love and war?
No. There is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in every situation. Sometimes winning isn’t worth what you gave up to get there.
Do you know how to use some words correctly, but not know the meaning?
It’s hard to define words sometimes but I generally know what they mean. the trouble with reading a lot of Sciencey stuff is that I battle with pronunciation sometimes as I’ve read words but never heard them.
Do you know which US states don’t use Daylight Savings Time?
No, we don’t bother with the extra admin here. And considering I thought that we were behind Namibia this morning and had to be corrected by several geographers, I’m kind of glad I don’t have to try.
Do you want a bright yellow ‘06 mustang?
I love yellow, but not Mustangs so much. I’d love a yellow car though!
What’s something you’ve always wanted?
To be able to run for an hour without stopping. a yellow car.
Would you rather swim in the ocean or a lake?
Ocean, you get waves and sand and it’s just awesome. Not a fan of the oceany hair though…
Do you wear a lot of black?
Yes, but I try to branch out occasionally. To dark blue or something. I love bright colours as well so it gets tricky to balance things.
Describe your hair:
Thick, longish, brown. It’s wavy at the moment because I haven't attacked it with a hair straightener this week and it gets a bit uncontrollable at times, particularly when there’s any kind of humidity.
Where is/are your best friend(s)?
I actually have no idea. P1 is at work (and booking the hike!), Oracle is at work yawning over a cup of tea, team Manga-Cool is partly missing in action, although I’d assume at work, and one is off sick

Who killed the music?

2010-08-25T15:15:00.001+03:00

I confess, I am a music-killer. I find a song I like and put it on repeat until I reach a stage where merely hearing the opening bars makes me want to punch something and then I put the ipod back onto shuffle until I find the next song.

This week it’s this one:

Before that we had:

The one I always pick on the jukebox:

The one that makes me think of being a little kid again:

this one still makes me smile:

And this one (my one and only itunes purchase was this album):

Apparently I’m in ‘sad phase’ at the moment. all I know is that I wish I knew where I was going to be this weekend. I need to find a rock to sit on and think about life, and I’m just hoping that I find out soon so that I can go and see my other home for a couple of days.