Goodbye, cruel (this part of the) world!

I'm leaving tonight to go stay at the scary German's house and then leave for the desert at around 4am tomorrow (ouch). I've been getting a bit nervous about this trip, but I'm also really excited. It's been raining here for DAYS (and my hair went all poofy, so I'm getting a lot of it cut off today) and a lot of unpleasant things have been happening.

On an amusing note, I just got some spam: "powered parachute approved combat" - they're totally getting more inventive!

Here are some unpleasant events

• I got 2 Cs in the the space of a week. I am NOT a C student!
• One of my customers has a daughter studying genetics and biochem at wits, recognised me from prizegiving and now settles down for a half-hour chat every time she comes to get movies. There is only so much advice I can give! Particularly if I mention something like my friend droppng out and she gets all upset and tells me to stop telling her these things. So basically I have to say that her daughter will get into honours, have a fantastic time, do brilliantly and win a nobel prize. For half an hour.
• My friend James is acting really weird again and it freaks me out.
• It turns out that one of my favourite customers is studying at wits, and his wife is a lecturer. It's not bad, but after all the other stuff it was a bit last-strawish.
• It's been raining all weekend so work has been insanely hectic, but because we have to sell contracts to make money, and everyone already has them, we had to struggle to get a bonus on Saturday.
• At 10am on Sunday, just after we opened the store, one fo our customers came in with his wine-glass, EXTREMELY drunk and loud and wouldn't go away, and kept harassing the other customers. The guy I was working with (Neil) got scared and ran off leaving me to deal with a whole long queue of customers AND the drunk guy all alone.
• Working with Neil was even worse than Chris in that he doesn't notice what's going on, so you have to TELL himto do everything. Like there would be hundreds of covers to put away, so I'd ask him to get started. Next minute I'd have a million customers queuing up (so he should come back, put the covers down and use the other till to serve half of them), but he'd wander around, occasionally putting covers back, walking AROUND the queue...
• Shopping. I'm out of practise and crowds freak me out right now.
• Michael, a really annoying guy who has stalked pretty much all my female friends (except the wits ones who I refuse to introduce to him), saw me hugging James (who was in total separation anxiety mode last night because I'm going away) and decided he wanted to hug me too. But not just hug. huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuug, complete with head on my shoulder and .... EW! We need to give him a talking-to about personal space. Really (I'm shuddering at the recollection right now).
• Taking my bird to the vet to get her wings clipped. It's always sad. Dusty only likes me (she's at war with humankind in general), so today she attacked the vet, flew back to me and hid behing my neck. It makes me sad to leave her behind, but the vet is always an unpleasant experience with her.
• Having really bad dreams. I usually battle to sleep, but recently I'm afraid to sleep. I usually get bad dreams when I'm stressed, and as our results are finalised this week and I just got 2 Cs, I think it's that. Plus my supervisor said he's expecting my marks to be 'right up there' or something. I just got 2 Cs.
• Traffic.

Anyway that's pretty much why I want to leave Joburg right now. Today I'm going for a haircut, going to visit Jo, find some sedatives so i can FINALLY sleep properly, clear out my desk, go chat to the externals and then come home and leave for Pretoria.

So I won't be bloggin in a while, I'm sorry! I hope everyone has a really fabulous month! I'll take lots of photos to show you all!

it HUUURTS!

We played paintball yesterday, I've never played before... It was a lot of fun, but today has been a really bad payback. I HURT.

Fortunately I was wearing a vest-style thing that covered my chest and my back, because I got shot in the back a lot, but didn't get any bruises. I was convinced that I'd be shot (and so out of the game) in the first 2 seconds, but I was actually one of the last of my team to be annihilated, when I took a shot to the shoulder. My shoulder is purple now. A bit later we played with all the girls (12) against all the guys (14). After a few minutes it was just me, with about 5 or 6 guys circling me. I held out pretty well, but then Oliver got behind me and shot me in the back.

Mostly I kind of found a safe spot and hid there, shooting at anyone I could see. the problem was that we were wearing red overallys, and the teams were marked with red and white armbands, and nobody really shows off their arms while you're fighting, so i had a bit of an embarassing moment where I shot at a teammate for half a game.

There was also a game when we all ran for cover and Oliver kept running and got behind us and shot our whole team in about 30 seconds.

Mostly it was one shot and you were out, but the last game, which was the best, was when we were trying to take people's flags, so if you got shot you just went back to the start. It was the first gamer when I didn't camp out somewhere, and it was so much fun! I only got shot once, in the neck (no bruise though), and I got pretty far through the course when I ran out of paintballs so I had to leave. I got shot on my way out, which I was quite annoyed about!

Anyway, I woke up today in a lot of pain! It's not so much the bruses, which are pretty minor, except the one on my shoulder. It's the fact that I've been sitting behind a computer for the most part of the last 6 months, so crouching and running around literally all day so my leg muscles are really really stiff. I'm sure the wits people will appreciate the walk up the hill this morning!

I went in to pack up my desk in the honours room. It wasn't really sad, mostly I just threw a lot of stuff away. I cleaned out my drawers and my cupboard. the sad thing will be emptying my pinboard. As the hill is so horrible I refuse to do more than one trip to my car a day, so it'll have to wait until monday. My supervisor said I can store stuff in the lab until I get back in January, so at least I only have to take what I can carry. He also said that he won't write my letter of recommendation for a scholarship until next week, because he 'has a feeling' that I'll be one of the top people and he wants to put that in for me. Apparently our marks are all finalised (as in set in stone) by wednesday, and he'll know by then. I was tempted to ask him to sms it all to me in the desert, but instead I said I don't want to know what I got.

I really want to know what I got.

The sleepless nights start now.

Here is a picture of Luke and me before the first fight. I'm wearing the mask, I'm not sure why. those things were so hot, it was TERRIBLE!

I totally want to go do that all again!

Limbo

I'm still waiting for my stats assignment. Today I sat at wits for almost the whole day checking my email every 5 minutes. nothing. it was PROMISED by this morning and now it's 10pm and nothing. Even my supervisor said she's being unreasonable (and from someone who hates marking more than anyone else I know - me included - that's impressive).

I cleared out my desk in the lab today. It was mostly stuff to throw away, but I felt really sad carrying little piles of things next door to add to the general pile of clutter in the honours room. The lab in uninhabited now, except for Melville, who didn't really seem all that sad about it (I bet she's hiding opposable thumbs and she's sneaked out of her tank to have a party with the cockroaches as we speak. and clawing a voodoo doll of me.

We all just drifted aorund all day. I had a reasonably ok conversation with my supervisor (it was awkward, but less than usual). EEbEE and I also had ice-cream and burgers next to the pool, sitting on the steps (don't get closer to nature than you have to, it's dangerous), watching all the old men in their old wrinkly speedos (EWWW!) there was one guy sunbathing with one leg up... (I'm scarred) and another who had SUCH a hairy back it looked like he'd strapped a doormat on like a supervillain cape (hero just doesn't fit there). there's also a promotion with ice-tea at the moment where you can win stuff. I won a towel last week, so I tried again today, but all I won was more tea (and it tastes pretty bad).

After all that I went to work where it was the busiest weekday shifft in a long time. I was working all alone too, so it was quite stressful. Lets just say that in the 5 hours I worked I made twice as much as what we usually make in an 11 hour day. Inbetween runing around like a maniac (or a blue-assed fly, my new phrase for the day!), I watched "The Lake House" with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Usually I work with guys, so it's always a big debate over what to watch. I was watching Prison Break, but the DVD drive on the computer was giving trouble and we're not allowed to put stuff above PG on the TV. Plus I felt like a nice girly movie for once. It was cute. Slow moving and predictable, but it had its moments.

Right now I'm going to go and find a nice book (I don't know what, I've read everything I own about a million times) and fall asleep over it. Sounds like a plan.

I took some pictures of the honours room today. My desk has been tidies recently, it's probably the tidiest it's been in months.


This is my desk (aka home for the last 10 months). It's a lot bigger than it looks here.

This (right) is my pinboard, where I basically organise my life. I have a lot going on. I don't know what I'm going to do without it!

This is the view from my window. Ther are almost always (just not today) hordes of students down there who have no idea that I'm watching them (and Luke's stalker who knows very well where we are...).

And this is the blackboard where we have had many lively intellectual debates (such as... I don't remember. There was one about how we're unconscious of our fitness becasue otherwise there would be hge queues ofr sperm banks. And other stuff that I can't remember. I wish I'd written it all down!) as well as hundreds of inane discussions, like whether we write our 'O' clockwise or not. and the betting pool was organised on it. Roight now it's covered by Sarah's pretty cool demonstration of mirror writing (she can write backwards REALLy quickly) and a few quotes that I mentioned before. The resolution isn't great here, on the original photo you canactually read all thw writing :(

different ideas of what's going to happen to us

I saw 2 very different movies today. First, after an absolute hell of traffic jams followed by dentist appontments followed by more traffic jams (for a country that used to have daily summer afternoon thunderstorms, our robots completely die after it rains!) and a 20 minute visit to the zoo (I want a sungazer!) and rushing around wits... I went to se An Inconvenient Truth.

It was ok, although a little bit wasted on a bunch of people who studied ecology (and Sarah who is an honourary ecology/zoology person, especially after her essay). It was funny when he'd say stuff like "This information has been seen by only a handful of elite scientists!" and then show us an excerpt from a national geographic graph of the world's most famous climate data. There was also a lot of random stuff about his past and stuff, that was a little bit off-topic. And why were all the flash-backs fuzzy?

i was also irritated by the lack of anything involving the southern hemisphere. I understand that he's American, and Africa hardly exists to them besides as a place to export fruit from, but the way that he'd casually mention catastrophic disasters in Africa or South America or New Guinea, and then go ON and ON about Hurrican Katrina. It reminded me of an essay I wrote about hurricane Katrina in third year. I won't say what I concluded, because any Americans reading this mught lynch me (and just from the record, it was a terrible thing to happen and I'm very sorry for anyone affected).

To illustrate my point, he had a whole long thing about how the ocean currents and wind currents would be affected by melting ice. but he hadn't done his homework, and hadn't switched the directions for the southern hemisphere. so Africa was shown as having a cold current along the east coast and a warm current along the west coast. It's supposed to be the other way around.

Anyway, I did enjoy it, and I'm glad he's raising awaremness, I really hope that something good comes from it, and more people try and change the way we're affecting the world.

After that, an an awesomely delicious lunch at Kuai (I think that's how you spell it. It's a really nice place that makes amazing smoothies. My first boss introduced me to them years ago, they're fantastic! It's amazing how you don't feel nearly as post-prandially dipped after healthy food!) I battled the traffic again to go to work.

At work, we watched a movie called "Ultraviolet" it's a futuristic thing where some people got infected with this virus that makes them totally superhuman but also sick, and the lead character (Violet) is a sick one who fights back, but then decides to protect a little kid who isn't infected. To tell the truth, I really didn't understand what was going on most of the time, but she could change her hair colour all the time and I liked that. It reminded me of how I wanted blue streaks in mine for years until some stupid teenager in a stupid teenager movie had them, so I have to wait. Maybe next year... Anyway the movie was mostly just special effects and trying to put enough storyline in to attach the various fight scenes. In one or two fights it actually looked like they ran out of music, so they just ended very suddenly.

It was a lot of fun though, I enjoyed sitting there with Matt(2) laughing at it and betting on what would happen next. It was also fun seeing the future as not drowning and frying at the same time, but beating the &%$** out of a bunch of bad guys with weird sword thingies. It was also a nice shift because nobody yelled at us. Usually at least one person screams and shouts and walks out because they kept a movie late and think it's our fault.

I'm tired now, so I'm going to bed.

Here's a picture of Luke getting in the way of my sunset picture. totell the truth, I think it's a lot more interesting than ALL the sunset photos I took that night, which look very much the same.

Goodnight everyone (Southern hemisphere particularly, we don't ALL forget it!).

How exactly do you defog a wondshield when it keeps fogging up and you think you're going to die?

There was a STORM today. it was really scary. Basically after realising that work was not going to be happening at wits today, we went for lunch at a really nice Italian place that let us sample the ice-cream. It was really nice, but so was the pizza until we skipped dessert anyway. I'm leaving out the way that people drove like idiots and I couldn't find parking and some idiot parked her car in the middle of the road (right next to a million empty spots) and smoeone was standing in the middle of the other side of the road talking to someone n the back seat and the some poor guy walked slowly and I yelled at him and felt better. That's one sentence because that's exactly how I said it.

Anyway when we left the restaurant I noticed that on one side the sky was blue (up North, where my huse and work is etc) and on the other side (where wits is) the sky was dark. So I drove to work, noticing that the dark was catching up to me. By the time I was going past my suburb it felt like about 6-7pm (it was 3:15) and we all had out lights on. So I raced the impending storm to work, ran in and told Joey to go home before it hit. When I walked into the store the sky was blue. I walked out half a minute (literally) it was black, and not more than 10 seconds later it was pouring with rain that turned into hail.

so we sat at work together, drinking hot chocolate from next door (which we have to pay for because we ordered Scooters Pizza on the weekend and now Nico's upset with us). And complaining about how our boss is a moron. James, the guy who caused all the trouble is being fired either today or tomorrow, so it should calm down a bit. it turns out that he was 'away' on the weekend, so the staff at the other branch had to cover for him, meanwhile he was in our branch about 10 times. Jo really wanted to be the one to fire him, but the manager at the other branch had to :( She's scary when she's angry!

Once Jo had left we watched Hoodwinked. It's so cute! There's this one scene where Red meets this crazy goat who has to sing instead of talking. and he has detachable horns, like long curly ones he uses as a ricking chair and can openers and stuff. Here's the song:

"Thirty-seven years ago a witch done put a spell on me
A spell where when I'm talking I'm singing it with glee
But when you're always singing you've got to live alone
That's why I made this mountain shack my home

When you're on the mountain there's lots to be a-feared
That's why this here old mountain goat's prepared
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do

But I got horns that open bottles and I got horns that hold my keys
I got horns that when you turn 'em right They help me watch TV
I got horns that open pickle jars and horns that come with hair
I got horns that hang my other horns I always come prepared

To be prepared, to be prepared
This lesson must be shared
This lesson must be shared
To be prepared

To be prepared, to be prepared
And unless you've got a spare
You've got one life so handle it with care
( Keep your hands and feet inside of the vehicle at all times!)

An avalanche is comin ~and I do not feel prepared
It's rumbling like a mountain lion I must say that I'm scared
And if not for the witch's spell you'd hear just how I scream
But since I'm only singing I'll just yodel till we're creamed "

It's so cute! I was laughing and laughing, and Matt, the guy I was working with, was singing along and these little kids were sitting on the carpet giggling. I guess you had to be there.

anyway after work I went to my car to find it was white (my car is generally dark blue), all the rain had turned to frost on my windows. And wiping my windscreen only did a little bit, it kept fogging up. It was really scary. Sometimes having my airconditioning on helped, but I didn't have much petrol (I was meaning to get some on my way home), so I kind of drove at 20km/h putting the aircon on every time I couldn't see anything. fortunately it was quiet and I know the road well, but it was really scary. Especially when I was nearly at the petrol station and left the aircon on, and it seemed to make it worse!

So that was my day... action-packed as usual! Right now I'm having a weird Skype conversation with my aunt in the uk, who keeps confisong me by telling me I should be in bed, and just becasue my email was boring I'm ungrateful because I got to talk to her... I'm too tired for this!

here's a picture: it's Red and the Goat, I got it from some website (i.e. animated people do not walk around to have photos taken by me...)

I'm going to bed now, if I can tactfully remove myself from the conversation...

wandering without purpose... or is it wondering?

We came up with a new name for EEbEE's blog (because he forgot both the username AND password for his old one) as 'Wandering without purpose' To be quite honest, I'm very tempted to steal it as a book title for when Luke and I finally publish the Mole-Rat Diaries. Just so we can write about other stuff, like the weird stuff going on in the hnours room. Right now we have 3 quotes for the day written on the board (which are just a very small sample of the stuff that gets said in there):
1. "Nothing says 'I love you' better than a battery-operated sex machine!" - Luke
2. "Oh my word! I had no idea you has so many piles!" - me
3. "How exactly do I handly my crab infestation?" - Neva

I think that way too much has happened this year for it all to be relegated to dim memories to be rehashed at reunions (which will probably be pretty empty considering how we're all fantanstic and destined for amazing careers all over the world -that's not wishful thinking at all!). The only thing will be tracking down people to sign disclaimers. TAO will be expecially difficult as most of it will be in a not very favourable light towards her! Please ignore my grammar I'm tired!

The exam yesterday was horrible. I hadn't been studying very hard, mostly due to living in a painkiller-induced fog for most of Thurday. I came off the painkillers to be able to concentrate for my exam, but it was really boring and I left just before the 2-hour mark. Everyone else was just finishing their first essay and I'd written all 3. The problem is that I'm panicking about all the stuff I answered badly right now. I'm a bit of a stress-ball post-exams!

After that EEbEE, Luke and I went to Fordsburg and shared a GIGANTIC pizza. Shout out to Nicolette, out waitress for putting up with us! It's tough when one of you is a vegtetarian and another doesn't eat mushrooms. Or olives. Or avocado. or brinjal. or asparagus... (yes that's me. I prefer to save my fungus for when I have the flu).

My supervisor and a lecturer made my life a little bit difficult by teasing me about leaving the exam so early and I was back in my drug-induced fog and unable to prodice any semi-witty repartee, so I just sort of smiled (it hurt too much to smile properly) and wandered off, trying to avoid walking into walls. A bit later I found my supervisor to ask if one of the lizards was ok (I had a nasty suspicion he's been sent off the the tank in the sky, but it turns out he's ok), and I casually dropped the whole 'I had surgery 2 days ago' into the conversation. He showed the same overreaction as everyone else, looking all shocked and nervous and saying I should have had my exam deferred etc etc. As much as I like to be infallable (for lack of a better word) I'm a sucker for sympathy!

After that we went to the zoo, but it had been raining and Luke didn't sample, so we followed out keeper-friend/person/mentor/I don't know, what is she anyway? around for a bit until she started apologising, and then we went to see Cole, the cheetah and went home. I mean to wits. Hmm, Freud was right.

I had to go back inside to fetch some stuff, my supervisor was still there. I get a weird kind of satisfaction from knowing he's finally working longer hours than me! And I ran into the lecturer runing the field trip for me and he officially invited me along next year. It's so exciting! I just have to get the formal invitation email and details, but otherwise I'm sorted and ready to go! It's so cool!

I just came home from 12 hours at work (Joey needed a day off so i agreed to do a double-shift), it was fun. We watched Over the Hedge again, and Superman Returns and the third X-men. The X-men is far better than the first 2! And once again, it makes me desperate to dye my hair. Stupid wedding! I can't change the colour because the colours I want won't match my dress!

In other news my boss freaked out because of certain staff members *couhg*Chris*cough* taking out brand new stuff for days rather than just overnight, so now out free-movies are restricted to taking out at 9pm and getting them abck by opening time (10am) the next day. Jo is furious and I'm upset, but my boss was in a bad mood today and I didn't think it was wise to negotiate. Maybe tomorrow morning!

Anyway, this post is far longer than I expected it to be. I'm sorry for all the babbling! I'm going to bed now!

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

ouchies!

I haven't blogged, but now I decided to because I hate looking at all the misery in my last post and I need to fill this space up to move it down! It's been quite hectic, in a not-hectic kind of way. i had an essay due on Monday but I was so fried I just couldn't. the lecturer was pretty understanding and I handed in one of the worst pieces of drivel I've ever written today... On the good side I got my glucocorticoids, stress and welfare management essay back and I did pretty well, so I'm not too stressed about my average for this course, since I wrote Friday's essay about a month ago. It just needs some fixing up, and I can think well enough to do that (the four hour exam on Friday on the other hand...)

Anyway, I've been wasting time with a shareware copy of Mario Bro's Neva gave me. it's AWESOME in a totally bad way! I'm addicted (and totally stuck on the third level!) which is bad because i generally avoid computer games like the plague because I know how quickly I get sucked in and then lose all productivity alltogether...

I've been having trouble with my sinuses lately, which may be the reason why I've had a headache for about 3 months now. So today I went to see my godmother who is one of the top facio-maxilla peple in the country (the other one is her husband) and she tried to do a little in-chair op on my face to try push it back a bit. Bad move. She drilled 3 holes into my jaw (the smell... it was like sititng in a dissection except that I was the subject! And then there was lots of swearing and blood everywhere and they said my jawbones are too thin and they stiched me up.

So now I have a headache from hell, a course of antibiotics, a swollen face and a large tub of painkillers. She said I must either learn to live with it and stay on some pretty hectic anti-histamines or else I must go for some huge bone-graft thing. I'm waiting for my parents to come home from Bermuda so we can discuss it. I guess it was a good thing in a way. I know that if she said there's no way then there is totally no way. She's the best (and she studied to music like me, so if you play a certain Beatles song - i forget which - she compulsively recites all the nerves in a certain facial region) and I'm glad I got that done now so that I'll have lost the stitches and stuff by the time the mole-rat trip starts. Plus I got a prescription for the painkillers that I ran out of (I'm not a druggie, I just get BAD headaches a lot. I also thought my tyre was going to blow up on the highway and it didn't. And I managed to drive home all drugged up and injected and I'm ok, last time I did that I nearly started a pile-up!

In other news... my supervisor said we can get my project ready for publication in january (rather than NOW which I wasn't happy with). There's also a rule that if I get an A for this degree I can skip masters and go straight to PhD and he thinks I will and said if I do that he's got a scholarship lined up for me. Which is scary. I don't feel old enough to be a PhD student! Plus it'll put an end to going overseas. He said to get a doctorate quickly and then I can go all over the world researching until I feel experienced enough to settle down somewhere. It certainly is tempting! Particularly because if I need a big PhD project I can do all the stuff I want as well as maybe squeezing some field work into it. I think I'm also being a little bit stupid and counting a lot of unhatched eggs... I don't know what my project was worth, and In read a lot of other people's honours from a few years ago (the big scary experienced Masters and PhD students) and I feel very inadequate!

Anyway I have to go to church now, I think I've been neglecting the Christians a bit too much, plus as soon as I take the bag of frozen veggies off me cheek I'm sure I'll get some sympathy!

it's over... so why do I not feel happy?

Today was undoubtable the worst day I've had this year (with losing the lizard in the wall the day after I broke a finger being a not-very-close second).

I got to wits at 7am, and tried to get to work. It was so horrible, I was useless! That post from this morning took me about half an hour because I was so tired and stupid I just couldn't get anything right.

So I proofread and it seemed ok, but I knew I was tired, so I just sort of twitched around. When my supervisor finally deigned to arrive at about 10am I was a little bit... frantic. So I gave him my updated thesis and he said eh had to go do something quickly, but he'd get back and get started in about 1/2 an hour. I offered to help in order to be around to speed up the process, but he refused. so I sort of twitched around a bit more, drinking copious amounts of coffee and typing up a title page (more on that later).

Eventually I almost went to sleep on some chairs in the honours room, but as soon as I was dozing off nicely (the chairs actually make a remarkably comfortable bed when pushed together!) either someone would walk in, or someone would ask me a question. Finally the room was full of people who were being very polite and not screaming or anything when TAO (the annoying one) walked in and proceeded to get all loud on the phone about how happy she was that she was all done and her write-up was handed in and how exciting it was to go for coffee and so on. I gave up the pretense after she left. By then it was an hour after my supervisor had arrived (and 5 hours until hand-in) and he still hadn't got back. so I twitched around some more and got Luke to proofread (shout out to Luke, you is rox!) and then twitched some more.

After waiting for two and a half hours (it was a long half an hour I think, in his mind) there was srtill no sign of my supervisor and I got really really upset. I was complaining to Neva about how upset I was that all the hard work I'd done all year was going to be worthless because nobody (i.e. my supervisor) cared when I just sort of burst into tears. Awkward moment.

A little while later my supervisor reappeared and then an hour later (this is 2:30 pm, an hour and a half from hand-in) he sent me his comments. I was in a bad mood, and I think he noticed because he was really nice and I was particularly unfriendly (I had already stormed into the lab a few times complaining about how academia is horrible and I'm not doing masters... I think the Australain might have said something to him), and then I rushed off to do my corrections (nothing major a new paragraph and some grammar , the whole discussion was in present rather than past tense and I hadn't noticed. neither had Luke). so, with 45 minutes to go, Luke and I rushed off to get our theses printed and bound. there was a queue, but mine was done in time, so we sprinted (well Luke sprinted, I ran out of steam half way and walked. it's really not been a kind year!) to hand in and I walked over to the desk, and proudly held out my three copies... to see that I'd left a word out of my title, rendering it meaningless (it was a 'being', so without it I was just looing at 'the costs of subordinate').

So I panicked and sprinted off to reprint the cover page, but my copies were already bound, so with dramatically shaking hands I cut out the title and glued it on top of the original title. it looked horrible. So for the other two i just stuck the missing word on and that looked ok. The ugly one with the double title is going to give me sleepless nights. I was really upset, and Neva got a bit nervous that I might start crying again (I was beyond crying). And that was it. 40% of my honours degree ticked off a list and handed in.

We were about to go to Biosoc for a drink, and realised that of the three of us (myself, Luke and EEbEE) none of us had eaten at all that day and it might be a bad idea to drag ourselves off to the pub in our current exhausted, overcaffeined states. so we went and got food and Luke ran off home and I ended up at Biosoc where a small group of exhausted people sat and didn't really talk at all.

I have an essay for Monday, so I went to the lab to fetch the papers I need for it, and got a talking-to from the Australian about going home. He also said that if I'm not enjoying the long horrible hours, loads of stats and monotonous lab work it might be a good idea for me to quit now. I agree, but a part of me wanted him to advise me to stay. I couldn't find the papers, my desk(s) are messy at the best of times, but are also usually super-organised. Right now they're both disaster-zones and I can't find anything. so I drove home really slowly for fear of driving off the side of the road due to total exhaustion and went outside and lay on the grass. The drive home really upset me because it was the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen, the kind with bright ble sky with multicoloured streaks across it and silhouetted clouds and birds flying across... and I felt nothing. I didn't even wish I had my camera.

I want this year to be over!

50!

This is my 50th post! I would be throwing coffee... I mean confetti... Yes, I'm exhausted. At 4:30 yesterday afternoon I decided that my discussion wasn't working and nothing I did to try fix it up was good enough, so I just deleted it all. I finished my new one at 11pm last night, when my mom strted phoning in mild hysterics because my parents are going overseas and needed their sleep and I shouldn't be driving late at night and so on.

So I just got in now (7am) and I'm going to go over my discussion, write an abstract (that's like a summary) and a title and then try track down my supervisor to proofread my new discussion. It's not my best work, but I just can't do anything better. This year has very much taught me that all that I was able to overachieve on last year by strength of working really hard and staying up late and getting up early just isn't enough yet. The Australian said that at this rate I won't make it to 30, but it gets easier once honours... no, masters... no, PhD... no, postdoc... it gets easier. I wanted to cry!

Wish me luck!

the waiting is killing me...

I sent in my first draft to both my supervisors yesterday. One said I'd get feedback this morning, the other said I'd get it this 'arvo' so I took the afternoon off, visited Joey at work (to find her giggling because she had just had to serve Mr Fokkens) and went home to fall asleep in front of the tv. It was a lot of fun, but also stressful because I had the nagging 'I should be working right now' feeling the whole time.

So anyway I figured I wouldn't get my draft back until 10am or so, so I slept in and only left home at about 8:30, and now it's 10:20 and I'm waiting and I can't do anything and it's really stressful! I just reached the point where working all the time was so normal (although not neccessarily getting anything done) that I don't have anything to do...

I have an essay, but I don't want to write it. Maybe I should fix up my other essay that I already wrote. I'll be grateful for that next week when I have both essays due and an exam to study for!

The Australia bought a car and it broke down already, so he's being way too polite to the people who sold it to him, I think he's trying to appeal to their better nature. They've just referred him to some dodgy mechanic friend of theirs.

We hung a piece of melon on a string for the iguana yesterday and she had so much fun chasing it around! It was adorable!

I feel really awkward sittinghere not working. I think I'll go do that essay.

two quick thoughts

I was at wits last night until about 10:30, and I had two thoughts as I was driving home at 50km/hr ebcause I was so tired I thought I'd crash otherwise.

1) I can do this. Which is weird because I'm really struggling, but I felt ok, and now I can almost breathe gain.

2) I really want to do masters next year. In fact, I want to do so much stuff that maybe going straight to PhD would be a good idea.

That's all.
And my paragraphs aren't too short! Are they?

stupid blogger!

I made a whole post the other day and blogger ate it! SO not what I need right now!

Briefly: I have 5 days to finish my write-up. Progress-wise I'm behind (VERY behind), I have my results and methods almost done, all that's missing is a paragraph in my methods. I got my intro back with comments on Friday, there's a lot to do on it, but it's workable. and I haven't even thought about my discussion. I was supposed to finish my results this morning and have a rough version of my discussion done by now, but my results took a LONG time. I fixed up 8 graphs this morning until I realised that I would end up with 32 graphs and I didn't care enough to do that. So I went back to tables. Right now I have 15 tables and 6 graphs, which is a bit ridiculous, but when you have 120 dependent variables (2 sets of 60) it's a bit impossible to cut it down any more.

On Thursday I realised that my results were meaningless and sat up until 10pm at university redoing my stats. The I got home and worked a few more hours and then the next morning I finished redoing them and went to my supervisor to find out that they're actually irrelevant and should be relegated to appendices. We also had a little bit of an argument about my attitude on the importance of publishing (basically I don't care, I'm trying to get my write-up done and then I'll think about it, while he wants it ready for publication just about immediately).

I also went to the Live concert on Friday, after a lot of stressing about the amount of time I have and that I didn't have time and it was all horrible until Laura kicked me out of the honours room and I went anyway. It was a lot of fun, I needed a chance to scream a bit and go slightly crazy! There were even the occasional 10 minutes when I didn't think about my write-up, which was awesome!

On Saturday I was so stressed I felt really sick, and ended up going for a 3 hour lunch break with Luke and EEbEE and we ended up buying tea and having another argument about the pronounciation of Schnitzel and getting funny looks from people.

And then today I worked.

breathe....

On Thursday I realsied all my stats was wrong and I had to redo it. I had a full-on panic attack (I can't breather!!! style thing), then sat at wits until 10pm doing stats. Then I went home and carried on until midnight. WhenI woke up yesterday I realised I'd arranged it wrong, so I had to redo it again...

Finally after all that I went to my supervisor, who pointed out that that section of stats is actually irrelevant and just goes into an appendix that nobody will ever read.

Plus I got my intro back. It's not too bad, there are a lot of comments, but it's the section I'm always least comfortable writing, so I'm relieved that there's some rearranging stuff, one or two more paragraphs to research and write and a lot of irrelevant tuff to take out but that's all. There was even a full apge without comments!

The problem was that I was so stressed that when I saw a whole lot of comments everywhere I panicked. I was gonig to the Live concert last night an dI proceeded to panic and try find a way to not go so that I could get my work done.

Then Laura kicked me out the honours room (in a well-meaning way) and I ended up going ebcause I didn't have the heart to call everyone else and cancel. Plus I already paid for the ticket...

So I went and met up with Lara and we had lunch and by the end of it the stressed-going-to-be-sick feelign was nearly gone (I'm not sure if it's because I inhaled some second-hand nicotine or because we got to talk about non-university stuff).

And we went to the concert. I realised just how isolated we've got this year. I got to see Claire and Linda and Darryl and Lara and I just didn't know what to say to them. Linda and I went into our usual long-winded explanations about what we're studying (she does genetics and generally has to explain it in baby-talk for me) and then went into a rather de[pressed session about how we're such losers. Back in first year we always used to say how we'd never become pale nervous people who never come out of the lab. Oops.

The concert was awesome though, I really had fun. I've been so stressed it was nice to jump around and scream and just go nuts. They played really well also, and I got to laugh when the lead singer took his shirt off and Lara nearly fell over she was screaming so hard!

Anyway it's already 11am and I have a lot of work to do...

It's nearly over, but I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing...
here's my bird:

no pressure!

I have 9 days to finish my write-up. And that's a completed, final draft that is worth 40% of my entire honours degree mark.

I went to see my supervisor today. He was really nice, I hope it stays that way until I hand in (and until the end of masters, but one thing at a time)...

He's also developed a weird tendency to sit there with the trying-very-hard-not-to-laugh look on his face. and when I go "You're laughing at me! Stop laughing at me!" he packs out laughing while insisting that he isn't. I'd believe him if I didn't spend most of the time I'm talking to him with a similar look on my face. I figure that the best way around it is to laugh and be done with it.

We also discussed (da da da dummmmm) My Future. Mostly that I must make my mind up. He's ok if I freeze my masters to go overseas for a year.

Otherwise, the Australian introduced me to some music he heard at a frisbee club people party. It's really awesome (the music. Not the other stuff). He's also getting a bit annoying in that he's being all "You work so hard!" at me, when I. Don't. Have. A. Choice.

He's also completely full of shit, in a way that reminds me very much of my brother when we were younger. I get to laugh a lot!

Otherwise I'm so stressed that I'm completely calm, and considering going to bed now. Which is a bad thing because I have work to do.

plus if I go to bed now, when they walk in tomorrow to find me sitting at the same spot, in the same position (hunched over in front of a computer, with a cup of tea and a pen and paper), I'll get the usual "Did you go home last night?" speech.

The sad thing is, when they left, he came back to fetch something and I said "Didn't you go?" and he said no, it wasn't worth it. and I said "Not worth going home?" and he said "This is home." and I said "No, it's my home and it's only big enough for one of us!" and it didn't sound too far from the truth! It also ended the argument.

so I'm going to bed. As soon as I finish streaightening my methods and putting the last touches on my intro.

Very funny, I'm going to bed.

I need validation!

Last night I was planning to finish my essay, but i realised I'd forgotten to back up all the work I'd done on the weekend onto my flash drive. So i went home to work on it to find that we had no electricity.

I had a minor breakdown, threw a tantrum at some poor unsuspecting Eskom person on the phone and went to work for some sympathy. Joey and Lara were very sympathetic. chris isn't speaking to me again for some reason. Don't know what I did this time...

Then I went home (buying peanutbutter curry - don't knock it till you've tried it on the way in case there wasn't any power yet) to find that the electricity was still out,and the Eskom workment weren't there anymore. So I threw another tantrum ast a very annoying Eskom guy, who responded by putting me on hold.

I read a few books that I needed for my write-up and fell asleep as the candles slowly sucked the oxygen out of my vicinity. I woke up to find wax pouring all over my first draft, narrowly missing two library books, and forming a gleaming puddle on my carpet.

My birds also panicked, and Rerra hurt his wing by flying around their cage in a panic. he was bleeding pretty badly, but it clotted ok.

the power came on at midnight, so i got up, saved everything to my flashdrive and worked for about half an hour before I got bored. I also got to read a very amusing email from the lady who we're going to the desert with (how's that for bad grammar?). she's trying very hard not to pry, but has to know if Luke and I are 'just friends' or a couple, plus a list of every possible eventuality in sleeping arrangements, from us haivng a bedroom and her taking the couch, to kicking Luke out the the living room while the two of us get the bedroom...

It's very sweet of her to try ask it so discreetly, but it's also so funny to read it that I just can't reply because I start giggling.

Oh, and speaking on giggling, the Australian inadvertently learned 'Poepel' today, but keeps getting the definition confused. I think he's also trying to get me back for forcing him to repeat all of his Afrikaans phrases over and over, by forcing me to repeat Aussie slang and then commenting on my pronounciation. Which is pretty good considering I speak English! He's also messing with me a lot, it's like having my brother around all the time, except I can't tell him to 'root' off.

I also got the first 2 sections of my write up that I sent to my supervisor back, COVERED with comments. Some of it's really little stuff that I just didn't know (like if you have a measurement you have to have a space between the numbers and the units. And instead of bullet points you number each point and separate them with semicolons), and some of it's basic stuff that I should have known, like naiming the brand of soap I used.

and some of it is major points that I knew I should have addressed, except that I don't know the answers.

So I'm feeling partly good that I've got feedback and I can fix stuff, but also really stupid and tired and annoyed with myself.

I've also been thinking about the future (if one more person asks me about what I'm doing next year I might just cry). I mean, everything I've ever really worked at has had a mark at the end. I learned music to get into orchestras and play exams. I went at school to get matric. I went to university to get a degree, I'm doing my honours to get a good honours degree. And the thought of doing two years of research without a nice little symbol (preferably an A) to keep me feeling validated and ok with life. I don't think I have the motivation.

Plus, as much as I love the department (I mean going shopping to find a 'poepoel' to raise frogs in?) and the people and the stuff I learn, I don't know...

Sorry you guys have to sit through this again, it's what happens after 10 pages of putting spaces between numbers and letters.

Here's Max again...

Oh, and some information on Hexane (courtesy of wikipedia). I have 2 years and 10 months until I'm clean!

"The acute toxicity of hexane is relatively low, although it is a mild anesthetic. Inhalation of high concentrations produces first a state of mild euphoria, followed by somnolence with headaches and nausea.
Chronic intoxication from hexane has been observed in recreational solvent abusers and in workers in the shoe manufacture, furniture restoration and automobile construction. The initial symptoms are tingling and cramps in the arms and legs, followed by general muscular weakness. In severe cases, atrophy of the skeletal muscles is observed, along with a loss of coordination and problems of vision.
Similar symptoms are observed in animal models. They are associated with a degeneration of the peripheral nervous system (and eventually the central nervous system), starting with the distal portions of the longer and wider nerve axons. The toxicity is not due to hexane itself but to one of its metabolites, hexane-2,5-dione. It is believed that this reacts with the amino group of the side chain of lysine residues in proteins, causing cross-linking and a loss of protein function.
The effects of hexane poisoning in humans are not permanent, and usually disappear gradually over one to three years after the end of exposure."

pictures!

Blogger FINALLY let me post pictures! This is the desert trip (as I said, courtesy of google earth). We start in Johannesburg (well, more Pretoria, but anyway) on the East and then work our way clockwise until we get home again. the first trip down to Darling is a 12 hour drive (to get a sense of scale. Highway speed limits are generally 120km/hr).

Here's a grown-up version of Jesse when not attacking Max. The only time I can get her to sit still for a picture is when she's sleepy/sleeping.

and, because I can't leave him out, here's Max:

They're in black and white because I don't like the way colours come out under artificial light, and I don't know my camera well enough to fiddle with the balance and stuff.

That's all. I'm sure once I have time to figure out my camera I'll be posting a lot more photos. It's so annoying, Canon was too stingy to actually print the instruction manual, it's in Pdf mode on a cd. So now instead of my usual lying on my bed figuring what all the buttons do, I have to sit by the computer. I've got the basics, but the cool stuff is still to come!

15 random things

Sarah tagged me, so I tag... Travis! hahahahahahaha! (sorry Luke, I don't want you to feel left out, but i know how much work you have...).

1. If I come within a square kilometer of a large open body of water I will fall in. It's like a law of nature.

2. I'm a zoologist, but until about 2 1/2 years ago I was terrified of insects. When I went on Marine and Coastals I was too proud to tell anyone so I just had to come to terms with them (within about 2 days that we spent just working with insects) I still don't like all of them very much, but mostly I'm ok.

3. I had my first music lesson when I was 4 years old. I had my last music lesson when I was 18. I miss playing in an orchestra sometimes, but otherwise I never think about it.

4.I just wrote the introduction to my honours thesis. I'm too scared to read it.

5. When I graduated in April I forgot to actually take my degree and they nearly had to call me back on stage, but they caught me in time.

6. I don't know anything about stats. I just fake it well. Really.

7. When I was 8 we went to Germany for 2 weeks and I put down the shopping on the side of the road while we were waiting for a robot to change and didn't pick it up again. i was the one carrying pretty much all the important stuff. the banks were closed the next 2 days (Sunday plus some holiday or something?) so we ended up living on the Oatso Easy and Cuppa Soup my mom had packed in case. We only had 1 spoon and my Dad had to use his shoehorn (he washed it first).

8. When I was little I was really quiet and I used to get locked in the classroom at the end of the day about once a week. I was too shy to shout for help so I just used to sit there until someone walked past.

9. I could read before I started school and nobody knows how I learned.

10. When I was a baby they had to separate me and my brother because we had a sign-language type thing going and he got me whatever I asked for, so I didn't start talking properly until really late.


11. I had a lisp and had to have speech therapy.

12. Whenever we had a braai I always used to get marshmallow in my hair.

13. I put cheese wax in my hair once and we nearly had to shave a chunk off. Nearly.

14. when I was 10 I read 'The Power of One' for the first time. I loved it but my grandparents were horrified because of the swearing. It's still my favourite book (hitchhiker's guide is a close second).

15. i used to sleep walk. Once I attacked my own arm in a semi-asleep state and pinched it so hard I had a bruise that was so big I could I could explain it away by saying I got hit by a cricket ball. I was 16.

I have to write my essay for Ecophys now. I really don't want to. I thought for a horrible split-second that the wits website was down again, then I realised that for some reason we weren't connected to the internet so I was able to breathe again.

Blogger still won't let me upload pictures. It says they're uploaded, but then they are nowhere to be seen.

It's so frustrating!!!

I'm going to go write an essay now.

Very funny.

Just a quick note

Last night I was supposed to go go-carting, but it was raining, and i was really tired, so I stayed home. Bad plan. My broother and his fiance had two friends (who are getting married in February) over and I had to join them for dinner. What do you get if you sit in a small room with 2 couples getting married within the next 6 months? Wedding plans. I am so glad I'm going to the desert!

AnywayI just had to post to say this: MY NEW CAMERA RULES!!! I'm tempted to run around shouting that a lot. But people already think I'm strange. So anyway I got my camera, with a lot of compliments from Daniel (the guy behind the counter) who earned a lot of commission off me today because I also got a new memory card (a multi-media card at a SD card price because they were out of stock) and batteries and a camera bag. Apparently I make the world a better place by knowing exactly what I want when I walk into a camera shop.

Of course. I'm going to meander around with large amounts of cash asking for advice from someone who earns commission? I've been researching cameras for months. More like years.

And if you get a really nice camera you have to get stuff like cases and batteries because otherwise it'll get damagedor you'll be running to buy batteries ever ten minutes (respectively).

Anyway I have to write my intro now. I HAVE to have my first draft done today. Please beat me up if I don't. I finished my reading. Out of the articles that I downloaded I read about 180 papers in the last 2-3 days and of those, maybe 60-70 are actually usable (I didn't say useful, because the 'useful and relevant' count if just depressing).

So I'm going to make lunch and sit down with all my paper summaries. I'm not even allowed to turn my camera on until it's done!

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend! I'll put up my amazing 15 facts a bit later, when I have breathing time!

Oh and here's where we're going on the desert trip (courtesy of google earth):

It hates me and won't upload :(
Maybe tomorrow.

Oh well! I'm going to go and WORK!

P.S if anyone out there is considering doing honours: Don't!

number 40!

I just realised that this is post number 40! I never thought I'd keep this up so long.

I've been readnig articles all day. I have about 70 more until I can start the real writing (intro and discussion). to tel the truth I could probably start the discussion alrady, but I don't want to do anythign until I get my M&M and Results back from my supervisor.

Anyway there was the most amazing article. Apparently our pigment for seeing blue light actually can absorb down to the UV range, but our cornea and lens don't allow UV light through. So if you have cataract surgery or something you shold be able to see UV! They should totally make a UV-transparent artificial cornea and give it to cataract patients. It would be so amazing!

The really frustrating thing about working with colour is that you can analyse UV colours, and work with them and manipulate them, but you can't SEE them. Like for us, red +blue = purple. so what does Orange +UV look like? We can't even imagine because it's a colour that doesn't exist for us. so two totally different colours both look orange for us.

Anyway, back to work.
I'm fetching my camera tomorrow!!!

My camera-to be!

I ordered my new camera today, I'm so excited!!! It's a 6m.pixel, 12x optical zoom, with a supermacro that's so good you can practically balance the lens on what you're photographing!

My history as a photographer has been relatively awful. In 2004 I was unable to take a photograph that people would actually be able to identify what was in it. really. I was that bad.

It was really horrible because I loved photos and would spend hours looking at them and going through books and internet sites...

So at the end of my second year I worked full time selling dog and cat food and saved up, and on new years eve I went and bough a beautiful little Casio QV-R51 camera. I think I took about 70 photos that day.

By the end of the holidays I was an average photographer and the camera went everywhere with me.I became the queen of taking photos of people in awkward moments and stuff.

After about a year the camera started to bug me. I had qualified as a speciality diver with underwater photography in the meantime and the limited zoom and macro was annoying and restricting, and I started considering selling it and getting a better camera.

The dicision was made for me when, about a year later I went on a field trip and somebody (possibly me, I really don't know) didn't zip up the camera case and it fell out and landed on the rocky shores one night. I realised how much I loved it because I missed it SO much, but fixing it would have cost more than getting a new, better, camera.

So I got a little Samsung on special and it's been getting me through since then, but I really don't like it, I use it because I must have a camera, but I don't like it particularly. I don't know it very well and there are severe limitations in terms of EVERYTHING being automatic when I want manual.

so now I'm moving up to a nice new, shiny camera. I'm fetching it on Saturday. I can't wait! The desert trip is going to be so cool now that I can take photos with a cool camera! and I will... lots of them...
Here it is: (not my photo, it belongs to canon (the website is www.canon.co.uk or something, so please don't sue me!).

Isn't it pretty...