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.
So when I was a lot lot LOT younger I used to ice-skate. Yip, every Saturday morning my Dad and I would get up super-early, drag ourselves out the house and make Die Groot trek to the other side of the world (i.e Krugersdorp).
I skated for a few years, loved it at first and ten as my gawky teenagerliness started taking over I began to not enjoy it as much, then hate certain steps and then resent it completely. And then I stopped.
Recently, as we’ve been going skating relatively often, She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named and I decided to sign up for classes. They’re not too expensive (I think it works out as the price of a session plus R10 or so per lesson), and I was frustrated at my general lack of confidence in trying anything I used to be able to do, while she wanted to be more confident and do a few tricks rather than clinging onto the side.
So last night I battled through some delightful traffic to find that She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named was nowhere to be seen. I found her eventually, stressing out like crazy over the average age in the previous classes (it’s around 5-8 years old I think), the fact that the classes are visible from the rest of the centre and that she didn’t want to fall. By the end of it all I was terrified too, particularly when we’d signed up (and had to fight a nasty stage-mother and inefficient admin person), put our skates on and found a small group of people over the age of 5 to hang out with.
The adults class was nicely placed out of general public view. It was also a nice size, with lots of really friendly people. Unfortunately I got kicked out within the first two minutes because I could actually skate, and I was sent off to meet my new classmate (yip, singular), a terribly shy girl who might have been six or seven years old.
It was the weirdest thing though: I’m comfortable on skates. I can zip around the rink quite happily, do one or two cool things and avoid the crazy skaters who always seem to try and trip me up, but I had never realised how slightly-nervous I am all the time. after two or three steps with a coach-guy explaining and critiquing and helping I suddenly felt SO much happier and more in control – to a point where I did a lot of steps that I’d tried recently and wobbled/freaked out/wussed out completely.
By the end of the lesson I think we’d covered the entire class syllabus (this guy hasn’t had time to become immune to my “what’s next? Teachmemoremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremore! attitude – the tai chi teachers are completely desensitised by now) and I’m hoping to move up to the next class next week. I tried out my nemesis-of-a-step last night and it didn’t end well, so I will need all the help I can get with it (and it’s in the next class).
After the lesson I went and found She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named who had had an equally fantastic time (from clinging on to the side they had her calmly zooming around forwards AND backwards) and we went around and she practised very diligently while I bounced around in total over-excitement and tried out everything I could think of and I managed most of them! And I (sort of) managed my FAVOURITE step from back in the day which totally made my night and had me dashing around squealing and (yes, I admit it clapping) in joy.
I think the other people there think there is something wrong with me…
But I’m so excited and I can’t wait until next week!
Went for a quick bite to eat and a drink with two friends at six last night (to celebrate one of them getting a shiny new car) and wound up getting home at midnight. It was really nice to spend some real quality time with one of them (I hadn’t seen her since I got back) and my worries about her not getting along with the other friend were unfounded – they got along like a house on fire which was awesome!
I’m going to see these guys this weekend:
I’m so excited! I used to be hectically into the local music scene but I’ve lost touch with it over the last few years and I can’t wait to get back out there.
I got a new CD by these guys:
And I’m off to the bush on Monday with ‘the girls’ which is horrible because I had to miss a 25th (that I RSVPed to months ago) and had to cancel on, plus i have HEAPS of work to get through which I’ll have to take with me. At the same time it’s awesome to get out of the city for a little bit.
Who knows, maybe there will be lizards?
So this weekend was INSANE! I spent most of it rushing around from place to place and dying of heat (never plan four different things on the Saturday after the Killers concert…), but it was totally awesome anyway.
I’m too tired to give many details so here you go:
We went to the KILLERS! It was awesome!
Although there were rather a lot of people. i was lucky enough to be able to see the stage (as I’m a bit on the tall side), even though we were behind about six GIaNT mutants (who were all friends, which was so strange). My friends are shorter than me but seemed ok with looking at the screens and jumping around like maniacs.
Witness the rather scary progression: from all dressed-up, to all-dressed up and rained on (sorry for the weird crop, CG would kill me for putting photos of her up here)
… to exhausted, rained-on and all-screamed out (and still wearing a seatbelt). I have to admit to spazzing-out completely when they started the “I’ve got soul” bit. I’m talking jumping up and down and SHRIEKING “It’s my song! Oh my gosh! it’s my song! they’re playing my song! Oh my gosh ohmygoshohmgosh!” and so on. What can I say, I have a a history with it. Note the flashing bunny-ears as well. They kept us entertained for most of the evening (the others got pink ones, I got blue ones) as well as the drive home, not to mention annoying enough of the tall people to get them out of our way…
After getting back and joining in an epic guitar-hero rock band game and generally being bit over-tired and therefore manic we collapsed and I woke up the next morning to rush home and change, meet someone for coffee and go off to Tamara’s open house market-ty thing. It was AWESOME, the jewellery was absolutely stunning and I’ve already hijacked a Christmas present for me (they look better on me than the potential giftee anyway). Don’t judge me!
From there it was off to Athena’s braai, where I met a bunch of new people, got to document extreme pool-entries:
Appreciated some awesome T-shirts:
Reconnected with an old friend (who is also a blogger…). If we ever start a band i think this should be the album-cover. The angry face in my case was the product of extreme exhaustion, not unhappiness!
Appreciated Athena’s super-braai skills (she’s vegetarian, yet quite talented at cooking dead things)
Attempted to take another lab-photo
If we could stop laughing for long enough to take it…
If you’d seen attempt number two, you’d understand my grimace…
And of course, flashing (and fluffy) blue ears, while a total bonus, didn’t quite fulfil my weekend-hat-requirement. Fortunately Tom’s hat DID. Anyone in Spain who feels like buying me a hat, please do so! This one is AWESOME!
Unfortunately while the fun didn’t end there, I left my cameras at home for the rest of the weekend, so you’ll have to take my word for it!
Now to recover and face the week ahead! Which is easier when you have exciting things, like my appointment to re-blueify my hair tomorrow. And of course, visitors like this in the lab:
3…2…1… AWWWWWWWW!
Warning: this is a cheesy cheesy post.
About 18 months ago I posted a whole long thing about friendship and how lucky I am to have such special people in my life. I’m not always the best friend that I could be, I‘m really busy, I’m away a lot, I don’t always notice what’s going on around me until my friends have found other people to talk to or else they bash me over the head and tell me to shut up.
A last week I had a really awful day. Everything went OK, but I had some realisations about things and it made me really depressed – the joy of being alone in the bush is that you’re trapped in a place with your own thoughts – things that wouldn’t usually upset me really do here because I have no distractions (except the whole farm being on fire thing. Thanks guys).
Then tonight while I talked it all through with CG on MSN, Leia on G-talk and someone else on Facebook I realised just how amazing my support system is. A lot of the time it feels like nobody even notices that I’m gone, but I realised that just because they’re living their lives doesn’t mean I don’t play a part in them, no matter how small.
A while ago I dated this guy, very briefly (very very briefly) and I wasn’t in a good place and treated him badly and we decided it was better to try and save a friendship and move on. And the other day out of nowhere I got a message from him, just checking up on me and thinking of me, and it was one of the most special things I’ve ever had – it came at just the right time! And I realised how much I don’t deserve it, I was a horrible person to him. sometimes I think we write people off without realising how much they mean to us.
So anyway long sob story over, I once again proclaim that it isn’t international friendship day, but I think that it is friendship day in my little universe.
10 things I love about my friends:
I think we don’t appreciate the people around us enough, so if you want to list special things about your friends, I name this official Friendship Appreciation Day. Just let me know!
What a fantastic day! seriously, I lost my caffeine tolerance over the last week, so my single cup (ok it was rather strong, and the plunger went funny so there were a lot of grounds in it) of coffee yesterday resulted in me twitching and having profound thoughts until about 4am… the worst part? I had coffee at like midday! Seriously!
And when my ipod decided that pretending that it didn’t need charging wasn’t working anymore I got to twitch along in silence, while mumbling the words to the collected works of the Parlotones. It was a new low. Seriously.
But this morning decided not to be mean and nasty and bright and sunny, and instead was cloudy enough to allow me an extra hour and a half of sleep. As my traps have gone far beyond ‘comfortably worn in’ to the realm of ‘gross and nasty and worn out’ I changed them for shiny new traps, as well as finishing the leftover coffee from yesterday. Eventually at about 10 I decided that I had had enough waiting around, and I figured although it was cloudy it might just be warm enough for the odd lizard to be out, particularly since it was such a wet and miserable weekend.
And it was pretty good! the sun came out in short bursts, which let me find a few lizards, and they were cold enough to take full advantage of the sun (and generally let me catch them!). By about 2:30 the wind was really starting to get ridiculous and was blowing my traps everywhere, not to mention that the lizards were under their rocks in the ‘bomb drill’ position (I can imagine if I want to!), so I headed home for the day. Right now I’m over the halfway mark for my minimum number of lizards I need, and over a third for the number I really want, and exactly halfway to the number in the middle that I will probably settle for n the end!
As it was nice and cold again I decided to take the opportunity to go for a run. It’s been too hot or too wet and I’ve been too lazy for the last few days, but I’ve also been watching my muscle tone vanish completely which is just depressing. So I walked up the driveway (when I say up, I mean UP, it’s about 1.5 km of upness) and ten ran along the road to the next-farm neighbour’s gate. By the time I’d got there I was totally finished (did I mention the driveway is really steep?) and then I realised the key difference between the treadmill and the real world: I had to walk back! And for some weird reason it was uphill the whole way. And it was far! I think it’s about 5km in total, but it felt much much further! I ran little bits because I got bored, and I was hot and tired, and eventually I got home and collapsed in the chair on the veranda eating carrots.
Because I could.
After that I started measuring lizards, but I stopped to have a tea-break and check my email, and wound up chatting on messenger with CG for about 2 hours. Of course whenever I speak to people I seem to turn into a cross between Oprah and a fortune-cookie. Maybe that’s why hermits always gave advice? There’s something kind of zennishness about the isolation and the time I have to think about things. As she is one of the key players in my social circle I also got to ask her all about my boy-troubles (which are very non-dramatic) and she had a very different perspective, which means that tomorrow i get to find a rock and sit and think through everything all over again.
Oh, and the person who invented cherry-lollipop flavour yoghurt deserves some kind of Nobel prize or something. It’s SO good!
And there’s a frog on my window (on the glass) eating all the moths and Christmas beetles and stuff. I will call him Victor, because he kind of looks like a Victor.
I’m still twitching slightly, but I’ve managed to stop bouncing around in my chair, so there’s even hope for some sleep tonight!
I know, I know, I promised to keep blogging… (I’m hanging my head sheepishly, just in case you were wondering). And it’s not even like I’ve been swamped here, I’ve been busy, but no more than usual!
Anyway, I drove down on Saturday, and it was the weirdest thing: About halfway to Nelspruit and I got this weird feeling of going-homeness. I suddenly noticed the amazing beauty around me and the weird people driving around me (my personal favourite being the car with the “it’s not PMS, I’m just a bitch” bumper sticker – driven by an ancient man who might have been smoking a pipe – the huge sky, the open fields.
I also had a weird flashback to childhood – my dad used to like annoying me (still does), in my family teasing is the common way to show affection for some reason, and one thing he’d do was to call animals by the wrong names. Maybe it was just the zoologist in me getting started early but it drove me NUTS! Once I got used to it I decided it was ok, as long as we were consistent – so giraffe were always raffe-gee, Kudu were called lions, and so on. And of course whenever we drove past a cow field (which you do a lot in South Africa) we’d have to yell “Elephants!” So when I drove past the Oilfants river and saw a field of cows… it totally made my day!
Randomness aside, I kept driving, through several torrential downpours, and ended up doing some grocery shopping in town on my way through. I knew I was back when I got stuck behind two men in their two-tone khaki and kortbroek (no crocs, apparently rainy days call for veldskoen) having a discussion on ruck-bee in the middle of the canned-food aisle.
I made it to the farmhouse by just after 5 to find that despite the rain, the student and her team who had gone down a day before were nowhere to be seen. They emerged about an hour later triumphantly carrying about 6 lizards – it seems that it had cleared for about half an hour and they were admirably tenacious about catching the lizards that they saw. Two of them were my lizards so I got a nice headstart!
It was weird being there with people when I hadn’t adjusted to being there, and I kind of flitted between wanting to get rid of them and asking them to stay an extra night. Wither way when we woke up the next morning it was raining and so they left and I took a nap. Which lasted for about 6 hours. What can I say, it’s like I’m sleeping in my own bed at last! The insomnia is still there, but it’s down to a ‘it’s 3am, why am I awake? I must sleep… this is so annoying, I need my sle-' and then I’m out until morning stage.
Yesterday was lovely and sunny but not too hot, and I got back into the swing of things until a freak rainstorm chased me off the rocks at lunchtime. I was greeted by a huge eagle on the outcrop when I arrived (it was so close to me!) as well as a black mamba which I think may have been as scared as me. It decided to go under a rock AS I removed my traps, meaning that I looked to see what ‘that weird noise’ was to see it slithering past (about 10 cm from me). I had no idea my heart rate could shoot up so fast! I’ve been a bit jumpy since then, but at least everything is ok.
And today was hot. blisteringly like-being-in-an-oven hot! The worst part is that I know it’s going to get MUCH hotter soon! It was a beautiful day, the sky was that amazing blue that you don’t find anywhere else (other countries have blue skies, but not like ours, kind of like how our oceans are pretty, but in Jersey the sea really sparkled), I saw zebra and kudu on my way to the site, ran into a friendly farmer who (get this) spoke English! and had a pretty successful trapping day.
I got to relearn my climbing a little bit, which was fun! I’m enjoying the new flexibility that I think comes from tai chi and stretching although my endurance is lousy as always. I found a bunch of lizards in an area where I’ve never seen more than one or two, so I’m quite excited – maybe the rains have been as good for the lizards as I’d hoped! There are certainly enough insects around – I’m starting to get a bit offended by the dungbeetles flying into my head! So I’m just hoping that the weather holds out, that the lizards are plentiful (and stupid) and that I stay in the (strange) wonderfully happy mood I’ve been in for the last few days!
Here’s hoping!
Oh and the title refers to my sunburnedness. SPF40 has worked like a charm, but there are a few crispy-fried bits that are going to tan permanently (because they always do!), like my lower back, a small patch on my left wrist my upper lip and tip of nose, a patch just below my right ear and so on.
Thanks so much those of you who've voted to name the cactus! Please keep voting, the poll is up until Friday!
So anyway after an awesome weekend of braaing, doing yoga on a wiii (videos might follow but I'm not sure how keen the people are to have their hula-hooping broadcast, and it's one of those 'you-had-to-be-there clips), being attacked by a lamp with a necklace doing an impression of a wind-chime at the same time, and spending an awesome evening playing Guitar Hero World tour (that's the one with the microphone and the drums and the two guitars and you play in a band!) after I was invited by telepathy and then yelled at for not RSVPing...
For the record, I really really really want to learn to pay the drums now! It was so much fun! And anyone near me got whacked by my flying drumsticks, so be warned... And of course when I mentioned the yoga to my boss on Saturday he and I ended up practising our yoga stances in the waiting room, between clients! It was bizarre!
Anyway it was also a bit of a weekend to be girly for me. I spent a long time having a chat with Chief-Goth, who's not very happy at the moment, and she's decided to do Pilates with me, so I'm hoping that'll happen. As much as I like gym as 'me' time, I want her to feel better more.
I also got these awesome earrings:
some awesome legwarmers (they're grey and black and I love them! and a pair of Converse-style canvas boots that are pink and black and lace up to just below the knee (hence the legwarmers, having boots on without tights or something makes me feel like I'm wearing shoes with no socks and that's disgusting!) and an amazing shirt that's made out of something called Lenzing-Modal or something, but basically it's made out of cellulose from beech trees! It's really comfortable and it'll be suitable for the goth metal music festival I'm going to in a few weeks!
The boots are amazing, except that I have to lace them up pretty tightly to get the laces the whole way to the top, so I went hunting for shoelaces and ended up buying these ribbons instead:
The laces are white at the moment and I love the look but the super-neon pink (it's brighter than it looks here) is amazing too, so I'm going to have to go home and try it out!
Anyway, after all that, and a relatively quiet Monday, Leia and I went shopping this morning. I've been promising to take her make-up shopping for months and we finally diarised it and went, although it was a bit 11th hour because her car isn't too reliable and I thought I might have to dash off somewhere else halfway through the morning, but as it happens, we made it, albeit about an hour late because I had managed to lose my car keys.
After only a brief stop at Rage and Aldo (who had the most awesome shoes but not in my size, the joy of it being on sale and therefore the last pair) I delivered her to Lizzy, the amazing person at Bobbi Brown. Lizzy recognised me! How scary? I introduced her (as she was kind of sputtering - Leia, not Lizzy) as my friend who needed help, and so Leia sat for about half an hour having her makeup done while Lizzy explained what everything was and how to use it. The only awkward part was when I was bouncing around (I ran off to check out MAC a few times, as well as looking around Red Earth which looked like there had been a tornado through the aisle) she gave us both a lecture on using black eyeliner and black mascara. For the record, my hair is super-dark brown and as much as I like brown eyeliner, it's too much effort maintaining two sets of everything, particularly when mascara goes funny after three months anyway! She also told me that as my eyebrows are basically black and my hair is brown I should TINT my eyebrows to match my hair to match my eyeliner. uh, how about NO?
And we also promised to go through on Saturday when they have a visiting international makeup artist visiting. I'm not sure what to expect, but she said we'd enjoy it and we'd have our makeup done again. I can never say no to free pamperage...
After all that, Leia looked vaguely shell-shocked but also decided that she wanted to check out a dress, so we ended up trying on outfits for a while. I liked a lot of stuff, but I have learned to go away and think for a day or two before committing to clothes, in an effort to avoid my cupboard filling up until the shelves collapse. She got herself a LBD and I was very proud!
I made it up to myself by going past my favourite accessories place and getting these:
I totally fell in love with the penguins! They also came with these:
Sorry for the fuzzy photo, they're tiny! And also perfect for teaching the snail dissection! And these:
so totally adorable!
Anyway after all that I'm totally girlied-out and I feel the need to play paintball or climb rocks or go quad-biking or something. Not that it wasn't awesome fun though!
And it's Tai-Chi tonight! I'm SO excited!
Once again fate struck and a whole ton of awesome stuff happened over the weekend and before I got a chance to write about it, other stuff happened. And once again I found myself promising to go back and tell the stories and the chance kind of slipped away...
So I'm going to write about it now! Photos to follow as soon as I beg Leia to let me post pictures of her...
So anyway as you may know, Leia is a labmate. She's a masters student working on mice. We have a long history, all starting when we were kids and our parents used to sit inside and chat while a whole troop of kids played nicely outside. Well on one such occasion I was stuck with a bunch of boys (Leia would have been a baby being cooed over inside at this stage) so I had brought my 'My Little Pony' collection out and was constructing a quite scary scenario in the sandpit involving giant horses against little green plastic soldiers. My collection consisted of three ponies, a purple one a yellow one and a blue one. I think I still have them somewhere.
One of the boys took one of my ponies (the blue one) and pulled its tail out! I was devastated as I'm pretty sure it had been on an aquatic adventure at some point and didn't smell nice like the others anymore and so all it really had going for it was its tail. One of the other boys was angry on my behalf and beat up the nasty child (who went on to be head boy of his primary school...). This was Leia's brother. And that is my history with their family!
For the record, Leia's parents are not crazy Star Wars geeks or anything like that, it's not her real name, any more than my real name is "Brother T" even though Luke's been calling me that for years (and I'm still not quite sure why). We renamed her when she arrived in the lab with a giant pair of noise-cancelling headphones that resembled the famous 'Chelsea bun' style made so famous in the first star wars movie. I even labelled her headphones 'Leifyers' when I got an awesome label-maker from the lab cleanup upstairs.
So anyway on Friday evening, while having amazing hot chocolate with the IT guy we decided that I would go with her to her field site on Saturday afternoon so that we could both take out big scary SLRs along and spend some time taking photos.
I had Saturday morning off to help my brother on a photo-shoot which was amazing. The people were very cool, and one of them in particular really made me think about how I see the world. And so on Saturday we went to her site which is basically a field of super-tall grass. We went in search of trees to find that they were all fenced OUT of the property, so we ended up lying on the grass taking photos of power-lines, grass, trees from a distance, blackjacks... it was actually quite fun!
The next morning I went along again, this time with a bundle of geocache information and we caught a mouse which was very exciting and headed off in search of geocaches. This was more for my benefit - I picked up a travel bug on the last excursion with full intent to drop it at the next cache. Problem being we didn't find anything else that day and I haven't been geocaching since. Travel Bugs are pretty expensive and I felt guilty having it sitting on my desk rather than floating around the world having adventures, so I was determined to get rid of the thing!
we found a cache really nearby in a specific tree (it was huge and right in front of it,and when I pointed it out she went "Where? I don't see it? Where?) but it was tiny and so the silly thing didn't fit in it and I had to keep the bug until the next site. After much exploring and not getting
anywhere close we decided to head back, stopping along the way at a place that I used to go to often as a child that a) has a geocache nearby and b) I remembered their meringues as being incredible and wanted to see if they still were.
Anyway, long story short, after accidentally invading a staff village, nearly climbing a fence and ending up falling in a river and making friends with a local dog but not so much with the rather dodgy owner who zoomed off on a creaking KTM (it wasn't in bad shape either, but there are certain people who shouldn't get sport bikes) we ended up quite far from the meringue place at a paintball course!
Leia REALLY needed the bathroom by then. I think she'd been needing to go all day, and we'd had coffee while she disinfected her car by accident which didn't help, so after taking laminated flyers for wooden decking and panelling from a car guard she went in search of a bathroom to find that they were BOTH labelled 'Men Only' and the only alternative was a portaloo. She refused the portaloo option and I didn't really want to go in because there was a bike there that very possibly might have belonged ton someone I didn't want to see while being covered in trapping grime, having a bad hair day and just... I didn't want to handle it on a weekend that had
been pretty good thus far.
So she decided to tough it out and so we went off in search of the elusive geocache. I taught her the best trick of geocaching - the 'walk-with-a-purpose-so-that-nobody-asks-any-questions' trick - and we went on until we realised that we'd have to hop a fence INTO the paintball course. For the record, the course is basically a forest with the odd hay bale tossed in, it looks AWESOME and we have to play there one day! The cache was about 80 metres away, I couldn't see any paintballers and the shots sounded relatively far, so I figured we would run for it. Leia kindly obliged and so we went sprinting through the trees until we got to the spot and couldn't find the thing.
By this stage Leia was jumping up and down and spinning in circles and trying to ignore the sound of rushing water from the river nearby. I didn't want to give up (do I ever?) partly because I'd picked up a SECOND travel bug at the previous site and really wanted to get rid of both of them (I had a reason for taking it)! so I said that we'd do one more sweep and then head back. She gave a tense nod and carried on dancing from foot to foot.
I was almost at giving-up point when I leaned down, poked with my toe and realised that they'd BURIED the thing, so I looked up to say we'd found it to see her walking away very briskly. I figured that as she had mentioned her preference to a bush over a portaloo it might be best to avoid following her and so I put the travelbugs in, grabbed a yoyo and a magic bean thingie and signed off on our visit. In the meantime Leia had very kindly sent me a message to say she was taking the portaloo of horror option and so I headed back to find her trying to shower in waterless hand sanitiser in the parking lot.
For the record, the meringues are still amazing.
So Sarah and Luke both gave me an awe-summ award! It basically means that I have to list 7 things about myself that are awesome. Thanks guys!
It's good timing I think, in trying to figure out who I really am under all the self-defence tactics that make up what is referred to as my personality, as well as having time on the rocks to think about it, and now having visitors so I've had a chance to observe my interactions with people, and I've decided to try and stop being all cynical and self-deprecating. Lets hope!
At the same time it's harder than it looks to write this, so I'm going to go right on ahead and pretend that nobody will read it so that I can toot my own horn as much as I want to!
Now I tag: Kath, Suvvygirl, Po, EEbEE, Taz, Tamara and Jeff!
You're AWESOME!
* Yes, I know, I know, I know! i will post photos as soon as my laptop agrees to recognise my camera and my connection allows photo uploads...
From time to time I cycle between narcolepsy (I have friends who can verify this after I fell asleep on a beach, in a car, on a chair, on floor several times during one weekend) and insomnia. I think a lot of this is stress-based, when I am stressed I just don't sleep, but prefer lying in bed paying out worst-case scenarios across my ceiling (I stuck glow-in-the dark stars up there too, but without my contact lenses all I can see if a greenish-yellow haze).
Last week, while I was really battling with insomnia, I downloaded a chess application to my phone and decided to pass those very long 2am-6am hours playing against my phone. I lost. Badly. And continued to lose. I had it set on easy, but I swear that thing is like the chess grandmaster thing like that AI program that beat the real chess master and really freaked out everyone! It's been a long time since I played chess, and the time during which I was any good at strategizing only really lasted about 3 months as nobody around me really plays it, but still!
As the days passed I felt my playing improve and I lasted longer into each game before quitting in a huff, but I still couldn't beat it. The insomnia worsened as I couldn't sleep without paying at least one game at night, which often stretched into several hours of battling a stupid cellphone app. One day I pulled out an old chess board and set up the game on there - I found being able to move pieces around in real life made strategizing easier - and did quite well until I made one tiny little mistake and the machine totally destroyed me!
By the end of last week I was exhausted and jittery and drinking WAY too much coffee and still losing. And we had to head off on field trip with a bunch of undergrads. To be honest, it was an easy trip, with 3 lecturers, the two of us and about 20 students. The lecturers stayed in chalets and we stayed in a tent to keep an eye on the kiddies.
Things I learned:
Anyway here are some of my photos from the weekend. nothing too exciting but better than another weekend in the city!
A lizard, because I can! This little guy was adorable, maybe about 5cm long -including the tail! I'm totally saving up for a macro lens!
A frog, i don't know what the commong name is, but he was very cute. It was ouring with rain and a student who had caught him let him go and I dashed out for literally 5 seconds and caught him and ended up soaked - it looked like I had jumped into a swimming pool rather than just stepping outside!
A fig tree, doing some pretty awesome weird stuff on a cliff.
A photo of Luke taking a photo. The students are being industrious.
Playing around because I could.
I have a vague idea that this is a Pelia something-or-another fern. We've always called it the cute fern because it's pretty adorable! By the end of the first day the students were calling it that too!
a caterpillar the size of a large rodent. It was HUGE! We thought it was a rat caught in a tree at first. We saw several of them on this trip, but I think the first one was the coolest. AMinly because I saw it first!
Our intrepid students returning from a collecting expidition in the big scary grassland!
Playing at the river. I didn't take my tripod that day and ended up balancing my camera on my lap to try keep it steady. Not fantastic, but I got the effect I was going for whch makes me happy!
The coolest classroom in the world!So on Saturday night I ended up taking some fudge across to Chief Goth's house and playing guitar hero again. Lara was there as well as Laurin-of-the-spastic-colon who once AGAIN invited herself along. She has to leave early at least, to collect her friend Keegan, who she swears is actually female, but judging by the fact that a)we've only ever known male Keegans and b)she only got home at about 3am we're all pretty sure that there's something she's not telling us. In a rare moment of shared bitchiness, Lara and I waved goodbye while screaming out a fantastic rendition of "I kissed a girl" which, while not particularly melodious, was very well received - at least by our audience of Chief Goth and the next door neighbours.
We also watched some of a weird horror movie which was hysterical (to me), weird (to Chief Goth) and terrifying (to La). It was very weird trying to watch a movie with so many different reactions, and so we decided to skip Buzz and go straight to guitar hero. I was a lot more relaxed and managed to kick some serious butt, beating Cameron again as well as his friend Sean. I felt quite bad because apparently Cam was quite upset when he got home, but he liked the fudge and I promised to make him a batch so I hope that makes him feel better.
Other than that I worked yesterday morning, but was more just sitting around like a zombie, and at least it was quiet and there wasn't much to do. We're in the middle of a serious heatwave at the moment though and our air conditioning is broken so I ended up going to nearby restaurant and begging a bucket of ice from them, which Josh and I finished off in less than an hour.
Last night was the big carol service at church. I rebelled a bit in my own way - for once I arrived on time, I usually go late to skip the singing which annoys me, but considering it was a carol service unless I 'got the time wrong' and missed it I wasn't given much of a choice, but I wore a skull-and-crossbones necklace and some rather hectic makeup and didn't talk to anyone. As someone once said, I have no problem with God, I just have issues with the fan club.
The service was actually pretty cool. I usually hate carols, a result of being forced to play/sing them every year since I was about 6, but I think I might be moving past that now and I had fun singing them and listening to the choir battling through some rather tricky stuff. It was also nice to watch all the people around me and see how they reacted to various bits of music or changes in accompaniment. Adding in the fact that I am now FINISHED Christmas shopping, I feel like the spirit of Christmas is moving in now that I don't have much to complain about. All I have to do now is help clean the house in preparation for relatives, put up Christmas decorations and wrap presents. In no particular order.
So after all that I went home, made dinner for my family (they're all very involved at church and wouldn't be getting home for a while) and collapsed on my bed. And didn't sleep. Yes, that's right. I've gone full circle from narcolepsy (which, despite all the shortcomings left me refreshed and alert most of the time) straight to insomnia. I finally got to sleep about about 5am and only managed to wake up at 10am. So now I'm thinking seriously about taking a nap over my keyboard until my meeting in about 10 minutes.
It's less than a week before Christmas! When on earth did that happen? As always, I had a bunch of goals for before Christmas, which are going to become 'before New Years' which will quickly descend into new years resolutions...
In the spirit of recovering from fieldwork, narcolepsy, diving and life in general, December has vanished into a haze of memories, mostly involving a few special friends and inane games (except for guitar hero, which I still love, but don't rock at nearly as much, but which will never be inane in my book).
So anyway last week I got to go for a real University Lunch, which basically involved going for lunch and then going back to university in time to pack up for the evening. It was fun and I do hope we'll be doing it again soon! I have seen what used to be a special friendship fall into dust (not including me this time, but I am saddened and definitely affected by it). Went Christmas shopping with friends, which was a lot more fun than shopping on my own, but took several hours longer. On the plus side, besides having Luke there to giggle at the random men stripping/walking around in girls' tanktops, kids with mullets... it also meant that we got to have a coffee break in the middle! Usually on my own I shop frantically, then go home and collapse. The injection of caffeine into the middle of the expedition made it infinitely more bearable.
The much anticipated 'Goth Clubbing Night' fell away when chief Goth broke her leg. It was sad and I hope she feels better soon as we played guitar hero last night and she was looking sore and unhappy and generally miserable about life. In true goth fashion, she could have gone clubbing anyway, as she doesn't dance, and her awesomely-cool leg brace thingie means that she has an excuse to wear a scary high shoe on the other foot so that she doen't hurt herself hobbling around, but I'm tired and I can't stay out late and to tell the truth, I'd prefer a nice evening with her and a couple of other friends arbing around (and playing guitar hero).
Guitar hero for the second time was a bit disappointing. I wasn't the incredible player anymore. I still beat everyone, but it was expected this time and not nearly so cool. I also felt that I wasn't playing very well, but I've also reached the point where playing anything (other than Raining Blood which is MY song) at the easy level is boring, so now I play on medium which I don't do nearly as well but at least I don't feel bored and cranky.
I got a really awesome Christmas bonus from the vet this morning! It was very unexpected and totally awesome and will go straight into my camera fund (I am upgrading to an SLR early next year and I'm so ecited I could explode!) and I managed to avoid any guilt becasue I had made them fudge as well as bought stickers for the vets' kids. Hannah Montana all the way!
That's all for me at the moment, must go off and get ready for another fantastic evening of guitar hero!
So on Thursday night I headed off to movies with Luke, Duncan, Dave and Athena. Bearing in mind that this is the first movie I've been to since Batman (I fell asleep in the car-chase scene - maybe narcolepsy was beginning a long time before I noticed it?) I was pretty excited, but ended up screeching into the centre exhausted having rushed home, rushed off to collect Elvis, rushed to return diving gear and then rushed to go and meet Luke to grab dinner before the movie. In my defence I managed to only be about 45 minutes alter than I'd planned and I managed to sneak food into the movie-house so all was not lost (so for all guys out there, THAT is why we have bags. That and the fact that we feel an instinctive need to be prepared enough to survive on a desert island should it ever happen. More about this later).
We saw Madagascar 2 and I laughed the whole way through, but not enough to draw too many strange looks. Moderation and so on you know? When I got home at around 11pm or so I found myself nearly having a fainting fit in my bedroom. I sat down and had some water (it couldn't have been blood sugar as I'd had a massive blue slushie in the movie house) and decided that I had to take it easy for the next few days. All those good intentions...
To avoid being sucked into long long conversations with the other student in my lab, when I eventually dragged myself out of bed, dropped off Christmas presents and then stumbled into university I hid out in Luke's lab for the afternoon, and managed to get a lot of work done in not much time as well as helping him to write his first macro in visual basic. From there I went home and watched an episode of the x-files before heading off to my ex-work for the Christmas party. No, I wasn't going to egg them or anything, I just resigned over a year ago but still work there so I was invited to the party, and as they have a secret Santa I was kind of obliged to at least make an appearance.
I didn't anticipate staggering home well after midnight having laughed so hard I'm sure I tore a few stomach muscles. Lara was there and as usual the two of us went off on our own wavelength and ended up ripping everyone around us to shreds without them even noticing. The 'in my pants' game also made a glorious comeback, which was hilarious particularly (at the time) because we ended up running (literally) into a random restaurant at 11pm and settled down at a table next to a couple who were very obviously on their first date. It was fun to be completely immature for an evening!
The next morning I was totally exhausted and sat semi-comatose at the vet. Fortunately it seemed pretty quiet and I was able to help the few people who came in without needing to wake up too much. Then at about 10:30 6 separate clients walked in at exactly the same time. so I had to wake up to handle the chaos of dogs chasing cats, puppies escaping, crying people, people yelling and the phone ringing incessantly.
We only closed about an hour after closing time as people kept arriving and I haven't got the heart to turn away people who need dogfood or medication for their pets. Finally I managed to grab the phone between calls and switch it to answering machine mode and then cash up (for the third time) and sprint out the door with only an hour to spare before I had to meet Lara to go to her friend Storm's house. Storm is a huge One Republic and Maroon 5 fan, and as they were having a concert that night her friends had bought her a ticket and were surprising her with it that afternoon. Needless to say I arrived an hour and a half late and missed the surprise, as well as running off to the bathroom during dinner to put on makeup as according to Laurin (of the spastic colon) I looked 'totally worn out' (i.e. terrible).
The concert was awesome! I am not a maroon 5 or a one republic fan, but they had two of my favourite bands playing first as well as three little bands doing a battle of the bands type thing. The group that one definitely had the best bad, but their lead singer should be shot. One of the bands that I really wanted to see was really incredible. They aren't as much a band as two guys who DJ while playing about 5 different instruments each at various stages. It was amazing! Admittedly I was the only one in my immediate vicinity who even knew their music (and went ballistic, to many strange looks from the people around me) but by the end of their set everyone was going ballistic. at one point one of the guys was playing a little saxophone riff and we all started singing along, to the point where he was able to stop playing while we sang it back to him, over and over and over. His smile just got bigger and bigger and we got louder and louder. It must be amazing to have a huge arena with a good 20 thousand people in it singing your music back at you!
Once we got to the main acts I got through mostly on the strength that La and I have been to so many concerts together that we know when the other wants to dance like a moron/sing along/make snide comments or just be left alone to listen (that's usually more me than her). We also totally filled in Timbaland's part in Apologise (Eh! Eh!) which was awesome although we were nearly lynched a few times. Some of my students came to say hi, but I think I scared them a bit... We finished up at around 1am (having been standing/jumping around for a good 7 hours) and I headed over to Lara's house where she made me a huge mug of coffee and we ended up staying late talking crap. Like how that Bear guy said if you want to be rescued on a desert island and you have red lipstick you can write HELP with it. Of course that has its problems as (according to Lara) only sluts wear red lipstick therefore only sluts would be rescued, unless we were to start carrying it around as a precaution in case we were ever to end up stuck on a desert island. And that is how out bags get fuller and fuller!
Eventually she managed to shut me up long enough for her to go off to bed and I passed out in her room for about 5n hours until we got up and had breakfast with her mom. It was really awesome, sitting around eating snack-witches in out pyjamas while her mom recounted every episode she'd ever seen on national geographic (this is a relatively common reflex for most people when they find out that they've just met a zoologist). I felt like I was 15 again and it was awesome!
So after all that I went home and lay down for a nap before I had to get up and get some work done. I woke up about 7 hours later and had to rush off to church before rushing off to the ex-work to protect Lara from Laurin and get a movie. And then I settled in bed with my laptop (around 11ish) when Duncan decided that he's had enough to drink and that it would be a good time to call me. It was very entertaining but after about 40 minutes my mother started screaming at the computer so I had to help her. Turns out she was trying to talk to my aunt in the UK over Skype, but my aunt couldn't hear her. After I plugged the microphone in it was all fine though and I went off to bed.
So, to the title of this post, once again ti is morning, I am at university and I'm exhausted. Why do I keep doing this to myself? And why do my friends have to be so much fun that I can never go for 'an hour or so' as I promise myself every time so that I can go home and sleep? I am a lucky lucky person! Darn it.
I'm going to be a cheesy blogger and write about my weekend. After all the misery of being 'unfriended' on Friday, I was fortunate to have an awesome weekend with some very special friends and it made me feel 10000000% better!
So on Friday after Luke was really nice to me and gave me advice, helped me to reply to the friend who was being so immature and accompanied me on several admin trips - the last of which we did barefoot! It was raining and we were both in slip-slops which are really dangerous to walk in when they are wet... I ended up finishing my day by helping my supervisor catch a likkewaan (monitor lizard) and then going to gym.
I'm really enjoying gym at the moment and not ending up in excruciating pain like last time I started exercising regularly. It's really nice and something about running 3km before I go home every day (I know, I know, but it's been a while!) that makes me super-energetic and happy with life. Gotta love those endorphins! From there I headed home, took a nap (still battling the narcolepsy a little bit) and headed off to Nicola's house for a games evening of buzz and monopoly.
I got there to find that there was no power, but it came back on after a little bit (to great cheers from the Cantina Tequila across the road) and that Nicola had forgotten monopoly and that the buzz kit had disappeared into the black hole of scariness known as her brother's room. so we played Guitar Hero instead.
I had never played it before and I was quite nervous. Lara and Nicola played first so I was terribly intimidated by Nicola's performance and then terrified by the fact that Lara's turn only lasted about a minute because she's so bad that it cut her off after not very much... So I took my turn. And I was awesome! It turns out that it's really not very different to reading music and considering that I could read music before I could read words, I think all those years of music lessons (from before I started school until a year or so after I started university) paid off. Nicola wouldn't believe I'd never played before and I beat her and her brother's high scores on the hardest song! I felt quite sorry for Lara but she was really nice about the fact that we were having an awesome time and she failed on 'Slow Rider' about a million times (it was stuck in my head for days) and I left there really really late still laughing from the fun of spending time with special friends and not doing anything too special but just enjoying their company.
Saturday morning was really difficult. Besides the fact that I had to work at the vet and I was exhausted, the vet had been up later than me the night before, and by some awful coincidence (kind of like when everyone brings puppies on the same day) we had a whole bunch of dogs who were put to sleep, one after the other. So in the waiting room I had crying owners, crying other owners who saw the situation and joined in, I was battling the tears, the vet was battling the tears... It was the hardest shift I've ever had to work. So I went to see Lara right after and she made me feel better and I went home and narcolepsed on the nearest flat surface (in this case, very fortunately, it was my bed, but I wound up sleeping upside down with my feet on the pillows and my head hanging off the side) until Luke called to find out about our plans for the evening.
We ended up at a pizza place near the zoo with about 10 zoo-keepers who kept us entertained with a whole bunch of funny zoo stories. By now I've heard most of them before, but I love them anyway.
After all that I got home and in bed by around midnight and had to be up super-early to get to one of the zoo vet's homes by 6:45 am to go diving for the day. I just made it in time but Elaine and Caleb who were also diving, were late so it was ok. My sinuses are still bothering me and I was exhausted and not very enthusiastic, but Caleb got me coffee on the way which probably saved my life!
It was hard diving with other people. For one thing, everyone in the group I was with had been trained by the same people so they had quite an in-depth bunch of procedures and hand signals that I just didn't understand. I'm also still battling a bit with my buoyancy and weighting just because I haven't dived much over the last few years and that can only come right by practise. the other thing was that I'm a little bit afraid of the two instructors (I love them both to bits, but they scare me!) and if you're nervous you tend to hold more air in your lungs than you realise and that makes you float...). But ti was fun and once I got used to it I think I did ok. I got to see three friends of mine qualify which was really special and I managed to get 2 dives on a single 10 litre tank (everyone else was diving with at least 12 litres) which means that my breathing is starting to get under control a little bit.
By the end though my tank was so light that I ended up spending my safety stop (3metres underwater) holding on to a piece of rubble and trying to think calm thoughts so I wouldn't shoot to the surface. I'm glad I went though it was a lot of fun, I only passed out once (on a boardwalk in the sun, so my nose is a lovely shade of beetroot now), I ate between dives, which was totally bizarre for me as I'm normally too seasick to eat or drink anything. I found blue food and had a bright blue mouth for the last dive which caused much hilarity!
After all that we headed home, I picked up my car and then went to Nicola's house to drop off money for tickets for New Year's (we're going to a rock circus this year) and then went and had coffee with Lara and Laurin which was awesome because I haven't had any decent girly conversation in a while and they didn't disappoint!
So now I'm sitting in my lab, trying desperately to stay awake but pretty happy with life in general! So all in all, it was a good weekend, even though I think I'm going to revert to full-time narcolepsy to recover from it!
So on Saturday night I was finally dragged off to Santini's a sokkie-club in Honeydew! Sokkie, for you non-South african's out there is a traditional form of dancing that is enjoyed by Afrikaans people and ridiculed by pretty much everyone else. It's also known as "Langarm sokkie" and looks kind of like a weird afst waltz accompanied by regular music remixed to have a very distinctive beat. All sokkie-music has the same beat, so besides being distinctive, once you've figured out the dance you're pretty much set for life.
Not to be mean about it, to watch a bunch of people who actually know what they're doing is pretty impressive. I've resisted going to Santini's as long as I could, but Saturday was Laurin's birthday and I didn't really have a choice. La has always promised that she'd be there the first time I went, but she's writing tests and stressed beyond belief, so I was on my own.
Despite all my protests, it weas actually pretty cool! I was amazed by:
All in all it was an awesome evening and Laurin seemed to have a great time! And not all of the music was sokkiefied, so those of us with less coordination got to have fun as well. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might be going back there sometime! I'll try and add some photos at some stage, as soon as I can get them from other people...
I love being on rooftops. I don't know if it's a symptom of my watching too much TV, or just a result of my spending part of my monday evenings on the roof in the break in the middle of orchestra practice, but I love it. Admittedly, I'm not fantastic with heights, although I've largely got over my fears as I have to climb after lizards all the time (plus going to Namaqualand requires extensive rock-hopping skills if you're going to have any fun at all).
So last night Duncan was singing in an Eistedfodd in the same building as where I had orchestra practice. We all went along to support him and it was lots of fun! I got there a bit early (Luke was bringing dinner but got stuck in traffic) and I went to listen to the JYO practising. They were terrible, although I can't really say that the standards have dropped too much because I listened to an old CD the other day and we were really not very good either back in the day... I also went through to the little practise room where I had lessons for the first 3 or 4 years of my viola 'career' and the room next door where I used to sit and pretend to do my homework while I waited for my lesson. My mom used to drop me off an hour or so early every week. It brought back a lot of memories, although the most vivid was of me almost passing out several times during my early lessons. Holding something that's quite heavy on your shoulder and standing for an hour can do that to you if you're not used to it! I also started on an instrument that was slightly too big for me, which didn't help. I was supposed to start on a 3/4 size violin with viola strings on it, but they gave me a full-sized violin instead.
After all that Luke arrived, and as we only had about 10 minutes before we had to go in to the Eistedfodd, I shoed him and Candice the roof. It's one of the best roofs ever! It's flat (which always helps) and has ladders and things between levels, and cool ramp things to climb on (or not). There are also raised sections with windows where you can watch the people inside the building and between the sections are cool little alleyways (where Luke was almost attacked by an exploding pigeon). When it was about 5 minutes before we had to be in the Eistedfodd we left, only to find that it had already started.
It turned out that the section before (high-school kiddies) had run over time and we weren't actually late, but we were convinced that we were, and so we snuck in (in full view of everyone because the door is right behind the performers) and settled down. It was in the room where we had Foundation Orchestra practice (when I was 10-14) and I got to reminisce a little bit in order to try and ignore the guy belting out "Cry me a River" - not the JT version, for the record. The kids weren't bad at all. There were a few problems, but they were all young, and from the Arts School, so I'm sure they'll be ironed out soon enough.
Then the adult section started. By then Candice, Luke and I had been joined by Duncan's sister and brother-in-law and it was quite entertaining to watch everyones faces as the first guy butchered an Aria and then tried to sing "All I Ask of You" with his daughter. I'd thought that he was bad, but she sounded like... there's no word for it! Every time she went for a high note (I say 'went for', not 'hit', because I don't think she hit any of the right notes...). Candice very kindly gave me her scarf to shove into my face to hide the giggles and I tried to focus on rolling it into a little ball and ignore the horrendous display, but it wasn't working so I threw it at Luke to distract him (he was pulling the "I'm not impressed" face which might or might not have been trying to stop the giggles). After that was a guy who walked off stage before the accompanist had stopped playing, and a potential dentist/orthodontist who hides dead bodies in his dustbin - he was actually pretty good!
Finally it was Duncan's turn and he was awesome! I've never liked opera music, I find it boring and the excessive vibrato annoys me (sure, it helps with sound production, but we have microphones now), but I found that Duncan's singing (besides being really erally good technically) held my attention completely. I actually felt that he understood what he was singing (and not just in the movements, you could hear it as well). by the end of the song everyone was paying attention - even the weird adjudicator was tapping her feet! At the end of it people started clapping before the song was even over, and the applause was sincere, not like the polite clapping that was happening before. It was so awesome!
After all that (and a really appalling couple of schoolkids trying to sound like Mariah Carey which I will not try to describe becasue the words don't even exist) everyone else ehaded for Eastgate for a celebratory cup of coffee, while Luke and I grabbed pizza frmo his car and, with David and Athena in tow, went and had dinner on the roof. It was freezing, but lots of fun. I love rooftops! From there I followed Luke to Eastgate and we had coffee with everyone and then he showed em a fantastic route back to the highway. I go to Eastgate regularly and never know how to get home afterwards, except for a very long way around.
So that was my evening, and it was awesome! And congratualtions to Duncan for a fantastic performance and for winning the highest award available!
Yes, cheesy title, I know! But bear with me - it's been a pretty horrible weekend, and I was saved from complete and utter despair by an awesome night out with some pretty amazing people!
My weekend was horrible because I haven't been sleeping well. Even today I lay down for a nap and ended up dreaming that I wasdrowning in a dirtly green swimming pool. I woke myself up because I was thrashing around trying to swim... On top of all that (lizard woes number 5) the last really sick lizard was dead when I went to treat him this morning. I'm praying that it wasn't the result of anything I did. I'm justifying the whole situation by sayiong that I did my best, that he wasn't really improving very much, he was realy far gone to start with and that I was silly to let myself get attached to something that was that sick (silly to get attached to anything that is, in fact, a test subject). Is there a name for some kind of reverse-Stockholm syndrome? It was still pretty upsetting. Fortunately just after that whole thing I had coffee with a friend from the zoo, and it was really nice.
So anyway, last night I went out to dinner with Lara, her (and my) friend Nicola and a bunch of other people. I knew an alarming number of them, and even more alarmingly it was because I've taught them at some stage! It was fun though, and we laughed a lot, between lots of really rough Afrikaans jokes... and various lous and random discussions. La and I also met someone from Sevende Laan in the bathroom, which got her all super-excited! After that we realised that it was still pretty early, and although La needed help to walk to the car (Nicola was driving) we were all up for going off somewhere else, so we headed off to a pub near my house.
It was really awesome! I tend to stayt clear of pubs and clubs, as I find that I always run into people that I know either from babysitting them (sad, but oh so true), teaching them or serving them at any of my various jobs. It's incredible awkward and I always end up feeling old and embarrassed. The bonus of this place is that I think they actually check ID, so it was packed with people of around my age. When I finally found Lara and crew we set off to the bar to be stopped by a very tall (and very tipsy) guy in a suit. He rushed over to La and gave her a kiss on both cheeks. I figured that either he knew her, or he was really drunk, in which case the best option (once he left her and headed for me) was to let him do the cheek-cheek thing and then he would either introduce himself or go away.
So it was left cheek, right cheek.. the he grabbed my face and pulled in to me! La tells me that she's never seen a look on my face like that, and it was really luck that he did, indeed, go away or I would have had to hurt him. Unfortunately he didn't stay gone, and spent the next half an hour wlaking past us and casually slapping my butt until I had to switch places with Nicola (you don't want to upset her!) and he got the message.
Once Lara and I'd recovered and we;d all managed to squeeze in at a table in the back, we decided that it was a good time to take photos. One of the other people (Natasha, neither of high heels or Eyes) had a camera with her, and Lara and I tried very very hard to do self portraits with the two of us in various poses. It didn't work. Most of them involve one of us laughing while the other poses. Eventually the owner of the camera reclaimed it, but carried on taking photos, so there is a fantastic series of pictures of us in various stages of gigling fits. I hope to get a copy soon, because it's been a long time since I've laughed until I cried, and I think that having a memento would be a great thing to get me to giggle should a weekend ever be as depressing as this one!
So yes, friendship is really a wonderful thing, and I'm giggling as I type this, so I'm going to have to stop there!
So I went to go and follow up on an iguana who needed a home (sadly he already has a new home, so our lab will be empty for a little while longer), and got chatting to the friend who had a friend who knew a guy who had an iguana needing a home... She and a partner run a company that takes animals out to schools, resorts, functions and birthday parties and things to get children to interact with animals and learn about them a little bit. We were having a fantastic conversation (we're possibly going to go together to do a venomous snake course, which is fantastic because I didn't want to be surrounded by weird snake people...) when she mentioned that she really needs an assistant for her shows. The guy who works with her may be going overseas, and she's a bit shaky on all the reptile info. so basically I think I just got a third job. Oops!
It mayy come to nothing, but I'm really hoping that it works out! Her partner specialises in birds, and she said they'd teach me falconry and how to 'fly' birds in shows, which I've always awanted to do! Plus, it's not about the money, although it's fantastic that they would pay me, it's a bunch of experience that I wouldn't get anywhere else!
So here's hoping! Oh, and she has one of the coolest lizards ever! She brought it to show me once, and it was gigantic and totally adorable!
Wow, this is the first time that I've been home for longer than to eat and sleep since... well since I got home! I usually go a bit nuts seeing everyone I missed while on fieldwork, and every time I end up exhausted, but I feel great because I missed everyone and seeing friends again is really really awesome! It's hard to go away and realise that life continued without me, but whenever I get back, besides the catching up, feeling like people actually missed me is really really special (yes, I need frequent ego-boosts. So sue me!)
So after Chinatown (w00t!) yesterday I dashed off to a farewell with some zoo folks. It turned out that it wasn't the farewell I thought it was, but the person leaving was really really cool and I will miss her even though I barely knew the girl. That's what I love about the zoo, people come and go all the time, but for some reason you get to know them quickly, maybe because they're all really passionate about what they do or something. We went off to dinner in Melville and then off to a place called Ratz, where they all did the craziest dancing I've seen in a long time and I laughed until my face and sides hurt and I nearly fell asleep in a candle.
This morning I woke up just in time to go hurtling off to the zoo to go and help in quarantine. When I arrived I saw a friend in the parking lot with the two monkeys. Here I must add something - quite often animals take a dislike to a person. It's nothing personal, they just do, and if (like for instance with Josh the baby chimp) they dislike you, you move on and it's ok. But if an animal likes you, there is no better feeling in the world! I guess it's because they don't fake liking or disliking you (unless there is food involved, in which case most animals tend to get mildly sidetracked). Anyway my friend came rushing to say hi, and Thandi sprinted over and gave me a gigantic hug! A little while later (I went from being 5 minutes late for quarantine to being more like half an hour late...) Ollie climbed onto me and refused to go back to her! I felt super-special!
From there I went to quarantine where I got to see some of the new volunteers in action. For people who had no history of working with reptiles they were really good! Very very slow, but gentle and thorough. I cleaned out frog and gecko tanks, and fed other geckos. It was fun not doing it alone, usually on a sunday I do most of the gecko room alone, which takes from 9am to about 2 or 3pm and I enjoy it, but it was nice to know that there were other people helping, and it did go a bit faster than usual in that we were out of there by 11:45 even though I did a whole bunch of stuff in the other rooms. A snake escaped which was very exciting, and 2 lizards escaped while I was cleaning their tank, which was pretty routine, although I did feel very accomplished when I caught them and put them back and the others were all impressed. a silly thing to be proud of considering I was the most experienced person there, although there was also a learner-keeper and a trainee vet at that stage.
I was also impressed that the volunteers have been there every day even though they are on holiday. They said that it's getting a bit much, and that they would really like to sleep in for once, but I was really really stunned by the fact that they aren't planning on taking time off until some new volunteers start next week. For volunteers to show that kind of dedication is really exceptional! It was a really nice morning, I've missed all the Madagascans and I got to clean all the tanks of my favourite lizards, which was really special, as well as the usual feeling of amazing satisfaction that only people who do husbandry will ever understand. The feeling that you get knowing that the animals are clean and fed and that the whole room is done...
From there I took the new volunteer and her boy-scout sidekick off to meet Thandi, who I looked after for an hour and a half. She ate a lot and then settled down to sleep, after greeting me in such an enthusiastic hug that my airways were cut off and I started seeing spots. I really missed Thandi! When I tried to give her back to the zoo staff she refused to go, which as painful as it is to see her distressed, also made me feel really special!
From there I rushed off to the chimps and said hi to Luke and his sister and then dashed off home to have lunch with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law before going back to the zoo to have coffee with one of the other zoo-staff members who had been off cleaning stables all day. Once that was over I went to see Jo and Lara at work to pick up keys for my shift tomorrow, and spoke to Lara for the first time in ages. I love the way that we often don't see each other for weeks at a time, but still pick up exactly where we left off! And then I dashed off to church and then home. Which is where I am now.
So that was my day and a half! Not the most exciting post I'm afraid, but it has been a really awesome day! I missed everyone when I was off in the gammadoelas and it was really nice to know that my place here hasn't been forgotten or filled while I was away!
