until further notice

It's been a weird week. I've been getting lots of sleep but not feeling rested, and I've been asked repeatedly why I'm so pale and deflated-looking.

Thanks guys.

I have a 21st tomorrow, these children make me feel old…

The vet has been overrun with crazy cat-ladies. i agree that their work is valuable, I just wish they didn’t feel the need to share the awesomeness of their hard work.

In other news, life is pretty good, just not particularly noteworthy right now. I’ll try to write more next week (when I’ve had some more sleep).

Have an awesome weekend!

Ooooo-AAAAAAAA woooo-AAAAaaaaaa

Mango Groove is on the radio and the guys at the vet are singing along. From the last time this happened I know that I’ll be hearing random ‘Wooo-aaaaaaaaah’s from the back off the practice for the rest of the day.

there is a lump on the side of my tyre, which one of them pointed out when I arrived. I blame the gazillion potholes in Joburg. Next week is payday at least so I’m hoping to make it until then and then get it replaced. I should probably get new tyres all around, I’ve had these ones for a longlonglong time.

I swear the vets are eskimos. Every day when I arrive the air-conditioning is pumping out air at a blistering 17 degrees. If I decide that turning blue isn’t so much fun and turn it up it mysteriously migrates back to 17 or 18 degrees by the end of the day anyway. I’m the only person I know who wore a jacket to work all the way through a South African summer.

I’ve been reading updates from a friend who is doing fieldwork in Botswana. It makes me want to go back on fieldwork now, being in Joburg has been a bit exhausting lately.

My birthday was fun! I made fudge, got sung to by my students, got to see my brother and sister-in-law for dinner (the joy of my family being ‘nice’ and not interrogating the plus-1 in favour of awkward silence is indescribable) and got a fantastic new hat from Candice! And a cactus that needs naming…

Which led to a mega hat-dilemma on Saturday when I had spammed my friends (they don’t RSVP so I send emails until they do) to meet up for dinner/drinks and I couldn’t pick a hat… So I took both of them!

It was a fun evening, although unfortunately several people (Oracle included) cancelled, pleading laryngitis – and from the attempted singing over the phone I was very inclined to believe her. Tamara and TSC came along which was fantastic and she gave me ANOTHER hat and some earrings as well as giving me boundless entertainment when she knew all about the people sitting around her and they had no clue who she was! Fortunately I had mentioned this blog to a couple of them so it wasn’t a total shock!

From there we went off goth-clubbing where we met my awesome cousin and Mr Thursday and I managed to end up knighting people with a ‘magic’ wand (I still have no idea who owned it originally, or who took it away when I left in on the table a few hours later).

We also met a vaguely creepy giant (he was relaxing by standing with one hand on the bar ad the other on the ceiling) who very kindly agreed to pose with the shortest person in our group. She didn’t appreciate my volunteering her as such, but it made for a memorable picture! That and the three hats in circulation…

And now I’m all birthdayed out. Did I mention I got drumsticks?

Rock on :)

Because all the cool kids are doing it

I’m feeling lazy, rushing around getting stuff done before work this afternoon, and recovering from going out for ‘a little bit’ last night and getting home at 1:30. Whoops.

So I figured as the cool kids in the bloggy-world are doing I would quiz you guys!

1. how are you today? I am doing well, just tired and a bit sad that it’s my last day of ‘early twenties’ – I intend to mild the ‘mid-twenties’ label until I hit 29-and-364-days. Just so you know.
2. What annoys you most right now? For me it’s bad drivers, I seem to have a way of attracting them
3. Chocolate or vanila? I had to ask. Vanilla!!!
4. What would your reaction be to purple snow? Probably hide under the blankets until I’d seen if it made people’s fingers melt. Then make snow angels. Be grateful I wasn’t in the yellow snow region.
5. Favourite song at the moment? I’ve been rediscovering Garbage lately and had the song ‘Drive you Home’ on repeat.
6. What’s making you smile today? The puppy is visiting! Puppypuppypuppy!
7. Sword or crossbow? That’s a tough one… I’m loving the sword stuff right now, but crossbows really do send a nice ‘leave me alone’ message. I think longbows are pretty, but could be inconvenient on public transport.
8. What do you want for Christmas? A trapeze! I’ve been watching ‘The Flyer’ again.
9. Sorry, I had to end it here!
10. just kidding!

You know what to do! Answer in comments pleasepleaseplease!

K, baai!

Llama-llama duck!

Leia is going on a real adventure to Malawi and Mocambique. I’m working semi-full/part-time at the moment so I wouldn’t be seeing her much anyway, but I’ll still miss the mouse-munchkin who sets tents up with me and made awesome coffee this morning when I was semi-comatose from oversleeping and having to teach for two hours without added caffeine.

My family is taking me (plus one) to dinner for my birthday on Friday, and I’m half-heartedly making plans to celebrate on Saturday but not really getting into it. Too much to sort out elsewhere! Plus, why celebrate impending decrepiditude?

Can you watch this without it getting stuck in your head?

How cool?

Yip, day in the life…

Because we CAN!

so Leia and C and I spent the morning putting up tents in the lab. Why? Well why not? People seemed oddly confused by our behaviour, although Candice came along for tea and was much more accepting than the odd postdoc who couldn’t quite figure us out. I’m beginning to think tat the people in the building view our lab as somewhere scary to be avoided…

Tent number 1

The trusty coffee-machine!

Leia checking for scorpions (that tent hasn’t been used since the Kalahari and we all know that those little guys are tough and stuff.

“All clear!”

 

“the ground is rather hard’ (yip, I actually said that.)

 

A tight squish, plus we matched our outfits tot he tent and had to show it off, shoes and all…

 

Tent 2, and by now we had out Rambo-gear in place.

 

Emo-face

Rambo-face

Can’t… hold… Rambo…Face…

Son of Rambow-face

Golf with tent-poles

 

It’s been a long day already…

“What ARE you doing?”

Yip, really. It’s stitched into the lining nogal!

first things first:

I want to be this guy:

On to more serious things… like the awesomenessnessness of the hike!

So we walked for about 45 minutes and took a break on the edge of a cliff. it was kind of strange to take a break that early as we were just getting into it and stuff, but it was really pretty and we got to introduce the others to cherry-berry Game (go isotonics!) and test-drive Leia’s incredible trail mix.

From there we walked until we had a break right next to a “Gevaarlik'” sign before going into the forest/ravine/jungle/I-don’t-know-but-it-was-awesome area. We got to figure out how to negotiate some slippery paths and rocks (I survived thanks to C falling/slipping before me and yelling warnings, and she survived through Leia’s superior catching skills), we got to climb over waterfalls on ladders (I’d been stressing about this until I got there and had a ‘Bring. It. On.’ moment).

At one stage the path was far too slippery so Leia and C anded up doing a bum-slide across and around a corner. I sat down to do the same but felt very insecure and so decided to stand to take my pack off and hand it over the slippery patch to Leia on the other side. As I rested my hand on the nearest tree to balance myself I realised that there was a rope…

and so the bum-shuffle-bum-shuffle-ROPE chant was born…

More tomorrow, I’m off to battle traffic before tai chi and watching a poker game. Ah these things I do…

and as an aside: how cool are these? Candice and HOMSI had them and now I’m jealous…

Bum-slide-bum-slide-bum-OH-a-rope!

So Leia has been getting progressively grouchier and more stressed-out lately (in an entirely adorably munchkinesque way) and finally caved and sent an email out asking people to volunteer to go hiking with her. I said no. Then yes. Then no. Then yes. and by then I’d paid and it was basically a done deal so there was no getting out of it.

And on Friday, after much drama, some teaching of students who actually semi-behaved (the joys of threatening them with science-discussion when you’re using real-world examples seems to work) we packed our stuff into the superawesome C-mobile and headed off to Suikerboschfontein (it’s a real name. I promise!) in Mpumalanga.

I was a little bit nervous – I’d never done a real hike before (as in you carry your stuff and it’s over more than one day) and I’d heard stories about the death-defying stunts involved in crossing over waterfalls and stuff and as those who know me will tell you, I’m mildly prone to total freak-outs including shaking and clinging on to rocks and attempting to get into the foetal position without letting go…

A long drive (I am a fan of the Mazda-2 now for the roads it dealt with) a highly entertaining dinner (thanks to Luke for the incredible pasta-sauce) involving the tall people walking into the hanging gas-canister lamps a lot and lots of crazy giggling and conversations about greasy utensils and a decent sleep later I felt much better! The place we stayed at was amazing to, in a cabin-type-thing tucked into a bunch of rocks and weird rock formations. Going to the bathroom involved negotiating a crazy pathway between rock-pillars and things and it was SO pretty!

I will write more about the actual hike tomorrow, for now I will say: it was AMAZING! we really bonded, the company was awesome, the walk was stunning and I’m not even very sore today, except for my feet which only hurt when I try to walk on them.

Of course it’s phylogenetic constraint. Duh!

So during a discussion on nerdishness vs geekiness the other day I came across this article and found myself nodding and giggling a little bit too much.

Anywhere here is a section that I found quite interesting:

Mad Scientists
Description: You can't mess with the original. These are the chemists, engineers, physicists and other general crazies who are more comfortable in the controlled confines of the lab than in the messy, messy real world. However, they are responsible for the food we eat, the cars we drive, and the drugs we take—even sometimes the illegal ones. Without them, we'd still be using stone wheels and struggling to start a campfire with a flint. They are our saviors, but total bores at dinner parties.
Substrata: Mathematicians, Pharmacologists, Bio Researchers
Gathering Place: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting
Knows Way Too Much Useless Information About: You wouldn't even understand it if we told you. Idiot.
Eagerly Anticipating: When the Large Hadron Collider finally works

Which makes me worry… am I really boring at dinner parties? Personally I find myself a bit tedious at times, but for some reason people seem to like hearing about ladies with leafblowers and crazy crocodile hunters and stuff…

New Experiences

So I’ve been quiet… I haven’t even read blogs. Sorry. I missed you all!

That said, it’s been a few weeks of remarkably new experiences and I’ve been so busy trying to keep productive, open-minded and generally head-above-water with everything going on that life sort of got away from me for a bit.

Recently I have:

• Been to this show:

Yip, they’re spears. Sharp and pointy ones!

which was flipping AMAZING! And the little kids were so so so cute! Yes, I am entirely aware of the fact that they could probably break my kneecaps with a single glance but that’s besides the point!

• Had my car break down on a main road at the beginning of rush-hour. It was a surprisingly humbling experience as I found once again that people are generally kind – a random stranger pushed my car out of the middle of the road, several offered to help and the AA sent a security guard to sit with me. The security guard (Tshabalala) was awesome and we had a great time chatting, poking at things in my engine to try and see what they do, and he even took over and gave the tow-truck driver directions! The tow-truck driver was awesome too and I learned a lot about towing cars from him! So shout-out to Simon!

Thanks AA! You rock!

• Had a phone call from a mechanic that started with “Hi ma’am, your car is broken.” You think?
• saw a movie in 3D! Besides the fact that I hadn’t seen a movie since about December, the 3D-ness was SO cool! I actually ducked a few times! It also made me feel a lot better about missing skating (due to my car deciding to give up for the day) as well as a few other things I’d been a bit down about.

• Learned to make biohazard stickers! and had many fascinating discussions with shipping companies about said biohazards…
• Went window shopping for shoes (not really, long story) and thought about trying on some scary heels. There are days when i barely recognise myself!
• Taken the Magic Hat out again – it started of with me being laughed at for wearing a hat, lead to it being worn by everyone else more than me (it really is magical – it looks good on everyone) and ended up in a near fist-fight when I wanted it back and the primary giggler from earlier refused to let me have it.
• Reconnected with ‘my’ girls. Everything getting hectic Sciencewise meant that I had very little free time, which was vanishing remarkably quickly to spend time with a *cough*certain gentleman*cough* and being greeted by my friends saying “so how’s married life?” felt like a solid punch in the solar-plexus. Since then I have put my foot down and had the most fantastic girls evening of giggling and gossip and silly prank phone calls and doing karate in the kitchen at midnight (the bruise should fade soon).

And now I’m in the lab on a public holiday getting some much-needed work done while Leia runs around doing complicated stuff with electrical stuff (that’s a lot of stuff). It’s kind of nice, quiet, no little students running around. We had lunch with the unofficial therapist a while ago and there was much hilarity, while I labelled and glued, and double-sided taped and re-taped and parafilmed vials (how flipping awesome is parafilm? Oh wow I love it :) we managed to seal a bunch of sunflower seeds in it! Because we can).

So I will try and write a bit more soon, as soon as things calm down and I figure out exactly how much of my private life I feel like writing about. We’re off hiking this weekend so I’m sure there will be lots to say!

Hoping it’s just hormones

So I’ve had an awesome couple of weeks. Busy in the extreme, but always things that I wanted to do. Admittedly, my decision to calm down on the sport and the social life and spend more time doing my actual ‘job’ (it gets inverted commas because I pay to do it, or at best beg for scholarships) has crashed and burned and right now I’m out more than I was before (if that was at all possible).

So last weekend with the kiddies was awesome. It started badly with me having to spend the afternoon teaching drunk students ,followed by arriving at the field-trip place with a busload of drunk students, and eating a luminous purple meal (yes, purple). From there it really picked up though and I had a blast, leaving exhausted, but happy and sunburned and achy but in the best possible way.

Last week was heeeeecTIC – Monday night i was out, Tuesday morning I had a super-early start to teach my kiddies, Tuesday evening i went back to Tai chi for the first time in over two weeks. It was SO nice to be back, although I was very sore afterwards and for the next day or two!

Wednesday was skating – I got myself examined which was scary and I started shaking – this wasn’t made better by the fact that they made me take three exams at once (two for classes I skipped and one for the class I’m in) which included steps I’d never heard of before. The tester was kind enough to demonstrate so i could try them out though!

From there I had to hand my skates in to be sharpened, which was sad because I’d been looking forward to some skating-in-circles-thinking time, but good because I know that they’ll be sorted out properly, and I had time to go for a run afterwards which was nice!

Thursday I skipped tai chi and went with the Oracle, the nameless one and CG to meet up with some people and play some pool. I hadn’t played in six weeks and my skills went from abysmal to totally non-existent, but I had a blast – it was really nice to see the Oracle (who is quite shy sometimes and won’t join us often) having fun and dancing and chatting to people. CG was also looking like she had fun for the first time in ages.

Of course the time flew and before I’d realised it was 1am and we were going for pizza while my mother’s panicky messages started to come through and… so much for an early night… and of course I had to be up early the next morning and considering I’d only been to bed at 2:30 – it sucked.

Friday was The Day Of Many Meetings as usual, although my students took one look at me and decided to behave themselves which was fantastic. I nearly kicked a couple out of the class and it clamed them down a bit (even though they were still annoying). The plasticine I was using to teach them stained my hands and arms (and everything I touched, like my ears) purple. After that I went off to watch a movie and was asleep within a couple of minutes.

Saturday was my first day back at work since the fieldtrips and it was really nice and quiet and good to be back! I went home and passed out for a few hours and then headed off to meet someone’s new puppy (so so cute!). From there we had no real plans so we ended up going to Pretoria for a club launch which was hilarious and awesome – it was like a scene from a movie with glowsticks and bubbles falling from the ceiling and people in the most bizarre outfits ever. I was in jeans and a t-shirt but nobody seemed to mind! heck, i even managed to get two glowsticks from random strangers so that I could play the drums on the table…

On the way home we went to investigate a potential giant hole in the road only to find that it was surrounded by quicksand-y stuff. We figured this out when I sank up to my knees and had to be rescued. When we stopped off to swap cars I had to change into a semi-strangers PJs to go home in, while I thought my shoes were beyond repair.

So once again – a planned early night ended in me getting home at 4am, wearing someone else’s clothes. Awkward.

Yesterday I spent reading and sleeping and catching up on exercise a little bit. I also went back to church (I hadn’t been in a few weeks with all the trips and stuff) and today has been a day of working, marking, puppy-sitting, teaching (I want Luke’s students, they’re so much better behaved than mine!) and general movement.

I’m just feeling a little bit low at the moment. I know that by nature I’m a total loner, and all of the craziness is exhausting, but at the same time, looking back on each experience, it was awesome, I’d do it all again…

But right now I want to go and hide under a rock and not see another human being for a while. People are exhausting. I don’t want to be around them for a bit.

I just hope I can get out of this mood soon, as I have a crazy weekend coming up!

As promised

Here are a few photos from two weekends ago, the ones from last weekend are stubbornly sitting in my camera and taunting me, but I will attempt to download them later. Have a lovely Tuesday!

 

Our triumphant return from a rather hot and hilly walk… I narrowly escaped being punched for leading the way, but everyone was very proud to make it back to the house after the post-abandoning-undergrads stroll.

View from sundowners on one of my favourite spots

Walking home. Beats Joburg just a little bit, doesn’t it?

Investigating plant-life

It really freaks students out if you mark their work while they’re sitting nearby…

And posing. Again. Leia poses a lot, it’s very entertaining because she does it completely accidentally!

Luke emulating a monkey. He does that a lot.

Up the last hill of the morning

Pretty pretty :)

SKYDIVER!

A ticked-off sunspider

Nothing beats a south african summer sky!

A ticked-off orb-web spider

Sundowners

 

Yip, living in the lab makes you pale…

Leia’s WTF eyebrow…

and watching the sunset at the end of a long, hot day makes it all worth it!

Things I learned this weekend

1. The students are actually very cool! I’ve finally begun to pair up names with faces and handwriting, and there are some pretty amazing people in the group.
2. It amazing how some people open up when you’re walking down the road on a ‘rescue mission’ at 2am. I still feel kind of bad that the girl with the attitude problem finally opened up and I ran off – distracted by something shiny…
3. Brandy and coke is never a good idea. Unless it is.
4. Rocks move sometimes. Ow. yip, just as I lose the last batch of bruises…
5. Getting into a car as not NEARLY as much fun as hanging on to the back of it as you go over bumps. Turning corners is infinitely more fun while hanging on to the side so you swing outwards…
6. doing crazy out-of-car riding results in a weird sunburn and some entertaining bruises.
7. Pia-pia-pia-NO!
8. You had to be there.
9. Identifying plants at 2am is possible, even after said brandy and coke!
10. I have the weirdest sunburn EVER!

more than worth it

So for the weekend, Luke, Leia and two others took the undergrads off for the weekend to go and collect things for their projects.

 

I had mixed feelings about the weekend - it was being run by a new lecturer who was a little out of his depth, it involved me driving an automatic car (I've never driven one before) with a trailer (ditto), I was utterly exhausted to start with (and crabby to boot) and it was at the farm where I did my fieldwork. On one hand, other people there is just weird, it's almost like having a gazillion guests in your home, on the other hand, it was an opportunity for not only going home again (n a sense), but also an opportunity for me to show the plces I've spoken about to some of the people I care about so much. One of the people there was in undergrad with us and had spent a week there with us waaaay back in the day so it was really fantastic to spend a weekend with him back in the group, and it was one of those special situations where someone has been gone for ages but still slots right back into place with no awkwardness at all!

 

By the time we got there I had been well and truly yelled at (sorry Leia, but I've never had a trip where the vehicles in convoy have to stay so close), we had lost the lecturer a few times, met the parents of one of the students, spent two hours (so almost half the trip) compiling a playlist for in the car (it played through the night and still had enough songs to see us home again and still not be even close to finishing). On the plus side, besides having a talkative bunch to play 20 questions and I spy on the way down, I DIDN'T have to drive an automatic, and a few students had dropped out so we didn't need trailers. By the time we got there I was bouncing around to be home again, and managed to take having someone else sleep my bed relatively well in stride.

 

And what an awesome weekend! I got to enjoy being there without having to do much work, got to show some pretty special places to some pretty special people (sorry about those hills guys, I thought the walk would be shorter), track down some lizards for photographs, get a lovely unilateral sunburn (complete with t-shirt sleeve effect), finish my marking, bond with some KIDSes and generally have a weekend in the bush, and feel at home not only in the farmhouse but in my own skin as well.

 

Photos will follow, I'm afraid I have well over 300 to sift through, so it might take a while, but they will appear soon!

 

P.S. I haven't been blogging as I've actually been getting work done, hence blog writing and reading has taken a backseat. I am still reading as much as I can during morning-tea break, but unfortunatey the reprioritising of life in general has hit blogging hard...

UUUURGH!

*This is one of the ‘secret’ posts I wrote a few months ago, that I am resurrecting in order tog et some actual work done. And to clear out the giant pile of drafts a little bit.

I. Hate. Facebook.

I hate that it only shows the smiles.

I hate the silly smushy statuses “I love my snookums so much mwah mwah”, “my angel I miss you so much I haven’t seen you in two WHOLE hours!” or the mom-stuff (why do you feel the need to update the world that you just changed a nappy?).

I hate the attention grabbing type “Is sad today :’(" because apparently a bunch of relative stranger commenting with “*hugs* makes it al better? (and yes, I have been guilty of similar updates, and I hate myself for it).

I hate the way people put up pictures of events where they had a great time, while knowing that that person they didn’t invite (for whatever reason) will see them and feel unwanted.

I hate the way nobody ever writes anything but then random relative strangers (I don’t keep track of who I’m ‘friends’ with) stop you on the street to comment on something you wrote 6 months ago.

I hate feeling compelled to watch people living their lives in all the gory detail while feeling that mine may be somehow inadequate.

I hate the social uproar that can be created by the click of the “remove friend” button.

I hate seeing photos of the kids I used to babysit getting drunk and puking. It makes me feel old. And kind of freaked out.

And yet I still keep my account open.

Weird.

awesomeness-ness-ness

A scary few weeks of hyperventilating followed by a crying session and panic-attack later, I seem to be getting my priorities straight. Long live the getting-work-done mojo!

I will blog more when I have less work threatening to topple over and bury me!

you had to be there

While drinking tea, I was telling Leia all about some or otsituation of dramadramadrama:

  Leia: it's like a vicious circle
  Me: of custard!
  Leia: ?
  me: what? Custard is scary!
  Leia 7 me (unrehearsed): run awaaaay!
  cue helpless giggles

 

Because we rock.

It's been a mixed week, starting with enjoying the horrendous sight of the bruises and ended with being really annoyed by the fact that the giant purple blotches are actually a little bit sore. Seriously, I haven't been for a run in a week (busy weekend and then falling off bikes), I can barely manage tai chi and ice-skating with swollen bruises on lower-shins meant that my skates actually gave me beautiful purple bruises-upon-bruises around my ankles. that's a lot of bruises.

Lowlights:

• I can't run. I need to think. I get my thinking done while I run.
• This weekend could be fun, but could be unbelievably awkward (you know when you know that 3 people are going to the same even and none of them get along and someone will end up freaking out and running off crying while the others sit and listen to the awkward-crickets?)
• It's hard to skate when you can't really bend your left knee. The cold was a fantastic numbing agent though!
• Marking. Markingmarkingmarkingmarking
• Teaching undergradlings to use a computer. Fun times.
• General lack of sleep made me a bit sick. the fever has gone, so I'm hopng it's over now.

Highlights:

• I learned a new technique for helping my balance in skating and it made a HUGE difference!
• an awesome half-hour chat with my tai chi class. I never would have thought that I'd feel so close to a random bunch of people so quickly, particularly since I'm a lot younger than most of them (there are about two people my age and they aren't always there, the rest are my parents' age).
• I spent the morning with my mom and we didn't fight. To be fair she DID decide to try and set me up with my optometrist (she went as far as saying he had displayed 'mating behaviour' towards me) and I let it slide.
• Leia is ok, which is a relief as I was very worried about her, and will be reassuring myself of her okay-ness by feeding her copious amounts of chocolate cake over the next few days.
• my team won at Trivia-night last night! who knew that one team member's knowleddge of obscure geography, another's interest in weird medical conditions and my reading random books on science would be so handy?
• The students aren't as bad as they were. Annoying and a bit dumb, sure, but they're beginning to show some personality!

All in all not entirely a bad week!

How is everybody else doing?

uh... ow!

So I just had the most awesome weekend EVER!

 

It started on Friday when I met with the Oxfordian and the Oracle as well as Luke and another friend. It was a nice way to start the weekend, particularly after two hours with my kiddies who are developing a little bit more attitude than I'd like - I'm starting to wonder if letting them use my first name and playing games (I divide the group into 3 sections and we have little contests)and making jokes was the right tactic...

 

From there I went off to meet CG, La and another friend for dinner which was fantastic, I haven't been seeing much of La lately and I'd really missed her.

 

Saturday was a super-busy morning at work, where I got some marking done, but mostly ran around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done. The afternoon gave me time to nap, and then head off to a lovely dinner and then goth-clubbing with some new friends. I may have gone slightly out of control, although there were no hats, I ran around deciding amongst the new friends that they were all awesome people and they can all stay...

 

Sunday morning started badly, when I was woken up at 6am by some rather chatty hadedas outside my window, but ended up fantastically when I got to go mountain-biking!

 

Bear in mind that I hadn't been on a bike that wasn't rather securely bolted to the floor in well over a decade, so it was a shaky start (I can balance relatively well, but steering is a bit of an issue).

 

A few minutes into it I was finally going pretty well, negotiated my first puddle (with some shrieking) and managed to stop veering left as much when I turned a corner and realised that the track had washed away. Whoops. Somehow I managed to prevent myself from flying over the handlebars, but not without taking the bike to the shins in a pretty nasty way. Once I'd stopped shaking enough to get off the bike and walked a bit we got going again.

 

A few minutes later when I'd finally got the hang of changing gears without wobbling and having to stop I heard a loud bang, turned around to see that the person cycling with me had a broken chain. Whoops.

 

So we started walking. And walking. It was a rather warm day, but the place was BEAUTIFUL and it was so nice to be out of the city for a bit! We managed to freewheel the downhill bits. I'm a bit nervous of going downhill (I feel a bit out of control) so I went a little bit too slowly, hit a bump and went for a fly into the grass. Soft landing and nice grass actually!

 

From there we went back to the house, had a lovely lunch, and I learned to pick grapes, play "who wants to be a millionaire?" with a 93 year old and generally sat around feeling quite content, albeit sleepy listening to the conversation. The funniest part was hearing someone yell "Who left the door open? The horse is inside again!"

 

When I got home I passed out for a few hours, and then went off to gym (I figured blood-flow through bruises would help the healing agents get there) and had a great time (I love my Sunday night session,it's such a nice way to start the week!) and went home and had a chat with CG and another friend before I went to bed.

 

All in all a pretty decent weekend!

 

And the best part? I got to spend the day today showing off my bruises - it seems the grass was not as forgiving as I'd thought and right now it looks like I got kicked repeatedly in the shins by a large horse, which I'm happy about because there's nothing worse than hurting and having nothing to show for it!

At a glance

Monday:

While recovering from Sunday night’s introduction to coffee-tequila (not so much the tequila part as the twitching and bouncing around until 4am… thanks caffeine) I discovered I can no longer drink coke. Did they add extra sugar recently? It’s like drinking syrup.

Tuesday

Epically bad traffic meant that it took me over an hour and a half to drive 10 km, so although I left home early I was very VERY late to teach my kiddies. They’re a fantastic group though and I had a lot of fun with them (they think I’m crazy because I won’t let them call me ma’am, asked their permission to use bad language in front of them, and I told them to try and balance things so that they can pass their studies and also have some kind of life. Cue terrified undergrads!).

And hour later I met my second-years who are officially the dumbest and most annoying students I’ve ever had to deal with. Oh. My. Word.

Student (holding up a leafy twig): “Does this have leaves in Summer?”

Helen: Well what season is it?

Student: Uh… Summer (one of them thought it was Spring)

Helen: and does it have leaves?

Student: uh… I think so…?

Helen: So does it have leaves in Summer?

Student: I don’t know! How am I supposed to know that? That’s why I asked you!

Wednesday

After a delightful morning of getting actual work done, had to give a safety announcement to the second years – guess what, blades are sharp! It might hurt if you cut yourself. And you may bleed… Shock! Horror! Several students decided the best way to look for stinging hairs on leaves (like nettles and that sort of stinging) was to whip themselves with them.

They decided that the leaves must have stinging hairs because being hit by them (and I quote) “Really hurts”

At least I got to drive out in epic traffic and spend several hours ice-skating backwards (I got put up a class *happy dance*)

Thursday

Had the BEST tai-chi class ever, going over the form I’m working on bit by tiny bit and nitpicking everything. Left there feeling invincible and went for a run.

Ended up not feeling so invincible. And now I can’t climb stairs.

Friday

Got to start my day with the delightful students, some of whom were unable to figure out what a petal was. One of them obviously eats garlic for breakfast (and always needs help that involves you standing nearby), another has the SCARIEST eyebrows I’ve ever seen (she’s waxed them off and drawn them in from the inside corner of her eyes (almost straight) up to her hairline). I am unable to talk to her without my eyes watering. Someone else has glowing eyeshadow (seriously). I hadn’t had coffee, and although some lecturers are quite relaxed, this one will NOT let me take coffee into a lab. grumblegrumblegrumble.

Have a great weekend!

 

(Courtesy of A Beautiful Revolution of course)

Nothing more than...?

It's no secret that I am scared of very little. Heights (well largely sorted, but I still... respect... them), failure, rejection... the typical stuff.

 

Another thing that I've never mentioned that sends me into an absolute sipral of terror (I'm talking wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-screaming type terror) is feelings... Like a while ago when I made someone cry. Horrible horrible experience. I just don't know how to deal wth people who show their emotions.

 

That said, I do tend to be somewhat more of an open-book feelingwise lately. I've always been vaguely exuberant and that's hit all-new epic proportions, particularly when it comes to tai chi, tae bo (why do I love it? they tortured us to a technoed up version of Enya on Monday, nothing like wincing in pain to an upbetified version of Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away), skating, hats...

 

I learned to show fear while abseiling with Leia (it manifests as uncontrollable shaking, anger, aggression and then really bad jokes) and anger while fighting with CG (not something I enjoy thinking about).

 

Right now... well I'm stuck in a situation where I don't know what I feel. I kind of bounce between happy, sad, terrified and confused, sometimes in a random order, sometimes all at once. And thinking about it is scarier than ignoring it, but as a girl I must think and analyse, and reanalyse, and think some more...

 

AAARGH!