I've failed...

Hi all

I have failed you and I am terribly sorry. I forgot to update my blog yesterday. How can I face the world now...

And in other news, today was rather fun. I got to university at about 9:00 am and got to work on all of my admin straight away. It is amazing just how much admin one has to get through every day just to get to the stuff that is really important. I must dedicate at least 60% of each day to doing nothing but admin. It can get rather tedious.

Well, I sorted out my e-mail with the departmental secretary. I was apparently on the department mailing list but never seemed to get any e-mail from them. So today I (hopefully) got that sorted out. I also had a meeting with my supervisor about some data that I collected for my project two weeks ago. It had turned out that I had used the incorrect data collection technique. As a result I was rather concerned that all that data that I had collected during that time was going to prove useless. Luckily its not.

Appart from the vast desert of administative duties, I also went to a pre-laboratory tutorial, in which it was explained just what it is that I am going to be teaching my group of 1st yr students. I am a teaching assistant, or TA as we refer to it. This means that for certain courses, I have the duty of assisting the 1st yrs while they conduct their practical laboratory work. It is essentially playing big brother to them and making sure that they don't get themselves completely confused. We also have to teach them things like how to use a microscope and how to go about doing a dissection. Tomorrow I have to do a snail dissection with them. This should be fun.

The whole TA thing is compulsory for the honours students. We have to work a certain number of hours a week. Usually, we would get paid for it (not much, only R23/hr) but due to the fact that I recieved a bursary this year, I am required to work off a number of hours first before I can get paid for it. Hopefully I will have all of my required hours done by the middle of the year so that I am free to concentrate on my theory topics and my project at the end of the year.

After the working day had ended, I went off to the biological society pub (biosoc) to support the pub in a competition. The competition is between all the pubs on campus, and there are quite a few! One of the major beer companies here in SA, Castle, has said that they will donate R10 000 to the pub that most needs to be 'pimped up'. The money will essentially go towards giving the pub a new look and stuff. So all of the pubs have to host aparty for their members to make a video of how brilliant the place is and thus why they should get the money.

So the biosoc party was today. It was somewhat annoying because the only stuff that they had to drink were castle beer and brutal fruit. Now for most this wouldn't be a problem, but I am very fussy about what I drink and I hate beer! It's just got such a revolting taste! I rather drink cider. I realise that most of you will be appalled by this but it is true...I detest beer. So I ended up drinking three brutal fruits (strawberry as the alternative was grapefruit, which I just refuse to consume!) and went home early. I was rather tired and had to be home to go fetch my sisters and a friend of theirs from the movies.

So I came home, had some dinner and spoke to my mother. It turns out that the doctor has diagnosed my grandfather! He apparently has an anurism (spelling?) in his stomach. He will have to go in for surgery some time within the next two weeks to sort it out. I don't know how I feel about this right now...

Yesterday was a completely different kettle of fish! My one sister came with me in to university. The other was writing an exam and as a result couldn't come. They are now on holiday so that's why she was free to come.

Anyway, she came along and spent the entire day sitting at my desk in the office, playing cards on the laptop. And whenever I would ask her if she was bored, she would reply in the negative! Nutter...So, in the evening I had a statistics lecture to attend. My sister came too just to see what it was like. There is a break between the two halves of the lecture and during this break she left. But she got to see my stats lecturer.

This woman is the most unfortuate individual I have ever seen in my life. I know that this is all very nasty but it is true. The very first time that I saw her, the first thing that popped into my head was 'Orc'. She is hideous! And the woman has pants that could probably fit about three to four people into them! I will try to somehow get a photo of her to put up on the site.

The point of this story is that I have a friend who has developed a habit of drawing characatures of people in the class during stats. But the rules of this thing are that the drawing must be done in 30sec or less. Last week they drew me and it ended up looking like some kind of cowboy. Well this week I challenged him to draw one of the lecturer...and he did! It was the most hysterical thing ever! After the lecture he showed me the drawing and I just cracked! The likeness was uncanny!

After that merry event I came home and just chilled for the evening. I had and still have tons to do but I pretend that its not there.

Well I hope that this satisfied your voyeuristic appetites to know what has happened in my life at the moment. I really enjoy writing this blog. I don't even know if anyone reads the damn thing but I will go on anyway.

Never forget that we are all human, none better than the other.

Until tomorrow...(hopefully!)