Photos of falling into the pool

Hay guys! Here are the photos of us jumping into the pool that I promised! Ten points to Dunx for getting them to me! U is ROX!

Sarah prepares to take the plunge!

I'm airborne!

Duncan can levitate...!

Random Fact For The Day:

The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000

Appologies!

I must begin today's post with sincere apologies to Tom. I didn't know that you were trying to avoid any information related to Oscar winners and so I thought that the sms I sent would be funny but instead ruined the best actor award for you.

I shall continue with a minor rant. Stupid people should not be permitted to breed! They should be shipped off to an island somewhere (say, Australia? :P) so that they can walk into inanimate objects on their own as opposed to with us around! I had to tutor medics today and they are by far the stupidest students I have EVER had to work with! They were completely unable to do simple mathematics, such as, how many times does 4 go into 10. I kid you not. I even explained with drawings and everything and they still couldn't get it!

On similar grounds, people who don't realise the size of their car should not be permitted onto the road! I cannot count how often I have arrived at Wits to discover that some moron has parked their car exactly halfway between two parking bays, presumably because they were scared that they might park to close to another car and have their doors scratched or because they were not confident enough in their own parking abilities to park like a competent person!

So, what have I been up to...? On Saturday I went...no, wait, it was Sunday. I went to my cousins house for tea, which is never dull! We ended up swimming and jumping off their trellis into the pool. I'll get photos somehow from Duncan and post them. It was so much fun! I recommend jumping off something high into a pool any day!

Then, that evening, I went with Sarah and Tom to pudding/supper at Moyo's in Melrose Arch. It was so nice! It was such a great place; the vibe was brilliant, the kous-kous that Tom didn't want to eat was good and the bread stuff was amazing! Another thing I'd recommend!

Then, Monday came like a ton of bricks and I went to the zoo to discover that you can get a good toasted cheese sandwich with a side order of chips and a salad for only R18! Not bad! I also had to TA for Kevin which was a full 3 1/2 hours of flowers and very chewey fruit pasteles!

Today was medics and that kind of killed the day. That and the fact that I overslept rather badly this morning! I must go now as I have an e-mail to write to Travis.

Random Fact For The Day:

Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time

It is a DANCE club after all...

Hello!



This week has been moderately more exciting than the last ones. I've certainly managed to get a lot more done than in the past which is always a good thing.



Firstly, I finished off the paper review that I was working with my supervisor on. The paper itself was shocking! It was so badly done! I suggested that the paper be outright rejected for publication.



I also tallied up all the hours of data that I have collected thus far for my project and to my joy realised that I only have something like 4 hours left to collect before I am done with all my baseline data collection! That means that I am practically half-way through the first phase of my project! Yay! There are two problems that stem from this whoever. Firstly, two of those hours need to be from one of the chimps that has been kept separate from the rest of the group as they are trying to introduce her to Josh (see this post for info), her son. Thus, I can't do observations because I need her to be part of the group. The second problem is that I now have to seriously think about the enrichment (basically a chimpanzee toy) that I want to put in for them..



On Thursday night, I got to see some of our old friend from the honours group. Most are now working for the NICD (national health lab - don't ask me what NICD actually stands for) and so we never get to see them. But we all got together and had dinner at a place that we used to frequent when Eebee (We miss you Eebs!) was still around. It was really great!



Then, last night, after one of the most busy days I've had in a long time, I went out clubbing with Duncan and David. We went to a club called 'Sutra'. It's where H2O is held, the rave that I went to for new years. It's a dance club but when we arrived, nobody was actually dancing! It was so irritating! Eventually, people started to move onto the floor but shortly thereafter, the DJ started playing such crappy music! It was unbelievable!



That is all that I can remember that I had to tell the world. Hope you all are doing brilliantly!



Here is a photo from H2O:

Oooo! I nearly forgot!

Random Fact For The Day:

Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine

I finally grew some balls!

Well peeps! It finally happened! I grew some balls!

You see, at our university, post-graduates (hereafter referred to as postgrads) have the honour of their own parking area. We pay a hefty R400 for this parking and we still have a hell of a hill toclimb on a daily basis to get from our parking to our respective places of work. So naturally, it is rather annoying when we discover that most of our parking is being taken up by non-postrads.

It happened many times last year and is by no means a new occurance at all! However, this year it has become ridiculous! For the last two weeks, the security guard who is supposed to control who gets to enter the postgrad parking, has allowed anyone who even shows an incling of any desire to enter through to our parking. And today when I returned from the zoo I was forced to literally drive around the parking area for 10 minutes looking for an open parking bay! It was all made so much worse by the fact that the temperature was ridiculously high today (apparently 36 degrees C in the city!).

So, once I had eventually parked, I decided that I'd had enough and stormed off to the building to drop off my stuff and then headed off to make a complaint. Now, for most people, this wouldn't be worth mentioning, but, as anyone who knows me would tell you, I never get angry. I do try sometimes but I just can't get it to work. Today however was different!

When I was dropping my stuff off, Helen arrived and asked why I was so flustered. I told her and she agreed to join in complaining about the situation. So the two of us stormed off to the secretary for the school of biology. She has the nickname of 'Professor Parking' as she is the one person who will not tollerate anyone stealing her parking. She suggested that we see the head of security.

We did this and ended up just speaking to his secretary who put us in touch with the person in charge of parking. I spoke to her on the phone and she appeared to be genuinely concerned about the issue! She promised that she would sort it out, including spot checks on who was there and to ensure that the security guard is doing his job.

Yay! 10 points to whoever it was that I spoke to! Even if she couldn't give a crap about our parking and faked the whole thing, she did a great job of faking it!

So there. I can be confrontational (sometimes)!

Random Fact For The Day:

Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants

My 100th POST!!!!

Yay! I'm 100! (This is the blog talking by the way)

Yes, it is true. This is my 100th post. And I can't even put up a celebratory photo because I'm typing this all out at my lab computer at Wits.

So, what has been happening...? The irritating guests eventually left on Sunday which was a great relief! I just can't handle the fact that they are such chain smokers! I'm not a smoker by the way, so it really irritates me when other people come to my house and smoke like it's their last day on earth.

Yesterday was the first time that I TA'ed for a plant-related practical and actually knew what I was talking about! It was great!

In the pre-lab lecture that the lecturer was giving, Helen, Kelly (a new masters student from Pretoria) and I sat and giggled. It made it much more interesting. At one point, Helen, as we had bought some popcorn during one of the between-lecture breaks, decided that it would be a good idea to flick one of the unpopped popcorn kernals at one of the students. Luckily her aim is really bad so she missed the student. Instead, the small piece of corn bounced loudly off every desk surface on it's trip to the front of the lecture theatre. Naturally we all thought that this was hysterical and collapsed onto the desk with muffled snorts and laughs. As we looked up we realised that NOBODY had noticed the whole ordeal! It was amazing! Not a single person had seen the high-speed piece of corn as it had wizzed past their head or bounced off their writing pad. It was kind of disappointing in a way...

The rest of that day really isn't worth writing about...

I'll write more at a later stage. I must go and get some stuff printed which potentially means having to give more money to the school secretary.

Eeek! They're here!!!!

I don't have much time (cue really tense dramatic music). They are here! The visitors are here for lunch. They are family 'friends'. I don't like them.

I have to go!

PS: The old one smells stranger than usual today...:(

Faithless kryptonite

So, to continue where I left off, I grabbed a couple of marulas and ran off to the swimming pool. I sat on the steps of the pool, partially submerged eating marulas. It was so nice! It has been ages since I've sat in the pool for an afternoon eating a fruit. It's a South African past time that at christmas, everyone eats a lot of watermellon and one of the things that many people do as kids is to sit in the pool and eat it. So, to sit and eat marulas like that is really nice.

After that, I went back inside and headed to my room to change. As I arrived in my room, I discovered that my sisters had gotten me some helium balloons for my birthday. I was thrilled! If any of you have ever breathed in helium and spoken you'll understand how three balloons can provide a great deal of entertainment. I immediately ran off to the kitchen with my newly obtained orbs trailing behind me in the air.

After thanking my sisters, I showed the dog the balloons. She didn't like them at all! So I tried to keep them out of her view. I immediately got to work at cutting the knot off the bottom of the first balloon. The scissors didn't work at all and so I had to run off to get another pair. Once it was open, I spent the next ten minutes in hysterics. The dog seemed unphased by the sudden change in my voice which was a little disappointing.

I then decided to phone Vanessa and speak to her with helium. I did so but she didn't seem very impressed. So I decided to try and see how the dog would respond to me callng her from the other side of the house in chipmunk. She reacted, in a big way.

It was really funny! She came taring down the passage barking like a mad thing and all her hair was standing up! Eventually I got close enough to her to calm her down a little because she was running around like a nutter.

At this point, there is a gap in my memory about what I did for the rest of the day...OH! Wait, I remember. I then watched 'Lucky Number Slevin'. It's really good! It was rather twisted but it was really well done! I subsequently watched a little of the extras from 'Jurassic Park: The Lost World'. It was really interesting.

Shortly thereafter, I went to find out what was happening with dinner as I only had half an hour before I needed to go to have celebratory cocktails with friends. It turned out that it wasn't even nearly ready. So I decided to go and have a shower before dinner. I did so and seeing as dinner wasn't ready, I then continued to watch the extras from the 'Lost World' DVD that my sister had got from work. Eventually, dinner was ready and I had to go. My family had a minor fit because I was trying to leave without having eaten. So I had to stay and eat before I could leave.

Eventually I got out of the house and sped off to get some petrol, fetch David and get to Melrose Arch in record time. After it all, I was only 20 min late which is rather impressive all things considered! I hadn't made a booking at all but luckily, the place wasn't too full, plus Bro. T managed to organise for us to all go up to the lounge area above the restaurant which was truely smashing (ten points Bro. T)!

We all had such a great time! Here is the full list of attendees:
Myself, Bro. T, Laura, David, Sarah, Tom, Athena, Sarah (my cousin), Graham (cousin's boyfriend), Sarah (Xena), Xena's boyfriend whose name I cannot remember, Vanessa and Brian.

We had such a great time! I had to leave relatively early though because I got a migrane and needed to go to bed as a result. But I had a fantastic time none the less! Thanks to all my fabulous friends who attended and to all those that couldn't for whatever reason. You is all ROX! I am really lucky to have pals like you guys! Ten points to you all!

The birthday gif list:

• One camping chair
• Three books ("Why Pandas Do Handstands", "Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?" and "Animals: an illustrated A-Z")
• A National Geographic calendar with chimps on the front
• One monkey-thing that screams at you when squeezed
• Cocktail cards (recipes and all kinds on must-know stuff about cocktails)
• Some amazing white chocolate
• A CD voucher
• Marshmellow fluff
• 3 Helium balloons
• Faithless's new album ('To all new arrivals' - It's amazing! It's like Faithless, fused with a little Chicane and a little Fatboy Slim)
• A piece of stress kryptonite (Kinda like a stressball that is rock shaped and glows in the dark)
• A pack of Mike and Ike's (My favourite sopository-shaped sweets!)
• A CD that I leant to someone ages ago and have now recieved back!
• Three T-shirts
• A bottle of Malibu (From my grandmother!?)

Random Fact Of The Day:

Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode

Helium, marulas and fluff

Well gang, yesterday was the anniversary of my arrival on this planet, and what a joyous day it was! It began early...VERY early.

I had to get to Wits by 8:00am so I was up at 6:00am. It was very hard to wake up! I arrived in my kitchen to my mother singing happy birthday while my sister concentrated very hard on making her toast, as one tends to do first thing in the morning. About half way through my mothers musical episode, my father clicked that she was singing the birthday song and joined in. It was rather funny! They explained to me that they did have a gift for me but I wouldn't get it until later on that day because they had hidden it in Gemma's room, and given that she is the most feared member of the family to wake up, we all decided that it would be best to just leave it there until later that evening.

I then drove my sister off to varsity and battled to find parking as is customary of the beginning of the year. It's because we have a really stupid crowd that handle the admin at the university. They sold parking for 5000 cars but the campus actually only has 3500 parking bays available to people! And then they are so suprised when students complain because they have been forced to park illegally and have been fined. Thank goodness for all those eons of evolution that blessed us with 'intelligence'.

After the hike up the hill to my lab, I began to work at a paper review that I'm doing with my supervisor. I managed to do a surprising amount of work before Helen (henseforth known as Brother T) arrived and presented me with my first gift of the day! I have to admit that I was rather perplexed when I saw the jar shapped gift.

To my surprise and joy, Bro. T had found me that most amazing stuff in the universe! It was marshmellow spread called 'Fluff'! It's from the US so all you americans that read this probably know what I'm talking about. It is amazing! I love it! It's particularly amazing because as a vegetarian, it is impossible to find marshmellows that don't have any gelatine in them. So, to recieve a gooey marshmellow spread that was vegetarian friendly was totally brilliant! Ten points to Brother T!

After mucking about in the lab and discussing the sheer brilliance of the substance in the jar, I went to get my supervisor to try some. He was also most impressed and suggested that I try it with chocolate spread and peacan nuts. Shortly thereafter, Bro. T and I went off shopping for a birthday present for Laura. It's her birthday on Sunday but she is having her party-thingy tonight at a place just up the road from my house, which is a pleasent change from me having to drive long distances to get anywhere. We bought her a ton of stuff and I am confident that she will love it!

While shopping, Bro. T and I decided to get falaffels for lunch. I havn't had one in such a long time so having one again was amazing! We returned to Wits to eat them and thoroughly enjoyed every bite except for one. There was a lump of chilli which left me rather red.

After that, we were joined by one of the honours students, Lauren, who accompanied us to the zoo, where I did my observations. After zooing, I decided that I'd had enough work for one day and seeing as it was my birthday and all, I went home.

At home I discovered to my joy that my uncle had somehow obtained marulas. For those who now question my sanity, marulas and a fruit that comes from an african tree. They are quite common in southern africa but are not grown commercially as far as I know. I've never had a marula before and I was really excited about trying one! They are really odd! They taste a bit like a combination between a mango and a litchi, if that is possible. They are really tasty though!

I have to go off for supper right now, so I will finish this post at a later stage!

To be continued...

I'm so old!

I really don't have anything particularly exciting to tell you guys...





On Friday, a pair of scientists came through to Wits to give a talk on defensive behaviour in lab rats and mice. The pair were a husband and wife couple who both work in the same field (close enough anyway). It was really odd because they were over here all the way from Hawaii (why anyone would leave there to come here is beyond me!) but they had little to no accent.





Actually, they probably did have accents but because most of the Americans that I have ever met were only from the southern states, the Hawaii'ian's accent didn't really sound like anything in comparison.





There was some confusion about when they would be arriving due to the fact that they send an e-mail saying that they would be there on Friday the 8th. And seeing as the 8th was actually a Thursday, nobody was really sure when to be expecting them. But they eventually showed up on the Friday. After they chatted to my supervisor for a while, we were all introduced to them, we being all my supervisor's students and Helen who unwittingly arrived to see me just in time for tea with the foreigners.





So we all sat around and had some tea, discussing our various areas of study and our projects. It was a little awkward because I was balancing on the edge of a desk and every now and again I had to stand to ensure that my legs didn't go to sleep. During the discussion, it became clear that one of the Hawaii'ian's concerns was being eaten by elephants which we all thought was very funny. Naturally we didn't laugh at them but all went quietly away after tea to snigger amongst ourselves. This was while my supervisor took them off to go and see the breeding populations of striped mouse that we keep and use for studies at the university.





Here is a picture of a baby one that we found in a nest when we were in Darling in November last year:

After that Helen and I went off to go and get some lunch which we had to eat along our way back to our building because of the fact that the Hawaii'ians talk was going to begin shortly and I had been given the task of ensuring that there was a laser pointer available for them as well as all the necessary connections for the speakers laptop and the projector. I managed to get everything all organised and got back with enough time to set it all up with the help of our groundsman, Mr. Schniederman (AKA: Spiderman).

The talk itself was fascinating! It was so cool and it helped me to understand the functioning of antidepressive drugs and the difference between the chronic and acute use of psychiatric drugs. It was very cool!

After the talk was done, the Hawii'ians left with one of our staff members and my supervisor came to chat to Helen and I about their talk. It was actually quite a close call because we had actually just been onto the internet to read the CV of Helen's supervisor and to confirm that his dog had been in a KFC advert. All this while we were supposed to be working...heh heh.

During our little chat with my supervisor, he happened to mention something to me which left me somewhat perplexed because he said that he was so impressed that I was always working so hard on a Friday afternoon. But I never work hard on a Friday! I generally work until about lunch and then the rest of the day is spent messing around or up at the BioSoc bar.

So after he had left, Helen and I confirmed that the dog was infact the one in the advert. Soon thereafter, we decided to go home but just as we were about to do so - I was in my lab packing up at the time - Helen ran into one of the honours students who was on their way to open up the BioSoc pub and wanted us to go join them. So we did. It was really nice to go and spend some time with them there and to remeber the social aspect of the honours year which we no longer experience.

I then had to go and fetch my sisters and Athena to go off to supper. My sisters were actually going off to some club in Melville but I was charged with taking them there. So with a car full of people, I went off to Melville. Helen was with us too.

I disposed of my siblings and began the hunt for a parking bay that didn't require me to parallel park. I just can't do it. I must have failed to inherit the gene that allows me the ability to parallel park. So I found one bay that didn't require any parallelling and stayed there. The three of us then went off to 'Soi', my new-found favorite restaurant! The food was amazing and once we could no longer eat another thing, we decided to call it a day and head home.

As we left the main street in Melville, I was pulled over by cops who wanted to know if I had been drinking. Immediately I panicked because I had been drinking that afternoon and I began to wonder if that would show up on a breathalizer test, 4 hours later! The cop then demanded my drivers licence and asked if he could do a breathalizer test on me. I gave him my licence and said that I would take the test. Once I said that, he looked disappointed and gave me back my licence, sending me on my way. I must say that I was certainly not even remotely close to tipsy at this stage so I'm sure that the test wouldn't have revealed a thing but I freaked out just the same.

The rest of the weekend has been uneventful. I attended my cousins tacho evening last night which was fun. That's about all.

OOO! Today's my mom's birthday!

Random Fact For The Day:

Most lipstick contains fish scales

What to blog...?

This is my 95th post peeps! I'm nearly at that amazing milestone that is 100 posts! Yay!

So gang, I'm not really sure what to post appart from the fact that today reaffirmed for me why it is that I don't drink beer.

At the moment, at Varsity, it is O-week. This is Wits 'code' for Orientation Week. It is intended as a time for all new recruits to attend the orientation activities offered to allow them to get an idea of what it is that we all get up to. However, it tends to end up as a more debaucherous, series of drunken parties that attract more current students than new ones. I have never attended these festivities in earnest because I never really felt like I needed to but thanks to Laura, I have begun to attend these fiascos!

Today's particular event was the pub-crawl. Our campus has a variety of bars placed in strategically secluded spots (apart from BAQT). However, I rarely frequent any of them apart from BioSoc, as they are just too far away, or crawling with engineers. The pub-crawl today involved going from pub to pub, collecting two free drinks, partaking of ones newly aquired beverages and galavanting off to the next procurer of all things alcoholic.

Now, Helen and I had not intended on attending this event. Our pal, Laura had other plans however. She organised to meet up with us at BioSoc, from where we could then join the drunken mass of people and continue the tour of the bars. So, upon her call, we went to meet her. Once there we were each handed a free beverage by Laura and her friend, Selwyn (spelling? name? it could be anything given my mind!). Helen was passed a cider and I was given...beer.

Now, I have only ever tasted one beer that I actually enjoyed. This was in Germany when I was staying with Alice's sister. I have never found anything vaguely pleasent in the realm of beer before or since this momentous event. So being handed a beer at the pub certainly didn't fill me with the urge to chug it back and belch loudly in satisfaction.

But I gratiously drank it along with numerous swigs of Helen's cider to try and cleanse my palate. I in the process also met the friend of the, and I quote, 'cock-juggling-thunder-cunt'. I don't get it myself...

Then, after that it was off to the next bar that was on the other side of campus. We got there to discover that they had not organised enough alcohol and so we were only allowed one drink. So Laura, Helen and I shared the single cider we could get our hands on. Later, more arrived and we all shared another.

It was at this stage that Helen and I decided that we preferred it back at BioSoc and so headed off to that bar. Along the way we were distracted by a fellow student who was actually working while the rest of the people in the university were getting themselve trashed. We chatted to him for a while and then headed off to the bar.

We had been promised free drinks by one of the bar worker people and so we looked forward to our little beverages. However, when we went in, we discovered that he was not there and that instead, there were other students there, most of whome we had TA'ed in previous lives. So we all sat and chatted together for ages and while chatting, I was provided with yet another beer! This time it was a different one, better, but by no means tastey! At a later stage I was provided with another beer which was disgusting! I've never had such a horrid drink in my life! So far, in the story, all the different beers have each been a different brand. They began with Amstel (4/10), then Black Label (5/10) and ended up with Castle (-1 000 000/10).

And so, I am very glad that this kind of tasting experience doesn't happen very often.

By the way, after the drinks at BioSoc the second time, I went home rather late to an agro family waiting for me to arrive for dinner. I appologised profusely.

Random Fact For The Day:

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton. Before the 1950's it was made from Hemp: the stem and leaves of a marijuana plant

Divided people

Today while I was reading the most amazing paper about mind states and consiousness in chimpanzees (for that is what I study, chimps not all that mind nonsense) I had an epiphany. I realised that scientists are prone to a split mental and belief existence. I know, you are all like 'Huh...?'

What I mean is that we tend to learn about all these things about how the world works and stuff and at the same time, we retain our own beliefs. I realise that belief and knowledge are VERY different things but a lot of the time, they are not that easy to dissect, particularly if it's your beliefs and ideas. The paper was all about how our interpretation of a chimps ability to understand the mental state of others may actually be an artifact of our own mental processes and that chimps probably can't understand the mental states of others at all.

Now, how this generates a problem is that it essentailly is saying that chimps can't think but instead understand social and behavioural processes very well, and thus can manipulate them. But I really think that many animals, especially chimps, can think. I've watched them do amazing things and manipulate each other to their own ends in brilliantly complex ways which makes me ask, 'How can they NOT think?'

This is where my little problem comes in. I know, through my studies, that they don't think, but I honestly do believe that they think! Similarly, I know that evolution happened and that it continues to happen, but I believe that there is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, creator God controlling the universe.

I guess that this little internal dialogue just has to be resolved internally (fancy that! Internal dialogue resolved internally!). Any thoughts, you lot?

By the way, dolphins are actually really dumb. They just have big brains for insulation - someone did research on it!

And now, before the next amazing Random Fact For The Day:, here is another picture of Josh being adorable! That's Althea, his 'mommy'.

Random Fact For The Day:

Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate effects a dogs heart and nervous system, a few ounces enough to kill a small sized dog

Life is really surreal!

Does anyone else in this world feel like their life is too freakish to really be happening to one person? Because, of late, I've REALLY felt like all of my waking hours have been a dream! It's been so odd!

It all started with my shoot at 'Isidingo'. That has to have been one of the most random days of my life! By the end of it all, I felt like something was going on in the universe that everyone else knew about except me.

Then, on Friday, I went to varsity as per usual and while I was working, I recieved a call from a good friend of mine, Xena (not her real name, that's Sarah but because I know so many Sarah's, I have to give them nicknames to remeber who is who). I hadn't seen her in ages and I got to spend the whole day with her, catching up and finding out how life has been treating her. As you may have guessed, I didn't get too much work done on Friday.

After she left Wits I had a short while to do some minor work before heading off to a screening of the locally-produced 'Faith Like Potatos'. The film isn't bad at all - actually rather good - but the acting was shocking! It was SO SO bad! It was being shown at my old church, where my cousin Sarah (another one) goes, as well as Xena. It is actually how I know her.

Sarah, my cousin, had organised for me to go with them (being her, her boyfriend and Xena and her boyfriend) to the screening. I arrived 5min late due to unusually bad traffic to discover that I wasn't as late as I had thought - they hadn't started yet - and that Duncan was there too.

We all watched the movie and I then told Duncan that I was going to go home to have some dinner and that he was welcome to join me. He accepted and left while I went to say goodbye to all the others while they were having tea and coffee in the church hall. While saying goodbye to everyone, Xena greeted someone over my shoulder and I turned to see who it was. To my amazement, it was one of the students that I had TA'ed last year! Helen and I nicknamed him my stalker.

So after chatting to him and goodbye-ing everyone else, I left. I then found poor Duncan outside my house, who had been waiting for me for 15min as I had been saying my goodbyes, and we had our dinner.

This too was a very strange feeling day!

Then, Saturday was a brilliant day where I took Athena and Duncan to the zoo to see what I do and to introduce them to Althea and Josh, the primate keeper and primate respectively. Inbetween my data collection and the meeting, we all went to the most amazing resturant called 'Soi' which makes the most awesome and heavenly chocolate mousse (spelling?) I've ever had in my life!

Then later we went to see 'The Prestige' which I think is amazing! It's so well done!

Thus concluded my stretch of weird days. They really felt very surreal and I can't really figure out why. But it made me realise something. God's gonna have a tough time convincing me to go to heaven when I die. My life has just been too much fun!

Random Fact For The Day:

Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister

By the way, in answer to your question Angela, I'm not sure if these 'facts' are true, but I do know that some of them definitely are. Like the giraffe-tongue thing and the human tongue print. The rest I can't confirm nor deny...

I'm a STAR!!!

Okay so I'm not exactly a star, as such, but my elbow is definitely going to be on national television! Other bits of my anatomy may also be on TV. I'm not sure which ones though. And just to calm any of you who are in shock, I didn't do any nude scenes!

So today I went off to be an extra on a local TV series, 'Isidingo'. It was my first time as an extra for this show. I once did some extra work for another series that is no longer in production, called 'The Pure Monate Show'. That too was great fun apart from the fact that we shot in the bar of some dodgy hotel in Hillbrow with real crack-whores outside and stuff!

Well, I havn't had this much fun in a long time! All we had to do today was to sit at tables in the bar (not a real bar, it was the set) and mime conversation with each other. I went with Duncan and the two of us had endless conversations, albeit in mime, about innumerable silly things like imaginary car crashes with clowns, the discovery that Duncan was a uniche (spelling?) and the like. It was so much fun! I would definitely recomend extra's work to anyone who is interested in trying something new.

The casting agent was also brilliant! He was such a nice guy who had a wicked sense of humour and was generally just a lot of fun. We had to be there from 08:00 to 14:00 and despite the fact that the majority of our time was spent waiting for the crew to be ready for us, we got paid R140 for it!

The only bad thing was that all the other, more experienced extras kept warning me about the wardrobe lady who is apparently a complete dragon. So by the time that I had to go in and see her, I was terrified. Then, she okayed my clothes and that was all. I got out with all my limbs intact which is apparently a rarety...

I recently discovered the joys of YouTube!

After the filming, I went to keep Duncan company while he registered at AFDA, the South African Film School. I know that the acronym doesn't fit but I have no clue what AFDA actually stands for. It took us two whole hours but we eventually got through it all.

Today has made me really think about where I want to go with my life. I've always loved acting but due to the fact that it's not really a steady job I always thought that science was a much better plan. And now, I regret that to a degree. I wish that I could do all that acting stuff just because it's so much fun. At the same time, I'd never have gotten to experience some of the amazing things that I have if I'd done acting instead.

In other news, I read an article last night about a cheap means of travelling around the coastal islands of Madagascar. Coincidentally, I got so excited about the stupid article that I couldn't go to sleep. It looks amazing, and I have decided that I am going to save up every penny that I can and go on this tour. Whose with me?

Random Fact Of The Day:

On an average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily