Birthdays, Blood and Movies! - Part 2

For those of you who are not familiar with my blog, this is a continuation of the story from 'Birthdays, Blood and Movies! - Part 1'.

I had been turned down and it left me feeling little crestfallen. This had been one of those major milestones in my life and I had failed. Given that I had been terrified to begin, the crestfallen-ness wasn't all that bad and I decided to move on with my life.

I go up from the nurses table and went over to chat to Helen while she had her bodily fluids drained. The nurses hadn't yet arrived to suck her dry, so we sat chatting to pass the time. Our chat was rather uneventful, apart from a RICKY-ALERT (Wee-ooo wee-ooo wee-ooo...). Eventually a rather nice male nurse came to hook Helen up to one of those cool-looking blood bags that you always get to see in the movies.

The procedure consisted of him strapping an elastic velcro thingy around her arm to get her veins to pop up, using a ton of sterilizing strips soaked in alcohol to clean the area and inserting the needle into the appropriate vein. He then held the needle in place with little strips of surgical tape. After taking three samples of blood in little vials, he allowed the blood to flow into the bag.

Shortly thereafter, a girl came and sat next-to Helen's bed thingy. She looked very nervous and so we started chatting to her. It turned out that this was her first time giving blood and she was very scared. So when it came time for her to get bled, she looked like she was going to die.

I felt sorry for her and so offered her my hand to hold as a comfort. She very politely checked that I was okay with this and then clasped my hand for dear life! While she tried to choke my fingers she said, 'Sing me a song!' Immediately all musical thoughts collected into a tiny mental meteor and plumetted from my mind. 'What should I sing?' I asked. 'Anything!' she replied. I desperately wracked my brain for something to hum, never mind sing. Just then, a song jumped into my head! It was...

Cry me a river by Justin Timberlake...

My musical bias aside, I realised that this wasn't going to work for two reasons:
a) All I could think of was a Justin Timberlake song (pleeug!)
b) The only line I knew from that song was, 'Cry me a river'

I voiced my concerns and Helen came to my aid. 'Sing the Kenya song!' I said that it was a stupid song and that I wouldn't sing it. I wasn't about to sing a song about lions and tigers in Kenya in a very large, crowded public place anyway! I decided that this little distraction conversation was in need of a subject shift, and so I asked the donor, whose name we actually never asked for now that I think about it... 'So what good movies have you seen lately?'

'I don't know! I have no idea!' she replied.

Helen pipped up, 'What kind of movies do you like?'

'I don't know! I can't remember anything right now!'

It was at this point that the nurse arrived and began to prepare the donor. He strapped the velcro thingy onto her arm and began to cut the surgical tape into short pieces.

She sounded kind of out of breath, 'Oh my God...here it comes! The needle...I'm gonna die!'

'Uh...not quite,' I said. 'It's only the surgical tape that he's prepping.'

'Oh God, oh God, oh God...' she muttered. I tried to distract her again while my fingers began to resemble tiny long egg plants. Just then, the nurse warned her about the needle. It was crunch time and Helen did the only thing left.

'Look away!'

It was in. The donor did little apart from a small flinch while the needle went in. She then looked down at her arm, almost admirably, and turned to me. 'Thanks, you can have your hand back'

I gratefully took back my distorted and rather purple hand and moved over to Helen to see how she was doing. Her bag was nearly full but she had not come even close to beating her previous bag filling record time. Apparently she once managed to fill a 500ml bag with blood in under 8 min! Soon one of the nurses arrived, stopped the flow, removed the needle and put a cotton ball over the oosing hole in Helen's arm. As the bleeding didn't stop immediately, he put another ball on and held it down with a plaster that had a little South African flag printed on it. I mentioned that I thought the plasters were cool and the nurse immediately gave me one!

Random Fact For The Day:

Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower', because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters

To the fucking psycho bitch-snake!

There is a certain individual, whose name I shan't reveal onto the internut, who has made life for me rather unpleasent of late. I today found out that this unpleasentness was in order to cover this person's ass for their own shortfalls. Those who I have spoken to in the last few days may know who it is that I speak of. To this person...

EAT SHIT AND DIE!!!

Love me

Birthdays, Blood and Movies! - Part 1

Today is a very special day. Not only is it my cousin, Duncan's, birthday, but it is the first birthday he has had all year! So a very happy birthday to him! Big up Dunx!

Yesterday I did all (or at least I thought it would be all) my admin for the week. I have accepted the fact that my Monday's seem to be turning into complete write-off days as far as achieving any work is concerned. I always seem to end up wasting my entire day to admin, TA'ing or simply lying in my chair at my desk thinking, 'I really should be working...perhaps I should go for lunch now, seeing as it is only 45 min to lunch. It practically IS lunchtime!'

However, this Monday was different to the usual. I was doing all my admin, as usual, and as everyone knows, doing admin alone is horrible, so I had dragged Helen along with me. I had almost done everything and I was walking into Senate House (practically the admin building of our campus) to post a severely overdue postcard to my friend Joe in England. As we arrived at the post office I had a minor moment of confusion as to whether airmail could be placed into the same postbox as local mail (I seem to remember that at some stage, this was considered a crime by anyone who worked in the post office; they are odd people...). It was then that both of us noticed the beds.

In the centre of the building, which is open so that the building is practically hollow, were numerous beds and tables. There were people all over the place and most were being tended to by nurses. Helen instantly recognised it as a blood donation drive. I instantly felt my stomach contract and every hair on my body stand at full attention.

After a little persuasion I managed to get Helen to leave. The problem is, you see, I can't handle giving blood. Just the thought of it totally freaks me out! I have a tendency to pass out when I lose blood in any way. Somehow I am fine with other peoples blood - that doesn't bother me in the least. But the second that I am seriously hurt or lose lots of blood, the lights trip. I'd love to give blood from a moral point of view and I applaude all those that do, but I am just too freaked out to try.

So while we continued on my admission (admin+mission=admission; I often make up new words, it's fun) Helen tried desperately to persuade me to just try donating blood. Eventually, I gave in and said that I would try, but if I freaked too much, I'd have to give up. She was okay with this and promised to hold my hand if I wanted. I said it wasn't necessary.

Come lunchtime, for this was the decided time for the donating, we both left to give blood. I was REALLY nervous and, quite frankly, terrified. As we walked, all I could think of was the time I had to give blood samples for a test once and passed out. Eventually we arrived after what felt a bit like a 3 day hike more than a half minute walk and we went to fill out our forms. The forms were laiden with stuff about how many sex partners I'd had and how I must NOT under any circumstances lie about this stuff, which I totally think is a good idea! After the forms were done, one of the nurses called me over for an iron level test. As I gave her my hand, Helen pipped up with, 'Don't look! This is the most painful part of the whole thing! It hurts like hell!', which naturally made me feel just dandy. But she really wasn't kidding!

That tiny little prick of the finger was BLOODY (excuse the pun) sore! I was amazed that it hurt as much as it did! While I was clasping at my severed finger, the nurse let a drop of my blood fall into a copper sulphate solution to see how much iron I have in my blood. As it turns out, tons! I was then sent off to the next nurse to have my blood pressure checked and to go over my questionaire. While there I was hit with the bad news that I couldn't give blood.

I like to tell people it is because of my promiscuity...

In truth, it was because I had been a little ill over the weekend and so I had to wait at least 48 hours before I could donate blood. And due to the fact that the blood people wouldn't be there in 48 hours time, I couldn't do it. To be entirely honest, I was disappointed. I had worked up every ounce of courage I had to do that and then I was turned away! Bummer...

A rather 'different' day...

The cat fell asleep on my sisters legs while she was on the phone...

Hey guys.

Today has been (damn! I can't think of an alternative word!) 'different'. It started of yesterday actually. I got into huge crapolla with my supervisor who sent me an e-mail. He sends out scary e-mails to us when he is really mad. They generally get rather bitchy...well actually bitchy isn't the term to use. They are just really scary!

It was because I have had lots of people come to visit me in my lab and we are apparently very noisey; it's been disturbing other members of staff. So now, I have been banned from having any visitors. I understand where he's coming from completely! It's just that I don't like getting crapped on by him. He is one of those people that I really respect and admire so to get into the shite with them is never nice. I always end up with a horrible sick feeling in my stomach when this kind of thing happens.

So I was dreading going in to Wits today because of that. None the less I went in and after checking my mail, I got stuck into marking the prac's of the medical students that I tutoured earlier this week (see this post). They continued to shine as examples of the true MORON in every man. Not one of them passed! (technically they did pass but as future doctors, they are expected to achieve 90% in order to not have to redo the exercise). While I was marking, someone (who shall remain anonymous) came to see me to chat. We ended up chatting about how much stress we were both under and that was when it happened. They burst into tears!

I felt terrible for them! I comforted them and they proceeded to tell me about everything that they had on their mind. I felt so helpless when I was talking to them. I really wanted to make them understand that life really isn't that bad and that they should not blame themselves for terrible things that have happened.

Anyway, after about an hour of chatting, they left and I resumed my marking. Overall, excluding the hour-chat, it took me about three hours to do all my marking! And it's not even as if that stuff deserved to be read! Luckily, everything has an ending and so I eventually finished! I then decided to go and do some admin.

It turns out that Wits admin is on par with the medical students with regard to their inability to function as a semi-inteligent human should. They announced a day or two ago that they have somehow misplaced ALL our banking information and so we now have to resubmit it to them. So I gathered some yellow forms together and was going to submit it when I heard that I needed a copy of my ID to go with it. So that will be done on Monday.

Then, this afternoon I had to tutour first years again which was so nice! They are WAY smarter than those idiotic medics, and they actually have a sense of humour! They also finished off early today which is always welcome!

From there I proceeded to go and check out BioSoc, which for some reason was full of dodgy freaks, and so I left. I then decided it was home-time. My drive home was okay appart from a conversation on the radio about fetishes and pubic hair, which was mildly disturbing. As I arrived home, I discovered that it had rained at home!

Now, it is important to know that here in South Africa, we are experiencing a bit of a rain shortage. Numerous crops have failed as a result and the heat is just about driving everyone mad. So to have rain was amazing! Except...

Because we have had so little rain, the roads, and in fact most surfaces, are extremely hot! So, any water that lands on them, turns to steam immediately. So now, not only is it hot, but it's humid too! I suppose I should be more grateful for the fact that it actually rained at all! Bad me...

Random Fact For The Day:

Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle

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

The iPod game

I know I've already posted for today but I thought that I should do this. It's the famous iPod Game! Helen did it and then I read on Travis's blog (Don't ask me why the 'bl' of blog are included in the link and not the rest...?) that he did it to so I figured that I ought to do it myself. This is how it works...

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...


01. Opening Credits: “The Zephyr Song” by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers". Not much relevence there, methinks.

02. Waking Up: “Emmulation” by me. I wrote this song a very long time ago and it's not very good. It's not on target AT all! Unless I was waking up in a fowel mood and in a huge rush.

03. First Day at School: “Saltwater” by Chicane. Not exactly first day music but I can go with that.

04. Falling in Love: “Offshore (Original Mix)” by Chicane. Not bad actually!

05. Fight Song: “Sand, Sea and Sun” by me. Another track I wrote. Most definitely off! Unless the whole fight scene was actually a paridy and also in slow motion. Ha! Ha! Ha!

06. Breaking Up: “Never Be The Same Again” by Melanie C. Most male's I know would be embarassed to say that they like this song but I do. I think it could work.

07. Prom: “Red Skies” by Chicane. Not really what I had in mind but if it was a really hectic dance then I guess it could work...sortof...

08. Life's Okay: “The Patriot Theme” from the movie 'The Patriot' – DEFINITELY not right! Unless I was an evil bad guy and my master plan was soming to a dramatic climax.

09. Mental Breakdown: “Buttercup” by Freshly Ground. It actually works really well!

10. Driving: I don't know what it's called but it's by Carine Baily Ray, I think. It works rather well. When I find out what the track is called I'll post it. It really works though.

11. Flashback: “Ganster Trippin” by Fatboy Slim. I guess a flashback to before I was born wouldn't really seem odd given my life...

12. Getting Back Together: “I feel it” by me. Totally doesn't work!

13. Wedding: “Samba de Janeiro” by Bellini. If it was the reception maybe...

14. Birth of a Child: “Homebase” by dZihan and Kamien. WOW!! Definitely works!

15. Death Scene: Part of the 'Halflight' soundtrack. Maybe if it was leading up to my death?

16. Funeral Song: “Godspeed” by BT. Not at all funeral music! Never play this at a funeral unless you are trying to severe all ties to the family!

17. End Credits: “Break & Enter” by The Prodigy. I'm okay with that.

I really think I have far too much dance music for this to work for me! Perhaps I should retry it but minus all the dance tracks...

Oh! The humiliation!

How embarassing! My readers now know what a scatter-brain I am! Helen and Angela both pointed out that the last Random Fact For The Day: was a previously used fact! So today I will post two facts to make up for it as well as my sincere appologies to the universe in general. Sorry!

And in other news, tomorrow I am going to be an extra for a TV show! Yay! If you are lost, extras are the people that fill all the space in the background, doing things like trying to buy fruit or chatting on the phone, while the main characters of the TV show do all the important stuff such as kill people or make out with someone that they barely know in public. It's gonna be a blast! I'll let you all know how it goes.

Today was a work-filled day. I went in to the zoo and did my observations early for a change. It's actually rather disturbing because I'm getting up early and working hard which all goes very much against my inner stuff. I'm not usually like this...(ask Helen!)

Well, it's that time again...Time for...

Random Fact(s) For The Day:

During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance

Einstein couldn't speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he might be retarded

I knew that second one somehow...how disappointing...

Crap! I forgot to do my...

Random Fact For The Day:

Every person has a unique tongue print

Tah-dah!

My project volunteers

Hi all!





I'm severely overdue, as usual, with this post. It's been a bit of a hectic few days so I havn't really felt all that much like attending to my blog.





First things first. Athena, as promised, here is a picture of a lemur. This one is a black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata variegata). This is the kind that I got to play with at the zoo, only mine was much smaller and had a tendency to look rather terrified at the sheer size of everything around him. The pic comes from http://www.trekearth.com/.

So, this weekend was the first of the sessions at the zoo with my volunteers. For those who are as lost as a russian in a swahili tribe, my masters project requires that I use volunteers to collect some of my data. It went incredibly well and Iwas left feeling a little spare becuase the volunteers, all high school students, caught on really quickly and were all finished up in no time at all! But I suppose that it's better that way than to have a group of morons who can't understand that they must write their name down and have a photo taken.

Saturday was also my sisters birthday! They are now 19yrs old. I somehow never thought that they would ever get to that age. They have always been my little sisters so to imagine them as old as I was at one stage seems rather odd. I know this is all very silly but that is how my mind works. They were ver uncooperative and said that we mustn't get them birthday presents. I refused to not get them something so I am going to take them to the movies some time.

They went off to a gig on Saturday evening and so I went to a pizza evening at my cousins house. It was really fun. David, Duncan and I filmed this ridiculously silly action movie over the course of the evening which was really fun! It is so funny! Probably only to us...but I enjoyed it so I don't really care.

Sunday saw a family lunch for my sisters birthday. We also had my sisters friend over. It was really nice and at the end of the day my sisters and I went off to the movies with some family friends. I must admit that it was a little awkward as I havn't really kept in touch with them for ages but it was nice.

We went to see 'The Fountain' which was beautiful. It did get rather annoying at times, such as the 5min shots of a bald Hugh Jackman floating through space in a bubble on his way to a large celestial dust cloud. Those bits were a little too '2001: A Space Odessy' for my tastes.

Then yesterday was my sisters curriculum planning at Wits. So I took her in and showed her where she was supposed to be and all. I also went and did some work in my lab and went to the zoo.

And today was brilliant because my supervisor said that he thought that one of my ideas for my project was brilliant! It's a really good feeling when one's supervisor or boss applaudes you. I know this sounds very lapdog-ish but as I said before, I don't care.

And tonight it's off to dinner with Sarah and Tom (possibly others). Lookin forward to it!

The internet is a wonderful thing

Howdy folks!

Just the other evening, I was browsing the web for information on exotic fruit. I have always wanted to taste all the amazing exotic fruit that abounds on our little blue orb. It all started when I tried star fruit for the first time. They are these amazing fruits that form these five kind of fins that are all joined and so when you cut them in half, it makes a star shape! They are really cool and taste amazing! Their flavour is very delicate and is almost like a granadilla but not. I really like them but many people say that they are insipid in flavour, but not I!

Anyway, the point of this little ramble is that somehow whilst floating my way through the cyber ocean, I happened to bump into a really old game that I used to play when I was younger. It is none other than 'Jazz Jackrabbit 2'. I say old because it came out in 1997. I was twelve then...

I ended up downloading the demo and trying it out once again. It was awesome! It's such a cute game and it really fun to play, not to mention that it was great to relive that chunk of childhood. And now, I am left with a problem. I want more. I have really been enjoying it and, to quote Faithless in their song entitled 'I want more', I want more!

I have searched the internut and there is nothing there...:(

And in other news, I am sure that I'm supposed to be going in to University now but I'm not really sure what I'd do if I went there. It's a little worrying because I'm scared that I'm not working when I should be and that my supervisor is going to crap on me for it. But at the same time, I have nothing to do and I'm at the zoo everyday so...

Random Fact For The Day:

Every person has a unique tongue print

Josh! He's SO cute! - Part II

Well guys, today I finally got to meet Josh the chimp for real. It wasn't technically the first time because as many of you avid blog readers will remember, I originally saw him a few months ago. And he was adorable then and nothing has changed! Here is a photo of the little ruffian that I took today:

This was one of the photos that I took on my cell phone. I managed to download them thanks to my sisters friend, Zelé. And thus, I am able to post you guys the photo of me lemur experience too! Yay!

Josh, because of the fact that he is still rather young and also hasn't been exposed to many people, is incredibly timid with people. He will only just let you touch him and only if he is being held at the time by Althea, his surrogate parent and friend of mine. He is SO cute though! Today he had a moment of boldness and gave my chest a poke. He obviously thought that it looked like it needed a good poking and I was more than happy to oblige!

My sister was with me at the time too as I had taken her through to our old high school to drop off some books and to collect her portfolio. It was a little odd because when I was there I saw my old, and all-time favourite teacher, Ms. Barnsley. Tom knows her through family connections. It was odd because I havn't seen her in about 5 years, so just the general awkwardness as would be expected. It was rather funny because she asked me if I still kept in contact with Duncan, who is my cousin and thus I thought it was a bit of a silly question.

Anyhoo, Gemma was with me and she too was permited the honour of touching Josh. She made little cooing noises and chatted about him all the way home. It was rather funny. Understandable though, he is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Random Fact Of The Day:

40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals

Birthdays all over!

Well hello there children!





So, today's my dad's birthday. We, being my sisters, my mom and me, all felt terrible because we didn't get him anything for his birthday. But, in our defence, he didn't actually want any gifts! I find this hard to believe but that is actually what he said! He refused to have us buy him gifts. Odd man. We kinda cheated though and went and got him a kinder egg. He was pleased. My sisters made him a big blue and orange cake which they then decorated with yellow and purple icing. My family love making cakes in all these very loud colours and complimentary combinations. I think it's quite cool! Here is a photo of the cake:

I went out this afternoon in search of candles for the cake because we soon realised that we had nothing! NOTHING AT ALL! So I went and found a crazy store that had some candles and got him a singing candle! It was really funny because as the candle played 'Happy Birthday' the tune became increasingly slow and out of key because the battery was wearing out. Needless to say, my father was most impressed.

The next one on the list is my new-found friend, and fellow vegetarian blogger (Yay! We veggie-bloggers are way cool!), Athena. Her actual birthday is on Sunday if I'm not mistaken but she is having a birthday party at her house on Saturday. Only problem is...I have no clue when or where it is and what is required for this party! Let me just find out quickly...

Tom says that it's at her house at 19:00.

Then, next would be my sisters next week. I have no idea what I'll get them at all! I never know with those two. And they hunt in pairs so it's harder to get gifts because you inevitably get gifts that are somehow unequal in their 'coolness'. Curse the fact that they are twins! Why couldn't they just be courteous and be born a year apart or something!

And now for the part you've all been waiting for...

Random Fact For The Day:

In Lebanon it is legal to have sex with a female animal, but illegal with a male one

That was a little disturbing...!

It's true! We are becoming dumber!

Well guys, the last three days have confirmed for me the terrible truth. The world is becoming dumber and dumber. I have had my suspitions for quite some time now but the horrible truth has reared its ugly bottom to moon the intelegent members of the species.



I was reading an article in the newspaper about a german motorist who managed to crash his car because his GPS navigation system told him to! Seriously! Apparently, his nav system told him to turn left and instead of actually using that large thing that holds his eyes in place, he obeyed the commands of the machine. As it turned out, he was turning left onto the pavement on the opposite side of the road and by the sounds of things, didn't think it at all odd when his car ramped the pavement. I say this because he didn't stop there. He continued to drive until his car wheels got stuck in the tram lines on the far side of the pavement. In the process of crashing his car and having to have it all cleaned up, which took a good few hours, he also managed to delay countless trams! All because he listened to a machine instead of...God forbid...THINKING!!!



Then, I was chatting to my dad the other night about how school has changed from when he was small to now and he mentioned that they didn't have calculators back then. I really don't know how they coped. I'm sure you all understand what I'm saying here. I can do math with ease, just not in my head! I can't actually think that hard! It's scary!



Then, this evening I was watching something on the National Geographic Channel about apes and it reminded me of a recent thing in the news about a potential new species of great ape found in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo). I then went online to research it a little and came across this comment which I find rather disturbing:



"We cannot rule out the possibility that it is a new species of ape, or a new subspecies or some form of hybrid," said Duane Rumbaugh, a professor at Georgia State University.

The problem here lies in the fact that the individual who said this stuff was a professor. A PROFESSOR! What kind of academic specialising in the biological sciences doesn't understand some of the most basic concepts with regard to species, sex and genetics! For all non-biologists out there, there is no way of hybridising two species unless they are very closely related and generally this doesn't lead to viable offspring, or at least offspring that are able to continue their lineage.

Now, pray, do explain how someone like that manages to become a professor? Could it be that in the world of stupid people the anecdotal phrase 'takes one to know one' really comes into play with job selection? Could an idiot have given the job position of professor to another of their kind in order to further the stupid interests of the moron agenda...?

And my final, and probably most convincing piece of evidence is still out there in the world. All you need do in order to experience the reality that idiots are taking over is go for a drive. Seriously, has anybody else noticed the incredible surge in the amount of people who do stupid things on the road? Things like not indicating and then crossing four lanes on the highway while doing over 120km/h? Anyone...? Well it's out there and it's winning the fight against the human claim of intelegence.I'm doing my bit to fight imberciles with my 'Random fact of the day' insert. What are YOU doing? ;p

Random Fact Of The Day:

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!

And in other news...here is a photo of a beetle that I found in Kamieskroon. He was a very cute beetle and he posed so nicely for his photo. I hope he is still alive and running around in the hills of Namaqualand...

I think he needs a name. All you internutters, please suggest good names for my beetle. You can post your suggestions as comments!

What is love?

Hi all!

I tried to blog yesterday but for some reason the blogger site was down or something and it wouldn't let me. Can you ever forgive me for leaving that little sliver of my life blank...?

Today when I returned from going to a meeting with my supervisor (for which, he was late for a change!), and then going to the zoo, my dad gave me an article to read from the newspaper. It was the 'Stoep talk', a daily comment section that is almost always hysterically funny. This particular one was about the responces of a group of children aged 4 to 8 yrs old to the question, 'What is love?' These were some of my favourite responces.

"When somebody loves you, the way that they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth" - Billy (4)

"Love is when a girls puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other" - Karl (5)

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs" - Chrissy (6)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend you hate" - Nikka (6)

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones" - Lauren (4)

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget" - Jessica (8)

And my favourite: "Love is what's in the room at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen" - Bobby (7)

Well, I hope you feel that your life has more meaning now. I have yet to read the rest of the paper.

Random Fact Of The Day:

George Washington grew marijuana in his garden

Hmmm...a true heart stopper.

Todays photo is of a little girl, named Gemma, who came over to myself and a group of friends while we were building a sand castle on the beach. We didn't know her from a bar of soap but she decided that we looked like we needed her guidance. In this photo she is seated at the throne that was originally intended to be a castle. Her dad is standing off to the side while a friend of mine, Alice stands in the background. I sometimes wonder what happened to Gemma...

I refuse to pay!

Hi gang!

Sorry about yesterdays rather depressing post. It's something that has been on my mind for a very long time now and I had to get it out of my system.

Today's tale is a considerably more humourous and light-hearted one than that of yesterday. It occurred this very afternoon when I went shopping with my mother. We were at a 'Pick-n-Pay', one of South Africa's largest supermarket chains. As it just so happens, apart from stocking all kinds of vegetarian foods, Pick-n-Pay's have another thing in their favour: they sell airtime for less than it is worth!

At Pick-n-Pay's airtime, or cell phone credit for those who haven't the faintest idea what I'm on about, is cheaper than it should be. Most other places charge the exact amount for their airtime, but not good old dependible Pick-n-Pay! No sir!

So anyway, today I went shopping with my mother and we were at the checkout counter and the kind checkout clerk had run up all our items when my mother remembered that she had to buy some airtime. So she asked the clerk for one of the R29,00 vouchers. The clerk replied saying that it would be another R28,00.

My mother looked annoyed. 'No, I want the twenty nine rand voucher, please.'

The clerk looked confused, but patiently responded, 'Yes, that will be twenty eight rand.'

My mother continued, 'No, you don't understand. I want the twenty nine rand voucher, not the twenty eight rand one!'

The very patient clerk looked at my mother and explained, 'No, the twenty nine rand voucher is only twenty eight rand. You save one rand!'

My mother didn't buy into it at all...

This conversation continued for some time before my sister intervened and explained to my mother that at a Pick-n-Pay, the airtime was cheaper. Upon this realisation, my mother beamed and, after paying, walked over to me and proudly declared, 'Guess what? Airtime is cheaper here!'

It was hysterical!

Random heart-stopping Fact Of The Day

A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away

This terrifying image is what greeted me every Valentines day. It's a good friend of mine, David. Every Valentines day he dresses up as cupid (with a motorbike helmet) and delivers gifts to all his friends. It's a nice jesture but he hasn't done it for some time now. He is a little odd...

Special people

Hello all!

I have just finished reading Tom's little piece on relationships. It is rather an amazing coincidence, but I was going to blog on something similar! I wanted to blog about some of the special people in my life who I love.

It all started this morning with the traditional, after-church tea with gran. We arrived at her place and she had somehow managed to whip together the tea and some cake and stuff by the time we arrived which is unusual because we were not late at all. So either her vitamin supplements suddenly kicked in and she shot around her home doing everything at a ridiculous pace or somehow she bent time so that she could have more time to do things in than was actually passing...

Anyhoo, while there she produced some photographs that she had dug up. My whole family passed the photos around and as per usual, I was the very last to get to look at them (perhaps I shall rant about that at a later stage...). It was good though because it gave me more time to enjoy the delicious date (not of the romantic kind) cake that she served us with our tea.

Eventually, the photos came my way and they were of my mother and my aunt feeding my sisters with bottles at my great-aunt's old house when we were all very tiny people. One of the photos in the pile was this one here:

It is a photo of three cousins. From right to left, Me, Sarah and Duncan. I really have no idea how old I was in this photo but it just made me think about my relationship with these two nutters. The three of us have always been very good friends and have gotten into countless troubles together. We just gel so well and it makes me sad to think that I don't get to see them as much as I would like to anymore.

Some history: Sarah is four years older than Duncan and I, who are only about two weeks apart. I'm the older of us. Sarah and the two of us went through a not-so-close stage when she was a teen, but since then have all been close. Then, in the early years of Varsity, Duncan and I had a huge fight which lasted, I am ashamed to say, almost a year and a bit. We didn't talk at all and I think to a degree he still holds certain things against me. And with good reason, I suppose. And this makes me angry.

I can't believe that I would let myself get into a situation where this kind of thing would happen! And how could I have turned my back on both a friend and relative?! I say relative because he is more than a cousin to me. They both are. When my family was up in Italy and I was down here, essentially living alone, they kind of adopted me. I would go visit them on weekends and they would take me with them on holiday and everything. But now, after our fight, Duncan and I are never going to be the same, and it makes me very sad.

If you ever read this, Duncan, I just want to say that I'm very sorry and that if I could go back and stop all this from happening, I would...

And to the rest of you guys, if I EVER even look like I'm heading into the same sort of scenario with anyone, slap me silly and make me realise what I'm doing! I love you guys all so much and I don't think I could ever forgive myself if I hurt you all like I've hurt Duncan. You all is ROX!

Random Fact For The Day:

A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva. For example, if strong-tasting substance like salt is placed on a dry tongue, the taste buds will not be able to taste it. As soon as a drop of saliva is added and the salt is dissolved, however, a definite taste sensation results. This is true for all foods. Try it!

Today's zoo tale

Well gang, I have achieved one of my lifelong ambitions today! A few years ago I did a project with Laura and some others on Madagascar and Lemurs. From that point onward, I have always been obsessed with lemurs. This was long before the movie 'Madagascar' came out and when it did, Helen and I sat through it discussing which species each lemur was - very sad I know, but they are SO cute!

So anyhoo, as part of my lemur fetish, I swore to myself that someday I would work on lemurs so that I could somehow hold one. Well, now I don't need to work on them!

I was walking around the zoo talking to my friend Althea, who works there as curator of the primates and reptiles. We were discussing how much work she had to do, which by the way is ridiculous! I was supposed to go with her to meet the famous Josh (http://thelifeofa20something.blogspot.com/2006/10/joshhes-so-cute.html). Anyway, we were walking and chatting and she mentioned offhand that we first had to go and give some medication to a lemur. I, naturally, was thrilled at the prospect of getting that close to a lemur and went along very willingly.

We entered the animal hospital at the zoo and Althea had a long chat with the resident vet while preparing a small dish of mashed fruit and milk formula. She then turned to me and explained that I was going to feed the baby lemur! I was over the moon!

She then went into the cage to collect the baby lemur and to administer the mother's medication. The little one was passed over to me instantly and I went off to feed him! It was so amazing! He was tiny and he was so soft! He also smelled so nice! In the same way that babies smell nice. He just kinda smelt small and cute, if that makes any sense at all.

Apparently his mother has developed some mammary infection, which means her milk secreting glands are not in a good way. As a result, she cannot produce any milk for her little baby and so he has to be fed by us humans. Normally a lemur of his age would not be weaned at all but apparently he prefers to eat fruit than to drink milk formula from a bottle.

So I got to feed the baby lemur. I had to keep putting the food right under his nose because he kept getting distracted by things and forgot that his food was there! It was so cute! However, he was very gittery! The slightest sound or sudden movement made him panic. I felt terrible when I had dipped my finger into his fruit to try and encourage him to lick it up and as I raised my hand to his face he got such a fright that he crapped himself!

He was SO cute and if I could, I would most definitely have one as a pet! I took a photo of him with my phone but alas, I have yet to figure out how to transfer photos from my phone to my laptop. When I do, you'll get to see him.

Random Fact For The Day:

A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top

Oops...about your iguana...

Due to the fact that my supervisor will be, or should be, and possibly is, back from his holiday around now, I have been spending much of my time at the zoo trying to gather data for my masters project. I say trying because one might not really expect recording what a chimpanzee is doing to be a difficult endevour, but it is. Especially when the animal in question is a female with a very young baby who is very nervous.

This is what happened today. I was watching the chimp, rather successfully, until she decided to move to another area of her enclosure. I then moved to another area in order to get a good view of the chimp and try to figure out what she was up to. Helen was with me at the time and we both ran off to try spot the old female. She had other plans and eventually I gave up and we just went walking around the zoo. It was at this stage that we ran into the exciting occurance of the day!

We were walking past an enclosure that once housed some monkeys and now houses iguanas. Or, after today, iguana...We arrived at the scene just as one of the keepers realised that one of the iguanas had just escaped from the enclosure and was sunning itself in one of the flowerbeds! The keeper naturally tried to catch it and the thing ran off.

In no time a large herd of people, keepers and members of the public had arrived and were all trying to figure out what was going on. The keepers ended up chasing the iguana into a large storm drain thingy and spent much of their time wandering up and down the drain pipe. Helen and I both tried to do some searching ourselves but to no avial. It was gone.

So now there is an iguana in the drain at the zoo.

Darn...this isn't nearly as exciting as I expected it to be...I'll have to try harder next time.

Random Fact For The Day

The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

Here is a photo of me trying to write out a diary of what I'd been doing on the molerat trip:

Ahem...there is a large bird in your bathroom...

Today I changed one of the lights in the garden. It was a job that was severely overdue and in a sudden fit of usefulness, I changed it. As I returned into the house, my father walked up to me and asked me if I had seen the bird. I gave him a blank look and explained that I had no idea what he was on about. He then explained to me that as I had walked out to change the light outside, a hadeda had wandered into my bathroom rather confidently. Apparently it had walked into the garage of our house, entered into the passage and had made its way into my bathroom.

My sister has a fear of birds (I don't get it at all but anyway) and she had been in my bedroom at the time, watching a DVD on my laptop. When my dad aparently told her about the hadeda, which was at that stage still in the bathroom, she had shreaked and locked herself in my room. Eventually my father managed to chase the thing out. I was rather upset that he hadn't managed to take a photo of the large ibis next to my loo so I could show you guys!

I guess this will have to do then. It's a photo that Helen took in Darling of some Hadeda's flying in a flock. And so you all know, hadeda's are very large birds. They are about 80cm long and weight about...well I don't know but I'm sure that it's a lot for a bird! Let's just say that if a house cat were to attack one from behind, the bird could easily take off and fly with the cat attached.


Random Fact For The Day:

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself.

I love my phone!

I love my new cellphone! It's so pretty and awesome and amazing and I love it! And today, at church my sister told a friend, in my presence might I add, that, and I quote, my phone was 'too cool for me'! How rude! Anyhoo, I threw something at her later on, as is customary for health inter-sibling relations ;)

Well the last couple of days have been awesome! On Thursday I went off to the zoo to observe my chimps for the first time in AGES. It was more out of fear of what would happen to me if I got to Wits to see my supervisor having done nothing at all all holiday. I doubt that he would really do anything appart from give me a rather unimpressed look and tell me to get my ass in gear and do some work. But none the less, I thought that a little work would certainly not kill me so I went off. It was great to see them again, especially because I realised that I am learning how to tell them apart which is brilliant!

Then, Friday was Tomkin's birthday! I, following a somewhat confusing conversation over chinese food, was convinced that his birthday was actually on the 7th (today) but no, it was on the 5th. We all went off to Gold Reef City, which was such fun! I havn't been to Jozi's only decent theme park in ages and so it was interesting to get to see it all again! It was so full though! There were hundreds of people with children all over the place.

Then, yesterday...is actually quite a blur in my mind. I can't for the life of me remember what the hell I did during the day. I know that I swam a lot. Our pool is amazing right now! The temperature is perfect! Anyhoo, last night was Tom's party, which was also awesome! I had such a ball! I saw Laura again, who has been away for a while, so we both caught up on what we've been up to. It was so nice to see her again and to just chill. Ten points Tomkins!

Otherwise, there has been little that is worth writing about happening in my life (save for one thing that I shan't write about). Hope yawl are doing smashingly!

Random Fact of the Day!

A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.

A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

I'm doing two today because the first one was a little lame and somewhat well known.

Random facts

I was sifting through all the random crap that fills my harddrive and I discovered a text file that I had downloaded form who knows where that contains many random facts. I shall post one with each blog entry. Here is today's one:

A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn't give her coffee.

Darn...what was I going to write about...?

I think that I am rather tired. This epiphane isn't from any kind of signal that my somewhat lazy brain is sending to the rest of me but is more due to the fact that literally seconds ago I had a topic for todays blog entry but it has totally evapourated from my skulls inner recesses...So, either I'm tired or my age is catching up to me...


This is a photo of the swallow that haunted the shed in which we worked. He was very cute!

Ten points to Helen for getting a laptop!

That reminds me. I must recount a story of Helen and birds and a frightfully carrot-up-the-arse-sounding english woman, who coincidentally does seem to have a carrot up her arse. Although, come to think of it, it's more like she has a very angry racoon up her arse...

The story begins at the begining of 2006, our honours year. Helen and I happened to both be tutoring for the same course. The course was run by a particular staff member who nobody else in our department, apart from our head of school seems to like much. She is the lady in question, mentioned above. So as not to incriminate anyone, I shall refer to her in this story as 'Caroline' (Ha ha!).

Anyway, one day, Helen and I had to go and speak to 'Caroline' about how one of the practicals was going to be run. Neither of us wanted to attend this practical as it was one of the more shitty ones and it involved trapsing around a very large park ooo-ing and aah-ing at random birds that happened to fly past at the time - something about learning how to identify birds or some nonsense. Herein lies the root of the story, for Helen is hopeless at identifying birds. And, as part of her argument against attending the practical, she mentioned this to 'Caroline'. Upon hearing this, 'Caroline' recoiled in horror and insisted that Helen actually new much more than she thought.

'Caroline' then went on to explain to Helen how easy birding was. At this point I feel it is important to mention that Helen and I had gone to see 'Caroline' during our lunch break and had intended to go and buy spinach and feta pies from the theatre after our little chat with 'Caroline'. we had intended for our meeting to last only a short while - 5 min at the most. However, 'Caroline' had other plans.

"You see, birds are not as difficult as you might think," she said in her hot-potato-in-the-mouth british accent that just makes you want to slap her silly! "You can easily tell them apart. I mean, you know what a duck is, don't you? A duck is a duck is a duck. And you certainly can't confuse something like a weaver for anything else now can you? A weaver is clearly a weaver. Ostriches are so distinctive that there is no way of confusing them! An ostrich is an ostrich is an ostrich! And what about chickens! You certainly know what those look like and I'm confident that you will be able to point one of those out. And pigeons! Pigeons are SO easy to spot! I mean a pigeon is a pigeon, it can't be anything else! And doves are so common that you must know what a dove is! And geese are all over! A goose is a goose is a goose! Nobody can confuse those! And you know what a sparrow is. They are so easy to tell apart from the other birds. And, I mean, there is no way of confusing a peacock with anything else, now is there? And very few people can claim to be unable to identify a penguin. They are so distinctive! And all those birds of prey. An eagle is so clearly an eagle that it can't be confused for, say, a duck! After all, a duck is a duck is a duck..."

And so the very one-sided conversation continued until there was practically not a single kind of bird that had been forgotten, as if she was worried that the birds forgotten might find her and beat her up for making them feel left out! Eventually, we both, Helen and I, resorted to agreeing with everything that she said in the hopes that we might eventually get to go and actually eat something. Finally, after about 25min of bird speech, we were released to go and feed.

In the end we did attend the practical. We ran away after about 10min...

New years! (I.E. 2007)

Well gang, another year has come and gone and the world is still turning. It has been one hell of a year! So much has happened and I, personally have had a rather hectic emotional time this year. Firstly, as most of you will know from all my bitching, it has been my honours year and thus has been the most exhausting and overworked year of my life! Then, this was the year that my grandfather died. It took a major toll on all the family. It was the year that my parents returned home to South Africa from Italy which was also quite an emotional rollercoaster. My sisters underwent major surgery and treatment to have their jaws fixed up which has certainly been an experience for all of us.

It was also the first time that I attended an 'H2O' party! It was awesome! H2o for those who are confused is a kind of day long rave thing that is held at a water park here in Joburg. They have them throughout the year but I went to my first one last night - the new years party! It was amazing! I'm actually exhausted as a result...so todays should be a short post.

Everyone else has done the whole new years resolutions thing but I will break the mould and NOT do this! Wow...I'm such a rebel. Seriously, I don't see the point. They are just a bunch of promises that you make to yourself that you secretly know that you won't keep anyway so why bother. And besides, New Years, as an event, is pretty meaningless anyway. It is simply the end of a technical year that way placed on an arbitrary day.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily anti-New Years! In fact, I am all for celebrating. I really think that we don't party enough and that we should use any excuse to all get plastered and dance the night away! I just don't think that people should put so much significance into it and make empty promises and what not.

Sorry, I'm tired and so I'm not feeling particularly enthusiastic about life in general. Also, after reading Sarah's post about Sadam, I'm a little peeved at the universe in general.

Ooo! I forgot to say that at H2O, Dave (Friend) and I saw two celebrities! We saw a presenter from SABC3, Graham Richards, and some chick from ISIDINGO whose name is unknown to me. Some drunk guy spilled his beer onto Graham Richards's shoes. It was so funny!

And I shall end today's post with a short story that Helen forgot to mention on one of her posts. It concerns the swallow that she mentioned. It lived in the shed that we worked in. He lived on the floor and my guess was that he had tried to fly a little early, had fallen out of the nest and had lived on the floor instead. His parents were always around and would come flying past your head when you walked in which, despite expecting it, never ceased to freak me out.

One day we were offloading some stuff from our vehicle into the shed and the little swallow was hopping along the floor. I stopped to watch him and as I watched, he hopped along toward the door. He stopped on the rim of the door frame and looked around for a bit. He seemed to be surveying the world, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, rather unexpectedly as most sudden things are, he opened his wings and flew off! I had witnessed the first *successful* flight of a baby swallow! It was beautiful and I felt honoured to have been present for such a momentous occasion in the life of that tiny, somewhat ugly, creature.