Oh my gas 2: The sequal

All I can say is, oh my gas. My mother has completely lost her mind...

I arrived home today rather late from university as I had to prep 7 dung samples in the hopes that they will be dry by Saturday and I'll never have to do any more dung analysis ever again. I was greeted at the door by my sister who had come to let the dog out. I entered the house as Gogga, the dog, pranced around my feet and occasionally crashed into stuff. As I rounded the corner into my room I noticed something odd. There was a large grey plastic packet on my bed.

I approached the packet cautiously, half expecting it to explode, half expecting it to contain loads of sweets with a corny note saying, 'For our sweet son'. It's the kind of thing my parents would do. The sweets...not leaving bombs on my bed for when I get home.

I looked in. It was full of plastic containers. For a second I was perplexed. It then hit me like a nursery school bully...

It was dietary suppliments! My mother has consulted her boss, the dietitian, about the fact that I am stressed at the moment and has organised me millions of pills and brightly coloured capsules to ease the stress of my everyday existence!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not ungrateful, nor am I opposed to taking vitamen and mineral suppliments. But I think that taking a total of up to 38 pills daily (even number sarah!) is a tad excessive! The doctor even gave me a timetable of how and when to take them! It includes a line about the importance of remaining regular, if you know what I mean...

So from now on I have to prep little party-packs of vitamens, zinc and calcium to take with me to Wits to have with my lunch. I practically don't have to eat anymore!

On the flip side, I watched my first-ever episode of 'Scrubs' today. It was REALLY funny! I need the box set...

Another thing that happened today was really awkward. I was in the honours room trying to work and I realised that Laura and Jason (her boyfriend) were making out in the honours room, behind some other peoples desks! It was horrible! I tried really hard to concentrate but I kept on hearing all these wet slurping and poping sounds with random rubbing sounds every now and again! It was so...eeeuuglh! Sarah and Margaret thought that it was all very funny when I told them...

Well, it's late and I have to write a Stats report tomorrow so I'm going to sleep now. It's so cool having a laptop and being able to sit in bed and surf the internut at the same time! Hooray!

I really wish I could get angry...

I've had a really bad day. It has made me wish I could be like most people and get really angry, kick something and feel better. I can't. It sucks. A good cry every now and again helps though...

Why the hell this still comes as a surprise to me is somewhat baffling but, blogger won't let me upload a photo!

I REALLY don't have time to post today but I thought that I should mention that yesterday, Helen was my knight in shining armour who saved

me from the perils of traffic by sending me directions as I tried to navigate my way from Ravonia to Wits without taking the highway. Spanks Helen!

It appears that the computer somehow sensed my current mood and decided that it probably was a good idea to cooperate (for once) and post my photo!

The point of this is to show just how amazing the sea is. I mean, who can honestly say that this image doesn't appeal to them on some level! I took this photo on my mini-holiday-ete (it was only three days of which I could only speak for one due to a brilliantly timed *and my first ever* case of larangitis).

Oh my gas!

Hi all!

I have a little bitching to do but I'll get it out of the way so that I can write happy things.

-Begin Bitch-

I spent 4 hours in the car today driving around! It has TOTALLY ruined my day! I hate other people on the road! Why can't they all live and work in another country or something! Bloody hell! The worst part was that it took me 2 hours to get my mom to work and then a measly half an hour to get to Wits! And there are so many idiots on the road that seem to think that somehow, by driving right up your arse, they'll get to work 5 min sooner...

It really makes you wonder about natural selection...I mean surely if natural selection actually worked, all the stupid people in the world would not be reproducing. However, by simply walking out of your house, the evidence says otherwise.

-End Bitch-

I really miss the sea at the moment. I realise how silly that may sound but I haven't had a holiday all year and the ocean has a particular place in my heart. Does anyone out there get me on this? I know Sarah loathes the beach for cullinary reasons (it interferes with sandwiches). I think that the sea is the most awesome place I've ever been to. I have a feeling that a rainforest may compete with the beach on the awesomeness scale but I've never been to one so I can't say for sure. I've heard that rainforests are not all as cool as they seem on TV. They have millions of bugs and parasites and stuff that makes life in them generally unpleasant.

Random, I know, but my laptop fixed itself last night! It was wonderful! It has had this trojan on it for ages that I knew was there but my antivirus software refused to recognise. I tried a million things to remove it but nothing seemed to work. Then, last night for no apparent reason, my laptop just decided to recognise it and do something about it! It was brilliant!

I'm trying to post a video that I took on my last trip to the ocean but it doesn't seem to want to work...Sorry...Blogger hates me...

Thats all for today kiddies! I'm starving and so I'm off to see what has happened to dinner...

Adios!

I'm here now!

Greetings

I have just returned from the funny workshop thing that I mentioned in the previous post. It was dumb. I did however get my quote of the day from it. It was said by a rather odd and daft sounding individual whose first name was Petrus and whose surname obviously didn't warrent space in my limited memory. He said:

'The tree are pumping up water, like a water pump'

I hosed myself! The other thing was that I was giggleing to myself, next to one of the only Afrikaans people I know, Marlien. It was really akward, but not that bad because then she told me how she loved ripping him off because of his inability to utilise the English language. That was all during talk number 4.

The first talk seemed to have no particular purpose. Some ex-Witsie stood up and went on about the media and something or other. I was enthralled as I'm sure you can tell from the astounding detail in my description. The most prominent thing that I can remember from her talk was that she said that she probably drank too many ciders while at Wits.

Talk two was from a woman who was very green. She was wearing this lumo-green thing and it made her stick out hectically! It was made so much worse by the fact that she was really loud, verbally. She did this talk thing on her company, Food and Trees for Africa. It all sounds like a really good idea but can potentially lead to massive problems in future if it is not governed properly.

I would like to take this oportunity to make a small shout out to my pal, Pinky!

The third one was by some lady who claimed to have discovered numerous things that are basically common knowledge. These included a particular type of plant, that gorilla's live in the Congo and that they are endangered as well as the fact that botanical gardens are actually Zoos for plants. She also ranted about how her supervisor refused to let her continue her study...It was dumb.

I may have tick-bite fever...

The rest of the talks were really rather inconsequential.

Today in a lecture, our lecturer was trying to explain to us just how it was that birds urine is collected. In case you are wondering why this should be a problem, birds only have one opening on the 'other end'. So, they don't urinate or deficate, they do both at the same time!

Anyhoo, he was explaing to us how this all worked and started off by saying, "You have to take a small tube, cut a hole near the top of it and insert the tube into...wait, let me show you." He then stood up. We all recoiled in horror, expecting him to drop his pants and shove something up his ass. It turned out he wanted to draw a diagram on the white board.

We were relieved...

And thus, concludes my latest post. I hope that it has lived up to your expectations! Have a brilliant day!

Stupid mechanic...

Hi all

I realise that I did promise to post last night and failed to do so. I'm sorry. I was just so incredibly tired and I'd had a bad day of note so I went to bed instead. I will have to create a proper post later today because I have to go off to a workshop on biological control. It looks interesting and I really enjoyed the biocontrol stuff I did last year so I'm sure I'll enjoy this one.

The title refers to the idiot mechanic that alledgedly fixes my car. He was supposed to fix my breaks which were not entirely 100% functional and yesterday I was nearly in an accident as a result of his "fixing" the breaks.

Anyhoo, I'll write again later!

Have a great day!

Beautiful, strange

Heya!

How goes the universe? I hope you are all okay. It is terrible when someone you know ends up in a rut. So, what have I been up to?

Well, it is Saturday evening and I'm sitting at home right now. Sad, I know but I did do my bit of socialising today! I went off with Kathleen, Josh and Eebee to lunch at some funny little Chinese place in Cyrildene. We were originally going to go for dinner but somehow, it changed and we went for lunch instead.

We got to this place and had a look at the menu. There was a very small portion of the menu that we all could actually eat, given that I'm a vegetarian, Kath and Josh are both vegans and Eebee is halaal and so basically is a vegetarian whenever we eat out. We had to choose from a selection of tofu and vegetable dishes. Kath and Josh ordered this really cool soupstuff that was kind of like having boiled rocket and strips of tofu. It sounds rather unappetising but it was really nice! Certainly much nicer than what I ordered. I ordered some tofu slices fried in soy sauce and noodles.

The noodles were weird and very fat, not the skinny kind that you expect after having only ever experienced the 2-min kind of noodle. The tofu tasted like smoked nothing and had the texture of a partially scrambled egg...and given that I am not a fan of eggs, this was not cool!

Well after that, I went and had a can of coconut juice to wash it all down. I love coconut juice! It is my favourite! Most people would find it disgusting but I really like the stuff! So, I figured that since I had enjoyed it so much, I should try and broaden my horizons and try someof the other lesser known drinks available from the chinese community.

Big mistake...

If you are ever offered one of the following, scream and run!

The one on the left is the safest bet if you ever have to drink something on pain of death. It is guava juice (even though it is suspiciously white in colour...). The middle one is white guard juice which kinda tastes like ice-cream and maple syrup (trust me...not a good thing!). The most sinister of these is the one on the right: 'Grass Jelly Drink'.

Never again!

On a considerably lighter note, yesterday, I went in to Wits with my cousin, Duncan. We went off to Biosoc, which I havn't done in ages and I had a blast! I doubt that Duncan enjoyed it as much as I did but at least he came. I got to meet a whole bunch of new people, such as Pam, the teacher in training, and Richard, one of the readers of this very blog! If your name isn't Richard, I humbly appologise. My ability to learn and retain peoples names is really shocking. Sorry!

At Biosoc, some poor sod passed out on the grass which was a huge mistake on his part! He was promptly tied to the dustbin with hazard tape,had his shoelaces tied together, had a table cloth drapped over him and had a large sign with an arrow propped against his back. Poor bugger. For a brief period, it seemed he was going to be upchucking all over but luckily, nothing happed.

After the comparatively entertaining Biosoc, Duncan and I headed off to try the other bars on campus. We decided to head off to Baqt (Pronounced 'Bact') in the hopes of finding Laura there. She works there on a Friday as a barmaid. We met up with her and she gave us discounted drinks which was cool! Literally 5 min after we arrived there, it closed so we had to clear off. Laura said that we should all go to another bar called 'The Boz' which was supposed to be really, in her words, 'pumpin'.

It wasn't...

So Duncan and I decided to wait a while in the hopes of finding Laura. She never pitched, so we headed off home. Duncan dropped me off at home and we intended to go out again. However, after a bite to eat, I felt so sick that I couldn't go anywhere! All that alcohol had been very happy just sitting in my stomach on it's lonesome. Once food came into the equation, no-one was happy.

So anyhoo, after that graphic description, I shall bid you adeau (or however you spell it!). Cheerio all! I'll be going off to Biosoc again next week, so any readers of this, I expect you to be there too! Unless of course you happen to be on another continent or something...

Bye!

A quickie

Hey all!

I thought I should just write a short entry considering I havn't done anything for absolute AGES! Hope you all are well and that the universe is treating you okay.

I have been working like a mad thing all week! I have done so much since Monday, it is nuts! I have done nearly all of my preparation for the workshop on chimps at the zoo next Saturday and I have prepped dung, TA'ed and discovered the joys of polyurithane and acetone! I have also made an ass of myself twice over the course of a single day!

If I feel particularly inspired, I'll write more tomorrow evening...

Cheerio!

Weekend!

Today is Saturday! Hooray!

So, since the last episode of my life, I havn't really gotten up to all that much.

Yesterday was the day of a protest march against seal clubbing in Namibia. I was horrified to learn that in Namibia they still club seals for their pelts! There are practically no measures in place to control the seal hunting there and as a result, the government keeps the activity of their seal pelt industry under wraps. Here is some facts about it that were e-mailed to me by my friend Kathleen:

Harvests of 7 to 9 month old baby nursing seal pups (which are protected in South Africa) takes places at Cape Cross Marine reserve and Wolf/Atlas Bay in the De Beers controlled diamond restricted area in Namibia. Seals were banned from islands in South Africa and forced to bred in Namibia on the mainland to make their killing easier. Baby nursing seals are rounded up and herded in-land away from the sea. Held in groups they await their slaughter. Panic is high. Released in small groups with their mothers, these pups try to reach the safety of the sea, as they are forced to run between a guantlett of men with clubs. Most of the time, they are not killed with the first blow to the head, and lie there suffering until clubbed or stabbed in the heart, some time later. Harvest quotas are supposed to be set as high as 30% of the pups born. Cape fur seals, a completely different species to the harp seals, suffer natural mortality in first weeks from birth of 25-32% to this Namibian adds a sealing quota. Namibia has stated that the seal pup production is 73% pre-1993 population. Which means in 13 years there has been no growth and the population is 27% lower than 1993. The harvest for 1993 was set at 30% or 50 850 pups on 164 000. The harvest for 2006, with a population 27% lower, has been increased by 68% to 85 000 on a population of 119 000. Taking into account the natural mortality of 25-32% these pups suffer - the 2006 sealing quota of 85 000 will kill all the pups on the colony from 1st July - a seal pup genocide. Namibia bans seals from most islands larger than 3 ha, and forced these seals to bred on the mainland. Numerous former island seal colonies off Namibia are now extinct. Current sealing practices are not humane or sustainable - simple because if practiced on seals in their natural breeding habitat - islands, from which they are banned will directly lead to extinction of that seal colony. Sealers in Namibia, of which there are only 3 concession holders who employ less than 150 workers, use a common garden pic-axe handle as a club and are migrant, part-time workers who are un-trained. No fisherman are employed in sealing industry and therefore if sealing ends, none with lose their jobs or income. Seals on islands that have not been disturbed, culled or harvested - have shown no growth in the population since population surveys started in 1971. Seals currently only breed on 2% of the over 1000 ha protected for them, they are banned from the rest. Since 1988, seals have suffered 3 mass die-off's from starvation from over-fishing, in 1988, 1994 and 2000. Where one third to one half died of starvation. The population has still not recovered, as is still down 27% on 13 years ago. There is no profitable market for seal skins, which receive US $3 per pelt. 63% of the seal pups weight is discarded as waste. Namibia claims seals are a threat to fisheries, yet all breeding cows have been exempted from killing for 100 years. Sealing disrupts the population male-female ratio - because females are exempt, and mostly only the larger male pups are harvested, creating an unnatural female surviving pup population.

I was really sorry about not being able to attend. I think that it is disgusting that a practice that is so barbaric is still happening just next-door! I really wish I could have been there for it...

On the flip side, I am really glad that I didn't actually end up going because I attended a talk about infering animal behaviour from fossilized termite mounds. I realise just how nerdy I sound, but it was really interesting and it resulted in me meeting up with someone that may be my ticket to a free holiday in December!

About a year ago, I went with Helen to help one of the post-doc students with her field work. Her name was Lydia Du Toit and she was trapping mole-rats. We had such a jol and it I got invaluable experience from the whole thing. Unfortunately, Lydia left to live in Germany soon thereafter. She was a joint student of Wits and Pretoria University.

Ironically enough, yesterdays talk was by a guy from Pretoria Univeristy and he had brought one of his students along as well. It turns out that this student of his was the 'replacement student' for Lydia, and is German! And ironically enough, she is also working on mole-rats. She has absolutely no experience with trapping them and so, was looking for field assistants to go on her trip. So Helen and I volunteered ourselves for it and she said that she'll let us know when she's going to go!

*Fingers crossed*!

I also went to the zoo yesterday to see one of the zoo vets for Helen. I was basically acting as driver seeing as she wrecked her car. We got to see a baby Margay (type of wild cat) that had been born moments before that! We also were shown the zoo's new frog breeding project! It was amazing!

I then came home and had dinner with some family friends who are out here from the US. They live in Laguna Beach. It was so nice to see them again! You never really notice just how much you miss people until you see them again...

That's all for today yo'al!

Oh my gas...

Holy bananas! Moments ago I found out that my friend, Helen, just wrote off her car! Well, in all truth, it wasn't moments ago. It was about 20 minutes ago. But the fact remains, she wrecked her vehicle!

Apparently, about 5 minutes after we all left Wits, all being Eebee, Helen and I, one of her tires burst and she lost control of the car! The car flew perpendicularly accross the road and crashed into the barrier on the opposite side. In the process, she miraculously didn't hit any other cars but burst both front tires, trashed the radiator and wrecked the front of the bodywork. The chassis is okay but she sounded really shaken. She is fine too. Not a scratch luckily for her.

Apparently the AA took forever to help out and so she only got home around 9:30 pm. We left Wits around 6:30 pm! Poor kid was stuck on the side of the road for almost 3 hours!

And in other news, today it sleeted in Johannesburg! Joburg hasn't had anything close to snow in about 23 years so today was really exciting! I was on my way to the zoo to fetch a document from Althea with Helen, Brian and a guy from the lab that Helen works in called Trevor. Trevor has spent the last 6 or so months on Marion Island, an island off the South African Coast that is bloody cold! It snows there all the time. So, today while it was sleeting and the rest of us were getting all excited, he kept trying to remind us that it wasn't real snow so we shouldn't get all excited. We just ignored him any filled our bodies with bliss in the form of adrenalin.

At the zoo I met a whole lot of new people while waiting for a blizzard to hit. It never did. In fact, it continued to sleet for another hour or so and then stopped. There were a lot of photographers from different newspapers there to take photos of the recent additions thanks to the baby-boom.

After getting the stuff from the zoo I returned to Wits and had to go off to TA this afternoon. It was fun. For a change, the students actually seemed to know what was potting and so didn't need all that much help. We assisted where necessary but it wasn't really a frequent occurance. Once the TA'ing was over, I just headed off to my office to get something warm to drink. It was freezing all day!

After the warm drink I went off to do my dung analysis which was surprisingly short today. Granted, I only had a single sample to examine but still. I then came home, had some dinner, watched another amazing episode of 'Lost' and returned to my room to discover Helen's unfortunate circumstances.

Speaking of which, I am most annoyed at the producers of 'Lost'! Next week's is the final episode of the season and they apparently have yet to begin/finish (depends on who you speak to) the next season! I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!!! The last few episodes have been totally AMAZING and I just know that they will end off the season with a cliff-hanger of note!

Well that's all for now. I end this day's blog with a photo I took in Italy of one of my favourite places in the mountains there. It is what I hope Johannesburg will look like by tomorrow morning! *Fingers Crossed*

What a brilliant day!

Hi all!

I was just reading some of my previous blog titles and they are all so pesimistic! I thought, seeing as today was a relatively good day I should brighten things up by having some kind of cheery title.

Yesterday I went to the zoo to visit Althea, who is explained below. I went to collect my zoo access card for next year and ended up staying for 3 hours while Althea took myself and Helen around to show us all kinds of stuff. There is a baby boom at the zoo at the moment so we got to see a baby gibbon (ape), black antelope, mona monkey and a heavliy pregnant female chimpanzee! It was so cool! The antelope was being taken for a walk and it was so brave, it walked right up to us! We fed the gibbon mom some banana so we could see the baby. I'm seriously considering looking into getting a job at the zoo. It would be amazing! But it is really long hours hand for 6 days a week!

So today was good for many reasons. Firstly, I got to sleep late-ish. I was supposed to be up at 8:30 but I just couldn't get myself out of bed! I kept falling asleep again. It was rather frustrating but I got up eventually.

I went in to Wits with a few things on my 'To do' list. I had to go to the zoo at some stage to pick up some literature from my zoo-keeper pal/associate, Althea. I'm not sure what I should be terming her. She is a connection that I have at the zoo from third year and she is really cool. She was incharge of the carnivores at the time and our work there was on the cheetah, Cole. She is more of a friend than just some arb person that I know at the zoo. She is in charge of all the primates and reptiles there so I'll be working with her next year.

This is a photo of Cole on top of the mound we created in his cage to try to make it more interesting. If we had taken this photo a few hours later, Cole would have been nowhere near the mound and there would have been a large turd where he should have been. It actually happened...

Anyway, I didn't end up going to see Althea because shehad forgotten to take the paper to work with her so I'll have to go tomorrow some time instead.

The next good thing that happened today was that I got all of my marking done for the second years! They handed in an assignment on Friday but we were not allowed to fetch it until Monday and I didn't manage to do much marking yesterday. So I made it my mission to get through all the crap they handed in to us today. And I DID! Yay!

Then, I got a call from my supervisor, Neville to have a meeting after lunch. I had sent him an e-mail to say that I didn't want to bother him on his first day back after his leave and so I would see him tomorrow but he rather asked me to come to see him today. I spoke to him about all the stuff that I had done while he had been away and how my project is going and he assured me that I was 100% on track and that everything was going swimmingly! I was so chuffed because I had been worried that things were getting a little out of hand.

It rained today! I LOVE the rain! It is one of my favourite weather phenomena! That and snow! I just love the sound of the rain falling on the roof and watching the multitudes of little drops plummet to the earth to splash on the dark earth. That smell is amazing too! Nothing comes close to giving me that experience.

Then, I did my dung analyses and packed up to go home. On my way down to the car with Helen, we ran into one of the masters students from last year, who coincidentally is also named Luke. It was really nice to see him again. He's cool but he is doing his masters by course work and so he is never out and about.

On my drive home it rained again which was amazing!

I got home and had some supper while watching 'The Amazing Race'. It's the family one and my opinion of the show has dropped like a fat person on a diving board. It was my all time favourite reality show but now the family team thing is ruining it! I shant watch any more of this season to preserve my mental image of the best reality show...

Then I discovered that the dogs had taken a dump in the garage which I had to clean up...not cool...

I also discovered that my family just baught a computer today at a whim.It was really random!

That's all for today! Cheerio!

I hate the 1st world...

Hi all

It has been quite some time since I last updated here. My excuse is that I was rather tired. I have been geting to bed rather late lately because I have been working on my video thing of my coastal holiday. It's rather annoying to get the video going. I have to write a song for it and I have no clue what to do. I mean, I know how to write a song, it's just that I can't seem to come up with anything good. A sort of song-writers block if you will...

So on Thursday morning, I was supposed to go and see Althea, one of the keepers at the zoo about my access card for next year. However, literally at the last minute she canceled on me saying that she had to participate in somekind of assessment thing that was happening at the zoo. I am kind of stressing about it because I'm supposed to pick them up for both Neville and I to have access, and Neville gets back from his leave next week. He asked me to have it done by the time that he returns.

But, fear not! I have organised a meeting on Monday for exactly that. Neville only gets back on Tuesday.

Yesterday at Wits, I downloaded all of the Cell C adverts. You can download them off their website. They are hysterical! My favourite is the very last one that you can download. It is the one with the woman who walks through her house and everything is perfect. Things then go horribly wrong when she knocks her head on an open cupboard door. It is brilliant!

So anyhoo, I watched the movie 'The Constant Gardener' last night. I first saw it on a plane when I was returning to South Africa after my December European holiday. It is a brilliant movie and I recomend it 1000000%! However, I find it very sad because for most, that is all it is! Just a story. They don't realise that, while the subject matter may not be truthful, the basic storyline is happening every day all over the third world. The first world countries screw the third world over in order for them to live the comfortable lives that they lead, while millions die from diseases, starvation and a lack of sanitation!

Another movie along the same lines that I think everyone should watch is 'Hotel Rwanda'. That is a true story. All of what happened in that movie happened to real people! It makes me so mad to think that people around the world have watched that movie and walk out of the cinema thinking, "What a terrible thing to have happened! Those poor people..." and yet there is no actual reaction! No pressure on governments to alleviate poverty. No pressure to stop dictators such as uncle Bob over in Zimbabwe. It makes me sick sometimes...

I really think that a prerequisite for anyone doing politics or international law should be that they are required to do one years community service with a humanitarian aid organisation! That way they will be forced to see, smell, taste the lives that the third world lives every day and see that these people are not just numbers or aids patients or the kids with flies on their faces in the pictures in 'TIME'.

Sorry about my ranting but I just get very upset when I think about the way that the first world fucks the rest of us over...I have been over to Europe and have seen the attitudes and ideas that the people there have and so, to a degree, I'm not just pulling this all out of my arse.

Well, on that cheerful note, I bid you all farewell. Have a good day and I'll write again soon.

About being late

Hi all

There are different types of people in this world, everyone knows that. We all have our little niche which we occupy and our own quirks. It appears that my role on this planet is to be the one that is perpetually late. Or just never pitch at all...

This morning, I went to brunch with my friend Alice, who's brother passed away last week. My mother has been meaning to get her a card but never got round to it until last night, when I mentioned that I was going to brunch and she decided that she was going to go to buy one on the way home from dropping my sisters off at school. However, something happened to my grandmother and she had to be taken to hospital to have her hand looked at, so the responability of the card fell onto me.

So, on my way to brunch today I went and got the card at a CNA. Naturally, my indecisiveness at card selection lead to my being late for brunch. I arrived at the Mugg & Bean at Killarney (Shout out to all my peeps at Killarney!) and I gave her the card and we all started chatting and stuff. Then, a little later, a friend of Alice's arrived and produced a gift.

It was at this stage with horror that the reality of the situation dawned on me. It was Alice's birthday and I had completely forgotten...

My mental train was late. Severely overdue. In fact, it never pitched at all.

In a lame attempt to save myself I mentioned in passing that I hadn't had time to go buy her a present yet. However, I'm pretty sure she know's that I am a nitwit.

Then, after we had all ordered food and stuff, the Mugg & Bean people took SO long to bring my food that I ended up late for another thing today! I was supposed to be teaching Eebee and Brian how to do dung analysis and arrived 20 min late, and then took another 10 trying to organise all the stuff that I needed to do it all!

The rest of the day went relatively smoothely but the night is still young! I am supposed to go off to the movies tonight with Eebee and Helen to see 'Over the hedge'. Undoubtably I'll be really late for that too!

A photo from my beach holiday:

It's the truth, I swear!!!

I tried to blog yesterday, I really did! But the internet went on the brink and as a result, I couldn't get online to blog!

Anyway, The last two days were rather dull. I just stayed at home as much as possible and did as little as possible. I don't really remember what I did all day appart from composing some music on my laptop and doing dung analysis at Wits in the evening. I know...it is very sad that I went in to University voluntarily on my weekend but I have a fridge full of baboon crap and I need to get through it all!

Dung analysis isn't quite as painful as you might think...I thought that the stench would be overwhelming and that I would have lost all traces of appetite that I may have had. But it is not so! To be honest, it really is a (excuse the pun) shitty thing to have to do but it's not as bad as you would imagine. Especially if you have music to listen to.

I am tempted to post a photo or two of the dung but shall not for the sake of my somewhat diminutive number of readers. I can't afford to loose any!

Today was much of the same. Visited my grandmother who managed to fall and hurt her knee's literally about 4 times in one week but is okay now. Helped prep lunch. Finished the song I started yesterday. Did more dung stuff at Wits. Returned home...Found the following...

Check out this link...it's just bizzare!

http://members.aol.com/zedvid/cous.html

Tomorrow is Eebee's 21st birthday and seeing as how he hates cats and all I sent him the following with a birthday message:

I have a feeling that this hasn't exactly made my number of readers skyrocket...

That's all for now. Will write tomorrow! Cheerio!

Well this is crap...

Hi guys

Another late post, another hectic past-few-weeks. So much has happened in my life and I feel really crap about it at the moment. I'll start at the beginning.

After returning from my fieldwork where I attained an impressive half hour of data (This is distinctly unimpressive by the way- I was being sarcastic...), I had one of those get-your-life-in-order fits that happens every now and again. They are generally not too bad but once in a while I do them and end up tidying stuff away, never to be seen by human eyes again. It is the famous incidence of 'putting it somewhere safe'. I'm sure you know what I mean.

This particular fit was luckily not one of those. I went in to Wits and typed up all my data that I have collected for my baboons over the year. To my horror I discovered that I had a grand total of...wait for it...two and a half hours of data!

That is NOTHING! As a scientist you can't even dream of producing a paper with data like that! I have to have 200 hours by the end of the year in order to be able to write it up! So I had a mild panic attack.

Actually, it wasn't mild...

I just remembered that Laura has returned from London. She said it was brilliant.

So in mid-panic, I sent an e-mail to Neville, requesting an emergency meeting. He granted me this meeting and I went off to see him a few days later. It was the only time that he had available on such short notice, so I took it.

At the meeting I explained the situation to him. He was rather surprised that I had as little as I have but then proceeded to tell me not to panic. He then explained that the 200 hours I need to write up is not 200 hours of DATA, it is 200 hours of TIME SPENT IN THE FREAKING RESERVE LOOKING FOR THE BLOODY ANIMALS! Inside I wanted to kill him...

I have been under the impression that it was the latter for a good majority of this year! If I had known the truth, I would not have been as stressed out as I have been for so long! I have been so worried that my project would be a complete flop. Neville does have a tendency to do these kinds of things. For example, in my project proposal, I said that I would try to sample baboon troops from both the northern and southern parts of the reserve to compare their behaviour. Neville said this was okay and let me discuss it in my proposal presentation. After my first fieldwork session, he asked me how the north-south sampling had gone. It had not worked at all! We had seen two troops, both in the north. I told him this. He giggled at me and said, 'I knew it wouldn't work...'

So, after all that, the next phase of my hectic week began. We, my mother and I, had to go and collect my sisters dog from the airport, which my dad had sent down to South Africa from Italy. We got to the airport and as we arrived, the vet arrived as well. Now, before you can take your pets home, they have to be examined by a vet to ensure that they are okay and that they have not picked up some kind of nasty bug along their way across the globe. The vet entered the building, we were still in the car by the way, and exited 5 minutes later. He then got into his car and drove off.

We, and the dog, then waited another 2 hours for the oversized vet to arrive and start to do all the paperwork so that we could take our dog home! Eventually, we got all our stuff in order and were able to leave with our dog who insisted on sitting on my lap as I drove home along the highway.Luckily, my mom was with me to take the dog so I could actually drive properly.

Then, on the Friday morning, my dad arrived from Italy for the funeral. My mom and I went to fetch him from the airport. My sisters were at school for a play practice or something. We ended up waiting forever for him to come out and never really found out why it took so long. Apparently the passport control people are really slow at their jobs.

We later had the funeral which was odd. I always feel that family funerals are odd. Somehow, they seem different to what I always expect. After the funeral, we all came home and just chilled. My dad stayed for the weekend. He left on the Sunday evening.

I then went off to Suikerbosrand to do some more fieldwork, but this time with my field assistant, Jeffrey. He is the son of a family friend who needed to do some job-shadowing in his holidays. He alledgedly aspires to be agame ranger some day and so he came along with me on my fieldwork. I soon discovered that he had no intention of gaining any experience while with me or doing anything at all. He pretty much just sat around and listened to music on his mp3 player. Strangely enough, I am not ever taking him with me again...

From that point on, a lot happened! I rescued my cousins cat from a tree, went to the south coast with David and Alice for 4 days, Alice's bother died, I returned to Wits as the term has started, did lots of reading for my masters project and have started my dung analysis. The latter is not very pleasent and I regret that I was so enthusiastic in collecting dung in the past...

This post is severely overdue! So...I will post it immediately and will try very hard to write again tomorrow.

Crisis!

Hi all!

I am overdue again but I'm not really worried. Mostly because I have bigger problems at the moment. I have captured all my data today (basically that means that I typed it all up into my computer) and worked out that I have a total of 2.8hrs of observation time for my baboon project. This is very bad. I need, and I'm not kidding, 100 times that many hrs to be able to actually do this project!

Hence the title of today's entry. I have a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow to discuss it. Hopefully he will be able to calm me down a bit and help me figure out a way to get all the hours I need.

Anyway, since the last time that I blogged, I have been hugged by hundreds of people that I don't know from a bar of soap because of my grandfathers death. It has been really odd and even annoying at times. These random people come to me, have no idea who I am, but want to tell me that all is okay and that they care. I don't have a freaking clue who the hell they are and now I'm supposed to just accept their affections...? It's a bit odd if you ask me.

Another thing that has happened is that we, my household, have gained a stalker. Some random guy keeps coming and ringing our bell at our front gate late at night and demands that we let him in! It is crazy! This wacko keeps coming, ringing the bell and then saying 'Open the gate' and after being refused, just walks off into the park! The other night he came and rang our bell at 02:55! He was also wearing a bright orange bomber jacket. We think he is either completely mad or was very high at the time...

I went off on more fieldwork and returned with aproximately half an hour of data and proof that baboons do eat the leaves of aloes. There is apparently some debate about this because aloe leaves are supposed to be really bitter and so it makes no sense as to why they would be eathing them. But, as per usual, I have blown the doors of sciences preconceptions wide open with my brilliant noval thinking!

Otherwise, most things are the same. I am still highly addicted to the TV series 'Lost'. That show is totally rox! Oh, and my sisters dog from Italy is arriving in South Africa today. She has been flown in.

Well, there you have it. An update on my life. Hope it was worth every ounce of voyeuristic effort.

Just kidding. I wouldn't have a blog if I didn't want people to read it.

That's all! Cheers!

PS: As usual, this site hates me and won't let me load any photos. So, you will just have to survive without any of my amazing photography for now...

Overdue...I know...

Hi all!

This post is severely overdue! Just like one of my library books that hopefully, I will remeber to return tomorrow, I have been neglecting this blog...In my defence, it has been a crazy last two weeks!

First thing on the agenda...I had a huge fight with my mom. I shan't discuss the nitty gritty here but it happened. Thus I felt really depressed for approximately a week and didn't update as a result. I also worked furiously on my assignment for my animal behaviour course.

Then, last Monday I recieved my first three day long exam. It was for animal behaviour and it sucked. Not like loosing change from your pocket sucks, more like a-large-chunk-of-ice-is-plummetting-toward-earth-and-will-annihilate-all-humanity-and-any-proof-that-ice-cream-was-invented kind of sucks. It REALLY sucked. I mean REALLY sucked. The question was as follows:

...

Hmm, well I can't seem to find the paper right now but when I do, I shall unleash the horror of the exam question we recieved on the world. You will just have to take my word for it that it sucked. So, the three day exam works as follows. You recieve a single exam question and you have three days to write an essay on that question. You have to treat it as an exam, so you are not allowed to speak to your lecturer about the question at all but you are permitted to speak to your exam-mates. Technically we are not really supposed to but who's gonna stop us?

I managed to find the question...here goes!

'Environmental changes may create challenges and demands for many animal species. Some animal species respond to such changes by modifying their behaviour, a phenomenon referred to as behavioural flexibility. However, the concept of flexibility is not universally accepted by animal behaviourists, because of:
1) an imprecise definition
2) uncertainty about the mechanisms underpinning the development of flexibility;
and
3) uncertainty about how flexibility would rise in a population/species.
Do you share these skepticisms?Discuss.'

Now is that not a crappy question? If some ridiculously intelegent individual has read this and offhand can give an answer...you suck and I really don't want to know what the answer should have been!

Anyway, once the exam was over, I left to go with my friend Eebee on his fieldwork. He is working on elephant shrews and a species of mouse. He is mapping their homeranges and comparing it to the personality of the respective individuals.

So what he has to do is trap the animals, take numerous measurements (length, mass, sex...etc) and assign a personality type to them. So I went off and learnt to trap them and do all the other stuff. It was really fun and I learnt a heck of a lot! We also had to alk through the bush spraypainting rocks with numbers that represent the grid in which the traps were placed.

So anyway, we were off to check the traps and had just returned when I got an sms from my mom to say that my grandfather was dying. Eebee very kindly offered to take me home if I wanted to go. So I packed all my stuff and we headed out. It was getting really dark by this stage. We got to the gate of the reserve and discovered that the security guy who was supposed to be there had gone off to bed and so we were stuck inside the reserve. Shortly after our arrival at the gate I got a message from my mom saying that he had died.

The guard arrived eventually and let us out. We drove back to Joburg and after thanking Eebee, I headed inside. It was really surreal, the kind if thing that you see in the movies. I was the prodigal son returning in time for the family death. If you have no clue what I'm on about, don't worry.

Here is a sunset to cheer you up!



I'm actually okay about the whole thing. It has been two months of up and down in the hospital for him and so I think that death was probably the best thing for him. I realise how cold this may sound but it is true. My family on the other hand are not holding up as well as I am. My sisters and mom are okay but my gran is understandably upset and so is my uncle.

Then the next thing that happened was that I got contacted by my supervisor who told me that my masters project is on the go and that I had to go see him about it. Immediately after that I got a call from one of the workers at the zoo that I know to congratulate me on getting the project and that she looked forward to working with me! It was so random!

So I went to see my supervisor today and he told me that the ball was indeed rolling and that I had to get cracking on this project. I'm so EXCITED! It's gonna rox!

I am totally addicted to the TV series 'LOST'! It is so cool! I love it! Currently, the second season is playing here in SA and I've only just recently started watching it. So my friend Helen, who works at a video store, has been giving me the DVD's of the first season. It is so cool...

And so, hopefully, you all now understand the reason why this is so overdue. Hope you can all forgive me. I'm actually going off on more fieldwork tomorrow of my own. So I'll update again at a later stage. Hope all is well in the world!

Cheerio!

Well, the day is finally over...

Hola!

Today has been rather interesting. I was awoken by my mother who had come to tell me that my cousin was on the phone and wanted to chat to me. I went off to the phone in my semiconsious state rather begrudingly due to the fact that my bed was really nice and warm, contrary to the rest of the house, and the sun was so freaking bright! He had called at around 11:00. Being my lazy self, I had slept in. This is common practice for me...

So I started chatting to him on the phone and he was talking to me about all this stuff that he had been feeling over the last two years and had never had the courage to talk about. That is, until he went on David's self-actualisation course!

He went on this course this weekend. Duncan and I have been really paranoid about it and have often jested at the parallels between it and a cult. This is from just how insistent David is that we should all do the course and how it 'changes your life forever!'. However, he is unable to tell us how they achieve this...suspicious? I thought that Duncan was a bit of a nutter for going in the first place but anyhoo...

So as Duncan was talking, it began to register that for the first time in years, he sounded happy! I mean really happy! And I don't mean really in the sense of intensity, I mean he was genuinely happy! It was so nice! I have been really worried about him for ages because he always seemed so sad. I hope that the happiness lasts. My mom pointed out that I should first wait a month or so and then see if the happiness has lasted, which is probably rather wise...

After that I spent the rest of the day thinking about the situation.

I went of to Wits and spent the day working on my behaviour assignment, which is reviewing a paper. The author of this paper is an idiot! This is good because it means that spotting the mistakes in the paper is made much easier for the likes of me!

I've just finished doing that now and so I'm off to go visit Eebee. He lives literally 2 min away so I'm off now. Here is the next killer sunset from Suikerbosrand. Enjoy!

Another Sunday

Hi all.

Nothing is really happening in my life at the moment. About the most exciting thing that has happened to me lately is that I went out to Eebee's house on Friday evening with Duncan, Helen, Kathleen and Josh. Obviously Eebee was there too! We had such a ball! We played this kick-ass game called 'Cranium'! I love that game! I want that game! Anyone who has ever played it will agree that it is totally ROX!!!

By the end of the evening, we were all laughed out and probably on a minor endorphin high. I took Kathleen and Josh home and proceeded to take Duncan home. Once I dropped him off, he thanked me for the lift and then thanked me for inviting him, saying that he had had fun. This may seem really trivial but I am thrilled that he enjoyed himself! He often seems really down to me and I wonder wether or not he is having fun, even when we are doing fun stuff together like filming or watching a movie. So, to see him actually enjoying himself was great!

On Friday I also went to see my grandfather who, for the fisrt time since his operation managed to eat an ice-lolly! It was so exciting! His co-ordiantion is very bad and he is still very week but he managed to pull it off! I was so happy and so was my mom!

It was really funny though because he became a kid when the nurse asked him if he wanted an ice-lolly. He just beamed when she produced it and proceeded to suck away with glea! He managed to get himself all wet and sticky in the process but he was in his seventh heaven! It was really cute.

Saturday saw the first major fight within the family since my mom got back. Lucia was being a typical spoiled teen and wanted to stay out at her friends house very late. My mother wanted her home early to study, and rightfully so, seeing as Lucia has an exam on Monday! Lucia threw a mini tantrum which resulted in my mom doing the old 'fine but don't come crying to me when you cock-up' thing. Lucia arrived home early that evening.

This didn't solve the problem though because she proceeded to be a total bitch to everyone and was crabby all evening.

Woman suck sometimes...

Today was much better! Went off to church and then to me grandmama's. From there went off to the hospital to see my grandad. Came home, had lunch, cleaned up and just mucked about all afternoon.

And thus concludes todays entry. Now for some killer words of wisdom, seeing as I haven't written any in ages. Love your neighbour! No matter how badly they hurt you or how much you disagree with what they are doing, always show that you do care about them! Too many people will drop their friends and neighbours at their first transgression. This is not to say that you are not allowed to be angry! On the contrary! Anger is an important natural response, but should not be allowed to overshadow your underlying love for the person...

I'm back!

Hi all!

I have returned to you! I went off on fieldwork on Sunday and got back on Tuesday. I then took Wednesday off to unplug from the world and stayed at home all day! Wait, I'm lying. I didn't stay at home all day as I went off to the airport with my mom to send some documents off to Italy and then went to fetch my sisters from school.

So I didn't unplug completely, so sue me!

The fieldwork was cool. I went off with Brian as per usual and we took Helen along as well which was a change. She wanted to come along because her project is labwork-based and as a result she never gets to go out into the field. So she came along.

We have access to the baboon tracking data via a website set up for us by the Gauteng Dept. of Agriculture, Environment and Conservation. This is a huge help...or at least it would be if we had internet access while we were in the reserve!

This poses us with a problem to which there are two possible solutions. Either, A) we buy a wireless prepaid internet connection to use in the reserve or B) we phone home everytime we need to get the GPS co-ordinates on the baboons. For those who are confused at this stage, the baboons that I am studying are fitted with cell-collars that send off a location marker every time they come within range of a cellphone tower. These location markers are in the form of latitude and longitude which allows us to go directly to where the baboons are via our GPS (Global Postitioning System - its a small hand-held device that tells you exactly where you are, is ridiculously expensive and tons of fun to play around with).

So, I went off before my trip to find out about option A. I went off to the closest Vodacom store to try and find out about 3G and how much it costs. The guy behinf the counter told me it would cost 32. I was rather amazed and thought 'only R32! That is so cheap!'. So I asked him in confirmation about the price and he replied 'No! R3 200!'. That was the last of option A.

So we had to phone my mom every time we needed to get the latest update on the baboons positions. This would have been a brilliant system were it not for the fact that my mother can't even log onto the internet. She is one of the most computer illiterate people I know. To combat this, I wrote out instructions for her on how to do it all. Strangely enough, it worked.

So we drove around according to my mothers co-ordinates for three days looking for baboons. For the first two we saw nothing at all. Then with a sudden stroke of luck we managed to find them on Tuesday morning and a I got a full 60min of sampling! It was amazing!

Anyhoo, on the trip we watched two DVD's, 'Resevoir Dogs' and 'Batman Begins'. The first was really dissapointing. I had heard it was such a good movie and it was pointless! The same goes for 'Trainspotting'. What an arb movie! 'Batman Begins' wasn't too bad. I still think that the best ones were the first two done by Tim Burton.

Since then I have watched 'Donnie Darko' (Absolutely brilliant!), 'Trainspotting', 'The Fog' and 'Se7en' which was freaky but amazing at the same time!

Thats all I have for you at the moment. Adios! Another Rave Pic...

The freaking title!!!!

I keep writing titles and forgetting to elaborate on them!

'Saltwater' refers to my favourite song. It is by Chicane and in my opinion is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard...On the album, 'Behind the Sun', is a version of the song that has been remixed by the Thrillseekers. It is by far the most beautiful and moving piece I have heard in my life. I aspire to be able to create such moving music at some stage in my life...

Goodnight!

Saltwater

Hola general populous...

I have had one of the worst last-two-days ever! As you will know from reading my last post, I went in to Wits yesterday to try and organise the vehicle that I need to take off on fieldwork with me tomorrow. Alas, Marcus never pitched or tried to contact me yesterday, so my day was somewhat of a waste overall. So I got fetched by my mom at around 6:45 pm due to the fact that we only have 2 cars at the moment, so I had to leave the car for the rest of the family to use.

I really don't enjoy not having my independence and having to wait for someone to fetch you emphasises that.

So I got home and two of my best friends came over, Alice and David. They had come over to watch DVD's but seeing as I got home so late they were forced (in part by my nutty mother) to have some dinner. After that we went and watched 'Tristan and Isolde' (I think that that is how it is spelt). It was a really romantic movie. I'm not one to go straight for the romances and bawl my eyes out at the ends but this one was really rather good!

Shortly after the movie was over, as well as our hot chocolate finishing, they left. I then watched a movie called 'The Cave' on my laptop while I was in bed. It was hysterical! It was so badly done that I chuckled all the way through!

Anyway, that evening I didn't sleep very well because I was so worried about the stupid car thing! I kept thinking that I had to get hold of Marcus at all costs and so I didn't get much rest. I know, it is silly but I couldn't help it!

So today I got up and drove all over trying to organise stuff for the fieldwork (GPS, some indian food that I had left at a friends house in the fridge...the usual). I also tried many times during the course of the day to contact Marcus.

I swear, he should be a spy! He is impossible to get hold of! It's amazing! I left a message on his phone, one on his wifes phone and an e-mail. I even tried to call him on his home phoneline and it told me that the number didn't exist! It was really frustrating!

Then, just as I went to the toilet, he called! It was terrible because I had my phone in my pocket but I didn't want to answer in the bathroom! So I pulled up my pants and tore out of the loo and into the garden. I got to speak to him and organised to collect the keys from him tomorrow.

Now that that had all been sorted out I went with my mother and grandmother to go see my grandad in the hospital. We went off to the hospital and as I got into the SICU, one of the nurses moaned at me because you are only allowed two people in there at once and there were three of us.

So I went off to sit in the waiting room. As I sat down I realised that my fly had been down since I left the bathroom! It was so embarassing! I had stood in my garden, sat in the car all the way to Milpark hospital from Bedfordview, traversed the full length of the corridors of the hospital, got shouted at by a nurse and walked the corridors again without noticing! I sincerely hope nobody else did either!

Anyway, after seeing him we all returned home, had some dinner and watched some really funny adverts that were downloaded off the internut. I'm off to bed now. The photo below is simply so that I have something to put on my profile. I hope it works...



By the way, I tried Toms quiz of the day and I am apparently an Out and Proud Queer.

I'm so BORED!!!

Hi guys!

I'm so BORED!!! I have been here at Wits all day and I have done every stitch of admin that I could possibly muster. And, now I have run out of things to do. I had to come in primarily to collect my animal behaviour essay, for which I got 75% (Most chuffed!) and to try and get hold of one of the lecturers, Marcus Byrne. I need to get the keys to the vehicle that I am taking off on fieldwork this weekend from him. He has proven MOST elusive and I am starting to get really worried. If I don't get hold of the keys, I can't take the vehicle at all! That would mean NO FIELDWORK!!!

Come to think of it, perhaps not spending three days in a house with minimal water pressure, no heating and a shower from hell, not to mention the fact that I still have to organise all of my meals and bedding etc..., isn't as bad as all that. It's just that I actually do need to have some data to have a successful project at the end of the year...

This is me doing fieldwork

So I've been sitting here all day, bored, and have achieved nothing. Helen and I did go to see one of our lecturers, Martin Whiting about the fact that our assignment he gave us has already been done...by him.He sent us an 'unedited' paper that we have to review and edit and then submit to him. However, he accidentally sent us the paper that he had put all his comments and corrections on.

In hindsight, it wasn't all that brilliant an idea. We could have all gotten really good marks for this assignment if we had just kept our traps shut...We now have a new paper that we have to review.

Hindsight is a horrible thing. It's likethe universes way of saying 'Ha ha! You dumbass!'

I had a rather troubling realisation the other night while in the shower. I have had this thought many times in the past but it's the kind of thing that you think, and then slowly it slips away unil you least suspect it. That's when it hits you will all the depressive force of an asteroid.

I realised that, as there are people that really annoy me and I do not like, so are there people that find me really annoying and don't like me. It was rather sobering...

But fear not fellow internut users! I am not down at all. I actually find the idea somewhat amusing and interesting. That is probably just a lack of sleep though.

The weather here in Jozi has been really shite of late. It's really cold.

My mom has started saying 'shit' a lot! It's really funny! She will swear and then looks posatively mortified and appologises to everyone! It's hysterical!

Well folks, that is all. Hope that you all have a really brilliant weekend and that I get hold of Marcus before Sunday.

Hambani gahle...or however you spell it.

Well...that was shit...

Hey all.

Today I wrote my Stats exam for the year. It's the main reason why I haven't posted in a good while. I've been keeping myself off the internut in the hopes of getting all my studying done for this stupid exam. It didn't actually work...

So the exam was horrid. I went in to write with a sick feeling that I had no clue what was going on. And to my horror, I actually had no clue as to what was going on! It was really horrible...I bullshitted my way through that paper and eventually left early simply because I had no more bullshit left to spew onto my page...

I was thinking about it on my way home today and I think that anyone who has ever had to do statistics will agree that Stats is EVIL!!! All the proof we need is in the name: Statistics. It starts with an S. What other words start with an S? Satan...sadistic...and it ends with the word 'stics'. Now, at a glance this may appear harmless, but think about it. What can you do with sticks? HURT PEOPLE!!! I think that I have conclusively proven that stats is definitely a subject of demonic origins...

So what else has been happening...? Well, my grandfather has nearly died, recovered, nearly died again and recovered again. He seems to be doing a lot of that at the moment. I may seem really cruel and callous but you have to understand, he is suffering and it has been like this for over a month now. I really wish that he would either recover or die. It is not fair for him or the family! It really is an emotional rollercoaster.

So anyway, yesterday I discovered that one of the people that works in the APES department does skydiving! How awesome is that! She said that she'll bring me some pamflets (Sp?) about it. Apparently, your first jump is only R800! That is cheaper than going scuba diving! Every jump after that is R200! I really wish I had R800!

Well I'm sorry if this particular entry is a bit bland. I have to get back into the whole blog thing after this dry period. To make up for it, I'll post the first-ever picture of myself here on my blog! I've been putting this off simply because I fear that some of my crazier (Tom and Sarah excluded as they are supa-cool) friends would find this and stalk me. I know, I'm nuts...

I'm the one on the left with the folded arms. The two in the front are my sisters and the one on the right is my frind David. The other two are my cousins, Sarah and Duncan.

Well that's it for the moment. I'll blog again tomorrow!

Buenos noches me amigos!

Sorry fans!!!

Hi all! Sorry, I've been a terrible blogger. I haven't done anything for ages! Can you ever find it in you hearts to forgive me?!

Anyway, my Mom is home!!! It has been 6 years but her and my dad have finally decided to move back to SA! Dad'll be down in August! I R so chuffed...

So I've been up to a crap-load of stuff! Mostly Wits related as per usual but I did go to the movies for the first time in about 4 months! I saw 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. It was so stunning! What a beautiful movie! Almost as good as 'Hero' which is by far the most beautiful movie I've ever had the blessed fortune to watch! That's what the picture has to do with anything. I just felt very Japanese-bamboo-forestey.

Anyhoo, I've got an exam on Wednesday so I'm going to go and chat online instead of actually studying...Chins up all!

Have a smashing week!!!

Tuesday at last...

Hola All! I hope that your weeks are going as brilliantly as ever! Mine has been okay so far. I haven't blogged for a bit but I can't remember when it was that I last did an entry. I think it was on Sunday...so I'll just tell you about what I got up to yesterday and today.

Yesterday was a Monday. Need I say more... No, it wasn't all that bad. I got up and took my sisters to school and got to Wits relatively late. Because of the fact that my uncles car is ancient and keeps packing up, I am currently driving my grandfathers car which is not something to be proud of. His car is horrible! It smells funny (not that old person smell, which would be nice in comparison!) and the whole thing is just one big heap of problems. The started motor doesn't quite work 100% and the brakes are very soft. The steering wheel wobbles as your drive which leads me to believe that the axel might be bent...who knows. My knowledge of the inner anatomy of the car and how it all works together is somewhat lacking and leaves much to be desired... Anyway, the point of me telling you all this nonsense about the car is that I drove it in to Wits yesterday.

As I arrived to go to the post-grad parking area, the security guard stopped me and demanded to see my parking sticker. Now, anyone who is not a Witsie will not understand the pure frustration that are the Wits security guards. They have this belief that they are God's gift to humankind and that they are thus infallible. What they say goes and there is no circumstance under which they could possibly be mistaken, with anything!

So I arrived there and in the true spirit of Wits-securityguard-ness, the guard refused to leave his little hut thingy to come and speak to me. instead he insisted on sitting in his little shelter and send bizzare hand signals to me through the window. I attempted to reciprocate the indeciferable sign 'language' and did my own hand signals attempting to communicate the fact that I was a postgrad and that I did have parking. He simply blinked at me...

So, by now rather annoyed and just wanting to go park so that I could actually get to doing some work, I left my vehicle and stomped over to the hut. Once I got into the hut, the security guard very nonchalantly turned to face me. As I entered the hut. A million and one cars suddenly emerged from nowhere (literally!) and all of them wanted to go to the parking area! It was so unusual... I explained to the guy, while vast numbers of very irritable drivers tried to squeeze past my awkwardly stationed vehicle, that I was indeed a postgrad and that my car was broken down (truthfully, it's broken down indirectly) and so I was coming in to Wits in the other car. He was rather difficult to convince and eventually he only allowed me through on condition that he could check up on me and clamp my wheels if its not true. So I went off to my (crappy) vehicle and grinned at the really annoyed lady in the large white 4x4 while I pulled off. I then proceeded to pull off and park.

The remainder of the day progressed relatively well appart from my lecture for animal behaviour. Natasha really took the cake with this weeks first lecture. She was saying things like parsimony (the shortest route: ie, if you can go to London from New York direct, or via Kuala Lumpur, direct is far more parsimonious) is a load of crap. This probably makes much more sense to anyone who has ever studied anything to do with evolution. The other really strange thing that happened at the lecture was the fact that our lecturer, Martin Whiting, ran out of stuff to tell us and so we ended up discussing the Da Vinci code. It was really arb!

The rest of Monday wasn't really worth writing about...

Tuesday started off rather badly. I overslept. I got up in time to take my sister off to school, the other one is apparently sick, but not early enough to actually get myself ready for the public eye. So after dropping Gemma off at school I headed back home and got ready.

I then came in to Wits and had, surprise surprise, a repeat episode with the stupid security guard! He was convinced that he had never seen me before in his life and that I was lying to him. Eventually I managed to convince him that I had spoken to him yesterday, when all the very annoyed people started to pile up behind me. Apparently the image of lots of angry people behind my car jogged his memory and he recalled yesterday's incident.

I then came in and didn't really do much of value. I mostly fooled around online for the morning and then around 12:30 I, along with Laura and Vanessa, got to work on the stats that we have due for tomorrow. We got so tired doing all the stats that we ended up getting really giggly and not managing to do much work. We are about half way at the moment. We'll do the rest tomorrow morning.

Oooo! I nearly forgot! Yesterday, Helen presented me with a DVD that she had gotten from work. It was a film that I had asked her to lok out for for me. I had seen it once on DSTV and had really loved it so I wanted to see it again. It is called 'Groove'. It is all about rave culture in San Fransisco and it is such a smashing film!

The only down side is that it makes me want to go to a rave again! I haven't been to one in such a long time and I really miss it! Most people think that I am mad but the freedom that you experience and the release...it is unmatchable! You just feel so free and like you don't have a care in the world. It is really amazing. I think everyone should try it out just once before they judge it. And I'm not even one of the candy flippers...

And so concludes our chapter for today...

Buona sera a tutti!

What a week!

Hi guys...

I have just had one of the most hectic weeks of my life! I had the essay which was due for Friday. This took up the vast majority of my time. I worked out that I was spending an average of 13 hours at Wits every day for the past 4 days! Thursday I spent 14 1/2 hours at Wits working on my essay. That's why I haven't posted since Monday!

I also had to present some papers to the animal behavour class that I am doing this block. That required me finding papers, reviewing them and then leading a discussion on them in the lecture. It went surprisingly well! Especially considering that Helen and I finalised what it was we were going to say 5 min before the whole thing was due to happen!

I have had some amazing things happen to me this last week! Firstly, Natasha, the annoying chick from our honours room, embarassed herself in the most humiliating way! It was hysterical! I realise what a bitch I sound like but if you knew Natasha, you would definitely understand!

She recieved an e-mail which contained tons of soft porn of guys with strategically placed tupperware containers, if you know what I mean. Apparently, the containers didn't hide much anyway. So, apparently she had downloaded the images in question onto her USB flash drive. She then forgot about them.

Later, she had to take some papers to one of our lecturers. So she put the papers onto her flash drive and took it off to the lecturer to give them to him. As he plugged in the drive, the autoplay setting kicked in. It was set on the show images as slideshow option. So, to her horror all of her soft tupperware porn proceeded to slowly drift across the screen in front of the lecturer. She then proceeded to totally freak out. Apparently the lecturer then just got the documents off the drive and gave it back to her. She then ran off to the honours room and burst in shouting something along the lines of 'I have just had the most embarrassing moment of my life!!!'

The absolute best part about the whole thing was that the lecturer hadn't thought anything strange was happening until she lost it. The lecture that she was supposed to give was on sexual selection and so the lecturer had simply assumed that they were visual aids. He later joked that he wanted more photos of woman to even the scales a bit.

Naturally, after about 2 hours, everyone had heard about it and Natasha proceeded to make herself very scarce...;-)

The next amazing thing that I have had happen this week is that I have been offered the most amazing project for next year! I will be doing my masters project and so I recieved the offer. Now, I don't want to jinx it so I won't describe it just yet. Also, should anyone in my department find this blog, I don't want any competition for the project!

I'm totally psyched!

Anyway, this weekend is just for resting, as I REALLY need it! I'll write tomorrow...

Cheerio!

PS. I really need to go to a rave! I haven't been for so long!

I'm back!

The subject line if this is supposed to be read as one would say the 'Honey' part of 'Honey, I'm home'. You know, all sing-songy...

And thus concludes another day. I guess I should tell youa ll about what happened yesterday as well as today...

Sunday:

Today was rather...interesting. I went with my sisters to church and proceeded thereafter to my grandmothers house for tea. I realise how quaint and prim this may sound but it is a tradition that my sisters and I got to have tea with my grandmother after church. It's really nice and she loves to have us over to eat her biscuits. I think that that is often the sole purpose in a grannies life: to stuff their grandchildren with sweet things.

Anyway, after that, I returned home, with siblings in tow and we got to work with helping my grandmother with lunch. After the lunch, I went and checked my e-mail and sent out an e-mail to all the people who needed to know about the essay extension informing them. I then discovered that my cousin was online at the same time. So I ended up chatting to him on MSN messenger. Helen was also online so it got a little exciting trying to juggle the two conversations. Strangely enough I didn't manage to screw it up and send something like, 'Helen is driving me nuts! She is so irritating!' to Helen. Not that she is at all but knowing my luck, I would pull off a stunt like that...

So after wasting time online when I should have been working on my essay, I got a call from my mom. It was really nice to hear from her again. I really love chatting to my parents. Somehow they make it feel like my life isn't trying to devour me and that things aren't as bad as they seem.

Back to the story! So I chatted to my mom for a while and then handed her over to my sisters. After they were finished chatting, I got a call from my uncle, Vic, who by this stage had gone off to the hospital to see my grandfather. He announced that my grandfather has now picked up an infection of some kind while in the SICU (surgical ICU). It was later confirmed to be a pulmonary infection. As a result, he has to be put back on all the numerous drugs that he was on before, including the morphine. Apparently, things are looking bleak for him acording to one of the doctors.

Anyway, my sisters remained at home, just in case anything happened and they phoned. Eventually, Gemma decided that she wanted to go to the hospital to be with my grandmother, who was stressing big time! So we all went off to the hospital.

Once there, we just kinda stood around for a while while the doctors ran around a lot. Eventually one of them emerged and told us all of the above. So, we decided to go have some tea and coffee seeing as the visiting hours were not yet upon us. I had rooibos (as always) and the others all had cappuchino's. I don't drink coffee or tea. The caffine is EVIL! I don't believe that it is very healthy so I steer clear of it. My sisters ordered a slice of cake. This cake was amazing! It was choclate mint cake and has to have been one of the most enormous slices of cake I have ever seen in my life! I got to eat the large chunk of mint flavoured chocolate on the top of the cake. It was good!

Shortly there after, we left. My gran and uncle went in to see my grandfather and we all then left to go home. Lucia came home with me while Gemma rode home with Vic and my gran. I ended up having a conversation with Lucia about getting drunk and was amazed to find out that my little sister has gotten drunk many times! I was rather shocked! I guess that that is just the big brother in me. I found out that she has gotten drunk more often in the past two years than I have in my entire life! Once the conversation got underway, I relaxed a bit about it but it was kind of odd having a discussion about getting trashed and how many times you've hurled as a result...

Monday:

Today I got to Wits early as always. I got to work on my essay outline immediately as I arrived. I worked on that all morning and did some marking for the 1st years. I also went and got some posters printed that I had designed over the weekend for the SRC. And I also did the stats tut with Laura and Vanessa today for this week! And there was no confusion about dud tuts this time. Somewhat disappointing but at the same time, I can totally live without the excitement!

During lunch today I went to the seminar that was being presented. We are supposed to go to one every Monday at lunchtime but because Neville always had our animal behaviour lectures before lunch, we 'unfortunately' always went into the first 5 min of the seminars. Obviously, we wouldn't want to be rude and barge in, so we havn't been since the beginning of the block. Almost two months today...rats. My reputation for avoiding them is tarnished! How will I ever recover from such a blow...?

In case you hadn't picked up on this...the seminars suck.

After the seminars, I went to print out more of my posters and put some up around campus. It was the first time that I have walked around campus in ages! It was really odd. I'd actually kind of forgotten parts of campus existed! I realise how silly that sounds but in a way it is true...I spend so much time in my office that I never go out anymore. Sad, I know...

So I spent the remainder of my day in the office watching animations from weebls-stuff.com. REALLY arb and funny! Also a brilliant way to waste time!

I came home at around 7:30pm and just had dinner, washed up and chilled. Spoke to my mom again today. She sounds rather thrown by the situation with my gandfather...I hope she is okay.

Well adios me amigos. Buena fuerte con la vita!

Bye!

Sorry about that

I'm wrting this all on Sunday because I was just too tired to type on Friday and Saturday was also pretty hectic. Here is the blow-by-blow account of my action packed weekend!

Friday:
Today I came in to Wits early and got all my internetting done as soon as possible in order to start working on my essay. Then I discovered that my laptop hates me! I started to open all the necessary programs to start on my essay and to my horror, discovered that I can no longer use MS Word! I have not yet registered my Word online due to the fact that the Wits network firewall or something will not permit me to! I can't do it at home as my internet connection at home is a bitch to set up on my laptop. Woe is me!

I figured I needed to rectify the problem and thus went on a quest to find our departmental IT guy and ask him to help me. He is really brilliant with all the computer nonsense that we seem to generate and throw at him. That is, he is brilliant until he...isn't there.

He was out somewhere in my time of need! Oh the betrayal! There I was, having a fit because all hope of making headway on my essay was dashed on the jagged shoreline of technology and Herman, the IT guy, was off cavorting around somewhere!

But, apparently, he would have been back by 11:30. So I just went up to the honours room to do some reading and ended up surfing the net. It really is a curse having free internet access where you are supposed to be working...I'm sure many of you can sympathise.

I then had an Animal Behaviour lecture with our new lecturer, Martin Whiting. He has been off on sabatical (sp?) for the last year and had just returned from Kenya. It is rather funny because we found a song about Kenya at: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
This then became Martin's unofficial theme song. Any time that we had anything to do with Martin or talked about him, someone breaks out in song.

I had to leave the animal behaviour lecture early to go to a pre-lab tut for my first years who I had to TA that afternoon. After that I TA'ed until 16:30, after which I checked my e-mail and started to blog but gave up.

Saturday:

So, today I got up and took my sisters to their extra science lesson, for which they were late as usual. I then found out from them that I was the only available person that could go and fetch them. This really screwed up my plans because I had to be at Helen's 21st birthday party at 12:00 and their lesson would only end at 11:00. So I drove like a maniac and went from their lesson way in the south, to eastgate to buy her present, to the south again to fetch them and then drop them off at home, and then back to eastgate to fetch a friend, Anita, who I was giving a lift to.

So I pulled this all off in record time and drove off with Anita and the directions that I had downloaded off the internut on how to get to the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens, where the party was happening. At this stage in my blog, I would like to just let the general public know that the Mweb directions service SUCKS!!!

I ended up at the reserve, just that it was on the total opposite side to where the entrance is! Anita seemed to find it all very amusing, and I must admit that it was rather fun getting lost. And, we did eventually find our way to the entrance.

The whole reason why we had to get directions off the web was because Helen's inclosed directions with the invitations were from once you were half-way there. So once we got to the place we were really relieved to have made it! Then, we headed in and at the gate were to give our names and say that we were here for the party. We did this and were then handed a slip of paper. On the paper were directions to the picnic spot where the party was happening. They read 'Follow the red brick road until you see the sign to Lion's Bridge. Cross the bridge and you'll be there!'

Problem was, as we left the entrance, the red brick road split into two...

By sheer chance, we took the correct path and found the place. Once we arrived, I went to chat to Eebee about the essay and see how he was doing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was also battleing to pull it all together! Not that I should revel in his misfortune, but at least I knew I wasn't the only one. So we reluctantly decided to interupt Neville's leave and SMS him requesting an extension. To our surprise, he granted us another week!

The rest of the day was great. I was so much more relaxed knowing that I had enough time!

That's all for now. I'll try blog again tomorrow.

Cheers!

Another unproductive day

What a waste of a day!

Howdy all.

Today started off really oddly! I got up to take my sisters off to school and to my amazement, discovered that Joburg was doused in a blanket of fog! We never get fog! We don't really get much in the way of exciting precipitation. We get hail which is probably the most interesting precipitation we get, but otherwise it is all rain, frost and dew. Never fog!

Anyway, the traffic was an absolute bitch today as a result! It never ceases to amaze me how people become uncontrollably incompetent behind the wheel the second there is a notable weather phenomenon! There were accidents on practically every highway. It is actually rather scary when you think about it! There are all these lunatics driving around and you are there too, mild-mannered and sitting in your car, surrounded by looneys!

After dropping my sisters off at school I decided to return home and catch half an hours sleep before heading off to Wits. Unfortunately, as with most things in my life, it didn't go according to plan. I overslept by two hours! I was really tired this morning when I got up to take them off to school so that's why I returned to bed.

So I got to Wits really late today. I immediately started to do the marking for my first years. Their prac is tomorrow afternoon and I'd rather have their stuff all marked for them by that time. However, I did a bit of marking but then I was interrupted by a million and one people coming in to chat to me. Once they had all left I got back to my marking.

I'm not exagerating when I say this but literally, the second my pen returned to the page, my cousin, Duncan, arrived to visit! It was really great to see him again and I wasn't all that into my marking anyway. So, we chatted and he had some hot chocolate. By the time he left, it was already lunchtime! So I went online to try and check my mail. Half-way through doing this, Laura arrived to have a sub-comm meeting in the honours room.

Now, if you will remember, a while back I quit the sub-comm. However, due to the fact that I failed to send a letter of resignation, I am still on the sub-comm. So I was forced to attend the meeting and in the process was persuaded to remain on the sub-comm. Curse my inability to say no!

So, after the meeting, I had half an hour to kill before another meeting. This time with the head of the Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences (APES) school, Kevin Balkwill, who I needed to help me identify some plants that I had collected over the weekend as potential baboon food sources. Kevin was 15 min late and as a result I had to cancel the meeting as I had to go and fetch my sisters from school to take them shopping for art supplies.

At this point I would like to point out that I realise the ridiculousness of the name of the school that I work in. A friend pointed out though that the alternative to APES would have been PEAS (Plant, Environment and Animal Sciences) so it would have turned out silly either way...

So, I then left Wits, taking Vanessa home at the same time. I then got home, collected the siblings and went shopping. I found a present for Helen, who is having her 21st birthday party on Saturday. She was a mission to shop for and wasn't at all cooperative when it came to finding out what she wanted for her birthday...

So this evening was the first in a long time that I was actually home for the preparation of dinner. After that was all done and subsequently eaten, I went to try do more marking. Three of my students have just not handed in the work and so I can't mark them. However, out of the remaining twelve that have handed in, only 4 have passed. I feel really bad for having to fail them but they just havn't done the required work...

So now I am on the internut, downloading some script writing software and doing the blog. I should go to bed now and will do so in due course. Adios me amigos. Donde estas el pero?

This is a real sign that I have seen with my own eyes! I didn't take the photo but (excuse the pun) I was present for the taking of the photo!

Another rather hurried blog entry

I started to do this entry yesterday evening but it just got so late that I decided to leave and head home instead. This is a photo of a sunset that I watched while on my fieldwork this weekend.

The fieldwork went much better than I expected it to! I actually got to see some baboons for a change and came away with 50min worth of data! This really isn't much but it is more than what I had to begin with.

So anyway, the fieldwork went relatively well. We were in that house, bored out of our minds! You can't believe just how crappy this place is! It is unbelieveable! And this place that we stay in is so dirty that none of us have plucked up the courage to actually clean...

The shower has to be the crowning feature of this bizzare place. It is in a separate room from the bath and toilet and this room is approximately 1.5m x 3m on the floor. The shower occupies about half of the room. The other half is so small that in order to get into the room one is forced to open the door, climb into the shower, close the door and only then can you access the non-shower part. It is a real pain when you have to leave after your shower! Just once you have dried yourself and are all dressed and everything, you have to climb into the now wet shower, thus wetting your feet and the lower part of your clothes should you be wearing long pants, in order to leave the room! For crying in a freaking bucket! What kind of idiot designed this place!!!

The second aspect of the shower that has brought much constenation to my existence is the fact that this particular example packs a double whammy. It both has no water pressure and takes forever to produce water of any decent temperature, that is unless you happen to be in the mood for some chryogenic self-preservation. The shower manages to wet an area that is about the size of a paper plate on the floor with frigid liquid. This requires that in order to wet any significant amount of your bodies surface, you practically have to press your full body up against the wall of the shower, directly underneath the shower head. Not fun at all. Also, the showerhead is so loose that if you make any attempt to change the direction of the spray, the head will just fall back into the straight-down position. Once again...not fun.

Anyway, back to the rest of the week. Yesterday I went to Wits after dropping off my sisters at school and got to work on doing some reference searching on the internet. I got a few refs, not much and ended up getting really distracted. I'm not too sure what exactly I did all day but somehow I managed to get very little work done in a lot of time.

I do remember that I worked on this weeks stats assignment with Helen. It was rather funny, because the two of us were tired and thus giggled our way through most of it. We also came up with a brilliant plan for freaking Laura out. Every week she reminds us that she thinks that all the people in our stats group, appart from herself, are incompetant. Thus, she insists on overseeing all that we do. This includes proof-reading the assignments before we submit them for marking. So, to get her back, Helen and I did two assignments: one was the legitimate assignment that we handed in, and the other was a dud one that was full of jokes and was outright ridiculous!

So we left it on her desk with a small note saying that she must read it and then take it to hand it in. While we waited for her to arrive and read the thing we watched the movie 'White Chicks'. It is actually really funny! But it's the kind of funny that you don't really want to admit to having enjoyed, should anyone ask. Watch it, you'll see what I mean.

Eventually Laura came in and found it. She got rather annoyed at us because of the hand-it-in part but we acted as if it was water off a ducks back. So she started to read it and immediately had a question for us about the content of one of the questions. It wasn't about one of the silly bits that we had added in. So we explained, she agreed with what we had written and then continued to read on. It was shortly after this that she hit the first bit. I had written something along the lines of "...as this method was not working, we figured that it wasn't such a smashing idea after all, and began to ponder alternatives. These didn't work, so we returned to pondering."

At this stage she lost it completely! She was pacing up and down yelling things like, "Who writes this stuff! We can't hand this in!" She was fuming! It was so classic! It was really hard not to burst out laughing! I told her to just calm down and read the whole thing first and then we could discuss any changes she wanted to do. So eventually, and might I add, very reluctantly, she turned over the page. It was at this stage that she realised what was really going on.

At the top of the page was a graph of the failed data analysis with the following caption:

Fig. 2: Oh Shit...

She just laughed and laughed when she realised. It was great! She thought that seeing as how it had worked so well, she was going to do it to Vanessa too. Vanessa hadn't come in to Wits at all on Tuesday and so she only got it this morning.

So, I arrived at Wits today and headed off to TA a lab that I thought I had to TA but it turned out I didn't. On my way there I got a call from 'Ness saying that she would not be able to TA with me as she was TA'ing another course in place of someone who was absent. I told her not to worry and that I'd explain to the lecturer. Then, she gave me the fright of my life.

"I've just handed in the stats assignment, so don't worry. It's all sorted"

I was speechless...

Eventually, I managed so say something along the lines of "WHAT?!" She explained that she had just handed it in as she hadn't had time to read over and check it.

She didn't know that it was the dud assignment! It was at this stage that I told her to not to worry and then sprinted off to try and get to the lecturer's pigeon-hole before she could! I ran into Helen along the way who had also just found out and the two of us rocketed across campus to try and save our asses.

Luckily the lecturer hadn't collected them yet and we managed to convince the secretary that it was all a mix up and that the assignment that we were removing was one from the previous week that had been accidentally handed in. Lucky for us, she bought it.

So, it has been a rather exciting past few days. I managed to have a mini-drama with my sister and was forced to play parent (as per usual). I actually did the whole stern 'we-need-to-have-a-discussion-about-your-behaviour' thing! I scared even myself with that!

Anyway, it is quater to 11 and I have to get up early tomorrow, so I'm signing off. My grandfather is doing much better by the way. He is consious, nearly off dialysis and the respirator and is as coherant as he has been in the past.

Remeber that sometimes you have to wade through the mud, to get to the grass on the other side...