Pennyroyal tea

The theme for this blog entry was supposed to be tea, but I got distracted with Nirvana's song "sit and drink penny royal tea....." (end of musical interlude)

OK, so the entry is actually about tea. And coffee. Well, beverages in general. And sugar. I am now fully used to drinking tea, coffee and generally most things without sugar. I now think of having my tea without the sugary goodness (bleeurg) that generally lurks at the bottom of nearly every teacup (if you don't stir, of course). I actually look forward to the taste of my tea without sugar. How amazing is that, since only a few blog-posts ago (I can't remember the date), all I could think about was my nice cup of strong tea with one-and-three-quarters-teaspoons of sugar?? I didn't manage to cut out sugar from my whole diet - I would keep forgetting about it when I ate a brownie or a biscuit. And of course, I can't resist chocolate, although I tend to have a low giving-up threshold now ( 4 blocks is my maximum now).

The whole idea of giving up sugar was based on the idea that my post-nasal drip would potentially go away if I cut out the sugar. Well, it didn't, and I have found out that I have a bad reaction to grass (not the smoking kind), and sawdust dust, and these are some of the things I will be working with (once I get my project off the ground). AARG!

If the clothes fit, wear them?

I have a bit of a dilemma. In the economic recession, do you buy the expensive clothes that fit and potentially last a long time, or do you buy cheap clothes that generally dont fit, and tend not to last very long? All this comes after yet another trip to the shops to buy a pair of jeans... Nothing fitted except a rather expensive pair of Levi's... And I'm not sure if I can justify the cost of the jeans!

Well, somehow I am going to have to find some jeans (I live in my current ones), if I dont want to start going to varsity in increasingly ragged ones!

Getting there

Yes. Its official. I am getting used to the no-sugar thing, even though I still have moments of "I want seriously strong tea with a drop of milk and one-and-three-quarters of a teaspoon of sugar". I managed to refuse the temptation of a chocolate the night before last. Im getting there!

Now, all I have to deal with is writing and finishing my introduction (and ulitmately my proposal) and get some mice before Friday. Thats all. Besides a few minor things, like getting a soundbite, and other small issues, like having to travel 80km's to get my mice. Thats all. Nothing much. Its a little wierd - it actually is a huge amount to do, but somehow, in my head, it is do-able. So, I just going to work as-hard-as-I-can, get it all done before Friday (so that I dont have to pay a fine for not meeting my aims). I know this probably sounds a little disjointed, but, who cares - its my blog! Now: work-time!

semi-bad day, ctd

Im so tired! I want a cup of tea! And a large slice of chocolate cake! Im my proposal have only been furthered by four lines so far :( I want my bed, and for my headache to go away. Its a pity that I said that I would meet someone for coffee tonight! Sad sad times!

Sugar failure

Sigh. Last night, the temptation of chocolate was just too much for me. I caved in and had a Lindt hazelnut ball thing. My family is wicked in that regard - they are very persistant at offering me chocolate!

Day 2 without sugar

I want a cup of tea!!!
A nice strong cup with a dash of milk and one-and-three-quarters teaspoons of sugar. Preferably with a piece of shortbread or a rusk. That's what I am craving soooo badly right now.

Up till now, it has been relatively easy to leave out refined sugar from my diet, although I discovered to my horror yesterday that the yoghurt that I thought was perfectly innocuous actually was sweetened... I also made muffins last night to take to varsity with me, and they had a bit of sugar in them. But now, I'm really really craving some sugar, and I would also really like to go and sleep (although this could be due to the fact that I have been at my desk by 7am for the past two days)...

Apart from the lack of sugary goodness (Charlie, lets go to candy mountain, Charlie!), I finally managed to sit down and work on my proposal. I wrote two sentences today. Despite the fact that it is only two sentences, it's more than I have written for the past week and a half or so, so take it as good progress! I do have a new deadline for it though - the end of next week... ARG!

A word on hairdressers...

This afternoon, I went to get a haircut. It has been a good six months since my last one, so I really did need it. I had decided to try my dad and brother's hairdresser, because my usual one is getting extremely pricey. So I tried and I tried and I tried again to get hold of this lady, but to no avail. Then randomly, a few days after I had given up on the whole idea, she returned my call!

As a result, I had my haircut. So I arrived (she runs her business from her home). Wow. I mean, really wow. I got out of my car, and was just blown away... She talked, asked me a few questions to which I had monosyllabic answers to...
Then she talked
and talked
andtalkedandtalkedandtalked.

I'm exhausted.

But the thing that irritates my just slightly about hairdressers is that they always want to blow dry my hair after they have finished (I hardly do it, so that's a big change for me). But not only do the hairdressers dry it, but they want to style it! And in my humble opinion, never in the past 5 years or so that it has been happening (apart from the time when my hair was not blow dried, and subsequently looked really cool) has my hair looked nice afterwards. I'm not entirely sure what they want to achieve, but the result is a rather dated look, which ages me by 15-20 years... Not exactly the impact you want to achieve... So tonight, I'm promptly going to undo all the hairdresser's hard work!

More awards!

I am awarding myself the "car breaker of the year" for 2009. Maybe it is just bad luck, but two cars have failed on me already this year. The first was my trusty clio which, when I was driving home at night from wits, decided to die. And I couldnt get it to start for about 30 mins. The arbitrarily, it decided to work again, and I could get home. Since then, my parents banned me from driving the car, in case I get stuck again (it now does its dying thing pretty regularly). So I was relegated to my dad's car, a camry. Just last week, I managed to clip with side of his tyre on a curb - I went round a corner too sharply... Then his radio was stolen (this was not my fault), and so a whole bunch of wires were left hanging out of the dashboard. So, on Sunday, I was trying not to get poked by the said wires, something sparked, and the cabin light, the clock and some other electrical things shut down. I didn't blow a fuse (my dad checked it), but something happened... So that is why I have given myself the award.

On a separate note, I decided to rid myself of a post-nasal drip, which increases a hundred-fold when I eat sugar. So sugar is now going to be deleted from my diet. I will post blog entries on how it is going! Basically I will not have sugar in my tea or coffee, no chocolate, no sweets... Sigh.

There is no charge for awesomeness... Or attractiveness!

The title of this post comes my favourite quote from Kung Fu Panda - right in the beginning of the movie, Panda is having a dream about being the most famousest (Samwise Gamgee from LOTR - sorry, its a movie recollection day!) kung fu warrior in all the land. He saves the people (well in this movie, animals) from the evil foes that threaten death and destruction in the land of Um... Japan? Anyway, Panda beats his enemies, and rest of the (most revered) kung fu warriors all want to be his friends, and a female animal comes to thank him and try to repay him for saving her family, and his reply is "There is no charge for awesomeness... Or attractiveness"... and his dream goes on about how Panda's awesomeness blinds people because he is so awesome... I love it...

Anyway, Luke awarded me and several peeps the "awesome" award (hence the title). The deal is that if you are awarded, you need to write seven points about how awesome you are, or what makes you such an awesome person, and then award it to seven others. Now, I feel that I need to mention that I am terrible at blowing my own trumpet. Anyway, here goes!

1. I am super persistent. I try and try and try, then feel miserable for a bit, then get up and try again.
   
   
2. I am independent. I like to try stuff on my own, before relying on others. That being said, it can be a very bad thing, and I have gotten better at relying on other people, and the results haven't been bad at all.
   
   
3. I don't have an over-inflated ego. If anything, it's a bit squished. I know about some of the things that I am good at, and definitely know about those that I am not!
   
   
4. This does sound a little weird, but I can keep myself entertained for hours, just by thinking...
   
   
5. I'm almost a good friend. That is when I actually spend time with them. I'm pretty bad at doing that though! If one of my friends is having a horrible time, they know that I usually to have a good shoulder to cry on...
   
   
6. I am enthusiastic. About most things. Or can get enthusiastic, once I find out something that tickles my interest. Then that's me done for the day, and people think I'm crazy or something - I tend to bubble away, bouncing around, being excited about my new discovery...
   
   
7. There are many other things that I could make sound like I am awesome, but the last one for this award is that I am adventurous. I like doing new things, going to new places... So much to do, so little time (and cash)!

So that's it for this award. Like I said, there are other things that make me awesome, one of which is that I am family orientated - most of the time, I love doing stuff with my family! So, as a present for my mom, I decided to take pictures of her dog (she adores this animal)... In doing so, I got some nice photos of the other dog too... And here are the best.

I now get to award other people: Terri, Stacey, Terashni, Tyler, Soekie, Snoo and Shona!

Decisions!

What a week! I had hoped that my supervisor would totally like my proposal that I handed in last Friday. Well, on Monday he came back to me and gave me some horrible news: my introduction didn't match my aims! So I am back to the drawing board - officially "proposing" again! I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall a bit, but luckily I'm wearing my stubborn boots again, and am determined to get it!

I went to the scuba club again last night, which is also taking quite a bit of determination on my part. I managed the evening, with a smile pasted on my face, then went to Melville for supper with some friends from the club, which turned out to be really fun! So this morning, of all the arbitrary things to be thinking of when walking up a hill on my way to my lab, I decided that it was about time to be entering the playing field again! Here we go!

On a more somber note, I had my last lab with my first year students. Although at the beginning, I still felt that I was beating my head against a brick wall with some of my students, by the end I was feeling a bit sad (in the interim, I had a coke, boosted my blood sugar levels and subsequently felt a whole lot better about life). I will miss (most) of my bay - overall they were good kids, and I wish them all of the best for their varsity career. Au revoir guys!

A week's worth of strangeness!

I don't think I have had many weeks that have been as exhausting as the past one. The reason that it was so tiring was that so many things happened in such a short space of time (five days is actually really short). Starting on monday, when I recieved a gift of three t-shirts from a friend who had come back from England. In what seems to be true lab tradition, I had to model my new items of clothing for my lab mates, as well as the friend who had wanted to see if the clothes fittted. Things escalated when I was told that I needed to do a "proper" catwalk type thing, complete with music... So I did the first t-shirt, failed miserably at the modelling thing (I was laughing too hard), and then... dum dum dum dum... My supervisor arrived to see what all the laughing was about! I changed into the next t-shirt, did the walk thing (to music again), didnt fail quite so miserably, but the funny thing this time was that my supervisor did a funny little jig thing (on camera as I walked passed - I dont think he realised I was being recorded). Now my supervisor isn't really that type of person, so when I saw the video, I cracked up laughing, as did everyone else who knows my supervisor. End Monday.

Tuesday saw me getting a whole lot of make-up put on by Helen. I'm not usually a person who goes to a lot of effort with my appearance, and generally go to university in jeans and a baggy t-shirt. I had promised my friend who had brought me the t-shirts on Monday (two of them were substantially more feminine than those I normally wear), that I would wear at at least one of the nice ones a week, and had thus decided that I would wear one on Tuesday. And Helen was going to put make-up on me. I was quite scared about this whole thing! It turned out really well, although it took me a while to get used to it. I kept getting a fright when I looked in the mirror in the bathroom - a classic "who on earth is that?" type response. In the middle of the day, the t-shirt friend (who had gone to quite a bit of effort to get me the shirts - roped in family members and all) came by with a camera, because he wanted to show members of his family back in the UK the results of their efforts. So I had a "photoshoot". Right, now that is three things in one week that I would not normally do! Modelling, getting make-up put on me, and getting pictures taken of me! All in two days!

I went to the zoo on Wednesday morning, and had quite a bit of time to kill between checking on my groups. So I wandered around, and saw the Bat-eared foxes basking... I have never fully appreciated exactly how cute these animals are, and I'm very sad to say that I didnt have my camera with me... So no photos. But the bundles of fluff are so adorable, with their massive ears and tiny faces, and the way that a flick of an ear seems to move the entire head... another "aaaah, thats so cute!" moment for me. Then later on, I was chatting to Doug online, who told me that I was going to be able to go on a hike (beat this) in the Kruger park!!!!!!! I ran to my supervisor's office and told him my news, all the while bouncing up and down (I think he was a little stunned at my antics), then went back to my lab, where Vanessa saw me bouncing up and down in my chair (a little difficult to do, but I still managed). Everyone else who saw me must think that I have really gone nuts now....

On thursday, I didn't have a car, so had to get a lift into varsity with my mom. Which was wierd, because I hadn't had to get dropped off at university since about second year! I managed to do a bit of work before lunch. Then I met a friend who I had been very nasty to (all becasue I had read a situation wrongly) for lunch. I felt so bad. So I apologised to him, and luckily, our friendship has not suffered too badly from my mistake - we were able to have just as cool a conversation as we would normally, except for the fact that I was feeling awful about how nasty I had been... Then, I went to the underwater club evening, to meet a friend who I hadn't seen in a while. While I was there, someone passed a comment which may seem innocuous, but which made my blood boil all the same. They said something along the lines of "Oh, here comes the girl-boy, with her pretty friend", and the only person they could have been referring to was me... Admittedly, I was wearing old jeans, a baggy t-shirt and hiking boots, but still, I had put a small amount of make-up on (another first for me). My anger tends to be slow in getting going, but by the time I got fetched (and almost finished my proposal), I was seething. End Thursday

Friday arrived, and I was still angry, and determined to prove them wrong. Even if they didn't see me that day. So I got up, dressed in jeans (yes, but they were better and slightly more feminine), and a soft yellow jersey. And put on make-up. All because I now have a point to prove. So next week, I will get my hair cut, and get some more feminine clothes, and make myself look pretty. Grrr. Friday was also wierd, because a friend of mine told me about her bad news, and after that, all I wanted to do was cry for her!!! That amount of empathy rarely happens to me, and it put me in a bleak mood for the rest of the day. Then the last thing that made this week stand out, was that I finished my proposal!!!

I hope I don't have too many more weeks that are as eventful as this one, because I am absolutely exhausted today!

On being happy, and a biologist moment

An incident that just happened got me thinking about exactly how normal I am... I had just had my shower and was gathering up my towl, when I noticed a small creature running toward my big toe. So I bent down to take a closer look. Now no normal (well at least, not many) female would have done that. But what was so cool about it (or at least, I thought so) was that it was a very small earwig! Not the 2-2.5cm ones that normally come running around, but this one was maybe 5mm! And what really got me laughing was that my immediate reaction was "aaaaah, that's so cute!!!". This lead to a memory from my recent trip to Sodwana, where a small snake was slithering around the braai area, no doubt a little lost. I have absolutely no idea what it was, maybe black, maybe very dark grey, with a stripe down its' back, but it was very small, maybe about 20cm long. There were more than just a few people hanging around, and my "oh, thats so cool!" reaction was lost on them. There were shrieks of "get it out of here before it kills me" and "GAAAH! It's going to bite me!" and just "GAAAH!". Then just as the clamour was dying down, I noticed a guy carrying a spade with a very sharp edge going toward the snake, which was trying very hard to escape (although in the wrong direction - into the base of the braai (a large sqaure structure, raised roughly 1.5m above the ground). I had a bit of a "if you kill the snake I will kill you" moment, then a "please please please don't hurt the snake" moment, then when it turned out that they guy was actually trying to get the snake onto the flat part of the spade in order to rescue it, I breathed a sigh of relief. Wow. The people must have thought that I was off my rocker.

All of this lead to another thought: what am I actually going to do with my life once I am finished my masters? I know that I am jumping the gun a bit, since I will only be done in roughly two years time, but still...... So I had a bit of a freak out moment. Then my brother asked my why I was happy. A while ago, I was decidedly unhappy, but I have taken a turn, and this is basically what I told him.

I told him that I had simply decided to be happy, and then acted on that descision. I had gotten tired of being unhappy and down in the dumps. I realised a long time ago that I was responsible for my own happiness, and thus it was up to me to create my own happiness (The realisation came many many years ago, when I was in high school, but I never fully appreciated it until now). To me, an object, occupation or a relationship can never sustain happiness, and thus, it needs to be innate. For me, that means that when I start thinking negative thoughts, I need to stop, and focus my attention on something that I love and makes me happy. Yes, there are good days and bad days, but mostly, for the past week, I have been more happy than I have for a very long time. There have been times when I have needed those good old endorphins (from that awesome raw south american jungle chocolate, but I can see that those are the times when I have lost sight of  how many fantastic friends I have, how many things I have to look forward to, and generally how good my life actually is!! Yes, there will be times that I will be down, but overall, I now know that I can pull myself out of the doldrums, pull myself together and just be happy!

Exploratory awesomeness

At this time of year I usually get itchy feet: For the past few years I have gone to the 'berg for an hike at this time of year. Although winter time is not usually associated with good times on a hike (especially in the 'berg), I have found that it is possibly one of the best times to go, even though you may have to cope with snow, no visibility and general frigidness and the problems around that. This year I might go on a hike In Kruger, but if that doesn't work out, then there is always the Drakensberg. Last year a group of us went on one of my most epic hikes thus far, up Bannerman's pass and down Langalibalele pass, with a night on a ledge on top of the escarpment in the snow.

It snowed. We got lost. It was awesome! We had planned to go for almost five days, but ended up only staying on the mountain for about three days, because of a couple of disasters that happened at the top (because it was so cold). One of the guys had bought himself a new pack with a fairly well known brand name (incidentally known for their reliability). In the cold, both clips attaching the shoulder straps to the pack broke. So we ended up tying the pack together... A few other things happened, and we decided to get off the mountain asap, as soon as the mist cleared (there was absolutely no vis), and we walked down the pass, and off the little berg in an afternoon. We decided to go back to monks cowl, where one of our party had a holiday cottage thing. On the way, the car that was towing the trailer broke.... But we got to the cottage, and spent the rest of our holiday in relative luxury!

All in all, the hike was fantastic. I would do it again in an instant, now that I have learnt a few things about the top of the 'berg (my first time at the top of the escarpment, actually), snow and cold. So now that my feet have gotten the itch, I feel that I really really just need to get out! I have no idea why this happens at the onset of winter. Perhaps it is the thought of getting stuck indoors for a long period of time, although it never happens in this country. Maybe it is even just the thought of not getting out anywhere (wild, I mean). All in all, I think it boils down to simple claustrophobia. I have discovered that I can't be in one place for too long, that I get wanderlust, and I think in winter, the thought of staying at home repeatedly, with a cups of hot chocolate just doesn't excite me! the thought of curling up with a book once or twice is appealing, but anything more than that.... Eish!