It's a long way to Tipperary

I am off to Ireland to do more eating, drinking and eating. Followed by some sleeping and a bit more eating for good luck.

Blogging may be difficult to squeeze in. Much like other things, such as clothes.

Well I have to finish work first. Last day!

This seamonkey has had much fun spouting crap on this blog. I guess it is like talking to myself, only I can pretend other people are listening, and happily enough, these imaginary people even reply occasionally.

I will be back sometime soon to carry on.

Don't OD on mince pies, ok? Always save space for that last wafer thin mint.

I always enjoy a bit of an explosion.

New Years resolutions

I am not normally into these because they require attributes like motivation and planning. But the previous two years my thought processes went something like this: 

"you are not getting any younger, and exercise makes you happy, so this year you should take advantage of what is left of your youth and do as many sports as possible".

Ha. Both times I got nasty injuries. This last year was particularly bad. I spent a considerable amount of it in bed. So I have scaled my resolutions down somewhat to more achievable goals:

1) if my body allows it, try and do some form of exercise, hopefully climbing

2) eat fewer chocolate digestives. Eat more of the chocolate toffee ones. They are better.

3) do not study. Try and get a life instead.

4) read more books and fewer blogs

5) keep blogging

6) try and write stuff. What stuff is, is vague as yet.

7) Moan 2% less about English weather than I did last year.

8) Do lots of handstands.

9) Try and be a nicer, kinder, better, more successful, more proactive, more confident, more positive person. 

10) When I fail miserably at achieving number 9 - do not beat myself up too much about it. At least I have a nice personality

11) and finally: try and unite some of my nice personalities into one. It is a bit crowded in here with all the voices talking at once. I aim for 3 personalities by the end of next year. Making decisions is too confusing with any more than that.

Anyone else feeling ambitious for the new year?

Common or garden variety

I feel a bit out of my league, out at sea, ten thousand leagues under the sea, that sort of thing. At my new workplace.

It is a place of learning. You see in England, you get universities and then you get Universities. See the difference? I am working at one of the latter. And it is not like in SA where if you want to go to uni and you have decent grades you can choose where to go. Oh no. Here it is super competitive and exclusive and just mad. It can blow your brains just listening to the younger students talking. It is all about results. They eat and dream their grades. And I thought I was a nerd. I am the dunce girl in comparison.

The people I work with all have at least a PhD. I think even the cleaners have a PhD. Boy do I feel the odd one out. These people are succesful. They have ambition. All I have is a nervous twitch. 

Really this place only takes the cream of the geni-asses. And. There is another thing. This place is super posh. Rich people live here and work here and study here. I always thought Eton was a myth or a legend, but no. People go there and then come here to study.

You know I was going on about super posh people saying "yah"? Well, they all say it here. In that respect I should slot in just fine.

But in terms of everything else, for now I am going for the "smile and nod" technique. Really I think the less I say the better. I have no idea what anybody is talking about most of the time, but that smile is plastered to my face. When they start saying things like "Tony Blair ate here" and "Bill Clinton went here" and "the next US president could be right in front of us" the smile reaches Alaska. 

Smile and nod, nod and smile. And say "ja" after every nod.

No one will notice I am an imposter right?

Party pooped

meh.

2 parties, one evening, in two towns 60 kilometers apart.

Am I dead? Is this heaven? If so please send me to hell.

At least it will be warmer.

Party 3 is today.

If I live through all this I may never eat again. At least until Easter.

Quit playing games with my heart

I am ever so slightly homesick. I do not necessarily have a "home" as such. But I miss the place that my heart tells me is home. None of my family lives there any more. Almost all my friends have moved. But I still want to be there.

They all tell me there is no way I should go back. I am sure everyone knows the reasons; the arguments for and against blah blah, ranging from AA, BEE, Zimbabwe-style melt downs to death-for-cell-phone. I have heard them all over and over again, for the last five years or so. Many of the things I agree with. I may be stubborn but I am not stupid.

I hope this does not offend the people actually living there. But many of you would have at least thought these things through yourselves. Right?

Despite all the hopeless doom and gloom, my heart still keeps telling me it wants to come back. To come HOME. Specifically to Cape Town, where the mountain and the sea make it impossible to know where to find the best view. Where life consisted of going climbing or playing beach volleyball after work and weekends were spent out in the mountains.

Probably if we moved back to Cape Town I would be lonely and miss England. It could happen. Or I could be freaked out by all the crime. I had my fair share of bad experiences in the past, but it takes moving and leaving it all to realise what a huge impact it has on your life. Then I just dealt with it. Could I now?

I am not sure that we could even find work in Cape Town. Jobs in our fields are limited and the pay is bad.

Let's just say, if you write it all out in a list, there are more cons to going home than pros.

But for the last 2 years or so it has been pretty much all I can think about. I don't know why I am so fixed on this. I have no British passport. If we leave we cannot just come back to the UK. It is a big decision. One that need not be made just yet, with me starting my new job and all.

Exmi's tarot reading told me very clearly to think rationally and not with my heart. Right now I am as far from rational as it is possible to be. My reasons for wanting to go home are vague. Do I really belong there? I have never really "belonged" anywhere.

I feel somehow that South Africa defined me and made me what I am now. But in theory you can make yourself whatever you want to be wherever you happen to be. It is up to you.

I think I suffer from mushy brain on toast syndrome or something.

I can't analyse it any more.

I just want to go HOME where the dassies roam and steal your Klippies for their afternoon dop and where you get free car removal services, often even before you thought you needed them. Now that is service.

Tis the season to be blobby?

On the 12th day of Christmas the season gave to me:

12 turkey drumsticks

11 mince pies a piping

10 roast potatoes

9 christmas parties

8 eggnog smoothies

7 work functions

6 geese and stuffing

5 GOLDEN CHOCOLATE COINS

4 family dinners

3 fried hens

2 mulled wines

and a partridge in a pear pie.

Vanity aside. I cannot afford a new wardrobe this year. I have not been PAID yet. The amount of food I am going to be exposed to in the next two weeks is ridiculous. How does one survive without incurring apoplexy?

IS it really necessary to have so many dinners and functions and meals before Christmas? Quite frankly, it loses its novelty after one.

JustB[coz] mentioned the possibility of a "nekkid summer". I may be spending a "nekkid winter" but I will freeze to death. I guess I will just have to wear my coat with nothing underneath all winter.

I just hope the next few months are not too windy.

storm in a teacup

The other day I wrote that the universe was kicking me in the nads. I take it back. I have gained some perspective. Various people I know are going through private hells right now. Their lives are at that "being ripped apart" stage. And I was feeling sorry for myself over what was essentially a timetable clash. 

I can be so super-self absorbed sometimes it is not even funny. We all have times when the world truly seems to collapse around us. This is not one of those times for me. I should be making the most of that, so when it does fall down, I have some good times to look back on.

I do find it hard to separate myself from other people's problems though. How do I go about enjoying myself when other people are in hell? I feel too guilty. I know it makes no sense, I may not even be near the person, so me feeling bad and stalled by their problems does not help them in one tiny way. But I almost feel like I don't own my own life, that I consist of other people's opinions and expectations of me. And if someone feels anguish, I feel like I should be feeling it too. It is all a bit confusing. 

And I seem to have changed the topic to "me" again. I am good at that. Perhaps if I learn to "own" myself, then I won't be so self absorbed?

Sometimes I think I need therapy because I can't teach myself this kind of thing. But don't we all?

Dance like a human reindeer

I have had one pressing question on my mind all week:

Are we Human? Or are we Dancer?

This question sure puzzled Brandon Flowers from the Killers. So much that he sang a song about it.

He is on his knees, looking for the answer in fact. He is pretty fucking floored by this question.

Dude. It is not that pressing is it? How do we stop the Polar icecaps from melting? Is it possible to eliminate poverty? Will AIDS ever have a cure? Can a badger dance on a spoon? All these questions are more pressing than the one above.

I mean, sure, dancers can be a bit odd sometimes, perhaps they do seem like a different species. But we aren't all dancers now are we? Or is he asking if we are all "Dancer" the reindeer? Is there a reindeer called Dancer?

Whatever. This ponderation does not warrant a song being written about it either way. The only explanation I can come up with as to why airwave time was dedicated to this garbage was that there was a typo. On the day of recording, the typist had one too many swigs from their hipflask and typed it up wrong.

You see the only way it makes sense that the Killers would have written a song like this, is if the real words are:

Are we Human? Or are we Hamster?

You see? It all becomes much clearer when I put it like that. Now that is a question worth asking. I have often wondered myself, and would be prepared to go down on my knees to look for the answer.

So the next time you hear this song with the ridiculous lyrics but distressingly catchy tune, please make sure to sing along using the correct words. People will thank you for it.

If you have no idea what I am babbling on about, click here (they won't let me embed the real video).

Bio 101

I have decided to give the blogosphere a bit of insight into what it is I do all day now that I am employed.

Step, if you will, inside the shoes of a Biologist. Make sure you have labcoat, gloves and safety glasses at the ready. The safety glasses are there to protect you from the lab llamas. Llamas make great scientists. But they spit like a bitch. True story. 

I generally work with DNA from various things. I am sure you all know that DNA looks like this:

current.com

Only not so colourful. And we don't see it like that with the naked eye, it is far too small. And contrary to popular belief (BFG thought this) DNA is not like an organ ferreted away somewhere behind the liver. You have the full set of all your genes in every single cell of your body. With me so far?

Now I do various things with DNA (wrap it around my head, tie climbers knots in it, that sort of thing) and invariably I need to see if what I was doing worked. So I visualise the DNA like this:

norgenbiotek.com

Yup, the DNA is those little white strips. Beeeautiful huh? You have no idea how happy those little white strips make me. Little white strips mean "good day". Unless they are in the wrong place. They sometimes appear where they shouldn't be. Bad strips.

On a " very bad day" I might see something like this instead:

                                      molecularstation.com

Baaaaaaaad. Then I have to explain to my boss why there are no little white strips. How the fuck am I supposed to know? You bastards, where are you? Burning in DNA HELL I hope.

I am aware that by using Paint, or some similar program, I could fabricate a black background and a few white strips. But that would be naughty. I swear to you, my job is not sitting in front of the computer all day, drawing little white strips on black backgrounds. Those white lines really are DNA.

Cool stuff, right? I can see you all queueing for miles to switch jobs and become a biolo-cyst.

Oh I forgot to add: I use highly toxic chemicals all day long. The kind that can cause you to mutate into flourescent green seamonkeys with extra toes. I just thought I would add that in as an extra bonus.

AND just to clinch the deal. You get paid badly.

Little white strip, anyone?

No! Could there be... MORE??

I had planned to write a whingey post about how the universe was kicking me in the nads, and then I remembered: I don't have any. But if I did, I would be sterile right now.


Luckily Rox tagged me and so I shall regale you with 6 fascinating facts about me instead. Ha. You thought you had heard everything there was to hear about the enthralling topic that is me? Think again buddy, this is a gift that keeps on giving.


1) For about 8 years I ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches. Literally. No dinner or anything. I got a little bit bored of them by about year 6.25. But kept going for the sake of continuity... You would never guess but nowadays I never eat peanut butter.

2) I cannot drive. I have put this in another meme before but it is so ridiculous that it is worth repeating. I may be the oldest non-driver on this earth. BFG is giving me lessons. But really really people, you don't want me on your roads. Which one is "left" again? And the brake is where exactly? I thought that pole was there to stop me.

3) I have a fairly addictive personality. I drink way too much coffee. And whenever I buy food I eat it all in one go, or else it starts calling to me to be eaten. Hence I never shop for more than one day's food at a time. Too dangerous.

4) I loved roller skating as a kid. I could do spins and jumps and everything. Rollerblades are so second rate.

5) As a wee barn I cried my eyes out watching Herbie. I couldn't handle the car getting rejected. People getting slaughtered and amputated, no problem. But a dejected car made me howl.

6) I could never accept that men are so much stronger than women. It always seemed unfair. I wanted to be strong and be able to do amazing stuff like guys. I am still like that. I am glad I am a chick so that I have actual brains and know about life the universe and everything, but I wish I could do one finger pull-ups too.

I have decided to tag one person and one person only. I think of this as a little experiment. I have the person down as the type who scorns tags and abhors them more than the bubonic plague. Knowing his profession, the bubonic plague is probably cuddly in comparison. But perhaps I have totally misread him. Either way, my tagging policy is, if you don't want to do it, please don't strain your wrist. I will never be offended.

Mr 6000, you are the winner of a big, fat TAG!

P.S. I have a guest splatter on my other blog, Typesplat. Cybersass was kind enough to send me some of her stuff. She posts a lot of her poems on her blog, which are really good. You should check them out.

Climb every mountain, forge every stream

This will probably not mean much to most of you.

But.

I CLIMBED!!!!!!

My pathetic sack of a body did some exercise it actually enjoyed for the first time in over a year. My poor flaccid weak little matchstick arms nearly fell off and my sliced open shoulder moaned a bit and it was not a graceful ascent like a rock dancer, more like the flight of the bumble gecko. But still. Climbing was the light of my life a few years ago. It just makes me so very happy. I am not sure if I will be able to keep doing it, if my back will hold out, but right now I am elated. 

My hands are red, ripped and sore, my feet squished from the ridiculous shoes and my forearms are  filled with jelly. What a good feeling.

And my harness was mysteriously tight. Weird huh, maybe it shrunk in the wash? Only, you don't wash harnesses. Must have been the cold that made it shrink then...

Chocolate digestives as a staple diet have nothing to do with it ok?

Dirty laundry

You know life must be a bit unstable, a bit new and confusing, a bit overwhelming, when your taste in music takes a drastic turn.

My favourite music is gloomy, sad rock. It can be upbeat, so long as it is bittersweet. The type that will make you shed loads of tears into your beers. Pearl Jam is a good example.

But this past month or so, my ipod playlist has become a bit dubious to say the least.

My two most played songs are an indie track and a pop one. These are two genres I never listen to.

I think Editors "An end has a start" is the soundtrack to the movie which is my alternative life, the one that involves wrestling with crocodiles instead of test tubes. It sound like the soundtrack of someone edgy and interesting, someone who is about to go blow something up. You never know, with my track record, that could be me.

The other song I am almost too embarrassed to admit. But blogs are for overshare so bring it on.

Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold". There I said it. Please don't laugh. I hate pop and I freaking HATED her previous two songs. They were just abominable. But this one is kind of energetic, which I am not, and it seems to make me bouncy for a minute or two.




My energy levels and positive thoughts are flagging at the moment, and I am clinging to temporary fixes in the form of music. I am sure I will get back to normal and settle into being a rock chick once more.

There, I came clean. Does anyone have any dirty little music secrets that you wish to share?

(I realise that I have mentioned explosions and blowing stuff up quite frequently on this blog. I am sure I am popular with the CIA and such. Hiya! I swear I am speaking metaphorically. Does the CIA do metaphors? I actually have never blown anything up that I can recall. Set fire to stuff, sure. Please don't arrest me ok?)

I won!

I won ExMi's tarot giveaway! I feel like I won the Oscars or something. I don't recall ever winning anything before.

If you voted for me, you rule. If you didn't, you drool. ExMi rules mostest of course, for doing this for me.

I wonder what my foocha holds? Hopefully coffee.

I had three cups this morning before 11, including one mega espresso and only barely managed to stay awake today. These early starts are a rude awakening, narf.

Screenplay hand in is tomorrow. I went with the kid in the township rather than the BRITTISH scenario, that will be our little secret, nudge nudge wink wink, hows yer father, know what I mean? I wrote the entire thing on the 17 hour train trip in Egypt. It was a bit... difficult to read; it was a bumpy train. The roaches were a bit distracting too. And the girl puking next door. Noice.

That is all I have for today. Let interesting times befall me soon so I may have the pleasure of writing about them for your bloggy pleasure.

Le WC a mangé mon téléphone

This story is a friend's, but it is worthy of a retell.

He and a French colleague were in France for a work meeting. They were on a train. Soon after the train left their station it stopped.

They sat, and sat... people started swearing. They sat some more. Then the train went back to the station. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. No announcements or anything. After about an hour the fire engine arrived. Finally they found out what the delay was.

Some dude had dropped his phone down the train toilet. And had decided to stick his hand down the toilet to retrieve it. What goes in must come out right? Wrong. He got his arm stuck in the toilet. 

Euw euw and euw. Train toilets are never the nicest. The ones in England always smell terrible. Imagine having your face stuck so close to one for what turned out to be two hours.

Here is the thing. Train toilets often empty out straight onto the track. Which is why I avoid them like the plague; I mean, imagine the poor people who have to work on the tracks! 

Now how this guy, who apparently was French, FORGOT this fact, and failed to notice the breeze on his cheeks, is beyond me. His phone was out there in traintrack (human)waste land somewhere. 

But he sure had dedication. I would not stick my whole arm down a grotty toilet for a phone.

So after two hours they managed to free his arm. It must have been in deep.

Let go dude, shit happens.

Thoughts both meaningful and deep

1) I shall now become an official "crap blogger". Am too tired to even eat. Now that is bad. Have no thoughts in my head. Only echoes.

2) Work is hard. Who invented it? Die please.

3) What the frik is a hypol 1 mutant and what does it do?

4) an internet phone could solve all my woes because my commute is long. Could I write blog posts on one of them things? What about writing stories and things?

5) blogging is my therapy. I refuse to give up. Blogging about work is not a good idea though. Intellectual property, lawsuits, all that stuff is best avoided.

6) I love my duvet

7) sorry for being rubbish now. It must be the mushroom. All my wit went with the hair.

8) I miss you guys already. Reading blogs in the evenings is not quite the same somehow.

9) I did not blow anything up. Day 1, tick. England gets to die another day.

D-Day

I am shitting bricks.

How are you?

No really, please tell me what is cooking in your own lives to help me avoid thinking about bricks and the shitting thereof.


P.S. I thought for your voyeristic pleasure I would just inform you that I have been BOBBED. I am not happy about it.

I am a tomboy (read slob. A slob with a bob?) through and through and care very little for hair and nails and clothes and blah. This does not mean that I am not vain, I am exceedingly so, it just manifests itself in less obvious ways.

I have had my hair the same way for ages now. Not by intention. Just that every time I go to the hairdressers, I say the same thing: "I have no idea, I like lots of layers and lengths, preferably shoulder length or just above".

And this seems to translate to exactly the same thing no matter where I get my hair cut. This time for some unfathomable reason I ever so slightly changed it to say "I don't mind if it is slightly shorter than shoulder length" which I took to mean the same as before.

But apparently in hairdresser language, this means BOB!

I hate bobs, I look horrendous in them, and they are such high maintenance. Long hair is great because you can just tie it up and that is that. For me a bob means one thing: mushroom.

I don't appreciate looking like a forest fungus. No good for my credibility. Oi, I can hear you murmuring, "what credi...". I have some. It is just hiding for now. Behind my toadstool head.

I am aware that for a person who professes to care nothing about hair, I have managed to write a lengthy post about my hair. My talents are many and vast.