Food of the Gods/Devil

Now that I have neglected my blog for a good month or so, I feel that I should write at least ONE post for February. For my fans, alas, I will probably be posting rarely this year as I have a lot of work to do for my PhD (HOORAY!!!) and so I probably won't have the time or inspiration to write. Unless you want to learn about how chimpanzees use space...

Following a post by Leia, I have been thinking about the whole chocolate-is-a-substitute-for-sex thing. And, following a rather fruitless rummage through a text book on biological psychology (What kind of decent text book on psychology doesn't have a section on chocolate?! I mean really...! ), I turned to the faithful Internet for the knowledge which I shall present to you here.



So Leia argued that she was not one to fit the stereotype of chocolate substituting sex. She then went on to describe how she ate chocolate all the time, so it couldn't possibly be related to her libido. As she put it, she ate chocolate whenever she felt, 'tired, frustrated, lonely, etc.'

While the motivation for eating the heavenly gifts of the cocoa plant may not be sexual, it is very interesting to look at the hormones that are released when one eats chocolate. First up, ENDORPHINS!

These are the bodies natural pain killers. According to these guys (they have references, so I am inclined to believe them) endorphins are produced by our body in a variety of circumstances, including pain experience, eating spicy foods, overexposure to light (I'm assuming that refers to sunburn...?), exercise, laughter, crying, stress, acupuncture, shower massagers, calming music, tickling, sex, stimulating the erogenous zones and eating sweet foods, including...drum roll please...chocolate! Interestingly, scalp massage made it's way in there too. That explains why some girls love having their hair washed so much...


Another important chemical is Phenylethylamine. There's an obligatory quiz on all the chemical names at the end of this post...I think I'll just call it 'P' for simplicity's sake. This chemical is naturally found in the brain and is associated with increasing activity in the pleasure centres of the brain by causing the release of dopamine (the happy chemical). This is also produced in relatively high levels during orgasm. They have a strong influence on our mood when found in the brain. However, according to these people, some suggest that chemicals such as P are metabolised long before they get near the brain when taken in through chocolate. It's also found in a number of other foods, including beer, wine and some cheeses.

Interestingly, chocolate also contains cannabinoids, similar chemicals to those found in weed. So, they have the effect of making one feel happy. However, one would have to consume ridiculous quantities of chocolate to get high. The cannabinoids in it are not nearly as strong as those found in cannabis. According to this abstract, some lawyer actually tried this once as a defence against his client dealing and using Mary-Jane. Sadly for him, his defence was shot down in flames...

A well known chemical in chocolate is the caffeine and similar non-caffeine chemicals. I'm not going to say any more apart from the fact that the chemicals occur in very low quantities in chocolate when compared to coffee. Here they claim that 50g of dark chocolate still contains less caffeine than 150ml of tea. Food for thought and whatnot...

So, while the sex-chocolate link isn't exactly gospel, you can still see that chocolate has come very interesting effects on the brain. On the plus side, it also tastes good!

PS. Picture credits; Here, here, here and here.

It's ON!

So, having been challenged to the task by Eebee (sorta...) I too have decided to find out what significance my birthday has for the human race in general. Thus I am about to do a search for 15 February. Here goes...

...

...

Well, Eebee, it appears that disaster follows in my wake too.

• 1898 - USS Maine exploded and sank in Havanna harbour, killing 260 people.
• 1933 - Giuseppe Angara tried to kill Franklin D. Roosevelt, shot at him, missed and instead killed Chicago mayor, Anton J. Cermak.
• 1942 - Singapore fell to the Japanese after the British surrendered, resulting in the capture of 80 000 prisoners of war and the start of the Sook Ching massacre.
• 1961 - Sabena flight 548 crashed in Belguim, resulting in the deaths of the entire United States figure skating team, their coaches and families; 73 deaths in total.
• 1970 - A Dominican DC9 plummetted from the heavens and crashed into the sea during take-off from Santo Domingo; 102 dead.
• 1982 - An oceanic oil rig, Ocean Ranger, sank during a storm off Newfoundland, killing 84.

On the plus side though:

• 1764 - St. Louis, Missouri was established! While this means little to me, I'm sure many of you St. Louis'ians are rather chuffed! ;)
• 1879 - American President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill that permitted female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. Go women-folk!
• 1971 - Decimalisation of British coinage was completed on Decimal Day. Yay for the Brits! They finally saw the light and converted to a LOGICAL decimal system! 10 points!
• 2003 - The worlds biggest peace protest action against the Iraq war took place in over 600 cities worldwide involving an estimated 8 million to 30 million people taking part!
• 2005 - Youtube was launched in the United States! Where would we be without it!! :D

Famous people...?

• Ice-T!
• Jane Seymour!
• Matt Groening!
• Birdman! (not too proud of that one...)
• Toto (An italian who was really big...in Italy...)
• A whole stack of other folks who might be famous...somewhere...but I know nothing about.

I'm awesome...It's that simple, really... ;P

Hi!

So, Sarah has given me an award! YAY! The idea is that I now write 7 things about myself which make me the fantastic individual I am and then pass on the award to 7 others. To elaborate on the title of this post, I shall provide some examples below...

I rock because:

1. I'm witty. Or at least, so I am told by others. Sometimes I doubt the sanity of some of those who accuse me of being witty, but overall, I humbly (because that's the kind of person I am, humble... :D ) accept the complement and move on with my life...


2. I can get passionately excited about almost anything. Seriously. It's a pain some of the time because I tend to get all excited and nobody else seems to feel that way, so I feel a bit of a nutter...


3. I am brimming with useless facts! Really! I was actually famous during my undergraduate years for this. I would sprout forth with all manner of redundant trivia to my bemused colleagues whenever I felt the need. It's actually all because of watching Discovery Channel and National Geographic documentaries. And they say TV is bad for you! Hah! Ideal example: did you know that a pumpkin, by the strictest definition of the term, is actually a berry?


4. I have good taste! Or at least, I like to think so. My friends are all fantastic people, I like the colour green (You can't go wrong with green! It's timeless! Like black!) AND I am impermeable to distasteful trends in fashion and music (Down with pop-music!).


5. At this point I would like to say that I am seriously struggling to write this. I hate tooting my own horn...Also, blogger is being stupid and can't stop numbering stuff, so this doesn't count as one of my points, I just can't stop the stupid website from doing that! Aargh!


6. I'm in love with post-its! They are just about the most amazing invention ever! Step aside wheel!


7. I'm multi-talented! Not only am I a brilliant scientist in the making, but I write and compose my own music too!


8. I love art-house movies! There is something particularly nice about watching something that actually makes you think every once in a while. I do enjoy vegetating in front of the tele every now and again too, but the deep stuff is more my style.

Wow...I think I was kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel for some of those, but at least I got something in there...So I would like to award this SUPA-AMAZING PERSON award to the following: Jenny, Megan, Eebee, Athena, Helen, Laura and last, but certainly not least, Tomkins.

Nice picture for the day:

Life without light

We work very hard on field trips!

Hi all!

This post is not anywhere near as serious as the title hints. I'm just writing about how, for the last three days, I have had to camp in my own house. It is all because as most South Africans can testify, we are not all that good at grasping and understanding this concept of public service and community.

The reason why I say that I have had to camp in my own home is that we have had no electricity for the last three days! It's been insane! There was some problem and our power went out some time very early on Monday morning. I woke up to find that our house was unusually cold, despite the fact that we don't actually have any heaters in operation at the moment. I recieved a phone call on my cell phone, which incidentally was in the final throws of battery death, tried very hard to answer the call and for some inexplicable reason, couldn't. So, I got up and tried to plug my phone in to recharge the battery.

Now, usually, I do have problems getting the plug of my cell phone charger to actually make a decent connection so that I can actually charge my phone. So, this morning, when I plugged it all in and failed to get any hint of recharging it didn't strike me as particularly strange.

I sometimes like to listen to music in the mornings to wake me up a little. So on this morning, I pressed the play button on my CD player before I tried to plug in my phone. It was at this point that I noticed something odd. There was nothing happening. Not even that familiar whirring sound that usually preceeds the music. So, I sat up and looked at the CD player. That was when I realised that we had no power.

Now, power failures in SA are not entirely uncommon. We have them from time to time, however they tend to last about an hour or two at the most. This one went on for THREE DAYS! We are very fortunate however as we are one of the few families that I know that have solar heated water. It's great because it means that we still had hot water! The only down side was that we had to go and fetch the water from our pool area as that is where the solar unit thingy is. We also had to invent a new style of washing which involved getting a bucket of hot water and a sponge. You would then use the sponge to generate a kind of spray, similar to an actual shower only much less satisfying.

Then, our prayers were answered this morning! I awoke to my father sitting at a computer, checking his e-mail. The power had been restored!!! So, tonight I look forward to a shower instead of a 'bucket' as we began to call the new cleaning process. Also, I don't have to worry about concerving my battery life on my laptop! Yay!

In hindsight, it was actually rather scary to realise just how dependent we are on our electricity. It felt as if our lives had come to a complete stand-still because we couldn't watch TV or surf the web. It's rather sad really. All the same, I am thrilled to have it all back!

As an aside, I went to prize-giving this evening and finally recieved the prize for the mysterious money which I recieved a while back. It was cool! I got a post-it note with something along the lines of 'If you have any problems, please contact Mrs. Adele Katz'

Random Fact Of The Day:

Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries

Disasters at sea! (Well...not quite...)

How many of you have ever gone yachting? My cousins family own a small plot of land at the side of a river called the Vaal (Pronounced 'Vahl'). We occasionally go over to their plot to spend public holidays or the odd weekend. It's really nice despite the distinct lack of a toilet.

It is really just a large open piece of ground that is basically just open veld (pronounced 'felt' - it's the afrikaans equivalent of grassland). Luckily, there is a patch of tree-like weeds which provide good cover for when 'nature calls', so the toilet issue is somewhat resolved.

Well, on Easter Monday this year, we all went to the plot to spend the day. It was so nice! I really needed a change of scenery and it's always great to get to see family. We all left Joburg at about 10:00am and headed straight there. It's about 80+ km south from Johannesburg, so it takes about an hour to get there. My parents were supposed to come too but my dad wasn't well and my mom refused to leave him to his own devices, and so stayed home.

Once we had arrived, we being my aunt and uncle, my two cousins Sarah and Duncan and my sisters, their friend and I, we set up camp and started a fire going, to braai (pronounced 'bry' - afrikaans word for a barbecue). Shortly thereafter, my other aunt and uncle arrived with their kids and my grandmother. We all helped to set up camping chairs and whatnot and soon everyone was sitting around, chatting, as is customary at these things.

The day progressed as usual and apart from a very bad culinary mistake as a result of my sisters friend suggesting that we braai our vegetarian (she is also a veggie) sausages doused in mustard, all was going swimmingly!

Usually, when we go there we go for sailing trips around the river. However, this time, the little metal thingy, which to the best of my knowledge has no name, that sits at the front of the boat and has a rope through it which can be tied to stuff to prevent the boat floating away, was broken. So, as soon as things were set up and the food was on the braai, my uncles immediately got to fixing it. By about 3:00, it appeared to be seaworthy.

So we began to take the boat out. It is always a bit of a job and requires all hands to achieve due to the fact that the ramp thingy leading from the boat house to the water has kind of disintegrated because of the river eroding it. So, after much tying of ropes and erecting of masts, the boat was ready for the water. There was one rather unpleasant problem though...

The boat reeked of rat urine!

It was disgusting! The stench was rather overpowering! At one stage, someone mentioned how they had gotten a 'pure wiff' of it when a breeze had picked up. So it was dubbed 'Pure Wiff' (This was followed by many crude jokes about the marketing strategies that would be best suited to selling a product that was actually rat piss called 'Pure Wiff'). The boat is seldom used and, given that the plot is mostly wild vegetation in the middle of nowhere, it's no surprise that the boathouse probably had rats.

So, we held our breath and pushed the boat into the water. Almost immediately, a small crowd, including myself had gathered in the hopes of being taken out on the boat. I used to be terrified of capsizing and falling into the water, but now I love going out on it! So, my now rather tipsy uncle volunteered to take us out and Sarah, Duncan, my cousin Emma and I all piled into the boat along with the tipsy uncle. He was surprisingly sober when it came to operating the boat. Once everyone was in, we cast off.

About 20m from the shore, my uncle looked at the bottom of the boat and saw a large tuft of grass that had somehow gotten into the thing. For the same reasons that rats wouldn't be a surprise, this was inconsequential. He simply tossed it into the water and we went on. Shortly thereafter, I noticed something alarming!

The boat was leaking! I mentioned this and nobody, appart from Duncan thought this to be of significance. My uncle seemed to think that as long as we were bailing out all the rapidly collecting water, it was okay. And so we sailed on.

At some stage, Sarah shrieked and said 'There are rats on the boat!' And there were! At first we thought that there was only one, but as time passed, we realised to our horror, that there were at least 5! Now, this boat isn't very big. It can fit maybe 6 people sitting in it, at a stretch and even then, you probably wouldn't be able to stear it. So, there isn't much space and given that there were 5 rats running around it, the chances of having one scuttle onto you, or worse, bite you, were pretty good. So we spent the rest of the time with our feet up on the center-board trying to balance the boat and not let our feet touch the floor, all while dodging waves of the now-dissolved-in-river-water-from-the-leak Pure Wiff.

We soon realised that the grass had actually been the top half of a rat nest! This, coupled with a few close calls as far as capsizing the boat in concerned, the leak and the fact that we now had 5 rats running around under us in the bottom of the boat, lead us to head back in. It was great fun!

I went out again immediately, but this time with my sister, Lucia, who is terrified of sailing. Why she got into the boat in the first place still escapes me, but she did. The whole time she spent digging her nails into my knees, hands and shoulders, wimpering and praying aloud 'Please God, don't let this boat topple over!' It was really funny in a sadistic brotherly kind of way!

Once we returned to the shore, we all packed up and headed off home. It was a great day!

Random Fact For The Day:

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying

My second degree!

Well folks! I have now officially got two degrees! I graduated last night!

It all started a few weeks ago when I recieved a letter from Wits, letting me know when our graduation ceremony would be. Enclosed with the letter were the tickets to graduation. There were two tickets. One for each of my parents. There wasn't one for me...

I wasn't invited to my own graduation.

I went the very next day to rectify the situation. I headed straight for the graduation office and after Helen rang the ring-only-once-for-service bell multiple times, a woman emerged from the back to try and assist me. I was sure she was going to slay me for the ringing but, unlike one would expect from a Wits admin official, she didn't. I explained my plight and without hesitation, she disappeared and reappeared with a little pink card. 'Here, just write your name on it and that's all,' she said.

I was a little surprised that it didn't need an official stamp or anything. So I quickly wrote my name out and my degree as well and headed back to my office.

Weeks passed and on Monday, I remembered that I had to organise my gown for graduation as well as the thingy that they call 'the hood' which looks more like a supermodels sash to me. When you get a BSc at Wits, your hood is black with a thick blue band down the middle. For honours, they throw in a thinner silver band, over the blue one.

I went on Wednesday to see if I couldn't organise my outfit. The hiring people said that they would be on campus the day before our graduation to hire out stuff. I couldn't remember just how much it cost but I had a vague idea that it was something around R180. Little did I know...

Firstly, I arrived at the room where they hire from and discovered that there was nobody there. I was a little confused and headed back to the lab to try and find out if anybody had any clue what was going on. Upon arrival, I was informed that it was actually that they would be on campus ON the day of our graduation.

That evening, I went out to dinner with Eebee, who is up from Kwa-Zulu Natal to graduate, Marlien and Wilhelem and Kathleen. Laura came too but didn't stick around for long. We had such a ball! And, as is customary for Bimillah's (the resturant that we frequent) the food was amazing!

The next day, I went to the room to hire out my outfit. They were there and I filled out the form and all that is required to hire. I had to stand in a long queue to pay and once I eventually reached the fron, I discovered that my memory is pretty bad! It turned out that hiring was R300, not R180 as I had originally thought. So I hirtled down to a bank, withdrew some money and headed back. After the short time that it had taken me to get money, the queue had doubled in length. So, I joined the queue, once again, and chatted to a friend of mine I hadn't seen in about a year.

Eventually I paid and got my outfit. I then went off to my lab to pack up and head home. But, not before getting a good stocking of 'Heros' from Candice, my fellow lab occupant. I love that show!

The drive home took a lot longer than usual due to traffic. As the easter weekend nears, people flock from the city to the coast for the long weekend. There are considerable road fatalities that accompany this.

Once home, I had a shower, got changed into my suit and made sure that I and my parents had all that was required. We had to get back to Wits for a pre-graduation cocktail party thingy that the school of animal, plant and environmental studies was hosting.

As an aside, you must watch this! It had me in stitches and chuckling for hours after watching it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIqhUCZgwXQ&mode=related&search=

The cocktail party was interesting...we all just kinda stood around and tried to guess who was who. Most of those attending were parents, there were about 4 actual school staff memebers who attended. Half-way through all of us graduands (spelling?) ran off to go and take photos. This was a bit of a disaster, as only half of us actually did what we said we would do. The others were nowhere to be found. Eventually we managed to organise everyone together and got a few snaps.

Then, we all went off in search of our seating. It was a little confusing at first but we eventually figured out where we were supposed to be. Shortly thereafter, it started...

Helen and Vanessa recieved, like, a million awards!

And it ended two hours later! It was so long! I didn't do anything stupid like trip on my shoelaces while in the middle of the stage or anything. Someone else did that so I wouldn't have to! Some girl was so excited about getting her degree that she just about ran across the stage to collect the paper.

Once it was over, I went to hand in my outfit and pay for some of my photos. Along the way I ran into almost everyone I've ever known - seriously, I had no idea I knew that many people! Eventually after many greetings and goodbyes, we went home. All in all, it wasn't too bad...

Random Fact For The Day:

Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with

My first day!

I'm a bit torn about people that work at video/DVD stores now...I realise that it has to be one of the most boring part-time jobs one could ever have! At the same time, it's SO easy!

I went off to my first day at work, rather apprehensively. I was a little nervous due to the fact that my boss freaked out at Helen on the phone recently and by the sounds of things was not all that impressed with me, considering I would be going off on field work with Helen. So, I arrived there with a sense of mild dread.

I arrived about 10 min early and stood outside the store with the REALLY grumpy cleaning lady who, after I greeted her, made some very annoyed and desprite tugs at the stores main door. In a way, it was rather funny. I've never made someone look that desprite to go anywhere by simply greeting them!

The boss then arrived. She let us in and quickly ushered me behind the counter and then went to put out all of the store parafinalia. I was a little confused as I had just been shoved behind the counter and then she ran off to put out all the heavy-looking stuff like the gumball machine. I immediately went to help and was told to collect the middle-of-the-night-returns-box and take it behind the counter, which I did.

She then taught me to use the computer system, which is piss-easy by the way, and I got stuck into returning DVDs. It's rather fun, in that you really don't need to think much, simply scan stuff in and that's all! Then, I had four people come and start new memberships, which I did. I'm good at that too.

The day progressed with many smoke-breaks. I don't smoke, but my boss does. A lot! And after what sometimes felt like a lifetime and sometimes felt like a blur, my shift ended. I then headed home to eat something. I was famished! You have no idea! I hadn't eaten since 8:30 that morning and it was already 5:15 in the evening!

And thus concludes my first day at work.

Here are the lyrics to a song by 'Faithless', called 'Last this day' from 'To all new arrivals', which I've had stuck in my head all day and I think are really rather beautiful:

Lines to the skin, that are saying neither son nor sin
Tubes to the mouth, cannot laugh or sigh or even cry
A drop in the ocean, a second in all time
One star in the endless sky, but you mean
the whole world to me, you're an island of light

So please, bless this day
Stay, one more day
Please, bless this day
Stay, one more day

Stay one more, stay one more stay one more day
Just one more, just one more, just one more day

All this madness around us, you all-knowing and so still
You were made in love, and grew in hope, born in pain
You have them running around, trying to make you breathe again
One tiny link in an endless chain, but you mean
the whole world to me, you're an island of light

So please, bless this day
Stay, one more day
Please, bless this day
Stay, one more day

So please, bless this day
Stay, one more day
Please, bless this day
Stay, one more day

So please, bless this day
Stay, one more day
Please, bless this day
Stay, one more day

Random Fact For The Day:

By raising your legs slowly and laying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand

I HAVE A SOUTH AMERICAN READING MY BLOG!!!

HOORAY!

I happened to check what comments I had on my last post (Thanks for the useless facts page Trav! I'll have to go check it out!) when I noticed that my world-blog-reading-tracker-thingy on the side of my blog has a whole lot of extra blobs all over it. And, as exciting as it is that I have expanded my readership, I was thrilled to see that one of them is from South America!

I have always been fascinated by South America. I love it! I think it looks like such a beautiful and exciting place! I guess, I also have a sort-of kindred feeling towards it as, coming from a continent that is almost entirely third world, we (myself and the South American continent) have something in common! So, to whoever you are that read my blog from way over the atlantic, TEN points!

This doesn't by any means diminish the importance of you non-South American readers! I love you guys!

Well, I havn't posted in ages because we had a huge storm here and, apart from taking out our gate and garage motors, it screwed up our internet and home network. It was actually really scary! I live on the edge of a park and we have a river running through our park. Each time we have some decent rain, the river floods its banks and 9 times out of 10, floods over the road too. On this particular evening, I ended up trying to drive through the flooding river. I misjudged the amount of water I was driving through and it wasn't long before the tires lost all traction! I was convinced that I'd have to call someone to pull me out or something! It was really scary but exciting at the same time!


As an aside, check out this picture of this amazing eggplant we somehow grew in our garden! There is an egg in there for reference...






I am addicted to a new TV show...'Heroes'. It's like 'X-Men' meets 'Lost' and then given a steroid shot just for good measure! It's freaking awesome! Must have more...

Tomorrow I start at my new job, Helen's video store. I'm nervous because, Jo, our boss, crapped on Helen about the fact that Helen wants to go off on fieldwork soon and I'm going with. Jo already hates me!


Have you ever eaten quince? It's really odd! It tastes good but is kinda hard and woody. It's strange, especially when you consider that it is related to apples! I had one the other day.


Random Fact For The Day:


The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA'

I'm still going...?

Apparently, my body is a heck of a lot tougher that I ever thought! Last night, I was an extra for one of my cousin Duncan's films. He is studying to be a director and he was in dire need of extras for his picture, and so, scrapping the bottom of the barrel, I was picked. Just kidding, the film school doesn't like 'outsiders' being in their students films, so if you don't attend their institution, they don't want you. But, desprite times called for desprite measures and so David, my sister Gemma and I were called in.

We were supposed to be on call (at the set) from 5:00pm but I could only finish varsity then, so we got there at 6:00pm. We had such a blast! I love working on films! It's just so much fun! And you get to work with so many interesting, albeit crazy, people that there is never a dull moment!

The only down side, and hense the title of today's post, is that I finished up on set at 2:30am. So, I only got 4 hours of sleep last night. Yet, I'm still going! That, and the fact that I had a cup of coffee today, which I never do, left me somewhat amazed that I am still (at least I seem to be) functional. I readily admit that I did find many things over the course of the day very funny and I will probably think that they are so not funny tomorrow but at least I enjoyed my day, right?

If I ever get some of the photos from the film set, I'll post them. Well, I'm off to read up on schitzophrenia! Have a good one!

Random Fact Of The Day:

Bubble gum contains rubber

Human birth control pills work on gorillas

(Sorry, that first fact was too dull, I had to put in the second one...)

Humanity...?

I think I'm becoming depressed.

Today, we had a family friend over for tea. We didn't invite him, we never do. He just pitches up, which is one of those things that you just love about him! It's odd for some to understand but it's nice.

Up until now, he has been working in Pretoria at a bottlestore. He is a trained microbiologist and a proffesional photographer too but unfortunately circumstance lead him to his current situation. He really didn't enjoy his work there and has been wanting to return to Johannesburg for some time. Only recently, he managed to organise for someone to advertise him as a photographer here in Joburg. He had started to move his things back here with a friend.

One night, while moving all of his camera equipment and some other things, he and his friend were hijacked outside his friends house. The hijackers took the car and, as the equipment and everything was in the boot of the car, that too. So now, after recieving his first promising job prospect in a long time, he has been left with nothing but rage at God and at the world in general.

To make things worse, there appears to be something wrong with one of his kids. There is a very high chance that this guy is on drugs. But he is non-responsive and so, there is no way of knowing nor is there any way, at present, to help him!

This is why I feel depressed. They are really nice people, they have never done anything wrong nor hurt anyone. So why are they being dealt this card? Why them!? There is such injustice in this world and it saddens me. I sometimes feel like I really want to just leave here, go find a small island in the middle of the ocean and live there alone; leave the rest of humankind to fuck themselves up and destroy all that they have.

I think to myself, 'it's okay, God, kharma or universal justice will win out in the end. They will pay for what they have done someday', but it's hard to live each day watching people suffer and not seeing any justice come their way!

Maybe we are lost forever...

Random Fact For The Day:

Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to SLOW a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm!

The mysterious money mystery!

I've solved it! Actually, all it took was a trip to the campus bank branch and a hike up to the finance people on the 7th floor but I know where the mysterious money came from!

For those who are completely lost here, earlier this week, I received R11 000 from my university with no apparent explanation. I was alerted to this when I received a phone call from someone in the amazing (sarcasm) Wits admin world demanding that I return the R1000 that they had accidentally put into my account. As it turns out, that money is a prize that I won from the university for being one of the top TA's. The really stupid part is that they now want me to give them back their money so that I can then receive it from them as a cheque at the university award ceremony! How retarded is that! I think that at the ceremony, they should just give me little piece of paper with 'Oh, you lucky boy!' written on it and I'll act just as happy and surprised!

In other news, not really much has happened. I have been watching the news in the morning (I generally try to avoid watching the news, period) and have come to realise that cricket is certainly not the 'gentlemen's sport' as we were all lead to believe it was! I'm talking about the recent murder of the Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer. It's scary to think that people could be that serious about cricket! I mean, you can maybe understand it with one of those hooligan games, like soccer or rugby (I don't know much about Aussie Rules but I'm sure it could easily fit in here too) but cricket? What is this world coming to...

The week has been rather hectic but kinda slow at the same time. I have had lots of hastles with my 1st year students. They keep handing in work about a week late. It's really bad for them because, I work on a principal of 10% being deducted for each day that the work is late. It generally works to motivate people to hand stuff in on time, but for some reason, one student has consistently handed in really late. It got really bad with his last hand-in where I had to take off 70% of his mark! He would have gotten 80% for his work had it been in on time!

Well, I'm not sure how many of you remember my rise to fame as an 'Isidingo' extra? This Sunday is the week omnibus and I'll be on TV! Yay! I'm in two of the bar scenes; one where Maggie gets a job as a gossip columnist, and the other where Maggie gets into trouble for writing some of her stuff. You must all watch! Naturally, if you live in another country, I don't expect you to watch it...heh heh.

My cousin came over last night to work on some music for a movie he is doing as a project. He goes to AFDA, the South African film school, with a non-sensical acronym. He is studying to be a director (very exciting!) and he is currently directing his second movie. We made a track for one of his actors to sing to last night. It was so much fun! It is a kind of glam rock thing. It sounded so cool! If I can ever figure out how to post audio on this site, I'll do that.

Well peeps, that is all that I have for you for now!

Random Fact For The Day:

Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors and it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips

Here is R11 000...

This is Amber, one of the Jo'burg Zoo Chimps

Today I was given a lot of money for no apparent reason! It was rather exciting! It all began when I had finished most of my marking for the 2nd years. They have just recently done a practical where they had to examine various bird skeletons/skins/skulls and study them. They had been writing the most ridiculous things as answers, not nearly as bad as last years group but they were pretty close.

One of the questions they had to answer was:

'What do owls feed on?'

A relatively simple question I would think...They answered with this:

'They feed on the lawn at night and occasionally in exotic trees'

Anyway, I was on a mission to find out the names of some bird feet (random, I know). I collected Helen along the way and we headed out. After we had gotten them, Helen said that she needed to go and find some flu medication stuff. So we went into what was once called 'Choices', one of the many cafe's on campus. After we had payed for all our stuff, I recieved a phonecall. I proceeded to have a whole conversation, which I couldn't really hear very well, with some woman from the finance office about how they had accidentally transferred some money into my bank account. I didn't understand much of what she said but I agreed with whatever it was that she was on about, as one does in these situations.

One of the things that I did pick up was that they had put money into my bank account that wasn't supposed to be there. She had also asked me to go check that the money was there. So, after I had finished on the phone with her, I went off in a state of minor confusion to see how my bank balance was doing.

After standing in the cue at the ATM, I checked my bank balance. I had R11 000! I was now torn between full blown confusion and joy. We then set out, through the sea of people that usually flock to the Matrix in search of sustainance, to find the mysterious caller from finance.

First we went on a minor fruitless adventure, trying to get info for Helen. Then it was off to the terrifying lifts of Senate house. I say terrifying because these lifts, as is the case with most lifts on campus, don't really work all that well. They have a nasty tendency to get stuck at random places. Luckily for me, I have yet to be jailed by the lift system but Helen has had the misfortune to have it happen to her. Perhaps she will recount her tale to us someday...

So we got to the 8th floor, which is Salaries and Pay, I think. I had been there many times before trying to do Wits's admin as they are completely incompetent and in order to get anything done, you must do it yourself. We walked through the familiar green corridors to the information desk where we were greeted by a very friendly man who sent us off to an office occupied by three friendly women.

I explained my situation and after some confusion and much interest in my second name (it's Zulu for 'miracle'), we were given plenty of smiles and directions to the person who I was looking for. We headed down to the office in question, once again taking the dodgy lifts which sounded an alarm just before we got in, as if we weren't nervous enough already.

Eventually, we found the correct office, after going to the wrong one. I was met outside the office by someone called Violet. She was apparently the person who had just phoned me. After introducing myself, she looked me up and down and said, 'I thought you were black...' (because of my zulu second name).

She explained that they had accidentally sent the money to the wrong person and that I would have to bring them the money back. I asked about how much they had sent me and she replied that it was only R1000. After this, I thanked her for explaining all to me and we left. The rest of the day was not worth writing about at all!

Now, the question is, where did all the other money come from, and whose is it?

Random Fact For The Day:

The numbers '172' can be found on the back of the U.S. $5 dollar bill in the bushes at the base of the Lincoln Memorial

How to make things more interesting

Hello!

I must start off by saying how impressed I am that I have readers that are not from Johannesburg! Hooray! I love you guys!

Secondly, I am concerned about the lack of interesting material for my blog. I seem to have been swept into the dull and boring. Few of my posts are as entertaining as I remember them being. Perhaps I should go out and do something silly to make my life a little more interesting.

Last night, after going to BioSoc for about two hours, I went home and got ready to go out with some of my friends. I was a little nervous about going home because I had been drinking and I was pretty sure that my family would notice. I certainly wasn't drunk or even tipsy but I was sure that they would do the whole, 'I'm very disappointed in you' thing. Apparently they didn't.

So I got ready and David came to fetch me. We then went off to his house and waited for all the girl friends of ours to get ready and come over. They took forever. And coming from me, that is a long time! I'm infamous for being late and taking forever to do things. My faffing ability is also legendary, although, Helen has been encroaching on my title of worlds greatest faffer of late.

Eventually, after much indecision on the part of our female companions, we left to go to 'Sutra'. We all piled into David's car and drove off to fetch a friend of Elena's who was also coming with. We arrived at Sutra to one of our biggest mistakes ever...

The club was practically empty. The music was horrid. There was absolutely no vibe whatsoever! But, we had payed R50 to get in and so we stayed. Things were made a little worse by the fact that two of the girls stood on the dance floor and texted people instead of dancing! I mean, what is the point of going to a dance club to send messages to people who are not there!?

Eventually, after trying to get David to hit on some woman who looked about 100, and a bit of dancing, we all decided we were too tired to do anything more and we left. I got home and crashed! I was so tired! I don't actually remember taking a shower last night before getting into bed but judging from the lack of stench surrounding me, I assume that I did.

As an aside, Facebook is SO cool! I'm finding all these old friends of mine who I have heard nothing from since high school! If you have not, you should join.

Random Fact Of The Day:

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

Monday!

Hiking with students at eZemvelo Nature Reserve. The rock formations were amazing!

Hi guys!

Firstly, I would like to apologise for that rather profane post that I added earlier. I was very angry at said individual and I needed to vent. As you may have guessed, it was the kind of venting that cannot be done while family are around, so you were the unfortunate recipients of my rage. But enough of that!

On Friday, one of the honours students was TA'ing for the medic students, whom I rant about ever so much. It was part of their exercise to examine epithelial cells from their cheeks under a microscope. One of the male medics of said student called her, the TA, over to examine his cells as he noticed that there was an anomaly on one of them. The TA dutifully proceeded to examine the slide and saw what she thought to be fungus on this boy's cheek cells! Thinking little of it apart from some minor concern, she finished off with them and proceeded to seek out a friend of hers in Helen's lab.

This friend happens to be studying sperm competition and after showing the friend her presentation, the penny dropped. The friend, who had been TA'ing suddenly realised that what she had originally seen was definitely not fungus.

It certainly made our Friday!

Today has been rather odd. My supervisor asked me if I'm interested in reviewing another paper with him. I said I definitely wouldn't mind. I quite enjoy reviewing these papers. It's fun. I also had to watch the honours proposal talks which was entertaining. I TA'ed for 3 hours again, but it was the last plant lab! I'm thrilled that the plants are over! Hooray!

Random Fact For The Day:

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos

Birthdays, Blood and Movies! - Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cry me a river by Justin Timberlake...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Look away!'

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

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

Random Fact For The Day:

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

Photos of falling into the pool

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

Sarah prepares to take the plunge!

I'm airborne!

Duncan can levitate...!

Random Fact For The Day:

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

Appologies!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Random Fact For The Day:

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

It is a DANCE club after all...

Hello!



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



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



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



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



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



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



Here is a photo from H2O:

Oooo! I nearly forgot!

Random Fact For The Day:

Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine

I finally grew some balls!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So there. I can be confrontational (sometimes)!

Random Fact For The Day:

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

Faithless kryptonite

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The birthday gif list:

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

Random Fact Of The Day:

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