My first diary entry for a few days, what have I been up to?
On Thursday morning I broke my yellow sunglasses, so when I got into Civic early to meet Jen for lunch, I picked up a new pair. As I was walking out of the shop to get my bike, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and it was Michelle! What a piece of synchronicity!! We chatted for a bit and I mentioned that I was having lunch with Jen and said she was welcome to join us. Jen was running a bit late, but Michelle and I had a good chat. She had been really sick with flu for a few days and had just had her estrogen shot and wasn't feeling too fantastic. Jen turned up and we did coffee and lunch for 2 hours and it was really great. Jen had just finished her report for Pau-Lau and was finally able to relax. I told them I had started Androcur and got some positive feedback and a few more bits of information on what would happen. I am looking forward to my arm hair falling out. :)
Michelle chatted to a few friends whom she bumped into and then we headed back to Uni where Michelle was going to be worth 50 points in the Bush Week scavenger hunt as a "drag queen". She is off to Sydney again this weekend.
Thursday night was the Xmas in July dinner, and Susan and Jules had put down my name so I could have a real meal. The food and festivities were pretty ordinary, but I got talking to this girl Kate who was sitting just next to Lloyd and we were having a great time talking weird stuff. She is a bit hard to describe (not physically, she's quite tall and I like her) but some of the conversation was pretty out there. We went up to her room and chatted and drank for another few hours until I remembered that I had my group meeting on that morning! She went out clubbing to Heaven (about the only person in Johns who does it seems) and I spent the next hour working on my group meeting sheet. I collapsed when it got late and so I had to wake up at 8:00 am so that I could have breakfast (no milk) and finish it. I got everything in on time, and the group meeting went well. At the end of the group meeting things started taking a strong down-turn. Me and Nigel were supposed to show our compound characterization sheets. Mine would only have taken a few minutes to cover and I could have gotten back to work. Instead I had to wait half an hour, then an hour and I had to meet Red at 12:00 pm. After waiting for an hour, listening to bullshit I had absolutely no interest in I stood up said "I've got a 12:00 pm appointment, we'll have to reschedule this" and walked out making sure the door slammed loudly. I was in such a bad mood after that. I had lunch with Red which did nothing to improve my mood, since I was outside and I couldn't eat because of the wind. We walked into the city and I told her I had started my Androcur, something I was very serious about, but she just kept sniffing because of her cold (not her fault) so that just annoyed me more, then I had to walk back from Civic and I was freezing cold. After that I didn't really try to do much at work simply because I felt like shit and was in a fuming bad mood. I read an article at Onion which had me weeping with laughter, so it was really a day of ups and downs. I had to go shopping with my last $40 but I should have enough food to last me until Thursday.
I got home, had dinner and watched some TV. I crashed out at 8:30 pm and slept through until 1:30 am. I tried playing a game of Red Alert but there was no thrill there, that's probably a good thing.
I'm hoping to get both the draft of the Mid-term review and the revised annual report to Mark on Monday, that would be nice. If I can actually get into the lab and get some actual chemistry done over the weekend too, that would be a bonus.
On Thursday I bought 24 hour Linux, which I hope will enable me to get used to this operating system. I don't imagine that the skill will be enormously useful, but it will hopefully push back the walls of ignorance a little bit.
I think now that a few people know, I will post my diary entries which were written after I started on the Androcur. I haven't told Nikki or Szusza yet, but I will email them both soon. My hair has straightened out some what not that it has been out of the extensions for a week. Yes, a week. That means I have been on the Androcur for a week now too. Have I noticed anything yet? I'm not sure, I think I am more sensitive to the cold now, of course that could simply be due to living in a Canberra winter without enough clothes. ;) Haven't noticed a lack of spontaneous erections just yet, but maybe that is the next thing. At lunch, the quote of three weeks for the loose hair to start coming out was roughly agreed on, so I am looking forward to that. The evil testosterone has been defeated! ;) I am going to have to ensure that I do a couple of things, control my boredom/eating habit, start exercising especially for the City-to-Surf in two weeks and eat lots of fruit. I was showering every day for a few days earlier in the week, so my skin flared up. It might also have been a reaction to the start of the Androcur treatment, I think it starting to settle now.
I still can't believe how much my time-line has been advanced, six months of angst and waiting cut just like that! Of course next year it will slow down again since I will be wanting to start laser therapy as soon as two months of being off the Roaccutane is up, but won't have the money until ~ July. Never mind, maybe that is just as well. Work my butt off in the first part of the year, pay off accommodation whilst waiting for the effects of the Roaccutane to diminish and then get my face zapped after being on the Androcur for nearly a year. This sounds like a reasonable time line. Whether I start to transition (unlikely) or begin on the estrogens (possible) I guess I'm always hoping to advance my schedule where possible. I sometimes think that my supervisor must be so disappointed with me. He has Nigel (the good son) and me (the evil, lazy one). I'm just thinking that he's decided to work more with Nigel and ignore me so that the good seed will germinate better. I guess it's not helped by my apparent ignorance and poor results thus far. Still I want him to understand that I'm working my butt off and I'm trying to do my best. Unfortunately my co-supervisor is a guy who has absolutely so human personality about him, and I would more likely talk to a brick wall and possibly have a more interesting conversation. The fact that he is still holding results of mine from last year doesn't endear me to him either.
Just emailed Nikki with the generic news of what's up, but it's now 4:00 am so I guess I should try to normalize my sleep patterns. Y' all come back now. ;)