Uhhh… just woke up from an X number of hours nap, and it's late. Ok, so what's been up over the last two days?
I got to bed late on Saturday night, so I was woken with a knock on my door at about 10:30 am on Sunday morning. I wobbled with sleepiness to the door, draped myself in a towel and it was Jules and Mrs D*****. So I excused myself, got dressed and welcomed them in and she gave me a hug. I was looking and feeling quite ordinary, because of the cold my supervisor had given me, but over a period of about an hour or so, I slowly woke up. We ended up walking into town to meet Susan where we caught her near the Street Theatre and we went to the co-op bookshop. We spent a fair bit of time there, before walking over to our usual Vietnamese restaurant and having lunch. After that we went into Civic for coffee, and I suggested Essen. So we went there, and I remembered Cactus Café was next door, so I ducked in and the new copy of Quirk was out. And lo and behold what should appear on pages 12 and 13 but me and my photo! So they all got copies and started reading away, and it was a bit weird that I should actually be in any kind of print media again after my stint with Jumbuna (sp?) (the HAC student newspaper where I had my column). So that was really cool to see that it (and myself *lol*) were out. I'm not sure what the circulation is, but it must be several thousand I guess.
So we had coffee there and after that (~3:30 pm) we went for a look through David Jones and then the shops started to close, so they got on a bus and I walked home. Thankfully I had smeared myself in 30+ sunscreen so I wasn't too pink. I got home, chatted with Mum when she rang, neither of us had too much to say and then I had a nap. I woke up in the evening, and did a reasonable amount of work on my page, uploading a few bits and pieces and then chatted to coastal Peta (who had only just connected) and Szusza for a while and then when I couldn't procrastinate any longer I worked on my report for the next days meeting. I got that mostly out of the way and I think I got to bed close to 1:00 am. The next day I wanted to wake up at ~9:00 am, but got woken up by the heavy machinery out the back at 7:45 am. Drifted back to sleep then got up and got into work at 9:45 am with plenty of time to spare. However, it wasn't going to be as simple as all that. My supervisor got in at about 10:30 am and wasn't ready until after 12:00 am. Me and C***** were finished in about an hour, even given my very large number of compounds. Bloody N******* then proceeded to take 2 hours of the meeting to bore us with his work which most certainly could have been done in the same or less time than mine. I think in future we should make him go first or make it plain that this is taking way to long by wandering in and out.
So I got out of there at 3:00 am and not long after Jules rang on the lab phone. I agreed to meet him and Marilyn at Essen in 15 minutes which was never going to be long enough as I had to go home and smear myself with 30+ again then cycle in and buy a new bike chain and get to Essen. That took 25 instead of 15 minutes, and I was hot and dry. Unfortunately they had picked an outside table which did nothing too improve my frayed mood, because you get the smokers and the stream of noise and pedestrians out there. My mango smoothie took forever to arrive, and finally I apologized and asked if we could move inside where it was also less crowded (plus it's easier to grab a waitress). So we sat in there and chatted and I ate nachos in silent tribute and nothing too much else exciting. We got a phone call from Susan when she was leaving work and we went to the bus interchange to meet her. We couldn't decide on either ice-cream or margarita's, so eventually I figured I hadn't had a margarita and we went there. We were chatting away for quite a while, and Jules used female pronouns which totally flattered me *blush* and everything was good. Susan figured it was a good time to relieve herself of the bet we had made long ago, but the bottle shops didn't sell Z anymore, so I got a weird chocolate liqueur which came in an imitation gold brick. The bet was that Jules and Susan would be together longer than 6 months, and since it's now 18 or so month, I think I win. ;)
So we walked back through town where I collected my bike and they jumped on the bus and I cycled home.
I came home and read for a while, before crashing out entirely at about 8:00 pm, and now here after some very ordinary pasta I am!

Blagh… went for a coke, damn supervisor and this annoying runny nose flu he's given me, if it was a cough I could cope.
I was wearing my hair down as I went around doing little jobs this morning around the department. My, my. You should have seen the reaction! *lol* Just getting that extra second of looking at when saying hello and stopping conversations as I passed, it was pretty funny I admit. More importantly, I finally got a fax back from the mystery company Karl Industries (I'm sure they won't mind the free plug) who do have the 4-iodobenzaldehyde at the bargain price of 5 g for only $75! So I was like holy obscure compound Batman and immediately placed an order for 2 5g batches. Hopefully they might be here before Xmas even! So that was really great new because it means I can stop the futile search to repeat the ADAM synthesis and I can now concentrate on typing in the masses of data which I have collected so far. What else has been up? Nothing too much really 23 days left to go on the Roaccutane, there'll be a big song and dance bonanza come the 3rd of January. Give two months for the metabolites to clear from my body, me and I get to start electrolysis just on my birthday, oh what a great present. ;)
I was thinking, a friend of mine just got a new job straight out of Uni where he's earning about $36K. Now I'm earning only $16K, and my real expenses are much lower, so even including tax, that's a potential $20,000 a year which can be saved. That is like GRS saved for in one year, or all your electro and some facial surgery thrown in to boot! I know it's not perfectly realistic, but it certainly gives me hope considering my pitiful student stipend which is currently supporting me. I'm not sure what an overseas Post-doc earns, but it can't be as bad as a Ph.D student. It gives me hope that I can accelerate my electro after an unintentionally slow start. I guess it's a matter of scrimping and saving and getting as much done as possible. Just clearing around my mouth and chin would be an extreme ego boost. I haven't heard from Soba or Peta in a while. I read Illara's page and she's fairly down and out again. I know there is a lot of stuff going on for her, but I'm presuming it's also the Provera which she is back on. I sent her an email a few days ago, but no reply yet.
A humorous incident was today at the Canberra Center Mall when I had to go to the toilet. I was feeling way too femme to use the men's, but didn't want to use the ladies because of my returning beard fuzz. So I figured the compromise was justified and I used the disabled toilet instead. ;) I guess I could use public male toilets if I made the effort to try and look robustly masculine, but of course that is the last thing I'd want to do voluntarily. I guess it's just an embarrassment thing, I'll get over it eventually.
Ahhh… I really love this cheezy Techno…
Hmmm… wonder whether I should crank out another email to Peta to say hello? I'm not quite in the right mood I think, but we'll see.
Well I'll be damned, I just refreshed my inbox and there is a message from her! :) She's just got a new ISP which makes sense because she'll be there for 3 months or so, and trying to connect to an ISP in Australia would be sucky. She says she'll write a full email soon. Not that there is much for her to reply to, because my emails to her are like a finely whipped Pavlova, 99% air and 1% fluff. *g*
Hmmm… oh yeah, not only do I appear in Quirk, but so does Peta! Just in a small shot, she's with I think one of the Quirk photographers, and has a big smile on her face, so I will have to mention that to her as well as my small amount of fame which I'd better milk for all it's worth while it's there. Pity it's December, think how much recognition I would have got at Uni. ;)
Oh lord… 1:00 am again. I fully expect to be woken up by the road-works outside my window (about 5 meters away actually), so I suppose I should get to bed. Tomorrow will most probably be spent hunched over a suddenly far-too-large pile of orange folders assigning data and painstakingly writing one line every 5 minutes or so.
See ya!!! :)