Looking back

I'm now on holidays. Yay!
Christmas is so inconvenient. Why couldn't it be in November when I had no lab work?

I decided to start my break with a massive house cleanout. Not just the usual moping and dusting but also going through my crap and throwing it out. Because do I really need a draw full of stationary? It's not like I'm going to be writing letters on bird printed paper anytime soon. I'm never going to use incense or a CD from my broken camera. Why do I hoard all this crap?

I went through my stack of christmas and birthday cards. I thought they would be easy to throw out but it wasn't. I only threw out the ones from people I can't remember. It's very strange when the forgotten people write "love always". I also have two blank cards. Who sent me blank cards and why did I keep them?
The family cards were the most interesting. In the cards I can trace back divorces, marriages, new pets, when pets die, and when people die. Then I dropped my cards so they're out of order now >_>

I also came across a notebook with sketches. I started it it in my last year of high school.

This page marked my start at uni. I guess log10 equations were used

That crap off-white paper marks my year of Honours

I was meant to be taking notes during seminar but I often ended up drawing people in front of me

During my PhD, I don't even bother attending seminar. Why spend an hour not concentrating when I could be doing something productive? So I don't really doodle anymore. :(  Maybe next year

Horrid weekend

I hate cemeteries.

When I die, I want the doctors to take as much of my body as they can use.
Then I would like to be buried in an unmarked grave, no coffin, in the middle of no where and left alone. No sad loser with no life drowning the ground to get the grass to grow and removing all the windblown leaves. Definitely no fake flowers.

But I don't think it's allowed to bury people like that. So I'll make do with a cremation and my ashes sprinkled in some cool forest or something.

All I can say is thank fucking god I only have to visit my granddad and uncle (and my grandma's grave) once a year.
And my mum does not have a horse. So stop asking. In fact, stop talking. And clean the fucking house.

I can grow food

I haz cherry tomatoes!
Given that this is my first time growing veggies from seed and I only had three tomatoes in August, I thought that ten tomatoes in my first crop would be a success. And now I have heaps with plenty more still growing. It's hard to count them all but I think I have over 120! Though some are pretty small.

When I first decided to grow tomatoes, I thought that I would figure out what to make once they had grown. Now the time has come and I'm not sure what to do with them. I don't really eat tomatoes - growing them was meant to encourage me to eat them more often. I guess I can make a sauce and freeze it for later...

I've planted the next crop of tomatoes and they haven't died yet, despite my being away over the hot weekend. But my basil isn't sprouting. I guess they went bad before their use-by date :(

I'm a little bit cranky

First day of the month and I'm already over it.

Christmas parties are being organised. This year my lab is having a picnic followed by a trip to the aquarium. Yay!
As usual, the department will have alcohol and BBQ at lawn bowls. I can't say I'm a fan of lawn bowls or chunks of meat with a side of rabbit food salad, particularly given that my lab are the outcasts of the department.  I was on the fence about going (can't really be bothered with socialising with these guys anymore) but now I've decided to give it a miss. Apparently, they were annoyed that I had booked the department car to pick up samples from the airport early the next day. Oh noes, they have to return the department car after the party!
Well excuse me for wanting the work car for work purposes. I know it's a radical concept.
This isn't an isolated christmas case. These people get cranky if you need the car when they want to do a beer run.
Well, I've been out the lab for over two months, working on my stupid thesis while waiting for samples and a certain company to actually process our primer order. I am dying to get back into the lab and try to get back on schedule. I have no sympathy for inconveniencing a christmas party.

...And apparently because I'm not a workaholic and try to have a work-life balance I'm either not normal or don't really care about my work. Because clearly if you aren't able to time-manage, no one can. So fuck you random stranger. Not the most intelligent of replies but I really don't care. I've got better things to do, like finish my PhD and live a happy life.

Apologies to people who like salad...