Theis Brain

Baby brain is a scientifically proven condition (that may or may not be true, but I’ve certainly witnessed it) and writing a thesis is not that different from carrying and finally giving birth to a baby: you gain a fair bit of weight, you crave certain foods at odd hours of the day and night, you wake up in a panic at least once a night, you’re sleep deprived, you can’t wait for the gestation period to be over but are worried about what you’ll have to do afterwards, you can’t seem to keep up with what other people are doing or talking about, you have violent mood swings, you always look slightly dazed and confused, and you definitely suffer from thesis brain. These are a few examples of some of the things I’ve learned to associate with ‘thesis brain’:

· Writing "write" "wright" 3 times before realising what's wrong with it.

· Spelling "herded" "hearded".

· Thinking your shoes are socks and trying to put boots on over them.

· Having someone come upon you standing in the lift because you'd forgotten to push the button.

· Pushing a pull door for more than a minute.

· Using your house key when trying to get into the office and office key when you're trying to get into the house.

· Forgetting to pay in a restaurant, going back to pay and forgetting why you'd gone back so soon and thinking you’re crazy.

· Getting your bag strap caught on a door handle and not being able to untangle it by yourself.

· Having breakfast twice by accident.

· Forgetting your birth date.

· Getting up to go to the bathroom and then forgetting what you were going to do, more than once.

· Referring to going back to your office as "when I get home".

On this day four or five of my finally pulling finger and trying to get all my work done at a reasonable time I have already experienced or done all of the above. I expect things to only go downhill from here. Craziness bound to ensue.

Nerdgasm

Sticky notes. Did you know they existed? I most certainly did not! But my office mate kindly alerted me to their presence yesterday. In case you're wondering, sticky notes are just like virtual post-it notes, they look like them and everything, but you can write as much as you like on one and it stretches to the necessary size rather than having to write on several post-its and then trying to keep them together without covering any of the valuable information on any of them. There's a chance I’m the only one who does this... Anyways, I found them by typing “sticky notes” into that search bar thing when you click on the windows/start button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. It’s yet to be conclusively proven but I’m sure they’re tripling my productivity.

Speaking of productive, it’s exam time at the moment. This doesn’t affect me (thank goodness) but the library is packed to the rafters with noisy undergrads from 8am till 11pm every day. It’s impossible to get a seat unless you’re there at 8 for the rush. I used to get there at 7.55 and rush up the stairs to my favourite desk and then promptly have a nap because I’d had to get up so early to be there on time. The constant pressure of studying and exams, as well as having to secure a place to sit for 13 hours, definitely takes its toll and craziness ensues. One morning I got there at my usual time and there was a girl crowd surfing the assembled students and a couple of young men, wearing kilts and Scottish wigs (red hair with a golf cap thing), were inciting the crowd and getting up to general tom-foolery. The girl was even carried to the stairs before people remembered they were in a cut-throat race for seats and it was every man for himself. The rest of the day pranks continued with a gorilla-suited person running through, people being chased by zombies and I forget what else.

Another thing which happened that exam season, though possibly not a prank (?) was a man going up the stairs in our open plan library with a briefcase. With everyone watching he tripped and dropped the briefcase which burst open to reveal – spoons. Hundreds of spoons. They just kept falling out and down the stairs and the guy rushed off, possibly embarrassed. His spoon fetish had been found out! If it was a prank though, bravo.

A prank pulled on the poor librarians and students who actually want to study today was rather, I think, ingenious. Five chickens (who knows where they come from!) were released into the library, each with a label. They were labelled 1,2,3,4 and 6.This meant that the poor library staff were hunting around for number 5 for at least an hour before someone let them know there was no such chicken. I feel kind of sorry for the chickens, but hopefully they enjoyed the prank as well and can go to bed tonight knowing they’ve earned themselves a relaxing weekend.

Speaking of which, today is my last Friday for the next 4 months. Not meaning that I’ll be skipping Fridays from now on, but that they will no longer be the end of the week and weekends will cease to have meaning. Sigh. I have 15 weeks to finish my thesis and by gum I’m going to do it! Even if it means I’ll be antisocial (by my standards) and have to stop checking facebook every ten minutes!! To celebrate/make the most of my last Friday my wife on facebook (WOF) is coming over for some yummy dinner, some Doctor Who, and some cookies and cream ice cream. I can hardly wait! And so, I bid adieu to fun, telly, many of my friends and constant facebook (and stumbleupon. Damn you stumbleupon. I’ll miss you) until the 1^st of October! (Maybe)

Shroom Season

On this, the 9th official day of winter, Dunedin experienced its first frost. As all hippies, scenesters, and a good proportion of the Dunedin youth will know, this means that shroom season has officially begun. From now on the fields will be filled every morning with people surreptitiously walking along, staring at the ground intently, bending over from time to time to rummage around in the grass, and, should a jogger happen to pass by, pretending they're just out for a stroll, with their friends, spaced at regular intervals to cover as much ground as possible.

I tried this once. Four of us girls got together and had a sleepover at my parents’ house. We watched Casablanca and How to Train Your Dragon and got quietly but happily sozzled. We slept for about an hour before getting up and into layers and layers of clothing complete with hats, scarves, mittens and two pairs of socks, and then went to collect our resident shroom expert on the other side of town by 6am. We then drove out to Lover’s Leap and began our search party. We hunted for hours (that may be an exaggeration) and between the five of us we found four. Apparently you need at least ten per person. The sunrise was lovely though.

The ride home was not. We had to drive back along the windy peninsula road and apparently when you’re hungry car sickness becomes more acute. I’ve never been in a more silent, all-eyes-focused-on-the-road car before in my life. When we did get to town we immediately went to BK where I tried the salad burger for the first time in my life and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted. Some weeks later while not hung over, carsick and starving I tried it again and it turns out my opinion may have been a little skewed.

How the beginning of shroom season more immediately affects me, however, is that I have to cycle in freezing, icy conditions. I’m thinking it might be time to crank out the Mickey Mouse earmuffs again, maybe a balaclava, and I wonder if you can get woollen socks for your tyres to stop slipping. Hmmm.

Free Draw

I was in the bathrooms in the link and saw on the door a flier looking for a new flatmate. Apparently there were two fun-loving guys and two relaxed girls looking for someone easy-going, and there was an option of free furniture. Including 2 draws. Sigh. I know I shouldn't get annoyed at random people but I was really tempted to text the girl and say, "sorry I think you meant 'drawers'". The only thing that stopped me, apart from my inner cool-kid saying "who cares you nerd?", was that I'd have to text her and then she'd have my number. She might be able to track me down and expose me for the geek I am! In countless ways! One way, for example, is to constantly ring my number in public places until eventually she sees who it is answering. Or, a second way, is to get the police to track my number like they do in that movie with Will Smith where he was a cop or something and then he knew too much so they wanted to kill him or something and they had cameras everywhere and could track his cellphone. Or something. Scary stuff.

This led me to wondering to when I'd become so judgemental, such a grammar/spelling nazi. This in turn led me to think about Godwin’s law of internet arguments. Basically this says the longer an internet argument goes on for, the probability of a reference being made to Hitler or the Nazis approaches one, or is inevitable. And then the argument is over. I learned this from QI with Stephen Fry and this was where my train of thought paused for a moment as I giggled to myself (still in public I might add). I love how I've learned so many things from that show, while being entertained, but how it’s also made me doubt so many of the things I thought I knew. It happens to other people too: I was playing Cranium and the other team was asked what the largest mammal to have ever lived is (or something quite similar to that) and the answer is of course, the blue whale. But because Alan Davies has been caught up on saying the blue whale to similar questions so many times and losing points they were too scared to answer it, even though they knew it. It was great! Nothing like doubting the knowledge you've painstakingly absorbed from a variety of sources throughout your life.

For instance, today (well, over the past few months but coming to a head today) I had to readjust my perception of past sexual activity. That's a weird sentence. Not mine. People in general. According to my mind, in the past everyone was like they are in Pride and Prejudice, well behaved, no hanky-panky and just looking for their own Mr. Darcy to love and be loved by. Not because they were more innocent or anything but because, surely, eventually someone would just end up pregnant? As far as I know they didn't have contraception so it's inevitable right? And I’m almost certain that the whole sex before marriage thing was frowned upon most of the time. I just thought it didn't really happen.. My office mate assures me this is most certainly not the case and from the sounds of it people were at it like rabbits. Which makes sense, there are lots of us about today...

Anyways, the gist of all this is that I didn't text that poor girl with her free draw. But I was *this* close.

Sunshine!

Something amazing, unexpected and almost unprecedented happened today. Dunedin experienced sunshine. Anybody who knows anything about Dunedin will know that this is an occurrence which must be celebrated. The sun must be worshipped else it will become petty and sulk and never come back. Every Dunedinite knows this. The standard way students in these parts like to show their respect is to pretend that sunny means warm. This is never the case. Sometimes in summer. But almost never. So they shiver and chatter away in their miniskirts or shorts and jandals, pretending its tropical, subjecting the rest of us to vast (they’re well on their way to gaining their fresher five by now) expanses of white goose-pimply flesh that somehow makes it seem even colder.

I myself appreciate my extremities and all they’ve done for me. Hence I wrapped myself up very warmly on today’s planned excursion of sun veneration. I even wore jeans. This is almost as rare as Dunedin sunshine. I find pants restrictive. Or something. Anyways, my plan was to climb my favourite tree at the beach and do some readings and so it seemed more sensible to wear jeans than a skirt and tights in case I had to take my shoes off to climb. Or if it was actually warm enough for me to want to sun my legs. It wasn’t by the way. After getting into my jeans and other layers I realised there’s another reason I don’t like wearing trousers. Well, this is more specific to jeans really. Why on earth do they tell you to buy a size too small? Sure they stretch a little but not a whole size!! And if they’re a little loose you can wear a belt. If they’re too small though: instant muffin-top. Which is so not cool

I’ve had these particular pair of jeans (the last pair I bought and probably ever will) for years and I’ve never fit them. I’ve come close when stress and other things have caused me to lose a lot of weight but still not quite! And I’m certainly lighter than when I bought them so what on earth was the lady thinking in her advice for a size smaller?? And what was I thinking in listening??? Well, that’s easy enough to understand really. I’m a pushover. But you know what they say about the meek inheriting the earth. One day I’ll be sitting pretty you’ll see. Of course I’ll easily be pushed from my perch...

I actually got all my reading done in the tree though, surprisingly. I think I shall have to try the tree more often. It’s very soothing and no one knows where I am to have a chat or a coffee. Because I always say yes. I did realise though, that I have 4 and a half months, or.. 144 days, to finish my thesis and submit! That’s.. 113 (whew this math stuff is hard!) days to get my final draft done! Panic!! And so now maybe I should go do something productive feeling like make a detailed time table that I can ignore from tomorrow. Ah, postgrad studies, the best time of your life! ...