Hexagonal

I have a policy not to read what I write in my previous blogs because it makes my tummy feel funny. So I don’t. On principal. Last week I sat my organic chemistry exam. Which also made my tummy feel funny. In fact, I would go so far as to say it made me so anxious that I thought I was going to throw up. Or have a mini panic attack. Or a major heart attack. It ruined my sleep patterns for the week, reducing my nightly average to about 5 hours. As a result I have been tired, grumpy and emotional since Tuesday. And it is now Sunday. Anyway, moving right along, (based on the assumption that I pass my organic chemistry exam) it is with great pride and pleasure and humility and gratification that I would like to announce that I have completed my undergraduate degree in chemistry.  Do you want to know what that qualifies me to do? Nothing. Except, I can draw pentagons, hexagons and octagons. So if you are in need of somebody capable of drawing those three shapes and little else then I am your girl. Go me!

Red = how to draw the perfect hexagon

I should make an advertisement for doing a chemistry degree:

Chemistry Ad

It would read, "Do a degree in chemistry! You will have to make crystal meth in your basement to get by, but your love for the subject will outweigh any other problems you might have in your life. Promise."

And it will be an ironic ad. 

Oh and about my life getting more interesting, as I promised it would, it will… It just hasn’t yet. Give it another week. Or two. And then maybe something spicy might happen. That may be a pun. It may not be. I have no idea. Time will tell. In other news (entirely unrelated), my family seems to have made a habit of having family reunions right in the middle of my exams. So that's fun. And poor timing. And fuels the aforementioned tired, grumpy and emotional state.

Although, when I say that my life hasn’t gotten interesting, I did get a black eye. So that was fun; you know, supporting the Men In Black (#allblackeverything). I admit, wasn’t a proper black eye, but I will claim it because it was the most interesting thing that has happened all week (in my life). If you’re wondering, I got a phone thrown at my face.

Our boys

The weather has been quite nice. Not that I would know. I’ve been working on my study tan. Pasty with a hint of ghost.

What does this even mean? 

Till something more interesting happens, stay safe out there. It’s a dangerous world!

[End note and fun fact: Apparently throwing up in your exam is not that uncommon; some people do that. Unfortunately I have never experienced this first hand, but I have it on good authority]

Formal Attire

Nobody panic. I am still alive. Contrary to popular belief. And contrary to my blog presence. No. I haven’t been killed. No. I haven’t gone walkabout (not yet, anyway). But yes. My fan club did get concerned about the fact that I haven’t written to you for a while. And yes, I have a fan club. It consists of three people. I’m a minor celebrity. So here I am, to divulge the inner workings of my twisted mind; to splash my emotional sob story all over the pages internet (because what better way to do it?). And procrastinate. Because what better time to start writing my blog again than half way through my exams.

Literally me.

I would apologise, but fuck it. Apologies are for pussies (unless it’s warranted, in which case, apologising is not for pussies). Although, I apologise for not having a sob story. Although, perhaps I’ve made some people cry, but they haven’t talked to me about it. Ignorance is bliss. I can offer a bit of an explanation as to where I have been all this time. It’s not that I haven’t had the time. I have. In fact, props to me, I have watched 8 seasons of TV shows in the last 2 months (these are the kind of skills that pepper my CV - can’t understand why I’m still unemployed?!?). Anyway, part of the reason why I sometimes find it hard to write is because I have this internal conflict about whether or not writing a blog is entertaining or horrifically pretentious. I rule it as horrifically pretentious, and therefore have to overcome quite an internal barrier before publishing my life story. However, it would appear that, seeing as I haven’t written anything recently, I am not doing so well with my warring mind. It can also be a challenge to write anything when ones life takes a turn for the mundane. Exceptionally mundane. Like yesterday, I had brushed my teeth. And while my life hasn’t become more interesting yet, it is going to (now you’re hooked right? What is she talking about?). In the near future. Maybe. Hopefully. We’ll see.

Hobbes has it sorted

But first of all, looking back… I left you when I was having my pre-mid life crisis. A real cliff hanger, ae. Yeah. Well. Nah. Probably the biggest news of the semester is that I have recently employed some people to hang out with me on occasion. As part of their employment contract, they had to attend my Formal Attire 22^nd Birthday Party.  By the way, holy guacamole, you should see what the ageing process has done to me – not good. Because I’m a girl and a feminist and believe that women should be objectified; ‘who was I wearing?’ you ask. I have absolutely no clue, but it was full length and red and velvet. And any event where full length and red and velvet is not ridiculous must be fantastic, right? Except there was that one guy who showed up to my Formal Attire Birthday Party in shorts. Since when were shorts formal attire? I mean a more appropriately dressed individual was wearing a three-piece suit. Admittedly shorts-boy was not from New Zealand. He originated from some other land.  My advice for you - don’t ever go to a formal event in shorts.

'Nuff said

The real highlight of the birthday party though, was my delightful mother cranking out the old guitar, song lyrics and ensuring that everyone present sang along with the ‘Steph Lambie’ rendition of ‘The Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles. As if an embarrassing story at my expense would not suffice… It was very sweet, and if I was a crier, I would have cried. But I’m not a crier, so I didn’t cry. I’ll tell you what though… Having friends has it’s pluses and minuses. Plus, I no longer have to eat lunch alone everyday (just Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays). Minuses, I often hear faint ringings of ‘we all live in the Lambie bungalow’ throughout the chemistry department.

My new ride

I actually don’t know what I have spent the last 2 months doing. That’s worrisome. I am becoming more goldfish like everyday.

Pre-Mid-Life Crisis

The million dollar question

It’s getting to that time of year again. You know, the time of year when you think ahead and realise you haven’t planned anything for New Years. And by the time you’ve realised you haven’t planned anything, suddenly all your friends have their New Years plans sorted and their cars full. And they’re all going places.  So that didn’t happen to me. But it is that time of year and that is how I feel about my life at the moment.

I’ve just kind of had my head down all like, ‘meh, life is for later. It’s too far away to think about.’ Except now I’ve looked up and holy moley. Later is almost here. Far has become near. And all sorts of other great clichés you can come up with. 

What I am trying to say is that I am in the middle of an existential pre-mid-life crisis. Although, to be honest, I’m kind of hoping that my pre-mid-life crisis will just be a premature-mid-life crisis so that I don’t have to relive this all again in another 5 years time. Cos that just wouldn’t be fair. At all. Somehow I suspect that I will be reliving this in another 5 years, but I digress.

I will acknowledge, however, that having a life crisis is permission to become very self-absorbed. And that’s not all bad. I quite like being the center of my universe. At least for a while.

So, apart from becoming a headless goose with my existential crisis, I have taken a very practical approach to figuring out a solution to my problem. I’ve done what I do with all my unanswered questions (like literally, all my unanswered questions). I googled it. I'll admit... It's a bit of a sad day when you have to google 'what should I do with my life' but here we are... So, I love quizzes, but unfortunately the quizzes that I took to tell me what my ‘dream career’ is were all wrong,  so after about 3 of them, I flagged it. I decided it was about as helpful and generic as reading one’s horoscope, i.e. very unhelpful and exceedingly generic. But, something that is fun is the wtfshouldidowithmylife.com page that randomly generates an idea for you (see link at bottom of post)… Anyway, after some quizzes and a random generator, I read some blogs.

Luckily, I don't have this problem

I read this one blog today written by a guy, Sergio Diazgranados, (do you reckon he made that name up?) who, I quote,  ‘dropped out of school at 16 and followed his passion in music, personal development and natural health where he has fulfilled the roles of CEO, publisher, chief marketing officer and sales director.’

When I read that, I just thought, ‘well fuck; I can never be a success because I didn’t drop out of school when I was 16. My name is not granado (spanish for pomegranate – I googled it).  And anyway, his articles are too long and there was no way I was ever going to read his 5 steps to success.’

Pom-pomegranate

I have also watched youtube tutorials on what to do with my life. They do exist. For better or worse. The tutorial that I watched was presented by a guy named Leo (like, the lion who didn’t make the cut for The Lion King. He didn't talk about that failure in this tutorial) who had his first mid-life crisis aged 23, which means that my first mid-life crisis has surfaced too early and therefore, by default, makes me ineligible for having a real life-crisis.  Despite mine and Leo's differences, I managed to to suffer through to the end of my 15:33 minute tutorial on ‘What Should I Do With My Life – How To Find Your Passion For Life.’ And now that I have watched that tutorial I still don’t know what to do with my life or what my passion for life is. In hindsight, a bit of a waste of 15:33 minutes, but sometimes you just have to try these things out, you know what I mean?

He's no Mufasa, though.

Or Simba.

I’ve also talked to a probably stupid number of people. It’s one of those funny things though, I, without a doubt, listen to what I want to hear and not so much (at all) to what I don’t… I was talking to somebody about my life today and I physically found myself turning up the white noise when they started to say something that didn’t 120% align with my ideas. Small disclaimer though, most of the time, they had good advice for me, that aligned with my ideas, that I actually listened to. 

Me

And then to put the final feather in my cap for 'research stations visited', I watched a documentary. It was about the guy who coined the term, ‘follow your bliss,’ and he, having studied the world’s mythology, had determined that to follow your bliss, you must leave, have an adventure and return. Whatever that means for you, individually. And I found it inspiring. Which is cliché. But I’m all about clichés. So that’s fine.

So I have become determined to #followmybliss.

Whatever the hell that means.

#storyofmylife #onedirection #hashtag

But eh, meh, whatever. That’s tomorrows problem. 

'Where are we going?'

'I don't know. I thought you knew.'

'No, I don't know. Maybe he knows.'

'No. He definitely doesn't know.'

PAUSE

'Maybe no-one knows.'

PAUSE

'Oh well. I hope it's nice when we get there.'

Stalking and Serendipity

It’s crazy to think that just two short years ago, I didn’t have facebook. I don’t know what I did with my time. How I have changed since the good old days of 2013. Since that time, I have developed a new hobby... facebook stalking. It really is wonderful. The pleasure, joy, entertainment and amusement I get from stalking people on facebook is truly unfathomable… I like to think of myself as an explorer, setting off to undiscovered lands; whose page will I end up in this time? Or better yet, as a detective, searching for clues and curiousness in others' lives...

Usually the stalking starts out fairly innocently… I promise myself to just have a look at some recent photos… However, some silly people have something stupid like 500 photos (or more) of themselves in various states of disarray. At about photo 350 or 400 the adrenaline begins to wear off and I become aware of what I am doing - facebook stalking… And I don't like it when I become aware of the fact that I am facebook stalking; it makes me feel uneasy. The uneasiness usually starts at about photo 350 or 400, because that's when the victim has started to look like a small unidentifiable child, who I have trouble picking out of the photos. In a perfect world, this uneasiness about no longer being able to recognise the person I am facebook stalking would terminate my stalking of them. But - news flash - we do not live in a perfect world. Sometimes I even feel proud of my level of dedication to facebook stalking and justify my continued stalking to myself, reasoning that all people with over 500 photos of themselves on a social networking site are positively screaming ‘facebook stalk me until it’s creepy.’ I feel no remorse.

Interestingly, however, the person that I facebook stalk the most is myself. There I said it; I am narcissistic. Perhaps that is sad; perhaps it is normal – I don’t know these things. I do know, however, that the way I appear to the internet world is a curious thing and it’s something that I analyse and consider and then reanalyse and reconsider. I look at my photos and wonder what other people think when they facebook stalk me. Who do they think I am? Do they think my life looks awesome? Do they judge what I comment? Do they analyse whose stuff I like? Or is that just me paying far too much attention to myself?  Sometimes I facebook stalk other people and think that they must have the most wonderful life. Then I facebook stalk myself and remember that appearances aren’t everything.

But anyway, the best part of my week occured while I was facebook stalking. I had gotten to the 350/400 photo mark and was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with my dedication to facebook stalking this particular person. The person of interest had started looking noticably younger and I was no longer able to fool myself that this was just a cheeky update on their personal life. Anyway, at this one particular photo, as I lay in bed stalking this person, I saw the number of likes on this photo drop from 10 to 9. I couldn’t believe it – right before my very eyes! How serendipitous! How comforting it was to know that I was not the only person engaging in inappropriate facebook stalking. Then I spent a good few minutes speculating how this event had arisen… Had my fellow stalker decided that they didn’t much like the photo anymore? Or, far more scandalous, the people in the photo? Alternatively, had they accidentally liked the photo, thus giving away their ninja stealth position and revealing their true location in the photo library 2011 archives? Had they hastily tried to take back the like, but alas, finding it was too late? Had the damage been done? Had the little red notification symbol had appeared on the stalkees facebook? 

I am ashamed to admit that I have had some personal experience with this accidental liking business. I’ve felt the stomach drop, the palms get clammy and the heart start pounding with the absolute horror of accidentally liking somebody’s post… Somebody with whom communication was off limits... Or when you are just that bit too far back in their photos for it to be considered socially acceptable to like a photo.

In conclusion, a tip for young players: I find that the likelihood of accidentally liking or commenting or sharing something when facebook stalking is exponentially higher when on my cellphone, rather than my computer. Or maybe my thumbs are just fat. Either way, as an extra precaution, I no longer facebook stalk on my phone. Unless it's an emergency, in which case I am extremely careful about where I put my grimy little mits on that unforgiving touch screen.  

I love facebook stalking people. I really do. And if you’re sitting here reading this, you might very well get facebook stalked on a semi-regular basis (yes, I have a roster for who I facebook stalk).

Don’t worry if you don’t have facebook, no need to feel left out; sometimes I google people too. But I feel that’s a story for another day.

Happy facebook stalking!

Chat

I haven’t been writing for a while – I was on holiday (literally) and then I was on geek camp (and still am – but I have my hour of allocated free time now…). I have been having a lot of interesting interactions with people lately. While I was on my holiday, I was skiing in the beautiful New Zealand, with two (sometimes three) delightful health professionals. I love health professionals. My parents are health professionals. A lot of my nearest and dearest are health professionals. I deeply admire them, while simultaneously being completely uninterested about their whole undertaking. I try to avoid meeting them in a professional setting as much as possible.

New Zealand

Powder days

So the skiing was great – the snow was great; the company was great; the weather was great (you know it’s good when I say great four times to describe the same activity – that’s the most excited I ever get about anything). What more could a girl ask for? Better chat; that's what I'd ask for. In the car on the way up the (very windy and steep) ski field road, I had to listen (on more than one occasion) to horror stories about car accidents, skiing accidents and health ailments in general. Then on the chair lift, I had to listen to arms being held on by a tendon, before being amputated and this person being left holding on to this arm. I’m not a squeamish person, but I don't think that this is acceptable small talk.  And you'd hope it would improve.  It didn’t. The skiing did, but the conversation didn't. Opportunity cost, I suppose.

Chairlift conversations...

And then I spent last weekend hanging out at a hostel in Sydney, catching up with a very dear friend of mine and his girlfriend. They were fine – they’re chat was acceptable. But hostels… holey moley… The people that populate hostels are incredible. I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in hostels, but I can tell you now, that they are filled with the #traveller #intrepid #adventurer type of people that talk 24/7 about their intrepid and worldly experiences that make them so worldly and adventurous. I find it very draining. I’m more of the #nobodygivesashit type of traveller. Live and let live; that’s my motto. Hostel conversations also follow a very formulaic structure too – how long have you been on the road? Where’s home? What you are doing here? Where are you going next? My #nobodygivesashit attitude was great for this, as the answer to the ‘where are you going next’ question was ‘science camp’ which is a refreshing conversation stopper, should you ever need one. The #traveller #intrpeid #adventurer types don’t really know what to do with this…

Winter in Australia

And now I am on science (geek) camp, which was initially a relief – finally around people who are on my buzz; nerdy, geeky, perhaps a little socially awkward, like myself. I arrived and was suitably out nerded in the first five minutes of conversation when one of my new found nerd-friends cracked a joke about oceanography, which I didn’t understand. Even after an explanation the following day, I still don’t understand…  It’s all very ‘hush-hush’ here at science camp too. We aren’t allowed to take any photos or run away (apparently there is a firing range really close to where we are). It makes me feel like I am in District 9 or something actually cool… In reality, I am just in The Middle of Nowhere, Australia.

Sydney Opera House

There are some smooth rollers though; a girl introduced herself as Jasmine. The guy next to her turned and said, very smoothly, ‘Jasmine’s are my favourite flower.’ When he was complimented on his florist skills, he quipped he preferred 'the term botanist.'

Australia's East Coast

I don't know what I expected, but so there is so much science on geek camp… I haven’t been this overwhelmed with science for a while… So much to not understand… But there have been cool parts too. We had a talk from a guy who is in the top 100 candidates to go on a one way mission to Mars in 2027. I hope that he gets to go, so that then I can say that I’ve had a talk from an astronaut (it’s actually all about me, in case you were wondering).

Science.