It's been a while...

More than a year, in fact. So, hi! 

While I left this blog,
I never did leave behind the silly.

I don't really have an explanation for why I left (though I never fully left, I've been keeping up with other people's blogs still, just not writing anything). I can explain why I'm back though: I turn 30 this month (aaargh!). It's a significant enough milestone that I've been reflecting on what my life has been like up to this point and what I've accomplished. Some aspects I really expected would be quite different (e.g., that I would have a full time job and at least one kid by now), but there's still also much I can be thankful for. 

Related to that, at the back of my mind all this time has been my 30 before 30 list and the rest of the items left to do. Obviously nothing bad will happen if I don't accomplish all the tasks (and it's probably impossible anyway with this little time left to do them all). 

I thought I'd revisit what's left to do on my list, and perhaps it will inspire me for what could be on my next list (40 before 40 perhaps??)...

Still here.

I thought I'd mention I'm still alive.

We moved house last weekend, which I'm still recovering from I think. Husband has been really great in taking over most of the responsibility of the move so I can focus on my thesis. It seems to be paying off too - my supervisor seems to think I can probably submit my thesis NEXT WEEK. I don't particularly believe that yet though. I keep expecting something will come up, like some big unforseen-yet-obvious mistake that means I have to start my thesis again from scratch. My supervisor also warned me that when I finish I am unlikely to have some big feeling of joy and relief, but rather a feeling of unease. That is because it will too late to fix any of those possible mistakes and the examiners will be reading my thesis and judging it (me).

People have asked me what I plan to do when I finish. So far my answer has been: sleep and probably some existential crisis about what I'm supposed to do with my life. Husband's answer has been: BABIES! In all honesty though I really need to work on finding a post-doc job first - long before any baby-related options. 

Anyway. Perhaps I'll report back next week with the good news that I am in fact finished. Or I'll just avoid posting since I don't want to admit I'm still going. 

Or I'll just not post because I'm asleep.

[via]

Back

I've been home for over a week now. My thoughts have definitely gone back to the 'aargh thesis' dark side. My trip feels like it was so long ago that I can't remember it that well anymore. I will say though that the people I met at the course were nice (I guess it pays not to be antisocial sometimes), and I was able to cross another 30 before 30 item off my list - visit another castle. Oh, and we went to a Ceilidh, which was a big dinner in a hall with folk dancing afterwards. It was awkward dancing with a bunch of people I'd just met, but quite amusing. Except for the giant bruise that appeared on my ankle from one overly exuberant dancer accidentally kicking me twice.

As for the course, I'm very glad I went. All the brain dissection parts were very interesting, but in a slightly surreal and abstract way. By that I mean, it was sometimes difficult to reconcile that what I was holding used to contain the thoughts of someone. We also had case conferences, where patients with brain disorders actually came in so we could talk to them. These were great for bringing all the concepts back to reality, but it also made me very sad about how these people's lives have been permanently changed. It also made me want to wear a helmet permanently to avoid injury, along with aiming to get brain scans often - as you can see this course did not help my mild hypochondriasis. At the same time though it's amazing how much the brain does try to adjust and recover with injuries, and the way the patients dealt with their problems and got on with life was truly inspiring. One girl had to teach herself to walk and talk again after a car accident, and she ended up running with the Paralympic torch for part of its' journey to the London games. 

Anyway, before I head back to marking assignments (hey at least they make my thesis look like an attractive work option again) I will post a couple of pictures of my trip below.

Bodnant Garden, Conwy, Wales

Conwy Castle

The town of Conwy is still walled and you can get up on the walls and look around. The view is pretty impressive.

P.S. Brain research is super important so that progress can be made in preventing and treating injuries and diseases. It might be a bit morbid to think about, but please consider donating your brain to science. I plan to. 

**UPDATE: There is an awesome TV show called Battle Castle, and one of the episodes is about Conwy. Hooray!

Not Taken.

... well at the moment anyway. In other words, I arrived safely in London and made it to my hotel without incident. Well unless you count the fact that I didn't realise it's a bank holiday here today and therefore I had to pay public holiday rates for my taxi from the airport - ouch. I know I could have caught the train instead but I've previously had pretty bad experiences dragging around luggage in overly crowded stations - and that was with Husband there to do most of the heavy lifting!

When I arrived at my hotel my room wasn't ready yet, so I left my luggage there and wandered up the street to the British Museum to kill time. It was even better than I was expecting. The building is awesome and the exhibits are very detailed and interesting. My lack of sleep during the flights did start to hit me though about halfway through and I stopped paying attention and taking photos. I may have to go back another day.

I did take my own photos of the museum but the people taking photos for the British Museum website obviously did a much better job!

In other news, I have an update from my last post where I said I had no researchers to meet with. I am now meeting one tomorrow morning and another the next day, and I have another person I'm supposed to call soon too! Aargh. I'm really not great at talking to strangers anyway, but I'm sure this will be worse considering they're extremely smart and important and I'm trying to convince them they should hire me. So after getting back from the museum I had a nap and then went back to studying for my meetings (I hope there won't be a test!).

It also turns out a couple of my friends will be in London as well in the next few days, so things have worked out quite nicely in that regard. I also really like the suburb I'm staying in. So overall, if I pretend I don't have scary meetings coming up I can say so far so good and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week!

Snippets

Snip·pet (noun): A bit, scrap, or morsel

I applied for a job today. The position is to be a lecturer in biological psychology at a university in the UK. It took pretty much the whole day to write the application so now I'm exhausted. Good thoughts, prayers, crossed fingers or whatever would be appreciated! 

I don't really like my hair cut now after all. It was good for a few weeks and I received some really flattering compliments (including from you guys - aww thanks). Now it's grown to an awkward mullet-esque length and I'm stuck between deciding to cut it again and just letting it grow out. 

My home laptop has died I think. It's had a good run of about 3 years and luckily I was suspicious the end was nigh so made sure to back everything up. Hopefully I will get a new one soon - my supervisor has nicely allowed me to borrow a lab laptop for a bit so that's what I'm using currently.

Shot from last year's city 2 surf.

The City-2-Surf (a 14km run) is less than 3 weeks away and I have definitely not trained sufficiently to expect to run very much. I enjoy running and I know exercise should be a priority but it is a bit difficult when I've got so much thesis-ing to do! My friend and I have decided to walk most of it, which considering it's 14km is still pretty reasonable. Hopefully we'll still dress up as sporty zombies from the 80s!

I got to be involved in one of my favourite things - a trying on clothes montage. As I mentioned a while ago my sister is getting married next year so my mum and I went with her to give opinions on about 12 wedding dresses. Although fun and some of the dresses looked really lovely on my sister, I believe that the montages on tv/movies do not adequately portray how long and exhausting the day ends up being!

Disturbing fact: foot spas at pedicure places have lots (and lots) of feet cells of previous users clogged in the jets. That certainly does not make me want a pedicure anymore, or help my foot phobia one bit.

Ahh this is so comfortable soaking in other people's feety grossness [via].

My most recent baking disaster the other day saw me ruin yet another pot attempting to make custard. It was burnt so badly we've had to throw it away. That makes three now... oops. In a recent baking success however I made banana bread muffins which were awesome. Husband and I agreed it was the best thing I've ever baked (which perhaps considering the baking disasters doesn't say much). 

I got a 'revise and resubmit' from a journal for one of my papers. That's much better than a rejection so hopefully they'll accept the revisions!

OK that's probably enough snippets for now. Sorry for a not overly coherent post but... eh.

Quirk.

I am afraid of feet. Thankfully it's winter here so feet are covered generally and I don't have to see or think about feet much at the moment, but seriously they freak me out. Generally I think most people's feet are pretty unattractive (no offence), but that's not what bothers me. What I really can't stand is having people's bare feet touch my skin. It actually happens more than you'd probably realise (if feet don't bother you) - under the table when eating, people sitting closely on the lounge or on the floor - it's creeping me out just thinking about it!

AAARGH they're coming right for us!!!! [via]

As someone who studies psychology, obviously I've considered that perhaps I had some sort of foot-related traumatic incident in childhood that haunts me to this day. The thing is, I really have no recollection of such an event. Maybe Freud was right and repression is real, and I'm just that good at making sure this foot memory never comes to the surface... NEVER! 

I also can not endure shoe sharing. The reason I bring this up is that yesterday my sister nicely lent my mother some of her slippers to wear since it was cold, but it really freaked me out. Other people were very shocked and confused at my reaction that I would refuse to give my poor mother some slippers to borrow if she were cold. Sorry Mum but knowing our feet skin cells would be interacting makes me want to vomit. 

Baby feet: allowed.

The problem with telling people is, they then seem to think it's highly amusing to go out of their way to TOUCH ME WITH THEIR FEET. Boy feet are definitely worse, and they are the feet that have been shoved in my face. The thing is though, if someone says they are scared of spiders, do you rush out and find a spider to dangle in their face? I hope not. So what gives? Perhaps the difference is that a spider phobia is really quite reasonable, since well the spider could bite you and you could die (or at least experience some pain). The consequence of people's feet touching me is... tinea or something I guess. Yeah I realise this is a stupid thing to be afraid of.

Ahem. Anyway, sorry about that crazy rant. I will say that for some reason I can tolerate baby human feet (not sure why) and I've forced myself to become accustomed to Husband's feet - though this has definitely not generalised to other people (even his identical twin who genetically has the same feet). 

Do you have any quirks like this that people love to tease you about? Would you try to touch me with your feet if you were to see me in person?

The end of productivity...

...well hopefully not, but it is the end of Productive June today. At least I'm ending it on a somewhat productive note, as I am in fact at uni today (yes Saturday) working on my thesis - well besides this quick break I'm obviously taking! As it is so quiet in the PhD office on the weekend (usually only 1-2 other people come in, but I'm often alone) I find it less distracting, but also since I know I'm depriving myself of relaxing/having fun I think I may as well use the time properly and actually do work. 

My writing is going reasonably too. Many people gave me the advice "just write 500 words a day", and I have to say, now that I have finally taken that advice it actually works. I've been (nerdishly) plotting my word count in an excel spreadsheet graph, and I find it encouraging to see the progress. It also spurs me on to at least get to 500, and once I do that I usually end up writing more. It's also helped me to worry a bit less about the looming deadline of November 12 (to be henceforth known as "arrgh no more scholarship must hand in dreaded thesis day" ...too long?), as I (also nerdishly) calculated exactly how many words I could have written by then if I write around the same amount most days. It seems feasible I could have a thesis by then! The other cool thing (well cool to me anyway) is that since I'm doing so much thinking/reading/writing about my topic, I'm really starting to enjoy it again. Additionally it's encouraging to re-read things I first read in my first year and barely understood, and find that now not only do I understand it, but I can critique it.

One downside however is the increasing pile of papers and mess my desk is accumulating. I think this PHD comic sums it up pretty well:

from here

Well sorry if this was totally boring but hey this is pretty much my life at the moment - so thanks for calling my life boring :P

Oh No! Or... Hooray?

So as I mentioned a little while ago, I gave myself a haircut on a whim, due to my distaste of going to hair salons. It was not very good. I finally decided to get it fixed, and got a hairdresser who came to my house, which was good. I asked for it quite short, and well now it definitely is that...

I'm not 100% sure what I think about it to be honest, but perhaps in a few days I'll like it better. Otherwise I guess I'll just be wearing a lot of hats.

And be towering over Manhattan about to grab the Statue of Liberty (not to scale).

P.S. At least this has been a fairly good distraction from the 'aargh thesis' side of life!

Productive June...

... has actually so far been quite productive (no idea what Productive June is?)! Mostly due to the minor freaking out that is going on in my brain about trying to finish my thesis. Even though this past weekend was a long weekend (woowoo), I ended up going to uni to work on Saturday. It ended up being quite successful, and I'm now thinking I'll do it every Saturday from now on (the excitement never ends here people!). 

I think what happened productivity-wise was I just stopped being in denial as to when my thesis is actually due. While November 12th may still seem quite far away (it's actually 5 months exactly today), I have 8 chapters to write, and specific deadlines each month of when each chapter draft is supposed to go to my supervisor. Not to mention the fact that I'll probably have revisions to make once she's read each chapter! At this stage I'm not sure I will be able to properly meet those deadlines, to be honest.

Because I didn't want this post to just be a boring whinge, here's this thing I found amusing. 

[you can get it on a t-shirt at threadless!]

 

So in conclusion, aargh. 

Q: Are you having a Productive June so far?

Uncertainty.

[from here]

There's a fair bit of it in my life right now. Like I mentioned previously, I really have no idea what will be happening after I finish my thesis. Academia is pretty competitive, and I need the experiments that I'm finishing up to have exciting publishable results that will make my CV look impressive so people will consider hiring me. However I have no idea what the results are yet (hopefully in a few weeks...), or exactly when I'll be finishing my thesis (but really hoping it's before my scholarship runs out). Another thing I'm hoping is to get into a short (one week) course I applied for in Wales. It's on neuroanatomy and if I get accepted they'll fly me over there and my accommodation is sorted too!! I'm supposed to find out by the end of May, so of course I've been checking my email every five minutes in case they've decided. If I get into the course, I might also take the opportunity to visit a few researchers in the UK and try to politely convince them to hire me. I still would really (really really) like to work in the UK obviously, however I have no idea how realistic that goal is either.

I've known since I was around 15 that I wanted to study psychology at university, and even knew which uni I wanted to go to. So it happened. When doing psychology I decided I really wanted to get into honours, so I did. This PhD opportunity pretty much fell in my lap too, so I've been pretty used to doing what I wanted and not having to wait long to get it. That is why this whole having-no-idea-what's-next thing is pretty unsettling. Perhaps being at uni for so long has just pushed back my 'quarter life crisis' a couple of years. 

Having said that though, I've received a lot of encouragement the last couple of days, which I've really appreciated. I had a great meeting with my supervisor Monday, where we made a very specific plan of deadlines for writing my thesis chapters. Since then I've been motivated and productive (and it's not even Productive June yet!) - I've completed two more papers that should be submitted to journals shortly, finished marking reports, and worked on my thesis a fair bit. I also had a meeting with another academic involved in my project and he made it clear he thought my thesis would be well-written, and he said he'd speak to some contacts he has in the UK about possible work. Most of all, Husband has been super encouraging. He doesn't seem at all concerned that things won't work out, and it's helped me not to crawl into a ball overwhelmed by all the things I need to do, but rather get to work and make sure I do my best. Because of that, I've actually felt much more positive than I have in a long time - unfortunately that doesn't change how busy I am!

[via]

Well here's what happened.

I didn't mean to take a 5 week break from blogging, honest. It's not that I was super busy, or super unhappy or unwell or something. I just didn't have a lot to say, and then I kept thinking I should wait until I have something super important or interesting to talk about. I still don't really. However I just thought I would write an update (that is potentially non-important, non-interesting, sorry) anyway. Like previously, I've broken it up into three categories:

[via]

Science: Some good news and some good/scary news. The good news is that my first first-author paper has been accepted for publication (old news for twitter followers)! This is a relief, as it had taken a while for it to get accepted somewhere. It will be out next month. The good/scary news is my PhD scholarship has been extended for 6 months. Good in that I will not be poor for the next 6 months, but scary because the confirmation email also included the date the scholarship stops: November 12. This then gives me a very specific date to try and finish my thesis by, and it really doesn't seem all that far away now... gulp. As for the fact that I have no idea what I'll do after that, well that's the especially scary part.

Spouses: Yep, still got one of those (although he's been slightly MIA recently since the release of computer game Diablo III). It's actually Husband's birthday tomorrow, and we're going out to play laser tag, which should be fun / slightly nerdy. We're also going out on Saturday night to a Brazilian BBQ place, which essentially involves being served larged quantities of meat.

Silliness: Well on a whim about two weeks ago I did something I've never done (or planned to do) before: I gave myself a haircut. I decided I was sick of how long my hair was, and impulsively grabbed some scissors and started hacking. After I did the first snip I regretted it immediately, but obviously had to continue. Towards the end I decided I should be sensible about it and used my hair straightener so I could make sure it was all even. It went from being half-way down my back to just above my shoulders. My (post-hoc) reasoning was that I'm contemplating getting a more drastic haircut (see picture below), but I hate going to the hairdressers (I'm sure they're very nice people but I really don't like all the pointless chit-chat). This way when I do go there's less hair to cut and dye, and therefore I'll be there for less time (??). 

[from my pinterest]

Well enough about me:

What have you been up to lately?

Have you ever done something strange/impulsive and you're not really sure why?
Is anyone else afraid of going to the hairdressers?

Experiment Fail?

With no experimenting for my research occurring still for a few weeks, I think I've been a bit bored. As such, I've become quite a bit more experimental at home, mostly with cooking. That is, until I came across this blog. Here, a (by all appearances) sensible not-crazy person decided to stop using shampoo and conditioner and start just using bicarb soda (AKA baking soda) and vinegar. I have to say her hair looks actually quite nice, and when I read some of the comments, and found other blogs also saying this is what they did, and perhaps coupled with the fact that I'm still kind of dizzy and going a bit stir crazy stuck at home, I decided - well perhaps this is for me!?

The ingredients I used (though I realised the items are out of order)

From a (sort of) scientific standpoint, the reason behind it kind of makes sense. Bicarb soda is a super weak alkaline and is well known as a gentle cleaning agent, so it can potentially be used as a shampoo when mixed with water. Some people even use it for toothpaste. To stop the scalp from going dry you can also add a bit of tea-tree oil. Vinegar (also known to be used in cleaning) is then used as a detangler/conditioner to counteract the alkalinity of the bicarb and restore the hair's pH. You can then add essential oils to make it smell a bit less vinegar-y.

So after purchasing all the necessary ingredients, I decided to test it out Monday night. As with many of my experiments, Husband allowed me to go ahead, and nicely kept most of his strange looks and incredulous comments to himself. That is, until I came out of the shower after trying it saying "something happened!"

My skin seemed to have a super bad reaction to one of those ingredients (my suspect is one of the oils), because my face and neck became extremely itchy and was bright red with welts. I was pretty concerned, as I had a meeting with a lot of people today, and as post-grad rep I am meeting all the new students for orientation tomorrow. I didn't want to be known as "the one with the weird skin". Thankfully, after a couple of hours the redness and itch disappeared, so it must have been an allergic reaction, and not some sort of burn. It was then that I remembered to actually check my hair, and I have to say - it's actually quite clean and really soft!

I might change the quantities around a bit, and try it one more time. I'll just be a bit more careful to miss my face/neck (since my scalp didn't get itchy or red) now that I know I probably won't die. So for right now, I will say it isn't a total failure, but I'll also be a bit more cautious in future.

Questions for you:

- Has anyone else tried this?

- Do you now see me as a crazy hippy?

- Do you have any similar mishaps to share?  

- Are you relieved or secretly disappointed I didn't share a picture of my skin freak out? 

Dizzy

Disclaimer: The following post is not a bid for sympathy, more just an expression of my bemusement at events of late.

[via]

I have an ear infection that is causing dizziness. I think. I did go to the doctors, but I'll explain in a bit why I'm still somewhat unsure. Firstly, the irony of the whole thing. 

I have mentioned previously, that one of my 30 things to do before I turn 30 is to swim in the ocean. The reason for this is that I nearly drowned once, and since that time have never gone in the water at the beach above my knees. I basically have stood there for a little bit, started to feel a bit uncomfortable with the waves and just gone back to the sand. However not this past weekend but the one before I'm happy to report that I did go for a swim. Husband and I went for a nice walk on the beach that is not far from our place, and realised it was great swimming weather. We quickly came home and got swimming attire and went back, and I swam! I had a great time (with Husband being told to stay close just in case he had to rescue me), and was especially pleased when later I realised I'd crossed another thing off my 30 before 30 without actually intending to. So the ironic part is, it's most likely that this is where my ear infection is from. D'oh!

So after a few days of dizzy, I decided to go to the doctor. Unfortunately the one I like was not there, so instead I saw this very old dude. Seriously, he had to lean closely towards me to hear what I was saying, and would sometimes go off on waffling tangents. When I told him I felt dizzy, he asked me to follow his finger with my eyes and then said "you have an ear infection" (is it mean I also found it a bit ironic/amusing that the hard of hearing doctor was telling me I had something wrong with my ear?). I haven't actually had much ear pain, but apparently no further tests were necessary and he said "the dizziness might go away in a couple of weeks". Err - great. There's the slight problem of not really being able to go anywhere or do much in the meantime however, but he actually wasn't going to prescribe me anything for it until I specifically asked. Just as I was about to leave, he said "Oh wait, is your cycle regular? BUT DON'T GIVE ME TOO MUCH INFORMATION! You're not pregnant are you?" I found this also amusing, since well firstly I wasn't going to give him too much information, but also surely he's heard it all by now since he's obviously been a doctor for a long time!

When I went to the pharmacist to pick up my prescription, it turns out it was for anti-vertigo medication, and nothing to treat the infection. When I expressed my surprise at this the pharmisist looked at my prescription and said "Oh you saw Dr -----? Yeh he's... interesting isn't he?". Not the most comforting thing to hear! However I will say that I Wikipedia'd Labyrinthitis (cool technical name hey) and since it can be from viral infections, antibiotics may not have done much anyway. So I guess I have to wait, and hope this medication helps until the dizziness subsides (unfortunately a big side effect of the medication is being drowsy).

Irony #3: I actually feel like doing uni work, now that it's quite difficult to do so! 

Question for you:

Have you ever had an illness with a cool sounding name? Feel free to share - but perhaps refrain if it's something a bit overly personal or gross :P

P.S. To answer a potentially obvious question: If you're so dizzy, how did you write this? Well, it took a long time, that's for sure! 

I May Regret This...

Starting in March, besides my PhD, during the week I will also be teaching a 2nd year Psychology course, and also helping out and lecturing a bit for a Masters night course. I also applied (and got accepted) to do a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education at uni. Also, I put my hand up to be Postgrad Rep (a person who liases between the students and faculty to highlight relevant issues etc.) this year. Perhaps you may be thinking: 

Go crazy? Don't mind if I do! [via]

"Lozzz123 - are you going CRAZY!?"

To which I say - yeh, probably. However, the course is free for university staff, and it's actually only 4 hours of class every fortnight. It's a great opportunity to learn how to be a good lecturer/course coordinator before I actually may get a full time job doing that (it's interesting that this is not compulsory and although pre-school, primary school and high school teachers all need specific degrees in teaching, most university level teachers don't have any teacher training except perhaps a 1-2 day course, but that's a completely different issue)! As for the Postgrad Rep, I'll be sharing the responsibility with another PhD student too, and besides a meeting or two each week and emailing/talking to any students that have questions it shouldn't be super time consuming. And well, all the teaching/helping/lecturing is good money.

Considering I'll be trying to fit testing for two experiments and trying to write up my thesis in there too (and well, having a bit of a life possibly) it will make for a busy and slightly stressful year.

The thing is though, I actually seem to function better when I have so much stuff to do, that I don't have a choice but to do it NOW. As mentioned previously, when I only have one thing to work on without any immediate looming deadlines, I seem to flounder, get bored easily, and just generally procrastinate and not do much at all (unless you count non-uni activities like cooking and running, which I don't).

I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew this time...! 

Psychology Pet Peeve: "We Only Use 10% of Our Brains"

Do you ever remember being told that we only use 10% of our brains, and if we could only figure out how to use the 100% we'd be geniuses, and possibly psychic as well? Considering this concept (or parts of it) has been attributed to people such as Albert Einstein, I can see why it would be believed.

I thought it was one of those things that most people knew by now to not be true, so imagine my surprise when last year the movie Limitless came out, with the premise that you could take a pill to make you use 100% of your brain. To be fair, I haven't actually seen this movie, but hearing about it in the ads made my blood boil so I thought it best to avoid (Bradley Cooper, we're still cool though).

The truth is however, unless you've had some sort of brain damage - you use all of your brain! If you were using 10% only - which part are you using while the rest is switched off? If you think about even some of the things the brain is doing simultaneously - controlling your senses, accessing memories and thinking about the future, planning and executing movements including speaking and walking, regulating hormones, and oh yeh, making sure you keep breathing - well I'd be a bit concerned if my brain was only working 10%! Also, our brains take up a major chunk of our energy resources: up to 20%! If only 10% of it's working, that's a bit of an energy waste and could be considerably smaller in that case.

Like our friend Homer here! [via]

Now please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're an idiot or making fun of you if you did believe this previously - to be honest, I kind of thought it might be true until the first week of my Psych courses where they specifically mentioned this is a myth. My pet peeve is more to do with poorly researched articles and movies perpetuating this sort of thing. It also seems to be a particular pet peeve of this guy, who actually wants you to contact him if you find someone stating this so he can correct (yell at?) them.

Ok gripe over!

Question for you:

- Do you have any pet peeves (doesn't have to be psychology-related, though if it is I'm sure I'll commiserate with you)? Feel free to share in the comments.

P.S. Albert Einstein in fact never said that.

P.P.S. To pester me, sometimes Husband says things like: "Oh I guess I forgot to do the washing up, because I only use 10% of my brain" aargh!

100?

[via]

If my calculations are correct, then I believe this to be my 100th blog post. To celebrate I am going to force you to read delight you with 100 things about myself! 

...Just kidding. Just like, 33 things. I have been tagged by both blogs Shades of Shayes and A Quick Succession of Busy Nothings in this 'about me' type post where you're supposed to give facts and answer questions. Prepare to learn more about me than you probably ever wanted to know - hooray (don't worry not in a creepy way I'm not too much of an oversharer)!

I have a confession to make...

I like to consider myself an organised person. I write many to-do lists, and get great satisfaction in ticking items off (which I usually why I add things like 'eat lunch'). However I must confess that one area in which there is zero organisation, is at home. Although we generally do have a 'shopping night' on Mondays, this is mostly because by the end of the weekend all the food is so long gone that we have to go shopping or else decide to not eat any more. The main problem is the vast chasm between how our place looks most of the time, and how it looks when guests are expected. Basically, the couple of hours before people are due to arrive, I freak out. I try to make Husband join me in the freaking out, but he doesn't seem all that concerned. He does politely humour me though, and does help out considerably. However this huge gap in 'regular clean' and 'guest clean' might explain why invitations to have people over aren't all that forthcoming right now! 

Don't worry, it's nowhere near this bad! [source]

Someone once said to me "true friends invite people over regardless of the tidiness of their house". I assume it's because supposedly true friends won't really care about how it looks, they're there for the company. I still can't bring myself to subscribe to this though. I feel that it's respectful to put in the time and effort for your friends. However, the other reason is probably that if I can fool these friends into thinking I'm this clean and organised all the time, I can still fool myself that this is the case.

Something needs to change though. Besides the fact that the pre-guest freak out isn't all that fun, I don't actually like seeing the house so cluttered and disorganised. That's as far as I've gotten in the matter however - thinking something has to change. What I can do about it though, is still a mystery to me! 

Do you have a regular schedule to keep your house organised? Any suggestions (please!)? 

It's that time again...

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Uni elections. Ugh. No offense to people who care about this stuff, but I am at best apathetic towards politics. Even if I did care however, I'm sure I'd still find it annoying, because it gives people reasons to get in my face and start talking at me whether I want them to or not. Unfortunately, I do seem to have a face that suggests I am a very non-threatening person, so I get approached by strangers A LOT (see post on being a loony beacon for proof). Also unfortunately, I have a lot still to learn about how to be assertive. One year I got cornered by this guy in a stairwell very passionately preaching his particular party's policies until I finally did a little shriek and ran away. 

Not only do we have these people trying to get votes, but there's always many people around uni trying to get people to sign up for charities and such. Perhaps it's because they think uni students care about causes. However what they don't seem to remember is that many uni students do not actually have any money. Now, I am all for charities. I think they're very important and I'm happy to donate to my favourite ones on a regular basis, and I'm glad there are other people who do too. However I do not appreciate the tactics some use to essentially force non-assertive types into giving their money. I myself not that long ago got talked into signing a contract to have money taken from my account monthly, when all I wanted to do was walk past this person to the train station! Adding to this the fact that I don't actually like talking to people on the phone, and was not happily anticipating the guilt trip I'd get for trying to get out of it, I ended up giving money for 6 months! 

The problem is, although they're doing something that annoys me greatly, they're still people. I can't bring myself to be flat out rude to them. I think about how difficult I'd find it to be in their position and approach strangers and try to talk them into something (which I think is why I was a terrible sales assistant). Usually this means I resort to pretending I'm involved in a really engrossing conversation on the phone.

Do other people have this problem? What do you say/do to nicely get them to leave you alone?

Are you finished YET?

Seriously, how is it SEPTEMBER already! Where has the year gone?? Before I know it, it will be Christmas. It also means that it is nearly the end of the 3rd year of my PhD. Which is weird. In the last couple of weeks quite a few people have started to ask me the dreaded question: "So when do you think you will be finished?". I had actually hoped I could dodge that question for at least a few more months. I understand people are just asking out of interest (which is nice of course), but this is what I hear when I get asked that: "you SHOULD be finished soon - so hurry up!"

It's easy at this point to think about how much I haven't accomplished in this time - mostly due to some unexpected delays in running experiments (seriously, sign up 1st year psych students - I need participants!). The truth is however, in this time I still have actually learnt a lot. Just this week, I gave a lecture for the 3rd year Psych course, I submitted a paper to a journal (which is in a lot better shape that the last time I tried to submit it somewhere I think), and I also updated my C.V. and realised how much experience I've gained at teaching and presenting at conferences. The thing that surprised me the most, is actually how confident I have become that I am able to do these things, and that what I have to say is important. It definitely is also easy to just focus on the experiment/thesis side of things; but if you do that, you forget that a PhD is much more than that - it's an apprenticeship to becoming an academic. 

So although, no, I'm not ready to finish up very soon (probably another year I think), I can still be quite pleased with how much I've grown this past year. That makes it just that little bit easier to not freak out at the 'dreaded question', and look forward to what is to come.

Even still, I think I might purchase this shirt just in case.

Fear of Flying - Part 1: Introduction

If you know me, or read this blog even semi-regularly, you'll know that I'm going to New York on Friday. The question I've inevitably been getting for the past couple of weeks has been: are you excited? 

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I get to look at some famous landmarks, do tonnes of shopping, and meet some of my academic idols at the conference I'm going to - but honestly, the answer is NO. I'm not excited. In fact, I'm kind of dreading it. Once I'm over there I know it will be great, but it's the getting there (and back) that is the problem. It takes nearly an entire day on the plane to get from Sydney to NY (including a brief stop at LAX). Based on previous experiences I know I won't be sleeping much, or even reading or watching movies to distract myself. I'll be staring out the window and also carefully watching the flight attendant's faces for any signs of disaster (and constantly praying nothing bad happens)!

This might come as a bit of a surprise, considering I study psychology, and I know for a fact that this is an irrational fear. I have actually flown quite a few times - especially recently when Husband and I went to Europe for our honeymoon. Obviously, we were totally fine, and I actually did sleep a bit on the flight home through turbulence. However Husband was there the whole time so I could also check his face to see if he was worried, and he wasn't. This time, I'm totally by myself, and there is nobody to tell me I'm being irrational. Although I will tell myself that I'm sure (many times), I'm not very good at listening to myself!

So for my own preparation I'm writing a couple of posts (it was only going to be one but then I realised how much there is to cover) about why this is irrational and why I will almost definitely be fine. Hopefully if there are some people out there that have similar concerns I can help you a bit too. If you don't have problems flying, well either feel free to skip these posts, or keep reading so you can understand a bit more about the people who do, or just a bit more about fears and phobias in general.

Stay tuned...