The Beach

It's official - a change is as good as a holiday. 5 days at the beach, however, is the best sort of holiday to have (except for maybe 6 or 7 or 8 days at the beach)! After all my sleepless nights, early mornings, weekends of general antisocial-ness and seriously hard work, I got my weekend away at Warner Beach, and it was undoubtedly worth it!

The week leading up to leaving was pretty frantic, and I didn't get to pack until about an hour before we left on the Wednesday! This was mostly because of a small problem that I encountered in the Wits postgraduate parking area as I was trying to leave campus at 10:15 on Wednesday morning: due to the ICC Champions' Trophy cricket tournament, the Wits cricket field was being used as a practice ground by the Indian cricket team, and I got parked in by the team bus! And the driver had disappeared, the Wits parking guards were unable to leave their post (because it takes 2 people to stand and swipe people in - yeah right!) and the team manager was nowhere in sight! I eventually got some police officers to help me, and the bus driver was found and the bus was moved pulled. It was pretty funny - I might even have laughed, if I hadn't been in a huge hurry!

Sarah, Garrith and I eventually left Johannesburg at 13:00, and I spent most of the trip updating Sarah on the madness that is my life, helping a tutling with his essay via sms and comparing weather reports with the Potential. I also managed to do a fair amount of my course reading before it got dark and cloudy. By the time we got to Pietermaritzburg, it was raining and foggy, which made visibility problematic, and we got rather soaked running from the car to the mall where we stopped to have supper (white t-shirt = bad choice). We arrived at Warner Beach at about 21:00, and sat and listened to the ocean that we couldn't see (thanks to the rain and the fact that it was dark) for a while. I woke up at 5:30 the next morning (and every single morning for the rest of the weekend, in fact. The joys of my body clock!), and did some reading. Once everyone else was awake, we went exploring, and took a very long walk on the beach. It was cloudy, but warm, and there was just something lovely about walking on beach sand and having the waves lap at my feet every so often. Once we got back, we went shopping, and after lunch, I wrote one of my mini-essays, and went for another walk on the beach.

Friday was pretty miserable weather-wise, since it was very cloudy and drizzling slightly, so Sarah, Garrith and I did what all Jo'burger's do at the coast in such situations - we went to Gateway. This was an excellent way to kill time - we wandered around for ages and then had lunch. We also did a fair amount of wandering around in an effort to find the car afterwards - Gateway is enormous and terribly confusing, despite the fact that we had a map (this should be an indication of how many people do get lost there - how many malls actually give you maps?!?). We fetched Graham from the airport at about 19:00, and spent the rest of the evening catching up and watching DVD's, and fighting about vegetarian food.

We finally got to swim in the sea on Saturday - it was nice and warm, and not particularly windy, and I didn't get dumped by any waves or injured, which is pretty miraculous for me! We went swimming on Sunday too, but is was incredibly windy - to the point that we were about the only people on the beach! In between all of this, we played poker (I won!) and Risk (I got annihilated) and watched some more DVD's, and I had a huge fight with my data, finished my course reading and completed the final mini-essay. We also went for a couple more walks on the beach and I took lots of photos, especially of the beach at dusk.

We all got along really well, which was nice (especially by comparison to my last beach holiday, where at least 2 parties weren't speaking by the time we drove home). I do, however, have my suspicions as to whether some matchmaking was going on, because Graham and Sarah seemed to leave Garrith and I alone on the beach an awful lot (and we kind of assumed that they were doing the "romantic walk on the beach" thing, so we wandered along and took photos). This isn't really making the situation with the Potential any less complicated, and I'm rather confused about things at the moment, and will probably be writing somewhat cryptic and dramatic blog posts in the near future. What will be will be, I guess (although if it could be simple and lacking in drama, that would be really nice)!

In any case, we drove back on Monday, in more nasty weather, and I'm now back home, experiencing beach withdrawal and enjoying my slight tan (just dark enough to make me look less pale, but not dark enough to arouse suspicion from the psych department, who probably wouldn't endorse my mini-holiday). The really good news is that I have received a 2 week extension from the department for my research report, which means that it is now due on the 30th of October. I am so relieved. And I now merely need to finish my neuropsychology essay and all my hand-ins will be complete! Win!

Punked

I'm not sure if I'm losing my mind, or if I'm being punked. I'm seriously beginning to think that it's the latter. Along with my weird dissociative episodes (which are probably due to low blood pressure) and my serious bouts of productivity, this week has been its own shade of strangeness!

I've made quite a bit of progress on the potential weekend-away to-do list. I've written 2 mini-essays (and I'm planning on doing the other 2 in the car on the way down) and a first draft of my research report (although I need to reshuffle the order of my methods section). I'm also more than halfway through my data collection - and seriously beginning to think that I'm going to reduce my sample size to 40, instead of 60, because it's just becoming ridiculous now! I have got a load of scuba divers and mountain climbers lined up for the weekend, which is making me feel a bit better. I'm still not sure whether I'll actually be going down to Durban though - it's really dependant on how much further I get with data collection and whether I can run my stats on my laptop (which isn't looking too promising at the moment, since Vista refuses to run any other software other than itself. Grr...).

I have at least started running and swimming again. The swimming has been great (aside from the creepy old guy who was suntanning in his Speedo) and the running was okay (except for the bizarre near-fainting moment where I started seeing auras). I'm feeling a little fitter, but that might just be from carrying my laptop bag up and down the stairs of the psych department.

On to the serious strangeness though... I did some data collection on Sunday afternoon at a friend's house, and tested my friend and his girlfriend, who are both scuba divers. They disappeared off to his room, and I was left chatting to his brother, who is 21, and has always had a bit of a thing for me. I ended up sitting outside with him while he had a smoke, and we got chatting about things. Somehow, we got onto the subject of friends with benefits - I think he was trying to figure out whether I was interested in being beneficial friends with him. When it became apparent that I wasn't that kind of girl, he changed tactics and asked me to dinner and a movie (which is probably proof that you should always ask for more than beneficial friend status). I was feeling fairly awkward about this, but he was kind of cute. I compromised by saying that I wouldn't be free until after the 16th of October, which he more or less seemed to accept. He didn't have my number though, so I figured I'd have the opportunity to think it through a little more before I saw him again. Sadly, this failed somewhat miserably. I spent Tuesday evening testing a friend (who is actually the other potential potential) at Mugg & Bean in Rosebank. The evening was fairly normal, aside from:

1. Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" being played as background music in the coffee shop (which was then balanced out by Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and Beyonce's "All the Single Ladies".
2. Paul calling me to ask what goes with apples
3. the fact that I was doing psychological testing in a coffee shop.

It went downhill on the way out of the coffee shop though, because I got a phone call. The number looked somewhat familiar and the voice on the line sounded an awful lot like The Crush. He wanted to know if I wanted to go to Doors with him and his brother's friends. I then discovered that he actually wasn't going to Doors, and wanted me to come over, because his parents were away. At this point, I still thought it was The Crush and said yes, but that I needed his address, which confused him, since he was convinced that I knew where he lived, since I'd been to his house before. He then realised that I clearly thought he was someone else, and I then realised that it wasn't The Crush, but was in fact Dinner and a Movie Guy. Naturally, I felt like an idiot, and was so flustered that I quickly refused, said it was too late at night, that I had to be at Wits early the next day and that I would see him at varsity sometime (preferably in about 8 months' time!)! I was so mortified - especially since The Potential Potential was right there. I spent the next 2 hours with him, explaining that I wasn't the kind of girl who went to boys' houses late at night when their parents weren't there. He actually proved to be very good at calming me down and it's now become a running joke between us - thank goodness! I did tell The Crush about the incident, which he thought was spectacularly funny. Fair to say that the entire incident felt like a bad joke - or an episode of "Punked" - though!

The Amazing Race

Why does time fly when you're having fun? And when you have 3 textbook chapters to read, a research report draft to write and 40 peoples' brains to test? Sigh... My research break has been fairly productive, but I feel like I could've got more done. That said, I didn't have too much free time, since I worked an extra shift at the vet (which involved wet paint, 3 dachshunds, dozens of cats and the most impossible customer on the planet) and had to go engagement present shopping as well. I did have a fun week though - I went to movies with friends, may or may not have been on a date (I'm still not sure, but I'm going to pretend that it was) and bought new jeans. I don't feel particularly rested, which is probably a good thing - the sunny weather has at least increased my energy levels and improved my mood dramatically.

I do need a proper holiday though - or at least a change (which might be just as good as a holiday). I was invited to go down to Sarah's parents' place at the coast in 3 weeks' time, over the long weekend. I initially thought that I couldn't go because I had far too much work, and even if I took my laptop with, the prospect of sitting on the beach, reading a journal article, was pretty depressing. Somehow though, after my bizarre emotional roller coaster of a weekend, I have changed my mind, and have decided that going away for 5 days would be fantastic and just what I need. The proviso, of course, is that I get all my work done (or at least most of it, so that I can just spend the car trip reading journal articles). As such, I have a list, and I'm in a race against time. In the next 3 weeks, I need to:

1. finish data collection (also known as "test the brains of 42 more people")
2. write my neuropsychology essay
3. write a draft of my research report
4. do data entry and data analysis
5. write 3 more mini-essays for psychopathology
6. lose a bit of weight (it is the coast and my bikini has been in hiding for 6 months)
7. start running or swimming again

It actually seems manageable. And strangely do-able. So, I'm hoping that I can get leave from work and enjoy 5 days of sunshine, beach sand and good company!

The Mexican

A couple of months ago, the fabulous Being Brazen posed an interesting question on her blog. It was based on a scene from "The Mexican" and asked the question "When is enough enough?" ( for the full link, go to http://www.beingbrazen.com/2009/07/movie-moment.html ). I was in a situation which was begging that question at the time, and didn't really have an answer, but it was a thought which has stuck with me for the last few months. Basically, to cut a long story short, I've been debating getting involved in a relationship with a friend of mine and we've been thinking about it and thinking about it for the last 2 years or so. He's a great person and I love him, but there were lots of factors which made things difficult and we never really managed to get over them. Everyone thought we were perfect for each other and that we should just give dating a try. The last 6 months were somewhat strained though and our friendship took a serious knock. We were completely honest with each other about our feelings, and, for the most part, it was like we were dating, because we'd generally see each other on weekends and talk during the week, and all that was really missing was the label which marked it as an "official" relationship. Eventually though, I started wondering whether enough was enough - was it time to make it official and be a couple, even with all the drama which it would create in our circle of friends, or were we just making each other miserable and wasting our time? I really wasn't sure, especially since I didn't want to let him go, because I love him. I wasn't sure that I could accept us just being friends, and that losing him (even if we weren't really dating), would make the bottom fall out of my world. But, eventually, enough was enough. I don't quite know when it happened, but it did. I had seen him out with his friends, and I just felt as if that was his life, and it was completely separate from mine, and that that was okay. And the sun still came up the next day, and I was happy. I was no longer drained and I felt free - free from all the stress of the "what if" game and all the uncertainty that came along with it.

It's been about 6 weeks now, and I'm still feeling great. I saw him for the first time about a week ago, and then over the weekend again, and I was okay. In fact, I was more than okay. Our friendship is still there, but I don't have the burden of having to guess what's going on between us and wondering if we'll ever figure things out. I didn't wonder what he was thinking and I didn't feel sad or confused when I left. What's even better is that I feel free to move on with my life - flirting at the party on Saturday night was part of it, and I've been feeling a lot more confident about myself. It feels a bit like I've found myself - and that I've turned out to be pretty cool! Life goes on. I even met a really nice guy at movies last night, and while I don't know if anything will come of it, it felt good to just spend time with someone new and completely different. Maybe I'll end up dating him, and maybe I won't. I don't know and I'm not going to have sleepless nights about it. I'm just enjoying this feeling of freedom and discovering who I really am and what I want.

As an aside... I woke up this morning with this song in my head. I love Matchbox 20, and the lyrics seemed somewhat appropriate for my state of mind.

"Waking up at the start of the end of the world
But it's feeling just like every other morning before
Now I wonder what my life is going to mean if it's gone
The cars are moving like a half a mile an hour
And I started staring at the passengers who're waving goodbye
Can you tell me what was ever really special about me all this time?

I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well, I guess we're gonna find out
Let's see how far we've come, let's see how far we've come
Well, I believe it all is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess we're gonna pretend
Let's see how far we've come, let's see how far we've come

I think it turned 10 o'clock but I don't really know
And I can't remember caring for an hour or so
Started crying and I couldn't stop myself
I started running but there's nowhere to run to
I sat down on the street, took a look at myself
Said "Where you going man? You know the world is headed for hell.
Say your goodbyes if you've got someone you can say goodbye to."

I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well, I guess we're gonna find out
Let's see how far we've come, let's see how far we've come
Well, I believe it all is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess we're gonna pretend
Let's see how far we've come, let's see how far we've come

It's gone, gone, baby, it's all gone
There is no one on the corner and there's no one at home
It was cool, cool, it was just all cool
Now it's over for me and it's over for you
It's gone, gone, baby, it's all gone
There is no one on the corner and there's no one at home
It was cool, cool, it was just all cool
Now it's over for me and it's over for you

I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well, I guess we're gonna pretend
Let's see how far we've come, let's see how far we've come
Well, I believe it all is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess we're gonna pretend
Let's see how far we've come, let's see how far we've come".