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!