"Ornatrix-o-phobia" or "Damn-those-hairdressers!"

I try to avoid it.

Weeks... months go by. Carefully skirting the subject. Past the stage of denial, you find yourself applogizing for the birdsnest on your head, and it's time to face up to the music.

Sweaty palms dial the number. I hear my trembling voice book a timeslot for doomsday. Scissor-chirps chase me in dreams every night of the week leading up to the dreaded moment.

Come said day, I cannot escape the compulsion to neatly wash my hair, despite the knowledge it will be done all over again, 30 minutes later. A feable attempt to instill upon one's executioner an image that might relate his visions-of-you to your actual face. Try to smile nicely at em to gain some sympathy. "No thanks" to the offer of coffee. Must keep em in eyesight at all times. I shalln't be distracted!

Collecting all my courage, I turn to face the scissor-wielding hands and squeak a feable: "Not.. not short. Please...". A big evil grin acknowledges my request, and dunks my head under the scurgifyingly-hot tap. I resurface, with soap-logged ears and eye-sight blurred, to find myself being steered towards what I hope to be a seat far removed from the shop-window.

Eye-sight regained, I plunge my fingers into my ears to declog them. Only to catch the last snippet of conversation between my edward scissor-hands and his evil twin: "... soooo have to try that new NY-cut on someone today!". My heart sinks. I will not survive this day.

I gear up to eagle-eye his every move and position myself in front of the mirror. But when I look up, I cannot but conclude the goal is simply not worth the effort of facing my own miserable drowned-cat reflection for the next sixty minutes. I grab my book, block out the outside world and quietly agree to simply let the birds nest in peace next time.

The Blues

The mind is a bizarre thing.

Just yesterday, during our hike near Ochill Fells, we passed the "Burn of Sorrow". It's simply a waterfall near Campbell Castle, but as we passed it, Fi joked: "If you wanna drown your sorrows, this is where to do it". And in that one instant, I couldn't think of ANY sorrows to drown. I remember thinking to myself: "Wow! I feel PERFECTLY happy at this very moment." I as good as skipped all the way back to the car, and had a very sound sleep that night, with Fi curled up against me.

It was very much Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde when I woke up the morning after. I'm completely aghast by how quickly my mindset can change from one moment to the next. It was sheer desperation, loneliness and anxiety by the time the day reached the afternoons. Despite the fact that my circumstances were pretty much the same as the day before. Something in me just temporarily breakes at times like these, and it takes a while before it mends itself.


"Godess of Sadness" by nBT

Although this is not new to me, it's a quite recent thing for me to recognize that it is happening WHEN it happens. And that it only happens because of something in me, rather than because of some reality that surrounds me. It's hard to detach the two sometimes. But when I went to bed yesterday with my head in turmoil, I resigned to the fact that I would simply have to let it pass.

I woke up this morning with the sun on my face.

Ochill Fells & Pooh

Easter weekend kind of caught me by surprise this year. Which is no mean feat considering the sickingly yellow and brown displays of chocolate eggs and bunnies in every shop window. Still, it wasn't until both mine and fi's parents started sending out the annual Easter texts "any plans to visit?", that I became aware of it's actual nearing.

Despite my desire for chocolate (and family company, of course ;-) I'd decided to be a model PhD student for once and use the time to get some more work done *coughs*. My good intentions lasted a whole 3 hours into the day. The Fluff was restlessly squawking around the house, looking very bored. It rubbed off on me quite rapidly, so I was immensly relieved when she suggested going for a short walk near Ochill Fells. Despite the quite humid passage through the forest on the way to the reservoir, it was a highly invigorating 10-mile hike. I suppose it would have taken us slightly less than 3 hours if it weren't for the Fluff's desire to chase fox- and pine marten pooh *grin*.


(Zoologists' pooh handling)

I have to say the whole phenomenon is growing on me. It was fascinating to see her take some of them apart to reveal actual vole mandibles and spine disks. Although I could still not quite get myself to handle or sniff them from too close by, I was quite happy to stare at them being taken apart. Monkey see monkey do, I suppose, so I expect I'll be doing it myself before too long. I just wish I could reciprocate fi's gesture of passing on her education in some way or the other during our hikes. Hmmm... wonder where to hike to get my hands on some dark matter? ;-)

Moody Wallace

Took this shot of a very moody looking Wallace Monument earlier this week. Shalln't be walking up there after dark ;-)

Busy-ness

After months of planning, my tall and smiley friend Caffy finally graced us with her presence these past 3 days. We're not the most accomplished hosts at the best of times, but this weekend Caffy found herself faced with a highly irrate Sarah&Fi shedule. And she rose to the occasion quite wonderfully.

On Saturday we dragged her onto a train headed for Glasgow, to attend an Anti-War Demo in commemoration of the 2nd Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq.



I have to admit it was quite useful having a friend there who arrests and interrogates people for a living. If only to learn how to dodge camera detection or spot undercover agents ;-) Despite the enticing enthousiasm of some other people of our group, I wasn't too keen on getting my name booked by the coppers. Though, for some bizarre reason I felt a pang of jealousy when I heard Sam and his mother talk about the many times they'd been arrested at Demos. Perhaps it'd be wise to investigate that emotion a bit further, before attending the G8 Demos in July ;-)

All in all, the event passed by quite peacefully. Despite the remarkable lack of student presence, there was a large delegation of OAPs with samba drums, and a very loud group of primary school kids chanting:

"Tony Blair, you are scum,
you stole money off my mum,
and you spent it on your bloody war,
we don't want you here no more."

Which was very amusing :-)

The weather was too moody on Sunday to allow us an attempt up Ben Ledi, so we eventually settled for a hike around Loch Lomond. It became quite obvious that I've grown accustomed to being the one in charge of a car. After a mere 5minutes in the backseat, I felt too nauseous to keep up proper conversation, and it thus became a very long and silent trip along the windy backroads leading up to the Loch.


(...on the way to Loch Lomond)

Despite the weather, it was absolutely gorgeous out there. Though it took me a while to recover from the scare of spotting what turned out to be a drowned sheep in the lake-bedding. We paid a visit to Rob Roy's cave, which was somewhat disappointing, as someone had painted the word CAVE above it, with an arrow pointing downward. Which pretty much desacrated the whole story of secrecy behind it. Very much like the sign on the way to Oswestry which points you towards the "Secret Bunker".



We spend the remainder of the evening in maddening search for a pubroast, and topped it off with a viewing of the George Lucas classic "Willow". Much to my amusement, Fi and Caffs considered it to be a gaping hole in my culture if I dared pass on an opportunity to watch it. So under loud jeers I plugged it into our DVD player. ... I have to say... I finally understand a whole lot more about the reasons behind the psychedellic pursuits of british 20-somethings! *raises eyebrow* Dear me...

G8 Alternatives

Scotland is hosting the next G8 meeting in July, so I suppose it's only natural that we've been hearing quite a lot about anti-globalisation & anti-G8 demos. I have to admit that despite my vast amount of education *cough*, I am still relatively ignorant about the actual political agenda the G8 pursues. So in order to find out why people feel the need to demonstrate against the G8, I went along to a G8 Alternatives meeting yesterday.

I have to say it wasn't all that enlightening and a lot of the rhetoric used by the speaker undermined her own agenda. Most of the arguments in favour of action against the G8 were arguments which can be used to counter any capitalist body. And although they are highly valid in their own right, I was left wondering, why target specifically the G8? I suppose I will have to do my own bit of research into that topic once I have more time. Hopefully before July, so I can make up my own mind about whether or not I really should be there flanking the movement, despite the promise of policecordons with rubber bullets, teargas and watercanons.

If anything, I will go along to the G8 Alternatives Counter Summit in Edinburgh on July 3rd. Pro-action, in my opinion is a far more worthy cause than Anti-action. Making moves towards a solution, rather than a focus of destructive efforts on trying to halt the current establishment.



There's a video-link up to a Noam Chomsky talk on Tuesday, which should be interesting. Although again, I have to delve deeper into his writings when I have more time (The PhD is a bit time consuming at the moment ;-), I find his rhetoric on the Responsibility of Intellectuals incredibly gripping. After reading this and watching "Manufacturing Consent", I can no longer justify sitting in a pub philosophizing about the world without taking any action myself. Better late than never I suppose :s

On a lighter note, the Toxoplast is now responsible for three sleepless nights in a row, so pardon me for grabbing the plant-waterspray this morning to squirt him off my head. Although he now looks like a disgruntled wet gremlin, I think he may finally have gotten the message.

Writer's Blog

My appologies for the lack of entries in this blog these past 10 days. Apart from suffering complete and utter writers block, we've been entertained by Father Fluff (a.k.a Dave) these past three days, as he came for a long awaited visit.

As expected, the days were filled with highly amusing tall stories and good food. Fi took us to the William Wallace in town on Saturday and I subsequently got massively tipsy off a mere pint. I probably should drink more often. Dave attached himself to my jacket to steer me home safely, for which I was very grateful as I was in grave danger of being attacked by garden fences and house walls.



On Sunday, Fi and Dave were set to go to Murrayfield to watch the Six Nations Rugby game between Wales and Scotland. Both were highly excited and dressed for the occasion. Fi in Scotland shirt and Dave, somewhat bizarrely, in his Ireland shirt. After an unpleasant episode involving a girl crashing her bike down our road at what MUST have been the speed of light, a subsequent concussion and a quick rescue mission, we finally made it to a Scottish kilt- & Welsh dragon-flooded Edinburgh. When I met up with the two of them several hours later, they were both very pink-cheeked and bright-eyed having thoroughly enjoyed the game, despite Scotland losing 22-46 to Wales.

When Dave left on Monday, the house instantly felt empty, despite being left with stacks of chocolate, two Begonias, bottles of wine and a smell of french cheese/fish/catfood which we can't seem to get rid of. :-)

The Collective

I suppose it's only natural for Academic Lifers in a small Campus University to organise themselves into a highly interconnected complex network. In terms of social life one can either stubbornly ignore the existence of the ever-increasing age-gap and bravely attend the undergrad societies and clubs or, one can surrender to the inevitable and become part of the Academic Collective.



Italian Nick organises a party. According to the rules of the Academic Collective, the telephone tree is activated. Courtesy of its many branches it culminates in a level 3 avalanche that sweeps its way across the list of postgrads, researchers and staff. It thunders past Fi's inbox and my mobile until finally, Italian Nick gets invited to his own party. The circle of communication has completed.

Come the night in question, I'm facing one of those unavoidable dilemmas. The Fluff is too tired to attend and my only acquaintance with Italian Nick involved a brief instant of him banging on our window one random night a few months ago. So the timing of my arrival becomes a matter of survival. Arrive too soon and I may be left to fend for myself without a friend to introduce me. Arrive too late, and I may miss out on the snacks.

Unfortunately, I suffer from OCD, so of course I arrive in said place with four cans of Jamaican Lager, when the host has barely finished his shower.

Having gotten over the initial embarrassment (and after asserting him that no I wasn't an intruder, that in fact, we were old friends, remember banging on my window, and oh, I'm Fiona's girlfriend, remember?, blonde, bright-eyed, talks pooh all the time?... ) I settled back in his sofa with a cup of Sangria, watch the inflow of random party-goers and enjoyed what turned out to be a fantastic social night out. Courtesy of the Collective ;-)

Toxoplastic Dwindeling

(Leo, our little feline)

The Toxoplast has accustomed a highly annoying little routine this last week. For some reason he's decided that 5 a.m. is a fine time indeed to rouse the house and demand we start the day. I wouldn't mind if it weren't for the fact that he ostentaciously comes to sit on my head until I actually get up and give him his breakfast. So... I've decided to get my revenge. As he tends to sleep all day, I have now retorted to poking him every 30minutes or so. I think it's starting to work. He tried to bite me just this last poke...

Other than this, the displacement acitivity has been kept to a minimum today :-)

Although I've decided to dig up the old Lomographic Camera again and start documenting my daily dwindlings with it. It's definitely more amusing than my standard digital. My brother gave me the Supersampler a couple of years ago. It's a fascinating concept really. Like a miniature film if you will. A 3D image (if you incorporate "time") on a 2D picture. I'll post some on my blog when I've had them developed.



Oh, and I know how wrong this will sound, but "GO EDITH!!!!"... if only we could sample that giggle...

Simpletons

The Fluff entered a climbing competition so she's in Edinburgh all day, which basically means I've got the house all to myself to happily PhD away.

I've entered that first stage of proper fear. We've long passed the stages of insecurity, boredom, panick, laziness, more panick, and have now safely made it to the fear-zone. I realised this morning that this time next year, the thesis should have been safely stored on that obscure shelf in the library to gather dust for an eternity. On the up side though, I have just managed to write a Macro for Minitab, which should reduce the planned 2 months of statistics to a mere 2 weeks (with a little help of a stroooooong coffee)! Hurray for Macros!

Displacement acitivities today have so far included finding this brilliant site with PhD-related comics:



... and fussing over the feline, as he came in with a limp today. Until I noticed that he was only limping when he was walking towards me and not when walking away from me. Seems like the cheeky sod has discovered the "play for attention"-trick. Which is quite clever considering he's severely mentally challenged. Unfortunately for him though, he hasn't quite figured out that when he can't see me (strutting away from me), I can still see him. Bless his cotton socks.

Oh well, time to get back to the Mann-Whitney U-tests... Morituri Te Salutent!

Scotspeak

I'm sure there ought to be such a thing as a Scottish Dictionary. No way on earth does Scotspeak equate English. Words like "average" or "good" surely denote "rough" and "probably-ok-if-you've-got-a-deathwish-today" in regular English.

I'm of course talking about my first experience with Scottish outdoor skiing. I'd heard stories before. David (a.k.a Father Fluff) has numerous animated accounts of roughing it in the Scottish Outback on wooden ski's, sown together layers of clothes and collapsing snow-logged tents. I'd always listened to his tall tales with a mixture of awe and bemusement. I now know I need to start taking the man seriously.

When I stepped on the seater-lift, blissfully ignorant of what was to come, I felt incredibly excited about the whole ordeal. We'd only driven 90 minutes and yet we found ourselves in a whole new world. I remember squeazing the Fluffs hand in curious anticipation just before stepping off the lift. It took us only two seconds to realise though, that this was going to be a ski-experience like none we've had before. I'm not sure the word "ski-slope" has reached the Scottish world yet, because we found ourselves being dropped off in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We'd no idea where to go, so I foolishly decided to follow some other skiers who seemed to know what they were doing. When I looked up after a good 50 meter descent, I saw the Fluff still standing on the top signalling wildly. I understood it to mean: "NO WAY IN HELL AM I GOING DOWN THAT FLANK!!!". I have to say, for once I agreed. Unfortunately it was way too late for me to trace back. I waved a courageous goodbye to Fi, and braced myself. I'm not quite sure how I made it back safely to be honest. I remember ice, screaching sounds, straw sticking through my trousers, ski-walking on rocks, and jumping across a half-froozen creek that appeared out of nowhere. Convinced that this was just a glitch and that I really must have taken the wrong path, I looked around to see two six-year olds racing past me on skis, skillfully dodging rocks, creeks and hidden crevasses. They must have been Scottish.

Feeling a little hard done by, I took off my skis and started walking towards another lift. My heart made a little jump when I spotted the closest thing to a proper path yet, and quickly made my way towards it. And then the ground gave way. I sank up to thigh-height into what I assumed was snow. A few heart-attacks later, I'd managed to wriggle myself free and drag myself to safety, only to realise that the "path" I'd stepped on was nothing more than a thick layer of snow hanging loosely over a very deep creek.

The Fluff had to console me over a cup of hot cocao in the Ski-bar afterwards. She'd of course found the right flank to descend from, and had a brilliant experience. The day was a great laugh though and we're determined to go back soon. Next time I will take a compass and listen to the Fluff for once.