Favourite photo

This would have to be one of my favourite photos from my trip around the world... I had tried to take many photos of squirrells and most of the time they were running away... I swear this guy just posed for me!!!

Times a wastin'

The comment about my "do-able" 10 things to do list is right on the money.... I guess I'd rather set goals that I know I might be able to achieve than to put unrealistic expectations on myself. I know you should aim high and whatever, but I'm more of a "safe" person who likes to pass something small well than fail spectacularly along the way. It's always been my biggest fear in life... failure. I'm not sure if it's something that I've gotten from my parents, or maybe just something about the insecurity of people not "liking" you if fail... I guess this is where my competitiveness comes in. But on the otherhand, I don't let the fear of failing something, or being bad at something, stop me from giving it a go. I've found that a lot of the things I am really crap at have given me heaps of laughs, or taught me something. I could have put things like "Climb Mt Everest" or "Break a world record" or something like that, but I'm happy with what I've got :).... Besides.... Finishing my thesis is the only thing I want to do right at this moment!!!

10 things to do before I die:

* Live in a foreign country
* See a volcano erupt
* Go up in a hot air balloon
* Learn how to surf
* Witness a tornado from afar
* Go to/fly over Antarctica
* Touch a whale
* Save someone's life
* Ride a horse in Montana, US
* Climb Mt Kilimanjaro

There are many things that I want to do during my life, but these would have to be up there at the top. If I can manage to achieve some of these I'll be happy. Of course, as soon as I do manage to do them other things will replace them. I was actually finding it hard to think of some cool things that I could do.... I was thinking "touch an elephant", "touch a lion"... and I realise I've already done it! I've been very very lucky with what I've been able to do in my 26 years, but there are so many other things as well! Am I greedy?

Yes Bill, that would be the same bloke.... and yes, he has been suspended for a week!! Stupid bugger... Sometimes too much bravery can be bad... especially when you have no idea about what's going on around you!!! Did you hear about him fainting on TV while giving an interview a couple of weeks back... quite hilarious really :)

So... are the Saints going to beat the Dockers on the 19th of August? My prediction is: NO BLOODY WAY IN THE WORLD!! Well, that's what I'm hoping anyway! I'm taking a few footy virgins to the game (a couple of brazilians and a serb... should be interesting!).

I've just finished a 3 day course at uni and boy am I glad it's over. Electon microprobe!! Yay... how exciting. Hopefully I passed the test last night, but owing to the fact that I only got 5 hours sleep the night before and the test was at 6pm I'm not sure. Shouldn't be too bad.

Life continues to amuse me.... why is it that when you are getting an average of about 5 hours of sleep a night you still can't go to bed early and actually sleep? I've been lying awake for hours worrying about all sorts of things... probably just the usual insomnia that I get when I'm stressed. But I mean... the less sleep I get, the more stressed I get, so the less sleep I get. Hmmmm... apart from sleeping tablets... any suggestions?

**sigh**

I'd love to know who the hell is playing with my brain right now, but somewhere, someone is pissing themselves with laughter!! Seriously... last week I was walking past a service station and a guy's petrol cap fell off his boot lid as he drove away so I flagged him down and gave it back to him and he turned out to be this Irish guy (think kinda leprachaun-ish) and he said "I hope you have a good day cause you deserve it". Well, maybe I was being a bit greedy at the time, but I thought that nothing really good happened on that day so I thought it might carry over... not so!! I've just had the most frustrating morning of trying to spoon-feed an Indian professor in the course that I'm doing at the moment. Hmmm... maybe I should rephrase... and start from the start!! I'm doing a course at Uni at the moment so that I'm allowed to use a machine to do some analysis on my rocks. Anyway, we have to do these practical classes using Excel to show that you can calibrate the machine etc etc.... well... this IDIOT.... grrr... even after you tell him about 500 times what to do (and bear in mind (is that the right bear? bare?) that this is the first time I've done this course too) he still hasn't got a f****NG clue!!! So, as a result, I've had to spend the whole morning helping him while only being able to get a 1/4 of what I needed to get done, done!!! So... Cathy not in a happy mood right now. Best part is that I don't have to work with him this arvo (well, I hope not anyway!). It will be really painful if I do, and I think I'll have to jump off the building if he does it again. It's the first time (really!) that I've actually had homocidal thoughts about someone. I'm pretty sure everyone in the room could hear me getting more and more frustrated with him. Hopefully they'll have some sympathy for me!!
Anyway, I'm off to see if I can do all that stuff online so that I can catch up a bit.

Oh... and GO SAINTS :)

I love sport....

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sports.... Any sport really. If Australia is playing then I'll be one of the loudest people cheering. My dad definitely gave me a love of competition and some think that I might be a little too competitive sometimes (ask Dan and our games of punch buggy!). Hearing that Italy won the soccer last night made me a little happier since we got beaten by the World Cup Champions, but the fact that it still came down to a stupid penalty shoot out enforces the reason as to why I only watch soccer when the World Cup is on, or when Australia is playing. See, a game like AFL is much better... they don't have pansies falling down every five minutes clutching their ankles, they have proper contests and you'll see more than one goal scored in a game which to me makes for a much better game to watch. The Saints had a bloody fantastic win on the weekend :)... especially so because it was over the Pies!!! Love it :)

Well, this has been a wonderful waste of a day.... I had a stack of things that needed to be done and I've only managed to achieve one of them! I guess it's better (marginally) than nothing.

Noticing that everyone has been doing a bit of soul searching lately... me included. So many people have been asking me what I want to do once I've finished my PhD.... I have no idea! I know what I don't want to do, but it doesn't really help me with what I DO want to do! It's giving me the shits actually... In high school all I wanted to do was to become a vet... that petered out eventually, so now I've ended up doing a PhD in geology! How on earth did I get here? I guess it's become something to be interested in, but I'm not too sure how long I want to do it for. Of course I want to get out there and earn some of this money that everyone else in the industry seems to be earning, and I want to put my 8 years (!) of uni to good use, but exactly what that is just yet, I don't know. The future seems pretty uncertain right now... the only thing I do know is that I want to keep the love of my life IN my life, and if that means taking a big adventure to Thailand next year then that's what I'll be doing.