Week Two point Five: Walks+Penguins+Chocolate+Friends?! (not in that order)

Over the weekend I had a great amount of fun, funnily enough not during what I expected to be fun. Like, the pub? Especially since I don't drink and it didn't sound like there'd be any music/dancing but I went anyways because....socializing right? So I was glad I went, especially because Jakubi was playing music and, eventually, there was some dancing. I won a pool game as well! And the last time I played with Elena at the Wheaton pub (awwwright Sporty's nights) and I was awful so it was a nice little ego boost. I was playing w girl, Steph, was also the best teammate. We strategized to no end, and we took every mistake beautifully. There were also teams that everyone was split into during the first night aaaand I was on the yellow team (naturally, because that's my favorite color). People accumulated points from trivia night (which was incredibly hard, who knew there were "flavors" of quarks and one of those flavors was "charm?") and from mini golf. In the end we won a substantial amount of chocolate (like what's below), so I couldn't have been happier.

:)

If not for her I don't know what would've happened at the pub either because there were some incredibly persistent townies flirtin' with us.

And oh dear, here comes my mini-rant.

At first I was like ok, conversation is fine. But the flirting, that was too much. And guys, regardless of the age and attractiveness of the guy hitting on me I really wasn't into it, at all. I was there to have fun with the people I chose to have fun with and could trust. I'm sure not everyone in the bar is a predator but not everyone in the bar is looking for a hook-up. So back off when you get those sort of signals and/or when the person says no. I know, it can be hard to read signals or not everyone reads the same signals the same way. In fact, I probably just should have said, no, I'm not interested, at the beginning. I guess I believe that it's egotistical to think that someone's talking to you simply because they're attracted to you; generally speaking I don't try to start a conversation based only on the fact that I find someone physically attractive. Which lead me to believe that perhaps the guy I was talking to was just being friendly. People can be friendly right? Well, I still believe so but that Saturday night the guys were just bein' creepy. So, if anyone's hitting on you and you're not interested just say no and move on. And you don't really need a reason to say no to that situation. It's something that hadn't really hit me until sometime last year, when I didn't want to dance with someone but he was pretty insistent so I said, "I have a boyfriend," as if I needed an excuse. Sarah, you set me straight and said something along the lines of, "Even so, if you didn't want to dance with him you just have to say no and he should listen to you." I didn't dance with that guy from last year or the one from Saturday night, and continue to learn about how these things work, for me. On the othah hand, if you would have enjoyed dancing and/or hooking up, HAVE FUN! Just make sure ALL parties are having fun. And that's the end of my rant haha.

The wise and wonderful Tina Belcher from Bob's Burgers

And Steph stuck it out with me, she was a trooper. Everyone was an amazing dancer as well and there was no grinding. There may have been one couple grinding but that was it! And yeah, grinding can be fun and if you enjoy that, go for it! However, I've gotten over the whole idea. I think because it's not really dancing with someone, it's more dancing on someone. But feel free to disagree:)

Apart from that negligible amount of drama, everything else went fantastically. As you can see on Facebook or down below. Just FYI, the song below definitely has some strong language, regardless it's pretty uplifting and the rapper is pretty interesting. Thanks to Atiya (I believe it was Atiya but I couldn't find the original post so perhaps not?) for posting the link on Facebook that lead me to Angel Haze. What an amazing music artist, she did a great cover of Same Love as well. Well, not really a cover but something like a cover.

(Battle Cry by Angel Haze Feat Sia)

(Phillip Island pictures!)

Wallaby!

Sorry, this was the best I could do for penguin pictures, it was night time and you aren't supposed to use flash to take the pictures. I was luck to get a picture from someone else's flash:)

Oh, can you not see who that is? Lemme help your eyes a bask in the wonderful and beautiful man that is...

MISHA COLLINS (aka CASTIEL)

Yes, I made it to the tail end of a convention for Supernatural stars. No, Jared and Jensen weren't there but Cas, Crowley, the Trickster guy (Gabriel), the grandfather of the boys AND John Winchester's actor (the young one, not the older guy). But here's the full guest list. 

All I got were pictures, I couldn't get autographs for reasons unknown and stealthily took these pictures because I wasn't sure if they would actually like me taking pictures freely because you had to pay for professional ones. By "they" I mean the staff for Hub Productions, the company that organized the whole event for the supernatural fans of Australia. Hopefully next time I will actually talk to the actors rather than stalk them and take creepy pictures haha. 

Anyways, this happened this week:

We set up some mice on running wheels, set up some mice with corticosterone, and the control mice who were to have normal lives. There were also some mice set up to mate with each other and that was interesting because the female mice are very vocal about saying no....and it got noisy. We were in a room full of squeaks, so another thing to be unsettled about when working with mice.

I have also begun to be not as ok with working with animals, I don't mind cells. But where do cells come from? Animals! Ahhhh, a new moral dilemma?! I already have enough! For now I'm going to focus on the benefits of this research but those mice are starting to get to me.

So along with what's happened I've actually made some friends around my workplace. Yay frands! I can't promise I will remember all of the names of the people I had met on the trip but I loved being able to meet everyone because everyone here is awesome (so far, and not including the townies).

As always I'll keep you guys up-to-date on any other happenings. I miss all ya'll and hope the summah's workin' out for you! :)

Love,

Syd