Brain is feeling a little bit fuzzy at the moment, so I want to write some stuff down so I remember it...maybe its part of the aging process, and I'm getting old already *shock horror!*

Maybe its just that I've been mentally feeling a bit off color last week. Plagued with self doubt (usually its locked up) Hopefully this week I'll be a bit better *fingers crossed*

But I digress. That's not the point of this post. Just want to note what's been going on during the last few days. Friday was kinda :P, trying to complete data analysis by lunchtime which I had only started that morning - only the calm sounds of Narnia got me through *thank you, thank you* But it was much better after that - had a long lunch, and drunk too much lemon, lime and bitters, marked some practical reports, spent some time in the pub with some of the other PhD and honours students - at the same place I had lunch! then had dinner with Thian and Wendy. Dinner was a lot of fun, and its always followed by dessert at Koko Black. I know now not to order a chocolate dessert AND hot chocolate. Its way too much, and was feeling sick afterwards :P But that didn't stop us from talking the night away until 2am! Its amazing what you can talk about! Or that good conversations like that, where you feel the conversation is flowing and you feel 'connected' can really happen anytime, any place when you're not looking for them.

Thankfully, I was able to take it easy on Saturday - just went into the lab to work on my lab talk for Monday. Basically its a progress report of what I've been up to in my PhD project. It was actually a bit depressing, b/c I realised how little I had actually done, and its been 7 months! Yikes, time has really flown by - but I'm enjoying it (mostly). Or maybe because I could see it was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and that I hadn't really been out in the sun for the past few days. I need my daily dose of sunlight!

Sunday - today was good, in the sense that it was as far away from the lab as possible. The morning was spent at the Melbourne bands festival at Monash University. Its where high school bands perform and are able to get feedback about how they perform, which I think is a great way to learn! My brother Michael was performing in his high school stage band, where he plays barritone saxaphone. His band were pretty good - they played mostly jazz, cept for one piece which had a 'tropical' feel - it makes you feel like that you're on a beach with a fruity cocktail, and people dancing around you with fruit on their head and marracas in their hands. There's a technical term for it, just can't think of it right now. I found it amusing when his solo part was referred to as a 'good pick up line' - I think though that the joke works better when you're actually there.

After that, I went to my uncle's housewarming, which actually was a family reunion (complete with nametags) with the relatives on my mum's uncles side - they're his kids. Or my dad's brother-in-laws kids. Anyway, I hadn't seen them since I was twelve, and I probably wouldn't recognise them even if I bumped into them on the street. I'm never that comfortable at gatherings like that anyway, but it was good to see my relatives - both the ones I hadn't seen for 10 years or a year. Some of them were (my second cousins, I think) are close to my age. I guess it would take more gatherings like this to get to know one another. I also got to see my uncle and auntie's new house, which I must say appealed to me as I like the whole modern, neutral interior design. But I'd like a much smaller place. Features of the place had to be a home theatre room, lap pool and a vacumn in the wall - you can sweep the floor to the wall and all the stuff collected and swept away. My cousins purple, glittery basin in her ensuite was probably the only thing that didn't quite fit. But the most amazing thing was some bonding with my cousins - the ones I have known all my life, but had never spoken more than 20 words to. They were much older than me, I think when I was little, I was scared of them so I avoided them. (I tend to do that with a lot of things) Anyway, I was speaking to one of them, and we realised that we had each formed a story in our heads about why we don't speak to one another (Me: thought she was stand offish, My cousin: thought that I just wasn't interested) I can't describe the feeling when you hear that. Wow.

Lesson to self: don't make assumptions about other people. But its very hard, I do unconsciously. I wonder if there's a training video to help you not do it? *lol* That was a Bridget Jones moment :)

Hopefully we can rectify that and it will help me to get to know my other relatives as well. It will be one long, slow process. It also makes me wonder where other unknown relatives are hiding, I'm sure that there are more around, they all had a lot of siblings, who all have kids...

Family reunions are tiring. It didn't help that there were lots of nice desserts, mmmm, pavlova, trifle, chocolate hedgehog slices, black forest cake, cute litte cupcakes...the list goes on. Stuffed full of dessert now and now just sleepy...

Hope you all have a good week :)