Legs

My legs are fantastically hairy. I am so proud of them. I haven't shaved for a couple of months!! Go me.
Every winter I cave to the pressure and shave them at least once a week. NOT THIS TIME, SUCKERS!

Cats are evil - its official

I was put on to the following article by my good friend Dan. He is a good man. I always knew cats were evil.

(I was going to link to the page, but didn't know how long the link would work for, so thats why I've copied and pasted. The article was found on "stuff.co.nz" and is from the Dominion Post, on April 28, 2008.)


"Schizophrenia linked to cats

Recent surveys point to a connection between a microbial cat disease and human schizophrenia. The microbe is called toxoplasma or "toxo" for short. Most cats carry the bug but it is a silent infection with them, causing them no harm.

Cats spread the microbe when they deposit their urine or droppings in their litter box, in your garden or in the children's sandpit, though you can pick it up by merely handling the cat. Farm animals and birds also carry toxo. Half the deer in New Zealand carry the infection and you can catch it by eating undercooked meat.

Most of us become infected with toxo at some stage in our lives with little or no effect but it's a different matter for foetuses. If a pregnant woman becomes infected, the microbe sometimes makes its way into the brain of the early growing foetus. A recent survey showed that about 2 per cent of pregnant Auckland women had been infected with toxo.

The bug wreaks havoc with brain development but the results don't show up in babies. Not till kids reach teenage years do problems develop – behavioural problems, learning disabilities, mood swings, mental impairment or schizophrenia.

The connection between toxo and schizophrenia has long been suspected because so many schizophrenics recall their family having a cat when they were babies. Several recent surveys have revealed stronger connections. A study of 1.2 million Swedes showed that early foetal infections increased psychoses and schizophrenia in teenagers by 50 per cent.

Hundreds of schizophrenic Danish teenagers were found to have more than their share of early toxo infections. Robert Yolken of Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore found that kids with early toxo infections were 16 times more likely to have psychotic disorders than those without.

But it was not only toxo infections. Scientists have found good connections between schizophrenia and women who caught the flu in the early stages of their pregnancies. The connection between flu and schizophrenia was first detected after the 1918 influenza pandemic when a "schizophrenic syndrome" was reported among victims afflicted by acute infections of the disease.

Later the American psychiatrist Alan Brown showed that if women caught the flu early in pregnancy, it increased their chances of producing schizophrenic teenagers seven-fold.

Catching German measles in early pregnancy also increases a woman's chance of producing a schizophrenic child while mumps and herpes are also under suspicion. A curious thing about toxo is that it makes rats and mice less fearful of cats. This makes them more likely to approach and be eaten by a cat – a clever strategy on the part of the microbe to ensure its transmission from host to host. The parasite can also subtly alter human personality, making some men more cautious and some women more kind and open- hearted. There are genes that predispose you to schizophrenia but it seems that cats and toxo give them an extra push."


I knew it... I knew it all along...

King of the Hill comes out on top again...

Today I took my Gran to the hospital today for a foot check up thing. Afterward, I took her to a shoe store and got her some decent shoes so that she can wear her foot brace and so she will have a more supportive shoe. I got her a mary-jane type shoe, a sandal-y thing with a velcro strap over it. Gran thought they were very comfortable, and easy to get on and off.

I was rather pleased with myself for being good and taking her to get shoes, but silly me for thinking Mum would be proud of me too..... when she found out that the shoes weren't leather she said that she would have to take Gran to get some decent shoes, and that she wished my aunty had gone with her to get shoes, because then she would have got proper ones.

That reminds me of an episode of King of the Hill, where Peggy had gone home with her family to her parent's house. Her mother had never really had anything very uplifting or nice to say about her. Peggy saved her parents farm, and thought her mum would be really happy and proud of her, but she just said that it was Peggy's fault that the farm was in trouble in the first place. Peggy was really sad, but Frank told her that she didn't need to prove anything to her mother, she should just keep being who she was, and if her mother couldn't appreciate that then she shouldn't let that upset her.

I really identified with that - my mum's not a monster or anything, but she doesn't often praise me for anything, but I guess I've got to not let that upset me, and keep being who I am.

appeasement

sometimes I worry that I'm such a bad person.

My brother is getting sentenced for a crime tomorrow, and my mum told me a few weeks ago that I should hang out with him a lot before tomorrow, in case he got sent to jail. I, of course, rebelled and said that I didn't usually hang out with him, so why should I start now.

Then yesterday I started to think 'what if he really goes to jail' and then I got worried that I hadn't seen him for a few weeks, so I asked him over for tea tonight.

Now I feel really really stink because I have this horrible feeling that I just invited him over to appease my conscience, not because I actually wanted to spend time with him.

I'm not sure that that is entirely true, but what if it is?



I've been feeling that a lot lately - I have all this annoyance and bad feeling for others going around in my head, and thoughts of what I should be doing, but invariably end up not doing. And Adam trys to tell me that its a good sign I think about doing bad things, but then don't do them - but I still worry that I'm thinking them in the first place.

Like when my neighbours play loud music, and I really want to go and throw eggs at them
and all the other bad things that I think.

work again

Its funny how our society dictates that we spend much of our lives at work, and yet so many of us feel bereft of (positive) emotion for our job, and are constantly so fed up or bored with it. Sometimes I personally feel like a little rat, running on a treadmill, and when I dared to get off (last year) it felt I was in a totally different world, and couldn’t identify with anyone, and couldn’t understand why others who felt the same way didn't just question the treadmill, but get off it too!!
Why is work such a hassle and stress for everyone, and why are so few of us fulfilled by it?

(And I don't mean work in a totally literal sense, but in the role of paid employment or career)

Is there anyone out there who actually enjoys their job?!?!!? And why do we have to have a job anyway?!?!

so many questions in my head :(