I'm a Gnu, a g-nother gnu*

[bending_sickle]

Friday morning was spent in a meeting with my supervisor. We'd set the time at 9:15 (although he was late, as always, because my time isn't valuable, of course) so that we'd have some one-on-one time before my partner and her supervisor showed up. There was no one-on-one. Which meant that the supervisors took turns talking to us and also on the topics, so sometimes I just had to sit there and look pretty (as opposed to frustrated and on a tight schedule).

I was extrememly displeased that my supervisor had brought an ancient edition on our proposal. How ancient? It was the same one he brought last time. Meaning he made suggested the same edits he had weeks ago, and I had to grin and nod and say, "Yes, we've discussed this already. I've fixed it." There's been a gazillion changes from last meeting to yesterday's. And then he keeps adding things he's told me to remove, adding even more work. I mean, for gods' sake, he's talking about making a hyena population count. Hyenas! I'm not studying all predators in ANP, damnit!

So now there's more editing, which of course, falls to me. He didn't even give my partner a copy of his edits. No, just me.

And we're no closer on the funding. Am I going to have to organize that as well? I don't have time! I have to read a whole textbook on financial management for my exam on Friday! And work on our group's project management project! And maybe, oh, I dunno...live a little?

So. Frustrated.

For the first time since the start of September, I didn't go to the gym on Friday afternoon. I just just utterly exhausted. I'd been almost-nodding-off during the case discussion which I couldn't follow anyway. I haven't been this lost on a topic since that radiation lab in Biol 301 back in BSc. Like there's this big-ass wall in my brain that financial management just can't get through.

I hung out with Elisa on Friday night, chatting about animal behaviour and politics and watching YouTube videos and Bones. I was so tired I kept falling asleep towards during the Bones viewing.

Today I went to the Naturalis museum, 'cause it had a special exhibition on wildebeest (i.e. gnu). I watched a film, Savage Paradise, by Hugo van Lawick (deceased; website). That was the only cool thing of the exhibition.

The rest was a small room with some taxidermy specimens, some videos and information thingies. However, the majority of it was interactive "family friendly" things. Now, I'm not against museums being family friendly, but if their eduactional activities include two sets of microphones and children screaming into them as loud as they can for ages just so see if their male gnu gets to attract the most females for being the loudest, then that just makes for a bad experience. There were other things, like "crawl towards the red button pretending you're a lion hunting a gnu" which seemed like decent ideas, and, I'll admit, the awesometastic strip of fake-grass underwhich you could feel the fake-thumping of gnu hers running over the plains. But being there just made me very anxious and uncomfortable and frustrated what with the screaming running children and the really shitty and limited "and now, more octopus gnu". :(

And now I'm at the computer lab, not-working, though I should. Well... I mean, yeah, "should" work, but also should be out having fun with folks. One of my roommate's in France with some friends, for crying out loud, and one of my classmate's in New Castle visiting and my other roommates are gods' know where - I haven't seen them in ages - and everyone's out having fun with people. Even my internship partner (who omfg complained she didn't have time to research, actually complained! You're not allowed to complain unless you've a) at least fucking tried (not even a scholar.google was done!) and b) you've worked yourself to exhaustion evenings and on weekends. Then you can complain about not having time. But nooooo, let me do all the work. Argh.) does stuff.

I'm so stressed I'm ranting at anyone who'll hear me, which leaves me often not-ranting, because of the limited social interactions I've got going. Mom gets emails forwarded to her, prefaced by angry and frustrated "omfg I can't believe it!" excalamtions by me.

This is me:




Links of the Day:
The Savage paradise: Wild Dogs - A tae of two sisters (1993) - H van Lawick
wtf_nature's hagfish and Lechuguilla, New Mexico - 0.0
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
ana_jo's TSCC Fanvid: Map Of The Problematique(Allison & Cameron & John)


* "The Gnu", Flanders and Swann

Comments

[lienne.livejournal.com]

*cuddles you lots* <333

[capn-mactastic.livejournal.com]

*huggles*

When my dog was a puppy she had a little snub nose and looked like a Hyena, have a picture of her all growed up:




and today's totally random tangent was brought to you by the letter M, for Meggie :D

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

*clings like a clinging mad thing*

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Puppy-dog! Giver her a snuggle for me :)

[lienne.livejournal.com]

*snoogles*

[capn-mactastic.livejournal.com]

Meggie says YAY for snuggles! :D

Gnus are cool, but I remember watching a documentary on cheetahs where a female took down an adult gnu, and you could see the gnu was just like "WTF IT'S A CHEETAH! CHEETAHS DON'T EAT BIG GNUS!!!"

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

Cheetahs sometimes do surprise you :) Though usually more of the gazelle and whatever-calf fare (a href="http://flickr.com/photos/thewildlifephotographer/348273940/">and even that can be a struggle), they can be total badasses. (Although in the predator world, I think the correct description might be more..."everyone's bitch".)

There was this awesome documentary series on Discover back in 1994 or 5 called "Untamed Africa" which, apart from being the best African wildlife documentary series ever, followed two male sibling cheetahs (Sankao and Leeron, however it's spelt) who totally onwed the plains and regularly took down large prey.

(UA's episode on the gnu migration and crossing the crocodile-infested rapids of the Mara River is one of the few "Look! Nature!" things to break my heart.)

Picspam: At an adult zebra kill (http://www.lewa.org/lewa-wildlife-conservancy-pics/cheetah_eating_zebra.jpg), ditto (http://flickr.com/photos/hvhe1/250815990/), Adult Gnu kill (by 3 adults cheetahs) (http://flickr.com/photos/90295674@N00/291626347/)

[capn-mactastic.livejournal.com]

lol, I love cheetahs, they're my favourites of the big cats :D It was just the look on the gnu's face was so "that... what just happened? You're not supposed to do that!!!" it was amazing. (I know I'm anthropomorphising, but hey) I mean, the gnus hadn't even got skittish about the cheetah being there - there weren't any calves, these were all full grown - they were just like 'meh, it's one of the little ones-OH HOLY FUCK!"

I think I watched something with 4 brothers, god it was years ago, and they had a similar deal. I think they saw off a lion that was trying to steal their kill at one point.

[(Anonymous)]

Awww sweetie! *HUG* I wish there was a magic button we could push to freeze time (of course we would not be affected by such a device). Sigh.

[blizzardcake.livejournal.com]

crap, I forgot I had deleted cookies etc on this comp. The above was me!

[bending-sickle.livejournal.com]

*snuggles*