Rome could have been built in a day

Despite hating the little bastards, I am somewhat impressed by ants right now.

I left my house on Wednesday morning with no trace of anything wrong. I returned on Wednesday night to find a million+ little black ants launching a takeover of my kitchen. I've never even seen one ant in my house in the entire 3 months we've lived there, and on Wednesday night they were pouring out of a crack in the wall near the downstairs toilet, marching over to the bin, and then around it on to the kitchen wall, behind the fridge, coming out the other side and marching into the pantry, with a separate contigent making their way from the bin, across the floor and up the cupboards on to the bench, forming little pools of ants under the lip of the counter top.

I have never seen so many ants in my whole life. This was not a usual ant line of a few hundred ants walking in single file. They were 5 deep, and forming little turnpikes of about 200 ants to serve as way gates or something. It was the oddest thing I've ever seen. Poor Alex was terrified of them and kept going up to one of the pools of them and sniffing and then backing away.

It took 3 hours to get rid of them. I didn't want to spray them straight up, because that would have been a lot of spray, there were so many of them. I started vacuuming the lines up, but they kept pouring out of the crack in the wall, and out of the pantry on their way back to the nest.

I had to empty the entire pantry out. At this stage, I must say I am eternally grateful to Tupperware for making airtight (and ant-tight, it would seem) containers. They hadn't managed to get into my dry goods, but did seem particularly fond of the caster sugar container - there were hundreds huddled under the rim, eating the few sugar crumbs that were there.

There were thousands of ants in the pantry. I had to take everything out, vacuum the shelves, spray around the perimeter and then clean them of dead ants before vacuuming the containers to rid them of ants and putting everything back in. We'd run out of spray and couldn't control the assault of back up forces coming from the crack in the wall. I had to leave the vacuum cleaner nozzle shoved up to the wall while William went to the shops for more supplies, sucking them in every time one dared come out of the hole. The funniest thing was seeing a new wave of forces pour out of the hole every time I took the vacuum cleaner away to clean the pantry. They were in there waiting for their chance to strike!

The source of their excitement was found on the jar shelf. There were three times as many ants there as the other shelves. We pulled out half the jars and cans before we found the source. Honey. They were all over it. Iron Bark honey, incidentally. There were hundreds of ants on the jar, and they seemed to have found a way in, or at least were packing themselves under the lid somehow, because every time we thought we'd vacuumed the ants up, more would come pouring down the sides. We ended up just throwing it in the outside bin.

They won that battle, but we won the war.

3 hours later, 12 ant baits, 2 cans of spray and a vacuum bag full of casualties, we'd finally beaten them.

The little bastards had built an empire in 10 hours. If humans were that productive, we'd have conquered the universe B.C.

Argh!

Comment from William on the weekend that really made my blood boil (in relation to me mentioning I don't want children, after a comment his mother made earlier at breakfast):

"I'm concerned because now she thinks she's never going to get grandchildren."

What the fuck?! Why should I feel pressured into having children because his mother is scared she won't have any grandkids? Why does she want them anyway? Some arbitrary and pointless feeling of ownership? Bizarre. If she wants another baby to look after, she can adopt one herself, instead of trying to live vicariously through other people. Besides, she has a daughter, so she can pressure her into having babies if she's desperate. I disagree with pressuring (intentionally or not) people into having kids. They're not the ones who have to carry it for 9 months and go through the pain of childbirth. They're not the ones who have to look after it for the next 18 years (at least) and cripple themselves financially and emotionally. They just want to coo over it and then leave when the kid starts crying. Ridiculous. It's not their decision to make. And it's none of their business what William and I do with our lives.

Besides which, William knew from the start when he met me that I don't like kids and I don't want them, so he can hardly say I've sprung this on him out of the blue. I'm pretty vocal in my child-disliking, so it's not like he couldn't have realised the extent of it.

Grr. Why is this subject becoming so prevalent all of a sudden? Why is everyone suddenly so interested in my biological functions? Weird.

However, my exam on Saturday went very well, and now I just have one more assignment due on Wednesday and then there's 3 weeks until finals. And then I only have 2 more subjects to go in my degree! Yayayayayayayayayyayay!

Children don't make you happy

Yes! I always knew I was right to dislike children! So there, breeders! Children don't make you happy, and I will not be "fulfilled" if I have one! And no, I will not change my mind eventually, as you all seem to think. Speaking of which, I think that is perhaps one of the most annoying phrases in the history of ever. "Oh, you'll change your mind one day and have children." What, are you a time traveller? Can you see into the future? What makes you think I want to make my life miserable by having children, and what makes you think I'll make the same mistake you did? Some people just don't have children. We won't change our minds. End of story. I resent the implication that I am some stupid young girl who can't see things clearly (ie, your way) and that once I "mature" I will be different. If I don't like kids now, when I'm nearly 26, and I have no maternal instincts whatsoever, what makes you think it's going to change? Sure, if I was 12 or something, you might have a point. But I have never liked kids and I am far too selfish to ever want such a disruption in my life, so stop making incorrect assumptions about my character.

Oops. Got a bit ranty there. I think that was directed at the lady who works at my newsagent, who's always telling me I'll change my mind and have kids one day. And my grandfather who is in town. He's a broken record. I'm fairly certain I've never heard him say anything other than the following 4 things:

- When am I getting my 10 great-grandchildren? You'll have to start soon, you know.
- I'm covering my beer, in case you put custard in it again (apparently I threatened to do so when I was about 4 or so).
- Various disparaging remarks about my intended profession.
- Various disparaging remarks about other ethnic groups.

I swear sometimes that I was adopted. Well, if it weren't for the physical similarities.

For fuck's sake, just shut up!

God I hate people. I really do.

There's a sign up in this library that says, "This level is a quiet zone."

Can you not read? If you want to chat to your friends, or have a group assignment meeting, then go somewhere else, for fuck's sake. I can't concentrate on my assignments when I'm distracted with counting how many 'likes' you've managed to stuff into one sentence.

So far, my withering stares and the Eyebrow of Doom (TM) have forced 3 groups to move on. Now for the final group.

Still, despite the distractions, I have managed to write 2,500 words for a 1,500 word assignment. And I haven't even covered all the points yet. I hate short assignments. There is no point to them. Why discuss something if you can't discuss it in depth? Makes no sense to me. I suspect I will get up to about 4,000 or 5,000 words before I've finished, and then have to edit out more than half of it. *sigh*

I'd take the laxatives

I was listening to Hack (JJJ) a few weeks ago when they had their food special on. I was particularly interested in the section about anoxerics/bulimics. My mother used to be one, and I've often thought I had a predisposistion for it. In high school, I would not eat at school where people could see me. And I don't eat breakfast. So the first thing I'd have to eat all day would be when I got home from school at about 4. Consequently, my stomach shrank and I could never really eat that much. I weighed about 40-45kgs in grade 12 (but I am very short, so I didn't look like a stick or anything). Sometimes I think it would be a good idea to just not eat if I'm feeling particularly fat one day. And then I tell myself that's a stupid thing to think and move on.

Anyway, this is not a "I have a psychological issue" post. I was just wondering about the intelligence of some of these girls who starve themselves and/or vomit up anything they do eat. I mean, obviously they're not all that bright if they're vomitting up stuff in the first place, but when I heard that bulimics also abuse laxatives, I thought the vomiters must have it all wrong.

This will probably sound like I'm trying to make light of a serious condition (I probably am), or condone it (I'm not), but I really think if I was to develop bulimia, I'd want to take the laxative route. I mean, think about it from a purely multi-tasking point of view. When your head's over the toilet for hours a day, you can't really do anything else. You've just wasted a whole bunch of time that you could have been studying, or whatever. Not to mention that you'd get really bad breath, and your teeth start to rot from the acid.

At least if you were taking laxatives, you could study while you're on the loo, write emails/assigments/surf the web on your laptop, read a book, do your nails, play a DS or PSP or whatever. I just think it's the more practical solution for a bulimic. Although my pet hate is books in the bathroom (I refuse to borrow from libraries for this very reason - I'm scared they've been in someone's toilet), so perhaps I couldn't really do it in any event. Still, I think given a choice of vomitting or pooing, I'd rather poo.

*Updated* Travel!

*Update*

The Europe itinerary (square brackets denote places I am visiting for the day from the preceeding city, but not staying in) is:

Italy (Naples, Palermo [Syracuse, Agrigento], Rome, Verona, Milan [Genoa, Turin]), Switzerland (Zurich), Germany (Fussen, Munich, Dresden, Berlin, Bremen, Cologne, Heidelberg, Freiburg), France (Strasbourg, Le Mans [Rouen, Blois, Vitre, Mont St Michael], Bordeaux [Sarlate a Caneda], Lourdes [Carcassone]), Spain (Bilbao, Olviedo, A Coruna [Santiago de Compostela, Leon], Cordoba [Granada, Seville, Cadiz])

Then William comes over for six weeks and we go to:

Spain (Madrid [Toledo], Valencia [Mallorca], Barcelona [Girona]), France (Toulouse, Marseille [Nimes], Nice [Monaco], Paris [Versailles, Carentan, D-Day Beaches), Belgium (Brussels), Germany (Frankfurt), Czech Republic (Prague), Austria (Vienna), Italy (Venice, Florence [Siena, Pisa], Rome [Vatican City], Naples) and then back to Spain to fly out from Madrid.

So basically, I'm landing in Italy and doing a circuit through to Spain, then William comes over and we reverse the circuit back to Italy, but are visiting the more well known places. Should be a good trip, I think. I'm particularly looking forward to the 2 weeks I have in Cordoba to just relax, walk around, see the city, and pretend I'm a local. Hopefully by that stage, after 3 months in SA and 4 weeks in other parts of Spain, my Spanish will be up to scratch! I'm conversational at the moment, but not fluent. I really hope I develop my skills more while I'm over there.

So, any more tips? I've had a look at that couch surfing site, Kiki, and I think I will give it a shot. If it doesn't work out, then I haven't really lost anything, have I? So thanks for the tip! That will certainly cut down on my costs.

*****

After a productive week of having my nose buried in travel guides and travel sites, I have completed the first 3 months of my travel itinerary.

Chile (Santiago, La Serena, San Pedro de Atacama, Arica), Peru (Arequipa, Cuzco, Nazca, Lima, Trujillo), Ecuador (Cuenca, Guayquil, Quito [Esmeraldas]), Costa Rica (San Jose), Nicaragua (Granada, Managua), Honduras (Tegucigalpa, Copan Ruinas), Guatemala (Antigua, Panajachel [Chichicastenango], Flores), Mexico (Playa del Carmen, Merida, Palenque, Oaxaca, Mexico City).

If any of you have been to any of those countries or cities/towns, I'd appreciate any tips!

After Mexico City, I fly to Italy, then travel through there, Germany, France and Spain for an additional 4 months. I haven't finished that itinerary yet. I'd love to more extensive travel throughout Europe and visit Russia, Croatia, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, etc, but I just don't have enough time. I'll just have to go back another time!

I've also worked out that with flights, travel insurance, accomodation in SA, land travel in SA, spending money in SA (calculated on the "cost per day" in the Lonely Planet guides) and spending money in Europe, the trip is currently at $25,000. To that needs to be added accomodation and land travel in Europe, plus the cost of the gear I'll have to buy before I leave, and another $1600 to hire a storage facility to store all my stuff while I'm gone (so William can lease out my study for rent, and so all my stuff is packed up if we have to move when the lease ends while I'm gone).

All up, I'm estimating it will cost me about $40,000 for the 7.5 months I'm gone. Has anyone else travelled for this long through similar countries? Is this estimate correct? I think the Lonely Planet estimate of daily costs must include a large hunk for alcohol, because I really can't see myself spending over $100 a day in Europe, when my accomodation is already paid for and land travel accounted for separately. But I'm going to plan for that much just in case I do need it. I suspect I may get out of it cheaper, however.

The accomodation I'm booking is all Single Private Ensuite rooms. Slightly more expensive (mostly around the $10 - $20 a night mark in SA, and it looks to be around the $50 - $80 mark in Europe), but I think I will enjoy myself more that way. There's no way I could deal with sleeping in a room with 7 strangers who are drinking, farting, snoring and having sex, and possibly vomitting into the toilet/missing the toilet while drunk, etc. If I want to join the revelry, I'd rather do it in the common areas than in my sleeping area. So yeah. I don't care what the rooms look like or anything, as long as I have my own room and my own bathroom, I'm happy.

So, any tips? I'll post the Europe itinerary when I've finished it.

Stressed!

Assignment due last night. Group assignment due tonight (which, as usual, no one else has done anything on). Exam Friday. Exam Saturday. 3 day external attendance school Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Work full time.

I can't be in so many places at once. I've had to defer one exam already. I have no idea what to do about the assignment due tonight since the other group members are useless.

And I'm just so tired. I've been staying up to at least midnight this whole week trying to study and finish assignments. This would be ok if I started at a normal time, like 8.30 or 9.00. Starting at 6.30 means I'm only getting 5 hours' sleep.

And I'm going to have to start organising my overseas trip myself. I really wouldn't think it would be so difficult for a travel agent to work out. I gave them a list of the places I wanted to go, said I needed airfares, inter-country transport (train, bus, etc) and accomodation sorted out. I said I didn't know how long it took to get to each place or how long to spend in each place to see the things I wanted to see, so if they needed to take some small towns out along the way, that was fine. The travel agent keeps emailing saying she needs exact dates. I can't give exact dates. I don't know how long it takes to get from Santiago to Lima, for example. I'm not a travel agent. I don't know the options. You're a travel agent. You know the options. You tell me! You tell me how long it will take and then tell me the dates! It's no good me saying to you, "I want to be in Lima 2 days after I land in Santiago" if that's not even possible!

Anyway, I bought some Lonely Planet guides, and it appears everything is written in those (transport, accomodation, things to see, daily cost, etc), so I might just do up my own itinerary, then show the travel agent and say, "I think you need to get a Lonely Planet. This took me 2 weeks. You've had my plans since October and you still haven't sorted anything out."

*sigh* I need sleep.