Have you ever had those moments where you have so much work to do that you just don't know where to start, and you don't want to start, and instead of doing work, you play games or do other useless things and waste more time? I'm at the stage right about now. I just spent the whole of yesterday afternoon until 2am last night doing ONE lab report, which was due today. I didn't know what the heck I was writing, and I didn't really care coz' my lab results were all messy anyway and I just wanted to finish it off. And next week I have this essay due for Genomics and Molecular Genetics, which is probably going to take me forever to finish as well, especially since I have to try and understand all the Greek-like jargon they use in the journals I'm getting info from. I'm seriously thinking that these scientists are from another planet or something coz' I have no idea what they're talking about. And to think I might become one of them some day. Horror of horrors. Me, stuck in a lab everyday doing tedious research on some little molecular thingy which only 1% of the world's population would understand or even care about. And then having to type out articles to be published in those Greek-like Scientific journals in order to get recognized and get promoted in my job. And the worst part is, I might be working on something for years and end up not getting any results. Aaarrrgghh!!! No way, man...I seriously don't give a crap...after I graduate, I'm gonna get a job at WWF or one of those environmental organisations...I'd love to have one of those jobs where I can just go out to the field in nature, and do research on animals, insects, wildlife, whatever. Something I can see and look at and go "OoOOooohhh!!!" instead of being stuck in a lab. THAT'S the kind of research I'd like! I might not get the high status and recognition and money in that kinda job, but at least I'd enjoy it. Studying marine life would be super cool too, since there's so much in the oceans that's yet to be discovered. Did I tell ya that I went to Pulau Redang for a field trip last weekend? Well, it's definitely the greatest field trip I've been on coz' we didn't have to take notes or do studies or whatever...just observe the marine wildlife. And of course, the only way to observe was to go snorkelling with the fishes! Very much da fun, that is, seeing all the different shapes, and sizes and colours the fish come in. I saw bright yellow fish and bright orange fish and blueish-purple and pink fish. I saw swordfish and garoupas and tilapias and clownfish (they were so cute!). I even saw a moray eel sticking its head out of a coral reef, and a family of squid and some black-tipped fin baby sharks. AND I caught a short glimpse of a BIG shark, probably more than 3 m long. That was on the last day of my field trip, when I went out snorkelling on my own (which I shouldn't have done, but no one else wanted to go, and I'm a pretty good swimmer so I was confident nothing would happen. Don't follow my example. :P). I went several hundred metres away from the beach, which was pretty far from all the other snorkellers AND without a life jacket. So if anything had happened to me, I would've been in deep trouble, but I really wanted to see what was out there. At one point when I was really far out, the coral reefs were all at least three storeys below me and the bottom sloped out into the ocean so I couldn't see anything about 50 meters away. It was pretty freaky, but I still kept going...until suddenly I saw something gliding about 50 meters in front of me...just far enough that I could see it for 2 seconds and then it swam away and disappeared. Wasn't long enough for me to get a good look at it, but it was definitely a shark. Of course, most normal people who were swimming out in the ocean alone without a life jacket would've freaked out and that point and swam back to the beach as fast as their flippers could take them. But I'm not most normal people, see, and the first thing I did after recovering from the shock of seeing a big shark so close to shore was (you guessed it!) swim after it to get a better look!! But unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view. :)), it swam away too far for me to catch up and I didn't see it again. And after a short while, I finally decided it was too dangerous to head out any further and I swam back, looking behind me every now and then to see if that shark was behind me. MAN, that was really cool, Yup, I could happily spend the rest of my life doing crazy crap like that. All I need to do is convince my mum to let me do that, coz' she's the kind of person who tells me not to go to the beach coz' I might get stung by jellyfish and drown or get eaten by a shark, or to not go hiking coz' I might fall down a cliff or get eaten by a tiger or something....and even though I keep telling her that the chances of any of those things happening are much smaller than me getting killed in a car accident, she doesn't give. Guess I shouldn't tell her about my little adventure with the shark then. I could explain to her that sharks in this region won't attack people coz' they have plenty of other fish to eat, and humans are too big. Plus, sharks usually only attack people in places where they eat seals, so they mistake humans for seals. But in Malaysia there aren't any seals, so the sharks would leave us alone. But I know from experience that logic doesn't seem to satiate a paranoid parent...hehe. :P
Anyway, I think I should stop procrastinating and go do my work now. Redang photos will be coming soon, I hope. :)
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