South Africa - the land of braaivleis and bil...

...Gates!

Yes, you heard me - Bill Gates!

Christmas in New York!!

As many of you have probably picked up from our GOOGLE TALK statuses, we are going to New York for Christmas!

You see, Katherine's work is flying her to San Francisco for some meeting for two days, and the main guy there says he's fully booked until 21-23 December, and wanted to know if that would work for us. HECK YES! A free flight for Kat to the USA over Christmas, and free accommodation for the both of us while we're in SF? Essentially half-price to USA for Christmas? Who wouldn't want that!

A minor taste of justice

Arrived at work today, only to find some jerk (ND628-783) parked in my RESERVED parking at work. Just on principle, I am tempted to vomit all over the driver's seat and stage a miniature protest all day long chanting "hell no you must go, hell no you must go", but I know that would be pointless, because I'm fairly certain this car belongs to some GEOLOGY field-trip participant, and I'd be wasting my breath for a week.

At any rate, I have done the next best thing - parked him in! Again, this may be pointless, but I feel a bit better about it (except that our car presently is uninsured since we are in that transitional insurance period). Oh, and what's more, the security guard on duty has now reacted by organising the car to be clamped.

Check out my moment of justice (I snapped my proud moment - do you think he'll get the message? I'm the white Honda Jazz at the fore)! At least now if the guy's around, he'll have to be inconvenienced to find me and wait for me. I pay good money for that parking bay!

UPDATE: The jerk was a guy called Neil from MATHEMATICS (some student); he had to ask my secretary to phone me to move my car. I took my sweet time and about twenty minutes later I came down to find the scallywag having a puff and waiting diligently for me to move. I said "howzit" and moved my car. He's lucky they hadn't clamped his wheel by then. Grrrrr.

New Job

Yay! Yippee! Wahoo! This is because I have resigned from my job at CAPRISA where I have been for 5 years (that is a looong time these days!) and I have accepted a post at a unit within the University called the HIV Pathogenesis Program. I'm really looking forward to it because I will be learning a whole bunch of new things and as scary as it is stepping into the unknown, I know that I do have some skills that I can use well and it will be much better than sitting around twiddling my thumbs wondering what direction my career is advancing in.

The waiting for the new job has been really long so it is a great relief that something has come of it and I have prayed and thought about it long and hard and feel happy with the decision. It is less job security and less benefits but I'm amped! Been taught a whole bunch about patience and I do wonder at God's timing seeing as nearly half my department have resigned this week ..I'm sure there is a good reason for it all though!

Wahoo for Debbie Knighton-Fitt who also resigned last week (on April Fools Day hahaha) after her long wait for her dream job too :)

It does feel a bit weird at work realising that I have a stack load of task handovers to do and I won't be here this time next month (what a weird saying...I mean how can you be in a place in this time next month...totally contradictory!). But also I think there is this general atmosphere of gloom at present which I hope will go away soon. Anyway, I'm also sad to be leaving friends at work who have been good friends over the years but I just want to get up and go now! It's a bit overwhelming really having to suddenly complete everything you thought you had unlimited time for!

Ooer have opened a new pack of sticky notes and they smell like fish food...bleh!

Better go and do work...only a few days this month to do it in...hooray for April public holidays!