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Hello everyone

Today I want to talk about... no, that's mean: of course I will tell you about the title to this blog entry! I would be as curious as the proverbial cat wanting to know all about the insect and the tea and why on earth I have a waiter in my room bringing me said tea with said insect in it... 

So, it's like this: we have a half wine barrel with herbs in it in the backyard: mint, rosemary and sage. There was, at one stage, some thyme as well but after a very slow, I-will-out-grow-you,-you-excuse-for-a-herb! struggle between the aforementioned thyme and the mint... the mint won. There is now no thyme. May it rest in peace.

Anyway, I make tea out of those herbs - it's very nice, very healthy and quite refreshing. But (yes, now I'm getting to the ant!) those blasted little ants have been at these herbs the past half year or so and since I'm a bit slack with the washing of the herbs (after all, we don't use chemicals on them, there are no snails and anyway, I boil the water until... umm, it's boiling, so I feel all the badness has been irradicated). Anyway, this slackness leads to there being ants in my tea every so often and no, I don't have a waiter to call about it. But it sounds better than 'I was too slack to wash the mint and now there is an ant floating in my herbal tea'. Right?

My entry wasn't going to be about ants and tea, it was to focus on parking. So here goes: at the start of every year, I seem to forget how crowded the parking lot near the boat shed gets. How many desperate students circle like buzzards over an ancient battle field in search of a spot to squeeze their automobile into. The last two Mondays I've been fortunate enough in having the car (fortunate in getting a car to drive, unfortunate in having to drive down the freeway in horrible traffic). However, that brings about the whole 'where will I put my vehicle while I expand my intellectual horizons' debate. Obviously I'll park it somewhere legal, not only because I have some regard for the law but also because Subiaco and UWA parking fines scare me more than ants in my tea. 

Do I have a point? Umm... not really, I guess. Parking is horrible at UWA, unless you start classes very early or you are a person who enjoys the morning hours. For me it's a combination of a few factors: Do I have a car to drive? Yes - do I have the money for parking? Yes - do I have the fortitude to search for a spot? Yes - then I drive in and all is good (unless I have to be there before 9am, in which case traffic is so evil that I won't do it out of care for my fragile nerves!).

Do I have a car? No - can I get to the trainstation? Possibly - then I take public transport. Which is cheaper but also
entails a lot of waiting and takes double the time of driving. (or, yes - but it's past 9am which means all the spots will be gone at either trainstation within my range, so... PANIC!). One good thing about taking PT is that it provides a perfect break, especially on the way home. If you then go straight into studying again when you get home, then at least you have had about an hours break in between, to give your brain a chance to re-group. 

And now that everyone knows I drink ants on an irregular basis, I need to go do some Latin.

... I fished the ant out and put it in the saucer, ok? Honestly!

Deb