MEMEHUNTER

Run away. Run fast.

Busily putting abstracts together for a conference in June, got to submit them today. My supervisor looked them over yesterday and seems to think they're alrighty. One poster (fine fine) and one talk (scary-pants-bejesus).

I mean, I have to give a talk to the department once a year and I get worked up enough about that (although actually quite enjoyed last years'). Standing up in front of the luminaries of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society. Meh. It scares me. The idea that most people I'll be referencing will actually be in the audience. I mean, holy crapsticks.

So, London was great fun. Apart from the funeral, and the infection in my face that turned out to be 'staph'. Never get staph, it is no fun. Basically, bacteria that happily lives on your skin, doing fuck all gets under your skin and gets really goddamn angry. Bits of your face start to come off and go sort of red and... crusty.
Which is nice.
Common in children, the doctor told me, and can appear in the beard of men. Great. Anyway, a quick course of penicillin and I'm all better. Beautiful again.

Anyway, enough of that. Funeral, yes. Sad event. Rest of London sojourn very nice. I've decided I really miss London now. I've been away for just too long. Boo. Stuck in Scotland where it is cold and grey.

Ah well. Only a year and a half to go.

In other news, did anyone else know that there are social spiders? Eusocial insects, I knew about. The hymenoptera and all that; ants, termites blah. Fascinating things as well. I've often said that if I didn't do people, I'd do social insects. Hmm. Anyway. SOCIAL SPIDERS? Hello? Who's crazy idea was that? They weave massive great hammock-style webs in the rainforest that can, apparently, last upwards of a year. They sit on their webs and pulse around, scuttling about in sort of synchronous movement. They pounce, as one, on anything that lands in their web and carry it off. They. Are. Repulsive.

I think I'm becoming more arachnophobic as I age. I saw the social bastards on the tv last night. After they'd made my skin crawl, they showed me an orb spider. A female orb spider (more than 100 x bigger than a male). Huge. Nightmarish. I was transfixed. I also went foetal. And then I started to cry a little.

I was gonna put pictures of the relevant arachnids in this post, but the process of searching for images got too stressful.

Help me.

posted by Memehunter @ 3:44 PM