Kid, you'll move mountains!

Today I do not really feel like blogging. But as I promised, I will write something, because what's the point if I don't stick with it. The past two days have been spent finishing a final report, so that counts for CEDFF. Speaking of CEDFF, I decided that was an annoying prefix to add to the title every day, so I'm going back to my quotes, because that's what I do. Ah, just came up with something of a theme for this post.

I'm very bad at creating my own aim in life sometimes. It's not necessarily a bad thing. I know what I'm doing on the large scale, but sometimes I don't know who I am. Am I the quiet one? Am I the protective one? I'm definitely not the smart one anymore. Maybe I'm just the one who doesn't know which one she is. It wouldn't be a big deal, except that I constantly categorize people. I think it's the occupational hazard of being an imaginary Hogwarts student - you constantly House people.

But that's besides the point. The fact is that I'm always looking for things that explain my life. Things that explain how I feel at the moment, things that represent my attitude towards the world, or just things that make me laugh. That's why I love quotes so much. Because there is always something relevant to any moment, any conversation, any attitude.

So I've decided to create a mini series for when I need an idea to blog about. I think that for today we'll go with:

Casey's Top 5 Inspirational Quotes [under construction: Always]:

In fifth place:
"Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes." - Unknown

This quote strikes me as so quintessentially Gryffindor. It's about being brave, speaking your mind even if you know it's not what people want to hear or if you're too scared to say it. I don't obey this one as much as I'd like to - or rather, I obey it at the wrong times. It's something I have to work on, but I am getting there. Funnily enough - another Gryffindor trait - being a douchebag and thinking their opinion is always the best one... No. I didn't mean that. Except a little bit.

In fourth place:

"We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided." - J.K. Rowling

For a very long time, and for very good reasons, I thought I was better off on my own. Letting people in just got me hurt and I did a better job getting through life without "teammates". But as with even the best laid plants, this didn't last forever as people are designed to want company regardless of what's happened in the past. Now I don't know what I would do without the friends I have now. Whether it's tackling a difficult assignment or banding together to beat the Dark Lord, I understand the importance of teamwork and overall picking friendship over a solitary existence. This little blurb doesn't really cover the feeling... but anyway.

In third place:

"I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men." - Charles Darwin

Wise man, Darwin. For many reasons. His ability to search for the answers to life, while still remaining hopeful enough to consider himself an agnostic. His intelligence. His absolute passion for biology and science even when they aren't the most practical of jobs. And of course in this case. The advice to not always follow the path that's been laid down for you. If you're told something's the facts and you can't change it - damn well try your hardest anyway. No one ever got anything worth gaining my following the footsteps of others. Reach out for something new, something different. Don't let anyone tell you that they're the only one who knows what's out there for you. Dare to be different.

Charles Darwin, what a champ.

In second place:
"Always waste time when you have none and never knowingly be serious." - The Doctor

Now this quote should be taken with a grain of salt. There are obviously always times when you need to be serious and they don't say "time is of the essence" for no reason. But this quote is on the list because it outlines the importance of having fun and "wasting" time sometimes. "All work and no play..." is another way to put this, but in my recollection I cannot think of a time Matt Smith has said those words, so I'm more inclined to enjoy it this way.

Finally and Most Importantly: In first place:

"Be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life's a Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed (98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed)! Kid, you'll move mountains" - Doctor Seuss

I could possibly just type the entirety of "Oh, The Places You'll Go" into this and that wouldn't even cover all the amazing and inspiring quotes to be taken from Doctor Seuss. Cliche, I know, to have been provided with a copy of this book on graduation, but as quotes you learnt during emotional parts of your life often do, this one has stuck with me since 2008. I think I'll move mountains, and a p value of 0.0125 is very statistically significant so I'm happy to go with it.

So there you have it. My top 5 inspirational quotes ... of the moment. This list will change within a week. Five is just not a big enough number, however I'll most likely add more to this when I remember other fantastic ones.

CEDFF 2: Shit starts to get real...

Being a second year is pretty great. I mean, it's no Frisbee Club every Wednesday for six hours and the assessments are not as cruisy as PSI Chemistry Testing, but this year has been pretty great (except for the one class we don't talk about). However, it's nearly over (*tear*) and now I have to start dealing with preparing for next year... Third Year.

Today we had a meeting to discuss third year projects and work experience and that was so exciting. It feels like the things we've learnt in the past two years are finally going to culminate in real world experience and real world research practice. I can't wait.

I am, however, very scared. It's going to be hard and I'm slightly worried. It's one of those times where you have to be ready to jump right in and go your hardest, and I know I have it in me but I'm still a little worried.

And now I'm going to go ahead and stick to my new goal of having a non-screwed up sleeping schedule and sleep at 10:30pm.

And now for new things I've decided to keep track of by blogging as well, because the key to setting goals is making them achievable:

Word of the Day: Etiology - 1. The study of the causes of diseases; 2. Any study of causes, causation or causality as in philosophy, biology or physics.

Pages Read Today: ugh... zero

Subscribers: 235

CEDFF: Create Every Day For Forever

Maureen Johnson started this "thing" a little while ago... and by "a little while" I mean... 2009 or something, which was called BEDA or "Blog Every Day April" where she... blogged every day in April.

Captain Obvious was always my favourite superhero...

Lately there have been a lot of things I've been involved with that have required me to write. Scientifically, informally, reviewing books, writing video scripts... and blogging. But I keep hitting a creative wall. A very big wall. Made out of cobblestone and lava and it has spiky things sticking out of it that keep me at a safe distance.

"Bad guy at a safe distance... BAD GUY AT AN UNCOMFORTABLY CLOSE DISTANCE!!!"

What I've realised though is that the wall is no longer a physical lavastone brick monster. It's me being insecure about what I write, film, create. I get too preoccupied with being perfect and I don't allow myself to click publish on anything that's below my own expectations for fear of someone thinking it's rubbish.

The problem with this though, is that without publishing the less than spectacular posts, without the practice and the peer reviewing, and the people telling me that everything I make is shite, I can't improve. I need to get over this fear of inadequacy... because I'm going to be inadequate at a lot of things, and quite possibly it's going to be for a while, so I should stop being scared of something I can change. Or at least get used to.

So I'm going to push through it. Whether it be a blog post, a book review, a video or a creative tumblr post. I'm going to try and post something every day. It's hardly ever going to be good, I expect that now, but the aim is to stop feeling as though everything needs to be perfect to be "published". My aim is not to rush things, though. There will be days when I will write three lines on a blog post, but so long as I've put some thought into them and they are somewhat creative, I will have met my goal.

So, uh, more posts in the fewtcha. I apologise in advance, but it's something I have to do.

* A quick side note: "creating" something doesn't mean that what I'm "creating" is particularly "creative" it could mean, for the next week and again next year, creating something scientific as part of an assignment or anything. Those sorts of things count.

In defence of Environmental Biology

I was having such a good week (in fact, I've had such a good month) and today I was going to write a blog post about Oktoberfest and the Recycle Party and stuff like that, but then I called my mum to tell her about how uni is going and now I am mad. Not even sad, I'm mad.

You know your parent disapproves of your degree when they're more excited that you went to a drinking festival than about how you're doing well in your tests, planning on volunteering and doing work experience and third year projects and that you're loving what you're doing.

My mum has never exactly been supportive of what I want to do. She's never exactly told me that it's a waste of time, but she has never been willing to help me out when it comes to Environmental Biology stuff. However, she never used to be this bad. Now that she's working in the contracting business with my stepdad, however, and the two of them together have to work with environmentalists and the like, she's become so unbearable that I just can't handle it anymore.

She's always been convinced that I'm going back to Kununurra. That I'm going to work for a mining company. That if I HAVE to work as an environmentalist, that I AM GOING TO earn a lot of money for it. That has never been my plan. I may have told her that in 2008 to shut her up when I was applying for TISC, but it has never been my plan, other than as a back up.

But now apparently even that isn't good enough. This is the exact conversation we had on the phone an hour ago:

Me: Hey mum, what's happening?

Mum: Oh, not much, just on the internet looking something up, how about you? How's everything going down there?

Me: Oh yeah, not too bad. Busy, though, I've basically had an assignment due every three-five days for the last few we-

Mum: Oh, that sounds terrible. How's it going though? Still getting through it? Still sure you want to continue? Next year's your third year, if you're going to get out you should probably do it now.
Me: No, I love it!

Mum: Hmm, well, I'm just thinking of what's best for you. Are you coming back to Kununurra for the holidays?
Me: Oh, well I don't know if I'll be doing work experience, but I'll find out soon and let you know.

Mum: Why are you doing work experience? Do you get paid?

Me: ... No, but it's a 25 credit class and I want to do it, not to mention it looks good on a resume, it shows you're willing to work in the field you wan-

Mum: Yes, but you're not getting paid. They just want people who'll work for free. I just don't see the point in it, you should just come back to Kununurra and be with your sister because Mark and I will be in Germany for four weeks.
Me: Well, Chloe can just come down here.
Mum: Well... we'll see. At least you'll have a job here.

(half an hour passes)

Mum: So what else has been going on?

Me: Not much really... Oh, I might be helping out with the Curtin E&A Club next year. There aren't many of us, but it should be good to do-

Mum: Why?

Me: Oh, because I want to and because it won't go ahead if no one helps and because-

Mum: No, but I don't see why you're getting involved, you probably shouldn't become invested in stuff like that. And you make it sound like there aren't a lot of people who want to be involved and it's going to be a lot of work, you shouldn't waste time on things like that.
Me: Well, I'm going to.
Mum: Well, we'll see.

"We" won't see anything. I have "seen" already, and I'm going to do it. I apologise if it's not your idea of a job that a successful business woman / a well paid woman would have, but I've been settled on it for years and you haven't talked me out of it yet, and even if it does become something I grow out of in the future it will be because I thought so, and not you.

So excuse me, but I have shit to learn about cane toad hearts and algal blooms and I'd rather do that than dwell on this anymore.

They say you never miss the water. Until the well runs dry.

I'm blogging a lot lately. I have a lot of feelings and I don't know how to deal with them. It's odd because I've always been so passive about everything. But lately I've been thinking a lot about how our time [at uni] is running out fast and how I only really started appreciating it at the start of this year. I was just looking at my "drafts" tab on Tumblr and I found this and I thought it'd make more sense if I posted it here where I can link to it on Facebook. It's a semester and a half worth of memories that have shaped this year, and though I'm probably the only one who remembers half of these things, but if you remember any of them or they relate to you, I'd like you to know that I appreciate you and you've made this year much better than bearable.

• Buuuuuuuuutfuuuuuuuuuck.
• Circle, circle. Star, star. Meth, meth. :o
• Flicking imaginary ants at people.
• Garlic Dick 'n' Balls.
• Having a sugar hangover the day after the Quiz Night.
• Perfecting Troy and Abed's handshake.
• Being locked out of Harry Waring for four hours because we were ten minutes late.
• Getting our Pottermore emails on the very first day.
• "This is a no rape zone, and this is a no rape zone, and this is a - THEY'RE ALL NO RAPE ZONES."
• The Green Party in general.
• The fact that "Lord of the Rings" is now a general term for "Fuck You" since the Green Party.
• Spending 32 hours in a row at uni and regretting it like nothing else.
• ... Not learning our lesson and almost doing it a second time.
• Brian only remembering me for one week out of every four.
• Stephen Davies' hair.
• "Professor Dumbledore!" "... ohh you mean Dick Harris?"
• Pokemon TCG games in the common room and Luke winning the inaugural match even though he'd never owned cards before.
• "First years are just scared of everyone. Second years, well, we're awesome. Second/Third year hybrids care more about their diet than their classes and Third years are antisocial shits. The "Fourth" years are okay though."
• Being very close to the start of the Oktoberfest line.
• Having really suspicious conversations with people on the day you first meet them. Yeah, this probably means you.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. And having people who hardly know me see me crying all over the place.
• The preceding Harry Potter moviethon. And the subsequent Lord of the Rings moviethon. And to future moviethons.
• Oh, that one time that Ash nearly drove into another guy at the roundabout even though she's the safest driver I know.
• $4 guild special at the main cafe.
• That time we grew a snapdragon flower when we weren't mean to.

And there are so many more that occurred via Facebook chat because apparently that's my go-to messaging system these days, and in general conversation that are just as important but not so suited to a blog post like this.
And I hope there will be many more awkward and exciting moments to come.
I apologise for the nostalgia, it's an unfortunate side-effect of procrastination. However at least it's a step up from the more depressing blog posts I have been writing.
Now I'll go back to my essay, I think.

this is the last call, this is the final song

Oh Harry, this is a new blog, but it seems like your presence here is destined to be early on. I'm not surprised, you're never very far from anything I do.

I miss you. I really do. I miss the days where the worst that happened to me could still be easily solved by reading about how you and Hermione saved Sirius from the Dementors. When I still believed that one day I'd come across a time turner and I could erase the mean things people said and thought by avoiding them at lunch v2.0. When I thought Draco Malfoy was the person I could hate the most in the world. You always made it go away, particularly when I read from that particular book. Ironically, Prisoner has set me free more times than I care to count.

I'm worried, Harry. I'm worried that my Ron doesn't exist. I'm worried that the Dementors that are sickness, stress and loss are going to take my soul from me. I'm worried that I am so far from my deepest desires that I wouldn't even know what to look for in the Mirror of Erised.

But mostly I'm worried about change. Things are changing out there and I have to be ready to face them when they do, but I always thought you'd be the one constant in my life no matter what, but even the way I see you is evolving.

I always held firmly to the belief that I shouldn't let people in, in the same way that Ginny shouldn't have written to Tom Riddle's memory in the diary she got from Lucius Malfoy. Sometimes letting people so far into your life can be the easiest way to destroy everything you've created. I know that wasn't Jo's message, of course, you're entire story tells us how if you don't let people help you, you're screwed, which is what I've slowly begun to discover. I've changed my tune and I'm glad I've done so, the people in my life are the most important thing to me right now

But as I said, times are changing. Two very different parts of the real world need my attention, and they are each becoming more insistent as the days go on. I can't balance the two anymore if I want to get anywhere and it's frustrating me. As sure as I am that I belong in Ravenclaw I know there must be red and gold in me somewhere, because I must have gotten that from you. Sometimes I wish it would surface more often. I have to make a lot of decisions, Harry and I'm not sure if the logical and diplomatic way is the right one anymore. The past and the present are difficult to deal with at the same time and I have to make the leap if I want to continue, but to do that I need to find the potion that'll help me move forward through the black fire.

It's scary. Being an adult. But I know that I can do this. Because you've done it before and your lessons have been my own for the last twelve years. I know that I will keep learning from you, but I also know that I have what I need to be getting on with. You taught me how to be brave, how to be resourceful and how to know what is worth fighting for and what isn't.

Thank-you. For everything.

...and a little bit of science on the side.

Today in our Algology lecture (to any non phycologists out there, algology is the study of algae, just as phycology is also the study of algae) our lecturer - who happens to be 72 and still a cracker that we all believe has discovered the diatom of life or something - showed us a poem written by a famous phycologist whose name I can't remember and it bugs me that I don't know who inspired my Quote of the Day.

The poem itself was not so important. It listed the benefits as well as the trials and tribulations of phycology, but the last line of each stanza (hello English Literature '08, haven't used you in a while) was composed of the words:

... and a little bit of science on the side.

I'm not sure if JJ (J-Squared, Jacob John, Jay Jay) has shown it to his classes before us, or if he'll ever show it again, but I'd be interested to know - if any of you read this.

That single line repeated thrice (doubly each time for bonus emphasis from JJ) just... got me.

Lately I've been concerned that I'm not good enough to succeed in the field of biology. My test scores aren't fantastic and I sometimes lose focus in lectures... particularly when those lectures are about algae.

But I've never been concerned about whether or not this is what I want to do for my entire life. Biology is what I love. Since I was about six years old I've known that I was going to work with plants and/or animals my entire life. I'm not sure how it started, but I do know it became an obsession of mine to become a vet... until I realised that I didn't want to be saving individuals, I wanted to be learning and conserving and saving much larger amounts of these living things I'd learnt to love ... but most of all I knew it would be fun.

Because that's what biology is to me. It's seeing living things and wanting with every fibre of my being to spend time with them, to save them... and to have fun doing it.

Learning biology with my best friends and using it to do something important all comes down to that one part... it's my thing, and it's fun... and a little bit of science on the side.