Academia and Animals

It's 12.05am and I am absolutely shattered. I did an academic sprint this afternoon and got more than half of my assignment done. I can now see a light at the end of the tunnel, faint though it may be. I knew, when I took on a degree alongside being a Mum and a part time escort that it would be difficult, but nothing prepared me for this level of exhaustion. I am tired, I am irritable and I am looking for something to kick.

The thing is though, I believe life is what you make it. I have a huge interest in psychology and the way the human mind works. I remember many years ago reading a tongue in cheek article in the press written by a man who was in receipt of Job Seeker's Allowance. His theory on the afterlife was that it doesn't matter if you seek to better yourself for your whole life or sit on your backside and watch daytime tv, at the end of the day we're all going to the same place. I disagree, this is not a dress rehearsal, it's the real thing and regardless of whether you believe in reincarnation or not, I intend to make the most of this life, because knowing my luck, if reincarnation does exist, I'll come back as a black faced ewe and live my life in perpetual sub zero temperatures on Orkney.

So Carpe diem I say.

As a complete aside and because I'm trying to make myself sleepy, you'll have gathered by now I'm a HUGE animal lover. I don't get where actors are coming from when they say "Never work with children or animals". Hell, if I had my way they are all I would ever work with, but obviously with my job that's a major no-no, LOL.

You must understand that I get my love for animals from my father and grew up in a house where at one point we had a seagull in the bath and a nest of starlings in the airing cupboard, I kid you not. We had a nest in our back garden and the local cats were picking off the fledglings one by one, so eventually the mother abandoned the nest, leaving two squawking and very hungry youngsters behind. Cue myself and my Dad, out on our hands and knees at silly o'clock, soaking the grass to bring up earthworms which we could feed them using tweezers. ( By the way, if you ever find yourself in the position of instant unexpected adoption, they also love mashed digestive biscuits in warm milk ). To the day I moved out, they both frequently came back to say hello and would cheekily peck on the kitchen window for food. One of my fondest memories to this day is the piercing screams of my Mother when she opened the airing cupboard to find two gaping mouths, shrieking for food.

Back in my Uni days ( the first time around ) I remember going to a local pet shop between lectures for a nosey with my pal. We wandered down to the back of the shop where all of the "interesting" pets were and I spied a very large and very scary boa constrictor in a cage. He was curled up in the corner of the cage, and it has to said, he was looking very pleased with himself, not least because he was lying on newspaper with a trail of blood going from the door of the cage to ( quite literally ) his mouth. Plucking up all the courage I could muster, I asked the guy behind the counter, "What do you feed himself ?"

"Oh, whatever's handy, you know, a chick, or a rabbit. That one's next, she's a runt and won't see tomorrow anyway". With that statement he pointed to a cage of rabbits with one tiny albino white bunny at the back. WELL, that was it, I left the pet shop complete with bunny, cage, straw, food, and water wotsit. With the benefit of hindsight, I have a strong suspicion he saw me coming. Ho hum. Said bunny stayed with me for many a year and was a good pal until she died, when she had a funeral with full military honours in my back garden.

Anyway, I'm off to bed with my menagerie.

Nite,

LL xx