*silent maniac laughter*

* The semester, and with it my second year in uni, is over. I have 2/3s of a BA. This also means test season is upon me. Next week's going to be fun:
Sunday + Monday + Tuesday: Invert lab trip
Wednesday: A revision class before the test in evolution, at noone.
Thursday: a 9 hour long revision lab in invert lab
Friday: Evolution test

Fun stuff, isn't it?

* Finished Churchill's third volume in The Second World War series and here's the review:

The Grand Alliance by Winston S. Churchill

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
In this volume, as evens take a faster pace so does the writing. Churchil was never a bad writer, but in the previous volume he didn't quite find the right balance between putting in every memo he ever wrote and every small background history detail.

Events are well told in good details and the sense of interest and intensivity is kep very nicely.

So far, I'm very pleased with this series.


View all my reviews.

Am now reading Stephen King's The Dark Half

Rats!

*I've adopted two rats from the store; Rizzo which I've fallen for and grown attatched to and Lieby (short for Liebgott, very Art Spiegelman) and they're now staying with university gang member, Guy, until I'll have a place of my own to keep.

I've spoilt them rotten; they've got top food, dog food, mineral and vitamin stone, fresh fruits and vegetables (courtsy of Guy) and a granola honey stick.

The move was a little rough on poor Lieby but he's doing great now and Rizzo's his good old curious, energetic self ^_^

Here are piccies:

Rats on me (this is Rizzo)








Don't look at my face like that's how I usually am; I've had very little sleep that night....





Guy, the keeper of rats






The cage


And the travel ball they've got too


Rizzo (front) and Lieby (back) exploring




Lieby!!


And just because he's (still) a handsome devil, here's Jack again


* Test season's looming by and I'm in denial ^_^ before the horror comes down on me like god's wrath, there's a three-day trip from invert lab to cut some more into cramming time. Fun fun.

* Sam-Sam is a year old today!! For his birhtday he got a mouse jumpy toy and a bag of nip-treats which Scarlett eats mostly and he probably avoids after a strange experience; he ate a few and found himself on the kitchen cupboard, something none of us imagined his plump body could achieve....

Anyways, here's a video featuring Sam and Scarlett in which Sam shows his two favorite nasty tricks to win a fight; sitting on Scarlett and biting her...well, you'll see...



Happy birthday, bunny!!

Boring books, too much work and one eye-candy

* I'm not reading Lewis Carroll anymore, I'm fed up with it. Here's why:

Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll by Lewis Carroll

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I gave up in the middle of the Bruno and Sylvie saga. The Alice in Wonderland stories were fun and interesting to read but by the saga the nonsense and the bizzare attraction to young girls who are a symbol of prefection was getting on my nerves. Call me a cold-hearted person but there's only so much strangely-placed nonsese I can tolerate and if there's too much child-adoration and not enough plot I give up.



Don't bother with the whole collection; Alice's stories are quite enough to enjoy Carroll.


View all my reviews.

Currently reading: Winston Churchill's The Second World War series volume 3; The Grand Alliance

* Too much work @____@

* Now there's a fine young man for you:

Hyena project = complete!

* Yup, it's over and done with. I've still statistical analysis to do but the testing is OVER. So far it seems the ice lolly's winning on the what's favorite.

* There's a new rat friend; Rizzo Rat and he's a cute and smart little fellow. He used to curl up in my pockets like Nathan but he's grown used to the movement and much prefers sitting on my shoulder facing forward like a pirate's parrot or sitting atop of my head. The only down side is that he pees freely...fun, not!

* Haven't had the time to tell you but I've finished Karl Marx and here's the review:

Karl Marx by Francis Wheen

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wheen's wonderfully written book illustraits, with colors as vivis as possible, the life and works of Karl Marx, warts and all; from blood-thirsty arguments with opponents, to medical details of the various many ailments Marx suffered from to the horrificly true and not-so-nice predictions of Europe's political future including the world wars and what brought them about.

Karl Marx is an educating idol for anyone who wants to think on their own, to conclude only what their mind understand by constantly checking for contradictions and 'plot holes' in grand theories around them and Wheen describes wonderfully both how Marx came about this and what it brought him.

The book is well written, light to read and enjoyable. The style is humorist and serious at the same time, with a keen eye on the various misdeeds various politically-enclined historians twisted or wrongly presented Marx history and work, which is always nice to see.



A very good book, I highly recommend it.


View all my reviews.

Am now reading Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll

* Due to the fact that people in cat forums are stupid enough to think a troll would go all the way to invent a story describing my cat research, or that I'm the MI5 (people are really, honestly stupid) I've decided to turn to places where I can proove my identity more easily, so I've opened a FaceBook account and here it is.

* I'm officially have been working at the store for a month and now I'm getting precenteges for my sales, which is another bonus in an already bonus-packed work place ^_^

* Piccies!!

This is Anat, she volenteers at the zoology garden, helping Shimon (the hyena's keeper) with his work. Those two were such great help to me in the project, they were simply marvelous. I wrote them each a thank you letter and got them a box of chocolates for their bother and help.


The hyena enjoying the fishy ice lolly. It took him a while to wrap his brains around the concept of the ice lolly, and he didn't like the fish at all!


Egret tree at the zoology garden


The hyena cheating; he was supposed to keep the bone ine cage so that I'll know if he prefers the bone so much that he'd go into the cage for it while there's the yard and all its treasures to relish, but he took the bone out to the yard as you can see


Yum yum yum, Ice Lolly Version 2.0; chicks and fruits and the hyena is loving it!


Having a dust bath


The wolves dug a tunnle (*commence The Great Escape jokes now*) in the yard and it's the hyena's pleasure the destroy it from time to time, as you can see here; he's pulling out a log they stuck in it...


A happy hyena; having a short dip


One of the wolves


Sniffing the fat stain a dead sheep the wolves got left behind


And rolling in it....


The yard


Moi in the final toy-free observation today, a picture taken by my dad who climbed on the roof with me for 'security reasons' (Mr. Safety's orders *rolls eyes*)




The garden


A herd of gazelles


And that's it for today!!

Mommy's little helper

* This week was a bit of a stress; five days of work which meant the only time I was home was in the morning and then after 23:00...not fun. But the pay will be good (and I need it!)

* Speaking of pay, lovely Ebay ended up demanding almost half the sum I earned on my first sale, after a long list of various fees, half of which aren't mentioned. Cute people, like hell I'm using their services again without a proper reserve price, the assholes.

* The Deaths: Legend is on hiatose due to problems with the beta-ing, but mostly due to the nonexisting free time I have. I'll keep writing various bits of it but it'll take me a while to find a proper beta and once I found them, to trust them again to properly do the jobs they took upon them or last for long without kicking up drama to cover laziness (the first being the fault of the latest now ex-beta and the last being the fault of my first ex-beta). See, Allan, no battle axes ^_^

* This morning Scarlett was very nice, helping mom fold the laundry. Mind you, the term "help" is very flexible in the feline world. I'll let you be the judge:



"Here, mom, take this, oh my clawas are in it? So sorry *pulls hard*"




Slowely creeping atop the pile to block any more kidnapping of items:




N00, THEY BE STEALIN' MAH LONDRI!!


Perhaps rolling around and looking cute'll do the trick...


She's just an angel


"leave me alone already"


"I'm sleeeeeeepiiiiiiing!!"


Yeah, right.

* Store stuffs: Meet Nathan, as I think he aught to be named:


Nathan was one of our kept-for-snake-food rats in the store along with several other rats. Last week there were only him and two other rats left and since I already introduced myself to him I held him again and he snuggled up in my overall's chest pocket to doze off, pop out and scare/delight costumers and pee in the pocket. ANYWAYS, halfway through the shift a man comes and wants two rats for his snake. The bastard insisted I'd get him the rats even after he saw what I had in my pocket and had to be prized off by the other worker in the store, bless his soul. So Nathan's buddies were taken and my little one, having been in my pocket, was saved.
The name stems from my father's sensitive and tactful (note the sarcasm) comment about the story that I "made Sophie's choice"....now tell me, is that something to tell a gal like me?
Anyways, the day after that I convinced a nice young couple of obvious animal fanatism to take Nathan in as a pet and his life were completely saved ^_^

Another friend who kept me company this week is this little cocktail parakeet:

Luckily, he was considerate enough to not leave any birdly "presents" behind while he stayed where he did. Kind parakeet <3

* The hyena project: He doesn't know what to do with ice XXXD it's not in hus umwelt, the poor baby. he spent the whole hour pacing like he always does with short tiny breaks to check if anything tasty melted off the ice yet and to lick it listlessly for a few minutes. Here's the ice lolly full of goody yum yums for hyenas like fish, whole chicken, canalopes and dates:

Bears go nutty over these lollies but I guess bears live in places much more prone to ice and snow while the currently more desert-inhabiting striped hyena has a problem wrapping his mind around the concept of nibbling and kicking the ice into melting to release the goody yum yum. Oh well, it's a result and it's a great result too IMO, so I'm pleased.

@_@

Five work days + university + zoo experiment + project + university obligations = no life

However, I had this to cheer me up:
Brand New Monty Python Papperbok by Graham Chapman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Very silly.


View all my reviews.

Book report

* A friend from uni forwarded my cat survey to his friends and they've been sending me back what is now the bulk of the Israeli voice in my survey. Thank you, Zohar!!

* Finished The Book Thief and here's the review:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
When I started reading this book I thought there was too much kitsch in it but then I told myself I've been reading too much documentry history books that human emotions seem like kitsch to me. Also, Zusak's writing swept me like a tidal wave.



This book really has everything; exact history, two sides of a coin, the whole ugly truth, and a boog plot. Sometimes it's got kitsch history moments but this book wouldn't become so glorified and admired by so many people if it hadn't had some pointless kitsch.



It's a wonderful, captivating read and it's written brilliantly, despite its slight amount of kitsch. I suppose saying it's not a human being narrating the book but death makes it some kind of an excuse to kitsch. I guess.



Still, it's a lovely book as is highly recomended!


View all my reviews.

Am now reading Francis Wheen's Karl Marx