12 November 2005

I am on the verge of believing that I was male in my past life.

For the past two weeks, the lab has been my second home, the place where I do my thesis. I've been doing the instrumentation part of my research and even Eds can tell that I've been trying to put so much passion in it. But to my dismay, the set-up keeps on failing and I have to prepare new electrodes again and again.

Preparing new electrodes is no joke. I have to literally be a lagarista because I have to cut down the big Perspex glass into several smaller pieces (with a saw), drill holes on each piece, mount graphite rods on the Perspex glass by inserting them in the holes, and affix copper wires onto each rod. This probably takes a whole day to make because the epoxy used to attach the copper wires to the graphite rods take forever to dry up.

And so for several days I've been doing a man's work. I believe my right arm has developed firm biceps by now because of too much use of a lagare (saw). Really, no joke.

And it didn't stop there. I've been asking mom to help me pimp my room. You see, my room has two beds, one for me and one for my sister Jhozelle. I've been asking mom to buy us a double-deck bed so that we can save space because I wanted a bigger study table. My prayers were finally answered last Sunday.


Earlier that day, I have to get rid of the old beds for the new bed's delivery. Peter also agreed to buy the old beds and the dresser that comes with it. Since everyone is busy with their own stuff, I dismantled my old bed. Not only mine, Jhozelle's too. And not only the beds, I dismantled the dresser too. And it was not an easy job.


Growing up, I was certain that I'm a girl. I never doubted my gender, there was never a time that I felt masculine at all. And so I am not used to doing the "guy's work". I mean, dad and my brother Abi are here to do that so the girls in the family are not obliged to do such things.

With my hidden masculine side finally unleashed two weeks ago, I still believe I am made up of mostly estrogen. I admire the women who do men's work for a living. Some you see driving jeeps, doing construction work, or bringing mails to houses but at the end of the day they still go home as a mom and raise their families.

Call me a feminist, but that's what I call girl power. =)

****

Yay! I now have a new lair of my own, bigger and better.


Deciding on what to put in it was sort of difficult because I do have a lot of things. I've decided to put some of my books to have a, ehem, studious look. And a nerdy look too. I placed a corkboard so I could put some little notes on because I'm so freaking forgetful that my grandmother could beat me in a memory contest.

And since I want to experience the feeling of real high because I am altophobic, I've decided to stay on the upper bed of our new double-deck. But Jhozelle wants to stay there too. So I told her we'll exchange places after a month.


Of course I'm older, I call the shots. So when are we going to exchange places, Jhozelle? Next month? How about never?

Ooh, that'll be cool.