Krazy Krystal's Laboratory

Just six of the weird things about me...

Inspired by Casey... Six weird things about me.

1. I am afraid of spontaneous combustion. As a child, the idea that one day I could suddenly, at any moment, burst into flames terrified me. I know that this phenomenon has been scientifically investigated and that there are a plethora of explanations as to how and why people have died, but the idea of randomly bursting into flames and burning to death haunts me. Perhaps I was burnt at the stake in a former life...

2. I dream while I am still awake. It's kind of like an intermediate state of consciousness that I refer to as "wake-dreaming". It happens just as I am falling asleep, on the edge of awareness, and I often start holding conversations with the people in my dreams outloud. Which results in me saying some very random things when I am tired, such as "Of course we'll bake you a cake, it's your birthday" and "Why are they wearing sunglasses? It's the middle of the night". Whilst people have told me that this can be a very amusing and endearing trait, it is not at all helpful when I start to dose off in seminars or in the dark of the microscopy lab... my colleagues tend to stare.

3. I don't wear jeans. The last time pair I bought were black and that was 1996. There was a substantial period of time when I didn't own any pants, sorry, trousers at all. I guess this is why I own 20 skirts (yes, the correct answer is 20). I had to buy some pants before I went to New Zealand this year, everyone in my lab laughed at the concept of me trying to bungy jump in a skirt. Of course I own exercise clothes, jogging in a dress is a little too fifties for me.

4. I often know what people are going to say next. This in itself isn't weird when the conversation is following a rational train of thought. But when you're at a biology conference chatting to the PhD student sitting next to you at dinner and you ask them what they do outside of the lab and the word "gymnastics" comes into your head and then the person beside you smiles and replies "actually I coach gymnastics" then it's a little bit freaky. This is but one example, and it is far from an isolated incident. Most of the time, I ignore it and convince myself it's a coincidence, that it can all be explained. Obviously I had noticed the plant molecular biologist's superior agility as she cruised the buffet and had determined rationally and reasonably that she was an ex-gymnast. That makes far more sense than believing in esp, doesn't it?

5. I've got a freckle on the inside of my palm. If I am ever in a hideous accident (touch wood) then I could potentially be identified using the cute little freckle below my right index finger.

6. I like to order my laundry when I hang it out to dry. I adhere to a strict peg-colour code for each section. It just doesn't feel right to hang out a skirt with one red peg and one blue one. I can alter the colour code between laundry loads (inter-load variance) but not within a laundry load (intra-load variance). Depending on availability it's blue pegs for skirts (i always need lots of blue pegs), yellow pegs for tops, green pegs for exercise gear and pink pegs for "littles".. and they all have to be hung out in segregated sections on the hillshoist, all the tops together, all the socks together.. I don't know why, it just feels better this way.

Hmmm... I think I just outed myself as a paranoid, obsessive compulsive, slightly loopy, new age hippie control freak.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 9:27 am