Let's turn this thing around

You know, my last post about my Christmas list kind of has me thinking. Yes, I too think that the blog has taken a very bad turn towards the craptacular recently, hence the attempt to hide the shame of that last post. But also, I've been thinking about all the little 'gifts' that I've been given this year. And no I'm not talking about those moral/philosophical gifts of enlightenment and that kind of BS, I'm not that pretentious, jeez, you would think you'd know me by now.

No I'm talking about the material things that were just handed to me. Like the car that I had for about 5 months, that was one hell of a gift. Not only that, when I was done with it, as a thanks, I was given a kitchen set (a new table and 4 chairs), a bookshelf, and some large unidentified species of plant; seriously, it looks like someone crossed a fern, a palm and a troll and stuck it in a pot, but it doesn't need much water, so I like the freaky little thing.

Then there are some of the less than ideal pieces of furniture that I rescued... ok I picked them up near the dumpster, shit I'm a post doc, I can't afford for all my furniture to be new. In addition to those items there is the laptop that I'm using, a 'gift' from the lab, not like they are missing it, there were two of them just sitting there; I took the best one of course, once again a form of the post doc argument comes into play, I feel I'm entitled to it. And the only reason I can post this now is because one of my neighbours is kind enough not to have a secure wireless network, bless their giving soul...do they prosecute for illegal music downloads in this country?

There is even the box to the iPod my fabulous girlfriend has loaned me, for several weeks now. And a real gift from her, a lovely stone candle holder from Vietnam, once again, my girlfriend is fabulous.

So screw Christmas, I clearly don't need gifts all on one day, it's more fun to spread them out over the year. And it's particularly funny to see just how much of my life is made more comfortable by those little gifts. Thanks.