Random Ramblings... How good is your hearing?

I have had a pretty stressful week, it was awesome that my boss gave me the day off today so that I could go to a uni meeting about my masters project.

The meeting went really well and so now I need to start considering which project I want to do and things.

I can choose to do a research project on 2 possible topics. I need to do some pre-research and see which I think is probably going to be best. My 2 topics are either looting (and repatriation etc) OR sensitivity within museums - what's appropriate, how to handle sensitive topics etc.

Not sure yet which sounds like more fun.

SO! mum and I went down to the coogee bay when I got back this afternoon and had a beer and celebrated not having to work with that jerk anymore (hopefully!)

But, all of that is stuff I don't really want to talk about, since it's not 100% sorted out!

What I wanted to mention was something funny that happened tonight while we were watching tv.

We were watching this fascinating documentary on the historical evidence behind various fairy tales (especially the Grimm brothers ones). Last week was snow white, and this week was the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

Apparently a university in Germany did a study to see if mediaeval flute sounds would actually cause any reaction at all in rats, as (I'm sure most people will know in the story) the piper used his flute to lure the rats away from the town.

They were showing the result of the tests on the documentary - first they tried in a regular frequency, which had no reaction. Then, they played a higher frequency, that was (is?) almost beyond human hearing. What was funny, was that my parents couldn't hear anything at all. I could feel a sensation against my eardrums - a really unpleasant kind of 'scree' noise, although no actual discerable sound. I guess it was just weird, I mean, I've heard about how as you get older, you can hear less, and how there are now ringtones aimed at primary and high school students that they can hear that are inaudible to teachers, but... this was the first example had first hand that this kind of thing was true.

I wonder how long until I wont be able to hear that irritating 'scree'? to be honest it was quite an unpleasant feeling!

Anyway. SUPPOSEDLY W and I are going to the zoo tomorrow. I'm so stoked to see the baby hippo! but I don't want to get too excited in case 1. we don't see it or 2. for some reason our zoo trip is cancelled! hopefully won't be though!