Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Side effects...

I forgot to mention that my sense of smell is unbelievable.
I'm pretty sure I could compete against my dog if, uh, we could uh, possibly compete... if you see what I mean.
But seriously, se-ri-ous-ly, you cannot imagine all the stuff I can smell and could really do without.
The weird thing is, my brain automatically tries to identify the smell and so when someone is talking to me I'm now wondering what they just ate/drank instead of listening to what they are saying. Agh, the mysterious ways of the brain; I guess instinct gets the priority route, whereas cognitive gets second place.

I'm sure it's great once you get used to it, but right now, I'm NOT enjoying: food shopping, going to the market, pollution, any kind of handy-work, smoke, the 7 day deodorants they sell here, public toilets (even from afar), picking up my dog's poop, newly-packaged-anything, the to-be-sold-and-sacrificed calves and lambs showing up on along the roads and in front of malls in preparation for the Big Bayram.**

What next?! (if you don't know what I'm on about but would like to, read this)


** Big Bayram or Eid-ul-Adha: the Festival of Sacrifice celebrated throughout the Muslim world, "in commemoration of the command given by Allah to Prophet Abraham (may Allah be pleased with him) to sacrifice his first born son Ishmael to Him. The fulfilment [sic] of this noble command of Allah by Abraham signifies his faith in Allah (...) In addition, like the pilgrims in Makkah (Mecca), the Muslims, who can afford to do so, offer domestic animals, usually sheep, as a symbol of Ibrahim's sacrifice. (...) Some of the meat is given to the poor -- often one third. The rest is shared among the family, relatives and friends." (source http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_feast.htm)


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think this will pass if I recall correctly. One's sense of smell does get dramatically stronger during pregnancy, but I'm not sure whether it lasts the entire time or is just at the beginning. My husband was putting in a new kitchen when I was expecting my first, and I couldn't tolerate the "new" smell of the materials -- would you believe that! I went off coffee and lots of things. Best of luck to you.

Anna

Anonymous said...

Draga Sandra, Cestitam!!! Uzivaj u svemu!

Sandra said...

Thank-you both!

Blackbird: I thik you're right my sense of smell is slightly less potent already, or maybe I'm getting used to it?
Bangkok smells over the holidays were a challenge though! ,-) Thankfully no nausea or morning sickness, which is good.

Anonymous:
Puno Hvala! Trudicu se da uzivam ako ne bas u sve, u vecinu stvari... ;-)

Anonymous said...

Whoops, sorry, I forgot to put my name to this anonymous comment - it is Jana :) (planning to get pregnant soon, so I'll probably want to read more - so keep us posted :)))
J.