Some-ary

This has been on the to-do list for as long as I can think back right now. Which is until just before lunch today, in case you were wondering. So it's been a long time coming.

It's been a crazy few months. It really has. I don't remember ever being this busy for such an extended period of time. Almost every part of the busyness was doing stuff that I enjoyed, so that's always a plus. I guess I'll give you a summary of what this blogless portion of my life has been like:

1. I started a new blog. For my media class. It's called www.africonvoluted.wordpress.com. You should check it out. In fact, my most recent post was one I wanted to post on here, but I had a certain number of posts I had to do on that one, so this one was neglected - http://africonvoluted.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/how-to-speak-south-african/. Consider it evidence of my expertise on South African culture.

2. I went to Canada over the holiday. I stayed with a family friend. I couldn't find a job, because I arrived just after the Christmas hiring season, so that was disappointing. But I got to see many a friend, and eat many a delicious meal, and see many a movie, and have many a merry day. My family was all together for about two weeks, which was very exciting.
It's one of the weirdest feelings to return to places you haven't been to in a while. That sounds like such an obvious statement, but I can't get over it. Going to my church, stepping into my highschool, walking by our old house, even stepping into a Chapters or a Shoppers Drug Mart - so weird. Everything is so familiar and thick with memories, but things aren't the same. They just aren't. Time is such a funny thing.
I realised over this trip how much I love Canada, and how it really will never be replaced in my mind. I don't know if I've been trying to do that, but I know now that I can't. Your homeland is your homeland, no matter what you do.

3. I moved into a new place. I'm living in a residence now, called Groote Schuur Flats (pronounced HH-roet-e Sk-ooo-r... Kind of. Ask me sometime and I'll say it for you.) I live in a flat with another girl. Apparently it's really rare for youngsters like me to get into this res, so I'm very grateful. Because it's amazing! I have a HUGE room, living room, kitchen, and bathroom. I'm extremely close to campus. I am a 20 second walk from at least 10 fast food places, two coffee shops, two grocery stores, two pharmacies, and a book store. And it's a lot safer for me to be outside at night, because it's on the Main Road and is a busy area. Wooo.

4. The first semester of my second year at the University of Cape Town has come and (almost) gone. I took four classes, even though I only need to take three. But hey, might as well do this university thing with conviction.
Writing and Editing in the Media, Religion and Society, Applied Ethics (a philosophy course) and Italian.
I enjoyed all of them. The religion one was a little dry, the media lectures were at 8am, and Italian was 7 times a week. But I enjoyed them all. I've finished all but the religion exam on Thursday. And don't worry, considering I did the other three subjects' exams all within two days, doing one exam seems like a piece of cake now :).

5. I've learned a lot about responsibility this semester. Namely that I'm not very responsible by nature. Growing up is tiring and stretching.

6. Friends are incredible. I have an awesome group of friends here, which sucks during exam period - every evening is an awkward, trying to be helpful to each other but really wanting to not study but knowing that breaks are important but thinking you're probably just using that as an excuse to procrastinate, moment. But I love it. It's not really an issue to complain about.

7. I'm the Secretary for the Student Y campus ministry I'm a part of. Being on the committee has been a challenge at times, but such a joy all the time. I've learned a lot about myself, about working on a team, and I've sort of solidified a lot of self-knowledge of which I'd been in denial (dislike of organising things, fear of criticism, etc.).
I also lead a Bible study with my friend Netéske in my flat every week, which is amazing. We have been going through the book of Mark and learning many things. The Bible is so much deeper than I ever could have imagined. Mind-blowing.

8. I've finished five jars of peanut butter so far, I believe.

9. I haven't been buying meat to cook at home at all this semester. I eat it at other people's houses, and sometimes at restaurants, but on average I'd say I eat meat about once every 2 days? Just trying to be a bit more sustainable. And learn how to cook more creatively.

10. I still have no idea what I want to do once my degree is finished. I'm halfway through now, and I'm feeling an urge to travel to some new exciting place. Don't ask me where that is though, or what I would do there. We'll let the pages turn when we finish reading them.


That's all that comes to mind right now. I'm disappointed the Sens didn't make it further in the playoffs. I'm going to Tanzania for this 5-week holiday between semesters, which is fortunate, since winter just hit here like an unwelcome in-law. I'm reading Dostoevsky for fun. I still like writing poetry more than doing most other things.

I'm 20 years old, and I'm grateful, content, and excited about life.

The Year in Review

I'm on the verge of being in denial that my first year at the University of Cape Town is over. I often struggle with feeling of time passing, and I wonder how I flew through a season of my life so quickly.

I arrived on the 31st of January - terrified, excited, overwhelmed, confused. Little did I know... That phrase has never been so accurate. And now, on the 20th of November, I'm making the trek back to my homeland, which I've been calling 'home', but I've also talked about flying 'home' to Cape Town in January, so the term has become a bit ambiguous.

Instead of just blabbing for too many paragraphs about my feelings, I'm going to break down the year for y'all into a list of accomplishments and things I've learned. Some of them will be more impressive to you than other things, but due to the diversity of readers of this blog, I'm going to say that you won't all be impressed by the same things J.

Accomplishments:

-finished approximately 8 jars of peanut butter, 8 bottles of sweet chilli sauce, and waaay too many litres of milk to count

-passed all my courses, and even did well in most of them

-learned how to say "Xhosa". That's the only part of the language I know, but still.

-went up Table Mountain, to the Waterfront, ice skating, to several beaches, to Robben Island, to a rugby game, amongst other touristy things

-swam in the ridiculously cold Atlantic Ocean

-didn't get mugged or threatened or anything scary at all (mildly stalked, but hey, I did live in Mowbray)

-ate pap and gatsbys and other important South African foods

-dressed up in pyjamas, as a hippie (twice), a Jedi, and an '80s workout instructor

-read about 18 non-school-related books

-made the flatmates watch the Lord of the Rings

-got used to people driving on the wrong side of the road

-grew my hair out to longer than it was before I shaved it

-won a Talent Show and a Croquet Tournament

-made lots of friends

-developed impressively strong calf muscles from climbing many stairs - good times going to a university on a mountain

-didn't run out of money! Woo!

 

Things I've Learned:

-Canadian politics are a lot less messy than South African politics

-how to throw a rugby ball and use a cricket bat

-Americans are really obvious and can be quite annoying in large groups

-How I Met Your Mother and South Park have taught South Africans everything they know about Canada

-racism is a lot more complicated than I thought

-how to communicate more effectively with flatmates with different personalities :)

-Dutch Blitz is the best game no matter where you play it

-Cape Town is the most hipster city in the world

-everyone has a cousin in Canada

 
-IB actually did prepare me for university... weird

-more about myself than I could have ever imagined

-God is a big God who does big things

-how to keep in touch with people far away. I still suck at it, but not as much as before, I'm going to say.

-how to Sokkie

-living without internet has pros and cons, heavy on the cons

-how to ask people for lifts

-how to speak 'South African' - stay tuned for a future blog post!

-having no home and having many homes looks almost the same

-I am so blessed

-the future is a beautiful place

Poem #2, because this is the easiest way to share them

I love the wistfulness of night-time
The contrast of neon lights and charcoal street
The smells and sights at midnight from a seat on an almost empty bus
Of cigarettes and coffee and filth and tired feet

I love the feeling of getting to know a place you thought you knew,
But you didn't really know
You've been acquainted with the city of bright -
Of hundreds of horns hooting
Thousands of people commuting
Everyone trying to remain anonymous and unknown
Surrounded by so many people who are alone
And exactly the same

But a city at night has humanity, character
There's room for individuality
Where every person has a story, carries weight
Every soul has a reason for being out so late
The plastic coating of a daytime rush melts away
And you're exposed

When
Office towers are hollow
Corner stores are haunted
Traffic lights are obselete

And people are people
Unique and startling and noticeable
There they are
Here we are
We're the ones who live here,
You just can't tell because we're actually invisible in daylight in a crowd
But we're here
And we're dreaming
Dreaming makes us real
Night-time makes us dream

I love the wistfulness of night-time

What? I Write Poetry?

This is a poem I've performed a couple of times recently, to fairly good reviews :). This post is for everyone who has heard it and wants a copy, and for anyone else who can read.  So yes, this is for quite a broad audience.

Feel free to pass it around to whoever, I don't care if you give credit to me or not. I'm not important enough yet to ask for royalties on anything.





Do you realize

You're worth more than the moon,
 Than vast deserts of dunes, than the blossoms in June?
 Do you know you're more important than the skies,
 The wolf when it cries, the lark when it flies?
 You're more majestic than the ocean,
 More authentic than the motion of the wind,
 And you are a masterpiece

Do you realize you're worth more than the earth?
 Love has followed you since before your birth,
 When your Creator chose to give you worth
 And masterfully craft you - beautifully, wonderfully

Child, you don't carry yourself like a work of art
 Your heart falls apart at the start of each day
 When you glance in the mirror
 And, to your dismay, you're not perfect?

Cut yourself some slack
 I can see you don't lack
 Merciless eyes that criticize
 Each fault, flip, flab, fang, fart, and flaw
 That aren't supposed to feature
 On a Covergirl teenage creature
 And as you slump through the world
 Saying "Woe is me",
 You close your eyes to possibility
 Assuming, "No one could ever appreciate me",
 And we watch as you slowly disintegrate

I know I shouldn't offer help,
 But darling, you seem to be deflating yourself
 You're like a walking piñata with nothing inside
 And I don't think you realize

Then, one Friday night,
 You wandered the streets looking for something new
 And a certain fellow took a liking to you
 He had sly brown eyes and a daring smile,
 And you thought, hey, this should distract me for a while
 So you followed
And as you took that first step, you had trust in your eyes
 The look of someone deceived by showers of lies
 But his words - his charming, alarming, disarmingly bold words -
 Were like water to your love-parched soul
 And oh, he drenched you

So you came home late, all sopping wet,
 Way past your curfew and your mom's upset
 But you can't even heart her, you're in absolute bliss
 Your entire life has been leading to this!
 And she couldn't possibly understand

Flashback
 To a sophomore romance, with parachute pants and a high school dance
 Lights getting dim, room getting hazy, one girl getting crazy
 And one boy who can move like Patrick Swayze
 Oh, baby
 Trust me, your mom understands

Flash forward
 To an outburst of words and miscommunications
 A foundational crack in the already fragile relations
 Of daughter to mother, with violent retaliations
 And honestly, you had unfair expectations
 Of how long and how much and how strong the patience
 Of a mother is when watching her baby destroy herself
 Innocence receding inch by heart-wrenching inch

And that one interaction, that's just the start
 In the following months you perfected the art
 Of slowly crushing your mother's heart
 You lash out at her whenever there's pain
 And you try to relieve it by going insane each Saturday night
 And all these mind games
 Add up to your, on your knees, feeling nothing but shame
 And darling, you can blame your broken heart on a man,
 But it began with a love that you didn't understand

You'd heard stories of love, but you wanted to feel
 So you gave yourself to this guy, and all he did was steal
 Your virginity
 He didn't give you his heart, he just left you in his dust
 And you two weren't in love, you were only in lust
 And a word of advice:
 Don't ever give your heart to a guy who can't keep his pants on

Do you realize
 You're worth more than the stars?
 More than galaxies beyond what man will ever find?
 You have potential, you have life, you were made one-of-a-kind
And you are loved, more than you will ever be able to comprehend

You throw love around like dirty laundry
But you're blind to all that love could be
 Love makes you whole where you have holes
 Love lets you know that you are known
 Love holds your hand when you're in fear
 Love won't let you disappear
 Love makes you strong and powerful and beautiful and new
 Love makes you shine and overcome and be the perfect you
 You'll be satisfied in love that's untainted and true
 And He'll create in you the masterpiece He's always wanted to

If you will just realize

Here and There

Before I get into things... Happy birthday, Ross! Hopefully by later tonight I will have posted something lovely on your Facebook wall, which will explain all of my feelings in greater depth. But I think we should all enjoy getting older! Because that means we're normal. Getting younger should be reserved for Benjamin Button. Otherwise, the ageing process is a good sign.

Okay, so I've been doing the school thing for about six weeks now. I'm a week away from my short vacation, during which I will be in Tanzania. I'll probably spend the ten days telling everyone there about my time here, but I've come to understand that I'll be answering questions the rest of my life, so I might as well get used to it now.

Right. School.

So, as I said briefly last time, I'm doing courses in religion, history, philosophy, and media. I'm trying to fullly enjoy the fact that I'm not taking any math or science or anything like that. I like all of my courses. I like discussing things, and thinking about things, and writing about things. The thinking and writing I'm realizing (or "realising", I should say... Still getting used to being this British) are going to be thoroughly poured on top of me for this degree, so I probably won't think of them quite as fondly in a little while. But I'll try to remind myself that I liked that at some point.

My goal is to do well in school. Seems silly, but hear me out. Degrees in the Humanities get trashed a little bit amongst UCT students, except of course by the Humanities students. A Bachelor of Arts or Social Sciences is easier than a degree in Engineering, I'll be the first to admit. To pass in a BA program isn't too difficult. It will teach you to think critically and to put your thoughts into words, but it won't require all of your intellectual stamina to be on call. At least, not in my opinion. However, to do better than a pass, to do well, to excel, that's a little trickier. So, that's what I'm aiming for. A 52% is not going to be good enough. I'll let you know how that plays out. So far, I've had a huge range of marks from the little assignments I've handed in, and the future will tell how much work I'm going to need to put into this.

I've become a part of Church-on-Main. If you're concerned for my theological soundness or anything, their website is http://churchonmain.org.za/, check it out :). I've been adopted into the community, and I've actually been quite inspired in my travels at how the Church is seeking the same God. I feel like I haven't missed a beat in my walk with God, despite having jumped across the ocean. Cool stuff.

So I'm finding my rhythm. I'm starting to actually recognise people on campus, which is exciting. It's still a little weird. I feel like any day I'm going to go back to normal life, and this will have just been an interesting break. But I don't think that's the case. The adventure just won't stop. It gives me great joy, laughing in the face of the exchange students who will be returning home in a few weeks. Sucks to be them.

Granted, I do miss Canadian things. Actually, I'll give you a list of things I miss/missed about home:

SNOW, Tim Horton's, perogies, sour cream, BAGELS, pasta sauce, Kraft Dinner, a variety of McFlurry flavours, Dairy Queen, Canadian political references, country music, being able to walk around at night by myself and be safe, beavertails, POUTINE, good and not really expensive cheese!, mandarin oranges, frozen pizza, GOOD SUGARY CEREALS, the first sweet inhale of spring, unlimited bandwidth, free WiFi at random public places, Mr Clean, George Stroumboulopoulos, and A&W. Oh, and some of you people.

The Road to UCT

Greetings to everyone! I feel like 90% of all blog posts begin with an apology to the readers for having such infrequent blog posts. So I'm not sure if it'll be worse for me to apologize and contribute negatively to the statistic, or not apologize and sound unappreciative of my readership. I suppose I'll compromise by just talking about apologizing without actually doing so. There you go.

I think you all deserve the whole story. The whole truth. It's been a journey, my friends, and I will try to capture the essence of each important moment on the Road to UCT. Stay with me, here.

I send in my application online on April 11th, 2011. I was young, I was innocent, I had already gotten into three respectable Canadian universities, but not too deep down I wanted to go somewhere exciting, somewhere different. So the University of Cape Town it was. I've been asked a few times why I decided to go for UCT and not somewhere else. Yes, it was the urge for adventure that motivated me primarily, but there was some reason that went into the decision as well. It's a school taught in English, first of all; it has a really, really good reputation, both from people who have gone here and from studies done on the world's educational institutions; it had programs that were interesting to me; the price was not exorbitant; and the campus is unbelievably beautiful. And look, they've already taught me how to use a semi-colon! Okay, so in April, my hopeful self applied.

Many of you were with me for phase two of the application process. By phase two, I mean the phase where I didn't know what was happening and I was floating around like an aimless plastic bag on a highway. I had deferred my acceptance to Carleton University, and shipped myself off to Calgary after camp in the summer to get a job and save up for this elusive education I was planning for.

Now, phase two lasted a while, let's not lie. The number of vague answers I gave in those months would probably knock you off your chair. Thanks to much support from all of you, I managed to make those months beneficial, more than just financially. I had a good job, good home, good church, made a bunch of friends, did a bunch of paperwork for school and everything else... It was good.

Then, the "conditional offer" was made on my online account. We'll call this phase three. This conditional offer was supposed to be followed by a letter. The letter never came, the email was supposed to have been sent, it never was. And then I flew to Tanzania for Christmas.

Two weeks went by, beach and safari and sleeeeeeep, and still no letter. So, another few phone calls later, and I actually had my acceptance. Which signalled the panic of getting a visa in two weeks or less, in order for me to make it here on time. Miracle of miracles, the South African High Commission can get a Canadian kid's visa done in a week! Amazing! Hey, why not call this phase four? It lasted about four days, so it's an appropriate name.

Now, I welcome you to Friday night, Friday the 27th of January. Saturday was the day we would fly to Cape Town as a family, to do all the fun starting-university-in-a-new-city things. Oh, Friday.
We got home from dinner on Friday, I checked my email. Waiting for me was an email from UCT. It was a short email, and to make it shorter, it said that my final examination results had not been received, and my acceptance had been withdrawn. Have a good day.

Phase five wasn't a particularly pleasant phase. It was horrible. I mean, I had sent in my final examination results. I knew that. I knew that it wasn't my fault, and that the university should technically let me in, because it was their mistake. But that wasn't very reassuring. I had already packed and everything, and we were ready to go, and that night was basically a night of wondering bad things.
I won't really go into details, but I kind of feel like I wrestled with God that night. He won. His winning, though, involved me giving up things I was clinging to, and resting in the assurance that He's got it under control. It was beautiful. Oh my goodness, it wasn't a fun night, but it was a good night.

Then suddenly we were in Cape Town. Doing tourist things, negotiating with Humanities administrators, trying to find me a place to live, going to the International Students' orientation despite not being a student yet... One of the weirdest weeks of my life. I was just swimming in uncertainty.

And then BAM. Phase six. As I'm listening to somebody or other's address at the International Students' reception, my Dad's fiddling with his Blackberry, and gets onto the website to check my application status. Bu-yah, I'm in. Suddenly, it all comes together. Suddenly, we spring into action and get me a place and a phone and I can actually make friends and go to orientation and unpack and let all the past five phases go. Some of you will say, "Finally!", but I take none of it for granted.

So, here I am. I've started classes now. I survived O-Week. I'm learning about religion, history, philosophy, and writing in the media. I'm loving it. It's been a little hard making my brain start learning again, but I'll get back into the groove. I'll let you all know about other stuff I've been up to here, but I think this is plenty long for now.

Thanks for reading, thanks for praying and worrying and asking. I'm taking sign-ups for anyone who wants to come visit me. I have a really convenient spot on the floor that would be perfect for an air mattress, if you catch my drift.

And I will have internet soon, and I can Skype with all of you a hundred times a day. I promise.

We're Approaching the Climax - Get Ready

It's been a while! I'm still around! On the earth, anyways. If you thought 'around' meant around you, you're probably mistaken.

I'm in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania at the moment. In case you're out of date. I got here on the 23rd of December, after about 24 hours of travelling. I slept for almost eight hours total on the trip, which is better than I was expecting. And I got over the jet lag within a couple of days.
The Christmas season involved a couple rounds of present opening, lots of food, several family games (I don't think I won any of them until New Year's Eve), and some other events thrown in. Events like a two day trip to the beach and a four day safari excursion. Lots of adventures were had, including hiking up an unexpectedly tall hill to swim in a waterfall with an Indian tour group and getting our vehicle stuck in a muddy patch of road for three hours in a wild game park. Good times.

I suppose now would be the time to do the traditional Start of the New Year Reflection Post.
I'll start off by outlining my New Year's Eve. Well, you've already heard about me winning a family game. After coming off that intense win, Ross and I tried to stay awake until midnight by watching football on TV and reading. When the clock changed over to 12, we wished each other a Happy New Year and fell asleep. Exciting, I know.

But when I think about the year of 2011, I do have some thoughts. 2011 was the year of my high school graduation. That will probably be how it's most often remembered from now on. It was also the year I got my first job, visited Italy for the first time, learned how to play the ukulele, and moved to Calgary for a few months. All important events.  If I look back at the me of one year ago, I can't even imagine what she would be thinking. Probably something about surviving the last months of school.
I think January 2011 would have been about the time that I was coming up with the tentative plan of going to school in Cape Town. If I had known it would be this much work for me to get there... I probably would have done it anyways. It was all worth it, for the ripple of surprise that travelled across the crowd at graduation when the speaker said that I was planning to go to the University of Cape Town to study the Humanities. That was a good moment in my life.

All that being said, I could continue to reflect for a while. Trust me, the IB program breeds children that are excellent at doing personal reflections on things they never cared about in the first place. But there are things happening right now in my life that I think are more interesting.

We called UCT a little while after Christmas, and asked three different people if they would send me that elusive conditional acceptance letter via email. Highlight of the phone call: "You really need to get that letter so you can get started on your student visa." My thoughts- No kidding.
They actually sent me the email! It had supposedly been mailed on November 17th. And the mysteries never end.

I quickly printed off the letter, signed the part saying that I "accepted their conditional offer", and scanned it and sent it back to them. The next day, my online status said, "We have received your acceptance of our conditional offer". Hoorah!
With this conditional offer letter, I could now start applying for a study visa. There are about 20 pieces to a study visa, so I had to gather those from near and far, and request favours from people I've never met before all around the world (sounds elaborate, right?), and finally we got everything together. I handed in the form two days ago, so on January 16th. Usually a visa takes longer to process, but the nice visa lady told me that she would request to get it done in two weeks. The start of UCT orientation weeks is January 31st. So, according to my calculations, the visa will be done on January 30th, leaving us a spacious 24 hours of wiggle room.

Sorry to leave you on the edge of your seat, there.

But wait! There's more!

Because of the lateness of everything, I was not able to get a spot in residence. So I've been house/apartment/room hunting feverishly. I found a building called The Baobab, which is sort of like an off-campus residence building. Awesome location, self-catering, a legitimate website with minimal spelling errors (you'd be surprised both by how rare this is and by how much it matters to me)... The shared rooms are obviously cheaper, but I don't know anyone in Cape Town, so I was worried about finding a roommate, only to learn that they happily assign people roommates, and all would be well.

Many prayers have been answered recently. Many, many prayers. So, despite the fact that I spend most of my days doing nothing at all, and I still probably should be worried about financial things and the visa getting done on time... Well, I'm not. I feel very cared for. I know I won't be left hanging, and I have no fears about trusting in a God this good. So the next weeks should pass by quickly enough. There will be a whole load of things I'll have to deal with as soon as I arrive in Cape Town, but that's okay. Today has enough worries of its own.

There will be another update soon. My adventures are just getting started.