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 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.

Conditional has always been my least favourite tense

So, I kind of got into university. Woohooooo. I hope that cheer didn't sound as sarcastic to you as it did to me. Don't get me wrong, at one in the morning when I read checked my online student profile, I was pretty shocked and delighted. For seven months now, I have been met with the words, "Decision deferred pending receipt of further or final results" each time I've logged in. Last Friday, or early Saturday morning, as it were, I encountered these phrases: "Conditional offer made. Letter with conditions to follow." It was a nice change, to say the least. They were words of possibility, of change, and of weird sentence fragmentation. But I was excited.

Now, the reason for me not churning out a super spiffy, flashy blog about how pumped I am for the future and blahbatiblahbatiblah (besides the fact that I don't know if you can churn anything besides butter) is simply that I'm still not completely sure what the deal is. And I don't want to get ahead of myself. I still have to get some documents to them, and their supposed "letter with conditions" will take a while to "follow", since I am way over here and they are way over there. So I'm working out the kinks of this conditional offer.

Update: it's less than a month until I leave to go to Tanzania. Update 2: I got all vaccinated up yesterday, and have been feeling reasonably crappy ever since. But if the small taste of yellow fever that I have experienced from the shot is any indication of the pleasure of the real thing, I'm just glad I'm now immune to it. Update 3: it's weird that I'm going to be leaving Calgary soon. I feel like I just got used to this. And it's weird that I'm going to leave Canadian winter behind and hit 30 degree weather in one fell swoop, and won't return for a long time. No matter how much I'll be dreaming of a white Christmas, I really, really doubt that Dar es Salaam is going to get that. Unless there's a plague of locusts or something. (Are locusts white? For the purposes of this blog, let's assume the answer is yes. I'm too afraid of the disturbing possibilities of Google Images right now to check up on this.) Oh, and let's just hope that the whole plague thing doesn't happen. Not cool.

Please keep praying for me. These next three weeks I'll be working seven days a week probably, and 60 hours or so? I'll be tired.

And listen to this song. It's a Christmas essential.
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas