Trust!

I have always had issues with that gigantic thing called “trust”. Probably because I have been hurt so many time by people who were close to me. From family doing the whole “teasing a shy girl will make her less shy” routine (it only made it worse, until I grew up enough to tease back) to friends in school sharing confidences, turning on me or worse.

So, understandably, I’m not entirely comfortable trusting people. Even close friends, who have never given me a reason to distrust them. Once my trust is broken by a person, good and proper, I find it exceptionally difficult to ever confide in them again – to which some people will testify even today. So, in the spirit of sharing bad poetry (I have no idea where that sentence came out from)…

Fragile, porcelain Trust

Shatters

On cold, hard Life

Fine shards never fit back into place

Partly fixed?

Partly whole?

Can Trust ever be truly absolute again?

Wholly restored, like a broken vase?

They say

Time

Is the best healer

Anyone else feel similarly about trust?

Uh, help?

So, it turns out that I'm pretty useless at social etiquette (who would'a known??). This past week, I went to a wedding - KCB's mates were getting married. Now, not I didn't know the bride and groom from a bar of soap...

Typically, when I have no idea what to do, I froze with a (probably awkward) grin on my face (and may have mumbled a congratulations, but I cant be sure in the panic of the moment), after the ceremony... How awkward. What on earth is one supposed to do??? Most other people were congratulating the couple... Does the same apply to a complete stranger?? AAAARG!

Malawi (part 2)

In short, Malawi was beautiful. As I said before, the official reason for me being there was to do a tree project, while the unofficial reasons were to visit KCB, and to have a holiday (by that stage he had been away for about 3 months, which is a long time in my books...) and to have a holiday.

I was pretty shattered after the bus trip, and the day after we got there, we rested. We were staying at a missionaries house and doing some work for them, so we got a bit of an orientation that day. I suppose I was overtired and rather emotional, but TP presented his view of religion which I intensely dislike - his rather bull-headed approach is the one that makes me shudder to be called a Christian... The following day, KCB and I, and the rest of the team drove to a remote village where the missionaries do their work, so that the rest of the team could build a water tank system thing (it slows down the water and acts as a filter for sediment, I just have no idea what it is called!). KCB and I spent the night there, and headed back to the base to do our tree project.

Only, we didn't land up doing the tree project while the rest of the team were doing water stuff, because KCB got malaria. This was possibly the scariest thing that happened during the trip (I have never ever seen someone shake so much), and one of those times where I discovered that I cared for KCB more than I thought I did (soppy moment, yes, but it Happened and was Significant, and therefore will be Included in this post). Anyway, the team came back before KCB had fully recovered, and our hosts were throwing a birthday party, so we did no further work that week, except help with the party preparations. The party was... not my cup of tea. I'm not the world's biggest social butterfly, and being completely out of my comfort zone, and really only knowing the team didn't help matters much. Anyway, the party left me with a nasty stomach bug, which kept me and two other members of the household, in bed and feeling awful for the rest of the following day.

We had aimed to do the tree project during in the next few days, and KCB hauled me onto my feet and into the forest. I learnt some important lessons that day, mainly about the importance of carrying a panga, the difference between a temperate forest and a tropical forest (read: jungle), that the forest can distort sounds that a baboon can sound remarkably like a hippo... The second day of tree sampling was much better than the first, and the third day (although physically the hardest) was the best. We had to try and find a path (it's impossible to hack your way through the jungle) to the top of the mountain, and we had heard that there was a fort there: Fort Mangochi. Where do you find a fort? At the top of a mountain... Or so we thought. We marched up to the top (or rather, KCB, Triathlete and the guide Marched, and I Tottered, feeling like I was going to vomit from exhaustion), and we carried on going, because we had set our sites on the fort and I at least was rather curious. When we eventually found it, we discovered that the ruins had been neatly signposted... Only, the signs had been covered by thick swathes of tall grass... At times the grass was so thick and tall that you could lose the person in front of you (and the path) if they were more than 2m away from you!

The rest of the week we quite relaxed - we went to the market at Chiponde, which was rather fun, and the next day we went to Monkey Bay on lake Malawi, where it was windy but beautiful. KCB and I took out a sit-on-top kayak with our snorkel gear to try and find a relatively sheltered spot where the viz wasn't too bad to see the cichlids. We did see them, eventually, but being so windy, the viz really wasn't great, and I actually had more fun paddling, watching the leguwaans and the fish eagle. We also watched a man fishing from his home-made boat - a structure made out of a single tree (which reportedly only cost less than double what we had paid to hire the kayak). We were due to leave the following morning, and after much packing (the rest of the team had been in that particular spot for about a month), we set off for Blantyre.

We took Organiser (one of the team mates) to hospital that night, to check if she had malaria... Turns out she did, and she had it badly. Over the course of the next few days, while we were travelling, she took three courses of anti-malarials, and eventually flew home from Mozambique to recover.

From Blantyre, we crossed the border to Mozambique...

Malawi/Mozambique trip: Part 1

The bus trip

For the record, I have no problem slating this particular bus company, because, quite frankly, they need to jack up their service and stop being such a dodgy bus company. Even the "regular" travellers on the bus had a horrendous time, and swore never to take this bus again! Since I have been back, people who heard about my trip have told me that they never, ever use this particular company, because it is so dodgy! Hindsight is such a marvellous thing...

I diligently journaled the events of the bus trip, which is a good thing because so many things happened. However, if nothing else, the take-home message from this part of the trip is: Never use the JR CHOEU bus company. Ever. For any destination. However, I might use another bus company to travel some more - its cheap and you see way more of the countryside than if you flew, not to mention the fact that you get some of the culture too. Anyway, without further ado, here are my notes (square brackets are my thoughts now). Apologies for the confused tenses - I added stuff after it was written, and am too lazy to change it all to the same tense!

• Arrived at JR Choeu building at 7.30, in the middle of town [no, really, the middle of the middle, it was quite dodgy]! Got tickets which was a relief, since I was sure that they would have sold out cos we booked on the morning we were leaving! [with hindsight, this is probably an indication of how dodgy the bus actually is...] But there is no bus yet. People are packing an enormous removal truck that is 22m long, full of goods that are being taken to Malawi.
• 9.30. Still no bus. I discovered the law of packaging tape though: every item of baggage must be covered in as much brown packaging tape as possible, the desirable state of the item is that you shouldn't be able to see any of the original bag/box under the packaging tape. [I was vastly amused by this, it kept me entertained for a few hours] The truck is still being loaded.
• 11.00. Found another law: the law of packing. This law states that there is ALWAYS room for more baggage. Even if there isn't really... We discover that the truck must move before the bus can come.
• 11.30. We watch as the doors to the truck are forced closed on account of the truck being overloaded. Hoping the bus will arrive soon, because the truck has now departed.
• 12.30. No bus. We are assured that the bus will come by 1.15. [At this point, I started telling my parents that we hadn't in fact left yet, and was contemplating getting them to try find a bus company that went to Mangochi that had a number that worked... Travel Partner said we should just wait it out]
• 1.15. No bus.
• 3pm. People are threatening violence against the bus company and its employees, who aren't communicating with us. Bus company hands out cooking oil and food to placate the passengers.
• 5pm. Bus arrives after I got my mom to try and find alternative travel arrangements. Getting on the bus was the most stressful short-term event I have ever experienced! Trying to get your luggage and self onto the bus was crazy. Everyone pushes and shoves, and it is just insane... The bus was one of those extended buses, with no trailer. So much luggage was piled into the bus itself - don't think this is legal. We think the trip was overbooked for a normal bus, so they had to get the bigger capacity bus, and then the licence to go with the bigger bus. There is luggage everywhere.
• 7pm. We attempt to leave, drive 2 blocks, then return to the start point. The brakes sound super dodgy, and I hope that I make it out of the trip alive...
• Eventually we left. It was night time, and on account of being exceptionally lonely throughout the day, and not wanting to use my phone too much (because we were in the middle of JHB), I was smsing people like crazy. The rest of the time, I spent gazing at the stars, and thinking. Lots.

.

• My first border crossing ever! We arrived at the Beit bridge border post early the next morning [I think about 4am on the SA side]. The SA side was pretty quick, about an hour, and I saw my first case of a fake passport [he was a Malawian guy, and taken in for questioning, but later we saw him back on the bus...]. The Zimbabwean side took in the region of 3-4 hours to get through.
• By the time we left the border post, the sun was well and truly up, and I got to see the landscape - loads of random baobabs. [I didn't get to see any of the landscape as we travelled north through South Africa, so I had no idea as to what to expect, and it came as a bit of a surprise, although a pleasant one] Its rather pretty. I told TP about savannas, tree-grass interactions and a bit about landscape drivers. He must think I'm nuts, and I'm not sure that I explained very well either...
• We got stopped at every roadblock we came across, and got 2 fines. Bus driver and "handlers" paid bribes. Good times.
• Dusk: We arrive at Harare: "Welcome to Harare. Enjoy our pleasent environment", with litter and a broken landscape behind the sign. By now, I'm impatient, a little hungry, and really missing communication from the outside world. We were stopped in Harare, and the bus impounded. We waited for another hour, while another bribe was paid. The other passengers were fed up and hungry. The food money was used for the bribe. I was getting fed up with TP, he wouldn't stop complaining and saying "if we had taken another bus we would be at...", etc. I discover that we will have to spend the night at the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. TP slept and I had complete sense of humour failure as TP wont send an sms to let KCB (who was fetching us from Mangochi) know where we were, and that we had been delayed. So I cried, knowing that there is nothing I can do but wait this out, and make the best of a really bad situation.
• TP lets me send an sms when we get to the border, but doesn't wait for a reply before switching off the phone, to conserve his battery [I still had battery, but he didn't want to swap sim cards, and I couldn't use my phone because I don't have international roaming]. The bus is humid and stuffy, cramped and uncomfortable. I left the bus, stepping on people, over people, disturbing them as I try to exit. I find myself a spot on the road to the weigh-bridge and put my feet on one of the blocks. My feet and ankles were really sore from being down for 2 days and not moving.
• I had a chat with DG, a girl of roughly my age from Malawi. We struggled to make ourselves understood, since her English wasn't amazing, and I don't speak any Chichewe. I was shocked to discover that most of the bus thought that TP and I were married! YUCK!!! [my thoughts at this point went along the lines of, if I ever do this again, I'm travelling with my boyfriend!]
• I fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, with my shoes off, backpack under my knees and a copy of Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as my pillow [strangely fitting], and pearl-spotted owls calling close by. I woke up once to put a jersey and my shoes back on, and then again to turn over. I was so unbelievably comfortable, that I'm not entirely sure why I woke up, but was immediately glad that I did, because the bus had started up and was moving toward me [The danger of sleeping in the road is that you could be run over...]! This was my first 3 hours of sleep in two days.

.

• After the sleep I find my sense of humour recovered, and I'm ready to deal with the next part of the trip. I'm still super irritated with TP. We have an apple which TP eats for breakfast, and he shares his packet of chips with me, while masticating in my ear.
• We cross into Mozambique without too many hassles, although as usual, it takes forever to get back onto the road. At the city of Tete, we wait to cross the Zambezi river - the bridge is under construction/repair, and is only open to one lane of traffic at a time. I changed money here, since we would be getting an extremely good rate of 22.50 Malawi Kwacha to a ZA rand. We crossed the massive river, and found that the country was rather pretty after the ugliness of Tete, and the dryness of the landscape before the city.
• I managed to sleep on the bus in the afternoon - must have been exhausted!
• Customs at Malawi took forever... All the luggage that was on the bus was taken off an checked by customs officials. As everything was being re-packed, we discover that the bus has no intention of taking TP and I to Mangochi. In the meantime, KCB somehow managed to get hold of the driver, who gave the phone to me, and in this way, we arranged to get dropped off at a police roadblock near the border, and KCB would come and pick us up (a long drive for him!). TP arranged this, cos KCB phoned back while I went and found a really dodgy toilet at the border...
• After about 3 hours, KCB arrived! Was so happy to see him, and despite not seeing him for 3 months, things were not awkward at all!

This ends the bus trip story. It took me a while to recover, and for a few days I was rather emotional, but I came out alive and unscathed :) Here are some factoids from the trip:

• In 72 hours, I went to the toilet 3 times.
• I drank 2 litres of water, and 2 cokes.
• Between TP and I, we shared 1 packet of chips, 2 apples and 10 mini seed bars.
• I slept about 5 hours
• I crossed 3 borders, and went through 6 border posts
• We travelled approximately 2000km

I'm more than a little impressed with myself, that as a first time traveller, I managed to survive this!

I'm back!

With a million stories to tell (ok, maybe not a million, but enough for a lot a lot for me to write).

Im back from a super awesome trip to Malawi, where I officially went to go and count trees, and unofficially went for a holiday, and to visit KCB (yes, his name has changed yet again. I've stuck with this one in my head for a while now).

I used a bus to get there, which is an entire blog post on its own, (YES! FORTHCOMING ATTRACTION!!), and I travelled back with KCB and team in a landrover. Oh, the tales!

Thanks Helen for welcoming me back!

When the view becomes a nice bonus (TMIT)

I am really not sure why this particular experience sprung to my mind, but I thought it was valuable to air the memories, so to speak.



About four years ago, my family and I went on a camping trip to (in my mind) one of the most beautiful nature reserves in South Africa, Ndumo. The situated on the northern border of KZN and Mozambique, closer to Swaziland than the sea (see map).



The roads were really bad, so a trip into the park (you cant walk without a field guide - there are big things like rhinos running around). Added to this, it really isn't sedan country, so my dad's car (a rather low Toyota Camry) was considered to be a hero for tackling the roads the way it did. However, this meant that a visit to a picnic spot took a few hours, instead of just one.



We were returning home from an outing to a bird hide (camp was at least 45 mins away), when I felt the first grumble in my stomach... This rapidly developed into full on riots within my belly, and I knew I was never, ever gonna make it back to camp in time to reach the loo... it was gonna have to be a hole in the bush somewhere, or... someone checked the map, and realised we were not too far from a picnic spot... WITH A LOO!



A flush toilet, complete with clean and sparkly taps, I hear you thinking. But, we were very far from absolutely anywhere... So, no flush toilets. Rudimentary hand-washing facilities (a large drum of water with a tap set in the base). This was a proper long drop, complete with spiderwebs, a dodgy-ish toilet seat, and a three sided shelter, to preserve one's modesty.


I dashed around to the front of the shack, ripped up the seat (pretended not to notice a few flies. Although, there honestly weren't many), and proceeded to evacuate my bowels. Noisily, as one does when situations like these happen.


After a while, once the urgency in my abdomen had subsided, I noticed the view... I had a private viewing seat with which to witness monkeys playing on the opposite bank of the river, as the loo was situated near the edge of a cliff, overlooking a river dividing SA from Moz. Bliss. Until I started getting a pins and needles from sitting on the loo for too long. This was the best drop-and-listen experience I had had up until that point, it probably will remain one of my favourites...

Happy new year!

Or Not...

Last night, I discovered that I really don't have many good reasons to be staying up till all hours of the night, waiting for the clock to strike 12. I mean, what is the point of celebrating the new year, if it is going to come anyway? And why should everyone make a point of staying up to see this "momentous occasion" in?

I was questioning the reasoning last night, as I was trying desperately to stay awake to wait for the clock to strike 12... For someone who REALLY likes their sleep, it just seems like a stupid idea. Up till about 10.30 last night, I had fun. Three of us went to the top of a koppie, to watch the lunar eclipse and take photos, and look at the stars. It was really nice, until I started getting more and more sleepy, but the rock was far too uncomfortable to sleep on. And my companions wouldn't allow me to go back to the house to go to bed (nasty people - they managed to find comfy places and fell asleep on the rock).

I also don't really understand the significance of waiting to see the new year in. For some, it might be an opportunity to imbibe in the bubbly, or any other alcoholic beverages, get horribly wasted and spend the following day feeling like they've been run over by a tractor, munched on by a crocodile, and spat out. I do know this feeling - last year I went to a new year's party, and we were playing drinking games. I'm bad at drinking games. I felt like a tractor ran over me and a crocodile chewed me up and spat me out the next day.

Or, maybe it is so that people can be "the first" to wish others a happy new year. Also, I don't really understand the significance of this, since a lot of the time, when you wish someone a "Merry Christmas", you tend to wish them a "Happy New Year" too...

Two years ago, I was invited to the 'berg to celebrate new years. I had a whale of a time, and on new years eve, I walked about 20kms, just because they were there and I wanted to go and explore. I had a fabulous day, and we had a lovely meal to top the day. Then I got tired, went to bed, even though all the others were celebrating. It was great for me, although the trip organiser wasn't too pleased with me... The next day, I got up early again, and went walking...

So, last night, I reached a conclusion that I wont stay up to celebrate new years, unless it is exceptional circumstances (like I really need a massive party night - doesn't happen terribly often), or I'm with exceptional people, ones that I stay up with chatting until all hours of the morning anyway. And, thus, for the next new years', I will try and get myself to a remote corner of the 'berg, or actually anywhere where the population density is quite low, and celebrate the new year in my own style.

And that is my only new years' resolution!

Happy new year!

Utter confusion reigns

I wrote an entry a while ago, On etiquette. In it, I described the worst type of unreliable character one could ever hope to meet... Well, my 'friendship' with said character (lets call him... Ernest, shall we...?) has sort of continued since then. I am sure of neither his intentions, nor his feelings with regard to me, and thus, felt the need to blog about it.

Since the etiquette post, I saw Ernest at an event that I invited him to, my birthday party, my field work (vegetation sampling), and then he invited me to help him with an adventure activity. Since then, I have invited him to help me with trapping, along with several others (I need quite a bit of help!), and he invited me to go to church. Oh and to help on a weekend camp...

Firstly, vegetation sampling with him (and my mom) was really good, if a little slower than I'm used to. I enjoyed his company, and it made for an interesting morning. That day, he asked if I would like to help him with his adventure activity thing, a few days later. I agreed, because it would be fun, and also because I haven't really taken the day off completely for a very long time. That day, I discovered he was quite a passionate christian. No problemo, except for the fact that I'm not exactly the epitome of one... In fact, if you met me, you probably would not guess my religious affiliation... This was all good and well, until it came up that I had glandular fever (aka "kissing disease").

[I think this is highly unfair name - common colds and flu are spread in exactly the same way, but they are not called 'kissing illness"...]

And despite the fact that I didn't get it from kissing anyone, I was proclaimed to be a "promiscuous kisser"... YES! UNFAIR! (I was imagining may flocks of turtles in my mind right then...)

Anyway, I sent out an email with regard to my trapping this coming week, and, it took Ernest till today to let me know in all definiteness! When I texted him yesterday afternoon, with a friendly message, he said that he was going for a ride with his sister. And replied to me at 1am! Seriously, WTF? Then, today (I mean, this afternoon), he says that he cant come trapping, because of his hectic week, with his sister leaving and all, and then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to go to church with him. So I agreed, and left it at that. I was on my way back from the south, when he phoned me... And it turned out he could make church tonight, but wanted to clarify that he maybe could come trapping on Tuesday? He then proceeded to confirm about Tuesday, and ask me if I would help him on a camp coming up...

I am so super confused about this oke! He has offered a few times to watch mouse videos (of all things) with me, can be super-attentive when I'm with him, but then doesn't contact me? Or does he actually like me? What on earth?

Helen, please please please don't say "I told you so"!

Of teaspoons and soapboxes

I have had quite a few things on my mind this past week. Amongst other things, I am getting my first laptop (YAY!), my parents and grandparents had a holiday, a Halloween dress-up is coming, nothing is happening with my project (a bad thing). So, instead, I have been thinking about the ills of the world. And teaspoons.

A while ago in one of our lab meetings, we discussed an awesome paper that was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) about disappearing teaspoons. The authors did a neat little study on teaspoons in tearooms. They had a few interesting findings, one of which really surprised me: The rate of disappearance of higher quality spoons was not significantly higher than that of lower quality spoons... Anyway, what I have gotten around to thinking about, is that there must be some kind of teaspoon heaven (also mentioned in the paper, as a possibly place to go for unlimited spoons). Seriously. Teaspoons must be going somewhere, and surely the would have reached a saturation point by now, if teaspoons are still being manufactured! So: Is there a teaspoon heaven?

And now for the second: The soapbox. I live in South Africa, almost a new country. We have recently become a democracy, and our past is shrouded in racism. One would think, in the normal progression of things that people who have previously been oppressed would get a sense of entitlement, and this is generally the case. Fair enough. But it appears not to be limited to one race. Everyone (ok ok, a lot of people) has this attitude!

If everyone has the same sense of entitlement, the same attitude of "I'll take everything you can give me and more", where does this leave us? Less than what we started with. If no-one can be accommodating, and maybe even giving (instead of taking), the world (or SA), or even my university community might be a happier place?

One example I have thought about is littering. I've posted on the subject before, and now might have some insight into why people do it. Its rather complicated, but with my theory of entitlement, might just make sense. Maybe people litter because if someone else has to pick up their rubbish, they will be higher up in the proverbial food chain than the cleaner. So, although I don't throw down my sweet wrappers, pens and other general rubbish, I have made a resolution:

To pick up just a few pieces of litter a day.

It wont be much, and I'm not going to make much of a difference, but still. Its something. How else do you challenge and change the attitudes and mindsets of those around you?

On etiquette!

First thoughts: what a weird looking word. Second thoughts: What a loaded word...

I had a dinner party over the weekend, because I had my house all to myself, and also because even though I enjoy hosting events like these, I hadn't had one in about a year. So I emailed out invites with two weeks to go to my chosen date-of-party, to see who would be keen... I had most of my responses that week, and subsequently sent out a follow up email with important details (such as my house address) to those who had said they were coming. With two days to go to the dinner, a few people still hadn't replied!

Bad etiquette #1: Not RSVP-ing. Or RSVP-ing after the set date. This is generally for catering purposes (usually important if you would like to get fed). It really doesn't bother me if parties aren't your thing! Rather just tell me if you will be coming or not - I don't really give a hoot for your reasons! So I managed to get answers put of most of the people, after cornering them, and looking angry.

So I made food happily (I like cooking), one more guest was added to the guest list (which was fine, she had a legit excuse to change her RSVP), and I got more and more rushed as the day of the dinner wore on.

Good etiquette #1: Helping the hostess. Well, in my books anyway! This comes into the fact that I was running late, and being a bad hostess. All of the people who arrived early chipped in with help, and made my life just that little bit easier. (Even though I continued to be a bad hostess later on that evening when I had to finish making the pudding...)

The guests were asked to arrive at 7pm. Most of the had arrived by 7.20pm. By 7.45, one guest had not made his appearance. So I sms'ed him, asking if he was on his way...

REALLY Bad etiquette #2: RSVP-ing positively, then not pitching. With a really bad excuse. He was at a concert, which had been delayed due to rain. So instead of letting me know early, he waited for ME to contact HIM to tell me that he probably wouldn't be coming through. Like, Seriously??

All in all, the dinner was fun.

Good etiquette #2: Generally being sociable. It makes life so much easier if you are the hostess!

My guests excused my disorganisation, and some even wanted to help me clean up afterwards! I learnt a new good etiquette rule too:

Good etiquette #3: Bringing the host/hostess a gift (doesn't have to be anything big!), to thank them for the party. It really made me feel hugely appreciated, so thanks to those guests that did!

This brings me to my last note on etiquette:

Bad etiquette #3: Not RSVP-ing 'till after the event. Or not RSVP-ing at all! Seriously. How hard it is to type out a few words on an email?

I suppose you can't be too uptight about people not having the perfect etiquette, but I don't think it's ok to be downright rude to the person who invited you... Thoughts?

Diving weekend, and The Perfume Lab!

After a seemingly crazy week last week (which ended up being absolutely marvellous), I had a weekend to match. It was marvellous, of course!

I'm doing my 2*(or advanced) diving course, and this weekend was the weekend to catch up on dives, do some of the specific dives that I need to qualify, and generally relax. I have returned home failing on the last - I have such sore tummy muscles! (Diving must be good for me then)... Overall it was a really good weekend, the diving was good, even though Miracle waters was rather murky. We managed to find the helicopter though :)

A big part of my day today was the event of The Perfume Lab. Luke and I were models for the lab, in which students had to say whether perfume was male or female. The trick was that there was a third perfume, unisex! Because the students couldn't know the gender of the model, they had to be blindfolded. The second part of it was that both Luke and I had to shave our arms, to match each other. This was the cause of much hilarity for the visitors to our lab... and interestingly enough, I was less keen than Luke to shave my arms (I've never done it before, ok!)... The lab itself was funny - it hard not to giggle when students guess the gender of the perfume completely wrong, or they knock over the beaker of water or do anything else which in any other situation would not be regarded as funny...

The only thing now is that, although I have scrubbed my arms about 6 times, I can still smell all three perfumes (the unisex smells like a granny-smell)... and as such, its a little confusing for my poor ole nose!

Here's to not smelling confused!

It's spring!

Every year I used to anxiously wait for Spring to arrive. I would watch the trees for buds, and wander around the garden, inspecting the plants for any signs of growth. When Spring finally sprung, I would revel in the beauty of the flowers, the warmth, the lengthening days and the smell of flowers that would permeate our garden and our home. Even last year, I took spent some time in my garden, looking at the blooms.

This year was somehow different. I feel like I have missed spring! It is almost like I woke up last week to find a beautiful garden already full of flowers, and it feels like summer... And I'm left standing, and wondering "Where'd it go"? In all honesty, I was probably too busy a) with my project and b) being depressed that I just never noticed! Sad times.

I got home early this afternoon, and while I did spend most of it collapsed on my bed, reading (and finishing) Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (absolutely brilliant!), I did spend about 45 mins before and after sunset (incidentally my favourite time of day) in the garden. It really was lovely! Here are some pictures that I took a few years ago, of some of the flowers in my garden.

A hectic week, and fabulous weekend...

* Names have been changed to preserve any remaining dignity of the people concerned

Due to Heritage day last week, I had to cram a 5 day week into 3 days (the public holiday was on a Thursday, and I was going away). So I frantically tried to achieve all my goals for the week, I burned and watched many DVDs of mouse behaviour, freaked out completely a few times when some of them wouldn't work, shopped and tried to pack. I also went out, had a good dose of vitamin C, and finally packed properly. This time I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep before Jenny came to pick me up the next morning...

The drive was... interesting... We sang along to pretty much every song that played, had random discussions, and came up with a few key saying that would stick for the rest of the trip. there were:

• Long live Champ Leia
• Johnny Clegg is The Man
• Mary* is like a posh old zombie goat, living on an island, without a pet rabbit.

Other sayings that popped up during the hike included:

• Henry's* insect cream is The Man.
• Damn those Mexicans!!

We stayed in a place that had some incredibly amazing rock formations on Thursday and Saturday nights. We were not the only people staying in the camp: a group that came from Bloemfontein and Pretoria were staying in the same place, and doing the same hike as us. We managed to creep them out completely by going for random walks around the kitchen area, in single file and in complete silence... After deciding not to freak them out any more, we retired to the lookout point with some whisky coffee, and watched the clouds and lightning (it wasn't raining).

The next day turned out to be heavily overcast, and thus, we all overslept. We had a big cook-up breakfast, and left after distributing and re-distributing weight between packs. Jen and I are officially not girl pants. We also discovered that my trail-mix is amazing: at every stop, it came out and everyone had a good few handfuls. I have to admit, I was carrying half, and I made sure that everyone had some... The walk that day was absolutely amazing, as we walked into gullies, past waterfalls and up streams. The only part that I didn't like was the ladders - for some reason I felt like I was about to tip over head-first...

After a very long hike, some awesome food (who knew cherry tomatoes would taste so good?), we reached our over-night stop. The Bloem-Pta group had arrived before us, but kindly left two rooms open for us. I cooked an amazing risotto meal, which was even enjoyed by the sceptics among us... After a crazy night, consisting of red wine, whisky hot chocolate and coffee, howling at the moon, and card games, I managed to catch an early night.

The following morning, we woke up to a bright and sunny day. It was Hot. Very Hot. We explored the bobbejaan's (baboon's) hotel, had lunch and a long swim. I felt super-exhausted at the end of the day, and faded relatively rapidly in the night. Apparently, I missed some goings-on...

The following morning proved to be equally hot, and while we waited for Bob*, Jen and I practiced our rock-jumping, photo-taking techniques. Apparently, I suck at this. Something to do with not lifting my feet high enough or something...

I will post photos on the blog soon. I just haven't had the energy to download any yet!!!

22/10/2009: It has taken me forever to download these pictures, but here are some of the Rooikrans camp. Pretty, hey?

10 things about me!

Helen nominated me for the "10 random things about me" award. While I think this is rather hard to do, I will try my best!!

1. I've tried most activities. While this excludes smoking weed or taking drugs, I have attempted to play the saxophone, hockey, tennis, cycling, gym, rock climbing, diving, rock music, indie music, computer games, programming, gardening...
2. I secretly like teasing people.
3. At any given moment, I tend to have more male friends than female friends
4. When I was younger, my biggest dream was to be an air hostess. I was thwarted by the fact that I kept getting taller, and my mom said that air hostesses were always short. Bugger!
5. I tend to make light of my achievements, and highlight my failures. This seems to be more common in other people than i would have thought, but after an enlightening lab meeting today, where we discussed the reasons for this, it seems that we forget the good things more easily, since achieving them will then give us a bigger high than bad things (I think this is how is works...?).
6. Although I am good at identifying plants, I really am not all that good. And I think I am getting worse with age and lack of practice :)
7. Strangely enough, I am a big fan of hugs. Bear hugs are my best. Grabbing the ass-type hugs, however, are not.
   
8. I really would like to explore my continent (Africa).
9. Something that I discovered about myself recently (apologies to all friends): I whine.
   
10. I'm stronger than I think I am, but sometimes, am a lot weaker than I should be...
    

So: Jen, Terri and Candice, you are up next!

The "Get Wrecked special"/ "Waffles underwater club" weekend

Seven of us went down to Durban this past weekend to dive wrecks, the uShaka aquarium, have a cabaret dinner, and generally have some good times :) First things: all of us got some kind of simile or metaphor attached to them (except me, of course). So:

• Paolo is like... an old man with a metal detector, a chicken, and a Raggie in a cave, waiting to pounce.
• Anthea is like... a turtle warmer.
• Chris is like... a deceptive little squirrel.
• Shona is like... a carbonated bubble in a can of coke, waiting to rise, and a Raggie in a cave, waiting to pounce.
• Alex is like... a ticking time-bomb.
• Doug is like... a Camembert cheese or a magnum ice cream - a little rough and hard on the outside, but nice on the inside

On Friday, the first group of us went for their aquarium dive while the rest of us unpacked and recovered from various rough nights out. We the went for lunch, and decided that the other half of us didn't feel like doing the aquarium dive. SO we went for waffles instead (The first waffles expedition). Later that night, after walking on the beach and cursing out lack of a brown paper bag in which to hold an OBS bottle, and discovering that Paolo has some innate chicken tendencies, we went for waffles. Again (The second waffles expedition).

Our first dive (the Fontaneau) on Saturday was really really horrible. The viz was terrible, I felt like I kept losing my buddies (I was diving in a buddy trio). I did, however see a cool purple fish, some goldies and a whole lot of muck. And potentially a sunken ship.

The conditions were so bad in the afternoon, that our second dive was cancelled, and converted to another aquarium dive. We dived in the lagoon and got to swim around and look at all the pretty fish, while I was fighting with buoyancy issues (bubbles kept filling my up in my hoodie, and as a result I kept popping to the surface). It was fun though, and I really enjoyed it. And then we went for the third waffle expedition, while my headache was expanding to elephantine proportions. I had to eat, or the painkillers may have eaten through the lining of my stomach and left me as a not-so-happy-camper.

This brings me to the cabaret dinner. The girls (well, mainly me) decided (and I coerced the others) to dress up for the occasion. So, in a very short space of time, we got dressed up to the nines, complete with dodgy encounters with people who have no concept of personal space in the bathroom (communal showers are NOT my favourite), doing hair and discovering that Shona's GHD was broken, makeup and heels. All this in pretty much an hour, and we were only about 10 mins late! The dinner was really good, and the singing was only marred by the fact that we all faded into various states of comatose-ness. Anthea and Alex were the first to leave, while the rest of us left at the end.

Sundays' dives were completely amazing. We had really good conditions, and saw a lot on the ship (this time, T-Barge). Among other things, I saw lionfish, scorpionfish, boxies, brindle bass, a hermit crab, a really big moray, some goldies and a whole big cloud of bait fish. Lovely :) We did our second aquarium dive after that, which was also really good. The rays were interesting, with one trying to nibble on Shona's hoses and shoulders... Needless to say she got a massive fright...

We had planned to have lunch and leave, so we ordered lunch and then I indulged in some retail therapy with Anthea while we waited for our food. And then it was time to be off back to good old JHB. Seriously. What a good holiday. I now have more than a few "free snorkels" for anyone going to Durbs in the near future, a whole stack of memories, and some cool new friends. Thanks guys!!!

On the down swing

So my last few post have been rather depressed, and that is probably because I have been. It has been a difficult time especially in my masters, and, although things are not currently (as of this afternoon) going wrong, they aren't exactly going right either. I know that because of the current spate of going-wrongness, I am inclined to see the glass as half empty, but hopefully after a break to clear my mind (this weekend), I will be better, brighter and back to normal.

Helen posted a post card that I think is absolutely inspired. She found it here, along with more of this guy's work, which I think is really good. Anyway, back to the post card (Sorry for stealing a potential blog post topic, Helen!). I read it yesterday and nearly burst into tears. Possibility girl describes me so well that it is scary. The only part that doesn't totally fit is the basking in adulation of my potential.

So: which way to go? Will I ever reach my potential? What do I have the potential to be? Another post card from the same guy asks some hard questions:

My answer at this point: I really don't know.

So, For now, in order to be less stressed, I will make lists. Lists of things to do, things that might go wrong (so I can have two zillion back up plans for when they do), things that make me happy, things that I like and things that I want to do.

That will do for starters!

(Note - I'm not fighting anymore, I'm just too tired to do that anymore)

New resolution

Things seem to be going badly for me in all sectors of my life. I can't just give up - that just isn't me.

I heard this song on the radio the other day, and thought that it fits me pretty well (especially now). I know the lyrics are about dating, but the chorus is the important bit. Its by Aaliyah - the song is entitled "Try again". Just so I can come back and read the lyrics often, here they are (only the first two verses - the rest either doesn't apply or is a repeat of the chorus).

What would you do?
To get to me
What would you say?
To have your way
Would you give up?
Or try again
If I hesitated
To let you in
Now would you be yourself
Or play your role
Tell all the boys
I keep you low
If I saw no
Would you turn away?
Or play me off
Or would you stay, oh, oh

And if at first you don"t succeed
Then dust yourself off and try again
You can dust it off and try again, try again
Cause if at first you don"t succeed
You can dust it off and try again
Dust yourself off and try again, try again (and again)

In case you would like to hear the song, it is here.

Its not just Fridays, its Thursdays too!

Why is it that when a whole bunch of maybe-not-so-cool events happen in a short space of time, I pretty much self-destruct? And its not like the good stuff isn't happening either - yesterday I reached the half-way point in my vegetation sampling (yay!).

So: 6 out of 10 DVDs that I have burnt for my experiment over the past week have, for some reason, failed. This wouldn't be so much of a disaster, if:

1. I hadn't deleted one of the sessions off a hard drive. It would have to be me, right?
2. The DVD machines that I use didn't take 5hrs-and-50mins to record one DVD.
3. The hard drives that are in the said DVD machines had a ton more space on them.
4. I didn't have to buy other DVDs - one machine flat out refuses to even consider recording onto the DVDs that I currently have.
5. It may not even be the DVDs! I used some better quality DVDs to start off with, and 2/5 of them didn't work either. So the machines may be at fault.
   
6. I know that I will probably be waking up at arbitrary hours to change DVDs during the night, just so I can get the recording done.
7. My neck hurts. Probably because of tension. Bring on the blinding headache, yes please!!
   

That being said, it is even a mission to do the recording. I have to record three days, solid. The DVD machines only allow me to record for 12 hours. The DVDs can only handle 5hrs50mins. So in between stressing about whether the DVDs have actually worked, I have to divide tracks and combine others, all of which takes a ridiculous amount of time. I haven't finished all my recording, and this setback means that, even if I use the two machines that do have some space on them to record over the weekend, I will still be behind on my schedule.

So I did what any self respecting person would do last night: I went for a good, hard run. The only problem was that after about 800m, my asthma kicked in. Fun times. I did complete 2km's, but seriously. My legs don't even feel tired, and it didn't even feel like a stress buster of a run.

Seriously.

The world is out to get me. I wonder what will go wrong today?

And as a completely arbitrary aside, a guy who I met about 3 month ago (and subsequently haven't had any contact with) asked me out yesterday. Weird. I really don't know how to respond (I haven't yet), and this too is causing me some consternation.

SCORE! I didn't die!

One of my aims that I put up on Friday was "to not die". At least until next week.

The reason that I suspected that I might die was that I was going rock climbing for the first time. I'm a co-ord. I generally forget my left and my right, and most times don't know how to co-ordinate movements when using both arms and legs... The good news: I didn't suck as badly as I thought I would. More good news: I really enjoyed it! The bad news: I have random bruises in random places (for example: I bruised the palm of my hand).

Sunday: I was helping out at the Wanderers race (incidentally, a huge success), and was put down to help at the Bokomo tent.... On Saturday night, I was seriously regretting offering to help. But I had offered, and thus, I would go. So off I went at 6am. I nearly killed myself laughing - I spent the first hour making fruit look pretty, building banana towers and putting out milk... Then came telling people that they didn't have to buy breakfast - they could help themselves! I think it was a bit of an advert for Pronutro - they pretty much had Pronutro, rusks, milk (to have with the pronutro) and fruit. My duties were then to help keep the tent tidy (ie, put out more milk, throw away bowls etc.). There was this crazy old guy who scared me a little (he was a runner) - when he saw the tent he had a wise crack about Bokomo: " Dis bokmis en Omo". Then he tried to chat me up afterwards when he saw I was helping at the tent. Crazy. Yuck. And: How can people eat half an hour before a race?? I felt so queasy just thinking about it...

After the race started, we packed up the breakfast tent, I had a long chat with a person who used to go to run/walk for life with. She has downs syndrome, and quite often would forget my name, who my family was (all of us were regulars there and knew her rather well). I saw, her, said Hi, and she responded by saying "Hi, megan"! How cool??? I was so impressed - she remembered my brother and parents too. I think that was the best part about the race. The only thing was that she wanted to chat about her brothers and their wives and what they did, and I needed to go and see if the race organisers needed any more help.

It turned out they did, and I spent the rest of the morning (till about 10.30 when they ran out) pouring coke (they ran out of water too) into small paper cups. I don't do coke at the best of times, and having to open so many bottles gave me blisters over blisters. Eventually I was handing the bottles to runners, asking them to open the bottles, and then continuing pouring.

I left after we ran out of coke - I wasn't going to deal with angry runners, and went home to an ethics application. Fun times.

Later on Sunday night, I went to church for the first time in a very long time (see here for why). It was so cool. I didn't need to be anyone. It was basically me and God having a moment during the worship, which was totally cool. No-one around me bothered me; for some reason, the worship didn't seem pretentious, and I found myself being more honest with God than I have been (also in a very long time). So I will go back, and then see how it goes - if I fit, I will stay. If I don't, I won't. But it is a very big step for me. Yay!

In the spirit of TMI Thursday

Warning: Do not eat while reading this! Or read this after eating! Or eat after reading this!

Last night, as I was preparing my supper-for-one (which, incidentally was a toasted egg, salami and cheese sandwich), the cats that I am cat sitting were eating their food. I flipped my egg, and one of the cats started vomiting. Right there, in the kitchen. Almost in the food bowl, and half in the water bowl. So of course I can't continue making my sandwich with the vomit about 30cm away from me. So I start to clean it up, which involves many trips outside, trying not to think about it, smell it or even see it...

Only to discover that the cat has chucked again. This time in the passage. And my sandwich was still sitting, waiting to be toasted. But I toiled away, cleaning up the vomit. Then I switched the snackwich maker back on, and put my sandwich in. The egg broke while I was doing this. Why does oozy egg always make me feel queasy? Anyway. I had to leave to door open to get rid of the smell of vomit and it made the house rather cold, but by the time my sandwich was toasted, it had gone and the floor was dry.

The thing that made me pathetically grateful: The fact that the other cat didn't sympathetically vomit while I was eating...