Catching up

Monday:

·         Service day

·         I voted! WHOO!!! Huzzah, civic duty!

Tuesday:

·         psych class, almost done! Needless to say, my focus is waning and it is feeling more and more like summer here!

·         At our weekly house meeting, we reflected on the Ignatius spirit. We all go to Jesuit universities and St. Ignatius is a very strong figure within that community. It was interesting to discuss how the ideologies of our universities, particularly in a theological manner, coincided with what we were doing here in terms of service.

·         St. Ignatius lived the life of a party boy until he was wounded in battle and underwent a severe life epiphany brought upon by prolonged solitude due to his injury. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Loyola. He focused on the idea that God is present in everyday life, and combines that with the value of service to others.

Wednesday:

·         Ethics class, almost done! I can almost taste freedom!

·         I had a very productive day, I just need to begin my finals and figure out everything for back home. USF is ever  diligent at answering my emails; there is no bureaucracy anywhere.

·         I have also noticed an extreme increase of white people on campus. Previously, it was a little odd to not recognize them all, but today I saw at least ten that I haven’t seen before. I’m wondering if they are coming here for summer classes or something.

·         We went out to Poncho’s to celebrate Bridget’s boyfriend Peter being here and Caroline’s parents showing up. It was also Caroline’s mom’s birthday, so we made her put on a sombrero and do a tequila shot! The food was so good, and I am in love with their jam jars. Caroline’s parents treated us, which was really nice of them.

·         Earlier in the day, Sofi, Michelle, and Maggie were walking to McDonalds when three guys mugged them. They ran up from behind and grabbed Michelle’s purse, and they tried to grab Maggie’s purse too, but it was around her body, so one of the guys hit her in the face. Some neighbors ran out when they heard screaming and the guys ran off. They were pretty shaken up by it, and Melikaya brought them to the police. Later, they arrested one of the guys. It was just weird because it was broad daylight and they were in a group. I guess you can’t be too careful though.

Thursday:

·         I finished writing up the over view of my social program for Dance For All, now I just have to wait for the staff to review it and comment so I can refine it some more.

·         I am quite sad because a ton of people are leaving for the weekend. Some are going to Coffee Bay (in the Eastern Cape, I went there on my midsemester trip and rode horses and surfed), and some are going to Cape Agulhas, the very southernmost point of all Africa.

·         We went out to Cubanos for dinner and we met up with some friends from UCT. However, I am not so inclined to return, the food was great but the service was terrible. Seriously, we waited for a half hour just for menus. But I had a grand time meeting some new UCT exchange students.

·         Afterwards, we hit up Tiger Tiger, a dance club in Claremont. It was all white people, which was so weird. But they played some great songs (Stacey’s Mom, Scotty Doesn’t Know, Call Me Maybe, Gangnam Style, and SANDSTRORM, which naturally made me think of high-school aged Kane). I was happy as a pig in a puddle.

Friday:

·         We had gone out the night before because we were all certain that we had a lecturer coming to meet us at 2pm. However, Sofi gets a call from Melikaya at 8:30, asking if we were on our way. Surprise morning lecture! I really liked the lady a lot; she spoke about her experience as a director for multiple NGO’s.

·         Mary Claire (my roommate)’s mom is here! And she came with us to our second lecture of the day.

·         The second lecturer looked familiar, and then Jess Burkard realized that we had had her as a substitute in our Ethics class. She talked to us about gender and sexual violence within South Africa.

·         We went to the Hout Bay market, which is about a half an hour south of us by cab. The market had some really great booths, actually there was a lot of really cool art for sale. And everyone’s food was great, especially the tomato basil soup. It was kind of funny though, because most cabs don’t dispatch that far away, we ended up getting lucky that a cab driver offered us a ride because he had been waiting. We just pull out and he gets a call from the people he was waiting for. We had stolen the cab from Mary Claire and her mom! Poor Mary, the driver was trying to tell the dispatcher to send another cab for her, but the dispatcher was too dense to figure out why he couldn’t just do it (there were a lot of us squeezed into one cab already on our way back to Obz). Eventually she got a cab back to her mom’s hotel, but she must have been pretty stressed about getting stuck in Hout Bay for the night. All of us in the cab were laughing.

Saturday:

·         I went with Shatevia, Sofi, and Jess Buck to a big kid party. One of Shatevia’s work friends was having a surprise 28^th birthday party (her boyfriend was throwing it for her) at a sushi bar in Seapoint that was right on the water.

·         I had a good time talking to people, they were from all over the world (there were a couple Americans!) and were all in the same MBA program at UCT.

·         Afterwards, I went with Shatevia and her Brazilian friend, Carolina, to Fish & Chips Co. in Rondebosch. My stomach officially cannot deal with greasy food anymore, but it was so worth it. Carolina is great, she was too funny because she didn’t realize how far away Fish & Chips Co. was from home, so she was yelling at Shatevia the whole time we were walking home.

·         We watched Paranormal Activity 3, so I slept in Shatevia’s bed with her, because like hell can she make me watch that and then make me sleep alone.

Sunday:

·         The weather hates us all. It was rainy and cold and I was grumpsicles about it.

·         Everyone that went to Cape Agulhas came home!!! Sophie’s best friend came to visit as well, so I finally got to meet her (they went to Cape Agulhas too)

·         Family dinner was hosted by Meghan and Kholeka. They made fried rice, chicken and seafood, an amazing salad, and root beer floats for dessert!

Jess Burkard has also replaced Mary as my roommate, because Mary is staying at the hotel with her mom and Jess claims that her bed is so much more comfortable (plus we get internet in our room haha)