It's home time!

Despite finishing exams almost a month ago, I had to stay at university as I work here and so I haven't really felt like I'm on holiday just yet. My time in Grahamstown has finally come to an end though. I leave for Durban in an hour and so this will be my last blog post for a while. I have no internet access at home.

I'll give you some time to process the horror of that...

Right, moving on.

I'm looking forward to all the free time that comes with a holiday. Actually, who am I kidding, I say that every vac and then when it's time to come back to university I'm amazed at how fast the time went and how little free time I really had.

I plan on doing lots of reading this December, as well as some baking and some DIY crafty projects which I will post about and share once I'm done.

I don't plan on eating way too much over Christmas and gaining a figure like Santa but it will very likely happen anyway. I won't be sharing pics of that!

Here's to a happy festive season filled with happiness and food (basically the same thing) and cute Christmas ideas copied from Pinterest.

Eminem is coming to SA!

Eminem's tour to SA was announced and I forgot how to breathe for a bit while my brain processed what my eyes were reading.

I know I may sometimes come across as a tea-drinking, Mumford and Sons-listening kinda girl and I don't even like the city of Johannesburg all that much but come 1 March, I will be there, getting all emotional while he sings pretty much all the songs that got me through growing up (because life wasn't pretty and boy bands bopping were just not going to cut it).

Here's some old school Eminem to get you keen. It's still my life anthem/motivational track/mood booster.

Now listen to Taylor Swift sing it and puke. 

Christopher Poindexter

If you have not yet been introduced to the poetry of Christopher Poindexter, allow me...

I've never been the biggest fan of poetry and most of the time I think it's self-indulgent and grandiose. I do, however, like this and his ability to capture the most true things in such simple ways.

I'm not usually a soppy person, I avoid anything remotely romantic and I'm not too fond about people gushing about their other halves. For once I'm going to be completely unlike myself and say that my biggest reason to smile at the moment is James, also known as the boyfriend. After my really crappy exam on Friday, he told me he'd get something for dinner afterwards. I was expecting pizza or a Steers burger. This is what I got instead.

He'd set up a candlelit dinner in his res room (never mind the no candles in res rule) complete with red roses and wine and beef lasagne (my favourite) and cupcakes from Haricots. I was quite overwhelmed, as I really was expecting something like pizza and a chilled night. Then again, James never fails to surprise me. It was the perfect way to celebrate not only the end of my exam, but also six months of us dating. Not a long time, but definitely the most happiness that could possibly be packed in such a short time, and definitely worth celebrating.

English, we are through!

I wrote my last ever exam for English this past Friday >insert happy dance and some butt wiggling<

I love reading but writing essays on what I read in a cold gloomy hall isn't as appealing as just lying in the sun and devouring good stories for pleasure. The studying attempts didn't go so well, as you can see studying on a bed is not the best thing to do. It's just messy and makes me look productive when all I did was fall asleep beneath the piles of notes (and my rather tacky leopard print blanket).

I woke up on the day of the exam with a cold and no voice. At lunch before my exam, I fell rather spectacularly while walking to the table and sent my burger and chips flying out my plate. I don't know what was worse, not having lunch before the exam or having people laugh at me falling. I get embarrassed easily so this was mortifying. I imagine I looked a bit like this but you know, more entertaining.

Despite my gripes about studying English, I'm grateful for the exposure to books that I wouldn't normally have picked up in a book store. Here are six of my favourites over the past three years - the kind of books I'd recommend to just about anyone that don't require any knowledge of literature, just a mind that is open to good writing and a good story. Interestingly, every one of them is set in South Africa, other parts of Africa or India, all places related to my own heritage in some way.

Desertion - Abdulrazak Gurnah     The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

White Noise - Don DeLillo                 Coldsleep Lullaby - Andrew Brown         

Disgrace - JM Coetzee                    The Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner                      

Staff Appreciation

With just a month left until the season of giving, it's good to see people already getting into the spirit of things. And by that I don't mean the Christmas decorations that were up since August, but the little things that people are doing to help others.

At Rhodes, I live in a residence (mine is Allan Gray House) and together with a few other houses we form a hall, in my case Drostdy Hall. Every year, as a way of showing our appreciation for the catering and cleaning staff in our hall, we give each person a food hamper just in time for the festive season. To collect the food, we compile a list of food needed and each house competes to collect the most food.

This year, the house that collected the most food was Allan Gray, which made me really proud as it's always good to see people rally together to do something nice for someone else (and also because I'm super competitive!) 

We handed over the food to the staff and had tea and cake with them, which was delightful because it gave us a chance to serve them for a change. It made me happy to know that I live in a hall filled with so much love, generosity and kindness.

Here are just a few of the buckets of assorted food items collected, as well as some of our staff members. Thank you so much to my friend Cath who took the photos and captured the happy faces and the spirit of the day. 

Ode to bacon and boyfriends

I like bacon. I like avo. I like pizzas. I like the Rat and Parrot. I like bacovian pizzas from the Rat.

But most of all, I like getting a surprise bacovian pizza from the boyfriend with a message on the box that's cheesier than the pizza inside.

How not to dress like an Indian

This week is the last week of lectures, and also the busiest time for students frantically trying to finish and hand in all outstanding work. In the midst of all this, some friends and I got together and declared today "Indian Day" because two of us are indian. We ate curry and samoosas, burned incense and listened to music in a language we could not understand but sang along to anyway. Our interpretations of indian clothes was a little silly but hey, sometimes doing something silly is the most fun.

Hannah

Darsha

Cath

And meeee!

And if your friend jumps off a bridge, do you also jump?

3... 2... 1... bungee!

The moment those words were said and I jumped off the Bloukrans Bridge was possibly the scariest moment in my life.

I decided this year to go bungee jumping as it was one of those things people always say has to be on your bucket list. After much planning, I finally went the day after my 21st birthday. That wasn’t the best idea because the night of my birthday I went out and had a considerable amount to drink (as one does when one celebrates a birthday at Rhodes). The morning of the jump, I felt sick. No prizes for guessing why. We set off at 6am and after having no sleep at all I felt like death. I wasn’t at all scared of jumping off Bloukrans, despite the fact that it is the largest bridge in Africa and the highest commercial bridge bungee in the world. My biggest fear was that while soaring through the air I would rather spectacularly throw up (yes, you really needed to imagine that).

We arrived an hour early and were given the option to jump immediately. What the hell, I thought, we may as well. To get to the middle of the bridge to jump, we had to walk the length of half the bridge on a walkway that allowed you to see below. At this point I started feeling dizzy and had to keep telling myself to not look down. But I never listen to anything, not even myself, and so I continuously looked down as I walked and proceeded to scare the shit out of myself.

After what felt like the longest, most torturous walk, we reached the middle of the bridge where we were briefed on the jump. Out of the group of six, I was the second person to jump. Despite the huge smile on my face, I was at this point rather nervous. While being strapped to the harness I asked a million questions, all of which were rather embarrassingly caught on video. “Are you sure this is safe? Can this rope be broken? What happens if the part tied around my ankle slips off?” Of course I knew this wouldn’t be allowed if it wasn’t safe, but I had watched many videos of failed bungee jumps beforehand to get the excitement flowing and now they were coming back to me.

Finally, I was taken to the edge of the bridge to jump and I finally got a glimpse of the view down. Holy mother of beans, it was the scariest sight. I kept saying no, I can't do this, but at that point it was too late to back out.

Before I knew it they had counted down and I jumped. For the first few seconds I completely let go and screamed. With my long black hair trailing behind me and my screams echoing in the distance, I must have resembled a banshee.

I cannot describe the thrill and the complete ecstasy of that jump. I felt incredibly free. It was so good to let go and know that despite the fear and the appearance of danger I was still safe. And the best part of it all? I didn’t throw up.

"Fear is temporary. Regret is forever"

Most moments with Darsha are crazy but this has to be the best of them all.

Sunrise at the Monument

#3 of my Anti-Bucket List - check!

This month I celebrated my 21st birthday, and managed to get down to checking some things off my anti-bucket list. On the morning of my birthday we drove to the Monument to watch the sun rise and enjoyed a champagne breakfast. It was an incredibly beautiful morning and being able to spend it with some of my best friends made it all the more special. I've always wanted to enjoy something as simple as a sun rise and it really was worth waking up at 4:30am.