Sad goodbyes

So it's that time of year again; bedrooms are empty, Santa is coming and I'm heading home for the long summer vacation. This year, however, is something of a landmark for two important reasons.

Firstly, I've finished my undergrad degree :D whooooot! Assuming that I've passed all of my exams (which I'm fairly confident about, barring Property Law) I technically have my BA in Legal Theory and Philosophy. Next year I'll have to face the trials and tribulations of LLB - what fun. Seriously though, I'm looking forward to a new syllabus and to getting involved in more practical courses.

Secondly, I'm moving out of residence. I'm in two minds about this one. First I'm quite pleased, as moving into digs has many, many advantages. I won't have to deal with intervisiting rules, house comm and house meetings, noise hours or general res-type limitations. On the other hand, I really am going to miss Jammies :( I've lived here for three years; I've enjoyed res braais, I've held and been to numerous pre-drinking sessions in res (yes I know they're not allowed. Like that really stops us), and I've had a massive wardrobe thanks to the fifty-odd girls living in the same res who are always willing to lend out clothes. Meal times, although not the tastiest, were gossip sessions and occasionally a forum for more serious discussions. Tea breaks with friends during exam studying, Mrs R's awesome cakes, getting to know the new first years every year...I know many people want to move out of res as soon as possible, but I really am glad that I stayed here for the entirety of my undergrad time. Now I sit in my empty, echoing room and can't help feeling somewhat sad that I'll never sleep in that bed again, or work at this desk, or examine my outfit in that mirror on a Friday night. This period in my life is over.

On the bright side, undergrad has been one of the most epic times of my life. I've partied, I've studied, I've been on house and hall comm, I've been to endless res and university events, I've joined societies and made friends and met some incredible people. So to all of you who made my undergrad time so special, even if it was in the smallest of ways, I wish you all the best with your future careers and I hope that if our paths cross again in the future, you'll have achieved everything you ever wanted to achieve! To those of you hanging around for postgrad: I'll see you in 2013 :D

Undergrad highlights
2010

 Our first night out in 2010 as Jammies first years!

 The first night that we danced on Pirates' bar counter...

The Three Musketeers! :D (predrinking at Corey) 

2011

Celebrating St Paddy's Day 

First night I met Dave :) 

The biggest pre-drinking session I ever had in my room! There were about 15 of us at one point  :D

Taking part in the Green Fund Run for Jammies (some guys pushing a wheelbarrow beat us. It was awkward). 

2012

Getting ready to sing with the first years at RU Jamming. House comm were getting psyched :P 

Getting prettied up for the Welcome Dinner 

Rocking Gtown as ladybugs for Jon's 21st 

Caroline and Dan's joint Harry Potter party :D (I was the Golden Snitch :P ) 

Celebrating my 20th at the Wreck (admittedly, I don't remember much :P )

Diary of Dehydration

Saturday 24 November 20h00
As is usual in Grahamstown, the power unexpectedly went off. So much for studying tonight. At least I have the light from my laptop for a few minutes; I wish it would last longer than ten minutes though. Early bed time I suppose.

Sunday 25 November 07h00 
The power has returned but water in res appears to have been switched off. Luckily I have a full kettle of water so I can still make tea! There's still loads of water in the geyser (well, my hot tap is working anyway) and I have a 5l of drinking water in the fridge. No worries. In the mean time, I'll give myself a quick scrub in the sink.

15h00
Arrived at Prince Alfred for a study session with a friend and discovered that they still had water. Made use of their bathroom, seeing as I had the opportunity.

19h00
Still no water. Girls in res apparently can't be bothered to go next door to use the bathrooms so the residence is starting to smell somewhat bad. I'm heading over to my boyfriend's place to use his shower and wash my hair; apparently it's only our residence that has no water. Typical.

Monday 26 November 05h30
Woke up early to prepare for my exam today and found that - surprise surprise - there is still no water. Being the resourceful cookie that I am, I boiled my kettle and once again had a quick wash in my sink. Dying to pee, but the toilet on my floor appears to be filled almost to the brim with used toilet paper. This is becoming drastic.

08h00
Arrived at Eden Grove for my exam and found that they still had water. I could finally use the toilet. THANK THE POPE.

12h30
17 hours without water. This plague of water-less-ness appears to have spread to several other residences as well as half the library bathrooms (seriously, why only half?) and a few digs. Boyfriend no longer has water so I can't shower there. I ma becoming concerned. And smelly.

13h00 UPDATE!
I just tried my tap!
...still no water. Sigh.

It's never just one drink...

DON'T BELIEVE THEM! No matter what people may tell you, it is never just one drink. It is not possible.

As it's exams, last night was supposed to be a chilled night of pool and maybe one or two ciders. I should have suspected something when the friend with whom I was going to play pool suggested finishing off her bottle of vodka before we left. To be fair, there wasn't much left and I figured hey, why not. Once we reached Pirates, we decided to take a shot each to prep us for the game. Then we bought cane and mix because it was on special, and students never turn down specials!

Once we'd been kicked off the pool tables, we were at a loss of what to do. Then someone (regrettably it may have been me) suggested that we go to Monument and have a few drinks up there. One friend wisely pointed out that our night could only go downhill from there (pun totally intended), but we ignored him in the interest of fun. Within a few minutes - and after a brief trip to Pick n Pay - we were comfortably ensconced on a wall at Monument, surrounded by far too much alcohol.

By 1am we'd had enough of playing Never Have I Ever (plus the alcohol was finished) so we headed down to the Rat. At this point I was far tipsier than I'd intended to be, possibly even bordering on drunk. However the Rat dance floor was far too empty for our level of drunkenness so we  made a move towards Friars. This mission was interrupted by some drunken DMCs. Mine was something to do with the uselessness of a wing-woman when a guy is looking to hook up. I don't remember most of it. :P We finally made it to the holy ground of Friars and bobbed around on the packed dance floor for a while, bumping into people we knew and making new friends. Finally we grew sober and thus sick of being elbowed in the head all the time (actually I might be the only one short enough to have to deal with that) and so we headed home. BUT the night was not yet done! We ended up having more DMCs outside res (as one does) until finally hitting the sack at 3:30am.

There really is no point to this post other than 1) to point out that I had a fantastic evening and 2) to remind people that telling yourself "I'll just have one drink" is a lie. :P

The 10 Commandments of Exams

1. Thou shalt wear only pyjamas, tracksuit pants and hoodies. Thou shalt not wear make up nor do thine hair.

2. Thou shalt stare blankly at thine notes for 10 minutes, then take a hour-long study break.

3. Thou shalt drink far too much coffee/tea/Red Bull, get high on caffeine, and pee all the time.

4. Thou shalt complain endlessly on Facebook about the impending exams and how little studying you are doing.

5. Thou shalt insist that thine study break ends at 10:30, but only return to work at 11:00.

6. Thou shalt not understand any of thine notes written during the year, and shall vow to improve thine handwriting next year.

7. Thou shalt regret all those readings that thou did not do.

8. Thou shalt be distracted by the smallest things, including the Internet, plucking thine eyebrows, painting thine nails and watching that fascinating bug on the windowsill (side note: I named him Harry).

9. Thou shalt walk out of the exam venue shaking thine head and proclaiming that thou is bound to fail.

10. Thou shalt be highly surprised when thou actually passes the exam.

The Student (Exam song)

My exam songs are usually only posted later in the exam period, but I was feeling the procrastination vibes today. This one is based on The Gambler by Kenny Rogers :)


On a warm summer's eve
In a library filled with people
I met up with a student;
We were both too tired to sleep

So we took turns in staring
At our notes in tired silence
Til boredom overtook us
And he began to speak

He said, "Dude, I've passed exams
By skipping all my classes
And stealing notes from classmates
Whene'er they turned away

So if you don't mind me saying
I can see you're sick of working.
If you let me read your Ling notes,
I can help you pass today."

So I handed him my notebook
And let him take a long look
Then he took my pencil
And asked me for some lead.

And the night got deathly quiet
And his face lost all expression
Said, "If you're going to study those notes,
Then boy, you'll soon be dead.

(Chorus)


Don't need to know what you're needing
Or what you're reading,
Just know who to ask for notes,
Know who is bright.

You never start your reading
The night before you're writing
There is time to finish tomorrow;
Just go and sleep tonight."

So when he'd finished speaking
He handed back my Ling notes,
Gave back my pencil
And headed off to bed

And somewhere in the darkness
I gave up on my reading
But that final bit of advice
Bounced around my head

(Chorus)



This picture just seemed appropriate. :P

An Exam Prayer

I wish I could take credit for this, but unfortunately I simply came across it on the Interwebz. I have no idea who the author is. My own traditional exam song will follow in the coming weeks; for now, here's a prayer for exams!

As I sit me down to study
I pray to God I won't go nutty
If I should fail to learn this junk
I pray to God I will not flunk

...

Now I lay me down to rest
And pray I'll pass tomorrow's test
If I die before I wake
That's one less test I'll have to take!

The end approaches

I can't believe that I'm seriously coming to the end of my undergrad degree. Where has the time gone?? It seems like only yesterday that I was standing nervously in the registration line with my sister, staring at all these strange new people and buildings with huge, terrified eyes...and now it's three years later and I'm about to (hopefully!) graduate with my very first degree.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going anywhere; I'll still be sticking around for another two years for my postgrad degree (an LLB, for those of you who may be interested). But it won't be the same :( I'm moving out of res and into a house with two friends, I'll no longer be on house comm or hall comm, and I'll be spending much more time working and much less time partying. It's a bit of a depressing prospect. I'm going to be one of those 'old' students in the Rat, sipping my Coke and complaining about the debaucherous first years and heading home to get an early night as soon as the clock strikes 11. I'm even considering getting a cat (yes, seriously). I've had my last big night out for the year (and admittedly, I don't remember most of it) and now I have to settle down, get serious, and stick my nose in my textbooks for the next month. Fun fun fun. Not.

But despite all of this rather depressing ageing crap, I have realised that the next couple of years will be bringing not only new challenges but also new and exciting experiences (yes I'm starting to sound like a self-help book :P ). I'm going to be a friggen' postgrad! Not a newbie undergrad fighting for her first degree, but one of the self-satisfied veterans swanning around campus - no offence to my postgrad readers. :P I'll be allowed into the postgrad commons, I won't feel awkward and intimidated in the Law Library, lecturers will take me seriously...the list of privileges goes on. Sure the work might be more intense, but at least it'll be aimed towards my future career rather than vague and academic. The party-fuelled, breakfast-gossip, random-hook-up-every-Friday, no-work period of my varsity life might be slipping away, but God knows I've made the most of almost every moment I've had! Undergrad has been an epic ride but it's almost time to move on to, perhaps not greener pastures, but certainly new pastures.

And fear not, this blog shall continue! Ever entertaining, documenting the fascinating trials and tribulations of the Rhodent life, this blog has a good few years left in it yet! And if I don't get to post again before then, best of luck to every Rhodent writing exams - it's time to kick ass. :)

My Life (according to Facebook)

As you all no doubt know, Facebook has this handy little side bar which displays ads according to information that it picks up on your profile. Recently I've found that some of these ads are endlessly entertaining, while others are somewhat disturbing. In the interest of endless amusement (and procrastination) I refreshed my Facebook newsfeed three times and copied down the ads that it displayed. And now here I present to you those groups of ads, and what Facebook is apparently telling me about my life.
(Please note: my relationship status is not currently listed on Facebook).

Attempt 1:

Urban Zone Wedges

Durex

The Masked Trader investments

Zoosk: Meet singles on Facebook!
So according to this one, I'm a typical single young woman who is interested in shoes, safe sex, and making money. Nothing too worrying about that.

Attempt 2:

Dress to Impress

Lifestyle pads

#1 Dating App on Facebook

Oreo McFlurry

Facebook appears to be concerned about my relationship status. I am being given hints on how to dress properly and how to meet 'other singles'. Apparently all that safe sex (or, being single, lack of it) means that I need a sanitary pad reminder too. Hooray, at least I'm not pregnant. And if I get too PMS-y or sad about my single life, at least I can eat ice-cream.

Attempt 3:

Save up to 70% on dresses!

Singles on Facebook

Behandel jou depressie

My sex life has now become non-existent. Facebook has given up on reminding me to dress well, and instead insisting that I save money by buying cheap clothes. However, the concern over my singledom remains at an all-time high. And now I can go to depression therapy if my lack of a partner becomes too much for me to handle.

In response to these ads, I have written a letter to Facebook.

Dear Facebook,

Thank you for your concern regarding my life. Although I appreciate your attempts to shoehorn me into a relationship, I should probably inform you that my lack of Facebook relationship status does not mean that I am a sad singleton who is ready to turn to online dating. Quite the contrary, in fact. On that note, the Durex ads were greatly appreciated too; I'm glad you're concerned about preventing STDs and unwanted pregnancy. However, I would rather you didn't speculate about what I may or may not be doing with my female parts, thus please stop sending me ads about condoms and sanitary pads. On the clothing note, I am a broke student and do not have the funds for an online shopping spree, so the clothing and shoe ads are also unnecessary.

Thank you again for your concern.
Tayla

PS: There is no McDonalds in Grahamstown so I cannot get a McFlurry, despite the fact that I am now craving one. Thanks a lot, jerk.

The perilous "Friendzone"

The concept of a 'friendzone' has always confused me. Perhaps I'm liberal like this, but I seem to have met most of my male varsity friends through random Friars hook-ups, either with myself or with one of my res friends. To clarify my own understanding, the 'friendzone' is when a person makes friends with someone of the opposite sex, with the intention of never being more than friends with them. Relationships/hook-ups are considered to be completely out of the question. For this reason, I do not believe that the friendzone really exists.

Honestly, think about it. Imagine you (I'm taking it from a girl's point of view here) make friends with some random guy. You have no romantic interest in him whatsoever. During your friendship you never really consider being anything more than friends. You date other guys. He dates other girls. And then one day, unexpectedly, you look at him and think Huh. He's kinda cute. Does that really seem totally implausible? I don't think so. And I think that every person has, at some point or another (usually when newly single), looked at their opposite-sex friends and wondered what it would be like to hook up with them.

The problem is that many guys seem to lose interest in girls once they realise that they're not going to hook up. Apologies for the generalisation, but I'm speaking from my own experience. At the beginning of last year I had a brief romance with a guy who we shall name X. Later, around June, another new friend we shall name Y asked if he could take me out for coffee. When I entered into a relationship in September, both X and Y suddenly disappeared. I received no more Facebook messages and they seemed totally uninterested in conversation when I bumped into them in person. I shrugged it off, figuring that maybe they just had other things going on. Fast-forward 11 months to where I happened to be single over Trivar. First, I bumped into X. To my surprise he told me he had heard what happened and was sorry about it, and then struck up a long, involved conversation. Whaaaaat? Then I saw Y, who promptly hugged me and said that we should catch up sometime. Two boys, who had previously shown absolutely no interest in being friends, now suddenly seemed friendly again when I was single. Just to be clear, no I did not hook up with either of them.

What this seems to say is that guys are so unbelievably afraid of the friendzone that they'll go to extreme lengths to avoid it; even going so far as to stop being friends with a girl as soon as she's in a relationship. Now I have several theories as to why this may be so...
1) The guy only wanted to hook up with her and lost interest once that opportunity disappeared.
2) The guy was jealous of her boyfriend and didn't want to see her with him.
3) The guy felt guilty and didn't want her boyfriend to dislike him because he was always hanging around this girl.
4) The guy thought she wouldn't be interested in being friends.

In all seriousness, what is wrong with the friendzone? If you like him/her but can't be with them for whatever reason, why not just be friends? It's really not that bad, and if you genuinely get along with the person then it seems like a better option than just never speaking to them again. I've been friendzoned by several guys who I was once keen on, and now I wouldn't dream of hooking up with them. And who knows, maybe if - at some point in the distant future - one of those guys is single and I'm single, a drunken evening may lead to a fantastic relationship. Being in the friendzone is not a bad thing, gentlemen (and ladies). So stop with all these lame "OMG that poor guy has been friendzoned!" posts, because he probably has more of a chance with that girl than you ever will.

Lessons learnt through boxing

As house head student of my res, I've had the pleasant privilege of not having to box up during the holidays (for the non-Rhodents, not having to pack up my room). However, due to carpet cleaning this past holiday, I was forced to lug all my junk into the box rooms. After a long unpacking session this evening, I have learnt several things...

1) I have far too much crap. 

Seriously. In first year I could fit all my many belongings into two boxes, a sports bag and a laundry basket. Now it takes six boxes at least. Is this just girls? Or do guys have this much random junk too? Not only did it take me close on three hours to unpack, BUT it feels like I can't actually throw any of this away. Am I hoarder...?

2) Unpacking is dangerous to one's health

Being the agile ninja that I am, I decided to clamber up onto my desk to pin up my pictures. Then I stepped nimbly off the desk onto my chair to admire my handiwork. The problem? The chair turned out to be about 6cm to the left of where I expected it to be. The result? I bailed backwards off the desk, yanking the chair down with me, and am now limping.

However, I'm not alone in packing-related injuries. A friend just told me that she managed to drag her wheeled bag over her toes and is also presumably limping slightly. The guy who gallantly helped me carry my boxes from the box room managed to scrape his knee when putting one of the heavier boxes down. Summary? Boxing is dangerous.

3) Keep a guy around.

They're loud and testosterone-y, but they're handy to have around when it comes to getting your shit out of the box rooms. Especially when your boxes are right at the bottom of the pile, and someone has placed massive bags filled with books on top of them.

4) Move into digs.

No unpacking or re-packing necessary; once you're in, you're in until you leave. Boxing is the one part of res I'm really NOT going to miss.

And so, three gruelling hours later, my room once more looks like my room with its various knick knacks and photos, and not like a seedy motel room with suspiciously stained duvet covers (there was a rather odd, sticky-looking mark on the res duvet cover when I took it off the bed. I chose not to examine it more closely). Perhaps I have a lot of unnecessary crap, but at least once it's all back in its proper place I begin to feel like I'm finally home :)

Hey look, a deadline!

"I like deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they fly past."
 - Douglas Adams

It's that time of the semester again: Hell Week. Only for me, Hell Week appears to be extended over several weeks. Which is not as relaxing as it sounds.
For the non-Rhodents out there, Hell Week is the one week a semester when everything is due. No one is entirely sure why this happens, but for some reason lecturers seem to ensure that every assignment, test and prac write-up is due in at exactly the same time. My lecturers, however, appear to be slightly more sadistic than that. You see, every semester my work basically includes: two philosophy essays, three law essays and three law tests. This is not a bad workload for a six month period. The catch is that they decide to make the due dates within a few days of one another. Last Friday I had a test. Tomorrow I have another one. I have an assignment due this Friday, a test on the first Friday of next term and another essay due on the following Friday. Basically, I have work due or tests (each of which count about 15% of my semester marks) EVERY FRIGGEN WEEK for the next four weeks. Fan-bloody-tastic.

But seriously, this seems to be far too much of a coincidence. How is it that every single student seems to experience a Hell Week at some point during the semester? Is that just how varsity is? Is it mere coincidence? Poor timing? Or do the heads of different departments get together once a year in the dead of night and discuss how exactly they're going to arrange Hell Week? I can just picture it: black cloaks, furtive glances, whispers of "If we set the economics test for 14 April, then we can make the law assignment due on the 16th...", child-like giggles as they imagine the devastated looks on the students faces...
What cruel, cruel people.

So here's a brief shout-out to everyone currently experiencing/ on the way to experiencing Hell Week. I wish you all the best, and just keep reminding yourself that nothing lasts forever :)

Sunday night jams

"Boom boom boom boom, I want you in my room! Let's spend the night together, from now until forever!"

I am ashamed to admit that I'm seriously sitting here listening to the Venga Boys. And not only listening to it (voluntarily I might add) but cheerfully bobbing my head along to it while I read my contract law textbook. I may even be wiggling in my seat a little.

You see, I discovered a while ago that Sunday nights tend to be the most depressing night of every week. You KNOW that you're going to have to get up early the next day, you know you have work due, and more than anything you know that you have a week of work ahead of you. While I understand why Garfield didn't like Mondays, I still reckon Sunday nights are worse. It's 20:23, I have a test AND an assignment due in the coming week, and the awesome weekend that is over. In fact, it's quite well summed up by Douglas Adams in the following quote:

“In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul.”

Sundays, in a word, suck. But I have come up with an amazing method to rid oneself of Sunday night blues and get vaguely comfortable with the week ahead, if not exactly amped. My secret? Lame, happy over-the-top music.
Seriously.
Try it.
My plan originally started when I was thinking about having to get up early in the morning. I vaguely recalled a Venga Boys song about "another day of stress and sorrow" and decided to download it to complement my depro Sunday night mood. Now I'm happily singing along rather loudly to Uncle John from Jamaica. My mood has been lifted and I feel less angsty about the week ahead! And so before I depart to continue with my law studying (and so that I have an excuse to jam alone to the Venga boys for a few more minutes) I present to you:

The Ultimate Sunday Night Blues Music List

• Uncle John from Jamaica - Venga Boys
• Shalalalala - Venga Boys
• Boom boom boom boom - Venga Boys
• Well, anything by the Venga Boys to be honest.
• Life is a Highway - Rascal Flats
• Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
• We Go Together - Grease
• The Bird and the Worm - Owl City
• Walking on sunshine - Aly and AJ
• The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars
• Bad Moon Rising - CCR
• It's Tough to be a God - Elton John (yes it's a Disney song. Don't judge :P )
• All Summer Long - Kid Rock
• I Just Had Sex - Lonely Island ("So this one's dedicated to them girls that let us flop around on top of them...")
• Thriller  -Michael Jackson (and yes you have to dance along)
• Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond

So there you have my happy-clappy Sunday night music. Yes it's lame. Yes it's horrifically cheerful and weird and strange. But if you're not smiling after listening to this bubblegum-pop list, then I'm afraid there's no hope for you. And if you think this is bad, I have a confession to make:

I listen to Nickelback. AND I LIKE THEM. 

Suddenly this list isn't looking so bad, is it? :P

Sleep when you're dead

I can't remember the last time I went to bed at a reasonable hour. Seriously. It's 10:22 am and I'm sitting in front of my pc feeling like an absolute zombie. The earliest I've been to bed in the last two weeks is probably 11:30pm. And now I know that a lot of you are rolling your eyes and going "Please, that's early!" but bear in mind that I'm an 8-hours-a-night kind of girl, and I get up super early because I am, unfortunately, a morning person.

The reasons for this are widely varied. Relationship issues kept me up in the first week, followed by the travesties of Trivar (try saying that three times fast :P ). Then I had a surprisingly social week, which meant late evening tea and movie visits. And then this weekend I've been to bed at 1:30 am both nights so far. The catch? I've been awake by 7:30 am latest every single morning. And the lack of bed-hours is starting to pile up.

I was once told that about the Three S's. These are Sleep, Socialise and Study, and supposedly a university student can only ever have two of the three. At the moment I seem slightly unbalanced in that my sleep schedule has gone completely awry while my socialising (and partly my studying) has flourished. The result? I'm a highly social, well-prepared for lectures, zombie. At this very moment the screen in front of me is going slightly blurry. Why do I not go back to bed? Well, first I have a philosophy reading and summary for tomorrow. This afternoon I may have company coming over. Tonight I have a res movie evening to attend. At what point am I meant to take a much-needed nap?? Sob. I need bed.

The teetotal challenge

We have a fantastic Dean of Students, we really do. I know people are always giving her hassles and ripping her off, but in the end at least she does try to reach us on "our level". She may be slightly off-centre with regards to what "our level" is, but at least she does try.

Except with the DoS Challenge (I think it might now be called the Live Smart Challenge?). For the non-Rhodents out there, the DoS Challenge is where each hall on campus is challenged to produce some form of alcohol-free event for the rest of campus. Naturally it's a competition and last year Courtenay-Latimer (my hall) managed to scoop second or third prize with our fashion show. (This confused me because the turn out was dismal and the show itself a total flop, but hey, I won't argue with the judges). Some events include the environmental fashion show, the high on life exhibition (at least, I think that's part of the DoS Challenge) and the talent show. So far, all of them have been relatively successful.

However, I have two major problems with this concept.
First, the obvious 'no alcohol' idea. Sure I understand that they're trying to make sure first years don't start believing that they have to be drunk in order to have a good time. We all know this. I have one friend who never touched alcohol in first year and was still the last one jamming on Friars dance floor at 4am every Saturday morning. But I have a problem with the NO alcohol part. Shouldn't we be taught moderation instead of abstinence? There's nothing wrong with drinking, it's when you start reaching that falling-over-and-slurring-every-word phase every Friday night that it becomes a problem. What's wrong with having a beer or a glass of wine while watching a fashion show? Rather than being taught that drinking is wrong, maybe we should be taught that drinking is OK when we do it because we like the taste rather than because we want to get drunk.

Secondly, what's with the focus on drinking anyway? I know that this university has apparently acquired a reputation for drunk and disorderly behaviour, but surely shoving this kind of thing down our throats isn't going to help? Example: in one episode of South Park, the kids in the town get involved in a new Pokemon-like fad. To get them out of it, the parents start agreeing that this new fad is "cool", because nothing puts kids off something faster than their parents saying it's cool. In the same way, the fact that the Dean of Students is pushing the idea that it's "cool" not to drink is most likely encouraging more students to drink because hey, how could the Dean of Students be cool? The only way to make it worse would be if the SRC also started anti-drinking campaigns. Then the whole of Rhodes would be dead of alcohol poisoning within a weekend.

I won't deny that I had great fun taking part in and helping to organise my hall's DoS Challenge event this year, but I do think that the concept itself could use a little reworking. Abstinence is ridiculous; we're meant to be growing up and becoming responsible adults. Teach us moderation rather than implying that we're far too immature to handle things like drinking. But at the same time...remember we're young. And this is our last chance to act like immature idiots before we take on the working world. So rather than constantly telling us that we're wrong, let us learn from our mistakes. Because nothing will put a student off drinking faster than a truly crappy night out and a worse hangover. Believe me.

It was THIS big!

"I prefer German sausages to viennas. Quality over quantity!"
"That's right, bite it!"
"It was too big to swallow. Then it got stuck in my throat and it tasted really bad."
"You learn to swallow them more easily with time."

Yes, those sound exceptionally dodgy. Are they lines in a bad Mills and Boon novel? Nope, they're conversations that came up in the dining hall, and they're all entirely innocent. We really were talking about sausages. One friend was biting a banana. Another friend was complaining about how antibiotic tablets are too big and hard to swallow. And yet somehow, these conversations became THAT much more entertaining when we started adding dodgy innuendos to them.

When I was in highschool I had a friend who insisted that "anything can sound sexual if you say it in the right voice". Apparently that's especially true in the dining hall. One would think that a girls' dining hall would be more subdued than a mixed or all-boys hall, but I've discovered that this is not so. Jokes about the "moistness" of malva pudding, big bananas, learning to swallow properly in case you choke, sausages that squirt cheese when you bite them, and so on, have unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) become usual topics of conversation at lunch and supper. And they usually start out entirely innocently! Yesterday was particularly hilarious, when the above antibiotic scenario came up. It went something like this:

Friend 1: "I hate taking antibiotics."
Friend 2: "Why?"
Friend 1: "They're too big! I can't swallow properly. Yesterday I tried and it got stuck in my throat. And it tasted really bad!"
(cue friend 2 casting a sideways glance at me and both of us cracking up)
Friend 1: "What? It's true!"

The funny part? It went straight over her head, and thus took her ages to actually realise why we were laughing (she was only forgiven for it because she's a first year). And now I have to ask myself the question: do I have exceptionally dirty-minded friends? Are ALL girls that bad? Or - and this is the part that scares me - am I the one who made them that way? :P

Vitamin C and Panado

I have the plague, I'm sure of it. At first I suspected that it was a cold, as my throat was sore and my nose stuffy. Then I thought that maybe it had turned into a chest infection, because I can't go three minutes without coughing and had to leave a philosophy seminar after a particularly chesty attack. Now, after the travesties of Trivar, I do believe it's morphed into the Black Death.

For some inexplicable reason, the San nurse doesn't believe me.

I was tempted to question her judgement. When I arrived at the San yesterday my throat was dry and scratchy, my head felt like cotton wool and I was coughing up phlegm like some kind of horrible mucous factory (excuse the gory descriptions but the truth must be told!). She poked her instruments in my ears and in my mouth (hahahahahahaha that sounds dodgy) and then announced that I was fine. And, since it's the San, she sent me away with the usual San prescription: Vitamin C and Panado.

Come on, woman! I'm dying here! YOUR VITAMIN C WILL NOT SAVE ME! Besides, I take vitamin C most days anyway. But it seems to be a firm San belief that anything can be cured with vitamin C and Panado. Headache? Vitamin C and Panado. Bronchitis? Vitamin C and Panado. Broken neck? Vitamin C and Panado. Head fallen off? Vitamin C and Panado. And maybe some cough syrup.

To be honest, I've doubted the abilities of the San ever since I went there with a throat infection last year. I'd tossed and turned all night with a fever, and woken up the next morning with horribly swollen glands in my neck. Tired and in pain, I trusted in the nurse on duty to make me OK again. She felt around my throat, and promptly announced that my tonsils were swollen. Gee, really? That's funny, I'm pretty sure I had them removed 15 YEARS AGO. It takes great skill to find tonsils that no longer exist. Well done, San nurse. We're all very proud.
Now that I've finished my grumpy post, I'm going to go and take my vitamin C. Grumble grumble grumble grumble grumble grumble...

The Rhodents are on the piss again...

Trivar. 'Nuf said.

So this past weekend I got to experience the wonders of Trivar in Grahamstown, and I realised that I have lived an incredibly sheltered life up until now. I always thought that the past few years at Rhodes had taught me all there was to know about student life, drinking, partying, and the general stupid shit that we get up to. But this year's Trivar has taught me some epic life lessons.

1) Always look both ways before crossing the road.
Some rather drunk girl attempted to cross the road in front of the Rat on Friday night and was hit by a car. Miraculously (or so the rumours go) she managed to get up and 'walk it off'. I do find it hard to believe as there was an ambulance there when we passed, but there haven't been any reports on Student Zone about it so presumably Rhodents are just tough cookies. Not even getting run over can ruin the night!

2) If you're going to go down, make it worth remembering.
As we were passing the Rat on Friday night (and debating over why there was an ambulance and police cars around) we witnessed what was either the single most epic OR the single stupidest thing I've seen in my life. A police officer was standing next to a police van when, out of nowhere, some drunk idiot/genius tackles him. Of course the aforementioned idiot/genius was taken down and thrust into the van in an undignified heap, but it was pretty entertaining to watch.

3) Don't streak if you have two left feet.
Seriously. If you're going to streak at a sports match, like a certain young man did at the hockey, do it carefully. If you don't, you're likely to trip, land flat on your face, and be "generously" tasered by security. Don't say I didn't warn you.

4) A BP run does not signal the end of the night
At around 2am on Sunday morning we were hungry, so we hit BP for chips. By 3am we were back in the Rat. It's the first time I've done a BP run as part of the evening's celebrations instead of as a last desperate attempt to ward off a hangover before staggering home. First time for everything.

5) Don't trust celebrities.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151113920564281 Seriously. Wtf, Roger Goode? :P

6) Be careful how you day-mare.
Sure, everyone loves having the opportunity to get drunk during daylight hours and shout things at the sports refs. But if you're passed out by 7pm, it's a fail. I don't care how early you started drinking; it's a fail.

7) If you're short, avoid the dancefloor unless you're very, VERY drunk.
I'm like 5"1, which puts my head on level with everyone else's armpits. And when you're on Friars dancefloor at 1am and the DJ yells "Everyone put your hands in the air!" it becomes very unpleasant very quickly.

8) A post-Trivar wind-down session is essential.
After a hectic weekend of drinking, jamming and barely sleeping, just chilling on the grass and talking about shit is a really really good way to end off the weekend. Even if I was promised tea AND NEVER GOT IT (coughGrahamcough) :P

9) Photos
Be prepared to untag. Or possibly kill the friend who put them up. Either way. Especially if there are awkward photos of you drunkenly dancing to the Cha Cha Slide in a friend's kitchen. (On that note, thank you to Caroline for making me toast in a drunken, hungry moment. Much appreciated :D )

Overall, my last undergrad Trivar was definitely one to be remembered :) shout out to all the people who made it so unbelievably epic! And even though we may be the ballies at Trivar next year, we shall STILL show the first years how to party properly :P
SEND YOUR KIDS TO RHODES!

I've always wanted to be a cult leader

For those of you who don't know me that well, I was brought up in a Christian family as a Roman Catholic. I attended church (fairly infrequently I'll admit), did my First Confession and First Communion, knew the Creed off by heart (the old one anyway) and sang along cheerfully to the hymns. Once I hit highschool I began to question religion, and by the time I started studying Philosophy at varsity I considered myself to be an agnostic theist. This means that I believe in a god, but do not believe that there is enough evidence to either prove OR disprove His/Her existence. However, I never gave up my search for spirituality and I researched Hinduism, Buddhism, the Jewish faith and many others. And then tonight, while staring at a poster on my wall, I was struck by inspiration. I have decided to create my own religion. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you - for the very first time - The Church of Seuss.

Unlike many other churches, the Church of Seuss does not require its members to worship a particular god or goddess. Rather, like the Buddhists, it looks to learn a meaningful way of life from its spiritual teacher: the incredibly philosophical author Dr Seuss. You thought he was just a children's author?? Think again! There is so so so so so much that we can learn from this man. Examples include:

• Caring for the environment (The Lorax)
• Not being afraid to try new things (Green Eggs and Ham)
• That any mess, no matter how big, can be fixed with a little hard work (The Cat in the Hat)
• A little fun never hurt anyone (also The Cat in the Hat)
• Even the smallest person can make a difference (Horton Hears a Who)
• Being true to your word is important (also Horton Hears a Who)

I could go on for ages, but I shall move on. Our handbook shall be Oh the Places You'll Go, as this is a massively inspiring piece of literature. Extracts from its thought-provoking pages include gems such as: 

"Be sure where you step/ Step with care and great tact/ And remember that life's/ A Great Balancing Act"

"You have brains in your head/ And feet in your shoes/ You can steer yourself any direction you choose!"

"Will you succeed?/ Yes you will indeed!/ Ninety eight and three-quarter percent guaranteed!"

Seriously, who wouldn't want to be part of such a cheerful, positive and inspiring religion? We shall have religious days and practices, of course, like any good religion. Members will be expected to read and meditate on lines from Dr Seuss books every Sunday evening before the week begins. 2 March (the birthday of our great teacher) will be a religious holiday, and members will have to put their hair in odd hairstyles and wear red-and-white striped top hats. Twice a week the church will come together to eat green eggs and ham (dyed, of course) and discuss their learnings. It is, in a sense, a self-study church where members are invited to share their interpretations of any and all accepted texts (i.e. any Dr Seuss book). Members are free to pray to Dr Seuss if they so wish, although I really don't see the point in that.

Now that I've typed it all out and read over it, it really does seem like the best way forward. Seriously, what's more inspiring than your holy book having pictures of strange creatures with odd hairstyles in it? And so, with this post, I officially open the Church of Seuss. Any potential Seussians are welcome. :)

PS: I just finished exams today so this might be all my stress coming out in a bout of crazy-start-my-own-religion-slash-cult. Just a warning. :P

Lack of inspiration

When I started this blog, I didn't think I'd be able to keep it up for this long. Usually I lose interest in such things within a matter of weeks. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have accounts scattered across the Internet where I've signed up to websites and promptly forgotten about them (including one personal blog from highschool that is so unbelievably cringey I would delete it in a second. If I could find the friggen' thing.)

But it has finally reached that time where I'm running out of things to post about. At first I thought that my creativity was dying, or that I just had intense writer's block. But instead, I think I've simply become too jaded as a Rhodes student; I've taken pretty much all this varsity can throw at me. I've seen punch drunk out of condoms, people passed out in random places, dogs in lecture theatres and people wandering the streets at all hours of the night. I've hooked up with random guys, fallen off tables and down stairs, and had conversations in the dining hall about resurrecting flies and how male cats have barbs on their penises (seriously, it's true. Google it). I've experienced brunch, Trivar, Oxbraai and multiple exams. I've learned that friends can fall out over a guy who wears tiny rugby shorts, and that going out in high heels is never a good idea.

So now I am in third year and no longer surprised by 3am fire drills, gay dogs and the horrors of braised steak. Which is somewhat depressing :( ideas, anyone?

The art of camera-dodging

We all have that one friend who takes his/her camera EVERYWHERE. Going to a party? Let's take photos! Having predrinks? Here's the camera! Having a chilled movie night? OMG SMILE!

While it's always nice to have photographic memories from one's nights out, I think we should ban all cameras after 11 o' clock. Why? Because at that point we are all drunk and looking like total retards. Hair becomes messy, make-up goes everywhere, underwear is frequently on show and expressions are of the droopy-eye, double-chin, zombie-impersonation variety. And were it not for Facebook, I would not have to insist on this rule. Back in the day (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and MySpace was popular) it was relatively safe to have friends take horrendous photos of you because they would travel no further than a folder on that friend's computer, probably labelled "The night we knocked over a lamp post" or "The night Fred puked on Friars' dance floor". Now these folders are uploaded onto Facebook and worse: we're actually tagged in them. Because hey, I really want my mom to see photos of me half passed out on my birthday. She'd be delighted.

Thankfully most of my friends are awesome enough to not upload the really really bad photos (Thank you Cayley!) However, while flicking through photos on Facebook last night, I had a horrifying revelation. Usually when a bad photo of me appears on Facebook, I think along the lines of "Wow I must've been drunk!", "Gee she's a bad photographer" or even "I am SO not photogenic". Then last night, for the first time, it occurred to me...maybe they're not bad photos. Maybe I have a bad mirror and I really am just that unattractive :O it was a sobering thought.

But then I decided to make myself feel better and Facebook-stalked a few people who I know to be very attractive in real life, and horribly un-photogenic in Facebook photos. It provided a much-needed ego-boost. So for those of you who are like me and get a shudder of foreboding when you see "[Insert name here] has uploaded 16 photos of you!", here's a tip: you're not ugly. Blame the camera. :P

(For the record, this does not apply to Journ students. They have an actual need to take photos, thus they are forgiven. Plus they usually take good ones).

Wanted: soulmate

"Wanted: snuggle buddy to watch movies with. Romantic interest not necessary. Body warmth and snuggling ability mandatory. Arriving with chocolate and popcorn will earn you bonus points."


This is a Gtalk status I used to post every now and then when I was single and the weather got cold. It popped into my mind while I was browsing Tumblr this evening (and trying to avoid studying for law). So many girls seem obsessed with finding their "one true love", falling in love, meeting the perfect guy, looking for love, relationships, boyfriends, and so on. While I do realise that the majority of Tumblr users are emo, boy-obsessed, hormone-ridden teenagers, it did set me thinking. So many girls between the ages of 13 and late twenties appear to have their main goal in life solely focused on finding the "perfect man/boy" (depending on age and personal preference). It's as if - as one friend recently put it - we're afraid of being alone. Or more, being single.

I know that this won't apply to every girl (and the strong/ feminist/ anti-relationship ones among you are no doubt shaking your fists at me :P ) but let's be honest: having someone to snuggle with on a cold and rainy night is awesome. And while snuggling close friends is an alternative, it's never quite as comfortable or cosy. And snuggling one's teddy is nowhere near as fun (speaking from past experiments :P).

There's a saying that claims if you chase happiness it'll elude you, but if you leave it alone it'll come to you when you least expect it. I believe the same thing about relationships. After my ex and I broke up I was determined to find someone else to snuggle on rainy nights. I went out, partied hard, met guys, hooked up. Every now and then I'd meet a guy and think "Hey, maybe he's the one!" And then the spark died, or he lost interest, or I simply didn't see him again. Then what I thought had the potential to be a great romance (or a romance, anyway) ended rather abruptly just before midyear exams, and I decided to give up. I felt offended; I hadn't even been entirely sure whether I was into this guy and he ditched me! In a fit of frustration I typed a message to a close friend, complaining that the now-ex-romantic-interest had rejected me when I wasn't even into him, and that I was giving up on relationships entirely. I blasted Avril Lavigne's "What the Hell" and sang along: "All I want is to mess around, and I don't really care about if you love me, if you hate me..."
I had decided that relationships weren't worth the effort.

Fast-forward through the vac to the first Saturday night of third term. I hit Friars with friends as usual; we got drunk, we met some guys that we knew, we jammed on the dancefloor. As I was getting into the song, I looked up and saw a cute blond guy standing opposite me. He caught my eye and smiled. I had no idea who he was but hey, I'd never hooked up with a complete random before and he was cute. We ended up dancing next to each other, and somehow hooked up. We chatted. Thunda Guy took a photo of us. He walked me home and did a drunken imitation of Superman halfway up the road. I refused to have naps with him. The next day, he invited me on Facebook.
Eight months later, we're still dating :)

I don't want to say any lame cliches like "It was Fate" or "God works in mysterious ways" because I don't really believe in that kind of thing. But maybe a relationship (or a boy who wants one, anyway) is like happiness, and comes to you just when you've given up on it. Or maybe the goddess of love is just sadistic and wanted to see how I would react to a cute, slightly odd boy hitting on me when I'd sworn off relationships for the foreseeable future.
Well played, Aphrodite. I'm impressed. :P

Morning-after woes

Punch all over the living room floor. Vomit on an armchair. A bra hanging on the back of a chair. A drunk Asian guy passed out at the front door. The distant sounds of students throwing up in bathrooms. It sounds like the opening scene to a really bad spoof of The Hangover.
Welcome to Saturday morning.

On Friday night I was invited to celebrate a friend's birthday at my boyfriend's digs. We were told there would be punch, but advised to bring our own drinks in case the punch ran out. We dressed pretty, bought some wine and headed over there. As I was sick with a cold and my boyfriend had to work the next day, we'd decided it would probably not be a wild night.When we arrived the boys (and one girl) were sitting in the living room, chattering, drinking, and generally enjoying some chilled-out vibes. A bucket of punch waited innocently on the table. We commandeered a couch, poured some drinks and settled in for what we thought would be a typical Friday night.

Fast-forward to the next morning, where the aforementioned scene exploded into my hungover brain when I dragged myself out of bed. The passed-out drunk guy had been shepherded home, but his vomit remained (all over most of the house. Including the room I'd been sleeping in). The living room floor was sticky with punch as I wandered through to the kitchen. My socks were on the couch where I'd slept for an hour after being kicked out of bed by a drunken boyfriend (I'm still not entirely sure why he kicked me out, but I managed to sneak back in after he passed out because I didn't have a blanket on the couch and it was f***ing cold). Glasses and empty bottles littered the tables and floor. I made myself some MedLemon (I have a cold) and wandered sleepily back up the corridor, where I could hear my boyfriend throwing up in the bathroom. His room smelled of vomit (to be fair, that wasn't his fault) and stale alcohol, and the bedside table was knocked over where he'd fallen out of bed at some point during the night. My bottle of wine sat unopened on the shelf.

Moral of the story? Well, I have a few.

1. Comparing your girlfriend to your ex and then telling her to get out of your bed is never a good idea. Ever.
2. If someone has already thrown up once from too much alcohol, letting him sit in your room is not recommended.
3. Once people are drunk, punch buckets should be moved to a safer place. Alternatively, make sure that the bucket has a very tight-fitting, spill-proof lid.
4. Always, always hire a maid for the morning after.

And the most important moral? (One I don't think I'll ever learn?)

IT'S NEVER JUST ONE DRINK.

RUN, FORREST, RUN!

Yes, I have finally done it. I have managed to get off my lazy butt and start running again! Will it last? Probably not. :P I decided that it had been far too long since I last exercised and so I began on a 6 week 10km programme (which, incidentally, I may have to extend to seven weeks. Or eight. Or possibly a few months). So far, it's been a week and I've been on four runs. Go me.

One thing I'm beginning to realise is that I don't think I'm a natural runner. I've heard so many runners speak of this elusive thing called the "runner's high", a supposed moment during a run where your endorphins kick in and all the pain and wheezing goes away and you feel like you're flying. The only high I feel is that moment when my alarm goes off and I realise that I can stop. Even then, stopping sometimes hurts more than carrying on. During the run my general thought process is something like this...

It feels good to be running again! Whooooo I'm flying! I love downhills! (pause) I wonder how much my butt is jiggling in these running shorts. (pause) Who cares?? At least I'm exercising! Whoooo! (pause) OK time to leave the downhill behind! Onto the straight! I can do this! (breathing becomes a little heavier) Whew. Running is tougher than I remembered. Shit. There's the first hill. (breathing becomes heavier, pace slows) Hills SUCK. (panting, moving at just above walking speed) God my calves HURT! I didn't know I HAD so many muscles there! They feel like they're on fire! (panting hard) F***ing hill. WHY WON'T YOU END?? (starting to wheeze) Wait, is that...? Could it be...? OMG THE HILL HAS ENDED! WHOOOOOO! (checks watch) What?? I've only been running for three minutes? I can't stop yet????
Dammit.

School v Varsity

Lately on Facebook I've noticed a lot of varsity-aged people complaining about how the workload at varsity is terrible and how they wish they were back at school where they had less work/worked shorter hours/had closer friends and so on. So I decided to make a list of school life v varsity life (from my own experience) to decide whether my school or varsity life was better.

School life

• The school bus left by 6:45 and school started at 7:30 sharp.
• I wore my unattractive school uniform every day, come rain or shine.
• I tied my hair up in a ponytail.
• Lunch break was about 15 minutes for the first one, and 25 minutes for the second.
• The school day ended at 15:00, when I could go home.
• I took the bus to school and back, which got rather hot and sweaty in summer.
• I saw my boyfriend on the weekends.
• Lessons were an hour long.
• I had seven subjects in Matric.
• I had seven lessons a day.
• My mom did my laundry.
• I wasn't allowed out on school nights.
• School was a twenty minute drive from home.
• I had to learn between 5 and 20 pages for a test.
• Tests were during lessons.
• Lunch was usually a sandwich and something extra ( a cereal bar, a packet of nuts, grapes...)

Varsity life

• On most days my first lecture is at 8:40 or 9:35.
• I choose my own outfits every day: long pants and scarves in winter, cute skirts and tops in summer.
• I wear my hair loose most days.
• Lunch is from 12:00 until 14:00 on weekdays.
• I go home (back to res) between my lectures.
• I walk to lectures and back, which is tiring but good for my legs.
• I see my boyfriend most days.
• Lectures are 45 minutes.
• I had four subjects in first and second year, and am doing two subjects this year.
• I have maybe two lectures and a tutorial on my busiest days.
• I have to do my own laundry.
• I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, regardless of whether I have lectures the next day or not.
• My lecture venues are a five minute walk from home.
• I have to study 120 pages for my next test, as well as several law cases
• Tests are usually at 7pm.
• Lunch is usually a full cooked meal; good for the tastebuds (depending on the day), not so good for the waistline.

I could go on for ages, but I'll stop here as I have to leave for a lecture in ten minutes. Reading over these lists I can safely say that I am much happier at varsity (even if I have to do my own laundry). And despite the full cooked lunches, I've lost quite a few kgs since starting at varsity. So viva la varsity! Maybe growing up isn't so bad after all :)

Breakfast giggles

Shortly after my boyfriend and I started dating we developed a 'tradition'. We would go out on Friday night, get relatively drunk, sleep in on Saturday morning and then go to Wimpy for a late breakfast. Their R19.90 Streaky Bacon breakfast special is amazingly good value for money. We'd order exactly the same breakfast (Streaky bacon, soft eggs, brown toast). I'd get a pot of Five Roses tea and he would have coffee. Nowadays my Saturday doesn't feel complete without a Wimpy breakfast (usually eaten at around lunchtime :P). In all the times that we've been there, we've had some interesting run-ins with the waitresses. I now present three...unusual...moments that made our Wimpy breakfasts that much more entertaining. :D

Scenario 1

Dave: "I'll have a coffee, thanks."

Waitress: "A Wimpy coffee?"

Dave: "...yes...?"

(Waitress walks away)

Dave: (bewildered) "What other kind of coffee would you get at Wimpy??"

Scenario 2

(Waitress clears away my tea cup, the remaining sugar and the milk jug)

Waitress: "Can I take this?" (points to the teapot)

Me: "Sure..." (thinking: What does she think I'm going to do with the teapot if she's already taken my cup? Drink it out the spout?).

Scenario 3

Waitress: "Do you want anything else or can I bring the bill? Because I'm going to go and have my tea now."

And for the record, these were three different waitresses on three different Saturday mornings. Usually an experience like this would cause me to assume that Wimpy waitresses were just a little strange. But last night we stopped at KFC so that Dave could get supper. As we approached the door a cashier darted from behind the counter, practically sprinted across the restaurant and slammed the door shut, locking it in our faces. We stared at each other, confused, and then burst out laughing. Apparently KFC closes at 21:30 and hey, it was 21:30 on the dot. So in short, we have now established that the majority of people working in fast food restaurants are very, very, very odd.

Also, Dave reckons he's going to ask for a Steers coffee next time we go to Wimpy. I look forward to seeing the look on the waitress's face. :P

To eat or not to eat?

As I was heading to lunch one day during O-week earlier this year, one of the first years asked if there were any problems with anorexic girls in the res. From what I understood, she was asking whether there were girls who would shame others about what they eat or whether girls would compete with each other to see who could eat the least. Naturally I told her no. But as the year progressed, I began to realise that I may be wrong.

Perhaps it's inevitable in an all-girls dining hall, but I've begun to notice disturbing trends. Girls comment about missing meals and losing weight as if it's a normal occurrence; the concept of "first year spread" is thrown about as both a joke and something to fear. I know that when I first came into res I lost weight. This was partly because I didn't really like the food, partly because I didn't know how to change my meals and partly because I was convinced that I would not get fat (then I discovered the fast food meals and quickly became rather chunky).

One night last year I didn't like the meal I'd booked and took one of the leftover rolls. I was still hungry, so I took another one. The girl who had been sitting next to me came back from making tea and the conversation went something like this...

Her: "What's that?"
Me: "A roll. There's a few leftover from lunch."
Her: "What happened to the other one?"
Me: "Um...I ate it?" (thinking: what does she think I was planning on doing with it?)
Her: (horrified) "So you're having a second one??"
Me: "...yes."

She promptly raised her eyebrows, laughed and turned away. I was tempted to point out that a) I'd missed lunch and b) she couldn't really laugh because my stomach was way flatter than hers, but I realised that that would mean I'd allowed her to get to me. So I ate my roll quietly and then spent the rest of the night wondering whether I should have or not.

But in the end, I was hungry so I ate the damn roll. And you know what? I'm glad that I did. But we need to learn that mindless comments like that can have a greater effect than we expect. And I'm not only talking about girls; guys are equally - if not more - guilty of making such comments. Call a girl an "oompa-loompa" and she may end up hospitalised two years later for anorexia. Maybe you meant that she was short, or wearing orange clothes, but she took it differently. Tell a girl that you're not attracted to her and you could find that she starts dieting, exercising and blogging excessively on Tumblr about weight loss and food. Maybe you meant you were not interested in girls at all, but she doesn't necessarily know that.

It's far too easy to look at someone else and assume that you're better than them just because you ordered the health meal and they're eating a pizza, or to comment because someone ate a second piece of buttered toast. But at the end of the day, it's their body and they can do what they like with it. I eat perhaps one or two fast food meals a week, I rarely exercise (except for the occasional game of squash), I have a wide butt and heavy legs and an increasingly wobbly stomach. But you know what? I like to think that there are more important things in life for me to focus on than trying to achieve the look of the airbrushed models in Glamour  and Cosmopolitan (for the record, I love both magazines). Come on girls, join the body revolution. Learn to love yourself as you are :) if you want to diet and exercise because you feel unhealthy, go for it! But don't start starving yourselves and obsessing about having your hipbones stick out just because some idiot took it upon him/herself to comment on your appearance or eating habits. Stand up for yourself. Tell the world that you like who you are. And eat that extra roll if you want it. :)

The Digs Life

As you guys probably know, I haven't quite made the leap to digs life yet; I'm still happily in res. However, my boyfriend moved into digs this year and I've discovered that dating a guy in digs has both its advantages and its disadvantages...

Advantages:

1. I don't have awkward run-ins with random guys on my way to the bathroom.
2. There is no fear of a walk of shame (although at this point I think we're far enough into the relationship not to consider it a walk of shame :P )
3. We can chill and watch movies with the guys who live with him (which, incidentally, has so far included comedies, rom-coms and rugby matches. Interesting combination)
4. I can convince him to feed me in the morning :D
5. I can avoid res food by cooking decent meals in his kitchen.
6. Hungover throwing up can be in the privacy of the bathroom and not in his res bedroom sink (yes that happened. No I am not proud of it)
7. There are no worries about being caught with vodka etc. (which are forbidden in res. My res, anyway).
8. They have an epic blackboard that I can draw stickmen on :D
9. They have couches that my drunken friends can crash on if necessary (which has not happened yet, but it's a possibility).

Disadvantages:

1. He frequently runs out of money and so has no petrol to give me a lift to his place.
2. Thus going to visit him usually involves a 20 minute walk.
3. The above walk is not particularly fun at 7:30 in the morning.
4. Or when I'm drunk at 3am.
5. His kitchen is a permanent health hazard. Seriously. The floors are sticky. A colony of ants live in there. And apparently there has been the occasional cockroach. Blagh. The same applies to the living room after predrinks.

As you can see, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Which is why I can't wait to get back there at the end of this vac :D I may not live there but I spend enough time there to miss it. So shout out to the awesome boys from the Wreck, for making the first term of 2012 so much fun :D

Proud Hoarder

Read the title again. It does say "hoarder" not "hoar" or some other weird, misspelled version of "whore". I'm not here to tell you about what a fantastic slut I am (which, incidentally, I am not). This is about WORK and lecture notes and other serious sh*t.

OK no, maybe not too serious :) but I have come to the realisation that my hoarding habits are not as terrible as I've always been led to believe. For those of you who are now confused, "hoarding" refers to keeping loads of old junk that you don't actually need but are far too clingy and pathetic to part with. I am an absolute nightmare when it comes to these things; I still have notes that my friends wrote to me in Grade 6 (I may actually also have my grade 5 NS notes floating around somewhere at home...). Why? Because I convince myself that I might need it again someday. It's the You-Never-Know-Syndrome, and it's a bitch when you're trying to keep your room clean. My cupboard at home is filled to the brim with old stationery, files, notes, space-cases and other random crap that I just can't bring myself to throw away. Last holiday I finally got around to clearing away all my old soft toys, and instead of throwing them out or giving them away I put them in a plastic bag in the cupboard. Along with the plastic bag filled with stuff that my ex gave me, the files filled with my recorder music from Grade 5 and the box with random bits and pieces that I didn't want to toss out because hey, you never know.

By now you're probably thinking "Where is she going with this? How is this relevant to Rhodes and my life as a partying, drinking, falling-down-and-passing-out, occasionally studying student?" Well, today I found out that my hoarding skills can be a huge advantage when it comes to certain varsity-related problems. Example? Yesterday my law lecturer emailed us our tutorial exercise for today. With it was a list of two chapters that we were meant to read and a number of questions to answer about rights and legal subjectivity. Did I have the chapters? Nope. Would I have read them? Probably not. But as I flicked through the endless list of questions (OK there were only...hang on, let me count them...8 of them) I felt a growing panic. My tut starts at 16:05 today. It was about 13:45 when I first opened the file and had a good look at the exercise. Where was I going to find the information I needed??

The brighter cookies among you will be going "Well she's on her blog now...so she must have found a way to do her tut quickly and effortlessly!" Bingo. Some of the material that the questions covered seemed vaguely familiar, so I dug through the mass of crap that I've collected over the years and blew the dust off my file of law notes from first year. And right there among my messy handwriting and crumpled assignments I found a set of notes that had the information I needed. I answered the theory questions in under 20 minutes, all because I had had the foresight (or desperate, obsessive-compulsive need) not to throw out my old notes. Now I have finished my tut with plenty of time to spare! (Admittedly, I only did one of the application questions. But my lecturer will never know that!) And so, my dear Rhodents, by hoarding old and supposedly useless crap I have won myself an hour in which to take a quick and much-needed nap before my tut begins. Because I'm cool like that. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

PS: As usual, apologies for not having posted in a long time. I'm running out of ideas regarding post material. Any suggestions are welcome! Hit me up on Facebook (those of you who know me) or leave me a comment on this post. :)

O-week has arrived!

O-week 2012 is finally upon us - nearly finished, actually - and a few weeks ago I would've been full of "Yeah bitches, let's get UP IN THA HOUSE!" (OK maybe not. More like "Party whooooooooooo!") But I've since learned that perhaps o-week is best left to the first years.

Maybe I'm getting old but I'm finding it harder and harder to party all night and sleep all day. Especially as a member of house comm. We have SO MUCH sh*t to do; we have endless meetings and arrangements to make and such stuff. As head student I also seem to have craploads of administrative stuff to get done, mostly involving timetables. First year duty timetable, house comm duty timetable (which I still haven't done), daily event planner timetable...it's never-ending. On top of that we have to get up 15 or so minutes earlier than the first years so that we can wake them up for serenades AND we have to attend their workshops and performances in the evenings AND still seem bright and cheery and approachable. God. I don't know how I managed it last year. All I want to do these days is bury my head in a pillow and sleep forever.

On top of everything else, of course, we're 'expected' to mare wildly. Seriously? I wake up at 05:15, have serenades, maybe catch a few hours of sleep, help arrange the lunchtime seating plans, have a meeting with hall comm, go to the Amazing Other Show, take part in RU Jamming (the serenade competition) and then people wonder why I'm not all that keen to hit Friars and drink until 3am. BECAUSE I HAVE TO GET UP AT 5AM AND DO IT ALL AGAIN. Not that that stopped me :P I think I got to bed at about 03:45 this morning, woke up at about 05:00 and then ended up being late for serenades because the gate of the digs I was staying at refused to open. I will admit that I'm now regretting last night's late antics; I need sleep! And I couldn't believe it when one of our Energizer-bunny first years was bouncing up and down at serenades this morning, despite having had less sleep than I have. Wtf?? I'm 19! I shouldn't be this tired after a couple of late nights out!

It's becoming a real concern. Every now and then I catch myself thinking How nice would it be to spend this evening drinking tea and watching series? And then maybe I'll crash at 10. Who needs Friars? I am losing my party-spark! I'm becoming one of those terrible people who never wants to leave her bed, much less her room! I'm becoming a friggin' ballie! I'm no longer an Energizer-bunny first year!
I think I need an intervention. Volunteers?

PS: on a totally unrelated note, I had chocolate-cookie yoghurt for breakfast. HOW AWESOME?? Om nom nom.

If I was a rich girl...

Ever wondered why guys always seem to have the money to buy endless computer games, gaming consoles and odd gadgets that they don't actually need? I believe I have the answer.

Firstly, guys earn more than girls. It's an accepted fact, even in the modern world. My own mother once commented that my brother's choice of career was more important than mine because one day he "will be the primary breadwinner of the family". Wtf? I'm not going to be entirely dependent on my husband for money! And what if I don't get married? I'll still have to provide for myself!

Ahem. Sorry. But other than the fact that guys earn more money, girls have less money because they spend more. And I'm sure all you guys are nodding your heads and going "Exactly!", but hear me out first. Girls don't spend more because they WANT to, but because they HAVE to. I'm not talking about buying handbags or endless pairs of shoes. I mean normal, everyday expenses that guys simply don't have. Conditioner, for example. How many straight guys actually use conditioner? Maybe a few, but not many. Body lotion is another one. And don't say "Girls don't need body lotion if guys don't!". It's fine for a guy to have rough, manly, I-work-all-day-in-the-fields skin, but would you really want a girlfriend with skin like that? No, I didn't think so. Hairbrushes are another one. Maybe it's just my social circle, but most of the guys I know never brush their hair.

Then there are monthly requirements like pads and tampons. Girls have to buy them, we have no choice. And those things are expensive! A box of tampons costs as much as a bottle of cheap wine. That's part of your predrinking money gone every month. Makeup is also insanely expensive - R80 for an eyeliner?? And guys, there's a difference between "the natural look" and no makeup.

See??

When it comes down to it, maybe this is why guys are always expected to be the ones who pay for dinners out and buy presents for their girlfriends: because in the end, they usually have more money. So girls, the next time you see your boyfriend/guy friend playing the latest R700 XBox game, don't berate him for wasting his money. It's not like he has much else to spend it on :P

PS: Guys, please note that this is a tongue-in-cheek piece and not intended to offend anyone. In other words, it's a joke. Relax. :)

Oxbraaaaaai!

The Rhodes Big 5: five events that every Rhodes student has to attend at some point during their varsity career. These are:

1. Trivar
2. Oxbraai
3. Fish
4. Boatraces
5. ...I can never remember what the fifth one is. If anyone knows, please do enlighten me.

This holiday I finally managed to make arrangements to go to Oxbraai :D and it was certainly worth it. For the non-Rhodents and non-Eastern-Cape people among you, Oxbraai is essentially a massive braai that takes place in Bathurst in December every year. Students rock up, put up tents, drink way too much and just generally have an epic party. Thanks to my holiday job as an elf in a Christmas Grotto (don't ask...) I was able to fund my trip this year.

I arrived in Bathurst with my friend, K, and a group of his friends from East London. The queue of cars was scarily long but moved quickly, and before we knew it we were inside. After a couple of minutes of driving around aimlessly, we found a spot to park and set up our iconic red tent (it was iconic because the colour made it easy for us to find it again :P ). I was the only girl in a group of about four guys and so I mixed myself some Coke and vodka (om nom nom!) while they downed a few cold beers. Apparently, warm beer is the devil and they'd rather have no beer than drink it hot. To prevent such a disaster, we had about three cooler boxes filled with ice stacked in the back of the bakkie. In fact, there was barely enough room for the beer.

We found out pretty soon that the little sunshade attached to the tent was not going to be enough. As the area of shade shrank we moved closer and closer, until we were sitting with our knees touching and one guy was forced to move his chair into the actual tent. As the heat got worse we decided to take a stroll, drinks in hand. K, his friend S and I wandered among tents for a while, greeting people we knew and becoming steadily more sunburnt. Drink was flowing, there was a truck filled with foam nearby and someone was blaring music with heavy bass. It was fantastic.

During this walk I bumped into my boyfriend - who I was supposed to be sharing the back of a bakkie with (get your minds out of the gutter) - and spent most of the rest of the time with him. We also walked around for a while before stopping to chill with a friend of his. This friend had the right idea; he'd brought a gazebo, hubbly, camp chairs, a mattress AND even a couch. Yes, a proper couch that you would find in someone's living room. For a while we sat on the couch, smoking cherry-flavoured hubbly and trying not to fall asleep. After a bit more wandering we returned to doze on the mattress, half-listening to the conversations around us.

The boyfriend and myself chilling on the mattress. Our photography skills are shocking, I know.

When it became dark we went to get our food, which consisted of a slice of bread, half a potato and WAY too many slices of ox meat (incidentally, an ox is a castrated bull. Am I the only person who didn't know that??). Having now eaten too much and drunk too much, we ran around a bit more generally making nuisances of ourselves. Actually, a lot of my night was spent staring absent-mindedly into space while my boyfriend found trees to pee against. If I could, I would have done the same; the Porta-Potties provided for the girls became increasingly disgusting as the night went on. We finally fell asleep around 3am and woke up at about 5:30 to the sounds of people moving around. Like most of the others, we left Bathurst by 6 and headed to Grahamstown for Wimpy breakfast, sleep and a much-needed shower. 

While I didn't get quite as wasted as I'd thought I would, I still had an epic night. From chilling on the couch to eating plain bread rolls to getting slightly lost somewhere in the dark with the boyfriend, it was an awesome adventure. Would I go again? Definitely, but I'd do a few things differently. 1) I'd bring the Jammies girls with. 2) I'd bring a really big tent and shade cloth. 3) I'd bring a LOT more alcohol.

So...who's keen to make next Oxbraai even bigger? :D