uh... ow!

So I just had the most awesome weekend EVER!

 

It started on Friday when I met with the Oxfordian and the Oracle as well as Luke and another friend. It was a nice way to start the weekend, particularly after two hours with my kiddies who are developing a little bit more attitude than I'd like - I'm starting to wonder if letting them use my first name and playing games (I divide the group into 3 sections and we have little contests)and making jokes was the right tactic...

 

From there I went off to meet CG, La and another friend for dinner which was fantastic, I haven't been seeing much of La lately and I'd really missed her.

 

Saturday was a super-busy morning at work, where I got some marking done, but mostly ran around like a headless chicken trying to get everything done. The afternoon gave me time to nap, and then head off to a lovely dinner and then goth-clubbing with some new friends. I may have gone slightly out of control, although there were no hats, I ran around deciding amongst the new friends that they were all awesome people and they can all stay...

 

Sunday morning started badly, when I was woken up at 6am by some rather chatty hadedas outside my window, but ended up fantastically when I got to go mountain-biking!

 

Bear in mind that I hadn't been on a bike that wasn't rather securely bolted to the floor in well over a decade, so it was a shaky start (I can balance relatively well, but steering is a bit of an issue).

 

A few minutes into it I was finally going pretty well, negotiated my first puddle (with some shrieking) and managed to stop veering left as much when I turned a corner and realised that the track had washed away. Whoops. Somehow I managed to prevent myself from flying over the handlebars, but not without taking the bike to the shins in a pretty nasty way. Once I'd stopped shaking enough to get off the bike and walked a bit we got going again.

 

A few minutes later when I'd finally got the hang of changing gears without wobbling and having to stop I heard a loud bang, turned around to see that the person cycling with me had a broken chain. Whoops.

 

So we started walking. And walking. It was a rather warm day, but the place was BEAUTIFUL and it was so nice to be out of the city for a bit! We managed to freewheel the downhill bits. I'm a bit nervous of going downhill (I feel a bit out of control) so I went a little bit too slowly, hit a bump and went for a fly into the grass. Soft landing and nice grass actually!

 

From there we went back to the house, had a lovely lunch, and I learned to pick grapes, play "who wants to be a millionaire?" with a 93 year old and generally sat around feeling quite content, albeit sleepy listening to the conversation. The funniest part was hearing someone yell "Who left the door open? The horse is inside again!"

 

When I got home I passed out for a few hours, and then went off to gym (I figured blood-flow through bruises would help the healing agents get there) and had a great time (I love my Sunday night session,it's such a nice way to start the week!) and went home and had a chat with CG and another friend before I went to bed.

 

All in all a pretty decent weekend!

 

And the best part? I got to spend the day today showing off my bruises - it seems the grass was not as forgiving as I'd thought and right now it looks like I got kicked repeatedly in the shins by a large horse, which I'm happy about because there's nothing worse than hurting and having nothing to show for it!

At a glance

Monday:

While recovering from Sunday night’s introduction to coffee-tequila (not so much the tequila part as the twitching and bouncing around until 4am… thanks caffeine) I discovered I can no longer drink coke. Did they add extra sugar recently? It’s like drinking syrup.

Tuesday

Epically bad traffic meant that it took me over an hour and a half to drive 10 km, so although I left home early I was very VERY late to teach my kiddies. They’re a fantastic group though and I had a lot of fun with them (they think I’m crazy because I won’t let them call me ma’am, asked their permission to use bad language in front of them, and I told them to try and balance things so that they can pass their studies and also have some kind of life. Cue terrified undergrads!).

And hour later I met my second-years who are officially the dumbest and most annoying students I’ve ever had to deal with. Oh. My. Word.

Student (holding up a leafy twig): “Does this have leaves in Summer?”

Helen: Well what season is it?

Student: Uh… Summer (one of them thought it was Spring)

Helen: and does it have leaves?

Student: uh… I think so…?

Helen: So does it have leaves in Summer?

Student: I don’t know! How am I supposed to know that? That’s why I asked you!

Wednesday

After a delightful morning of getting actual work done, had to give a safety announcement to the second years – guess what, blades are sharp! It might hurt if you cut yourself. And you may bleed… Shock! Horror! Several students decided the best way to look for stinging hairs on leaves (like nettles and that sort of stinging) was to whip themselves with them.

They decided that the leaves must have stinging hairs because being hit by them (and I quote) “Really hurts”

At least I got to drive out in epic traffic and spend several hours ice-skating backwards (I got put up a class *happy dance*)

Thursday

Had the BEST tai-chi class ever, going over the form I’m working on bit by tiny bit and nitpicking everything. Left there feeling invincible and went for a run.

Ended up not feeling so invincible. And now I can’t climb stairs.

Friday

Got to start my day with the delightful students, some of whom were unable to figure out what a petal was. One of them obviously eats garlic for breakfast (and always needs help that involves you standing nearby), another has the SCARIEST eyebrows I’ve ever seen (she’s waxed them off and drawn them in from the inside corner of her eyes (almost straight) up to her hairline). I am unable to talk to her without my eyes watering. Someone else has glowing eyeshadow (seriously). I hadn’t had coffee, and although some lecturers are quite relaxed, this one will NOT let me take coffee into a lab. grumblegrumblegrumble.

Have a great weekend!

 

(Courtesy of A Beautiful Revolution of course)

Nothing more than...?

It's no secret that I am scared of very little. Heights (well largely sorted, but I still... respect... them), failure, rejection... the typical stuff.

 

Another thing that I've never mentioned that sends me into an absolute sipral of terror (I'm talking wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-screaming type terror) is feelings... Like a while ago when I made someone cry. Horrible horrible experience. I just don't know how to deal wth people who show their emotions.

 

That said, I do tend to be somewhat more of an open-book feelingwise lately. I've always been vaguely exuberant and that's hit all-new epic proportions, particularly when it comes to tai chi, tae bo (why do I love it? they tortured us to a technoed up version of Enya on Monday, nothing like wincing in pain to an upbetified version of Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away), skating, hats...

 

I learned to show fear while abseiling with Leia (it manifests as uncontrollable shaking, anger, aggression and then really bad jokes) and anger while fighting with CG (not something I enjoy thinking about).

 

Right now... well I'm stuck in a situation where I don't know what I feel. I kind of bounce between happy, sad, terrified and confused, sometimes in a random order, sometimes all at once. And thinking about it is scarier than ignoring it, but as a girl I must think and analyse, and reanalyse, and think some more...

 

AAARGH!

To solve all your problems

These leaflets and signs have been around for years, generally not around the area I live in, but enough that I would see them and chuckle a little bit sometimes. I was aware of the following in certain areas, as I’ve been to pharmacies near campus where I’ve actually seen ‘Luck Oil’ on display (the things I’ll do for antihistamines) and I’m very aware of the following that traditional healers have around here.

Recently they seem to have… exploded. There are people handing them out at robots (traffic lights), they’ve been appearing in my letter-box (we live in the Northern Suburbs, not somewhere we thought there would be much of a following for miracle oils - although if they can make you win the lottery, you never know…), in the newspaper, stuck to lamp-posts…

So as any good scientists would do, we started collecting them, giggling over them, sighing over the way that they seem to be targeting groups of people who would have to save for the R100 consultation fee and then further to buy the magic oil/stick/love remote (really). From there we began to compare the grammatical errors, testimonials (Rosie van Wyk from Morningside – who has recently moved to Witbank – and Andre Mpho from Kathlehong share a cellphone number…, making sure than none of the “Healer of the Year awards coincided, as well as followng the blossoming careers of some of our favourite healers (Prof. Lumumba is doing particularly well, with almost ten different leaflets and four healer-of-the-year awards!).

We’ve collected well over a hundred (my very precise estimate from glancing over at the pile) over the last few months, from as far afield as Nelspruit and Polokwane and I felt that I must share these gems with you (click to enlarge I think):

you have to wonder what he means by “some conditions applied”… note the matching phone numbers too – they didn’t even put them on separate leaflets!

So are you disappointed in your living life? And I know I totally identify with problem 14. Although I wonder about the ‘chronicle diseases’

Ah, Professor Sir Apollo… my personal favourite, and one of the first leaflets we collected! Plus he’s one of the top 10 in the world; SCORE!

  This guy is a close second for awesome name-ness, although I worry about the stress of keeping a marriage AND an affair together…

One of many Mamas…Another ‘Mama’! Anyone got any idea why there is a picture of a hand there? High five?

These guys went to Harvard! The Harvard University of Witchcraft… in the U.S.A! And they can give you Great Success in Life Forever

Prof Dungu gets bonus points for the lion pictures AND the pixellated Africa background! Plus he can remove bad luck to good luck!

I do not even want to know about the Love Remote, K? But he does have a picture of a lion too, which has to count in his favour. Not to mention the Sex Low Drive.

There are others, but I try to keep this child-friendly(ish). Seriously, there is even a small selection with visual aids…

Have a great weekend!

Falling slowly

So when I was a lot lot LOT younger I used to ice-skate. Yip, every Saturday morning my Dad and I would get up super-early, drag ourselves out the house and make Die Groot trek to the other side of the world (i.e Krugersdorp).

I skated for a few years, loved it at first and ten as my gawky teenagerliness started taking over I began to not enjoy it as much, then hate certain steps and then resent it completely. And then I stopped.

Recently, as we’ve been going skating relatively often, She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named and I decided to sign up for classes. They’re not too expensive (I think it works out as the price of a session plus R10 or so per lesson), and I was frustrated at my general lack of confidence in trying anything I used to be able to do, while she wanted to be more confident and do a few tricks rather than clinging onto the side.

So last night I battled through some delightful traffic to find that She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named was nowhere to be seen. I found her eventually, stressing out like crazy over the average age in the previous classes (it’s around 5-8 years old I think), the fact that the classes are visible from the rest of the centre and that she didn’t want to fall. By the end of it all I was terrified too, particularly when we’d signed up (and had to fight a nasty stage-mother and inefficient admin person), put our skates on and found a small group of people over the age of 5 to hang out with.

The adults class was nicely placed out of general public view. It was also a nice size, with lots of really friendly people. Unfortunately I got kicked out within the first two minutes because I could actually skate, and I was sent off to meet my new classmate (yip, singular), a terribly shy girl who might have been six or seven years old.

It was the weirdest thing though: I’m comfortable on skates. I can zip around the rink quite happily, do one or two cool things and avoid the crazy skaters who always seem to try and trip me up, but I had never realised how slightly-nervous I am all the time. after two or three steps with a coach-guy explaining and critiquing and helping I suddenly felt SO much happier and more in control – to a point where I did a lot of steps that I’d tried recently and wobbled/freaked out/wussed out completely.

By the end of the lesson I think we’d covered the entire class syllabus (this guy hasn’t had time to become immune to my “what’s next? Teachmemoremoremoremoremoremoremoremoremore! attitude – the tai chi teachers are completely desensitised by now) and I’m hoping to move up to the next class next week. I tried out my nemesis-of-a-step last night and it didn’t end well, so I will need all the help I can get with it (and it’s in the next class).

After the lesson I went and found She-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named who had had an equally fantastic time (from clinging on to the side they had her calmly zooming around forwards AND backwards) and we went around and she practised very diligently while I bounced around in total over-excitement and tried out everything I could think of and I managed most of them! And I (sort of) managed my FAVOURITE step from back in the day which totally made my night and had me dashing around squealing and (yes, I admit it clapping) in joy.

I think the other people there think there is something wrong with me…

But I’m so excited and I can’t wait until next week!

Today I am:

• Annoyed that I hit ‘cancel’ instead of ‘snooze’ this morning and missed pilates.
• Sore from tae bo (which is SO much fun, even if it still gets me too hyped to sleep).
• Loving the idea of Operation Beautiful, and thinking very seriously about startng to participate.
• Actually getting work done (hence bullet-list vs real post).
• Excited to be unleashed onto a fresh batch of first-years tomorrow *evil cackle* if they only knew…
• Sick of annoying undergrad O-week noise. Vuvuzelas are SO not hot right now…
• Amused by the first-years who always dress up like crazy for the first week, then have loud conversations about how few clothes they have (wearing a school uniform Monday to Friday made it easier) and then become normal people.
• Shocked by how many new students are walking around with their parents. Registration was last week, it’s time to let go…
• Missing holiday traffic
• Nervous to be doing real teaching, but excited too. I get a Real, Teacher-style desk!!!
• Nauseous from the welding-smell coming in from the passage. what’s scary is that nobody seems to know what they’re welding or why, but we live with it.

Yip, it’s January on campus!

On the plus side, they’ve started baking donuts again, so we’ll get a donut-day this week!

well THAT was fun

(More) Things I've learned

1. It can be really difficult to do the right thing.
2. It doesn't matter how many times you practice a speech, once you're trying to give it to someone, all the preparation goes out the window.
3. You can find comfort in the strangest people (like the best friend of the person with longer hair than me, or the Ed-Hardy-Girl piner).
4. If you have to be horrible to someone, the worst outcome is when they try to be nice about it. Why can't they get angry and call me names or something? Don't apologise!
5. That was the worst saturday night ever.
6. A cup of tea doesn't solve everything, but it does help!

I need soup.