February 10th, 2012

February 10^th, 2012

So today is Friday and was the last day of my first week of school, (cue sigh of relief) all the classes seemed fairly challenging but excellent. On Mondays and Wednesdays I am taking Afrikaans from 10:30 to 12:30, and Afrikaans is the native language of white South Africans, while Xhosa (pronounced Co-Sa) is the native black South African language. Tuesdays I have off, which is a nice little break, on Wednesdays I have South African History from 14:00-16:30pm and our professor is very old, but very wise and he played “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” from Lion King, because its to the tune of an old Zulu tune, and Disney didn’t get the rights for it, so there is still a lawsuit between the song composer’s family and Disney corporation. Then on Thursday, I had Public Theology of Post-Apartheid South Africa from 14:00-17:00, and each of us has to present one week throughout the semester, and unfortunately I was the brave one to take on the 1^st week, so I have to prepare a half hour to an hour presentation. Then from 17:30-20:30, I have Jewelry Design, which was an excellent hands-on course and a good outlet for my creative side, and yesterday we started sawing out copper for bowl-earrings and filing down the earrings. Finally, today I had Negotiating Transition which is a four-hundred level Peace and Conflict Studies course, and we discussed what negotiation and transition meant, it is taught by two professors, Meskine who is originally from the Australian Outback and is a fantastic lady, and Theo who was a victim of the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) rebellions, and will definitely have a lot to tell about war and peace.     On the social aspect here, I have joined the Pulp Film Society which costs about 150R (about $19) to view free independent and pulp films in the theater free of charge, it was a great bargain, and since I don’t have a TV, it gives me a chance to view movies, since I’m such a movie buff, and last night I watched the Devil’s Double, which was about Saddam Hussein’s son who finds a man to act as a clone for him, and the man who is the clone ends up shooting the son, because of the son’s madness and tyranny, and I was surprised to find that it was based on a true story. Sooner of later they have listed that they’re showing District 9, so maybe I’ll get to watch it after all, instead of an AIDS documentary.

             I also looked into joining the Crew team here, I want to find a good exercise outlet, and I was also looking into the Golf team, until I realized that I don’t have my clubs, and also the theater troupe, if they don’t only speak Afrikaans. So we’ll see what I end up joining. I’m signing off for now, but wish me luck on Sunday for my deep water shark cage diving, and I promise I’ll post photos of everything sooner or later, when I get the ambition.

Love,

Em