September 2004 Archives

I love the comedown after a constructive Monday after a realisational Sunday after a soaked Saturday after an empty Friday night.

I watched The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert on Friday night, knowing I'd have to be up early on Saturday. Which I did, to find that the Allan Webb Adventure, an event hosted by my Residence Hall, was going to be soggy and cold. Saturday night consisted of the AWA awards, held at Die Taphuis. And on Sunday I met Gid for the first time, to have lunch, and sat in my room shell-shocked by the ominous approach of my deadline date. Today I printed the first few projects for my portfolio. And now I can breathe out.

I'm loving hanging with my Lucifer. She's so silly, shares my humour. It relates a lot to my previous post - I feel incredibly lucky to know her and call her my friend.

On Saturday I happened across Brian, whose 21st birthday it was. His friends had tarred and feathered him - well, golden syrup'd and feathered him. Happy birthday you crazy drunk sticky person.

I have little else to express than my disappointment with 90% of the population of the world. Or at least 90% of the teeny fraction of them I've met.
Most of my closest friends, those who I really have a lot of respect for and from whom I feel I can learn from, are readers of this blog. I'm over, hear me, OVER trying to turn empty people into the type of person I want to really know.

I want to grab the handful of amazing people I know and tie them up in my marble bag and carry them everywhere I go. As the years pass, and they pass sneakily, I find they go on to live their own lives - the contact is minimal, but the quality of it makes me miss them. Who said you could move away? Your job is to entertain me, fuckers!

I know you need to live your life. I just mourn the loss of in person contact with you. I spend every day with sub-standard replacements for your value and roll my inner eyes at their shallowness. Call me elitist, but I actually cannot go through my life not knowing the things my good friends have taught me.

I guess the frustration of this year is that I want to get out of here, in first year it was all new and now it's all old and grubby. First years who are excited by this lifestyle irritate me because I've outgrown that. I want time to fly. I have so much work to squeeze into that time though...

Don't you just want to do it all for me and wake me up in 3 months time?

Maybe my problem lies in how jealous I am of those who feel free to accept the limitations of others. Such infinite patience is beyond me. I don't WANT to make lemonade. I want to throw these lemons against a wall and watch them explode.

The new class is going well. It's been a gorgeous sunny day, so it's always great to spend it in labs... luckily our lecturer gave us our first assignment and promptly herded us down to the rat for a draught in the sun - which went straight to my head, but it's all fun and games.

I now have a new blog (in layout, basically a copy of this one) for my assignments for the class, which you are welcome to check if you want (yawn). Feel free to comment if you've got something relevant to say. My first assignment will be up as of 10 am tomorrow.

Image has been grayscaled and made tiny to hide the post long car trip lazy eye and my skin which has suddenly decided I'm 14 again.

Being home was awesome - much blogging to ensue, just need to sort out my thoughts first. Thank you to everyone who sent me sweet sms's and such on Sunday. Nothing like a five hour car trip to make your birthday all that more fun. But then there's nothing like turning 22 to make you feel like bitching about 21 was a dumb move. The grey hair search continues.

One small nugget of meaning that I can muster from the past ten days is that my sister and I will always fight. I don't know why I thought this time would be different but, once again, I found myself saying stupid things and biting Charlene's head off about a pair of secret socks. We get along sometimes. Sometimes we don't. I need to make my peace with that.

And I return to find that belle has resigned. No more Jewish prostitute escapades for me to read :(

Met up with a Plett friend who started off our friendly drink at the Rat by telling me that he had found and read my blog. More specifically, a post about himself. As I recall, not a glowing account. I'm starting to wonder about the value of posting now. I'm loving the rhythm of it, sitting with headphones full blast, trying to ignore the curoius looks of my classmates, forming seemingly innocuous statements about people I know. And now I wonder if he'll read this post.

I don't think he's the bookmarking type.

I got through the drink, which was actually fun despite my mind constantly returning to the 'what did I write?' question between sips and laughs. I got home, did some washing, agonised a bit about it and finally came to the conclusion that hey - I write what I mean, and I'm not about to go back and edit the post or anything. I haven't even gone back looking for it.

Despite all the agonising, today has taken on a different tone. I can say tomorrow now. I'm leaving tomorrow. This is my last night. I love that. The next time I enter Grahamstown will quite likely be the last time I enter it without prospect of a later re-entry, if that makes sense.

I foresee a great vac. Visits to Plett, finally finishing London Fields, pushing portfolio deadline to the back of my mind for 10 days and getting ready to actually let go of my Sparky forever.

That whole counting the sleeps thing is going sooo slowly right now. The crappy thing is all the loose end tying that has to occur before I actually leave.

I'm kinda saying a bit of a goodbye to design labs when I leave... as of next term I'll be busy doing my fourth term intensive in New Media. The final Design portfolio deadline has been extended though, from 20 September (yipe!) to 19 November. Not having leeway to do Design work on New Media time next term means that I'm going to be in here in the nights, and probably lose my priviledge over my PC during the day. I'm hoping it won't change all that much but there's a loud J3 who has 'designs' (ha ha) on writing on our wall, I just KNOW it.

Some new art work has gone up around campus (being Centenary year and all), and I thought I'd take a couple of hours off from the loose ends to take some pics. Warning - crappy 19-voetsak Sony Mavica pictures ahead:

I'm getting never-ending flack about the way I say the word 'mosaic'. Anyway, this is the first piece of 'art' you encounter when entering from town, on the Drosdy Lawns.

And this is the full beauty of the piece *shrug* According to rumour, a Rhodes couple has already played hide-the-baloney on this puppy. Nice.

And here we have the second installation - two weird sandblasted glass podia with flowers...

...and San art. I'm not sure the Khoi ever populated the Eastern Cape (I'm sure they were smarter than that) but here, apparently, is Rhodes' attempt to make up for those years of colonial rule with this AWESOME little glass thing.

And lastly, we have the enormous bike thing, wittily labelled 'Life Cycle'. Again, there is apparently a photo floating around of some drunk Rhodes student actually riding the top bike. Say what you want about it, that piece of crap is sturdy.

Okay, enough.
It's Tuesday - Survivor beckons. 2 sleeps left.

Is Brian McKnight not the most respectable of the R&B crooners? I somehow believe it when he says it's undeniable that we should be together.

I just saw the Lucifer for the first time in about a billion years... and I feel as though I just had an injection of happy, an instant boost - as though I've actually had those 4 hours of sleep I feel I'm missing. She's such a joker. I have GOT to get drunk with that girl this vac, her giggles are like soda bubbles when we go out and I've been neglecting her.
Lately I've been so annoyed with the demands that people seem to put on you - is my worth as a person really determined by the number of abitrary people's birthdays I manage to remember? I'm so over that crap - but in the stream I've let go of the people that matter most to me. The Lucifer is quality, QUALITY friend and Thursday in PE and Friday morning on the road are going to serve as much-needed catch-up time.

The image in the new header is not my own work, but was found at Jake's official fan site - I want to produce vector images like this one day when I'm all grown up.

3 sleeps to home.

It's shitty when you're feeling sick and un-sympathised with, and you call home to discover that almost every single member of your extended family is at your house in Knysna having a brunch in celebraion of your Ouma's 75th birthday.

Current project: a postage stamp/postcard booklet featuring a selection of stamps celebrating media freedom day.

Lucy and I are driving to PE on Thursday, staying with my Ouma, aunt and uncle, and then driving to Knysna the next day - I'm dropping Lucy off with her family in Plett. Only four more sleeps to go.

Today is wear-that-awesome-floral-skirt-that-you-bought-the-day-before-although-you-haven't-an-expendable-penny-to-your-name day! - loving it.

I'm sick (though not as sick as Ade, I'll bet), I'm behind schedule with portfolio work, and all I want to do is go home and scoff the leftover mini Bar Ones from my tut yesterday.

So, my life is pretty boring thesedays, no surprises there. And I don't want to be all 'you guys don't blog' when all I have to say right now is hot damn, it is SO sunny outside and I am positively itching to show off my new skirt.