Week 2: 19 - 23 Feb

This past week started with a real bang! At Michaela's birthday party, Liesje and I had discussed going to watch the Maties varsity rugby on the Monday, but Liesje was of the opinion we should not go on the first week. When it came to the actual day however, she had changed her mind and I had very little time to get myself fed and ready to head to the match!

In all truth I actually spent very little time watching the match itself; there were far too many other interesting things happening! There were huge inflatable rugby balls being tossed around in the crowd, and free t-shirts being thrown out too. Later, the whole stadium started a Mexican wave which went around at least three or four times. There were sokkie songs (and some other classics like "Sweet Caroline" and "Sister Berthina" being played throughout the game which added to the general vibey atmosphere. Liesje, who was in the process of losing her voice, kept singing along which I'm sure did wonders for her flu. She kept poking me to remind me to watch the game itself and I am sure would singlehandedly have pulled the Maroon Machine through if she had had the lung capacity. The cheerleaders and gymnasts added to my host of distractions, although on the cheerleading score I was a little disappointed and find I must side with Liesje that "Cheerleaders is net glorified dancers met pompoms". Maties suffered quite a beating from Pukke that night, but they did manage to score a second try just as we were leaving in the final seconds of the game. It cheered Liesje tremendously as she had insisted that the match was not yet over. She said proudly, "In my hart is ons altyd wenners! We were just warming up for the real game come the finals!" 

After the game, we went to Kristen's for ice cream. Me being the way I am, I had been prepared only for a small ice cream mission afterwards, perhaps to McDonalds and so had not packed my card with me, but only R20 cash. Liesje kindly paid for me and I had my usual cherry scoop accompanied this time by a scoop of cookies and cream flavoured ice cream. One day I will be properly adventurous and try something else, but not just yet. If it aint broke, don't fix it!

While Monday was tremendous fun, it was jolly exhausting because earlier that same day, Rachel and I had driven around Kraaifontein trying to hunt down a school for service learning. I spent half the time praying, and the other half rehearsing what I would say in Afrikaans (most of the schools were parallel medium schools but appeared more Afrikaans). It was a little overwhelming, but good fun to sing along to Hamilton and just be for a while. In the end, one of the schools did say yes, although it later turned out there had been an error and we went straight back to square one. The irony of it all was that later in the week, the first school we had visited (and said no initially) decided to take us after all!

On Tuesday, I felt overwhelmed by philosophy of education and needed the moral support of Dana again. After sitting in the kitchen with her for an hour or so with little academic progress, we decided to go for a walk along the river and sat and read "Anne's House of Dreams" for a while. Anne is very therapeutic and calms the soul I find. Before this however, Dana had gotten distracted by ChatGBT and its poetry. It writes jolly well actually! I felt both pleasantly surprised and afraid of what it was learning to do as we fed it. I shall include some of its work here: 

This poem was written using the prompt "Write a poem: Keren does not want any more poems. She is shaking her head at me, uhm, uhm."
Here follows the result:

In the silence, a subtle shake,

Keren's head moves, a gentle quake.

"No poems, please," her eyes implore,

Her concerns, she chooses to explore.

With each "umh" and "uhm" she sighs,

Her thoughts, like whispers, softly rise.

A poem unwritten, a tale untold,

Her wishes, in silence, take hold.

For Keren, words may not convey,

The depth of thoughts that mark her day.

In quiet moments, she finds her voice,

In choices made, she makes her choice.

So let us honor Keren's plea,

And let her thoughts flow, wild and free.

No poems here, just understanding clear,

For her, we hold a listening ear.

While this may only be the second week of classes, things have fired up and the initial shock only seems to grow worse with each passing class. I had rather hoped it might wear off but it seems not. In all this academic drama, Rohannette, Karla and I came to the decision that we could not possibly manage our course work and the social impact project at the same time. It was a rather frustrating realisation that the one thing I had really looked forward to and was excited about probably just wouldn't be feasible. It was comforting to know at least that the others felt the same. Sometimes knowing your limits is a hard thing even if it is healthier in the long run. So now we have to draft a "it's not you, it's the schedule" letter to the lecturer. Rohannette has taken to calling it our breakup letter and we have consistently delayed sending it for nearly a week now. We are all sad to let Dr Rinquest down and Roha is personally a little afraid that she may try to win us over with her enthusiasm. Karla has insisted that if that happens she and I must just keep our mouths shut and look to Roha to be our rock. I hope this method works out! 

I ended the week by sneaking into one of Dana's lectures with her and Jess on Friday. It was splendid! They showed the PGCE students the video about the first group of matrics post 1994. I believe the documentary was made in 2006. It is a very moving, albeit slghtly depressing video. It leaves me in a slump every time I see it, but that is what makes it so good. It is also what I think lecturers hope will motivate us to understand just how complex the education system in South Africa is and how much work is still to be done. 

Perhaps I should end on that slightly philosophical note! 

I went home for the weekend, so there is not much to report other than to say that it was a wonderful time to just take a deep breath metaphorically to tide me over for the rest of the term. 

This weekend is Kickstart, so I am sure I will have plenty to say! It may even require its own separate blog post, I shall decide later. 

Selfies with Liesje at half-time

My temporary face tattoo

Selfies with the whole group (including 2 Dutch exchange students)

Gandalf napping on my desk over the weekend

My real-life Anne ❤