Schoooool's out. for. WINTER! Schooool's out. for. EVER! At UCT anyway...

DONE WITH EXAMS! I am still sick, actually worse than I was before... but I took my last final and now all I have is stuff for my IES class that although it really doesn't matter that much, I still have to do. It was raining horribly today and I had my exam at five in Jameson (the building in all of the pictures... awesome), which was freezing... never have I been so cold in an exam in my life. The supervisors were even wearing winter coats. Exams here are crazy by the way... well work in general is crazy. Every time I submit an assignment I have to put it online on VULA (a much better version of Moodle or Blackboard... I really will miss it) and turn in a hard copy to the department BUT... I must also submit a signed and dated plagarism declaration that says I have not copied or plagarised or anything else.... I do this every single time hard copy and online. And for exams, we have to take a number out of a box and go sit at that desk and that desk only. We have to fill everything out on the front correctly and then fold over the corner so it is completely anonymous. We also have to have our ID and fill out an attendance sheet. In a lot of cases we also have to use multiple books for multiple answers since courses are often taught by two different professors. Once we are finished, someone has to come around and take all of the exams and we can leave. Then they are graded by the professors and then by 'external' graders, who are people that are outside of UCT. That's a lot of work for every single exam....
Also a girl in my program has Malaria. Good to know, because I don't think she went anywhere...
Only 2.5 more days in my house, and then I will officially live in Obs... This whole packing thing is really depressing.
OH. And just so you all know, I've kind of only thought about you every day, as you can see.

The Final Countdown...

It is the beginning of the end! I still have three weeks here, but this is the last week that I will be in my house... very sad to think about! We have until the 30th and then we are supposedly moving into a lodge in Observatory (and by we I mean Lizzy, Becca, Tim, Ken, and myself... Brian and Sam are going to Church Street and Gray is going to Alma... last I heard). I think this is especially funny because early on in the semester a UCT student was murdered in Observatory and a very hastily written and somewhat incorrect e-mail was written to our parents about the event, which most of us in the program don't really think was necessary... anyhow, in this e-mail, it said something to the effect of 'our students don't spend time in Obs' and it is about an 8 minute drive... FALSE. We go to Obs often enough and it is a five minute or less WALK. And now we are living there for a week? Interesting... I mean I'm not really afraid of being there for the most part, at least not more so than I would be just about anywhere else in the area, but I just think it is great that that's where we are going after all that in February...
It's kind of depressing to pack everything, even though I'm not leaving just yet. It's still weird because this is my house that I've lived in all semester and now I have to go live in Obs. And while I am looking forward to some things about going home (free internet, cell phone, food, people, summertime), it is going to be hard to leave. I think I will miss a few people here more than I thought I would, and there are so many things about South Africa in general that I will miss very much... the fact that I'm not really going home to much just makes it harder... everyone will be gone and I may or may not even have a job.
In other news, there have been several strikes lately... as usual. Apparently there is a wage dispute with the company that UCT uses in it's cafeteria and workers have been striking on campus. UCT says that it doesn't control the wages, but rather the company that they have the contract with... kind of like Sodexo at Transy I would assume. Well people don't care and they are pretty angry! They are all over the place on campus. Today I went to Tugwell on Lower Campus to take a Jammie to Upper so I could take my Xhosa exam and I was stopped and I had to show a UCT ID because a group of protesters went into some of the buildings on campus and vandalised a cafeteria and were harassing people. And since they are all striking, students don't have anything to eat so UCT has been giving them vouchers to use on and off campus. We went to Pick & Pay (a grocery store here) a few days ago and it was COMPLETE chaos.

This one is kind of all over the place... just trying to catch up I guess.

So it's been a while... I know... and I am a horrible person because I have been too lazy to write about anything, even though plenty has actually been happening... My mom came to visit. That was pretty nice... got a really nice bed and a really nice shower and real tv and free internet... it was great! And even heat and air conditioning (our house has neither... but I was happy to find out that while I was visiting my mom we got another blanket and heaters... that's sad when that is some of the best news you hear all day)! German food... also a good find. I have been missing spätzle something awful... now all I need is a knödel and I will be set! hmm.... also I took my mom up to Tafelberg/Tischberg/Table Mountain, which is something I hadn't done either and it was AMAZING! You can literally see all of Cape Town from there and all of the mountains around it. My mom really loved the Table Cloth, which is when the clouds come over the mountain and then come down the side and it's really cool looking... like it's just rolling down. I really haven't seen anything else like that that I can compare it to... I also had the final dinner for my program since exams have started now and people are traveling at different times since the exam period is THREE WEEKS here... nice and mean at the same time... lots of time for studying, but aggravating that you can't just get it over with at once. I also had my first oral examination ever (very intimidating, but even though I did terrible, the teacher was very nice about it and said I did a good job... LIES) and went to a concert at the Baxter that my friend played violin in.
Something sad! I volunteer for SHAWCO, an orgranisation that allows UCT students to volunteer in Khayelitsha and Athlone and other places, and I go to tutor third graders in Khayelitsha every Wednesday... we had our last day at the school and then we took all of the kids from the STEP program to the aquarium... They loved it but it was so sad knowing that it was the last time we were going to see them and we don't think they realised that at the time. I also got to go ice skating (YES, it is wintertime and FREEZING and constantly rainy and windy here) with another group from Athlone because that program didn't have enough volunteers.
AND we had no electricity for most of yesterday!
And that's about it I guess! Not really, but that's all I'm going to say because I am being lazy and worthless because I'm tired since I had my hardest exam today at 5...