motion sickness

japanese stuff :

do you ever remember writing a test or exam at school and you'd come out and discuss it with your friends even though your brain knew it was a really dumb idea? i'd inevitably have different answers from everyone and then worry about what exactly i was thinking. yesterday was like that. i found some of the questions in the english test quite thought-provoking whilst everyone else thought it was breezy (damn you laura with your high IQ!) and my professor from wits ended up interviewing me which should have made it easier (damn you john with your love for weaponry!) but it made it surreal. so here's how it went : i don't know. all i can do is wait. after matric, in that period where you sit around waiting for your results to be published in the national newspaper for the entire world to see (including your strangely competitive afrikaans family in ermelo who would like their precious ones to be the cleverest in the family... yes people are sad like that) and you slowly convince yourself that you failed. i am in that place. slowly.failing. ;)

wits:

so wits is taking me on a lovely rollercoaster ride of deception, lies and just plain confusion. right now i am not taking classes and am most probably not going to be allowed to do masters by research because the silly woman in politics is having a hissy fit. according to her, they do not want research people. i am not nearly qualified. they cannot give me money. firstly, wits is trying to be a research based university in a few years. secondly, i am qualified. thirdly, i am on a full scholarship and i am going to be working my butt off in japan to be able to shoot my documentary in the sudan. she says 'no.' the professor who agreed to be my supervisor is going to talk to her. and if she still says no, i will study japanese for 5 months. am strangely calm. sigh.

i want to get off of this rollercoaster. its not fun anymore and i'm starting to feel a little nauseous.

argh!

tomorrow is my interview and test!

why do i feel like i am 12?

george clooney will be with me when i win an oscar

i am deeply disturbed by brett lee's attempts at singing in a bollywood manner. the first time i saw his music video i thought it was a joke ... one of those little cricket adverts that have been prancing around our screens. it was not.

i have never been this angry with the media. the stupid little university newspaper at wits (which we were all encouraged to join when i did journalism, but declined for very obvious reasons) has published one of the most self important, unethical little piece of twaddle i have ever seen.
background info - we at wits have started a darfur genocide campaign. one of the leaders of the campaign - the instigator , a lovely girl called caylee - just so happens to be jewish. OH NO - shouts the vuvuzela, this MUST be a religious issue and so they proceeded to turn it into a jewish vs palestinian debate. the stupid little reporter - Farhana Ismail- tried to create a story where there was no story. and what she has done hs negative consequences for us and i think i will now make sure that her unethical journalistic practices has the same negative impacts on her 'journalism' 'career' ... i'm seething. stupid little people irritate me.

oh a happy note - the other day shaks' mom was pondering things and looking out of her window and into the garden of their flat complex. she spotted a woman, crouching down, every so often looking up in suspicion and peering into other flats. shaks' mom called shaks and her dad and they all looked at her

"i think she might be eating sand!" said shaks' mom

the rest of the family dispelled that theory ... i mean, who eats sand? shaks' dad called down to her to ask if she was ok and she nodded and ran away

a few days later shaks' mom saw the woman, she was pregnant and carrying a cup of sand! a craving ;)

and to end - wits has forced me to deregister as a masters coursework student and register as a 2 year research student. i now have a supervisor who thinks i should contact george clooney to see if he wants to be in my documentary when i go to the sudan. and he wants me to thank him in my oscar acceptance speech. i like my supervisor ;)

waffling on ... waffle waffle waffle

since i am doubtful of my ability to make coherent and intertwined paragraphs, this post will be in the style made famous by triggermap - the point by point blog

1. i have flu again ... second time this year. it's that odd flu whereby you feel you are walking around with cotton wool in your earlobes and the innate desire to lie down on the floor every 5 minutes

2. in a recent survey in britain, 1 out of every 9 women has had an abortion as a result of a serious relationship (so says sky news)

3. i have been trying to be a dedicated student and keep up with my readings so that i can make witty and intelligent conversation during my classes but that has had a severe hinderance in the fact that i did not understand the first chapter i read. what is a 'neo-marxist socialist feminist' exactly and what do they believe in?! i don't know! for petes sake ...

4. stinky is home for the weekend. they sent them all home before the week of physicals start. he's seemingly doing quite well, he says that they all split into groups of 100 and out of his group there are 8 left. some people have been sent home because of the inadequate length of their arms.

5. i have recently realised that if the were an opportunity, like hurrican katrina, i would probably be a looter. its a sad state of my personal attributes. like now, i think that i am going to japan in july and so i have adopted the 'i am not here to make friends, move out of my way' attitude. it's like i'm flitting about waiting

6. laura and i got the calls - we have our japanese interviews on the 26 Feb ... apparently we have a 45 minute intensive english test (WHAT the heck is a verb again?!) and then a one on one interview! (thank the pope for sabc and their random japanese insterts... i know aaaall about washi - that paper stuff they make lanterns out of) hold thumbs!

7. watched the departed - it was good. even leo was good. but i thought the ending was dumb in that 'oh look we've run out of time lets kill everyone off and pretend it was a logical end'

8. i am going to go buy a caramello bear now

boot camp and all that jazz

my dear brother stinky (also known sometimes as mike) left today for 10 days of psychoanalysis and the sticking of thermometer in dark places. there are about 5 levels he has to get through and so while i will miss him and want to see him, i dont want to see him before the 10 days are up because that'd mean they rejected him. this boot camp is the culmination of his dream to be a South African fighter pilot since forever.

before he left, much to his chagrin, i sat him down in a very sombre fashion and commanded him to find me a fighter pilot husband. any one else in for the pickin's? because you need to tell me so that i can sms before he goes too far out of signal range. it will annoy him to no end. he he he

part 2 : you have been eagerly awaiting this, i can tell!

ralph then tells mary, mary's mom and lysander that they must try phone horation, but under no circumstances to let mildred know that her husband was having an affair.

in due course, after knocking and knocking on doors and windows and phoning home phones and cell phones, the door eventually opens.

it turns out that horatio, who has had some brain troubles - ie medically resulting in operations and scans and such has had what i think can only be described as an aneurysm and was lying unconscious on the floor, with his little side floozy too worried about getting caught to phone an ambulance! she simply waited there and did absolutely nothing (if it was me in the situation - hah hahahahahaaa - the most REASONABLE thing to do would be to phone the frigging ambulance and then inform the gardener about the situation and then leave! i mean please!)

so they rush him to hospital and find out he lost a lot of oxygen to his brain, but was 'stable' ... mary then found out that the last time horatio had engaged in extra curricular activities with another concubine, mildred had subsequently fired all her employees who had known about it. (the fact that this company is an equal employee CCU company thingy is besides the point)

mary then went home.

the next few days mary went to work, there was no electricity.

the next few, the phones were broken.

i'll bet she played some solitaire.

telling this story for mary!

a while ago my lovely friend mary told me this story about her first foray into the world of working people and i asked her to share it with the world for i thought it to be dramatically funny

main characters of whose names the only one that is real is mary
mary - mainest main character
mary's mother - mary's mother
mildred - the wife of the boss
hortentio - the boss
glenda - the mistress of hortentio
ralph - the brother of hortentio
lysander - the gardener

it all started one bright sunny morning, or alternatively one dark rainy morning - i did not inquire the weather and thus use poetic justice - when the pretty greek mary, having finished her degree at wits and having some extra time on her hands, agrees to temp for a company her mom consults for, as a favour. she arrives at the place of work, a company owned by husband / wife duo hortentio and mildred. mildred is in hospital with a very bad bout of depression and so mary is supposed to contact horatio as she arrives at work. despite knocking and knocking on the door and ringing on the bell and all other things to get somebody's attention, mary and her mom are about to despair, when the gardener - lysander - pops up

"lysander! i dare say you are a sight for sore eyes! do you know where hortentio is at?" asks innocent mary

"you should perhaps go knock on the window" helpfully suggests lysander, "i would but mr hortentio has a woman in there and so i don't want to."

"umm ... ooookay ... is mildred home?"

"no. another woman."

at this very minute the morning silence is shattered by the ringing of a phone - it is ralph! hortentio's brother! mary's mother speaks with him for a while. it comes out that the woman is glenda! the mistress of the wayward hortentio!

to be continued...

and at this moment i must go because i have run out of time. tune in for part two! ;)

quick ps - if you are a boy and you get a girl's number (and not in such a way that you ask her for it as a pity question, but you go to lengths that are out of your way - even in a minor sense ) then PHONE her because it is irritating. thanks

battles with my inner arsonist

friday was the day i almost burnt the University of the Witwatersrand to the ground

if it had not been for the fact
i) that i was physically exhausted
ii) that my inner guilty catholic is a strong (unfortunate?) presence and
iii) i left my canister of gasoline in my OTHER pair of pants ... um ... skirt
the place would have been razed in a swift and punishing blaze of irritation

why?

do you even need to ask me that question? one quick poll - who here who has had the pleasure of attending the fine and upstanding institution has not had the thought at least once? none of you? i thought so

the reason is as follows :

every year i have been at wits, i have experienced a problem. they lose my exmas. they put the wrong mark on the internet (read 38% instead of 83%). they register me for the wrong courses. i understand that these things are bound to happen to me - try as i might, the great god of bureaucracy laughs at my defeats. so i deal with it. in third year, i had to take an extra course, an extra first year history course whilst doing my majors - i had to get permission from the dean to take an extra course - because my media studies course had incorrectly allocated my 'points' for each class i took, so i was lacking and i needed to make some up in order to graduate on time. i found this out at the last minute and by mistake.

but THIS time i am BEYOND irritated. i'm not easily made mad. and if i am , it usually blows over in an hour. THIS TIME, it is sunday. and i am still fuming. i even took it out on thomas. because -

by mid december, i had not received anything from wits about my masters. i phoned them. they told me i had provisional acceptance, they just needed to wait for all my honours marks to be finalised before sending me a firm offer. fine. i understand they are slow. by mid january however, i started getting a little grrrrr. so i phoned them. and phoned them. i bugged their administrative asses for days and they all gave me the same answer - my marks had not yet been moderated and that after the 24th, i would get my firm offer. the 24th came and went, i gave them a few days for the mail to get to my house. by friday- enough was enough. i went in personaly and explained my dilemma. she went off to 'find' my application form. which , after about 39 minutes, she delightedly presented to me.

"whoops!', she said, "we forgot to accept you."

WHOOPS?!?! Uh uh honey, you dont WHOOPS my life! she THEN says
"oh dear, i hope they still have room for you." meaning for the renewal of my scholarship from last year.

i hightail it over to the scholarships office where i deal with an intern *sigh*

she takes my student card and comes back after checking something on the computer.
"um you need to give me your marks."
"excuse me?!", i say, "my marks are on the computer
"no they're not. how long have you been at wits? are you an international student?"
"i have been here for FIVE years and NO i have lived in joburg since 1984 which was the year of my BIRTH."

she blinks at me. i tell her to fetch me someone else. someone else comes.

they EVENTUALLY find my 'marks' and the other lady calls me aside,
"*sigh* my sweetie ... tell me...what is the percent you need for honours to get a renewal of your scholarship?"

"70%" i say

"yes, so therefore we reject you because of your marks!"

"EXCUSE ME?!?"

"you did not get high enough marks"

(at this point, for my foreign readers, let me explain to you - south african university marks differ greatly to usa grading. an 'A' is 75 % upwards. a 'B' is 70% - 74% etc etc and it is difficult to , especially in the social sciences, get above 70%. its easy to pass, but you'll find yourself averaging a good mark in the 60s.)

anyway - i DEMANDED to see my marks and how they added them together. long irritating story short, she had added my marks incorrectly, divided them by the wrong number of subjects and HORRORS! they didnt even have one of my marks. my best mark. the masters politics course in genocide that they had kindly agreed to let me, as an honours intl relations student take and that i worked my butt off in and came top of the frigging class and they didnt even bother to put my mark on the system!!!

i almost passed out with indignation

i have to go back tomorrow while they try 'fix' the mistake and see if there is 'place for me'.

like i said - Burn.The.Place.Down

grrrrrr

on the fact that i am definitely flypaper for the odd

my ex boyfriend - yes, the one who everyone urged me to date thus flinging my commitment issues off the cliff because he was 'so lovely' and who then lied and cheated with his now ex best friends girlfriend like a (beware the coming stereotype) real man - and his family and his 'ho have been stalking me lately.

everywhere i go. its been a comedy of errors that must have come about of no other reason other than the fact that in a previous life i did something unspeakable to the gods.

today, his father came into the store and, after a hug and a 20 minute small talk conversation, he invited me to move into his house and look after the two little kids for 2 weeks whilst he jets to vietnam.

his son and i dont talk because i think he is closely related to the devil (albeit the dim witted relative) and his father invites me to move in?

the weird people just keep a'knocking

an aside : the goverment is flinging about the idea of bringing back conscription as a means to end violent crime... thoughts?