Kettle baths and loads of laundry

In my previous post, I reported on how there was no water in Grahamstown. Here are some details on living in these conditions. Not to be read by the weak-of-stomach...

The water supply was dodgy from Sunday lunchtime, something we became aware of as we were served our lunch on polystyrene plates with plastic knives and forks. This is becoming more and more of a problem, as it is now Wednesday, and we are still unable to flush our toilets, or have a shower.

Luckily, we have rainwater tanks behind our building. Unfortunately, it hasn't rained in a few weeks, so this supply is dwindling as well (unsurprisingly, as it has to cater to the water needs of 73 girls), and our neighbouring building of 88 boys has run out of their rainwater supply completely, so I hear.

I had my first kettle bath yesterday. I am fortunate to have a sink in my room: I don't know how I would feel about bathing from a sink in the bathroom where people come, do their business, and leave, unable to flush after themselves, and leaving a horrible smell behind them. You come into the building, and you are just hit by a wall of odours, emanating from bodies who, like me, have been unable to shower as often as they might have, and who, apparently, don't know how to fill up a bucket of water to flush the toilet after themselves. It is severely unpleasant.

This morning I decided the kettle bath wouldn't work for me, so I went down to the gym where there was rumoured to be water. Apparently I was not the only one to have heard such rumours: the change rooms, which are normally otherwise fairly empty at 6:30 am, was full, the floors wet, as ladies endured harsh conditions. My shower was brief: it was cold, with little water pressure (a huge disappointment, as the gym pressure is normally exceptionally good). One of the showers was blocked, verging on flooding. But I got to wash my hair, and my whole body. I now wait with anticipation for the water to come back, dreading the possibility of it not returning before my Spinning class that I have to instruct later today (the uniform for which I have to wash by hand, again).

My laundry is piling up: it was my intention to do laundry the other afternoon. I could have done it in the morning, but I was procrastinating. "It's fine, I'll do it this afternoon!" I had thought. I will never put off doing my laundry again: I am nearly down to my last set of underwear, and I am running out of laundry "shelf" space (the laundry basket was full a very long time ago).

Hold thumbs that pressure returns the water to us on the hill soon, and I am able to clean myself before I return home on Friday: we wouldn't want my mother thinking I am unable to look after myself at university.

Weekly digest #3

Fans disappointed that their mail isn't read by their heroes : Over-decorated and generic letters addressed to Taylor Swift were found in the recycling bin, to the dismay of those who sent it. Her management team were quick to claim that this disposal had been done accidentally, of course. How do fans expect every single one of their letters to be read, why would they think that theirs is so important and has something so new and interesting to say, that their celebrity sweetheart would take the time out of their busy and famous lives to give a damn for a moment? You could probably just send an envelope with the star's name on it, and they would get the idea. I do not understand the point of fan mail. If you really want to get a message to someone, make sure that it stands out, without having to resort to copious amounts of glitter glue and heart stickers. Be creative, be unusual, have something different to say. The same goes with life: if you think you're important enough that people should listen to you, put your message across in a way that conveys that! Also, well done to Taylor's management team for recycling, #savetheplanet.

Nepotism in schools: teacher fired for not adjusting principle's child's marks : A Northern Cape teacher was fired after she did not adjust one of her pupils marks so that he could pass. Said pupil was the principle's son. Pregnant mathematics and science teacher, Arlene Nel refused the request to up the grade 11 student's mark for a life sciences paper for which he received 28%. He had also only achieved 14% and 24% for maths and physical sciences respectively. The arbitration case for this situation will continue next month.
We thought we had it bad in our school, where there were relatives all throughout the staff. We had nothing on this. This is so unfair, because of the treatment and preference given to one student (who clearly doesn't deserve a chance - it's not as though he was having a little bit of trouble with one subject, he was failing others as well), and because the teacher now has a newborn child to care for, without a job to support it. Perhaps there are other underlying issues in the pupil's life that has caused him to perform badly, but if this is the case, then it needs to be dealt with openly (with discretion of course), and not through sneakily firing a staff member.

Grahamstown has no water and it really sucks:  I've attached two links for this story, but really it is my own. We have no water here in Grahamstown, and it is the second time in two weeks. Last week this inconvenience lasted about a day. Now, we have had no water for a few days. Certain areas seem to have started to get water back, now that the problem has been "fixed", but many people still have no access to water, which means no washing, no cooking water, no flushing water, in many cases.
A message from "Cllr Les Reynolds Da Caucus Leader" on the Rhodes University Community Forum Facebook group informed members of the group as to the cause of the outages, and explained that once the broken pipe that was the cause of the problems was fixed, water supply should resume.

[Note: this is a Monday post, but written on Wednesday, so the water issues timeline may be somewhat confusing. The events it describes were confusing anyway, so this shouldn't be a problem. Also, any water supply issues is an issue, regardless of how long that has been the case for]

Why I write #2

I have always written, and my writing was inspired by my reading. I started reading when I was six, with the first booked I started my reading journey with being my Children’s Bible. Shortly after that, just over a year later, I wrote my first short story, entitled The Magic Computer. It had a sad ending (when the computer lost its magic), yet it is one of the only stories that I managed to complete.

I became addicted to reading. The Harry Potter series truly drove this, and I would get so absorbed in my books that the res of the class would be making a ruckus about me, and I would be quietly going about the business of my characters. Talk of World War III in 2001 couldn’t even tear me away from the world of Bilbo Baggins and Artemis Fowl.

I don’t know what lead me to think I could write. I still don’t even know if I can write. Perhaps this optimism in my writing abilities is just because I have been writing for so long, or perhaps just because my zeal for reading caused me to know how to write.

School irritated me because their formatting was just wrong: we had to leave lines between paragraphs (even though they don’t do that in the real books that I read) and their punctuation was all wrong, at least according to how the books were done.

I suppose I write because I am a perfectionist, and as a perfectionist nothing is ever good enough. A writer will just about never be completely satisfied with their work. We could always have done it better.

I know that I write. That much is certain. Does this make me a writer? I do not know: am I genuinely a good writer? Or do I just think that I am because I know how to do it? If I am not a writer, then what am I? I am busy. I am busy finding myself. I am busy learning about who I am, what I am good at, and what I am interested in doing. I don’t know where I am going in life, but I do know that I want to know more.

Writing is my vehicle. As I write, my writing improves, hopefully making me a better writer. Writing takes me to deep places within my mind. Writing delivers parts of myself to paper, and I learn about who I am. I hope that through this, I will gain some direction with my life. Hopefully I will join those who inspired this love for the type and work to instil a drive in others to write. This way I will always have something to read. I write so I will always have a world in which I can disappear, and escape from the possibility of a World War III.

My new love... And it can come in chocolate too!

Arabica, Ethiopian Lima, robustness, chaff, crema... these were some of the words I became a little bit more familiar with today. A few simple words, that have inspired me to pursue the career of barista! Ok, not quite. I'll probably never be a true coffee connoisseur, but I would really love to get there eventually!

I want to learn how to appreciate a good roast, and to be able to identify the different blends of international farms (except I don't think that this is quite how it works - each farm produces it's own kind, and you blend different farms together).

Basically, I want more coffee in my life. This is unusual for me because I only started drinking coffee last year. When I was much younger, I had my first cup of coffee. I loved it so much that I had two cups. That night I had a nightmare that there were giants falling from the sky onto and through the deck of my pirate ship which you gained access to from the office-block-style corridors. It was a horrible nightmare that has stuck with me for many years (over 16!) and so I never drank coffee again.

I reintroduced myself with a mature open-mindedness that has lead me to try a whole host of new foods (that you will hear about in the future, I am sure). I would say that the product that sold me to coffee was the Nescafé Cappuccino sachets: the foam gets me every time, especially when coupled with a crunchy biscotti!

Gillian Rennie

Today was the start of a journey: Homeground Coffee Roasters showed us how they roast the beans from hard green beans to aromatic, warm, brown beans.

These are then ground to be used in the machines to produce top-quality espresso coffee, which we were lucky enough to get a taster of.

Ashley Brown

I normally take my coffee with milk and one sugar, and a cappuccino comes with milk, but I do think that adding milk to this coffee possibly didn't do the coffee justice: the milk of my cappuccino taster seemed to detract from the richness of the flavour, which was delicious, meeting the excellent standards that Homeground seeks to maintain.

So, today marks the beginning of a long and close friendship between coffee and me. I know it's going to be an intimate one with many regular encounters, and I am sure that if they are anything like today, they will be exceptional.

Riding in buses with strangers, and riding bikes with Branson

You will never get as close to someone as you do when you travel next to them on a bus. Somehow we still manage (mostly) to maintain our personal space when travelling on a plane, even though there isn't a huge difference in allocated space.

One thing that was noticeably different when travelling by bus (as opposed to flying, which is my usual mode of transport to further-away places), was the ability to use your cellphone. This was an inconsiderately loud discovery. I now know all of said cellphone user's gossip from her weekend in Cape Town, and not by choice. I was also excessively exposed to her KFC dinner, which, as we all know, has the power to hone out an entire building, never mind just the upstairs section on a Greyhound bus from Cape Town to Grahamstown.

My travel-partner was, luckily enough, not this person. However, though I only met them two days previously, we ended up getting pretty cosy with each other. When suffering with another, you do not condemn the other for snoring on your shoulder. At least I had good company.

Cape Town was gorgeous as ever, and this weekend gave me yet another way to view it: a 109km tour from the saddle of a bicycle, with over 31 000 other people.

The Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour 2013 was my first Argus race, and I loved every moment of it. I completed the course in a time of 4 hours and 10 minutes, which is not a bad time for a first-timer, and not a bad time at all considering I only started cycling properly in January. A friend's response to my time: "you kicked Richard Branson's ass!" His time was 5:33, so I think I concur!

There are too many aspects of the race for me to share about the event: the weather was ideal, the organisation was great (well done again city of Cape Town). I was disappointed in my time because it was so close to sub-4 and I could have pushed myself harder (I expected the race to be more difficult, according to what everyone had been saying). But that's neither here nor there, and I now have a time that I can significantly improve on for next year.

Bring it on!

Weekly Digest #2

North Korea have abandoned their peace pact with South Korea, and have threatened the US with a pre-emptive nuclear strike : nuclear war seems to be a threat, as of late. There have been assertions that the US are at no risk of such a strike, but there are warnings that South Korea still remains vulnerable, and apparently Japan should be careful as well. From a reader's perspective, I almost look forward to the day that bio-warfare becomes a thing. Then I stop and realise that that would really suck. Perhaps I'm just in my own world where I think that I'd probably be one of those evolved super-humans who is immune to whatever disease becomes air-borne, and that my body holds the cure. Poor human race: I don't do well with needles, so it's just going to be me and the rest of the superior folk to remain on this earth. 

Fine, Ted Dekker is a really great author. And that's all I can say. Even though this has now become rather impalpable.

Homeless man’s scrap metal turns out tobe a live mortar bomb : reporting a "suspicious man" lead to  the discovery of a live mortar bomb, possibly from WWII, in the Durban-area last week. There was shady handling of the situation: Desmond Daniels, from UTI Electronics, who discovered the man and his trolley, suspected that the found bomb was live, and moved it to an open field in case it went off. When a police van drove past and Daniels reported the incident, they advised what to do, and drove off. Also, the suspect has subsequently disappeared. I find this story very bizzarre. Where could it have come from, why was he carrying it around, and what a random situation! Perhaps the reporting of the case is a little bit lacking, and this is why the circumstances are not clear: there are so many issues with this story, what could you decide to focus on?

Patients had clean their ward after thehospital cleaners didn’t show up for work : mothers in the maternity ward at Frere Hospital were told that if they did not clean up after themselves, their babies would get lung infections. When cleaning staff did not arrive to work, the inhabitants of the Kangaroo ward were told to clean the ward, and had to remove rubbish, change sheets, and mop the floors. Great healthcare we provide in this province of the Eastern Cape (note the sarcasm). 

Being a vegetarian is hard...

... and I am quite happy not being one. I am really not having a dig at vegetarians, I think you are all wonderful, and I am inspired by how strongly you uphold your convictions.

But it's not for me. I understand that this can be a sensitive topic: I read somewhere that telling a vegetarian that you will eat meat and they can just not, is kinda like saying that they should just let you continue murdering people while they choose not to participate in such activities (something along those lines...). This is somewhat extreme, but if it's really something that you believe in, then that view has some sense in it. "You just go stand over there with your celibates, and I'll continue over here with my raping ways..." So that just got very serious. But something to think about, perhaps, when you're opposing someone else's views and forcing them to just let you get away with it, without them standing up for something that they feel strongly about.

BUT! I tried Meatless-Monday's this week. It was interesting. I had my boiled egg and coffee for breakfast (not trying out vegan just yet), a spinach and feta pie for lunch (something I had not yet tried, being a huge fan of chicken pies instead), and then dinner. Dinner was my "epiphany". I had Caponata, something which, before coming to University, I had never heard of before. Maybe you haven't either.

In our dining hall, it looks nothing like this. But you can
kind of get the idea of what's in it, or what it looks like

It is an eggplant-based dish, and the way it was prepared in our dining hall (where we are treated to a number of new and unusual meal options) was with a lot of cheese, and almost like a lasagne-type bake dish. The cheese was great, mostly because it is quite a rarity on the dining hall menu.

It wasn't a bad meal at all, but by this time I think I was noticing the lack of protein in my diet for the day, and when I had finished eating, I felt like I had just eaten a side of a full meal: where is my meat?! All these veggies had me feeling unsatisfied. I felt full and not really hungry anymore (there was quite a lot to the meal: all that eggplant, gosh!) but I did not feel as though I had eaten the main part of my meal.

So well done to the vegetarians (and especially the vegans!) for sticking to this type of diet on a daily basis. I'm not really a big meat-eater, but by the end of my Meatless Monday I really felt like I had eaten a lot of plants. It was probably also psychological, but that would still be a factor in a novice Veggie too. I just hope you are getting enough of the right nutrients (says the Human Kineticist and Ergonomist in me).

Confession time

Ok, I have a confession. I am an addict. But I'm going to say it's not a problem. We are all addicts in a similar way. The content of mine is just different. Some people have Facebook, some have computer games. Some people are addicted to YouTube, while others are addicted to 9Gag. Me? I'm addicted to something a little more unhealthy (but sometimes it can be good for you...).

I am addicted to food porn...

"What is this "food porn" you speak of?" you may find yourself asking. Well, my dear friends, behold...

Rolo brownie trifles from Bakingdom.com

Coconut cake with chocolate chunks and coconut
drizzle from Heidirobb.com

Easy pad thai from Browniesfordinner.com

Sweet & spicey bacon chicken from
diaryofarecipeaddict.blogspot.com

Food porn holds the wonders of all sorts of magical food. Sometimes it comes with a recipe that you will never be able to follow, because it either is way too complicated, or you live in a third-world-country where you don't even get half of the ingredients!

And never mind the healthified recipes: if you are lucky to have access to the ingredients (should you know where to even find them!), the ingredients are worth quadruple the value of just buying a simple packet of biscuits. Which is much quicker than having to make all these delicious things from scratch. I want my brownies, and I want them NOW!

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie n’ Oreo Fudge Brownie Bar from

www.kevinandamanda.com

Ever worried about being unhealthy? Ever felt concern that the massive, fudgey, ooey, gooey, chocolate brownie mess with the melted marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles might just go straight towards making those gym pants even tighter? Never fear! Food porn won't make you fat! As I've mentioned, I'm a Calorie counter, but, luckily for me, poring over delicious food doesn't add any fat or calories or carbs to your food diary.

Apparently this light BBQ chicken pizza from
pinchofyum.com only has 150 Calories per piece...
And it looks delicious! Mmmm pizza...

Hey look! Healthy-ish food! I made this
one pot pasta from Marthastewart.com,
and it was really delicious

What does sometimes happen, however, is that it consumes your time. There is also the chance that you do end up getting fat anyway because you were too busy staring at the food, and not going to exercise instead. I find this happens a lot with looking at inspiringly slim girls as well... Too much time looking and wanting, and not enough time getting off my ass and doing something about it!

Maybe I'll go into the evils of "planning" instead of "doing" one day. Today is not that day. Instead, I'll just leave you with some deliciousness. Which, luckily for you, is silent, and does not require that you instantly shut your laptop screen should someone walk into the room. Enjoy!

Caprese lasagne roll ups from cookingclassy.com. I
don't think we have easy access to such long pieces
of lasagne here. So I thought I could find a recipe for
fresh pasta, and I can make my own! Lol that's not gonna
happen...

My brother is desperate for me to make him molten
cupcakes. I'll find a recipe similar to this Betty Crocker
one (another product we can't get here...   

Weekly Digest 1

Federal investigation into Colorado students' version of the Harlem Shake, performed on an airplane : Members of the Colorado College ultimate frisbee team are being investigated by the FAA for performing and filming their rendition of the viral video The Harlem Shake. They did this during flight time (not during take off or landing). I thought it was a pretty good version of the video, much better than the Rhodes University one, which I felt could have at least been done from different angles, or performed with fewer people just doing boring and generic fist-pumping (though, granted, Rhodie was very cool, and there were very original and unusual costumes that people donned for the occasion). I think that because of the masses (of course EVERYONE has to be involved...) a lot of good aspects of it were lost...

Four-year-old hospitalised after being given the wrong medicine - Eastern cape : while the events leading up to the situation are unclear, a four-year-old girl has nevertheless had a bad reaction to the medication that she received after she went into hospital allegedly for vomiting and diarrhoea. Her reaction to the medicine that she received (after what the girl's mother describes as dismissive treatment by the nurse) resulted in her being further hospitalised. While the circumstances are not entirely clear, it is suspected that she was given medicine that is usually prescribed to adults for the same symptoms she was experiencing. 

Mass spaying of Grahamstown dog population : Last weekend there was a drive to spay 57 dogs. With the support of the SPCA, 53 of these dogs were "fixed", with the others not being operated on. This effort works towards reducing the number of breeding dogs in a town where unwanted litters could pose a serious problem, for both the people and for the animals, who might otherwise be left homeless. 

To count the calories...

As I've mentioned in the "About Me" section of this blog, I love exercise. And I love food. And I struggle to maintain a balance between the two. I am self-diagnosed with some condition in which I find all food hyper-palatable. Once I start eating, I don't want to stop, and I just want more of the flavour. Which results in me eating whole slabs of chocolate and whole packets of biscuits, and massive packets of chips. Even the "healthy" snacks: I eat them all! Because, hey, if I eat it now, it won't be there to tempt me! When it is gone, it's gone. I wish I could convince myself of this while I am eating it though...

In my attempt to never let the effects of "first-year-spread" afflict me again, I Googled, of course. I feel I have to work hard to stay at a certain weight (and then lose some perhaps as well). Thus, I came across "thinspo". An evil word in many cultures, this form of blogging/media sharing is a way for girls (and sometimes guys) to get inspiration for being thin (makes sense, right?). What it ultimately results in, is you sitting on tumblr, scrolling through endless posts and reposts of girls who just make you feel crap about yourself because they are so gorgeous (ahem, so professionally airbrushed).

While that last comment is true for a lot of the pictures, there are actually some really motivational before and after pictures that girls share of themselves (so brave!). There are also innumerable posts with advice on what the right foods are to eat, healthy alternatives, and even, as you move towards the Fitspo side of tumblr, exercises routines and advice for targeting particular areas (most commonly, that booty of course. And enter: the squat!).

Eventually I learnt that in order to lose weight, it was not just about eating less overall, it was about eating fewer calories. If you ate veggies to fill up your Cals, you could eat forever and still not reach your "calorie goal". If you ate pizza, however, one slice was the equivalent of a whole meal in some cases (basically a whole pizza could be the same as a single day's allowance...). So I began to count the calories.

The good news: it works! Basically. So now, in order to maintain a below-first-year-spread-maximum, I count how much energy each thing that passes my lips will give me. If I overeat, I want to burn those calories (or, if I burn the calories, I get to eat more, yay!!!). This might be borderline some kind of purging bulimia thing, but that is probably best reserved for another post. Because, as passionate as I am about exercise and my body, I know what I'm doing.

I thought I'd share this with you as a precursor for what is likely to follow in future blog posts...