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February 09, 2005
Post! I have post!
I was happily surprised by the arrival of two cards this morning as I happened to be sitting in the International Relations office! Mom and Anna both wrote to me, and it was so nice to hear from people back home. It takes an 80 cent stamp to mail a card or a letter to South Africa from the United States, although for some reason Anna's card with only a 37 cent stamp made it to me. I wouldn't recommend trying to save the 43 cents, though, as I have a feeling that not all letters will be as lucky as Anna's was. (BTW, in case you didn't pick up on it, here I am strongly encouraging you to send me mail...)
For those of you who are wondering, I am 7 hours ahead of most of you in the eastern time zone. I tend to do a lot of my online stuff around 10:00 or 11:00 (3:00 or 4:00 in the morning your time, for all you non-math majors), but if any of you want to talk to me online in more of a real-time fashion, let me know and I can get online around 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning (your time). Unfortunately, I don't think that AIM Express works on these incredibly slow computers, as I have tried it several times and had no success...
My schedule is somewhat strange. I usually get up around 6:00 or 6:30 every day to run before the sun comes up. Then, on Mondays, I have a math class from 12:00 to 1:00 and I'm free for the rest of the day. On Tuesday, I have the math class from 8:30 to 9:30 and then two courses with the HWS professors from 4:00 to 5:30 and then from 6:30 to 8:00 at night. Wednesdays are interesting because I get up early to run and then only have one three-hour evening class with the HWS professors from 5:30 to 8:30 pm. Thursday is the same as Tuesday, and on Friday I have a 3 hour lab for my math course from 2:00 to 5:00. Conclusion: I usually don't have much to do in the middle of the day.
I have an update on the kitchen situation. The school has finally found a room to host our fridge and microwave and potentially a stove / oven combination, but they don't have outlets in the room yet to plug all of the appliances into. Hopefully I'll be able to get to the grocery store later this week and then have access to the refigeration unit so I can store yummy foods like cheese and yogurt and milk. Transportation to the grocery store is incredibly problematic at this point, as the man we have contracted for the bus service isn't following through with everything. Hopefully stuff will get straightened out soon, but I have noticed that some things in South Africa move slowly.
For example, as I walk around campus during the day, there are thousands of other students around me with their own agendas and places to go. I can't believe how slowly most of the South Africans walk around here! Granted, I have very long legs and tend to walk rather quickly, but my shorter friends have expressed the same observation. I guess that the lesson here is that American culture teaches us to move way too quickly through life.
I doubt that many of you have gotten this far into the post, but I'll keep writing just in case a few have persevered. This morning, when I was waiting for Crystal to get her unappetizing breakfast of Corn Flakes and warm milk, this guy approached me and asked me what my name was. I know that South African males are more outgoing with women, so it wasn't particularly surprising. However, I didn't realize right away that he had some disability that made him look to the left of my face when he was speaking to me, so for a few seconds I was half thinking that he was talking to the wall behind me. His second question was an inquiry about where I lived, and I was somewhat concerned about his intentions. But it turned out that he has seen me on campus and is a grad student staying in residence studying Physical Therapy. He had to get off to work, but I'm glad to have made another friend, albeit a somewhat interesting one...
Posted by rgutwin at February 9, 2005 04:24 AM
Comments
I persevered to the end of the post! Yay for running early in the morning. Wouldn't you want to say, "I'm glad to have made another friend, ESPECIALLY a somewhat interesting one"? "Interesting" is not a strictly pejorative adjective, you know. He probably saw you walking across campus on fast-forward and wanted to know where you needed to go so fast! I hope you make even more friends in the coming days.
Posted by: Diana at February 9, 2005 08:38 AM
I must agree with Diana on this one, friends are good to have, and you should not be so suspiscios of everyone who asks for your name - if the questions go sour, then you can make desisions. Anyway, i'd better get back to my yummy cinnamon toast crunch and ice cold milk :P
Posted by: anna at February 9, 2005 10:50 AM
Oh and just out of curiosity, how long DOES it take for mail to get there, from the postmark date to when it arrived?
And why are HTML tags not enabled? They are in the other Moveable Type page I comment on...
Posted by: Diana at February 9, 2005 01:58 PM
I'm afraid I can't answer either of your questions very well. For the second one, I have no idea, and I don't currently have the time to figure it out. But in terms of the mail, I only know that both Anna and Mom sent their letters around January 24th, and I got them yesterday. But Janine could have had them for an indefinite amount of time in her office, so it's a very general time frame...
Posted by: Rebecca at February 10, 2005 07:57 AM
If I've told you this story before stop me - oh, you can't. Too bad ;-). When I was visting Tim in Switzerland one time he became very frustrated with me one time we were walking around in town (he was self conscious) and said "stop walking like an american!". He then, in a voice you would scold a 5 year old with, explained that I needed to stop swinging my arms freely, take more clipped strides, etc.. It was weird, but educational.
Posted by: Paul Gutwin at February 12, 2005 10:01 AM