July 23, 2005

Vacation!

After an enjoyable hike at the end of the week, I headed up to our family cottage in Old Orchard Beach, Maine with Anna and Karl. We were joined shortly by Karl's girlfriend, Rebecca (yes, it does get rather confusing at times), where we were subjected to countless hours on the beach and forced into modes of relaxation. My mother and Bruce came up from Vermont on Wednesday, and we all headed over to a nearby water park to meet up with one of Mom's employees and her family. It's been so long since I've had a full week of vacation, with nothing I really have to do except for the daily workout and personal hygene routine, and I almost forgot what I've been missing! I had a great time just hanging out with my family and taking full advantage of the opportunity for laziness presented to me. Come Monday, it's back to work I go, but at least I have one more day of relaxaton...plus, my first ride on my new road bike!

Posted by rgutwin at 11:46 PM | Comments (1)

May 11, 2005

Tired

I've been going to bed fairly late, and Frances has been getting up fairly early, which means that Becca has quite a large sleep deficit right now. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some sleep in the next few days, because my body is kind of protesting this whole go-from-getting-eight-hours-of-sleep-a-night-to-five thing. The semester is almost over! I'm ready for it to be over. I've been ready for a month or so now.

On a different note, it's a gorgeous day outside. I don't get this South African weather thing...one day it'll be frigid and raining, and the next it'll be sunny and unbearably warm! I still don't think it's as bad as the weather in Geneva sometimes, though. Geneva weather is special.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:28 AM | Comments (7)

May 10, 2005

Three More Papers!

The exam went well yesterday, and the paper that was initially due today has been pushed back to Wednesday. So I have nothing to do for the remainder of today and pretty much the whole of tomorrow until some people in my groups can get together to work on the papers. It doesn't feel particularly weird being here without much to do, though, because that's what it's felt like all semester. Except now I don't even have class...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2005

So Close, Yet So Far...

All I have left standing between me and the end of the semester is one exam (in two and a half hours) and three papers that are almost-but-not-quite done. The exam is today, one paper is due tomorrow, and the other two are due on Wednesday. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do by myself on any of the aforementioned papers, because they're all group stuff and I can't keep working on them without doing all the group work myself. This is kind of frustrating for Becca-who-likes-to-control-lots-of-stuff. I don't work well with others. That doesn't bode well for a potential career, does it?

Posted by rgutwin at 05:11 AM | Comments (9)

May 07, 2005

An Extra Day of Becca!

I'm on campus today, and since the library is open on Saturdays, Crystal let me use her computer to do some research online. Naturally, I procrastinated for a while and found some photos on her computer that I haven't seen before. This is a picture of Niki and I hiking near the Moodie farm over spring / fall break. That was a fun hike: one of the only South African hikes I've been on that didn't involve a moderate amount of stress!

It's somewhat bizarre to think that spring break was over a month ago: time just keeps flying by here. I'm posting every day partially to let everyone back home know what I'm up to, but it's also helpful to me to have such a detailed record of this semester!

Posted by rgutwin at 04:47 AM | Comments (7)

May 06, 2005

Rainy and Cold

Today is another typical fall day in Cape Town: the clouds are drizzling, the sky is dark, the wind is blowing, and the temperature is fairly chilly. I didn't know that the leaves turned color and fell off the trees in South Africa! You learn something new every semester, I guess.

Nothing too exciting is planned for this weekend. Lots of work, lots of movies, lots of procrastinating with Crystal. The UWC campus doesn't offer much in the way of entertainment on weekends. That's okay, though, because I need to learn how to entertain myself anyway. And I have lots of stuff to get done. I just don't want to do it all...

Posted by rgutwin at 03:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2005

More Work, Work, Work

I officially only have one paper and one final exam standing between me and the end of the semester. I'm working on the final paper with Crystal, and we have to walk around campus and interview South Africans about the future of the new South Africa. The problem is that neither one of us knows a large variety of students, so it might come down to stopping random people and asking about their thoughts on where the country is going. This will be interesting. Our plan is to finish the paper this weekend. Let's see how that goes.

My final exam doesn't sound too bad, except that it involves me having to re-read an entire novel because I didn't understand it the first time. So that's the other thing that I have planned for this weekend. I'm not so much looking forward to lots of quality time with David's Story. Perhaps I'll have to break it up with the remainder of Anna Karenina. We'll see how that goes.

Oh, and on a completely different note, as Crystal and I were walking to one of our interviews this morning, we saw a bird being attacked by some of the campus cats. I walked over to chase the cats away and prevent them from torturing the bird, because they were definitely playing with it much more than necessary before it died. Of course, it was just as scared of us as it was of the cats, but I moved it to a different place so that it could die in peace without cats making the remainder of its life even more miserable. Then I had to find a sink to wash off the bird blood that was all over my fingers, which was not as hygenic as possible because the bathrooms at UWC don't have any soap. But we stopped by the bird on the way back from the interview about half an hour later, and it had died peacefully right where we left it.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:06 AM | Comments (3)

May 04, 2005

Last Class

Today is officially my last day of classes for this semester, even though I'm technically supposed to have two more classes tomorrow. But I'm having lunch at one of my professor's houses instead of a final class, and my other class is going into Cape Town to hear the author of one of our class books speak about the new South Africa. I'm not really complaining about the end of the semester, because I think I speak for all my classmates and I when I say that we're all feeling a little burned out at this point. We've done a lot of work, and learned a lot in the process, but we're ready for a break.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:51 AM | Comments (1)

May 03, 2005

Out and About

Sorry about that, folks. I forgot to mention on Friday that Monday was another South African national holiday, so all the computer labs and the library and such were shut down. You know, all these national holidays are really interfering with my life. I think that if I actually had class on Mondays and Fridays, I might feel slightly differently.

I had an excellent three-day weekend, as (shockingly) all my plans went through. On Saturday morning, Shaun picked Niki and I up for the South African Cheese and Wine Festival, which was definitely quite enjoyable. Despite several health ailments for Niki, we laughed a lot and tasted lots of yummy cheese and good wine. We even saw feta cheese being made! Even though I'm neither a cheese nor a wine fanatic, I had a great time. Shaun dropped me off on campus in the evening, and I had a work-filled few hours before I went to bed.

Sunday was like almost every other Sunday I've had at UWC: lots and lots of reading, and not so much walking around (or even getting off my bed, for that matter). On Monday, my professors took a group of us to a nearby township called Langa, which was most interesting. We watched two plays, were filmed in the audience of a gospel music video, stopped at an Ethiopian Episcopalian church (that conducted all its services in Xhosa), and visited a really creepy herbalist that had lots of things hanging from the ceiling that really freaked Becca out. I'm glad that we finally got to go through a township in a vehicle that was slightly less identifiably touristy!

I have lots of work lined up for this week, and no concrete plans yet for next weekend. But today I'm going to Tyger Valley, which is always an interesting experience. Crystal and I are planning on a Mugg and Bean breakfast, which will be extraordinarily yummy. The egg and french toast thing is starting to get a little...monotonous.

Posted by rgutwin at 02:38 AM | Comments (13)

April 29, 2005

Another Friday Already?

My combinatorics exam went spectacular this morning, which concluded my studies of mathematics here at the University of the Western Cape. And I received some wonderful news this morning: Hobart and William Smith Colleges are going to grant me a full semester's credit for my half-a-semester course! This means that I don't need to scramble to take an extra math course my senior year. I'm very excited about this.

After some quality Crystal time this afternoon (tennis and a walk to Spar are currently in the books), I'm spending the evening indoors doing work. Tomorrow, Shaun is taking Niki and I to a cheese and wine festival! I'm also very excited about this little excursion, especially since I can taste as much cheese and wine as I want for a mere R70! I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures to share... On Sunday, more work is on my schedule, and Monday might involve some kind of exciting mini-trip off campus with one of my classes. Knowing the way South Africa functions, however, I don't expect all of these activities to actually occur, but who knows? Maybe I'll have a (busy) excellent weekend!

Posted by rgutwin at 05:50 AM | Comments (3)

April 28, 2005

Freedom Day

I forgot to mention that yesterday was a South African national holiday, which meant that the entire campus shut down and thus prohibited my internet access. It was a beautiful day outside, and lots of people took advantage of the weather and the free time by participating in various activities around campus. It reminded me a lot of Labor Day in the States, what with families hanging around, having braais and such. After my run in the morning, I walked around campus to take some pictures and soak in the South African weather and community. Part of me wanted to join in everyone else's fun activities, but I realized that that would both be semi-inappropriate and probably-not-so-fun for me...

After my final combinatorics exam tomorrow morning, I will conclude this week filled with four papers and over 300 pages of academic reading. Actually, everyone else around me seems to be stressing out, but I don't know what all the fuss is about. I like all the work I have to do, because it distracts me from the alternative boredom of having very little to do.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:41 AM | Comments (2)

April 26, 2005

Trapped on Campus

I'm starting to get somewhat concerned about how I'll spend my time during my last two weeks in South Africa. All the HWS classes I'm taking will have ended, meaning that I'll have no courses or course work to occupy my time. The taxi system here is somewhat sketchy, and in light of the recent taxi wars and shootings, I'm even more hesitant to cram into a minibus filled with a dozen or so other people. Thus, I forsee the very real possibility of hanging out on campus every day except for Saturdays and Tuesdays, when the school has arranged rides for us with Calvin. (We had to switch drivers: the whole Roger thing fell through. It's a really long story involving lots of money lost by HWS, which means even less money in the budget to organize any more trips for us.)

What am I going to do on campus almost every day for two weeks with no classes? My daily workout can only occupy so much of my time, and then it's probably going to be a lot of DVDs and reading for Becca. The weather is going to be really cold and rainy, so I can't go to the beach or enjoy the lovely outdoors. Museums will entertain me for approximately one day. I don't really have the money to travel around to other cities, and even if I did, I don't think I would want to do such a thing by myself. I'm thinking of talking to my professors about my options around Cape Town, because I really don't understand why we're staying here for two extra weeks if there isn't anything for us to do, and we can't get out of the barbed-wire fence surrounding the campus...

Posted by rgutwin at 08:15 AM | Comments (3)

April 25, 2005

Beautiful Fall Day

Although the past week or so has been rather chilly and rainy, autumn in South Africa is just as beautiful as you would expect it to be. Today, the sun is out, the air is crisp, and I acutally see birds migrating in the correct direction! (In Geneva, they always seem to be really confused. Some fly east, some fly west, and some really confused ones fly north. Very few actually fly south...) Shockingly, I spent the entire weekend on campus because my Table Mountain plans fell through yet again. It wasn't a bad weekend, though, since Crystal was around to keep me company, and we got a head start on all the work that seems to be coming to an exhausting climax right before the end of the HWS semester.

Oh, and just for fun...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:16 AM | Comments (2)

April 22, 2005

Another Friday Upon Us

I have come to the end of another week, and yet again I have no concrete plans for this weekend (not that they tend to carry much weight in South Africa anyway...). I do have a paper and a half to write and lots of reading to get done, so hopefully I'll be able to fit it all in with my (prospective) climb up Table Mountain on Saturday. The weather is supposed to be nice, so if Shaun doesn't make any other plans, he'll take us up the mountain. It's so hard for me to believe that he's lived in Cape Town his entire life and hasn't climbed to the top of South Africa's most famous mountain yet. There's a first time for everything, I guess...

Posted by rgutwin at 06:21 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2005

Cecil Esau B Block Kitchen

A few people back in the States have expressed curiosity as to my current food/kitchen experience, and I figured it might be interesting to take a few pictures of what I cook in every day! First of all, it's important to note that there are ten students in B Block, and one (rather small) refigerator to share. The result is that I currently only have an onion, a block of cheese, three yogurts, and some mayonnaise stored in the crowded refigeration unit, and nothing in the freezer (note the missing freezer door...).

The main thing about the kitchen is that it's not really big enough for one person, let alone multiple people all trying to make their dinner after class at one time. This picture basically shows almost all of the kitchen: the door is to the immediate left of the fridge, and the sink area is right behind me.

As a side tangent here (not that there are any other sorts of tangents...right?), I got out of bed to go take these pictures around 10:00 at night, and when I got into the kitchen, one of the burners was on, the light was off, and the door was locked! So I'm very glad that I happened to wander into the kitchen that night. I'm convinced that we're going to start a fire in there before we leave. We've already blown a fuse multiple times, and I think I've encountered forgotten hot burners at least three times.

So here's the sink. I have two issues with the sink. The first is that there are separate faucets for the hot and the cold water, so you can either wash your dishes in an unsatisfactory chilly stream of water, or a scalding one. I tend to opt for the scalding one, and I've definitely burned my fingers plenty of times. The second issue I have is that the sink is about the size of an Altoids tin. Okay, well, it's a little bigger than that, but not by much! It's tricky to wash pots in a teeny, tiny sink without getting scalding water all over the place...

I have to be careful about complaining about our sink, however, because it is better than the community sink in the room right next to our kitchen. This sink is prone to clogginess and general ickiness. Yes, it's completely flooded in this picture, with lots of food particles swimming around. By the way, you can click on any of these pictures to get a larger view.

Okay, so now we're moving away from the kitchen into my room. I like that we have a gate on the outside of our suite, because the rest of my classmates only have a wooden door with a padlock for security. I feel special with a gate and everything. Except it's somewhat strange that the gate locks and the door behind it doesn't, so that when we get our weekly supply of toilet paper, the cleaning ladies open our door and push it through the bars of the gate.

Here's my half of the room that Frances and I share. We have bars on the outside and the inside of our room, which is pretty cool. I'm standing with the door right behind me, and our wall of closets is opposite the wall with all my lovely decorations.

I took a close-up of everything that's on my wall so far. Thanks to everyone who sent me something, because it's helping to make Frances and I feel more at home! Well, some of it might be making Frances feel somewhat unloved, because I've gotten all these nice things in the mail and she has yet to receive anything, but I still think she appreciates the decorations!

That't it for now! Let me know if anyone wants more pictures of anything in particular, because I tend to forget that everyone back home has very little of a sense of what daily life is like for me here! And a huge thanks goes out to the nicest girl in the world, Crystal, for letting me use her laptop to take all this time to put up all these lovely pictures!

Posted by rgutwin at 04:24 AM | Comments (7)

Autumn? I'm Waiting for Spring...

While spring may have sprung in New England, the days are starting to get substantially cooler and damper here in Cape Town, South Africa, and it's surprisingly chillier than I expected. Granted, I'm not one of those Capetonians walking around bundled up to the extreme in a winter hat, scarf, and down jacket, but even coming from autumn experience in frigid Vermont, I must admit that this South African weather is pretty darn cold. It snowed (on the mountains, of course) the other day, and I'm starting to regret the fact that I only brought one sweatshirt, one fleece, and no winter hat in terms of warmer clothing. Poor Frances has a shelf full of tank tops that she's probably not going to get much use out of for the remainder of the semester. I'm guessing that this week has been unseasonably cold for Cape Town at this time of the year (from all the newspaper headlines and South Africans walking around like the world is about to end), so hopefully I have a few warmer days to look forward to before I depart this beautiful country in a month.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:56 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Lots 'o Work

If I complained earlier about being really, really bored with only three classes, I momentarily retract that statement. The past two weeks have been plenty filled with projects, reading, and papers, without much of an end in sight. Actually, my three classes with the professors from HWS end at the beginning of May, so I'm going to have an interesting final few weeks on the UWC campus without any pesky classwork to distract me...

Posted by rgutwin at 10:27 AM | Comments (1)

April 19, 2005

Uninspired

I find it important to note that I have currently been uninspired to make different meals. I'm tired of rice and pasta, and working with the kitchen I have is getting rather frustrating (I took some pictures last night and will post them when I get the chance...). I went to Tyger Valley today and bought lots of bread and eggs, so it looks as though this week will be rather lacking in culinary adventure. Oh well.

Posted by rgutwin at 12:01 PM | Comments (2)

April 18, 2005

No Table Mountain

So, as could be expected, my weekend plans fell through. South Africans don't really seem to be into the whole "planning" thing (or at least the South Africans I've met...). However, I had a good weekend despite not leaving the UWC campus: my professor brought Anna Karenina back from the United States, so I've had a lot of pleasure reading and homework to occupy my time. I'm kind of getting used to relaxing on the weekends and accepting the fact that I really can't find many ways to procrastinate. My grandparents from Vermont called last night, which was quite a pleasant conclusion to a relaxing weekend. I can't wait to get home soon to see everyone!

This week looks relatively uneventful. I have the highlight of my week tomorrow (grocery shopping, of course), a presentation on Wednesday, two papers due on Thursday, and potentially a combinatorics exam to schedule in sometime. Oh, and lots of Tolstoy to read. :-P

Posted by rgutwin at 04:58 AM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2005

Finally, Table Mountain!

I've been meaning to climb Table Mountain ever since I got here, and it finally looks like it's going to happen! Shaun has (somewhat hesitantly) agreed to hike up the mountain with Niki and I tomorrow, and I found a few routes that won't be too taxing for the two non-rowers... I've been to the top before, but our group cheated and used the cable car. We might take it down tomorrow, but hopefully Shaun and Niki will be up for hiking the descent, too, especially since Shaun's car will probably be at the bottom of the trail we take, not the lower cable car station. We're not going straight up the mountain like Anna's ideal path would be (I saw people rock climbing on the way down in the cable car, and it looked pretty intense), but we'll get up there nonetheless.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:46 AM | Comments (2)

April 14, 2005

Yay! A Package from my Grandparents!

The package count continues to rise as I received a package from western New York this afternoon! My grandparents thoughtfully sent me some books, which will definitely help with the whole boredom-from-only-three-classes thing... Getting packages makes me feel so loved. I only have a month and a half left here, so for those of you who were wondering when to make your move, now's the time. :-P

Posted by rgutwin at 12:11 PM | Comments (2)

Paper in the Bathrooms

I want to discuss the issue of toilet paper and paper towels (or lack thereof) I have encountered at UWC, despite the fact that it's somewhat of an odd subject to expand upon. I don't know if it's "a culture thing" or just a "UWC thing", but my first observation is that I have yet to find any toilet paper in an actual toilet stall: if there is any at all, it is in a dispenser in the main area of the bathroom. It took me a while to get used to this, and I went through quite a few tissues I conveniently kept in my backback before I got the hang of it. Furthermore, I have found that the supply of toilet paper is diminished rather quickly, and that the Univeristy seems to have a difficult time determining how long a supply of such paper will last. Thus, I have called upon my handy tissues on plenty of occasions where normally-provided toilet paper is not present.

Finally, once you exit the stall and proceed to wash your hands at UWC, you encounter not only a universal lack of soap, but also an absence of paper towels or electronic devices with which to dry your hands. Luckily, I have a lot of (very absorbant) curly hair that comes in handy in times like these, but I find it rather strange that this seemingly obvious problem has not already been resolved at the Univeristy. Consequently, this leads me to wonder whether other (South African) students find such a phenomenon perfectly normal, or if they are just as perplexed as I am. Perhaps I shall embark on a research project...

Posted by rgutwin at 08:30 AM | Comments (4)

April 13, 2005

Organization

Being the incredibly organized person I am, I feel it's important to note the extreme lack of organization I've encountered at UWC, and in South Africa in general. Coming from a society where everything is as fast-paced and efficient as possible, it's strange to be in a country where "7:30" really means "sometime around 8-ish", large functions are usually planned a maximum of 48 hours in advance, and I see the same unshelved book on the same desk in the library for weeks on end. I understand that the United States takes efficiency to the extreme, and that a society in which almost everyone is over-worked is prehaps a bit too stressful, but I'm also learning to appreciate the little things I take for granted back at home (such as restaurants and various offices opening when their posted hours indicate they will do so).

This being said, I know that South Africa is trying to incorporate itself more into the global market, which means that the country as a whole is trying to become more productive and less inefficient in the workplace. Unfortunately, this direcly implies fewer job opportunities for the citizens of South Africa, as retrenchments lead to higher productivity and thus more competition in the global market. The fact that this country is still developing means that organization is definitely not at its prime, and perhaps as the economy begins to grow and unemployment subsequently begins to fall, I'll become slightly less frustrated with the way some things work over here. Until then, I guess I'll just have to learn how to function on "South African time".

Posted by rgutwin at 06:09 AM | Comments (6)

April 12, 2005

Continued Vacation

So two weeks ago I had my spring break (which was really confusingly 'fall break' here...), and last week one of my three classes was cancelled due to Professor Pinto's attendance at a conference in Boulder, CO. Trust me, life is rather boring when you only have two classes to attend to and nothing much else going on otherwise. I was somewhat looking forward to the commencement of my literature class today, but alas, my professor is stuck in Colorado because of some huge snowstorm! I almost forgot what weather is like for those of you who have to deal with the snowy winter...

Instead of going to my literature class this afternoon, I spent a rather enjoyable few hours in the library, finishing up my first reading of Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I was reading it for pleasure, and yes, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I finally figured out how to check books out of the library, so I'm trying to make the most of my newfound borrowing privileges. Although the library doesn't possess any Tolstoy books in English, I have managed to secure copies of The Grapes of Wrath and The Hobbit before they fly off the shelves. Okay, so prehaps a lot of 'flying' might not be happening, but at least I have ways to amuse myself in the vast amount of time I have between classes...

Posted by rgutwin at 11:35 AM | Comments (1)

April 11, 2005

A Wonderful Weekend

Niki, Crystal, and I had an interesting and amusing weekend with Shaun, who has become somewhat of a personal chauffer. Niki took lots and lots of pictures, so feel free to check out her account of the weekend as well.

On Friday night we joined Shaun's friend, Asim, and a few others for an amusing strategy game called Settlers of Catan. Despite being complete novices, Niki and I worked as a team and did rather well for ourselves. After Settlers of Catan, we played Jenga, and then took an after-midnight stroll on the beach right outside of the back door. We spent the night there at Asim's apartment, which made sense because we didn't crash until 4 am, and Shaun wasn't in an ideal state to drive us back to UWC.

I woke up at 8:00 and spent some time reading and checking out the view from the back porch:



After waking a very reluctant Shaun up, we had breakfast at a nearby Mugg and Bean and then drove into Cape Town so Niki could get some shopping done and Crystal and I could spend some quality time at the internet cafe. I can't believe that Shaun allowed us to drag him out of bed (relatively) early in the morning when he wasn't feeling well, and then he spent the morning snoozing in his car while we bobbled around in Cape Town. I guess I'm encountering the generosity of South Africans that our professors raved so much about last semester...

We spent the afternoon driving around the Western Cape, visiting some winelands and getting a bit of cheese tasting in for Niki. We stopped at a butterfly farm at one point, but we didn't actually pay the R23 to frolick amongst them. We concluded the day with a visit to Shaun's friend's girlfriend's birthday braai (barbeque, for all you Americans over there), which was..."interesting." Shaun stressed the fact that we were among Dutch South Africans, and suggested that such an affiliation accounted for some of the strangeness we were encountering. Niki and I spent most of the party trying to avoid the loud music and incoherent conversations.

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day spent in the room. I got through a fairly large chunk of Pride and Prejudice and watched a bit of the OC with Frances and Crystal. At one point, we noticed that it started to get darker, and the wind picked up and started slamming huge hailstones against our window!



It was pretty cool to see a hailstorm in South Africa. We were wondering if it could have been a hurricaine or something of the sort. Anything to add, Bill Nye? I'll expect one of your Science Corner entries to address the issues of hail in 90 degree weather...

Posted by rgutwin at 06:53 AM | Comments (7)

April 08, 2005

An Open Weekend

Alas, the weekend is upon us again, and I currently don't have any definite plans. I think it's dinner in and a movie for Frances and I this evening, which will be a rather enjoyable break for Frances from all the stress she's had this week. I don't know what's going on tomorrow, as I have several options and an apparent inability to make concrete decisions in advance. I'll probably end up wandering the streets of Cape Town somewhere, or I'll take the day to read and finish my combinatorics project.

On a completely different note, I was wandering around the gutwin.org server a while ago and found this photo:



I miss my Kismet...

Posted by rgutwin at 05:09 AM | Comments (6)

April 07, 2005

Comedian

I went to go see the comedian Marc Lottering last night, which was relatively entertaining. Despite some issues with getting our dinner (which wasn't exactly the well-cooked meal I was hoping for), the company was pleasant and the performance was amusing at times. Marc kept switching back and forth between English and Afrikaans, so it was hard to pick up on what he was saying sometimes. And I felt somewhat awkward, because Niki and I were sitting in front, center stage, and we definitely weren't laughing as much as the rest of the (South African) audience because we couldn't really understand what was going on. It must be very difficult to be a comedian. I've crossed it off my list of potential career options. Not that it was ever on there, anyway...

So I have a class this evening from 6:30 to 8:00, and then I'm free from lectures until Tuesday at 4:00. This whole having-lots-of-free-time thing is going to get very boring very quickly. I finished the math report for my combinatorics professor and will try to take the final exam sometime next week. Now I need to work on convincing the Colleges back home that I covered a semester's worth of material in half the time. Hopefully this won't be too difficult, because I've taken three exams and have lots and lots of notes from lecture and lab.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:07 AM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2005

Last Group Outing

I didn't think much about it before I left the United States for South Africa, but travelling in a group of 24 other students, two professors, and their respective spouses is actually somewhat difficult. That being said, I have enjoyed the various field trips we've taken together since we've been here. Tonight I'm joining my fellow classmates for our last field trip of the semester: we're going to some comedy performance at a restaurant somewhere, and HWS is picking up the tab for dinner! I always get really excited for free food here...

It's strange to have no classes at the university. I've had lots of semesters with four classes, and one with five, but never any with only three. I'm going to have to find some way to volunteer somewhere on campus soon, because I think that I'll get rather bored with all the extra free time I have on my hands. I still need to finish some stuff up from my course last term (namely, my final exam), but after that's all done, I'll have no math exposure. Perhaps some sort of personal independent study is in order.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:26 AM | Comments (3)

April 05, 2005

Photos Uploaded!

I have uploaded some of the photos from my break! You can go to Snapfish to see all of them. In the meantime, here's one of my favourites (hand-picked especially for my sister!):

Posted by rgutwin at 02:37 PM | Comments (2)

Another Package!

Today I was gathering bread and eggs in my room to head down the hallway to make some French Toast, when Aisha walked into my room to deliver a package from Mom just in time! Enclosed was a small jar of Maple Syrup, which was definitely exactly what I've been desperately missing over here. Also included was a photo of Kismet and one of his feathers, and I'm excited that my wall is beginning to get rather full with everyone's cards, pictures, and newspaper clippings. I'll have to post a picture of it soon.

I'm sorry to announce that I've been having a bit of difficulty with my class registration and enrollment opportunities. First of all, my combinatorics course at the university here ended before fall break, and I was planning on taking another course, Intro to Number Theory, for the second half of the semester. Unfortunately, as soon as I saw the professor and sat through the first lecture, I knew that it wouldn't be a very enjoyable term for me if I remained in the course, as the professor is someone I don't have much desire to spend loads of time with. Therefore, I now need to convince HWS that my 7-week combinatorics class is equivalent to a semester-long course I would take back in Geneva. Honestly, I feel like I've learned a semester's worth of material, but I'm not sure how much it'll take for registrar to believe me...

The second issue is that I can't take acting in the fall, which was a rather disappointing realization for me. The computer system wouldn't let me register for it online, and when I tried to contact the professor, he basically told me that I should look elsewhere to fulfill my performing arts goal because he doesn't want to invest in a senior who won't contribute more to the theater program at the colleges. Frankly, this seems like an unfair discrimination to me, but I don't particularly feel like pursuing it further because it probably wouldn't be that pleasant to spend a semester with this professor who doesn't really want me anyway.

Therefore, I'm taking Tibetan Mandala Paining in the spring (hopefully) to fulfill this graduation requirement that is threatening to get the better of me. I thought of taking Intro to Drawing, but after hearing numerous horror stories, I decided to try my luck with potentially the most popular class on campus. I really hope I graduate in 13 months...

Now I need to decide what I'm going to take in the fall instead of acting. I've narrowed it down to Mathematical Logic, Accounting I, Rethinking Jesus, and potentially Creative Writing instead of banking so much on the Mandala Paining course. Let me know if any of you have any comments or suggestions, as these courses might close within a few days when more classes are allowed to register from HWS. I'm still really upset about the acting course, but there are enough interesting courses at HWS that I'm sure I'll have an enjoyable senior year.

Posted by rgutwin at 11:09 AM | Comments (9)

April 04, 2005

Home Sweet...UWC...

After a rather eventful fall break excursion along the Garden Route, I have finally arrived back at my trusty dorm room on the UWC campus. I'll give you the day-by-day walkthrough of the journey, because I have too much to say to embark in an unorderly fashion...

First of all, Easter Sunday was nice: I woke up before the crack of dawn and headed to the north-east corner of campus to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely amazing with lots of orange and pink and blue and gold and yellow and the like. It's not the first South African sunrise I've seen, and it probably won't be the last, because we're heading into winter and the days are getting shorter. By the way, due to the Daylight Savings Time in the United States and the lack thereof in South Africa, the time difference between us is now 6 hours instead of 7.

Tuesday, March 29: We spent almost the entire day driving today. The description we got on the itinerary lists all of the places we drove through. However, I can't imagine that you all are sitting at your computers anxiously awaiting a list of places you probably can't pronounce anyway, so suffice it to say that we drove past lots and lots of really pretty scenery. We spent the night at the Tube 'n Axe Backpackers, which was a neat little place with rather bland and not-too-efficiently-prepared food.

Wednesday, March 30: Today I went on a six and a half hour, 25 kilometer hike with Niki and Professor Pinto. Niki took some pictures and wrote lots and lots about it, so feel free to wander over to her site and check it out. I was doing okay, but my adventurous (and apparently ageless) professor impressed me with her ability to complete the hike with relatively little complaining. The funny thing was that I saw the hike was so long when I first got the map, but it didn't really occur to me that we would actually hike the whole thing. All I can say is, LOTS and LOTS of bonding time... It was a really good day, and we had quite a few laughs that I'm not likely to forget anytime soon.

Thursday, March 31: We spent the bulk of another day driving, except this time we doubled back and were driving east instead of west. We finally ended up at a farm owned by my Professor Moodie's brother. I shared a cottage with Niki and Crystal and Frances, which was very cozy and made me rather sad to leave to come back to the University. Again, Niki took lots of pictures, and a lot of what she talks about was part of my experience as well.

Friday, April 1: No, I did not partake in any April Fool's jokes today, although I must say that I was expecting many more pranks from my fellow students. The weather was rather rainy and gloomy, so I naturally spent the morning on a dairy farm after breakfast. It was actually really interesting to visit a South African dairy farm and compare it to those that I've been to back in the States. Needless to say, the farms were very comparable. I met some interesting Afrikaner farmers and saw some really cool baby cows, so the journey was well worth it. I just hung around the cottage in the afternoon, playing some games with my cottage-mates and suffered another Scrabble defeat at the hands of my professor...

Saturday, April 2: Bright sunlight greeted my eyes as I awoke this morning, and I had a rather busy day trying to do everything that I couldn't do in the rain yesterday. We hiked around a nature reserve in the morning and spent the (rather cold) afternoon on the beach. Again, I was with Niki, so you can go to her journal to see some pictures of the stuff we saw. Alas, no swimming in the Indian Ocean for me, but it was nice to get down to the coast and enjoy time amongst the sand and the waves nonetheless.

Sunday, April 3: Today deserves it's own whole post, but since I'm really pressed for time, I'll give you highlights now and expand on the day upon request. This morning I went for a hike in the woods with the professor who grew up on the farm, his wife, and two other students (Emily and Leanne). We were going to take a leisurely walk to some nearby tree ferns and then head back to the center of the farm for lunch. We walked to the tree ferns, oohed and ahhed, and continued on the path further to see if there was a view at the top of the hill. Professor Moodie's wife, Meredith, sat down eventaully and told us to continue, because she wasn't feeling as energetic as the rest of us. About a minute later, Emily decided to stop hiking as well, because she was walking barefoot through the forest and was in quite a bit of pain. Thus, Leanne and Dunbar and I said that we would be back downthe trail within 15 minutes or so, as we just wanted to see if there was any sort of a view once we got out of the forest. We made it to the top and out, but the grass was too high to really see anything. On our way back down, we totally missed the trail, and found ourselves wandering through trees and aloe plants and thorn bushes. For the first 10 minutes or so, Leanne and I were somewhat amused, convinced that Dunbar would be able to find the path soon. Almost three hours later, dirtier and adorned with many more scrapes than we had when we entered the forest, we came upon the stream that we knew would lead us somewhere familiar. This was the third happiest moment of my entire life. We then followed the stream for a while, wading through in bare feet and tring not to stumble on the slippery, painful rocks, and then continued to the top of a grassy hill to come upon a vehicle path. This was the second happiest moment of my entire life. Once we knew that we could definitely find our way back to civilization, Leanne and I became much more talkative and started skipping down the road towards the entrance to the trail, rather concerned that Meredith might have taken the truck back to the farm in our three hour absence. Finally, we came around the corner and saw two vehicles, complete with a small welcoming committee! I can't remember if I've ever been so happy in my life. At some points during the hike, Leanne and I were definitely rather scared. It was a bad situation: we were completely lost in the forest with no cell phone, no water, no extra clothing, and a (somewhat aging) professor who wasn't really sure where we were going. Needless to say, I was very relieved to get back on the bus to head back to campus.

So here I am again, only slightly worse for the wear and with lots of stories I'll have to tell for many years to come. By the way, I got a package over break from Dad and Beth full of lots of yummy chocolate chip cookies! I've definitely made a dent in those already... And Grama Jean sent me another card, which racks her tally up to three! I hope that all of you know how excited I get when I hear that I have mail here: you definitely highlight my day (or week, if it's a package :-P). Keep in touch!

Posted by rgutwin at 10:30 AM | Comments (3)

March 24, 2005

Warning: No Internet Access

Today commences the fall break here at the University of the Western Cape, meaning that I won't be able to get online again until Monday, April 4th. Consequently, that's the day that I also have to register for next semester at HWS. It's going to be a busy re-introduction to life at UWC.

The next four days, however, will be fairly uneventful. I might go into Cape Town on Friday night and during the day on Saturday. Since we're all going to be basically stranded at the university on Easter Sunday, our group is having a potluck where I'm assured that South African pancakes will be making an appearance, courtesy of Chequira. This means that I have to think of something to make and go to Pick and Pay on Easter to buy the materials. I'm thinking that individually wrapped chocolate eggs are looking good right now... The kitchen is going to be a disaster area on Sunday, and as I don't have a dish that I'm super enthusiastic about cooking, I'll do something simple and yummy.

So if you want to contact me before April 4th, you can't. Well, technically you can call me on Frances' cell phone, but I'm assuming that the cost-effective e-mail and blog-posting route is more appealing to most of you. I hope everyone has a great Easter filled with lots of delicious food and enjoyable company. Maybe I'll be ambitious and energetic enough to get up on Sunday morning and watch the sunrise on campus...

Posted by rgutwin at 10:50 AM | Comments (2)

March 23, 2005

Goals and Aspirations

Rayda Jacobs came to the university yesterday to speak with us about her novel. As I sat there listening to her talk about her motivations for writing the book and the process it entailed, I realized that I've never heard an author speak on a piece of literature before that I've read. It was very interesting to hear how passionate she is about writing: any of us would be lucky to have such a clear desire in life.

I am happy to announce that I have finally figured out the remaining eight courses I have left to take at HWS! Well, I have one open course in the spring next year for an elective of my choosing, but my schedule is now set for the rest of my time as an undergraduate. Math, computer science, psychology, and acting will entertain me next semester. My senior spring, I'll be taking more math, computer science, philosophy, and something else. And I must say that I'm a huge fan of the Good Society minor, as it is probably the most versatile minor around. I like it when I can design my own program for things...

This does not mean, however, that I have all of next year planned out or that I have any clue what I'm doing after I graduate in 14 months. I'm looking into doing honors work next year, but that depends on whether or not I can find a topic interesting enough to occupy my time for a year. And as of right now, I don't have any plans on graduate school, but that also depends on what I discuss with my advisor back in Geneva about my options once I graduate. I'm not particularly thrilled right now about the idea of aquainting myself with a whole different school. Twice is enough for me.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:33 AM | Comments (1)

March 22, 2005

An Entertaining Weekend

Although some of my plans fell through, I actually got off campus a few times this weekend! On Friday night, Frances and I found a small, out-of-the-way Chinese food place that served us a relatively tasty dinner. After dinner, we still had slightly under two hours to kill on Long Street, and after following a couple around until they were sufficiently sketched out, we hung out in the internet café and had a chat about the men, or lack thereof, who have influenced our lives. Frances' experience beats mine, hands down.

On Saturday, I planned to go into Cape Town and visit the District Six museum with Nikki and Crystal, but the man who's in charge of our transportation just randomly cancelled the ride, and we walked one and a half miles to the Spar down the road. Perhaps because it was Saturday, or maybe because we were in a group of three, but we got considerably fewer honks than we usually do. We had a great time walking and chatting, and when they mentioned that they were going to a Freshlyground concert and asked if I wanted to come along, I said I would be there.

Shaun picked us up a little after 7:00, and after hanging out near the theatre for slightly over an hour, we paid our 30 rand to go in and await the band's arrival. Nikki, being the avid concert-goer that she is, hung out near the stage, while Crystal and I had a comfortable experience on the couch at the back. Shaun was nice enough to drive us both there and back, and we returned to campus at the modest hour of 1:00 am.

On Sunday, I slept in (which entailed waking up at 8:00 instead of 7:00...), and watched a few movies and played a few games of solitaire while Frances was out shopping. I got a little bit of work done, but since Monday was a national holiday and UWC actually observes national holidays, I knew that I had another full day to procrastinate. My dad and Beth called shortly after 4:00 in the afternoon, and we talked for an hour and a half or so. It was so nice to hear a familiar voice from home!

After my run on Monday morning, I spent the majority of the day reading Confessions of a Gambler by Rayda Jacobs, because she's coming to speak to my class later this afternoon. Her novel was incredibly interesting, and I'll be flying home with it at the end of May if anyone wants to read said novel. Monday was a bizarre day because it was like another Sunday on campus, minus all the worship services everywhere: almost everything was completely shut down, and only a few people littered the campus when I went out for a walk sometime in the afternoon. When they all started piling in again this morning, I was rather glad to see the campus at its normal capacity again...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:34 AM | Comments (0)

March 18, 2005

South Africa Gets Hot in the Summer...

For those of you who don't know, South Africa is beginning to head from summer into fall. What is "spring break" in Geneva is "fall break" here (which made me think a little harder than usual the first time I heard it). Supposedly, the western cape's climate is similar to that of California's, although I haven't lived in California since I was six years old, so I can't evaluate that statement very accurately. What I do know is that it has been close to 90 degrees this week, with the 10 day forecast looking (slightly) cooler. What does one do on a 90 degree day at the University of the Western Cape? Stay indoors as much as possible, and avoid the third, fourth, fifth, ..., fourteenth floors of buildings like sketchy baboons.

Actually, the only building on campus with 14 "floors" is the library, but the floor reference is deceptive because of the way the building has been designed. It's pretty neat: you enter on the fifth "floor", and to get to any of the other ones, you walk around and around this huge spiral ramp that goes up like so:



The library is air conditioned, which makes it a rather pleasant place to camp out in when it's 90 degrees outside...

I never thought the sentiment would pass from my lips, but I'm glad that fall and winter are shortly on their way. I guess it's not really passing from my lips, eh? More from my surprisingly-moisturized hands in the middle of Geneva's brutal winter. I hear that it's starting to warm up a bit on the eastern coast, though, so perhaps my attempts to blow some of the extra-warm air in a north-westerly direction towards the United States is finally starting to pay off.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:27 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2005

Fire on Campus!

After camping out in the library for a few hours yesterday, I decided to take a 10 minute walk to the International Relations office to see if Janine had any more of an idea of how I can register for number theory next term. On my way, I had to walk past a portion of the nature reserve that is enclosed within the campus fence. As I approached, I noticed that it was rather smoky out, and I just figured that someone was having a bonfire or braai or something somewhere. But as I passed by the reserve, I saw huge (rather warm) flames! It was obvious that this fire was not intentional, because it was really, really close to buildings, and it looked very uncontrolled. I kept walking, because I didn't want to be one of those people who stands around gawking and getting in the way, but it was pretty cool to see. Somewhat scary, but still pretty cool. Nothing like that would ever happen in Geneva, and if it did, everyone on campus would know about it. When I got to class later last night, most people hadn't even heard about it!

In reference to my post yesterday, I think that everyone on the trip is starting to get a little burned out and somewhat frustrated with little things that are accumulating into bigger issues. My friend and I were talking about how we don't want to look back on our semester in South Africa with major regrets, but the program is somewhat poorly designed in a few areas that are falling below our expectations. Even though nothing can really be changed for us at this point, I think that HWS is going to get enough negative feedback from the students here that quite a few things will change for the next group. I knew that we would be the guinea pigs, and I completely admit that the professors and program directors at HWS are doing the best they can to make this experience as enjoyable as possible for us. It's just somewhat discouraging when even the most optimistic on the trip are starting to get a little down...

Posted by rgutwin at 10:11 AM | Comments (6)

March 16, 2005

Exhausted

I'm really tired, and it's from more than just getting up every morning at 7:00 to get my workout in. We're halfway through the semester here, and everything is starting to get a bit too monotonous. Karl talked about finding something to appreciate every day, and while it's rather easy to do that in a completely foreign country like South Africa, I still go through my daily routine without particularly wanting to do any of it. I have mounds and mounds of reading to do for my HWS courses, and a contrasting lack of work for my combinatorics class. I have lots of little essays to write and mornings to spend running and biking when I'd rather be rowing. Granted, the same feeling of monotony has happened at HWS, but it didn't even cross my mind that I would be bored and slightly unhappy in South Africa.

The main thing is that I can't go anywhere off campus without travelling with someone or paying more money than I have to go by myself. I'm literally fenced in here, spending the majority of my time either in my room, reading or playing solitare on my iPod, or in the library and computer lab, trying to get all of my work done or passing the endless supply of hours I seem to have in front of me. I'm having great, new experiences here that I would never be able to have back in snowy Geneva, but I still find myself wondering why I'm 8000 miles away from anything familiar. I keep wishing that May 29th would get here a little sooner...

Next week we only have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, because Monday is a national holiday and Friday is Good Friday. I don't currently have any plans for Easter on Sunday, but on the Tuesday after Easter, I'm heading east with my group to travel along the Garden Route. Then it's back to the university for April and May, where I'll be taking number theory instead of combinatorics (I still need to figure out how to register for that...) and trying not to forget everything from combinatorics for the exam that isn't until the end of May. Yeah, I don't really know why they decided to do that, either. Two thirds of the class is going to fail anyway, but you take away their fighting chance if you leave a two month gap in between the time they've seen any of the material and the time they're expected to regurgitate it back. The exam is technically scheduled for June, but I'm really hoping that I can arrange a time to take it earlier. Preferably two months earlier.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:12 AM | Comments (6)

March 15, 2005

Highlight of the Week Moved to Tuesday

As many of you know, because I've pointed it out a few dozen times, I have my weekly shopping trip into Tyger Valley on Wednesdays for three hours. However, due to some student's complaints, the trip has been moved to Tusdays. Therefore, I have to get a workout in, shower, go to class, and eat breakfast all before 10:00 in the morning. I guess that I can't complain that I'm too bored on Tuesday mornings, although now this means that my Wednesdays will be really slow. I don't have class until 5:30 in the evening on Wednesdays...

By the way, if anyone has a really simple, quick recipe that doesn't involve too many ingredients and can be cooked in a kitchen the size of a sardine can, please send it my way! I'm looking for easy things to make to put over rice and more interesting pasta dishes. Although, I have to say that given my lack of culinary skill, I've actually been enjoying quite a variety of food thus far this semester. My cooking tends to involve lots of eggs and pasta and bread. I can't wait until I get home and have real (skilled) people to cook for me!

I looked for Maple Syrup in Pick 'n Pay today, because I made French Toast on Sunday morning, and I only had a raw sugar packet and butter to top it. Generally, people use a generic "syrup" here for their pancakes and yogurt and stuff like that, but I actually found maple flavored syrup! There was real (ahem, Canadian) maple syrup on the shelf, but at over $10 for a very small bottle, I decided to stay within my college student budget and purchase the $1.50 fake one. I wish I brought real stuff with me...

Posted by rgutwin at 08:19 AM | Comments (3)

March 14, 2005

Cecil Esau

My friend has configured her laptop so that she can plug into the ports in the library, and she offered to let me upload my photos! I've put some online in my Snapfish album, and more are on the way when I find someone else camped out in the library. In the meantime, here's a view of my dorm:

My room is behind the fifth and sixth windows from the left on the ground floor(the first two are Crystal and Christina's room, and the third and fourth are the bathroom). I have to get going, but I'll post some more pictures from off campus soon!

Posted by rgutwin at 07:27 AM | Comments (1)

An Amazing Weekend

Frances and I had ambitious plans to go hiking this weekend, because we were both fed up with spending so much time in our room and not being able to take ourselves anywhere. However, it was over 80 degrees on Saturday, and Frances didn't feel particularly enthusiastic about hiking in such temperatures. So we decided to walk from Cape Town, where we get dropped off on Adderly Street, over to Camp's Bay, which is a semi-nearby beach.

The tricksy thing was that we had to climb the 'hill' in between Table Mountain and Lion's Head. Since we are both young and lively and the walk looked like it was less than 5 kilometers, we decided that the hill wouldn't pose too much of a problem. So after Frances ate breakfast in Cape Town, we set off down Long Street and made our way to the other side of the peninsula.

The walk wasn't too bad: it took us about an hour and fifteen minutes, and we had fun chatting while we made it. The hill that we had to climb on our way to Camp's Bay reminded me of Marin Avenue in Berkeley - lots and lots of uphill. But once we got to the top, the view was absolutely amazing. We could see Cape Town on one side and Camp's Bay on the other. I can't post pictures at the moment, but you can click here to see someone else's photo of what it looked like.

When we got to Camp's Bay, we spent an hour eating lunch and the most delicious ice cream I've ever had, and then we had about two and a half hours left to spend on the beach before we had to hike back to Cape Town to catch our ride back to UWC. The beach was wonderful, although the water felt like it was about 40 degrees! Frances and I only stuck our feet in, but we felt plenty refreshed. The walk back was somewhat difficult on Frances, as she doesn't work very well in the heat, but we made it back in one piece and are looking forward to the introduction of fall! We're planning on going on lots of hikes in our spare time...

There was also a cycling race going on, which made me want to find a road bike and jump in. Every year there's this race around the peninsula, and Frances and I just missed them at the top of the hill between Cape Town and Camp's Bay. Some day I'm going to find someone who wants to take a trip to South Africa with me to go biking around, because it would be a lot of fun to see the Western Cape from a bike rather than a car window.

Yesterday was very uneventful, but it was nice to spend the day in the room and take time to relax. I walked around campus and took a few pictures, so hopefully I'll find a way to get those online soon. I only have two more weeks until spring break (which is called fall break here...), and then I have less than two months left in South Africa! The time just feels like it's flying by, but I also can't wait to get home and see everyone! I'll have lots of stories to tell.

Posted by rgutwin at 02:51 AM | Comments (2)

March 11, 2005

Leaving Impressions

I realized in class the other day that I might be the only American student that my combinatorics professor will ever have. Students don't tend to come over from the United States to study math in South Africa. So if I'm the only American student he'll ever have, it places an unrealistically large burden on me to represent the stereotype of American math students in general.

I also realized something else the other day. I was in the computer lab, and I ran into this Indian girl that I keep seeing all over campus. We've chatted before, and this time she asked me if I've been to any concerts and who I've seen. I had to explain to her that the whole pop music thing isn't really my scene, and I was surprised to find out that she knew (at least something about) the genre of country music! So it's made it all the way to South Africa.

But the thing that really struck me was the realization that, because so much of South Africa's music and entertainment industry comes straight from the United States, people here don't really have opportunities to go to concerts and see their favorite artists perform. I guess that I just took it for granted that I lived in the same country with all of this media power. That's what I like most about going abroad: stepping back from my life and realizing what I have that I didn't take much notice of before.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:24 AM | Comments (7)

March 10, 2005

Not Just Post! A Package!

This afternoon I had to walk all the way across campus to the International Relations Office to ask Janine a question about registering for number theory next term. As I was sitting at her desk, I saw a package in the corner of the room that looked remarkably familiar. So, I asked her if it was for me, and it was! Diana sent me a spectacular assortment of goodies from the United States, which has definitely made my week!

Thus, I have accumulated the following statistics about the postal service:
(1) It takes approximately 7 days for a package to get from South Africa to the United States.
(2) It takes approximately 12 days for a package to get from the United States to South Africa
(3) It takes approximately 10 days for a letter to get from the United States to South Africa
(4) I'm not really sure about the amount of time it takes for a letter to get from South Africa to the United States. A little help here?

Posted by rgutwin at 10:50 AM | Comments (2)

More Post!

The tally is now up to five pieces of mail from five different family and friends! My grandparents sent me two cards that arrived yesterday in one envelope so as to provide more surface area to cover my wall! I am very excited that so many people have taken the time to send me something, and I still have two and a half months here. I am expecting more cards and letters where those came from, folks.

I'm glad that this week is almost over, although it seems like every week here at UWC seems to fly by, which makes my remaining time here seem very short. I got sick this weekend and had a total of four papers due this week, which was a little excessive. In addition, I have another combinatorics exam tomorrow. I can't believe that my class is ending in two weeks. But, then, on to number theory it is! Maybe HWS should consider these term courses...

Posted by rgutwin at 06:09 AM | Comments (0)

March 09, 2005

Food Purchase Issue

Wednesday has become my new favorite day of the week, because I get to go shopping for my weekly supply of food! I have had fun cooking and experiencing the freedom of eating what I want to eat (that is, when I take the time to make it...).

I do have somewhat of a problem, though. I buy both fresh and non-perishable items at the store, and since food in South Africa seems to have fewer preservatives and thus doesn't last as long, I have to eat a lot of the fresh food before I can start on the shelf food. Also, once I open things, I have to keep eating a lot of them until they're gone. For example, I bought a jar of pasta sauce two weeks ago and an still trying to eat enough pasta to be able to finish it! So I still haven't eaten the rice or soup or other interesting and yummy things that I bought over two weeks ago, because I keep getting so much fresh food!

Therefore, in conclusion, I wish that they made fresh food in smaller containers that lasted longer. This week, I refrained from purchasing many perishable items, so hopefully I'll be able to have fun with my rice soon. I also found this veggie burger mix that sounds really, really yummy. I might pick some of that up next week...

Posted by rgutwin at 10:04 AM | Comments (3)

March 08, 2005

Cell Phones Prohibited

It's important to mention that I am the only student in our 25-person group that has not purchased a cell phone, and I have no intention of doing so. My theory is that it's very possible to get through four and a half months in South Africa without needing to buy such a device, considering the fact that they only became popular in the past decade. And plus, 6 of the 25 people who purchased phones have already had them stolen, which makes for a rather miserable statistic on the fate of a cell phone should I purchase one.

I'm guessing that almost every other student in my Combinatorics class has a cell phone, though, and a surprisingly large majority of them don't turn off their phones before they get to class. The first time a student's phone went off, the guy actually had the nerve to answer it, and when he exited the classroom, the professor chased him down the hallway and ordered him to get back in class. However, three phones have gone off in the past two days, and the professor has reached the point where he just says, "Get out" when someone's phone rings. Even if the student turns it off right away, the professor won't let him stay in the classroom. I find this rather amusing, because at HWS, it's fairly common knowledge that you need to turn your phone off before class. I have a feeling that my Combinatorics class isn't spectacularly representative of the general teaching behavior at UWC, though...

Posted by rgutwin at 10:57 AM | Comments (4)

March 07, 2005

Illness Strikes Cecil Esau B12

On Thursday afternoon, Frances came down with some flu-like sickness, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before I picked it up from her. We stayed in on Friday evening and watched movies, and then we spent the day on Saturday doing work. My throat started to hurt as I sat at Frances' computer writing about collaborations with apartheid, and within five hours I was pretty miserable.

Naturally, I had to get up at 6:45 on Sunday morning to go to an Anglican church with my professor and a couple of classmates. In South Africa, Anglican means Episcopalian, and since I've been to at least two Episcopalian services in the United States, this church was more familiar than the Mormon church. However, I was not such a fan of all the incense that they were waving all over the place, as it was making me more nauseous than I already was. The thing I don't like about Episcopalian churches is that there are so many rituals and hymns and everything that the service is less about the sermon than it is about doing all these habitual things. So when the service had to be shortened due to a meeting, they decided to cut out the sermon instead of a few of the dozen or so hymns we sang, thus leaving us with a very abridged version of the speaker's notes. I don't think I'll be returning to that church very soon, either.

After church, we headed to Greeen Point Craft Market. It's important to note at this point that Sunday was the first rainy day I've experienced in my month in Cape Town, and it naturally had to be dreary and miserable when I wasn't feeling much better. So we spent an hour or so wandering outside at this huge flea market, and then we headed to the McDonald's across the street so that Emily and Richelle could get some lunch.

Then we walked to the Waterfront and made our way inside the indoor craft market that seemed to be the less-messy-tourist-version of Green Point. That was fairly educational, but by this time, we were all getting a little tired and decided to call Calvin and have him pick us up an hour early.

But wouldn't you know it, Calvin didn't have any vehicles left for the whole day! Yes, even after we called him on Saturday to confirm that he could pick us up on Sunday afternoon. We were all somewhat upset with no way to get back to UWC except for public transportation. Many people here know that public transportation in South Africa is not my favorite thing, and after Sunday's ordeal with getting back to campus, it's probably safe to say that the public transportation is my least favorite part of South Africa. Especially when I'm so sick that I can barely function, let alone try to figure out how to get three very white, obviously American girls to a university an hour away.

To make a long story short, getting home required us to do a few things that our professors definitely would not have approved of. We took a bus from the Waterfront to Cape Town station after a woman at the information desk told us that taxis on a Sunday afternoon wouldn't be incredibly safe for us. We were supposed to take the Bellville bus from Cape Town, but all of a sudden we found ourselves in the middle of a train station with 5 minutes left to get on a train leaving for Bellville. The next one wasn't leaving for another hour and a half, so we rushed to the ticket counter and then onto the first train car that we came to.

Unfortunately, once we sat down, all three of us realized that being on a completely empty car with one man on his cell phone and two late-teenaged boys wasn't the best idea in the world. But the train started moving, and we spent the uncomfortable 40-minute ride talking to avoid the reality of the potentially dangerous situation. The train line going into Bellville isn't safe for South Africans, let alone American students.

We got to the Bellville station fine, only to be notified that the train to the UWC campus had just left. So a very helpful girl showed us to the taxi stand, where we crammed into a Belhar taxi for a very crowded 10 minute ride. I don't think I've ever been so happy to get back to UWC...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:10 AM | Comments (10)

March 05, 2005

Lab ¹ Hit-on-Becca Time

I had my two-hour lab for combinatorics yesterday, and this guy sat next to me who spent the entire time talking to me instead of doing the exercises. Usually, I'm all about the chatting, but not when I have a dozen or so problems in front of me that are demanding my attention. At the beginning he was asking me how to do certain things, and I didn't feel like going over the common sense explanation of generating r-combinations for an n-set. So I kind of gave him the 20 second it's-not-that-complicated-just-do-this speech, and I kept working. But then he started asking other things, such as:

"Have you been clubbing yet?"
"No. I don't really do that very often."
"Yeah, me either. I just like hanging out at home with a few friends."

and

"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No."
"And why not?"
"Oh, just cuz."

and

"Where do you live?"
"In res."
"Which dorm?"
"Umm, Cecil Esau."
"I'll come visit you."

The thing about South African men is that they're very forward, and unless you're forward about the fact that you really aren't interested in them, they assume that you're just playing hard-to-get. But this guy seemed nice, so I didn't want to tell him to stop talking to me. However, I don't see anything happening with a mid-twenties computer scientist who can't get the hang of lexicographic order.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:10 AM | Comments (6)

March 04, 2005

Sleep (or lack thereof...)

For some reason, I haven't been sleeping very well here. Maybe it's due to the 90-degree weather (not to rub it in all of your frozen faces...), or maybe it's because there are a lot of exciting things over here that produce cognitive function not condusive to sleep. However, this happens fairly often at William Smith and is definitely not anything new. What is strange is that I wake up at 7:00 in the morning to head to the gym or the track, and it takes me less than a minute to get out of bed. Usually, if I get less than 8 hours of sleep, the next morning involves many uncomfortable minutes between the anticipated beeps of my alarm clock's snooze function. I have a feeling that this can't go on forever, though, and I'll either get really, really sick or really, really tired.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:24 AM | Comments (2)

March 03, 2005

Bad Planning

The way that the HWS professors have scheduled our classes here means that I have two classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and a different class on Wednesday night. Thus, over the weekend I spend hours preparing mostly for Tuesday's and Wendesday's classes, so that at the end of every week I have a lot of work to do for Thursday and Friday and not much time to do it. For example, this weekend I worked for the majority of Saturday and Sunday. I had Combinatorics on Monday, two classes on Tuesday, grocery shopping for most of Wednesday followed by a class until 8:30 at night, and I had 130 pages to read and a short paper to write for today. Furthermore, I got an assignment in my Combinatorics class this morning that is due tomorrow at 2:00, and I have relatively little free time between now and then to get the work done.

Note that I am not complaining about this situation, as I am a college student and I understand that this is why I pay thousands of dollars a year. Some people here are voicing frustration about the workload that our professors are placing on us, noting that they didn't come to South Africa to sit in their rooms and read all day. And while I have much sympathy for these people because I am going through the same thing, they did sign up for the same study abroad trip that I did. The material that we're reading has everything to do with the country we're temporarily residing in, and it's very interesting to be able to apply what we're learning to the environment that completely surrounds us.

In conclusion, my study abroad trip to South Africa has involved much studying, despite the warm summer-like weather and my proximity to the ocean. With that said, I am enjoying my time here more than I initially expected, as I have become much more aware of what is around me and conscious of the fact that my time here is quickly passing. I wish that I could bring everyone here just for a day or two to show them what I've been learning about! If anyone happens to be heading to South Africa before the end of May, let me know...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:10 AM | Comments (2)

March 02, 2005

Quality Mall Time

As I may have mentioned, Wednesday is my shopping day to Tyger Valley: a huge mall about a 10 minute drive from my campus. Although I am very excited and grateful to be able to go grocery shopping once a week, it does not take me the alloted three hours to get my grocery shopping done. Those who know me at all know that I have very little tolerance for malls, and the prospect of wandering around for over two hours a week in such a place is rather discouraging. I know that if I were in a mall in South Africa with Miss Jenna Katz, she would be able to entertain me for much longer than the required three hours. But alas, she does not arrive in Africa until after I am back in the United States, and she is going to be in a different country several thousand miles away from South Africa, anyway. I guess I will have to find ways to entertain myself.

I'm not particularly fond of our shopping excursions partly because Bellville used to be a white suburb during apartheid, and the Tyger Valley mall is almost exclusively full of white people in a black-majority country. This is true of many beaches in the area, too, and it's a rather strange phenomenon to walk into such a place and feel like you've been instantly transported to the United States. As I've noted before: South Africa still has a long way to come, but sometimes it feels as if certain aspects of the country are going backwards...

Posted by rgutwin at 09:08 AM | Comments (4)

March 01, 2005

Coloured Chalk and Washing Machines

With my vast expanse of knowledge I have gleaned from a month and a half of observation in South Africa, I have come to some conclusions. Although UWC is rather far behind HWS in a plethra of areas, the university does have a few key advancements over the colleges back home. First of all, my professor broke out the coloured chalk today in math class, and I was astounded not by the proof he was drawing on the board (although it was a rather nifty proof), but rather by the fact that the coloured chalk erased just as cleanly as the regular chalk! It is a phenomenon that I have never seen in the United States, and something that seems to me to be rather desirable.

Second of all, even though you have to pay for your plastic bags at every major grocery store you go to, laundry at the university is completely free! I am not as excited about this as I probably should be, because it means that I have less of an excuse for not doing laundry, but I am very pleased that I don't have to hunt down the right number of coins before I can cleanse my not-so-clean clothing. It's going to be strange to have to pay to wash my clothes again when I get back to Geneva.

So, the other day in class, my professor asked us to go home and write a Pascal program that generated a series of numbers using an algorithm we had just implemented in a proof. Since I am not a Computer Science major and not at all familiar with Pascal, I told the professor that I couldn't do the exercise. He told me to stop by his office yesterday so that he could give me another problem instead. I walked into his office right after class, and the first thing he did was apologize for the fact that the class is moving so slowly and that I look so bored. I explained that I was used to it, and he then proceeded to give me an introduction to graph threory. So now I have all these complicated graphs to make and no really solid idea of how to go about doing so. I'm going to have to go and see him on Thursday to make sure that he's really asking me to design a graph with 56 vertices and several hundred edges...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:07 AM | Comments (7)

February 28, 2005

Bad News for Becca

I have further progress to report on my walking-to-Spar experiment. Crystal and Nicole walked the 3 miles the other day without me, and Crystal reported that she only got 4 honks total, drastically fewer than the 30-something we received. Thus, her conclusion was that it was most definitely me who was attracting the attention. I tried to reason that it was at a different time of the day and thus not comparable, but she said that there was actually more traffic than when we went in the middle of the day.

My theory is that it is mostly because I am tall that I am receiving so much attention. Being tall definitely has its advantages sometimes, but it's rather annoying to stand out all the time. I'm still convinced that it was my attire that attracted some of the attention, so the next time Crystal and I journey over to Spar, I'm going to make sure that every inch of my skin is covered. I will probably overheat and dehydrate and need medical attention, but I can't leave an experiment inconclusive!

Posted by rgutwin at 02:46 AM | Comments (3)

This is getting to be a pattern...

Alas, my hiking excursion on Saturday evening didn't work out because 1) Calvin's taxi service was all booked, 2) Roger was going to charge just Frances and I for the whole bus, and 3) it was going to take too long to take regular taxis into Cape Town. So Frances and I stayed in, got some work done, and watched some TV series on DVD. Hopefully we'll really go hiking next weekend up Table Mountain...

I called Calvin again to make sure that he could take me to the Craft Market on Sunday morning, and it turned out that he was out of vehicles for Sunday, too! So I spent literally all of yesterday in my room, except for my trips down the hall to the kitchen, a run mid-day, and a walk around campus to photograph various skylines on a clear day. If I don't go hiking next Sunday, I'm going to find a way to get to Green Point Craft Market... Maybe my professor will take me.

So, needless to say, I got a lot of work done this weekend, although I still have a few hundred pages to read before classes tomorrow. I wish that I had a car here, although I guess that would be a bad idea since I really don't know how to drive on the left side of the road. There's going to be a complicated adjustment process once I get back to the United States. I am most definitely looking forward to regaining my independence as a licensed driver.

Posted by rgutwin at 02:28 AM | Comments (5)

February 26, 2005

How Did I Get So Busy?

I had a great time at my professor's house last night: she fed me quiche and salad and tropical fruits, and we played two games of Scrabble! The first time, she beat me by 80 points, but I narrowed the margin in the second game so that she won by a slightly-less-humiliating 60 points. We made quite a few good words and had a fun time. I will beat her by the time I leave South Africa...

I have a whole novel to read this weekend, which ordinarily wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's more difficult because I'm also doing things like hiking and visitng a craft market. So hopefully I can get a good chunk of it read before I go hiking from 4:00 to 10:00 tonight, and then I can finish it after the craft market tomorrow morning. I've started reading it, and it's full of lots of South African names and myths and such, making it very difficult for me to follow. It's interesting, though. Just hard for me to read.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:02 AM | Comments (6)

February 25, 2005

More Fun Activites (Tentatively) Planned

First, I need to mention that I paid a visit to the library this morning. I had heard that UWC is a very underfunded university and that it's in desperate need for book donations, but I didn't realize how severe the crisis was. I was looking for Anna Karenina, because there wasn't enough room in my suitcase for me to bring it over, and I found that they don't have a single Tolstoy book in English! Perhaps I will have to buy the library a copy of Anna Karenina. I'll look around.

After my three-hour Combinatorics lab this afternoon, I'm heading over to my professor's house to play Scrabble! I'm very excited, because I haven't played any games since I've been here, and Scrabble is most definitely one of my favorite. Depending on whether or not I get back in time, I may or may not head into Cape Town for the evening.

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out at 9:00 to spend the day in or around Cape Town. There's a lot to do in Cape Town, and it would be interesting to find a museum or aquarium or something to go to. In the evening, I'm trying to coordinate a hike up Lion's Head with a few other girls, because the moon is just past full and it would be a beautiful hike. Hopefully that will work out better than last weekend's attempted adventure.

On Sunday morning, I'm taking a taxi to the Green Point Craft Market to a) do some research on Arts and Crafts in South Africa, which I have to present on in a few weeks and b) look around for cool South African crafts that I might want to buy! But I don't really have that much room in my suitcase to bring things home, so I have to budget my space. If anyone wants me to buy them something specific from South Africa, now's the time to speak up.

By the way, it is very important to note that I received two items via the postal service yesterday! Diana sent me a letter, and Miss Jenna Rose Katz made me a Valentine's Day card! It makes me very, very happy to get things in the mail, partly because they help decorate the bare walls in my room. So I have gotten four things from four different people: will you be next? It only costs $.80 to send a card! I feel like I'm worth $.80...

Posted by rgutwin at 04:15 AM | Comments (6)

February 24, 2005

Editorials + My Group = Danger

We had our bi-disciplinary course again last night, which meant that we had 25 rather opinionated students in one room for three hours. For the first hour and a half we discussed geology, so the environment was deceptively calm. After our 15-minute break, the professors gave us articles that they cut out of the latest edition of the Mail and Guardian, one of South Africa's more progressive newspapers. We split into groups, read the four different articles, and came back to class enlightened and prepared to present.

The article I was assigned to was one on the question of land in the Kruger National Park. There have been claims made to a quarter of the land that currently makes up the park, and the government must decide whether to hand the land over to those who were unfairly pushed off of it during apartheid, or to honor the land claim in a different way that would still allow for environmental conservation. The Kruger National Park is home for quite a few plants and animals that don't exist elsewhere in South Africa. Personally, I feel like the government should find land elsewhere to give to those who are laying claims to the land in Kruger, because people will most likely try to make money off the land in and around Kruger, turning it into another "Sun City" or something of the sort. I tend to be pro-environment over pro-humanity, though, so I can see where the opposite side of the argument woukd come from. Unfortunately, many students in our class get rather defensive and take debates somewhat too personally, so the tension was rather high last night.

There were three other articles that we discussed, although since we spent so much time debating the land in Kruger, we couldn't get into very much depth on the other subjects. At least our class was debating issues that really matter this time: the constant uproar over drop-off and pick-up times is getting rather annoying.

On a completely different note, when I walked into my Combinatorics class this morning, a girl I was passing said something to me in a different language. I said, "What?" and she replied, "Don't you speak Afrikaans?" She assumed that I was a white Afrikaner, so I explained that I was from the United States and that I didn't speak anything other than English (and a little bit of French, but I decided that wouldn't be an important contribution to the conversation). She said, "You should learn it, because they all speak it," referring to the majority of the white population. Her native language is Tswana, but she speaks English fluently and can get by in Afrikaans. It's so strange to be in a country where there are 11 national languages and it's common for someone to speak two or three of them. I wish I were multi-lingual, but I don't think that three months is enough time for me to pick up anything more than a few phrases here and there...

Posted by rgutwin at 03:47 AM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2005

Visual Confirmation

I sent film into Snapfish last week, and they've already put my pictures online! So now everyone can visit my album and receive visual confirmation that I'm actually in South Africa. I like Snapfish, although it was somewhat expensive to mail my disposable camera from South Africa to the United States. I think I'll just bring home the other two cameras in May, so this might be all of the pictures you get for a while...

I am starting to go into internet overload, and I've been spending less than half the time online here than I do at HWS. The rule that students are only allowed one hour of internet per day is apparently rather difficult to enforce, so if I go into the lab and just sit down at a computer that happens to be unoccupied, I can stay there until the next person kicks me off. And I can go at multiple times of the day. Seeing as how there isn't much else to do on campus, I've been surfing the web more than I probably should. But the extra time comes in handy when I actually need to get things done, like caption my photos on Snapfish!

I wish that I could post photos on my blog, but I think the firewall here or the slow server makes it rather difficult. I will eventually find a way, though. I think.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:24 AM | Comments (3)

February 22, 2005

Real Food

Last night I made pasta for dinner, which takes relatively little culinary effort but produces a type of food that I haven't had in weeks. As you can tell, I am very excited for my newfound freedom as a result of our (rather small) kitchen. Feel free to post any recipes that don't take much prep work (I'm sharing the kitchen with 15 other students at the moment) and that are yummy for vegetarians to eat!

So, I have a question: why is it called a "Combination Lock" and not a "Permutation Lock"? Because a combination would imply that the numbers would work in any order, whereas that is obviously not the case. It seems to me like whoever named the Combination Lock didn't take a Combinatorics class... Either that, or I'm being rather dense and overlooking something fairly obvious. Unfortunately, that happens more than I'd like to admit.

Posted by rgutwin at 02:40 AM | Comments (7)

February 21, 2005

A Culture Lesson In Math Class

Who has ever said that Mathematics has no real-life applications? Well, probably no one who has ever studied Applied Math, and certainly no one who is in my Applied Math 251 course here. The professor is constantly trying to relate relative counting principles to the lives of the students, usually to be met with much laughter and confusion. For example, today our professor wrote the following mathematical phrases on the board:

Nguni Ç South Africa = Zulu, Xhosa
Nguni Ç Zimbabwe = Ndebele
Nguni Ç Malawi = Ngoni

I don't know much about the references to Zimbabwe or Malawi, but Zulu and Xhosa are different "tribes" in South Africa. (The explanation of the use of my quotation marks there requires more time than I have at the moment...) So I got to learn about traditional South African culture in my Combo class this morning. It was very interesting. Many things here are very interesting.

The weekends, however, are not. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in my room getting work done for classes. I don't think I've ever been so caught up on work in my entire history of education. It doesn't help that the library isn't even open on Sundays... The highlights of my weekend were the computer lab on Saturday, the grocery store on Sunday morning, and my dad calling on Sunday afternoon. I need to get some friends to talk to so that I don't run up more 1-hour-international-phone-bills with my father! It was very nice to talk to someone from home, though, as the only phone call I've had to the United States since my arrival in South Africa has been a 2 minute conversation with my advisor at HWS.

Note that I have added my mailing address to the sidebar at the right, so anyone who is still desperately searching for some way to mail me something can now do so. I have not yet received any packages, so the rush is on to be the first to send me something and get mentioned on my blog! Not a great incentive, you say? You underestimate the vast quantity of people who are reading my daily words of wisom, I respond...

Posted by rgutwin at 08:44 AM | Comments (1)

February 19, 2005

Fun Activity Cancelled

My hiking trip to Table Mountain today was disappointingly cancelled. For the first time in about two weeks, it is a rather cloudy day in Cape Town, South Africa, and thus it would be too misty on the mountain to make the trip worthwile. There are quite a few upset students at the University of the Western Cape today...

So the day will be spent trying to find something to do. I will most likely end up doing some of the work that I have assigned for next week, but I also might end up in Cape Town or Belleville or something of the sort. It's kind of nice not to have things scheduled for every hour of the day. And while the ordinary person might be bitter about waking up at 7:00 on a Saturday morning for no reason, I am glad to extend the day of laziness. Having no direct purpose is refreshing.

Posted by rgutwin at 02:12 AM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2005

It Feels Like Home

So the Combinatorics exam I had today made me feel like I was back at Hobart: I finished in about 30 minutes, and the entire class looked at me like I was some sort of foreign object when I walked out as they were still on the first half of the exam. And even though I technically am a foreign object, I think the whole idea of someone finishing so early was rather astounding to them. Who would have thunk that a class of Computer Science majors would have such difficulty with Combinatorics proofs? It's good for them, though. My class next term will be interesting because all of the Computer Science students won't take a non-mandatory Applied Math course, and I'll be able to see how many fellow Math enthusiasts I have around me. My guess is that I am one among few...

Posted by rgutwin at 08:22 AM | Comments (6)

Fun Things Planned

I don't have a lot of time, as I have spent the morning in an AIDS workshop and have an exam for my Combinatorics class this afternoon. Unfortunately, the computer lab closes at 5:00 on Friday afternoon! My group is headed out to Cape Town this evening, and I am debating whether or not to join them. We get a free ride into Cape Town every Friday night, and I am rising rather early tomorrow morning to join my professor on a hike up Table Mountain. My guess is that I won't end up going, but you never know...

So I'll be hiking all day on Saturday, which I'm looking forward to immensely, and I'm spending the day on Sunday catching up on work and going shopping for food. The kitchen situation should be solved by then, so I might get to start cooking next week! How exciting.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:42 AM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2005

Some Accumulated Perceptions

On Wednesday nights, the entire group from HWS meets as a class for three hours. We have quite a few logistic things to work out in terms of group excursion times, and we spent most of last night's class talking over one another in essentially a completely chaotic and unproductive environment. Either this group will learn to work together within the time span of 3.5 months, or I will return to the United States very glad to be completely independent from 24 other students.

Later on in the evening, we split up into smaller groups and addressed some issues that the professors have noticed in terms of how people are perceiving cultural differences and (at least somewhat) integrating themselves into South African culture. Personally, I have remarked earlier how surprised I was that many South Africans seem either disinterested in or wary of me, and that I have made fewer South African friends than I had expected. Granted, it's only been two weeks since classes started, but I can easily see this trend continuing for a few months. Perhaps once I start to get involved in more things on campus, I will meet more people who want to talk to me about the differences between South Africa and the United States and help solidify some of the things I've been reading about in my textbooks.

Surprisingly, quite a few people last night mentioned how a certain group of people here get offended when they're referred to as "so-called Coloured". I don't know how many of you are familiar with race relations in South Africa, but during apartheid basically all the people who weren't classified as "white" or "black" were thrown into a category called "coloured". It's hard for me to imagine the context in which such conversation would arise, but apparently many of the students here at the University call themselves coloured, without any "so-called" or quotation marks. (For those of you who don't know this as well, the University of the Western Cape was founded to be a higher learning institution for "so-called Coloureds", and has recently been integrated since the end of apartheid in the 1990s.) It's interesting that we have been so educated by professors and textbooks to never refer to people as coloured without adding "so-called", although I don't forsee myself walking around and asking people in South Africa how they racially classify themselves...

The thing about "race" dynamics in South Africa is that they're not perfect, but there is an active nationwide awareness of the issues and constant political and private attention directed toward the amelioration of the situation. The United States is far beind South Africa in recognizing the discrimination based on a person's skin color and proposing viable solutions to the problem. South Africa is so not perfect in so many ways, but it's so great to be in a country where people are actively paying attention to a sensitive situation and not just sweeping a lot of it under the rug. So, if I don't find a lot of South Africans who want to be my friend, I can just back up and observe interactions that take place between the people around me. I sound a bit more like a sociologist than I'm comfortable with there...

Posted by rgutwin at 03:18 AM | Comments (5)

February 16, 2005

Sleep!

Due to the fact that I've been running at 6:00 am, I had developed somewhat of a sleep deficit. So last night, I crashed around 9:30 and didn't get up until 7:00. I had forgotten how much better the world seems when one is well-rested.

With my newfound energy, Crystal and I walked to the Spar again this morning. I decided to perform some sort of a controlled experiment, as my professor mentioned after our trip last week that it was probably my shorts that provoked much of the attention we received. Therefore, I wore the same shirt and put on a pair of pants this morning, and Crystal concluded, "I think it's because you're tall and white, Rebecca." We received 19 honks on the way there and 13 on the way back: it's my goal to dress modestly enough to get only 5 displays of attention (one-way, though... I have to be realistic). I'll keep you updated on the advancements to this very interesting study of South African culture.

I had to go to Spar today because I once again ran out of food in my rather pathetic pantry. We still don't really have kitchens yet, although there is a refigerator that works and a very small stove and microwave that have been crammed into an even smaller room. Unfortunately, the microwave and stove will remain unfunctional until the University approves the fire safety of the room and buys an outlet extender for the other two plugs. Therefore, I will continue to live off of food I can keep on the shelf in my room, as there are about 19 people sharing an incredibly small fridge at the moment, and I would be concerned for the safety of my food.

So, in response to the quality and variation of South African food, I must confess that most of the food I've eaten recently has been peanut butter and biscuits. I don't eat out in restaurants because a) I don't have access to any, but b) I spent more money on food during the first three weeks of the trip than I initialy expected, so I am now budgeting my limited funds. When I can use the stove and actually create dinner, I will experiment with different South African recipes. Until then, I will remain very hungry for some real food.

On a completely unrelated topic (I didn't feel like investing any energy in an appropriate transition...), I have my first test in Combinatorics on Friday. I think most of the students are rather lost at this point, as my 300-level analysis course that I took last year has come in very useful for me, and I'm in a class required for the computer science major. You finish the math... I don't yet have the textbook, because apparently they don't stock it in the bookstore, as it isn't assumed that most students will want to purchase the book. I'm debating whether or not to get it, as ordering it seems to be somewhat of a process, and the course ends in 5 or 6 weeks.

The professor is interesting: he's one of those rather subdued guys that cracks himself up, and most of the students' laughter is directed toward him rather than with him. He seems to expect a lot more from the students than he should, as many of them don't have the background or interest to make the leaps in understanding that he encourages. The class is oriented heavily around getting the students to participate, which basically means that I end up doing a lot of the talking in a class with over 50 students. It will be interesting to transition to the Number Theory course next semester, as most of the students currenly in my class will not continue on with the math module.

I have heard that the temperature where most of you are has soared back into the 50s, so maybe you will be as tired of warm weather as I will be when I return! I don't think you're 50s are quite like my 80s and 90s, though...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:04 AM | Comments (5)

February 15, 2005

Settling In

I have officially settled in to life at UWC: my room is unpacked and decorated, my classes have already started assigning too much work, and I know my way around campus so well that I can even walk around at night and not get lost! But never alone, of course, although I find it incredibly inconvenient and annoying that I need someone else to come with me if I ever want to leave my dorm after dark. Women have a long way to go in South Africa...

I have decided that I'm somewhat tired of standing out as an obviously international student. I dress the same and look the same as a lot of other people on campus, but as soon as I open my mouth, I get the strangest stares from people who are trying to comprehend my accent. The funny thing is that there are 11 national languages in South Africa, so accents certainly aren't unknown to most of the people here, but I guess that an American accent is just too different to be comprehensible sometimes.

For example, yesterday I went to my math class dressed in my windpants and t-shirt, as I was headed to the gym to lift immediately after the lecture. As I sat down, the student next to me turned and started asking me a question. Given that I had been bluntly pointed out as the American student on the first day of class, this guy obviously knew that it has difficult for me to understand what he was saying. Unfortunately, I don't think that he predicted that he would have to repeat himself three times before I understood that he was asking me if I was going to the gym. I wish that I could adopt a South African accent so that I could blend in here, but we all know how well my attempts to blend in usually turn out.

I feel like I should be more involved with stuff on campus, but it seems like I'm always too mentally and physically exhausted to spend the time looking for groups to participate in. Also, last week a few students helped out with Habitat for Humanity in a nearby township, which would have been very interesting. Unfortunately, my 6-hour-a-week math course prevented me from being able to participate. If it's not crew, it's math...I think I'm just too busy to be social and have lots of life changing experiences.

I have a journal to write for the professors I'm traveling with, and I keep some other thoughts in a personal journal, so it's hard for me to remember what I've written about where. Therefore, if anyone has any questions or wants to know more about a particualr aspect of my experience here, just leave a comment and I'll direct my posts towards potentially more interesting subjects. I have sorted through all of the emails that accumulated during my three week absence from the world wide web, so I now have more time to spend on blog postings and keeping everyone updated. I have also discovered that the computer lab is open until 9:00 at night, which means that I can come back after dinner and just sit down at a computer without having to worry about if I signed in for an hour earlier in the day. The nice thing about a majority commuter campus is that a lot more things are available for the students staying in res after everyone goes home.

I hope all is well in the United States for everyone...

Posted by rgutwin at 03:17 AM | Comments (2)

February 14, 2005

Ready for the Week

I had a spectacular weekend, which started off on Friday night with the event which left something to be desired. President Mbeki spoke, but he is a much less dynamic speaker than I envisioned him to be. The crowd obviously shared my sentiments, as they kept talking right through the grand total of 30 minutes of speeches. It was a beautiful evening and an educational experience, so I'm not complaining a bit.

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to catch a boat to Robben Island, only to discover that the tour was sold out until the afternoon. So we flip-flopped our plans and headed to Kirstenbosch in the morning. Kirstenbosch was gorgeous and I had a great time walking around, looking at all the flora, and chatting with friends. We then left that scene to head to an island where politial prioners were severely mistreated, juxtaposing beauty with incredible injustice--something that is starting to become the definition of South Africa for me.

Sunday was a very relaxing day, since almost nothing at the University is open on Sundays and I was therefore forced against my will to relax and spend most of the day doing work. (I know, Becca doing work? I couldn't believe it either...) In the evening I joined 8 of my classmates for dinner at my professors' flats, which was absolutely the most wonderful thing I've had here in a very long time. I came home with lots of leftovers that won't make it past dinner tonight...

So I'm starting to settle in here: the dorm life is becoming more routine, the campus isn't so confusing, and a few familiar faces are starting to pop up. The kitchen situation has almost been completely solved, aside from the fact that we're still awaiting copies of the keys in order to enter. Once I start cooking for myself and shopping on a regular basis, I will have very few complaints about life here.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:10 AM | Comments (6)

February 11, 2005

The Weekend is Almost Upon Us

I have my last class of the week from 2:00 to 5:20 this afternoon, and then I get to enjoy another relaxing weekend at UWC. On Saturday morning we're going to Robben Island and Kirstenbosch, which should be a fun excursion. And on Sunday evening I'll be dining at my professor's flat, which will be an incredibly welcome diversion from my daily diet of lots of peanut butter and bread.

After my class this afternoon, I'm heading down the road to attend a 10 Years of Democracy celebration. Current President Mbeki will be speaking, and it should be a highly educational experience. We're leaving for Robben Island at 7:00 tomorrow morning, though, and this even is expected to run rather late into the evening, so it looks like it'll be a night with less sleep than I've been getting used to...

The first member of our group of 26 students is leaving shortly. Apparently her experience in South Africa wasn't living up to her expectations, both academically and socially. I don't know if I'll have a chance to speak with her before she leaves, but it seems inconceivable to me to try to leave here now and pick classes up at HWS that started a month ago. I hope that she finds herself more challenged when she gets back to the United States. Personally, I'm glad to not have to endure that 18 hour flight again for a few months.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:04 AM | Comments (1)

February 10, 2005

Mini-Adventures

Crystal and I hiked to the nearby SuperSpar today because I was quite literally out of food. It was less of a hike and more of an adventure than we had expected. Overall, the three miles we had to walk were much shorter than they initially seemed to be. About half of the walk was inside the campus gate, and the rest was on a two-lane highway that forms the main road through Bellville. Needless to say, there were quite a few horn-happy South African citizens who made our walk slightly less enjoyable. All in all, though, we had a good time and, more importantly, bought lots of food! I can't wait until we get weekly rides to the nearby Pick-and-Pay, though, because the selection at Spar is definitely lacking.

I'm taking a trip to my professor's apartment today to help her figure out some computer issues. Lucky me: two trips in one day! It's nice to get off campus once in a while so I don't feel so fenced in all the time. And speaking of fences, it bothers me that there are locked gates across all the exits in my dorm except for the main entrance. I suppose that they don't have the same awareness of fire safety here, as I have yet to see a smoke detector or fire alarm in my dorm, but I'd like to know that if something were to go wrong, like the dryer that caught fire in my dorm a few nights ago, I would be able to escape. Perceived safety comes at a price, I guess.

I bought my return ticket to Vermont today, which has taken up a considerable amount of my daily allowance of 1 hour online. Therefore, I shall keep this entry brief and write later. I hope all is well in the United States...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:28 AM | Comments (6)

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 04:24 AM | Comments (5)

February 08, 2005

Another Sunny Day in South Africa

I had my first class this morning, and I'm very glad to be back in the world of math, where there's a right and a wrong way to do a lot of things. It turns out that my course is only a term course, so I'll be taking Introductory Combinatorics this term and then Intro to Number Theory half way through the semester. My professor is interesting and keeps the class engaged, which is important. Note to self, though: don't fall asleep in class if you're tired, as a piece of chalk will promptly be chucked in your direction... Unfortunately, I cannot evade the definition of "American student", and I was asked to rehearse part of Martin Luther King's speech when we were talking about axioms being "self-evident". To my embarrassment, I don't know Martin Luther King's speech any better than the professor did, so we didn't get very far with that train of thought.

In reference to the food situation, it is reaching somewhat of a crisis situation. I don't know how long the body can healthily live on peanut butter, bread, biscuits, dry cereal, bananas, and granola bars, but I don't really have any other options at the moment. We still have yet to see the presence of the refigerators and stoves that we were promised, and since the dining hall doesn't cater towards vegetarians, I am constantly borderline starving. Also, the grocery store is a good 45 minute walk off campus with a friend, so I don't really have the option of running to the store to grab something to eat. That's okay, though: I don't think I'll die anytime soon, and hopefully the promised kitchen appliances are on their way.

With the start of courses and getting some things done on campus, I am finally beginning to settle into life here at UWC. We still have a lot to get sorted out and I have some routines to establish, but the campus is beginning to seem more familiar and I'm starting to learn the names of some of the other students here. Unfortunately, I'm not very good with names, especially South African names that I can't even pronounce, let alone remember. The other students understand, though, and I generally feel very welcome. We met with our group doctor last night, and as he pointed out, South Africans know a lot more about American culture than we do about theirs, as most of their entertainment industry comes straight from the states. However, that also means that they have certain strong stereotypes ingrained in their subconscious as a result of our media pollution. Needless to say, it will be a very interesting semester.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:18 AM | Comments (5)

February 07, 2005

One Week Down

I have my first class at the University in half an hour, so I don't have an incredibly long time online. The way the computer labs work here is that you go in and sign up for an hour time slot and get a computer number. When your time comes around, you go to your computer and kick off the person that's currently using it. Unfortunately, I only get an hour online a day, so everything that I do has to be in little chunks of time. It'll be so different to get back to HWS and have access to the internet 24 hours a day! Hopefully I'll get rid of some of the unfortunate dependecy I have developed for technology.

Yesterday I attended a Mormon church service in the nearby township of Gugulettu, which was a learning experience on more levels than I anticipated. We took a taxi into town, which was basically like a Volkswagon Vanagon with a few extra rows of seats and a lot more people than imaginable. A few other girls from William Smith were with me, as well as two women from UWC. We spent an hour in the actual service and then 2 hours in classes, and as I had never been to a Mormon church before, I understood only a fraction of what was going on. Let's just say that the experience was interesting and informative, but not one that I'm likely to repeat anytime soon.

Since it was about 90 degrees yesterday, Frances and I spent the rest of the day in our surprisingly cool room, trying to get some work done for our classes that haven't officially met yet. I have a lot of running around left to do today, and hopefully I'll find some time tomorrow to get back online and keep you posted on everything that you probably aren't spectacularly interested in.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:24 AM | Comments (3)

February 05, 2005

Adjusting...

I'm sitting in an internet café in Muizenburg, South Africa, because we decided to go to the beach today. Little did we know that it was cloudy and rather windy half an hour away from our sunny University, so I'm being more productive with my time today. Hopefully we'll get some internet access at the University soon, although it is most certainly not anything like the connection at HWS. The problem is that UWC has 14,000 students, and 11,000 of those live in the area and are required to commute to the University every day. Therefore, most of the student resources on campus close around 4:00 or 5:00, and everyone seems to evacuate the area.

I'm getting rather tired of trying to survive on unperishable food, but UWC is still working on getting us refrigerators and stoves. Hopefully they will come soon and be in somewhat of an accessible location, because I'm getting rather hungry. A lot of things like the kitchens and the bus service have been very disappointing to both the professors and the students, and hopefully both will be worked out before we leave here in four months.

Classes start on Monday, and I don't think I've ever been this excited to start studying again. We've been touring around the cape peninsula this week, and next week we'll finally be able to do some settling in and such. Registration was a nightmare and one man in particular made me extremely upset, but hopefully I'll be attending a math course this semester which looks basically like a combination of set theory and combinatorics. The word's still out on that one, though, as I haven't completely squared everything away with HWS and I don't even know when my class meets. As you can probably gather, life is fairly disorganized here at UWC. I like organization.

Again, I miss all of you, but I'm starting to get used to life here in Cape Town. And I'm certainly not complaining about the weather, which has been sunny and in the 80's almost every day. I'm also learning a lot, not only about the culture and environment of South Africa, but also about myself and various areas that can still use some improvement. When I can get online more regularly and without such a time constraint, I'll be excited to be able to tell everyone about what has been going on! I love and miss you all. Keep commenting!

Posted by rgutwin at 06:51 AM | Comments (2)

January 31, 2005

At the University of the Western Cape

Hey everyone! I've finally gotten to Cape Town and found another computer, although most of the computer labs seem to be closed right now. Actually, the entire campus is rather on shut-down mode, as classes don't really start until next week. We're registering tomorrow and then we'll spend the rest of the week travelling around and going to various touristy places around here, but it's finally hit home that I'm going to be spending four potentially long months in a rather different and somewhat uncomfortable and inconvenient location. One we get various issues with the food and the showers sorted out, I should be fine.

Hope everything is going well 7890 miles away in the United States. I don't have much time right now because Frances has been patiently waiting by my side for about half an hour or so while I've done various things online, but I'll try to get online to give updates as frequently as I can. I love reading all your comments, so please keep writing! I miss everyone at home and I miss rowing with the team, but I'm also not envious of your sub-zero weather compared with our 80-90 degree temperatures...

Posted by rgutwin at 11:02 AM | Comments (4)

January 27, 2005

Safe in South Africa!

After spending 10 days in northern South Africa, I have finally found internet access! It's an incredibly slow dial-up connection that I'm paying a rand a minute for, so I won't elaborate on the way-too-action-packed days I've been having. To make a long adventure sound much shorter, then, I arrived in Johannesburg in one piece and spent the next few (remarkably jet-lag free) days visiting too many museums and attempting to retain too much information.

After a few days we drove north-west to the province of Mpumalanga, where we saw some of the most amazingly beautiful places on earth. After a few days sightseeing there, we drove further north to Kruger National Park where we saw four of the Big Five (elephants, lions, buffalo, and rhinos...the leopards managed to evade us). One lion walked directly in front of our open vehicle, and it was so amazing because he was completely wild. Today we left Kruger and drove back to Johannesburg, where we'll spend the next day at a hostel in the city and then fly to Cape Town on Saturday.

I miss all of you, but I'm having a great time here and seeing some amazing things. I'll tell you more about what's been going on when I get to UWC and encounter a less-primitive and less-expensive form of internet access. I took a lot of pictures of the 30 or so giraffe we saw in the park, and I'll post those as soon as I can. Let me know how you're all doing, and I'll write to you soon!

Posted by rgutwin at 02:53 PM | Comments (6)