Study break.

Yes yes yes I know, I must be the slackest blogger in the universe! Anyway.... I decided I should let you know that I'm about to start writing exams tomorrow! Eek! Not looking forward to that. I write Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday then I have 5 weeks of holiday! During the first few days of it I'm definitely going to update my blog and tell you about everything I've been up to for the last month or two.

I should also have my computer back by then. It's a very sad story - my laptop is in the computer hospital after I spilled a glass of wine over the keyboard. Apparently that wasn't a very good thing to do. Before you ask or make some snide comment, no I wasn't drunk... It was my first glass and I wasn't working and drinking either. I was planning on watching a movie on my laptop but that never happened! So at the moment I'm using Sarah's laptop - as I have been for the last while.

Anyway, back to the real reason for my post. I've been studying in the library for the past few days. I just get much more work done there. It seems that the rest of the student population feels the same way as me because it's always packed. The main library is open until 1am but the Reserved book room is open 24 hours a day. Students seem to be there 24 hours a day too!

How cool is this? This evening the Associated Students (the student government, like the SRC in SA) organised a midnight study break. From 10pm until 1am in one of the halls in the Aztec Centre there was food - toast, eggs, fried potato wedge thingies, and pancakes as well as coffee or whatever else you wanted to drink. There was also a raffle for all sorts of cool stuff, areas where you could play games (unfortunately Sarah didn't want to play Jenga) and various organisations had tables with information on exams and general study tips. The best bit - it was all free!

It was such a nice way to end an intense evening of studying in the library. We went and just relaxed for a while and ate excellent blueberry pancakes (Sarah had egg etc as well, I decided that was not what I wanted at midnight!) On our way out we had a look at the exam information and got stress balls for our effort - I think I'm going to learn to juggle. I just thought that the whole event was such a good idea that I should share it with you.

Fire Update

The fires around San Diego are getting worse. At this stage about 500000 people have been evacuated and 1250 homes have been destroyed. There are several fires around the San Diego area and so far they've burnt about 300000 acres. The really scary thing is that the two biggest fires are hardly contained at all. At this stage they expect one of them to be contained on 31 October at the earliest and who knows about the other one.

The news stations are covering the fires 24 hours a day it seems. I suppose it's a good thing because you can see the vast scale of the fires. There have been pictures of helicopters water bombing the fires and apparently some large cargo planes are expected and will also be able to help with that. Which is a very good thing considering that the one fire was 20 miles long! A national emergency has been declared and apparently Bush himself is coming down to visit on Thursday.

You realise how tragic this fire is when it affects people you know. A while back (maybe a month and a half ago) I was invited to the house of a Rotarian. This was the day after the District's Rotary Foundation Seminar so there were a number of important people in town. He and his wife were hosted a very nice lunch at their beautiful home in Fallbrook for everyone. Fallbrook is directly North of San Diego and slightly inland. It's a very pretty, slightly rural area in that it's a bit out the way. The houses are large and stand on very big properties filled with avocado trees. Everything was very green and lush. Apparently they were evacuated from their house yesterday and don't expect it to be standing when they return.

On my side I haven't been affected much at all. You can smell smoke outside and the horizon is just grey but that's all thankfully. The University is closed for the rest of the week so on Thursday Sarah and I are going to drive up to Bakersfield to visit her parents. Bakersfield is north-west of LA and about 3 and a half hours from San Diego. We're then going to carry on to visit a friend of hers in San Luis Obispo for the weekend. She mentioned something about a Halloween party too so we're going to get costumes tomorrow I think. It should be fun! At least I'm getting to see a bit of California.

Fire!

I don't know if this has made it onto South African news (although it is on the News 24 website), there are huge fires burning in California. More specifically there are several large fires burning around San Diego.

I copied this off one of the news websites to give you an idea of just how huge these fires are. The red area is the burn zone, The little fire symbols are where the fires currently are and the crosses are evac points. Even though we're quite safe (SDSU is somewhere under the 'La Mesa' label on the map), it's still scary.

The news stations have been covering this all day. At this stage 250000 people have been evacuated for the areas surrounding San Diego and it doesn't appear that the fires are going to be stopping anytime soon. A State of Emergency has been declared and good old Arnie is doing his bit and is going around visiting the evacuees.

As far as I can make out the fires are as a result of an incredibly dry summer with virtually no rains and are being driven by strong winds. I heard a report today that a fire had jumped one of the main highways, the I15. When you realise that American highways are concrete monstrosities with at least 6 lanes in each direction, you understand how impressive that is.

I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am fine (just in case you were worried). There's a permanent smell of smoke around and things are quite hazy but aside from that all is good. In fact they're probably better than good because the University was closed at 1pm today and is going to be closed tomorrow too. Something to do with levels of smoke in the air and getting people off the roads so that the evacuees can get to where they need to go. I'm not complaining.

How's this for impressive? The University has these movable electronic signs which they've put up at all the major intersections around the University so that people know what's going on.

It seems we have gone from one extreme to the other here, last week it was cold and it rained! This was a really big thing... I've been told that it hardly every rains in San Diego. Seeing as it is tecnically a desert I suppose that's hardly surprising. Apparently it's rained once or twice since I've been here but I was always asleep at the time and there was no trace of it by the time I woke up.

I'm baaaaack!

I am quite willing to admit that I've been absolutely shocking about posting stuff on here so I must apologise. I decided that today was the day that I was going to start getting everything back into order with my life. Why has everything got out of order? Because I've been busy and it's really hard living on your own! (and admittedly because I've been lazy). My 'to do' list has got to a point when it's looking really scary so I decided that I really had to do something about it.

As for what I've been up to - nothing thrilling unfortunately! I've been being a student, in other words I've been studying! Isn't that peculiar? In my last post I mentioned tests - two of them, international trade and econometrics, went well but microeconomics was shocking! The biggest problem was time and the fact that there was enough of it for only half the paper. It was not fun. We've also had endless assignments, I just handed in another one this evening and have another due next week. It doesn't seem to stop! You'll be pleased to know I am surviving though.

Life is starting to look a bit more fun too - I have a lot of things lined up for the next few weeks. Highlights include going to see an exhibition of the dead sea scrolls, New York and then going to Santa Barbara with my friend Jen for Thanksgiving. No doubt other stuff will crop up too. Hopefully some of the touristy variety!

I think I got my first bout of homesickness this weekend. I was feeling quite sorry for myself! The main protagonist was the Rugby of all things. Why? - because I haven't been able to watch any of it! There's also no one here who I can talk to about it - rugby is a bit lost on my room mate. It just seems that everyone in SA is so into the RWC (as they should be) and I'm feeling left out! I met a guy who plays rugby for SDSU last week in our apartment block's laundry of all places! I think I'm going to find out where he's watching the final and gatecrash...

I think that's about all for now. As I remember interesting stuff from the last few weeks I'll try to remember to post it.

Economics Students

Wow! I have a busy week and a half ahead of me. In this week coming up I have two assignments due and a test and then on the following Monday and Tuesday I have two more tests. What fun! So I thought I'd give you an insight into the day of an Economics masters student. So here's an example of a typical Wednesday

We only arrive on campus in time for our class at noon which is Econometrics lab - ie a practical. The lecturer is rather amusing - he told us in our first prac that he runs the class like a business meeting. We are therefore given an agenda at the start and by the end will have covered all the topics on the agenda, just not necessarily in the same order. It's a fun class! He demonstrates/teaches while we try the same things on our computer. What's really funny is when he makes a mistake and can't work out what's wrong because it's normally something small and stupid but all our programs work! We're essentially learning how to use SAS - a statistical modeling package - at the moment so it's a fairly common occurrence.

We then have a whole bunch of time to kill before our next class so being the responsible, mature Masters students that we are...
We work! Lots of people (like Jen) bring their laptops in their bags to varsity.

We get confused with silly questions (like Jaren) and help each other out! (I'm a fan of working in a group).

And we eat (like Tiffany). All the food places on campus are fast food chains which is nice in some ways because if you're hungry you have a large number of options. Then there's alway the market which stocks fairly similar stuff to a corner cafe - everything!

Of course the other thing we do in our spare time is get bored of working (like me) and so you start taking random photos of your friends!

At about 4pm all my friends disappear off to their class - North American Economics - which I am not taking thankfully. They have 3 books to read and summarise at the moment - not fun! I have office hours. I actually had a student this week so I couldn't update my blog then :-( We have Microeconomics in the evening which is fairly sleep-inducing to put it bluntly. No one should have to concentrate on stuff you're not finding interesting for more than 45mins because after then my eyelids start to droop. I think the biggest problem for me is that I've done everything we're going over at the moment before (and I remember it). You don't need to have a full undergrad degree in economics to do Masters in Economics though and some people have been out of university for a few years so it is important to recap before we move on. But still! It's quite a relief when it's over.

Such is a typical Wednesday and so ends my rather random post.

Baseball

I went to two baseball games in the space of 3 days which I think was very impressive (although truth be told I would rather have been watching the RWC matches which you can't get on TV here unless you pay for it). Anyway, I digress. I think I can safely say that I now know more about baseball than I did before the first game I went to which was on Saturday evening. However, considering that I didn't know much about baseball at all before then, this is not as impressive as it sounds.

The San Diego team is the Padres. I was told they were called that because Franciscan friars founded a Mission in San Diego (hence the reason the one area of San Diego is called Mission Valley). But it turns out that the Padres took their name from the minor league baseball team that they developed from. I have no clue why that team was named the Padres but hey. However, what I did discover is that the Padre's mascot, the Swinging Friar, is "a whimsical takeoff on Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan priest who founded the chain of twenty-one original California missions in the late 18th century, starting with Mission San Diego Alcala" (which is in San Diego and is on my list of things to see).

So after that exciting piece of random information here is the Friar (who's very annoying I might add and is nowhere near as cool as Sharky).

The baseball stadium in San Diego, Petco Park, is right in the middle of the downtown area of San Diego. I went down on the trolley special events line which goes straight to the park instead of me having to use 3 different lines (or all the lines in the San Diego trolley system)! It's a bit strange though - you're in the middle of the downtown area with lots of tall buildings etc and the next thing a stadium appears out of nowhere!

I even have photographic proof! It's quite an attractive stadium unlike Qualcomm stadium which is where all the American football matches are held. That's just a huge lump of concrete that rises out of an enormous concrete parking lot.

The game on Saturday evening was a Rotary game in the the match was dedicated to Rotary. I'm still not 100% sure why but I do know that flag court at the stadium is the Rotary flag court. It was dedicated by Rotary District 5340 (ie San Diego) as part of the centennial celebration of Rotary International. It's quite cool - on the main flagpole there's a large Rotary wheel.

There's also a plaque/story on the wall about the flag court. As you will no doubt have noticed, I am wearing a cap. Which I do not normally do. They were free! All 40000 people at the game were given San Diego caps. The Padre's colours are navy and white (hence the white cap - duh!) and the blue blob you can see on the side of the hat is the letters SD. I was very impressed. Sure the cap has the sponsors name on the back but it's still a rather impressive thing to do. The other two people in the photo are from Interact (which is essentially Rotary for school kids). They got to raise the Rotary flag in the flag court before the game started.

The game on Saturday evening was rather confusing. For starters we were rather high up as you can see from the 'view' from our seats. So I was never 100% sure what was going on exactly. The atmosphere in the stadium was amazing though - it was almost completely full! The Padres were playing the San Fransisco Giants so there's a lot of rivalry there. Especially since the Padres old coach joined the Giants this year. I did learn a lot about the rules of the game though. For instance I discovered that the yellow pole you can see in the picture is called the foul pole but if the ball hits the pole it's not foul. This had me confused for a while too! The pole basically separates a legitimate hit from one that's out (not sure of the correct terminology here) so it's sort of like tennis where 'on the line is in' and anything behind the line towards the crowd is not.

We left a bit before the end of the game as Marge didn't want to get caught in the rush of people leaving the stadium and heading for the trolley. I was only too happy to because the game up till that stage had been rather boring. It was what they called a 'pitching duel' where the pitches are too good for any of the players to hit so they just go out. I think the Padre's had one run at that stage. Just as we were leaving one of the Padre's players hit a home run! Well - the drama! Pyrotechnics went off, there was music blasting from the speakers and everyone was on their feet cheering. It was quite a spectacle!

Then on Monday evening I went to the baseball again. A Rotarian I'd met the previous weekend had season tickets but wasn't able to go to Monday's game but asked if I'd like to. Of course, I was only too happy to go! I took my friend Danielle who's from Canada. I met her at the International Student Centre orientation at the start of varsity. It's great because even though she looks and sounds like an American (in my opinion anyway) she's just as keen as I am to do touristy things.

We were such tourists at this game! Besides the large amount of photo-taking we also bought Padres stuff! I'm quite enamored with my shirt and am very proud that I did not shrink it when I washed it today. Danielle bought the cap.

The Marine band played the Star Spangled Banner on the field before the game as it was in honour of/dedicated to the Marines. They were most impressive. It's quite funny, before each game they announce which players are playing and a picture of them flashes up on the big screen. During the match against the Giants when they flashed up the picture of the Giants' big hitter everyone in the crowd booed. What I couldn't understand is why, when the flashed up the picture of one of the Padre's players, everyone booed again. I later discovered that the player's surname is Kouzmanoff so people weren't booing, they were saying Koooooze! On Monday i could hear the crowd clearly and they were definitely saying Koooze -oops.!

Our seats were most impressive. We were in the very front section right down by the field as you can see from my lovely action shot (the zoom on my camera's not that great I promise)! As a result I enjoyed the game a lot more because I could see what was going on, even though I don't understand all the rules. It was a rather exciting game too. The other team (the Pittsburgh Pirates) was fairly useless and were all out rather quickly each innings. The Padre's were much better and got a good few runs each innings as well as some exciting home runs. The Padres won the game - yay! Now everyone's hoping that they make it into the playoffs.

Apparently I'm an imposter.

I was accused of faking my accent! I couldn't believe it.

Some of the guys from our building belong to a fraternity by the name of Kappa Alpha (or KA for short). So the other night they were heading over there and asked if Sarah and I wanted to come. The frat house is just up the street from our place in what's called 'Fraternity Row'. Apparently the University bought up a block of houses, demolished them and built a whole lot of frat houses next to each other. The frat house has a pretty cool set up - there's a central courtyard with rooms around it. Although how anyone who lives there actually manages to get any work done ever is beyond me! I was chatting to some people then went to have a look round. in the one room I noticed there was a British flag so I asked one of the guys I'd been talking to "Who's British?" To which he replied "You're not British". I said "I know, I'm South African." He said, "No you're not, you weren't talking like that just now, you're faking your accent." I of course protested and even volunteered to show him my passport (which I didn't have with me but that's not the point). However, this was to no avail so I left. I'm thinking the amount of alcohol he'd consumed probably had something to do with it :-)

Birthday Party #2

As I mentioned in my previous post, my birthday coincided with Rosh Hoshannah this year so it was a bit of a non-event. Not much happened at all. Sarah said Happy Birthday to me in the morning and I had a chat to the whole family (Mom, Dad, Brother, Gran and Aunt) on skype but that was about it.

I had an interesting Rosh Hoshannah though. I went to Hillel which is a Jewish student organisation on campus. They had a dinner at their house which is just off campus and then held a service on the campus itself. At the dinner I met a variety of interesting people - one guy asked where I was from to which I replied 'South Africa'. He then asked where in SA (which is all fairly standard, I think I probably get asked this at least once a day) and I said Durban. He then said "Where in Durban?" and I think I must have done a fairly good impression of a goldfish at that stage! No one has asked me that while I've been here so I wasn't expecting it from some random American! Turns out that he spent some time in Durban last year - working on research to do with the new Stadium. So he knows people I'm friends with in Durban - it's such a small world!

Given that Wednesday evening was Rosh Hoshannah I delayed my birthday party till Thursday evening. I invited some of my friends from class as well as the guys from the building over for South African drinks and snacks. Drinks-wise I'd organised some Windhoeks, more Nederberg Chardonnay, Excelsior Cab and Appletizer. There was quite a variety on the food side of things - stuffed peppadews, Safari dried fruit roll, dry wors, samoosas, chilli bites, koeksisters and milk tart. I was quite impressed with my selection! As for how I obtained all of this... that would be telling! (and no I did not bring it with me - could you imagine squashed milk tart in between my t-shirts in my suitcase, yuck!) Although I would like to, I can't lay claim to having made the samoosas, milk tart and koeksisters. They were made by a couple who do South African catering here who I found on the internet. I was very proud of myself for making the chilli bites and the stuffed peppadews though. I must confess that I did manage to kill a spoon in the process - no one told me that you shouldn't put non-stick cooking implements into hot oil! We now have an interestingly-textured cooking spoon!

I only finish lectures on a Thursday at 6:30pm so my university friends and I just walked over to my apartment after class. When I walked into the apartment I got such a nice surprise - Sarah and the boys had decorated it!

It was so pretty! There were streamers across the ceiling and helium Happy Birthday balloons all over. They'd even put a Happy Birthday banner up on the wall! It was such a lovely surprise! They'd also all signed a card for me. It made me feel very special.

The Windhoek was definitely the star of the evening - all of the guys agreed that it was good! Most of the guys drink light beer here but it's strange - US light beer is light in term of carbohydrates and calories not alcohol like in SA. I thought that the alcohol contained all the calories so I'm a bit confused.

Generally people were rather scared of the food. They're all sissies! I persuaded everyone to try a bit of dry wors. I'd cut it up into really small bits so it wasn;t too intimidating. The problem was he everyone thought I was saying 'try some dry horse'! Which added to the sceptisim I think.
The samoosas went down well. Anuar from the 1st floor and Dave from the apartment below us enjoyed theirs. Some people found them a little spicy, particularly the potato ones, which I found a bit strange as people here eat tonnes of chilli with their Mexican food. The thing is that I tried them and they had virtually no bite. Not that it matters much - they still vanished!

Almost everything else disappeared as well (with the exception of the dry 'horse'). The general consensus was the the stuffed peppadews were 'bomb' which means really good I think. The name chilli bites scared people initially but they too disappeared - they were already half gone by the time I took this pic! Sarah wanted to hide the dried Apricot roll she liked it so much. The koeksisters were really sweet - literally dripping in syrup! There was some milk tart left over so I kept a piece for marge. who liked it very much.

So all in all I think it was a great success! I certainly enjoyed myself and all the guys thanked me profusely. Below is a random selection of pictures and people from the party.

Hien and Lindsay - friends from economics. Please note the tumbler for wine! We ran out of wine glasses. Not that that's surprising seeing as we only have 3!

Jaren - the son of Dad's best friend from University who's also in my Economics classes. He was lucky - he got a wine glass!

Ted from the floor above pointing at his cousin Scott, from the ground floor, for some unknown reason! In the background is Sarah and Pasha who lives on the floor below. We tried to persuade him to have a pic taken all evening but it didn't work - so there's only a distance shot of him!

Cheers! Jen from Economics and Anuar from the ground floor. I met Jen at orientation - she came up to me and told me that she'd been to South Africa and had really enjoyed it. Turns out she did what's called 'Semester at Sea' where they literally spend 6 months of university travelling around on a cruise ship. How cool it that?

So that would be pretty much it! All in all a really good birthday!

Birthday Party #1

This year my birthday was a bit odd. Not in a bad way, it was just different! For starters I'm in a completely different country and far away from all the people I would normally celebrate with. Then erev Rosh Hoshannah coincided with my birthday this year (for those of you who don't do 'Jew-speak', Jewish New Year started at sundown on 12 September -the evening of my birthday). So we had to improvise!

On Tuesday evening, the night before my birthday, I went to Marge's house for dinner along with a number of Rotarians I've become friends with. It was really nice! We had Chinese takeaway which is one of my absolute favourites and I'd taken along a couple bottles of South African wine (more about how I got those in another post). The Nederberg Chardonnay went down really well - i should have taken more bottles. Almost everyone commented on how nice it was. Even I enjoyed it and I'm not generally a Chardonnay fan! Unfortunately the Fleur de Cap Merlot was corked but no one was really drinking red. I actually only discovered it was corked after I got home with 3/4 of the bottle and Sarah had a glass. I was talking to Mom and Dad on Skype and she came through and asked in a rather small voice if the wine was ok. She was quite concerned about offending me but the wine was definitely very corked and promptly got poured down the garbage disposal. Garbage disposals are fantastic things by the way- I was totally entranced by ours initially!

Back to my birthday dinner at Marge's - it was a very entertaining evening. The Chinese food was great (and it even came in little cardboard cartons just like the movies)! My fortune cookie was terribly cryptic and told me that "All your hard work will soon pay off". It must be such fun to sit and make all those fortunes up - they're all so random! Jean Kerr gave me the most divine birthday cake for my birthday.

As you can see I got candles and Happy Birthday and all! (Americans don't go 'Hip Hip Hooray' by the way). The cake was quite delicious- a triple layer chocolate affair with vanilla icing and white chocolate shavings on top. Wow it was rich! I took the rest home with me where the majority promptly got donated to the boys downstairs otherwise I would definitely have eaten it all and felt thoroughly sick. Although looking at the picture I wouldn't mind a piece now :-)

I even got birthday presents! Or present rather but it contained lots of stuff - a shower caddy (as you can see) full of just about every bath product one could conceive of! I still haven't worked out what half of them are for yet! It was so funny - everyone gave me their own card and Marge had obviously put the word out that I love cats because every card had a kitty on it. Even funnier was that 3 were the same cards - it seems everyone shops at Costco here.

Endlessly Amusing

On the ground floor of the building which houses the Economics Department at SDSU is an office that I walk past on most days. The bumper stickers and cartoons on the door never fail to amuse me so I decided to share some of them. I am the quintessential tourist - I always have my camera on me!

Rotary and the UN

I just found a bit more on the relationship between Rotary and the UN so decided to add it because I thought it was interesting. I had no clue there was any involvement between the two or that Rotary was involved with such big important entities... if you don't think it's interesting, please feel free to skip it - I promise I wont be offended :-)

"Rotary International's relationship with the United Nations dates back to 1945, when 49 Rotarians were members of the 29 delegations to the UN Charter Conference in San Francisco, California, USA. During the UN's first decade, Rotary actively participated in UN sessions by sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in Rotary publications.

In addition, Rotary has maintained relations with the UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) — a principle organ of the United Nations that oversees many specialized UN agencies, commissions, and other bodies — since ECOSOC’s founding in 1945. Rotary currently holds the highest consultative status offered to a nongovernmental organization (NGO) by ECOSOC. This status is granted only to large, established international NGOs with a broad geographical reach whose area of work covers most of the issues on the agenda of ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies.

Rotary also has a special historical relationship with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In fact, it was a 1943 London Rotary conference on international cultural and educational exchanges that provided a key impetus to establish UNESCO.

Rotary currently maintains and furthers its relationship with a number of UN bodies, programs, commissions, and agencies through Rotary's Representative Network."

New York!

I'm going to New York! I've been invited to go to Rotary day at the UN by the San Diego Rotary District Governor! It's just for a weekend though from 2-4 November. The exact details have yet to be arranged (like flights, where I'm staying etc) but I will keep you posted. I copied this from the Rotary website - it just tells you a bit more about the day...

"Rotarians and their guests are invited to attend Rotary Day at the United Nations on 3 November in New York City.

The meeting, scheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at UN Headquarters, will include presentations and panel discussions addressing key humanitarian issues such as water, health, literacy, and hunger.

Under the theme Rotary and the United Nations: Sharing, United Nations officials, representatives from key nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Rotary International leaders will all address the group.The event is sponsored by the Rotary International representatives to the United Nations in New York."

How cool is that? The meeting is in the UN council chamber so if you get there early enough you can sit with 'Brazil' or something like that on the desk in front of you ie where the Brazilian rep to the UN would normally sit. The NGO's include all sorts of high profile organisations like the World Bank, WHO etc. As the Governor of out Rotary District put it - you literally have one Keynote speaker after the other. It's going to be so cool! I'm really excited.

Taco Bell and Starbucks

I've decided that it's easier to write more short blog posts more often because at the moment I'm sitting with the thought that I haven't written for over a week and now I don't know where to begin because there's so much I can write about. But as usual I have no intention of starting at any logical point. I should also probably let you know that at the moment I'm technically doing my 'office hours' which are the times that we have to set aside as Graduate Assistants so that students can come and ask us for help if they want. Seeing that the class I'm a GA for has no work due for the foreseeable future there's no one here. So I'm sitting on the computer (which has a very blurry screen) instead.

I've just had Taco Bell for the first time. Taco Bell is apparently one of those American fast food 'institutions' like Mc Donalds or Starbucks. We have a Taco Bell Express on campus which sells a limited variety of Americanised Mexican food. Now I have an issue with Mexican food in that I don't eat chilli, red meat or beans (except green beans) which are pretty much the base ingredeients of all Mexican food! Before you ask - Yes, I am fully aware of how fussy I sound and I'm ok with it. I did however manage to find something to eat and had Rancho chicken tacos. At least I think that's what they were called. They were basically taco shells stuffed with slightly spicy chicken pieces, lettuce, cheese and salsa and they were very yum!

I think everyone at the table with me had hysterics when I tried to eat them though. (That was after they'd died with laughter when I wasn't sure what a Taco was in the first place - I was getting them confused with natchos). They come all wrapped up and I managed to unwrap my first taco in such a way that half the contents fell out. The second one was better but not by much! Then a taco shell is hard - like Frito's chips really so when you bite it it goes crunch and falls apart. Well mine did anyway. My ecos friends managed to eat theirs quite elegantly. I think I need some lessons.

Starbucks is another American fast food place that totally confuses me. There are at least 3 on the campus and very possibly more! I walk past one on my way to my classes every day and it always smells so good. Ordering from them is another story - the menu is long to start with what with coffees, coffee alternatives, frappacinos, iced teas and more. Then you can add flavoured syrups to your coffee/tea, have it made with non-fat milk, have cream on it or not and a whole lot of other options! It shouldn't be too much of a problem for me seeing as I don't drink coffee anyway so I could just avoid it all together but then I taste other people's drinks that are really nice! Like today, I tasted a green tea frappacino which tasted like a milkshake and looked like guacamole in a glass. It was really good but I have no clue if that was a standard menu item or not. The other day I had a raspberry mocha which was definitely not on the menu but was also really nice. I think there should be a book - 'Starbucks for Dummies: your guide to ordering at Starbucks'. Then I wouldn't have to feel like such an idiot every time someone asks if I want to go get some Starbucks.

Lucky Packet

So this is just an assortment of random events/things that have amused me but I forgot to add into my other posts....

I went grocery shopping yesterday. It's the easiest way to entertain me at the moment. There's just such a huge variety of food and so much prepackaged stuff. Anyway, I was in the (enormous) fresh fruit and veg section when I heard thunder. I thought I was dreaming! Then I noticed that the light on top of the one open fridge thing of fresh veges was flashing. The next thing this Dad calls his two little girls and says "Girls - come quick, its going to rain!" And sure enough it did. Mini sprinklers between the vegetables started spraying out a fine mist of water (and all the while the thunder continued). I have never seen anything quite as entertaining in a supermarket before! Why that section of vegetables was special and deserved to be watered while the one right next to it did not - I have no idea!

Earlier this week Sarah and I went shopping for the final things we needed for our apartment - like everything you need in a kitchen! The basic idea when I moved in was that I only needed to get stuff for my bedroom - she said she had everything else. Then she discovered she'd left all her kitchen stuff at her ex-boyfriend's and hence the reason for the shopping trip. I'd already moved into my room and discovered that I had more space than anticipated to decided that I wanted to get a chair for the corner by the window. We were in Target (the most amazing store that literally sells everything! And it's cheap - just not as cheap as Walmart) and I saw a chair that looked really cool. The easiest way to describe it is as a half sphere on a metal frame. It was on special and looked comfy but there wasn't one set out that you could try (the whole chair folds up into a carry bag). So Sarah and I decided that it was rather daft to buy a chair you hadn't even sat in so we unpacked the chair and set it up in the isle in the store!

The good news is that the chair is really comfy and now resides in the corner of my room.

Life, the University and Everything

Apologies to Douglas Adams but I thought it was funny :-)

I've been meaning to write about the University for the past few days but haven't managed to get round to it. So seeing as today is a public holiday and I've got nothing better to do (besides some varsity work maybe) and I'm glued to my fan because it's so freakishly hot here, (think Durban weather in mid-summer when it's just hot and humid and gross) it seems like an ideal opportunity to tell you about it.

San Diego State University is huge! There are about 35000 students on the campus. It's by far the biggest university in San Diego and one of the biggest in the Western part of the USA (according to the SDSU website). There are just so many people on campus every day (except Fridays - it appears that the American College student's weekend begins on a Thursday evening). I also never get there that early as all my classes are in the afternoon so I haven't even seen peak times at the campus yet. Apparently it gets so bad that the university has 'congestion plans' in place for the roads around the campus.

The campus is rather enormous - check out the campus map if you don't believe me! All my classes are on the side closest to where I live so there's not too much walking involved every day. Although the other day I had to trek all the way over to the other side of campus to a copy centre by the residences. Ok - I'm being a wuss, the walk itself is not too bad but doing it at midday on a revoltingly hot day maybe wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had. The campus is really pretty - I walked around like a total tourist the other day taking some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

This is one of the oldest parts of the campus - it's the part you see on the university logo. There's a tower hidden by the palm trees on the left (palm trees grow so big here!) and I'm not sure if the bells I hear are from that tower or the little bells you can see in the picture (vaguely) above the arch.

The dome on the left is the entrance to the Love Library although the library itself is the white building you can see a bit of on the right of the picture. The library is amazing! It's enormous (and air conditioned - yay!). It also houses the student computing centre which has about 600 machines for you to use at any time I think.

I was went exploring the library one day when I had some time to kill and in one of the passages there was this guy sleeping! In the middle of the day! I was quite surprised until I went round the corner and saw lots of students sleeping or otherwise parking off on the chairs. Being a student is apparently very tiring - I should know I suppose, I used to have frequent afternoon naps.

The campus is huge! It literally goes on for as far as the eye can see in this picture!

The pretty pedestrian bridge which goes over on of the busy streets in the area from the campus to the main section of residence halls (which you can see on the right of the picture).
So that would conclude the 'mini campus tour'. I could put a whole lot more pics up but as far as I'm concerned pictures of buildings are generally boring. But let me know if you disagree and we'll see what we can do.

Now onto the reason I go to university (supposedly) - my courses (or classes as they are called here). I'm taking four classes at the moment, 3 are required and then one elective. Microeconomics looks quite interesting, it doesn't look too hectic at the moment which is a really good thing given my shocking lecturer last year! It does look quite mathematical but that should be ok. Econometrics, I'm sad to say, looks deathly boring. I think I've done pretty much everything before. The wierd thing is that we have theoretical classes (2 per week) and then our pracs are run by a completely different lecturer. So I think the course may be largely theory. I'm not too sure how that's going to work? So I might have to put in a fair amount of work after all. During the Econometrics Lab (as pracs are called here) we're learning SAS which I've never used before so that should be interesting.

Then my elective is international trade. I was a bit worried about this as I've never done any international economics courses before but it looks great. We're looking at trade purely from a microeconomics perspective. Undergrad students are allowed to take this course too so we have a really big class! Classes here have a size restriction - in the case of international trade, only 35 people are allowed to register. Unfortunately the class was already full when I registered so I spoke to the graduate advisor and she said not to worry, that as I was a graduate student in the economics program I would be allowed to 'crash' the course. I think that term is so funny! Essentially hat you do is you go to the class and ask the lecturer for an 'add code' which then lets you register for the class. So crashing isn't as exciting as it sounds.

I got a job! Yay! In the Economics department as a graduate assistant. So now I get to spend even more time on campus. I'm helping one of the lecturers who teaches micro 101 but in a class of 500! So we have to go to the lectures and help and will also have 2 hours of consultation times during the week. Then the big thing is helping 'grade' exams. They don't have tests here - I nearly died when they said I had 3 exams for some of my classes! But essentially they're 2 midterm tests in the lesson period (so just an hour or so) and then one 2hr exam as I know them at the end of the semester. So I'm employed for a total of 10 hours a week . Not sure what the rate of pay is but any extra spending money helps! Now I need to fill in forms and get a social security number etc - what fun, I love paperwork.

The only bad thing about this job is that I have to go to the one class which is on a Friday so I no longer have Fridays free :-( But when you consider the fact that because I'm on a student visa I'm only allowed to work on campus I think I can live with it. I'd much rather work as a graduate assistant than in the bookshop stacking shelves or for campus foods or something like that.

Out and About

Tomorrow is a public holiday here - Labour Day (or Labor day in American-speak). Actually, it's Labour day already seeing as it's after midnight. I've had a rather hectic weekend so far. Technically today wasn't that hectic (seeing as I only got up at noon and then went shopping for the afternoon) but I think I was still suffering the after effects of Saturday night...morning - whatever!

Well to start at the beginning for a change, yesterday Sam Strong and his wife picked me up and took me out for lunch. Sam is the Rotarian who did a whole lot of work in helping me to get over to the States. I hadn't met him yet as he and his wife have a house up at Lake Tahoe (right by Heavenly where Andrew went skiing while he was at Keystone) and they've only just got back. We went down to the Bay where we caught the ferry across to Coronado Island which isn't really an island. To explain, it looks like an island in the middle of the bay but is actually a peninsula which joins to the mainland just above the border with Mexico. It was a revoltingly hot day - San Diego is in the midst of a serious heatwave. It's horribly hot and sticky and altogether rather unpleasant being outside. Once we got going the ferry trip was very nice though - we were in the shade and there was a gentle breeze blowing. The whole bay is just so beautiful that it's very easy to get distracted from the heat. I got to act like a total tourist and went from side to side of the ferry taking pictures!

Here you can see the dock we left from with the 'Downtown' area of the city in the background. Apparently the city has just sprung up in the last decade - if you came to San Diego before then the skyline would have looked vastly different.

A 'Californian Sea Lion' sunning itself on a buoy in the bay - this prompted a special announcement by the captain of the ferry!

One of the Aircraft Carriers moored in the bay by Coronado. They are ginormous! Notice the row of sausage-looking things in the water right by it - those are there since 9/11 and prevent anyone from getting right up to the carrier.

Aren't I a good photographer? I'm definitely a modest one :-) Here we have the yachts on the bay and the city. Now you can see why I said it's so beautiful!

There's also a very impressive bridge that stretched from the mainland to Coronado. A random fact about Coronado - there's a famous old hotel on the island - the Hotel del Coronado. Sometime I'll go there for high tea. Anyway, that's where Prince Edward met Wallis Simpson for the first time.

The ferry trip wasn't very long - about 15mins maybe and then we were on the island. We had lunch at a restaurant called Peohe's which was right on the waterfront close to the ferry landing. I think the food was suppose to be Hawaiian? Or Pacific island ish. It was very nice - I had a fish wrap with salsa and mango but the service was rather shocking! I think our waiter was a couple sandwiches sort of a picnic to put it mildly! But we had lots to talk about. Sam and his wife are coming out to South Africa in about 3 weeks time so I was asked all sorts of questions.

When the time came to catch the ferry back we had a minor drama in that Sam's wife couldn't find the tickets! Luckily she had the receipt though so they just let us on. Obviously we looked rather trustworthy. On the way back we sat on the deck in the sun and I got burnt again! Although I'm not entirely sure when exactly it happened (it could also have been waiting in line for the ferry, at lunch or even when I was playing tourist).

Sam, his wife and I on the ferry going back.

After they dropped me off at home I went to visit the guys in our building to see if any of them had after sun. I think they thought I was nuts - they had no idea what I was talking about! You can't get after sun here in fact - all you get is some aloe vera stuff. I now have that though.

On Saturday night it was on of Sarah's friend's birthday parties so we went to that. They had hired a party bus - essentially like a really cool, big, limo to take us to a club then bring us back. It was so much fun! Everyone was dancing and laughing and having a really good time - it's definitely one of the best ways to go to a club.

The party bus - complete with lights and speakers!

Sarah and I on the bus - note the nice pinkish tinge to my skin!

We ended up going to a club called Stingaree - apparently one of the coolest clubs in San Diego. I have no idea :-) it seemed really nice and one of the guys in the group had some connection so I got in for free which is always great. The evening was so much fun! I ended up getting home at about 4am and then proceeded to sleep until noon on Sunday.

Neighbours

So here's some random info to start this post off. In America you need a degree to be a policeman. I kid you not! Then even with a degree people still get turned down. Why do people want to be policemen - well, because they get paid well! There's a lesson in here somewhere although I think Charles Ngaqula may have trouble spotting it.

The reason I'm able to share this startling piece of information with you is that TJ, who lives on the bottom floor of my apartment block, wants to be a policeman. And he seems entirely normal - a very nice guy in fact. I nearly fell over when he told me about the degree bit! As far as I understand this is just to start off as a normal policeman too. No fast tracking or anything.

Ted, (from the floor above who went to gym at midnight) is a fireman. Not a full time one - just a seasonal one, ie during the summer. But still! I seem to be meeting all sorts of interesting people here.

Our apartment block is inhabited mostly by males, our side of it anyway. I have met our across-the-hall neighbour very briefly. Her name is Rosie and she's the only other female so far. There are still two other apartments who's inhabitants I haven't met however. Our side of the apartment building (so called because in the middle there's the lift and staircase) is all two bedroom 2 bathroom places. The other side (where TJ and Rosie live) is just single apartments. I hope that that random information helps you to sleep better tonight :-)

The guys on our side all seem really nice though. On the ground floor is Scott and Anwar. They have the unfortunate accomplishment of being right by the entrance to the building and their 'balcony' is right by the street (is it still a balcony if it's on the ground?) So it's really easy to pop your head in and say 'hi'.

This is Scott parking on his couch watching TV one afternoon. He had the misfortune to be ambushed by me after I'd been taking pictures of the outside of our building! Note the close up of the lovely bricks. Apparently they don't believe in plastering - inside or out. Against the wall is their screen door - I'm not sure why it's there, it's definitely not supposed to be!

On the second floor is Pasha (or Parsha - not sure of the spelling) who's family is originally Iranian, or Persian as he put it, and Dave. Dave is a manager at Starbucks so regularly gets up at 4:30 am so he can open the store. Apparently there are people who want coffee at 5:30am!

Then the 3rd floor is me and Sarah and on the 4h floor is Ted the fireman and his roomate who's name I have temporarily forgotten. The guys are all very amusing and always up for a party. Although I think that some of them may have done a bit too much partying in previous years - some are taking classes at both SDSU and Grossmont College which is another University (I think) not too far away. Something which adds to my previous conclusion is that Ted, Pasha and Scott all belong to a Frat which is suspended from doing any social activities this year - the exact reason for this has yet to be discovered.

They also entertain us! When Sarah and I moved in we were told 'you better be cool.' Apparently their friends used to live in our apartment but got kicked out. So when they first walked in and saw our apartment their comment was 'Wow, you've chick-ified the place!' I thought that was pretty funny. Funny enough to share anyway.

Moving is a pain!

Before I get on to the topic of this blog post - namely moving into my apartment - there is something I wanted to add on the subject of my last post. The gym is open 24 hours a day during the week. When I heard that I thought that was one of the craziest thing's I'd heard - I mean, who on earth is going to go to gym at some odd hour of the morning?? Well this morning I was chatting to the guy who lives above me - Ted. It turns out that he went to gym last night at about 12pm! This was also after he'd had a couple beers. He didn't seem to think that there was much strange about this! So there do appear to be people who are crazy enough to go to gym at any hour - and I apparently am living in the same apartment block as one of them!

Moving, apartments... aah, what a wonderful topic. I just felt like adding that seeing as I've been putting this off for so long! Well to cut a really long (and rather boring) story short I have found a new apartment and am no longer living at Marge's house. The location of my new apartment is great - it's sooo convenient! It's literally across the road from the campus on a street nicknamed 'College Row' because all the apartments on it are inhabited by students. If you're interested in having a look at a map of the campus btw the link is below:

https://sunspot.sdsu.edu/map/display.cgi

We're on the upper left side of the map right next to the International Student Centre (which is red). We're also just down the road from the university gym and if I want to catch the trolley or a bus all I need to do is to walk through the campus. So location gets 100%!

Above is a picture of the apartment block - not much to look at but it gets better though! We're on the 3rd floor (3rd window up on the right). I'm not too sure what happened to the ground floor because the numbering starts at 1 - wierd! The apartment is in a mini complex called College View Apartments (highly imaginative!) There are 32 apartments in it in total and our block gets called the tower because it's the tallest of all the blocks (again, a huge stretch of imagination there).

Inside it's really nice, although we had to fight to get it that way. It's a 2 bed 2 bathroom place. I have the smaller bedroom, not that that counts for much - it's still bigger than my room at home I think! Below are some pics of the place:

This is Sarah and her Dad Rick when we were moving in - note the piles of stuff in the background!

My room viewed from the doorway. It's so wierd - we don't have lights on the ceiling - something to do with having heating up there?? So we have lights in the kitchen and dining area and the bathrooms, that's it! Anyway, that's why you can see numerous lights in the room. I found the desk on a fantastic website called craigslist. It's very heavy though! Our building has a lift but it's really small so the desk didn't fit in so the two guys from the ground floor flat carried it up the stairs for me! At least that worked - Sarah had to haul her bed and couches over the balcony!

The other side of my room - this pic was taken from the bed. Note the fan - it's been so ridiculously hot in my room for the last few days and I couldn't work out why. Initially I thought it had something to do with leaving the lights on but then I made a concerted effort to switch them off. So then I thought it must have something to do with the air circulation in the room and left both the blinds and the door open. But it still didn't help! The rest of the apartment was noticeably cooler than my room. Eventually, last night just as I was getting into bed I had a brainwave - remember I mentioned the heating in the ceiling and why we can't have lights there... well it turned out that mine was on full blast! Why? I have no idea. but at least the problem's solved now. I just had to suffer for almost a week before I worked it out though - silly Kate!

This is our kitchen and dining area... note the tiles, they're important later! The window looks out onto the roof of the apartment block next door. We're lucky we have it though - we get a nice breeze blowing through! The apartments below us all have a wall there instead and it makes it really dark and stuffy.

This is our lounge/living area. The photo's taken from the dining area. It's sooo big! You can see the sliding door and balcony that those couches had to be hauled over! Luckily Sarah had all the extra furniture we needed so all I had to get was stuff for my room.

This is our balcony and view! We look across to the university. The parking lot is for the International student centre so we're literally right across the street. In the distance you can see a white tower - that's the University's bell tower. It rings at odd times, I still haven't worked out when! As Warren pointed out, the logical thing to do would be to ask someone. It sounds really pretty though!

So now you've got a basic idea of the apartment. it's pretty nice huh? I think so - especially when I've seen what some of the other's in this building look like. although they do have guys living in them which says a lot! But it didn't always look like that... far from it in fact. We weren't shown our apartment initially as there were still people living in it. Instead we were shown an empty one on the ground floor and told 'your one will look just like it' and we're painting it and putting new carpets in. Well our one did look 'just like it' in terms of layout only! It was gross and dirty and smelled. The carpets - let's not even go there! They were so bad that even the carpet cleaners refused to clean them as they said there's no point. Then the landlady turned around and said I'm not putting new carpeting in. I don't have the money now (because she'd just spent $11000 doing up her daughter's apartment as we later discovered). That was not cool! We got what we wanted eventually but only after a lot of 'discussion'. I think it also helped when she came up to see the place and saw just how bad it was. So remember the bit about the tiles - well below is a pic of the dining area being tiled (it used to be carpeted) and the evil landlady. Although she was reasonable in the end.

The tiles were so odd - not ceramic ones like I'm used to but these funny plastic ones that just got glued down. But still better than carpet. As for the rest of the place - let's just say if a career in economics doesn't work out I could become a professional cleaner. I spent 3 hours cleaning my bathroom. It was totally disgusting. I wouldn't call myself a neat and clean freak (anyone who's seen the general state of my room at home can testify to that) but I'm used to stuff being relatively clean and at least hygienic! After my 3 hours in the bathroom my fingers went all funny after all the disinfectant. Oh, and it's not exactly a big bathroom!

The end result is that now Sarah and I have a really nice place to live.

Slacker

So I've been monumentally slack and for that I must apologise - I last wrote on here a week ago - shocking! I do have some small excuse though, I moved! Which occupied all weekend - Friday and Monday included. But more about that and the apartment later... possibly in another block entry. Divide and conquer is my theory at the moment as so much has happened recently that the prospect of putting it all into one blog post is rather daunting. To put it mildly.

So we start at the end (where else??) I went to gym this morning. To put this into context, the university gym, called the Aztec Recreation Centre, is just up the road from my apartment. Literally about 100m, maybe 150m at a push. So the other night my roommate Sarah and I decided to go and sign up. Gym here is horrendously expensive - a whole $17 per month! We also had a look round while we were there. Aside from the fact that it was hideously busy, evenings are apparently not the time to go if you don't like queuing, the facilities are uber impressive.

For your $17 you get access to the ARC itself and all that it contains (more on that in a minute), the Aquaplex which is just up the road - no idea what's in there besides the obvious, water, but will let you know when I've investigated, the tennis courts, bowling arcade (bowling is a sport here it seems) and possibly more which I've temporarily forgotten. Back to the ARC, the gym itself is quite interesting, it's split into very different sections. A free weights section, a machine weight section and then a cardio section. They're all large! The weights sections are definitely bigger than the ones at Virgin Active Westville and the cardio section is about similar probably although they have a much bigger variety of machines, just not as many of each type. Eg, they have 2 types of orbitrek/elliptical trainer machines (which I only realised once I was using the one type this morning) - ones where the handlebars move (like VA) and ones where they're just stationery. There's also basketball courts/practice hoops in the gym as well as a climbing wall which looks so cool! There's one studio for aerobics etc and one they call a multi purpose room. It has spinning bikes in it, punch bags and steppers. You can go to a stepper class like you would do spinning! Might try that sometime although it's only in the evening.

Ooh, I just remembered the best part. You don't need to remember your silly card for gym and wait while someone swipes you in - things are far more advanced here! You walk up to a turnstile and enter your access number (mine's just the last 5 digits of my student id) then you scan your hand! I couldn't believe it, it's soo cool! I'm definitely going to take a pic of it and post it on here.

It was sooo funny today. After I'd finished on the orbitrek I decided to do some stepping because that's what I normally do at VA. One problem - there were no normal steppers (from what I could see initially, or not see as I didn't have my glasses on or contacts in. Instead they had a stairmaster machine which was literally like a revolving set of stairs so when you're on it you actually physically step up on to the next step (or you don't have to in which case you fall off when the bottom step disappears at the bottom). I tried that for a while but it was really hard - the steps you have to take are big and not what I'm used to! I survived 10 mins but by then I'd spotted what looked like normal steppers so I decided to switch. I hadn't seen the steppers before because they're much smaller that the ones I'm used to - these don't have bars on the side, just handles in the front so you are really stepping 'up'. If that makes sense. The first one I got onto, the pedals started going down then there was a loud clunk - like the chain had slipped or something. I tried a few more steps then decided something was definitely funny and if it wasn't - I didn't want to use it anyway. So I got off and onto the one next to it. Well - on that one I couldn't even keep the pedals up no matter how fast I stepped. So feeling like a bit of an idiot I went up to the front desk and asked if there was anyone who could show me how to use the stairmaster (they're all called that here I discovered). The girl at the desk smirked a bit but got one guy to help me. He came over to one of the other machines (that I hadn't tried, there are only 5 of them by the way though) and showed me how to use it - it worked normally, just like the virgin active ones. So then I asked him to try the other two that I had tried and the exact same things happened to him! I was so happy it wasn't just me! While I was on the normal stepper he came back with a maintenance type dude so hopefully they'll be fixed if I try to use them again. They definitely wont be my first choice though.

So that would conclude 'Kate's first gym experience'. I have to run downstairs now to check the tumble dryer (gasps of admiration I hope - I'm actually doing my own washing!) but check back soon because I want to try post a bit more stuff about my apartment and starting varsity today.

Lots and lots of Jelly Tots!

Wow! A lot has happened in the past few days so this could be quite long. Or not – it all depends on how tired I get! Well, it would be logical to start at the beginning but I’m not quite sure when that was so I’ll start at the end and see where I finish up.

I have a place to stay! Admittedly I have one already at Marge’s house but this is my own place. It’s right next to SDSU – literally across the street which is super convenient. The university gym is about 100m away and if I want to catch the bus or trolley I just have to walk through campus. It’s not in university housing though, it’s in a privately owned apartment building. It’s a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom place with a huge living area. I have a roommate, a really nice girl called Sarah. She’s from somewhere in California and is doing a liberal studies major which essentially means she want to be a primary school teacher. I know, I didn’t get it either – still don’t in fact.

It looks like a really nice, fun place to live though (aside from the super-convenient bit). All 32units are occupied by students but not 1st years and the manager is quite particular as to who she rents to which is a good thing as SDSU has a HUGE rep for being a party school. It apparently made the news for the past 3 years for STD epidemics on campus! I though that was really funny and just had to share it! So most of the people living there are a bit older (at least 3rd year) and hopefully wiser :-)

I’ll probably move in on Friday. Sarah has all the stuff we need for an apartment which is great. I just need to furnish my room. We’ve sent out an email asking if any Rotarians have spare stuff (like a bed!) but haven’t had any responses so far so it looks like I’m going shopping. It was quite funny – I went there today and Sarah was moving in. The only problem is that we’re on the 3rd floor (with ground level being the first floor) and the stairs are really narrow so to get couches and beds up there is an issue. So her dad and some of the guys who were roped in to help (no pun intended) were hauling the furniture up over the balcony! It was quite a sight!

Today we had orientation at the International Student Centre and then Ecos orientation. They had ‘breakfast’ out when we arrived at the ISC – coffee and donuts. I had a lemon jelly donut which was an interesting experience and one I don’t think I’ll be repeating too soon! Basically I took this donut which was round and smaller than the other huge rings and looked plain. All was good until my second bite when this lumo yellowish liquid started oozing out. Not what I had expected! Luckily there was an orientation volunteer sitting at the same table as me so I asked him, “What is this?!” All was explained and after a few very sweet bites coupled with the rather unpleasant fake lemony taste I abandoned the rest. Like I said, not to be repeated!

The orientation itself was rather useful (read: necessary but boring). I thought beaurocracy was a speciality of UKZN but apparently not! Let’s jut say that lots of paperwork seems to be involved with everything! At least they tell you about it upfront though and I now know the right people to talk to. To give you an example, in order to graduate you have to file your course of study with someone (the graduate office possibly?? Forgot that bit), and in order to get a course of study you have to meet with a graduate advisor and basically map out all the courses you’re going to do. Then you have to submit something called an ‘intent to graduate’ and you only do this at the beginning of the semester you are going to finish your degree in. Presumably after all this you’re allowed to graduate (provided you pass everything that is…) If you don’t do all this you cant though. I was like huh? All that happened at UKZN was that you got a thing saying ‘degree complete’ on your academic record then you get a letter about grad and when it is and that’s it!

I met some cool people though! They started us off with some icebreakers – basically you had to go to the sign that applied to you and meet two other people. So the first round was what college you’re in (College being the Faculty I guess). So I’m in the College of Arts and Letters and I tootled off there. I met a couple of other ecos students – one from Thailand. Then we had to go to our favourite sport. The choices were somewhat limited so I went to cricket…. Along with all the Indians! Indian Indians. I felt a bit outnumbered and decided that that wasn’t the time for smart comments about match fixing. The interesting bit came when the categories were favourite type of music. A girl from Turkey told me that the Killers are coming to play in San Diego – must investigate! I made friends with a really nice girl from Canada. We might go on the ‘City tour’ with the ISC this weekend. I also chatted to people from Germany, Japan, Australia and Korea. All over actually! Of the foreign students, the biggest proportion come from India followed by a variety of Asian countries. It was interesting.

I had Ecos orientation in the afternoon. I was worried about being late so I skipped lunch at the ISC and went straight there. Our Masters class is quite big – there are 26 of us starting this semester. There are also about 20 continuing students (the degree takes a minimum of 3 semesters). The class is about half American, half international students (all Asian except me). There are more guys then girls and quite a few of the Americans have just finished their degrees (in June) and are continuing with their Masters. It seems like a nice class – no doubt I’ll be able to elaborate on this further after classes start on Monday.

I think now is the appropriate time for me to share my timetable with you. I have 3 core classes (Micro, Econometrics, Econometrics Lab (aka prac) and one elective (International Economics).

How cool is that?? No lectures on a Friday and please note the time I start varsity! Of course you have to do a fair amount of work on your own but still! I’m contemplating applying for a job at the library because I have the time (quite obviously) and then I’d have extra money to travel.

After the orientation I went with Jaren (the son of Dad’s best friend from University who’s coincidentally also doing an Ecos Masters) to the book shop to get our textbooks. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention, when I registered for my classes I registered online! It was so cool (and took all of 3 minutes). So when you need to get your textbooks there’s no waiting to look in a grotty file that may or may not have your required textbooks in it, all you do is log on to the computer system and you can print off your personal book list. Then you wonder around the book shop (everything’s in alphabetical order with signs) and just pick up the books you need.

Why is it that Economics textbooks are the biggest, heaviest and most expensive?? I bought 3 textbooks and they cost $350! How hectic is that?? And they were all second hand. The bookshop has a system where you can sell your textbooks back to them provided they’re in excellent condition. So I got a significant discount on my textbooks and they’re all like new but it was still $350! I’m in shock. You actually can’t convert stuff into Rand – you’d have permanent heart failure!

Ooh… another exciting announcement – I met the Mayor of San Diego last night. I don’t think I’ve ever met dear old Obed even though I’ve lived in Durban all my life! I went to a Rotary function – the chartering of a new Rotary club – and he was the guest speaker. It was at the Mirimar Officers club. Mirimar is a massive US Marine air base – it’s like a small city, there’s even a McDonalds on it! Random fact for the day: San Diego has the premier medical facility in the USA for treating injured soldiers. The Colonel in charge of the base told us he’d just met two soldiers who’d just been flown back from Iraq – one of whom had lost the lower part of his leg – not nice.

It was a really nice function – it was smart so we all got to dress up nicely! (Above is a picture of Marge and I taken at the function). The speakers were interesting (the Colonel and the Mayor) and the food was good (Americans call prawns, shrimp. I got extra because I don’t eat red meat! Actually, that was a bit odd – it was a plated meal so you were served a plate with some veges, mashed potato, a steak and a little bowl of large peeled prawns – it’s like they couldn’t make their mind up about what to serve so served both! Anyway). I got introduced to soooo many people! My head was practically swimming with names.

The new Rotary club they chartered is really interesting. Rotary is mostly made up of older males worldwide. So there’s a big push to get younger people involved. The new club is called the La Jolla (a place in San Diego) new generations club and is made up of only younger people – 24 to 43. The average age of the club is 32 and there are half males and half females which is quite different to the rotary norm! They meet on Wednesday evenings just after work and they meet in a bar (or a sports grill as they put it!). So it’s a fun social occasion that people want to go to as well as doing something good for your community! The club president made a very good point in his speech – he said (to all the other Rotarians there) that if you look at our club we have bankers, lawyers, real estate agents etc. We’re just like you, we’re just a bit younger. It’s such a simple idea but it’s really worked – the club’s only just been formed and already they have new, young members signing up.

That’s about all from me for today (she says 3 pages later)! I guess I didn’t get that tired after all! Tomorrow I’m off to the horse racing at Del Mar which is about half an hour away from downtown San Diego. I’ve never actually been to the races in Durban but I’m going in San Diego – typical! It should be fun!

Ooh, I just thought of more stuff and hadn’t posted this yet so this just got longer, I’m waiting for Marge to finish on the internet so am writing this in Word … I wrote a cheque today! Never done that before so I had no clue what to do! Luckily I got help without anyone laughing too much! Quite a few places accept cheques here, there’s no charge for using them and credit cards aren’t always accepted. I’ve ordered a cheque book – I could have got a cute one with Tigger or Garfield (or any other cartoon character for that matter) on it for 12$ extra! I saw no point in paying $30 for 120 cheques when I could pay $18 for blue ones. I’m just going to give them away anyway. Other thing’s I’ve got while I’ve been here include:

• A camera (thanks for my early birthday present Mom and Dad!)
• A 160GB portable hard drive (Andrew’s very impressed with the price)
• An ipod shuffle – the tiny green one, it’s so cute!

Electronics are just soo much cheaper here!
Now I really think I’m done! I’d love to hear from you all and find out what you’ve been up to.