Despite all the political nonsense that's going on in SA at the moment (the story made page 3 of the LA times today) and the fact that I think the Rand will crash spectacularly in the morning I still miss South Africa. A friend sent me this youtube video yesterday which didn't help because even though I don't drink beer and I doubt I ever will I can still identify with it!
I'm also quietly hopeful that dear ol' JZ will be able to set things on the right track in SA in the next few years...
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Mission Valley Rotary Annual Golf Tournament
On Friday was the Mission Valley Rotary Club's Charity golf tournament - their major fundraiser for the year. As I am a hopeless golfer, actually I'm not a golfer at all, I volunteered to help and so spent the day driving around in a beverage cart which was great fun!
The beautiful Carlton Oaks golf course in Santee (just east of San Diego) where the golf tournament was held.
Bill Ashman and Dale Bailey, two wonderful Rotarians, out on the course.
My artwork in the pristine bunker. It was just too tempting!
Driving the golf cart. Initially Mark, the Rotarian I was delivering beverages with, was driving. He drove like an absolute maniac! I spent a good portion of the time firmly gripping the side of the cart so I didn't fall out! After he had sampled a fair number of the beverages we had on board I decided that I should drive.
In the evening after the golfers were done there was a wonderful dinner, prize giving and raffle. Although I didn't win the$1000 grand prize I did win two tickets to the San Diego Zoo which I was really happy about because I want to go and see their new tiger cubs!
Mary-Ellen (co organiser of the golf day), the lucky grand prize winner and Walt (President of the Mission valley Rotary club).
The beautiful Carlton Oaks golf course in Santee (just east of San Diego) where the golf tournament was held.
Bill Ashman and Dale Bailey, two wonderful Rotarians, out on the course.
My artwork in the pristine bunker. It was just too tempting!
Driving the golf cart. Initially Mark, the Rotarian I was delivering beverages with, was driving. He drove like an absolute maniac! I spent a good portion of the time firmly gripping the side of the cart so I didn't fall out! After he had sampled a fair number of the beverages we had on board I decided that I should drive.In the evening after the golfers were done there was a wonderful dinner, prize giving and raffle. Although I didn't win the$1000 grand prize I did win two tickets to the San Diego Zoo which I was really happy about because I want to go and see their new tiger cubs!
Mary-Ellen (co organiser of the golf day), the lucky grand prize winner and Walt (President of the Mission valley Rotary club).
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
One dollar a day diet project
Something really interesting I found while browsing the web - the one dollar a day diet project. The guy has been selected to go on a Rotary Group Study Exchange.
At last - a new post!
Apologies! I'm not slipping back into my old ways I promise. Or at least I'm making a definite effort not to. There's quite a bit to report in the world of Kate. For starters I have moved and am happily ensconced in my new abode. You can have a look at some pics here. If you don't remember much about where I was moving to have a look at this post. I really like links (in case you can't tell!) My new roommates are great. We pretty much all just do our own thing and chat in passing so it's a very comfortable living situation. To date there have been no issues with sharing the bathroom either which is the one thing I was a little apprehensive about.
The big news is that I have an internship! I went for an interview at the Port on Monday which was very successful and I'm going in tomorrow to sign paperwork and fun stuff like that. Fun stuff being going for a medical and a drug test.... glorious stuff. I can't start working until I get my visa stuff sorted out but that hopefully wont take too long. Ooh, and I'm getting paid the princely sum of $12.24 an hour. Sure it's not the best pay in the world but as Dad always says 'It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick'. I said this to my lecturer the other day who just about fell off his chair laughing! At least this means I'll be able to pay rent and other lovely stuff like that and save some money for when Andrew and I go traveling at the end of the year. I'm going to be working for the Communications department which as far as I understand is kind of like PR. I'm going to be doing research and writing stuff for them which should be interesting! It's only for 20hours a week so that will probably be all day Monday and Wednesday and half day either Tuesday or Thursday.
Varsity is going well. I just have lots and lots of papers to write! Including one on the Economics of Love Songs or something along those lines. I'm not 100% clear what it involves at this stage - Prof Grossbard handed me this huge file of papers today that I need to work through and sort out so hopefully I'll have a bit of a clearer idea once I've done that. As can be expected much of the conversation in the Econ department over the last couple of days has revolved around the stock market and exactly what is going to happen to the US economy. I pity the people in y class who are lecturing 1st year macroeconomics - they have to explain the role of the Federal Reserve bank to their students and now the textbook is wrong! Because apparently the role of the Fed includes buying massive international insurance companies too.
On Saturday morning was the Rotary Foundation (TRF) Seminar. As for what TRF is "The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty. The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world." (shamelessly swiped from www.rotary.org because they explained it so nicely and succinctly!). The seminar introduces Rotarians to the TRF and what it does, highlights TRF projects that the San Diego district is involved in and shows Rotarians how they can get involved.
I am in San Diego because of TRF. One of the ways that they acieve the advancement of international understanding is by funding the largest private scholarship program in the world. Approximately 1500 Ambassadorial scholars are sent around the world each year. If you're interested in the other programs of TRF have a look here (yes, I know, another link!) San Diego is involved with just about all of them. We (the Ambassadorial Scholars) spoke briefly. Seeing that the Rotary theme this year is 'Make Dreams Real' we all mentioned how we hoped that our scholarship would help to make our dreams real. The keynote presentation for the day was made by Sister Ethel Normoyle, a tiny Irish nun who has spent the last 36 years (if I remember correctly) in South Africa and 2 decades ago established the Missionvale Care Centre in Missionvale, Port Elizabeth. She was inspiring - it's amazing what she's created from her start under a tree and how many people she helps every day. I think it was quite an eye opener for a lot of the people in the audience too.
The big news is that I have an internship! I went for an interview at the Port on Monday which was very successful and I'm going in tomorrow to sign paperwork and fun stuff like that. Fun stuff being going for a medical and a drug test.... glorious stuff. I can't start working until I get my visa stuff sorted out but that hopefully wont take too long. Ooh, and I'm getting paid the princely sum of $12.24 an hour. Sure it's not the best pay in the world but as Dad always says 'It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick'. I said this to my lecturer the other day who just about fell off his chair laughing! At least this means I'll be able to pay rent and other lovely stuff like that and save some money for when Andrew and I go traveling at the end of the year. I'm going to be working for the Communications department which as far as I understand is kind of like PR. I'm going to be doing research and writing stuff for them which should be interesting! It's only for 20hours a week so that will probably be all day Monday and Wednesday and half day either Tuesday or Thursday.
Varsity is going well. I just have lots and lots of papers to write! Including one on the Economics of Love Songs or something along those lines. I'm not 100% clear what it involves at this stage - Prof Grossbard handed me this huge file of papers today that I need to work through and sort out so hopefully I'll have a bit of a clearer idea once I've done that. As can be expected much of the conversation in the Econ department over the last couple of days has revolved around the stock market and exactly what is going to happen to the US economy. I pity the people in y class who are lecturing 1st year macroeconomics - they have to explain the role of the Federal Reserve bank to their students and now the textbook is wrong! Because apparently the role of the Fed includes buying massive international insurance companies too.
On Saturday morning was the Rotary Foundation (TRF) Seminar. As for what TRF is "The mission of The Rotary Foundation is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty. The Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world." (shamelessly swiped from www.rotary.org because they explained it so nicely and succinctly!). The seminar introduces Rotarians to the TRF and what it does, highlights TRF projects that the San Diego district is involved in and shows Rotarians how they can get involved.
I am in San Diego because of TRF. One of the ways that they acieve the advancement of international understanding is by funding the largest private scholarship program in the world. Approximately 1500 Ambassadorial scholars are sent around the world each year. If you're interested in the other programs of TRF have a look here (yes, I know, another link!) San Diego is involved with just about all of them. We (the Ambassadorial Scholars) spoke briefly. Seeing that the Rotary theme this year is 'Make Dreams Real' we all mentioned how we hoped that our scholarship would help to make our dreams real. The keynote presentation for the day was made by Sister Ethel Normoyle, a tiny Irish nun who has spent the last 36 years (if I remember correctly) in South Africa and 2 decades ago established the Missionvale Care Centre in Missionvale, Port Elizabeth. She was inspiring - it's amazing what she's created from her start under a tree and how many people she helps every day. I think it was quite an eye opener for a lot of the people in the audience too.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Kate update
I only woke up an hour ago. Yes that would be at 2pm. Note to self: set alarm even on weekends! I didn't go to bed that late but obviously I didn't feel like waking up or something! I went downtown with my friend Bella last night. We went to a place called Cafe Seville which had excellent mojitos and guys playing Spanish music. It was a good evening.
At the moment I'm trying to coordinate my move. I was had wanted to move this weekend but I think the other guy is still in the process of moving out so I'm only going to get to move tomorrow which totally sucks! Who moves on a Monday? I'm hoping I can move my big stuff (mattress, bookshelf etc) this evening because I don't think I'll be able to find anyone to help me with it tomorrow and unfortunately they're all a bit too large to fit into my little car!
Otherwise I don't have much to report. I'm slowly getting back into varsity mode. I still haven't heard from the Port about an internship so on Thursday I made a couple of calls to Rotary people and 'mobilised the Rotary connection' so to speak. So hopefully I'll hear something soon.
At the moment I'm trying to coordinate my move. I was had wanted to move this weekend but I think the other guy is still in the process of moving out so I'm only going to get to move tomorrow which totally sucks! Who moves on a Monday? I'm hoping I can move my big stuff (mattress, bookshelf etc) this evening because I don't think I'll be able to find anyone to help me with it tomorrow and unfortunately they're all a bit too large to fit into my little car!
Otherwise I don't have much to report. I'm slowly getting back into varsity mode. I still haven't heard from the Port about an internship so on Thursday I made a couple of calls to Rotary people and 'mobilised the Rotary connection' so to speak. So hopefully I'll hear something soon.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Back to school.
So as I mentioned yesterday was the first day of classes (or of 'school' as varsity gets called here). I only have one class I have to go to lectures for - that's the research class and is on Tuesday and Thursday from 18:30 to 19:45. Otherwise I'm going to be doing a lot of work on my own.
Instead of doing an elective as none of the ones on offer appealed I'm doing a special study in the are of Household Economics/ the Economics of Marriage with Prof Shoshanna Grossbard who's area of speciality this is. I discovered something really cool yesterday! I'm currently reading A Treatise on the Family by Gary Becker who was one of the founders of this area of Economics and he won a Nobel Prize for his work in 1992. He was Prof Grossbard's supervisor at the University of Chicago and she's thanked in the 1st section of the acknowledgements in the book. I thought that was pretty awesome!
Aside from those 2 classes I'm still in the process of trying to organise an internship at the Port. Things are going much slower than I'd like so today I got hold of a couple of people in Rotary who know people in the Port so we'll see what happens.
Instead of doing an elective as none of the ones on offer appealed I'm doing a special study in the are of Household Economics/ the Economics of Marriage with Prof Shoshanna Grossbard who's area of speciality this is. I discovered something really cool yesterday! I'm currently reading A Treatise on the Family by Gary Becker who was one of the founders of this area of Economics and he won a Nobel Prize for his work in 1992. He was Prof Grossbard's supervisor at the University of Chicago and she's thanked in the 1st section of the acknowledgements in the book. I thought that was pretty awesome!
Aside from those 2 classes I'm still in the process of trying to organise an internship at the Port. Things are going much slower than I'd like so today I got hold of a couple of people in Rotary who know people in the Port so we'll see what happens.
Eek! Spider!
I hate spiders. Most other things I can deal with but not spiders. Why is this an issue now? Because tonight there was a spider in the shower! I'm not talking about one of those piddly squashable/flickable ones either, this one was large! It was at least 5cm in diameter and it was fat and black with big thick legs. Ugh! I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. Had I been in SA (which I quite obviously am not) I would have probably gone and woke Dad up and got him to sort it out. That was obviously not an option so I had to deal with it on my own.
Luckily, seeing that the spider was in the bath and the shower head is not fixed I could aim it at the spider and blast it with hot water until it stopped coming back to life. My issue then was that it didn't go nicely down the plughole to goldfish (and spider) heaven as Marge has a little plastic thing in there to catch hair. I didn't want to reach down and pull out the little holder thing which fits quite snugly into the plughole in case the spider was just faking being dead so I was a little stumped. Then I remembered the scissors that Marge keeps by the phone just outside the bathroom (pliers... tongs... scissors... EUREKA! - you can see the train of thought) and those were quite effective at getting the holder thing out. After that it was relatively easy to pick up the holder with the scissors and bash it on the toilet seat until the spider fell in. It was promptly flushed!
Thus ends my spider saga. I think it provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I'm still awake at 3:30am (all the adrenaline). Thankfully I have no classes tomorrow so I can still get my seven hours of sleep! Oh, it was the 1st day of classes today but I'll tell you about that later because the adrenaline is definitely starting to wear off and I'm going to bed.
Luckily, seeing that the spider was in the bath and the shower head is not fixed I could aim it at the spider and blast it with hot water until it stopped coming back to life. My issue then was that it didn't go nicely down the plughole to goldfish (and spider) heaven as Marge has a little plastic thing in there to catch hair. I didn't want to reach down and pull out the little holder thing which fits quite snugly into the plughole in case the spider was just faking being dead so I was a little stumped. Then I remembered the scissors that Marge keeps by the phone just outside the bathroom (pliers... tongs... scissors... EUREKA! - you can see the train of thought) and those were quite effective at getting the holder thing out. After that it was relatively easy to pick up the holder with the scissors and bash it on the toilet seat until the spider fell in. It was promptly flushed!
Thus ends my spider saga. I think it provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I'm still awake at 3:30am (all the adrenaline). Thankfully I have no classes tomorrow so I can still get my seven hours of sleep! Oh, it was the 1st day of classes today but I'll tell you about that later because the adrenaline is definitely starting to wear off and I'm going to bed.
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