South Africa

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...

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beach and Bicycle.

I think I'm doing rather well! This is my 22nd post for August! Those 22 account for almost a third of my total posts so now I just need to keep it up :-) Keep your fingers crossed!

Today I met most of the new Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars for 2008/09. Maureen Eberle organised a great picnic at La Jolla Cove which is one of the prettiest areas of San Diego. We are a rather diverse bunch! Aside from Aadila and I there was Giovanni from Italy, Robert from Germany, Wadri from Uganda, Julie and Rebecca from South Korea and Qiuwan from China. There's also going to be another scholar arriving from Japan in the next few weeks. Here are some pics of the day.

I got my birthday present from Mom and Dad early this year. That probably has something to do with the fact that I chose and bought it. It's a wonderful bicycle (and helmet of course)! The Trek 7.2 FX WSD to be exact. If you're interested in the technical specifications here's the link. Otherwise if (like me) you don't speak 'bicycle' then it's what's called a hybrid bicycle where it has the majority of features like a road bike but you have straight handlebars and sit more upright like a mountain bike. It's also a very pretty light blue! I went for a ride on Friday and it's really comfortable and easy to ride. I'm just working on getting my foot back into the pedal straps after stopping and trying to put my water bottle back into the cage without wobbling! We'll get there. Thank you so much Mom and Dad for my wonderful present! Here are a couple of pics for you to see.

Don't you just love the sexy cycling shorts? ;-)

Close up of my bike!

and of my helmet! (Safety 1st don't you know?)

Other updates - my computer is fixed! I'm very happy! I'm still not too sure exactly what they did but it works and all my software is there so that's ok by me. Unless anything changes in the next few days I'll be moving to Crown Point on 8 Sept. Seeing that that's a Monday I hope it's actually the weekend before but we'll see.

Photos.

I'm tired (it's 2:20am) so I'll update you on my computer and bicycle etc tomorrow. In the mean time here are some links to some of my other facebook photo albums which I put up recently-ish.

Rotary Photos (including the LA convention)
Ambassadorial Scholars at the Corvette Diner (a classic 50's style diner with great burgers!)
My best friend Katherine's wedding in Durban in July #1 and #2

Wild Animal Park

Today Nicky and I went off to the Wild Animal Park because I had free tickets that expire tomorrow so we decided we should use them! The Wild Animal Park is the breeding grounds for the Zoo and a tourist attraction in it's own right.

Some of the park is very similar to the Zoo where you just walk around and see the different types of animals individually in their (sometimes very large) enclosures while in another areas they have habitats that simulate the plains of Southern Africa or the deserts or North Africa and a bunch more. Unfortunately most of these aren't accessible unless you arrange one of the (expensive) photo safaris or something along those lines which sucks because there were some really cool animals that we missed out on! We went on a tram tour which took you past the South African savannah mostly.

The savannah is pretty much as close as you can get to going on a real safari without leaving America (which no doubt is good enough for some). They have all your major herbivores in a large enclosure together and so you get to see the animals interacting 'naturally'. Well natural is entirely relative if you consider the fact that there are no predators in sight, only a couple of each type of animal and the grass is super green. We did see some cool stuff though - like a 3 week old baby black rhino and the northern white rhino which is the most endangered rhino in the world - there are only 7 left and 2 are in San Diego which is pretty cool. Aside from that we saw some interesting Californian animals (the Californian condor and big horn sheep among others).

Here's the link to my facebook album. I put the pictures at the end of the Zoo and Seaworld album so you may have to scroll through to get to them.

A Kate Update (I quite like this as a title for general posts).

I hope for America's sake that Obama wins the election and that he does something to reform America's healthcare system. I spent 8 hours in a hospital Emergency Room yesterday. Before you ask, I'm fine! My friend Nicky had chest pains and so went to the SDSU health centre who did a bunch of tests and then sent her to the emergency room. They did the all the exact same tests that SDSU had just done plus a CT scan and couldn't find anything wrong so that was that. It was a very long and boring experience. I was productive however! I took my cellphone apart completely and cleaned it with the disinfectant wipes kindly provided by the hospital. I have also discovered that you can fit a purple rubber glove over your head and then you look quite similar to a chicken. I have photos to prove it but I don't think I'm going to post them on here.

Otherwise life's been all about getting everything sorted out for starting classes next week. Luckily I logged onto the SDSU system this evening because I discovered that it was the last day for registration! I registered very quickly so that's all sorted out now. I'm also in the process of organising my internship. I have one more elective to do and none of the ones on offer appealed in the slightest so instead I've organised a to do a special study on household economics and the economics of marriage. It's my Professor's area of speciality and she's done some really interesting work so I'm really pleased.

Aside from that my time has been taken up with looking for a bike! Yup, I know, not something you'd ever expect to here from me! But I'm moving to Pacific Beach which is a very pedestrian/bike friendly area so I plan on riding to the shops and the gym etc. There are also a whole lot of bike trails around the bay area so it's a great place to start cycling a bit more seriously without having to be on the road with all the scary cars! As I typed this it seemed rather familiar so if I put it all in a previous post then I do apologise. This hunt is proving to be a bit more tricky than I'd like because I seem to have hit the 'black hole' of the bike buying year. Most of the old models are all sold out (especially since the oil price went up apparently so have bike sales) and the new ones are just starting to trickle in. But I will persevere!

New driving licenses, blue toenails and dead laptops.

Today when the post arrived I was really excited because my California drivers license arrived! It's so cool!

The highlight of the week's post for me is usually my Time Magazine which now gets delivered to Marge's house after Sarah decided they were junk mail and started throwing them out (I was not impressed). This weeks Time is a special edition on the Democrats *groan* which means that no doubt we'll be receiving another special edition on the Republicans in the weeks to come. I can hardly contain myself I'm so excited. Not. This whole election thing is really starting to bug me. I don't care that it's the most exciting race in decades - the actual election is months away! When the story of the week is Obama pouncing on McCain for not remembering how many houses he owns (7 by the way) it really gets a bit much.

Onto brighter news (literally) my toenails are bright blue! With pretty white flowers and sparkles. I took Marge for a surprise manicure and pedicure to say thank you for having me at her house while I've been apartment hunting. While she was being pampered I had a basic pedicure and decided to get interesting nail polish. I contemplated taking a picture to show you but I figured that could be a bit odd.

I have some sad news to report - my laptop is dead. It died last night after Windows installed some updates and then told me I had to restart it for them to take effect. Well it never restarted. Luckily I had backed it up just before but still. This is one case when a 9 hour time difference is very convenient because this all happened around midnight which is 9am in SA so I could phone Warren for help and advice. Unfortunately the prognosis is not good - I took it in this morning (to the Geek Squad at Best Buy - nice name huh?) and we'll see. I should know something in a week or so. Luckily I'm can just use Marge's computer otherwise I think I may be suffering from serious withdrawal symptoms! Technology is a wonderful thing... until something goes wrong!

I am feeling exceptionally pleased with myself. Today I found a Twilight T-shirt. You really can get anything in America!

Google Maps is awesome!

I've just discovered something super duper cool! Google maps will give you directions. No, not driving directions - public transport directions! For example, to get from my new place to SDSU this is what I'd have to do.... click here

My new home!

Two bits of random info just to start this post off nicely. KFC in San Diego does not hold a candle to KFC in South Africa. I was actually really disappointed with their attempt at a Rounder. So that's an experience I will not be repeating.

Gwen Stefani has just had a son. She's called him Zuma! Seriously?!! His full name's Zuma Nesta Rock Rossdale - poor kid. Not matter how famous his parents are he's still going to get beaten up at school.

Anyway, onto more exciting matters namely my new apartment! Well it's actually not an apartment, it's a house. The lady who owns it got married and instead of selling her house and all her stuff decided to rent out the rooms. You can have a look at where it is here. It's in an area called Crown Point which is exactly where I wanted to move to. It's a nice residential area just below Pacific Beach which is one of the 'party areas' of San Diego. What's great is that everything is close - I'll be able to walk or ride my bike to the shops or the gym or anywhere else I want to go around there. It's also a great area for being outdoors as there are cycling/jogging paths all around the bay areas.

Back to the house. There will be 3 other guys living there. One is the owner's son and he has the outside room and bathroom then there's a German guy and a Brazilian guy who will be living in the house with me. I've met them both and they seem really nice. The only thing is that the three of us are going to be sharing one bathroom which is not ideal but it's something I can definitely live with. Especially when I consider the fact that my rent is only going to be $625 including utilities. When I was living with Sarah my rent and utilities were about $200 more than that! The house also has a nice kitchen which the guys apparently hardly ever use and then a lounge/dining area.

Other very cool things include the fact that there is a washing machine and tumble dryer and we don't have to pay for them so I can stop saving quarters! Chris (the guy who lives outside) has a cat so I plan on making friends with it. My bedroom is furnished so I'll be sleeping on a proper bed again (which luckily is the exact same size as my bed so I'm going to use my mattress).

I'm not too sure when I'm going to be able to move in yet - it'll either be 1 September or on the 8th. I'm very, very happy though! I'm so glad that the right place finally turned up.

The hunt continues.

I wish hunting for an apartment was like hunting for Easter eggs (yes we used to do this when we were little). At least then you know you have a defined area to search in, a certain number of eggs to find, the eggs belong to whoever finds then first and then once they're all found it's over! Apartment hunting on the other hand seems to stretch to infinity! There's a preferred area but it's not strictly defined, there's no actual guarantee that you'll find anything in that area and then if you do someone who finds it after you may end up getting it. Then of course it doesn't seem to end! (Well in my case at least).


I've seen 5 apartments in the last 2 days. The first one was perfect and I would love to live there - but of course the girl had organised with a bunch of other people for them to come and see the place so she'll let me know later in the week. The second place was nice but the guy who's living there worked from home. So half the living room is taken up by his desk and where the kitchen/dining room table should be there's a Foosball table. So it felt like I'd just be renting the room and not actually be sharing the apartment. Which is technically fine but with that being the case I thought the rent was far too expensive for what he was offering so as Dad would suggest, I sent him a cheeky email. (Americans don't use the word cheeky by the way). He was asking rent and then utilities (water, electricity, internet etc) were extra on top of that which added about $100 to the bill. I suggested that we make the rent he was asking for include utilities as well. I was impressed to get a reply from him saying that he was showing the place to a couple of other people this week and would see how that went then would consider my offer. So we'll see. As Dad always says - if you don't ask, you don't get.

I've been getting a little stressed out about not being able to find anything despite having looked since the beginning of the month so yesterday I decided to broaden my search. I went to see one place that wasn't in any area I'd thought about looking in primarily because the rent was so cheap! The place was nice enough but the dude renting out the room was seriously dodgy! I also went to see a place that is in the area that's my second option if I can't move to the beach. It's an area called Hillcrest which is sort of like Florida road - lots of restaurants and bars. It's also very close to Balboa Park (San Diego's answer to Central Park). The place was really nice and you got a lot more bang for your buck. But it's not the beach which is where I really, really want to live! I was chatting to Nicky about it and as she said, if I'm only in San Diego for 5 more months (assuming that I move somewhere else to work next year) then I should live where I want to because who knows if I'll ever get the chance to live there again.

I saw another possibility in Pacific Beach last night. It's a small, old house but in a great location. The guy who lives there seemed really cool (he's a golf pro at a local course) but once again he's showing the place to a couple more people so we'll see later in the week.

Wrt the places I was waiting to hear about - I emailed the one girl who actually responded and told me that they had been concerned about the fact that I could only guarantee staying there for 5 months even though I want to stay in San Diego and work next year too so they had found someone else. I can't get hold of the other girl - she never answers her phone and her voicemail box is full. So that's that for those two possibilities I guess!

I really need to work out what to call my posts when they're just full of random bits of this and that!

Yay! Michael Phelps won his 8 gold medals. Kudos and all that now can we please watch something other than swimming? I miss DSTV and being able to watch multiple channels of random Olympic sport at all hours of the day. What is quite amusing here though is the way they’re reporting the medal count - I only ever see the total medal count because then America’s winning. Meanwhile it’s the gold medals that count and then the Chinese are kicking the USA’s butt!

On Saturday night I went to see A Chorus Line. It’s a musical that tells the story of all these dancers trying out for a show on Broadway. I got a super cheap ticket (I’m a poor student remember) so I was sitting high up in the rafters. For some unknown reasons the entire front section if the upper balcony was empty so just before the show started we all started to move down. The poor usher got all twitchy so all we did was wait until they switched the lights off and then moved! I ended up with an awesome seat and could see everything on stage really well.

I have to tell you about an incredible moment of brilliance on my part! After I got my car back from being detailed last week I was trying to remember if I had had mats in it or not. I eventually decided that I must not have had mats because I was sure they would have put them back in the car. So this weekend when Nicky and I went to do some shopping at Costco I opened the boot to but our shopping in an lo and behold - there were my mats! They had been sitting in the boot the whole time. Now my car has a little bit of a 'wet' smell that I need to sort out because the mats weren't completely dry and they've been sitting in the closed boot in the sun all week.

Talking about grocery shopping - last week I was so excited! I went to a different Von's to the one I normally do and they had peppadews! They were in the little deli section along with all the olives etc. They've made a welcome addition to my salads.

And in other food news (the newsreader voice is back) I had my first smor on Friday night! What is a smor you may ask? Well it's the quintessential American camp food made by taking a marshmellow, toasting it over the fire and then squishing it between two graham crackers along with some chocolate! Quite delicious! Although I do think toasting Beacon marshmellow Easter eggs is still the best!

The apartment hunt continues. I saw one place this weekend which was a bit too close to party central for my liking and I'm seeing another place tonight. And surprise surprise - the rude Americans strike again! Despite being faithfully assured that they would let me know about the two apartments I was waiting to hear about this weekend.... guess what? They didn't.

YAAAAAAAY!

I passed my driving test! I had my appointment at 11:45am and when I arrived at the DMV it was packed! I definitely gloated a bit as I strolled right past the ridiculous line of people that headed all the way out the door and around the corner as I went to check in. While I was waiting to do my test I had a sudden flashback to my SA driving test and what I had to do then. I promptly made a quick call to my friend Nicky to ask about hand turn signals (which I'd completely forgotten in the week since I did my theory test - oops). It's a good thing I did because they asked that! So after the nice little drive during which I did not drive on the wrong side of the road, mount any curbs or do anything else daft the examiner told me that I'd passed! I struggled to contain my joy as he mentioned that I must make sure I come to a complete stop before turning right at a red light. According to Jeremy Clarkson that's America's only contribution to driving. I of course nodded very seriously and then skipped inside (no, not literally) to get my license. Only to be told that they'll post it to me so I just got a crappy piece of paper instead.

Cherry Coke

At the moment I'm sitting and drinking a Cherry Coke Zero and I can't decide if I like it or not! On one hand the fake cherry flavour is not totally unpleasant but I don't think it does much for me in this form. Coke Zero is comparable to SA's Coke Light. You also get Diet Coke here which is revolting! It's got so much artificial sweetener in it that that's pretty much all you can taste and it gives me a headache. So I drink Coke Zero (which is aimed at guys apparently because it doesn't have all the 'diet' connotations). But back to the cherry aspect - I really don't think it adds much to the drink at all. But then again I think I could quite happily give up Coke altogether and not miss it at all so maybe I'm not the right person to be talking about this!

I bought my Cherry Coke when I was out shopping for headphones this evening because my headphones died! I was at gym earlier today and when I switched my ipod on I only got sound in my one ear. So I had to spend my entire time at gym swapping the working headphone from ear to ear depending on which side the loudest noise was coming from. Even though I had the non-working earphone in my ear as well I could still hear from that ear which is a definite problem. I listen to my ipod at gym because I play really fast music and it keeps me going on the cardio machines. The other reason I like listening to music is because it blocks out all other sounds - including the sound of me breathing so I don't notice how tired I'm getting and I push myself to carry on going. Needless to say today's was not the best workout ever. However, I am pleased to announce that I eventually managed to find a really nice pair of Sony headphones so hopefully the next time I go to gym I'll be much happier! I got them at Walmart of all places. Shopping at Walmart is a very scary experience! My only excuse is that I'd already been to 2 other electronic stores without any success and Walmart was on the way to get groceries at Vons.

Updates:
#1 - Driving test tomorrow morning - wish me luck!
#2 - No new apartment hunting news.
#3 - The name 'Michael Phelps' is really starting to grate my cheese! Apparently he has assumed demi-God status so it is imperative that everyone mention his name at least 47 times a day.

One year in the USA

One year ago today I arrived in San Diego (give or take a couple of hours seeing that it's almost 2am here). It's definitely been an interesting year. I contemplated reminiscing about it on here but it's way too late and I'm far too tired so it'll have to be another time - maybe!

In the latest Kate update (said in my best pompous newsreader voice) I finally have an appointment with the DMV for my driving test! It's on Friday at 11:40ish so wish me luck! As Andrew pointed out it would be highly embarrassing if I failed so tomorrow I'm going to check up online to see what they actually want you to do and make sure I know how to do it.

And in other news (back to the pompous voice) apartment hunting has hit a bit of a lull. I'm still waiting to hear from 2 of the places I liked. I phoned the 3rd today and she's found another roommate. I thought she was actually incredibly rude seeing as she promised to call and let me know and then never bothered to. That seems to be a general trend here though. South Africans definitely have better manners than the majority of Americans! I'm not sure if it's because of the British influence/heritage or what but it's definitely noticeable and rather annoying. Another thing that bugs me is that when you say 'Thank you' to an American they don't reply with 'it's a pleasure' or 'sure' or 'no problem' or any words for that matter. They just say 'uh-huh'.

After that little venting effort I am off to bed!

I kid you not...

While watching the Olympics opening ceremony the other day, during the parade of nations one of the American commentators said "Here's the Central African Republic which is in central Africa". I could not actually believe it!