I am very proud to report that I have at last found an American sport that I like to watch! I also understand it (mostly) which definitely helps with the enjoying it bit. In case you didn't read the title of this post.. that sport is basketball!
Tonight I went to my very first basketball game ever. It was such fun! The SDSU Aztecs were playing the Airforce at Cox Arena - the massive indoor arena on campus. I think it seats about 10000 people or so. It wasn't packed but it was probably about 3/4 full. Not just of students either, the public can buy season tickets to watch the games. San Diego doesn't have a pro basketball team and SDSU's team is really good so it's very popular. Tickets for students are free, you just have to go to the ticket office on campus and they swipe your student card. It was quite funny today - you can only get one ticket per student card but I needed to get a ticket for my friend Nicky who is a student too but had forgotten to get one. So I ended up asking a couple of people in the general vicinity of the ticket office if they were going to the game and if not would they mind getting an extra ticket for me? I hit it lucky third time round and a very nice girl got me an extra ticket :-)
The game started at 8pm and the atmosphere inside Cox Arena was quite something! There were cheerleaders, the SDSU band and of course all the students jumping up and down and shouting and singing. The students are also very vocal - they boo the ref/umpire when he makes a bad decision (in their opinion) and go crazy when one of the SDSU players score. Also when the Airforce had a free throw facing the side that all the students were sitting on then everyone stands up and jumps around waving signs and big cutouts of faces (like Britney with a shaved head and Borat etc) trying to distract them while they take a shot - it was really funny.
I think the other reason I enjoyed the game so much is not only because it's simple to understand but also because it's very fast paced. Which is totally unlike baseball which is just plain slow or American football which has ad-breaks every 2 seconds (the last 59 sec of the Superbowl, which is all I watched, lasted for about 5 mins!)
Oh and the most important bit of course... the Aztecs won! 49-38!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Super Tuesday
Ho Hum... yes I'm a bad blogger. I think part of the reason is that I'm so daunted by the prospect of posting stuff from all my traveling adventures. So to make my life a bit easier I've been investigating online photo albums and should have one up shortly so that you can view all my travel photos and get some sense of what I've been up to even if I haven't written about it yet.
It's super Tuesday here today which means that it's voting day in California. Not voting for a new President of course... one round of voting would just be far too sensible. Instead there's voting for the person you want to be a candidate in the presidential elections. Do I have any idea who's going to win? No. Do I care? No. The only thing I do care about is that one of them becomes President next year. Not that I have any say in the matter anyway. At least once today's over we'll set a break from the endless TV ads telling us what wonderful people they are.
Although I must say I was quite impressed with Hillary. She came and spoke at SDSU on Friday. There was a huge turnout for her - the SDSU website says 7500 people or so. In true politician fashion she kept us waiting for about 45mins but when she eventually arrived we weren't disappointed. She's a very good speaker... I'd have voted for her after hearing what she had to say and how sensible she sounded. If you want to read more about what she had to say (and see some pics) have a look at the article on the SDSU site. Next year I might also be able to claim that I've seen the President of the United States in person. Who knows.
I have to let you in on a little secret though. Before we entered Cox arena (a huge, indoor arena) which is were the talk was held we were given a whole pile of promotional information. So sitting waiting for Hillary I became bored. Now the seating in the arena is steep - similar to the top of the New stand at Kings Park - and we were quite near the top. I had a serious urge to make a paper airplane and throw it down! But Sarah warned me that I'd probably get in trouble and get kicked out. Her friend Travis didn't help when he made a paper airplane and gave it to me. The urge was just too strong to resist and I threw the plane which had quite a disappointingly short flight. The people behind me though this was a good idea and made a plane too. Before long there were lots of paper planes whizzing through the air (everyone was obviously as bored as I was with waiting for Hillary). Every time one had a particularly good flight and looked like it was going to make it all the way to the media at the bottom of the stands everyone would go wild clapping and cheering for it! The media were rather perplexed! I am rather amused with my contribution to alleviating student boredom at SDSU.
It's super Tuesday here today which means that it's voting day in California. Not voting for a new President of course... one round of voting would just be far too sensible. Instead there's voting for the person you want to be a candidate in the presidential elections. Do I have any idea who's going to win? No. Do I care? No. The only thing I do care about is that one of them becomes President next year. Not that I have any say in the matter anyway. At least once today's over we'll set a break from the endless TV ads telling us what wonderful people they are.
Although I must say I was quite impressed with Hillary. She came and spoke at SDSU on Friday. There was a huge turnout for her - the SDSU website says 7500 people or so. In true politician fashion she kept us waiting for about 45mins but when she eventually arrived we weren't disappointed. She's a very good speaker... I'd have voted for her after hearing what she had to say and how sensible she sounded. If you want to read more about what she had to say (and see some pics) have a look at the article on the SDSU site. Next year I might also be able to claim that I've seen the President of the United States in person. Who knows.
I have to let you in on a little secret though. Before we entered Cox arena (a huge, indoor arena) which is were the talk was held we were given a whole pile of promotional information. So sitting waiting for Hillary I became bored. Now the seating in the arena is steep - similar to the top of the New stand at Kings Park - and we were quite near the top. I had a serious urge to make a paper airplane and throw it down! But Sarah warned me that I'd probably get in trouble and get kicked out. Her friend Travis didn't help when he made a paper airplane and gave it to me. The urge was just too strong to resist and I threw the plane which had quite a disappointingly short flight. The people behind me though this was a good idea and made a plane too. Before long there were lots of paper planes whizzing through the air (everyone was obviously as bored as I was with waiting for Hillary). Every time one had a particularly good flight and looked like it was going to make it all the way to the media at the bottom of the stands everyone would go wild clapping and cheering for it! The media were rather perplexed! I am rather amused with my contribution to alleviating student boredom at SDSU.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Where I am!
So I'm in Florida! And this is just a quick note to let you know what I'm up to here (and have been doing since my last post). After exams I went traveling with Mom and Dad and our friends Heather and Hugh for a while. I flew up to Monterey Bay (just below San Fransisco) and met them there. We then drove across to Yosemite for a few days in the snow and then headed down to Vegas via Death Valley. Vegas is unbelievable! It's a complete tribute to excess (our hotel was a giant, black-glass pyramid). We also did a day trip out to the Grand Canyon which included a helicopter flip over the Canyon itself. It was spectacular! Mom and Dad then spent a week or so in San Diego with me before flying back to SA.
I only go back to University on 22 January so my roommate, Sarah, and I decided to go travelling! We've been in Orlando for the past 5 days and did Disney, Epcot and Universal as well as Pleasure Island! Today we spent the day at the Kennedy Space Centre which was awesome and tomorrow we're hopefully going on an airboat ride through the swamps before heading off to Miami for 3 days.
Unfortunately I managed to lose my camera on an enormous rollercoaster at Universal and I don't have much hope of seeing it again owing to the fact that it was high, fast and mostly over water. So I can't promise too many pictures from this trip but I will put up pics from traveling with the parental units as well as give you way more details about my traveling adventures!
I only go back to University on 22 January so my roommate, Sarah, and I decided to go travelling! We've been in Orlando for the past 5 days and did Disney, Epcot and Universal as well as Pleasure Island! Today we spent the day at the Kennedy Space Centre which was awesome and tomorrow we're hopefully going on an airboat ride through the swamps before heading off to Miami for 3 days.
Unfortunately I managed to lose my camera on an enormous rollercoaster at Universal and I don't have much hope of seeing it again owing to the fact that it was high, fast and mostly over water. So I can't promise too many pictures from this trip but I will put up pics from traveling with the parental units as well as give you way more details about my traveling adventures!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
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.
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 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.
Monday, October 15, 2007
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.
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.
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