The Creation of Blog

I believe blogging was created for one reason. In Film&Media, we learned about how civilian journalism has changed the face of journalism because basically anyone can be a journalist. The internet has changed the way we do everything: entertainment, information, education, etc. But blogging is, at its heart, a form of PROCRASTINATION. This is true no matter what blog you look at. I am convinced that every blog, from ladiesagainstfeminism.com (DO NOT GO THERE; it's scary) to stfuparents.tumblr.org (Do go there. It's hilarious.) to Anderson Cooper 360 was started as a form of procrastination from something else, likely work or school. And the funny thing I've noticed from the blogs I frequent is often this form of procrastination BECOMES work. Professional bloggers. Who'da thunk it?

Anyway, my point is I am blogging for the second time this month (even though the last one says it was published April 30, we know better...) merely because it is exam season. Exams at UCT are interesting. On the one hand, they count for way more than they do at Trinity. Often 50-70% of your overall grade will be your exam grade. So, you know, no pressure there. On the other hand, they're spaced out over THREE WEEKS. So some of us (*ahem*) might have, say, hypothetically, TWO WEEKS between the end of classes and the beginning of finals. And then, perhaps, another week before her next one. Purely hypothetically of course.

So what I should be doing with this spare time:
-reading the books I did not read over the semester
-writing my final paper for Imagining South Africa (the Trinity course)
-writing my internship paper

What I AM doing with this spare time:
-shopping
-going to museums
-scheduling salon appointments
-going to a play tonight
-quitting my internships
-planning a trip to Namibia
-pretty much a whole lotta nothing

Haha. I would argue that it is more important to see this town/country/continent, but I would also argue that my grades, you know, count into my GPA. Not that NOT having grades count would make me work less hard. I think I'm a middling workaholic. I'm like an aspiring workaholic. At the very least, I once tried to skip class, and failed. Seriously. When I came back from Botswana/Zambia/Zimbabwe, I decided there was absolutely no way I was going to my 8am on Monday. I woke up at 8, got ready, and walked up to my 9am. Only to find out that both my computer and ipod had automatically set itself up for Daylight Savings (European Daylight Savings, I might add, as the US one had happened several weeks beforehand) and lied to me about what time it was. South Africa, btw, does not participate in the clock changing system. And yet I still got one hour less sleep. Lol.

Anyway, today I went into my "new" internship and told them I would be unable to continue. They were very gracious about it, and I got lots of hugs and had to promise to get drinks with them tomorrow. Not the reaction I expected, but I will take it! Perhaps they feel bad about my humiliation on Sunday...

So Sunday was Impumelelo (internship#2)'s biannual awards ceremony. I was there for 12 hours, from 11-11. My primary duty was to carry out the award certificates when the winners were awarded, which required a cross from stage left to stage right. I don't know why; efficiency was not served, but whatever. 25 crosses from stage left to stage right. My fellow intern Sam was rather nervous about it, but I figured hey, I've done this before! Oh, Katie, why can't you keep your pride in check? On my first walk across, I lost a shoe. Just like that. It got stuck in a crack on the stage and I just walked right out of it. Ironically, I was wearing the shoes I call my "Cinderella shoes" because of their similarity to glass slippers. So I kept walking. I mean, what else can you do right? The MC was a comedian named Mark Lottering, and of course he had to pick up on it. I was cracking up, and actually don't remember HOW I got the shoe back. I assume I picked it up. Anyway, that was number 1. Out of 25. So naturally when I went out for number 2, I got a big laugh just for walking. Great. There were two cracks, and when I got to the second one, I did this weird little kick-flip thing that I have since discovered I will never be able to do again, let alone in heels. It was a moment of inspiration. It got a huge laugh and lots of applause and (most importantly) allowed the audience to shift its focus back to the AWARD, and not the intern. Lol. After the ceremony, I got a lot of compliments on my "stride."

So a few weeks ago, I was telling Rhoda and Mark (one of my coworkers) how upset I was that I was here in Cape Town and Bishop Tutu was at Trinity! Mark told me that the bishop gives a weekly mass at his old cathedral, St. George's! I told him I'd get more information from him, but of course I got caught up in other things. But it finally occurred to me that I'm LEAVING, so I asked him yesterday. And he called St. George's for me (which I of course could have done...) and found out Tutu will be there Friday at 7:15. So I'm definitely going, and some other people are coming with. It's just an Anglican mass; I doubt there will be any life-changing or apartheid-ending speeches going on, but it's still a chance to see a Nobel Peace Prize winner in action!

So there were definitely fun parts of both my internships, but I'm pretty glad to be free. I'm very excited to go to Waiting for Godot tonight. Two weekends ago, Kaileigh Liz and I went to see Spring Awakening (not the musical) on the Hidingh campus (campus of UCT that is downtown instead of in Rondebosch) and noticed Waiting for Godot was coming. So Kaileigh and I are going tonight. It's like UCT is a school I go to or something! =)

I <3 UCT, I really do. BUT I'm excited to go back to Trinity. It's funny to me that the seniors are graduating Sunday, making me technically a senior, but I will be still slaving away at junior year. Booo. I'm excited for next year: living in Jarvis again, taking some awesome classes (including President Jones's seminar, which Rachel convinced me to enroll in yesterday! And an ASL class at Wesleyan), hopefully working towards a thesis/independent study, going back to ASD, etc. etc. Also excited for this summer, when I'm going on all or most of a month-long vacation with my mother grandmother and uncle. And then going back to Hartford a month early to work at Admissions.

First, though, I'm gonna squeeze one more trip in, to Namibia with Liz and Amanda (and whoever else...lol.) So I'll have seen six African countries: SA, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Namibia. Not bad, considering. I kind of wish I'd seen more of South Africa, but I've decided this will not be my last trip to Africa.

I'm not saying I'll move back and live here someday. I hate when study abroad students say that, and it's simply not true. While I have learned a lot and had a good time, I find life here overwhelming at times. Everything happens in a big, extreme way. It's hard to explain, but it's very easy to feel. Apartheid is very easy to feel. History is not a bunch of dead people here. History is living, breathing, and surrounding everything. It's intense.

Besides the fact that there's so much I want to do at home, in the US. I hate that there's poverty and educational inequality and sexism and racism and homophobia and all sorts of other horrors in Africa, but I honestly hate it more that those things are prevalent (and frankly largely ignored) in a supposed first world country such as my own.

Wow, side rant. The point is I would love to work my way up the continent, starting maybe in Zimbabwe (since I was only really there for a few hours) and making my way to Egypt. That would be ideal. We'll see.

All right, well, I think that's a long enough blog for me not to forget to publish. Lol. Maybe one more before I leave in...23 days! =)