In transition

Community Engagement Projects. Set Schedules. Allister Sparks.

Time so far has been strange. The last couple of weeks were spent getting acquainted with our surroundings and ourselves, mostly at the mercy of a predetermined schedule every morning. Although I gotta say, it was FUN! A whirlwind of excitement, sun, people, and strange new things. Now we're ready to have our own schedules and switch gears for the short, upcoming weeks. This week has been spent visiting various community sites to spark some interests for our community engagement projects, including an AIDS/HIV hospice, various orphanages, township and Afrikaaner high schools, the Dept. of Social Services, a women's support group, the Bicycle Empowerment Network, and others we're still connecting with. I'll let you know of my specific projects later. Our community site work will be spent in the afternoons, and we'll have lectures right in our house lounge with Prof in the mornings. The Mind of South Africa by Allister Sparks will be the starting basis of our academic dialogue. This is a good, insightful book. I'm working on chapter three, due tomorrow.

Whew. So much to do here but I'm not complaining - this is my last quarter as an undergraduate dagnabit! This weekend is our first free weekend to ourselves since we've been here. A few of us plan to go canyoning all day Saturday, visit the Sunday crafts market, shop downtown, and set up the hot tub in the evening in our front courtyard :) The weather is incredible here: warm, sunny and windy during the days, and cool at night. Yeah!

P.S. Photos 'n stuff. I finally found a way to upload my photos more efficiently for you impatient foolios. I can ALSO upload video clips, which are just as awesome, BUT smugmug requires them to be mpeg format (they're avi now, grr). I can't convert these at an internet cafe w/o downloading software for it, and even if I used a classmate's laptop I'm pretty clueless at how to do this. Emailing them is kind of a pain too. Any suggestions from you would be golden.

Remember: http://www.curiouscat.smugmug.com . I'm still formatting my photo site and adding captions later. Peace.