Concerning the End of 2012

So. I've made plans. I've borrowed equipment. I've broken in my new boots. I've trained (ok, "trained"). This New Year's, I'll be standing on Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

It's been a crazy time of planning. My boyfriend Martin has convinced me that I am capable of so many things, including climbing a mountain. I am aiming to prove him right, and to begin the climb to a foreign place in one year, and come back to reality in the next. 2013 will greet me at 3500m! How exciting does that sound?

This is life (I think :D)

Concerning Fractions

So I teach at a community centre on Kilarney on a Wednesday night. The students are mainly domestic workers who are trying to get their basic (grade 4-7) numeracy and literacy qualifications. The lovely Craig got me involved in the whole thing. I've been teaching Maths to this one class since about July. It's difficult to explain things sometimes, because adult students aren't as sponge-like as kids, but they're always super thankful. I'm glad I do it.

Last night, something really beautiful happened. Johanna has finally mastered fractions, and she gave me a hug. She thanked me for helping her grasp something that she - a respectable woman of 50-odd - had struggled with for so long. It's not the fact that I showed her, and it doesn't mean I'm a good teacher or a good person. It's just about her, and her progress, and her joy. I'm so glad to be a witness of it.

It's so important to share in people's joy sometimes, and to give it away. Every day I discover more and more beautiful things - Johanna and her fractions are just the beginning.

Concerning Blue Food Colouring

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For as long as I can remember, my mom's had this one pancake recipe memorised. She whips it out whenever there's not much left in the cupboard, or when I'm feeling particularly sad, or when someone has a birthday, or when my Grampa comes over from the cottage and needs a pick-me-up. We had them for breakfast the day I came back from Paris. It took me back to such a good place in my memories: moments where I sat at the round kitchen table in Grampian road while my mom chaotically churned out pannekoek after pannekoek to a myriad of random guests that would drop by. That happened a few times. It's happened many since.

So they have a good rep, in my opinion. This week's been really hard, so pancakes were the breakfast of choice this morning. They're the first thing my mom taught me how to make, but this morning she sighed as she glanced into the mixture to see blue goo. I needed something happy, and blue pancakes seem to do the trick. If I ever offer to make you pancakes, reader, it is because you are dearly loved, and I just want to make you happy!

Concerning Thursdays

So I was mosey-ing abound CNA looking at stationery, because there's nothing like stationery to calm me down. I freaking love the stuff. Give me some good-quality highlighters and a box of yellow Bic pens, and I'm happy. I placed my hand on a stack of exams pads, exhaled, and looked at the time on my phone. I was in a rush - I had lunch with Chris is an hour. But alas, I was here, waiting for Craig in CNA.

Sandton City, you see, is not my usual hideout. It's 40 minutes from where I live, is full of "Sandton-people", and was built by a distant relative of Daedalus. As I stood staring at magical permanent markers, I reflected on my morning. You see, I was at SC getting a very-very-cheap haircut, and as I parked the trusty (dusty) Golf in the fiendishly expensive underground parking, I was offered a car wash from a (quite desperate-looking) woman. I politely refused, but she insisted. I agreed. I had R50 in my wallet.

After being treated like a criminal at the hair salon ("No, I haven't had my haircut in a while. Why do you think I'm here? Yes my hair is thin. Do you think I don't know that? No, I don't want a Moroccan treatment that costs R350. I don't care if you think my hair is the worst you've ever seen, just cut it!"), I headed out to buy some stuff with a SC giftcard I had received years ago. When I had to pay an extra R10 on top of the giftcard, I reached for my trusty bankcard, only to find IT WASN'T THERE.

Crazy pants. I now had to pay the lady at Woolies with my R50 - the R50 for the desperate car wash lady - and also didn't have any money for parking. I certainly wasn't going to leave without paying the carwash lady. So I was legitimately trapped in SC. At 11am. On a Thursday.

Enter Craig, the hero. What a legend. After phoning the only Sandton-person I know (Natasha) to no avail, my thoughts turned to the one friend who actually wouldn't mind rescuing me from my very lame and silly situation. Craig works down the road from SC, and actually left work to aid me, so I waited in CNA and looked at stationery until he arrived. This is more of a blog post dedicated to Craig - you're a legend, man. Thanks so much for finding me, giving me money, buying me coffee, and sending me on my silly way. That was nice.

After being rescued, I headed to Braamfontein to show Chris the glories of Juta Street, met Mart for coffee, and was schooled in both Identity Theory and foosball by Chris Fish. Not such a bad day after all - but I would've spent it all in Hell if Craig wasn't the work-bunking friend that he is. Thanks!

Concerning Old and New

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Hello, the five people who read my blog. I should have been blogging this entire time, but alas my amazing life provides an adequate distraction. I will catch up soon. Stop freaking out.

Yesterday was a particularly amazing day. I'm in Oxford at the moment, and yesterday afternoon I organised two things for my Gran, both of which were awesome (not really my doing, but still):

1. The New
Mmmm technology. It's hard to find people these days who aren't amazingly acquainted with the internet an all its trimmings. Until I have my own kids, it will be a rare opportunity to introduce people to new technology. Luckily for me, my granny is one such awesomely techno-naïve person, and yesterday I introduced her to Skype. She got to see my mom's face for the first time in years, and she also spoke to Adam and wished him happy birthday. It's cool to be a useful young person sometimes - all my techno addiction going to some sort of good use :)

2. The Old
Back when my Gran moved to England in 2000 to live near my Dad (she's Scottish but lived in Cape Town and Boksburg for a long time), she had to put a lot of her old stuff in boxes in my dad's attic. Yesterday afternoon she sent Tash and I up there to look for some of her parent's stuff (my great-grandparents). We didn't find exactly what she was looking for, but we did find some AMAZING things.

There were all these old photos of my dad when he was a baby and ones that his grandpa took when he was a medic in the Middle East in the first world (yeah, the FIRST ONE). We also found his (my great-grandpa's) old army rank badges. Included in the treasures were some ancient newspapers - one that announced the marriage of my great-grandparents in 1918, and the ones announcing the births of my Gran and her sister (in 1921 and 22 respectively). THEN we found one ACTUALLY ANNOUNCING THE END OF WORLD WAR 2. The headline on the 8th of May 1945 literally reads "End of the War in Europe". Insane. So amazing to hold such a fragile piece of history in my hands!

So I spent a lovely day with my Gran. It was super special - hoping to go through some more amazing mystery boxes from the attic when I'm back here at the end of the month. I might even get her to sign up for twitter. How cool would that be? @JudysGranny. Or @ScottishBabe1922...

Concerning Shields

Discovering new music has become an intrinsic part of my life here in Paris. Whether it's mixtapes that cute boys give me, or a casual suggestion from a friend, or an unexpected ticket to a live show, I'm making myself sick with the sheer amount of awesomeness my ears are being exposed to.

 

A key part of these recent mellifluous discoveries has been Shields (website here), a 5-man force of nature from Newcastle, UK. I recently had the pleasure of watching them open for Dispatch at the intimate La Flech d'Or, and man, were they tight. Their punky indie sound is so right in so many ways, and after 30 seconds of their opening number "White Knuckle Tight Grip", I was hooked. Frontman Rich belts out punchy lyrics delivered in both short spurts and melodic swirls, made wonderful with the close harmonies of Luke and Dave (Luke holding his own with pitch-perfect strength). Guitars full of tone mixed with full fast drums make their music a recent addition to the typical indie-punk trend (they have ), but Shields adds their own spice with percussion drums and samples from John and their unashamed toe-tapping choruses. Their music has clean edges, framed with razor-sharp drumming by the (let's not lie, he's pretty good looking) Tom. Together, this messy-looking bunch of Geordies played one hell of a show. I'm a fan.

 

This would be a pretty good place to end this post, seeing as the whole performance section is covered. Usually, that's all you get from a band when you go to see them. However, fate seems to work in a slightly more awkward way, deeming it necessary for me to (quite gushingly) introduce myself to Rich and Luke at their merch table after Dispatch rocked the stage. After sharing my slightly-embarrassing adoration for them, they were kind enough to sell me a shirt and an EP, and slowly (how did this even happen?), I got into a conversation with Tom (drummer, he's a drummer) about, well, drumming. Mentioning that I noticed he was left-handed, we started a slightly-over-my-head discussion about how drummers are like, man, the glue that holds the band together. I also got the story of how they all met back in music college in Newcaslte, prompting Tom to literally teach me how to say Newcastle (it's NuKassle, not Nyew-Carsle). This was followed by an interruption by Dave (oh, Dave), and a conversation with Rich about how no one even has record-players these days. Then Luke came over with a pint, which I convinced him to share with me, which somehow led into the ever-amusing guessing-game of where Tash and I are from (Dave thought we were American. American, I tell you).

 

The more they drank, the more they laughed with us, and after passing my EP around to be signed by them all, Luke heartily invited Tash and I on the road to Germany with them. We politely (but sadly) refused. They play in Berlin tomorrow night, and these guys left such a mark on me that I honestly looked up transport costs. Shields, sigh, those crazy guys. I've been listening to this EP non-stop, and it makes me smile that not only do they play good music, but they're good people. I hope we meet again, but if not, we'll always have Paris :)

 

 

Concerning Anna-Marina

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Here's a short blog about the Amazing Anna-Marina. I already wrote a post about that time we went for tea, but I think she deserves a whole one. Anna-Marina's a legitimately-French girl in my "Democracy and Reform in China" class. When she heard I was from Wits, she introduced herself to me and told me that YAY she's coming to spend her year abroad at Wits. What a great coincidence! I'm so glad she found me - I was beginning to worry that I would never make any French friends. They're just so cool! And so is Anna-Marina. So so cool! She invites us out even though she knows she will have to spend half the time translating for us, and her friends are amazing too. We've done such lovely things together, and I wanted to write a blog just to make sure everyone knows how amazing she is.

 

Here's a list of things we've done with Anna so far:

1. Drank beer at a coffee shop around the corner from SciencesPo. It was the first and only time I've had a Kanterbrau, and I'm DYING for another one!

2. We went to Chez Angelina - this AMAZING fancy-pants restaurant on rue Rivoli in the 1st (if you don't know Paris, that means it's about 200m from the Louvre, in one of the fanciest suburbs). There we met Saskia, Anna's adorable friend. We drank delicious hot chocolate and had fun taking photos in the fancy bathroom (did I mention it was fancy?).

3. Got pretty amazingly drunk at a TERRIBLY CHEAP cocktail bar in Pigalle (again, if you don't know Paris, it's a pretty dodgy area next to Montmartre). What a crazy night. We all made it home safe though! :D

4. Dinner at Saskia's house, which ended with Saskia's neighbour inviting himself in for a drink, and us kicking him out later :P

5. Brunch at Anna-Marina's apartment in the south of Paris - picture a table packed with different teas, croissants and pain au chocolat (amazing square pastries full of Nutella), scrambled eggs, baguettes, juice, jam and everything French and delicious. The apartment is beautiful too - three bedroom and a lovely view of the park across the street.

6. Tea at the Tea Caddy (read the post here).

7. A French-style cheese & wine party, where we were just asked to bring baguettes (our French friends suspect we don't know anything about cheese - guess they're right). What a lovely evening, and everyone went home with a baguette!

 

Thanks Anna-Marina for all the lovely things you've done for Natasha and me! We are so grateful for your generosity :) we look forward to more adventures in the future! :D

 

 

 

 

 

Concerning Tea

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Man, I do love me some tea. Being a Joko girl at heart has made living in Paris a bit of a nightmare (can you say First World Problems?), what with only Lame Lipton on the shelves. Thank goodness for England! Firstly, we were able to visit a South African store (the existence of which we owe our lovely defective comrades who think SA is less-than-awesome), where we bought some Joko at a fiendishly ridiculous price. Secondly, my dad bought Tash and I a satisfactory equivalent at Mr Ghandi's store near his home in Headington, Oxford. Thanks Dad.

So considering our wonderful excess of that delicious nectar, we were thrilled to be invited by the magnifique Anna Marina and her lovely Alex to The Tea Caddy yesterday - the most English tea room in all of Paris. Little wooden chairs around cramped tables, old maps of England on the walls, flowery wallpaper - it even smelled British. Of all the wondrous teas on offer (including SA rooiboos and Darjeeling, to all sorts of Asian teas, to orange cinnamon and lemon honey ginger), I went with the yummy-sounding Christmas tea (Thé de Noël), mostly because it reminded me of Dave.

Yum! Tea is always a ceremony. What with that, and Devon scones, our day was complete. A visit to the famed "Shakespeare & Company" bookshop around the corner was the finishing touch on a perfectly English experience :)

Note: Although we had a lovely time, the service at The Tea Caddy is less-than-wonderful. To be honest, expect to wait for a table in the afternoon - if not for the crowds, because of the incredibly lame staff. We had a good time making fun of our inept waiter, but I think Alex may have passed out if his lemonade had taken any longer to get to the table.

Concerning Gardens

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Today was a beautiful day in beautiful Paris. The weather was warm and sunny, and Tash and I decided to take full advantage.

Our first mission out with the Paris public bike system didn't go too well. After an amazing start (and by amazing, I mean WOO TURNS OUT I CAN RIDE A BIKE!), we were shouted at for riding our beautiful bikes in the park. I almost challenged the park security to a race (me on a bike vs them in a golf cart), but, considering I don't know how to say "Screw you I'm taking my bike with me!" in French, I decided to leave it. Meh. We dropped off our bikes at a nearby station after 500m of crazy Parisian roads, and decided to change our plans.

This Plan B involved grabbing some delicious fruit at the market and catching a metro to the Jardin de Luxembourg, on the Left Bank. It's astounding, and romantic, and packed, and spacious, and amazing. There're long stretches of grass to picnic on (just ignore the signs if there are crowds), benches every 5 meters, huge pools with fountains and duckies, and about every oh-so-in-love couple in the city. Tash and I made out picnic on the fountain-side, golloping down strawberries and sights. We people-watched and surreptitiously photographed children (in a non-creepy way). Basking in the sun while crowds quietly mingle was the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

What a beautiful place I live in. I can't wait to share it with you!