Blog Abandonment

I feel bad about abandoning this blog. But life has been weird. After the new car, many many things happened. The rainy season dragged on, my depression really surfaced (everybody has a mild SAD-tendency, don’t they?), a breakup happened, I nearly quit my studies, and I got working really really hard.  It’s not like I didn’t have time to blog, or didn’t have anything to blog about, it’s just that things were undecipherable, and unwordable. Hopefully they will become wordable again soon.

The biggest surprise!

It was about three weeks ago when my beloved informed me that I should keep Saturday the 9th of August open because there is s surprise for me. Because I am very bad with surprises (if I know that they are coming – possibly due to the fact that it’s a bit like a mystery to be solved) I kept racking his brain about where when what but he was very very good about it. The only two bits of information I managed to get out of him was that it wasn’t a women’s day related event (thank goodness) and that it didn’t really matter all that much what I wore – as long as it wasn’t too pajama-y (his words).

On Saturday morning, my beloved arrived at my flat at the said time and I was ready to get in his car and have him take me wherever he was taking me. But he came inside and told me that he didn’t want to be too early for this event. We made some tea, and my sister (who has a key) came into my flat with a packet of Orange Kit-kat (which our aunt had brought us from England) and told me that I had to help her carry some of her books into my flat because she wanted to store them there. I was rather annoyed – I was going to be late for my surprise!

When I reluctantly went outside, there was a brand-new silver VW Polo with a HUGE red bow around it waiting outside for me! My parents (who live 2000 km away) were also waiting outside for me! I was speechless and just giggled. I think I was more speechless about seeing my parents than the care – because I knew that I was getting a new one sometime soon (as my old car had literally started falling apart and my sister got a new car at this age).

So I spent the rest of the weekend in and around Cape Town and Stellenbosch with my parents, enjoying my power steering and radio/cd player… The question just is; what do I do with the bow? Wrap it around some trees?

Have you heard that song?

Last Wednesday, I picked up a copy of the (free) varsity newspaper on my way to Chemometrics class. This newspaper is the kind of thing that I might have a quick look at during class and read a couple of day later when I really really am bored. My friend, sitting next to me in class, was, however extremely excited about me having this newspaper in class and proceeded to read it in detail. This week’s newspaper contained an extra section on books and writing, and in this section was included a list entitled “Top ten best Lyrics”. When my friend saw this list, she exclaimed to me, “Oh my word, have you ever heard about that band called Coldplay. This song of their, the Scientist, is really awesome.”

I mumbled something along the lines of “Yeah, I’ve heard of them…”

The thing is, I head about Coldplay in 2000, when I was fifteen Parachutes had come out, and Parachutes happened to be the first album that I purchased when I stated to like what I would term “real music”. And I was uncontainably excited about the release of A Rush of Blood to the Head, but was a little bit disappointed by the album, but loved The Scientist and hoped that the band would not release this song as a single. But they did. I remember the music video and the fact that the girl who died in it wore red converse sneakers (which i thought at the time was the coolest thing ever). After this song, Chris Martin became a rockstar, released the extremely disappointing X&Y, and lost most of my respect.

So yes, I have heard about The Scientist. And thinking about it makes me just a little bit sad.

(Update: This whole business reminds me a bit of this Vanity Fair ‘Stuff white people like’ article.)

More about writing and wanting to write

During my penultimate year of high school, my best friend and I went on a “Winterschool for the arts” at the University of the Free State… In a town-city called Bloemfontein. This is irrelevant, but it was pretty cold and sortof depressing because it was cold yet dry, without any hills or mountains (I am after all a hill and mountain girl) which made the place ugly. Anyway, I attended classes on short story-writing, which was a little bit annoying due to my lack of clicking with the lecturer and my realization that I will probably never be a short story writer. However, I did learn valuable things, mainly about being an actual person, and a bit about descriptive writing.

One thing that I do remember is the following warning; when there is a story in your head, DON’T TELL IT TO ANYONE, because then you won’t be able to write it, because the story will essentially be out of your system. I experienced it again earlier this week, when I had already thought up a blog post surrounding an anecdote in Chemometrics class, but I told two friends about this anecdote. And I’ve found that every time I’ve sat down to write this specific post, I could not get myself to do it, which is a bit of a shame. But also kindof cool. Now I just want to write about things that happened this weekend, which I’m not really sure I should, perhaps you’ll get the story about Chemometics too…

I don’t really have time to write this!

So many posts before, have been written by myself (in a previous blog, unfortunately) about how I am suddenly don’t have time for anything, like sleep, seeing my beloved or write blog posts. I have been totally swamped by a multivariate statistics course (yet again learning about the Unscrambler) and suddenly needing to have frequent meetings with my main  supervisor. The most beautiful part of all this is that I don’t have any transport since my car’s wind screen wipers broke completely and now I have to trek to campus on foot! This sucks! A lot!

I went for a run

I went for a run. A short run. On Wednesday afternoon, it the pleasant cold pre-dusk of a sunny winters day. I haven’t gone for a run since well, lets just call it forever (it was probably still the nineties, it was that long ago), so this was a REALLY BIG DEAL. It made my lungs hurt. A LOT. However, I managed to strike the balance so that the entire experience was so so entire horrifying that I would never want to go for a run ever again. Surprisingly too, my legs didn’t hurt afterwards, although I feared that they might.

On Thursday morning, whilst still feeling exuberantly proud of actually having gone for a run, Johnny B (a blogger which I frequently read) posted and entry on exactly the same thing – going for a run after forever, and fearing that it would hurt – which made me feel strangely connected with the world. It was almost like I was tapping into the collective subconscious of the blogosphere. This may or may not be what convinced me to go for another run Thursday. Bad idea.

Logic, as well as conventional wisdom had me convinced that if I stretched before and after my run, warmed up and cooled down well and ran exactly the same distance on Thursday as on Wednesday, my lungs will hurt again but my legs will not hurt (perhaps a little, but not significantly). Logic and conventional wisdom were both wrong. It hurt. It still hurts. After sleeping, more stretching and lavender-oil rubbing. And the question I ask is; WHY?

I feel GOOD!

I woke up this morning and I felt GOOD! This was very unexpected, because I’d kinda gotten used to waking up in the morning and feeling bad, in that oh my word its cold outside and I really don’t want to get up way…I was also unexpected because I was expecting to be at least slightly hung over, which I wasn’t. It took me a while to realize that it was actually getting light outside as opposed to the normal winter daytime dusk that we’ve been experiencing lately. Then I finally got it. The sun is shining! Send out a news bulletin! Let a fanfare play! Joy to all the earth today!

The trees are red…

This morning, over unexpected waffles and unexpectedly being in my department’s tea room, someone mentioned that all the trees in one of my town’s main streets had been wrapped in red cloth. Somebody mentioned that it was the doing of landscape artist Strijdom van der Merwe – which rang a bell – and I subsequently decided to go and have a look. I forgot, and was later,during random wanderous shopping, reminded. So I went.

 

I drove my little red car along the street that I’ve driven it along countless times. It looked pretty damn cool. But while I was driving, I started feeling sad. Sad in that almost-wanting-to-cry-but-not-quite-having-wet-cheeks kind of way. Why? I was asking myself whist driving. I came up with a combination of missing wanting to be somebody else, not really needing to impress anybody with being cool, somebody that i don’t know who died unexpectedly, the dirtyness of my flat, missing a winetour on Saturday and the rainy time that is up ahead. And on the way back along the street, I found myself wondering whether that is not what realty makes it art and not just some sort of urban decoration – the ability to go beyond looking cool and to actually affect people in some way or another. The medium gives the piece instant exposure -and the ability to touch non-artgoers; the people who don’t read books or go to galleries on seek these things in other places. Which perhaps REALLY makes it art.

 

Which makes me wish a little bit that I was an artist and not a chemist… 

Following my own advice

I have this philosophy about life that if you really want to change something about your life, the best (and only) way to go about it is by changing your habits. Move your house, stop smoking, start drinking more, or less, start drinking hot chocolate, walk instead of drive, install a new browser. Anything, really, related or unrelated to what you want to change. Apart from having proved the theory to myself over and over, I believe it works because changing one’s habits causes one’s daily neuron firings to change, which causes thoughts to changes, and which causes life to change. Not always exactly in the way expected, but any change is good, because it’s often the absence of change that is the problem.

The ‘problem’ wit my life was that things have been feeling, well, bleh. Partly because of the winter, but it’s been there all year, although it’s worse now. I think it has a lot to do with my MSc project not getting of the ground, and also doing too much sitting around doing theoretical work. The awesome thing is that I didn’t even sit down and think about a habit that I should change, it just happened.

I was here, at my flat, last night, trying to mail my supervisors to get this damn Brettanomyces wine show on the road, whilst listening to Jamie Lidell. And It happened. I started dancing. And I danced and danced and danced. See, the thing is, I love dancing. More than lots of things. But, for some reason, I’ve not really done that in a while. Perhaps because I’ve been too unfit to enjoy it, perhaps because my friend who I always used to dance with hasn’t been feeling like it, perhaps because the DJ at the club we always go to has been sucking, and perhaps because the living situation hasn’t been as conducive to listening to weird music and doing a random boogie. But wow. It felt so so so good. i know, it was a little exercise-endorphin trip, but it was also more than that. And I thought, damn! I need to do this more. So i’ve resolved to do it more or less every day.

By the way, it’s working already…

Almost Grownup

One of my friends (who I would thank profusely in this post if they actually spent any time on the internet) gave me the Almost Famous extended cut DVD (called Untitled) for my birthday. I haven’t seen this movie in years, but I remember loving it, so I started watching it earlier this evening. The movie is better than I remember, because the way the music works with the movie is absolutely awesome, and it reminded me of how I used to feel about music when I was a teenager. I love music more now, I think, but I loved it in a different and novel way then. And i found the weirdest thing happening. In fact, it is something I thought would never ever happen. Not in a million years. I missed being a teenager. Let me repeat that. I missed being a teenager. In spite of all the awkwardness, the stupidness, the angst, the acne, and all that. The thing is, the movie made me remember something of what I used to be. It captures that one awesome thing about being a teenager so well; the possibility of being ale to become whatever and whoever you want. Because you can. Which is awesome. When you’re that age, you start to get to know what you like and who you’d like to be, but you’re still wildly idealistic, which makes it awesome. Being 23 is suddenly different. I almost feel I’m a grownup, because the people around me are starting to act like grownups, and I suppose so am I. I’ve sortof decided what career I’m going to follow for the rest of my life (sortof because things always change…) and I may even have already met the person I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. (It always creeps me out when I think about the fact that my parents were already married at 23.)

The awesome thing about being this age, though, is the fact that I am still young enough to dream and dream and dream, but the tools to make those dreams happen are there now. I’m not an idiot just out of high school anymore! Regardless of how big my dreams were; I was just an idiot with big dreams… And another cool thing is the fact that some of my small , almost stupid dreams of how my life would be are already true. These are things like being able to cook and bake for other people without having to ask for permission first. Not feeling guilty about anything I do. Having a bakery right next to my house that makes awesome croissants. And being a small part of a pretty damn awesome branch of science. Life is good.

P. S.  A final thought on the movie… It has Zooey Deschanel in it, who happens to be one of my favourite actresses now…