Ass Kicking

I have been scaring myself lately. I try and keep informed I pick pieces of info to store when needed or as little reminders, but you put it all together it just a kick in the arse. These inconspicuous tidbits have been picked up over sometime now but just in the past two weeks is when the ass kicking began. It started by getting hit by a car a couple of weeks ago, only got a bruise that hurt for a day, but funny enough it was on my ass as it was a bakkie grill that actually hit me and not the bakkie itself.

So I went on with life but took the advantage to complain for a few days, than last week a house down the road (dodgier area but only a 5 minute walk if that) was robbed and the girl there raped. I actually know these people, not overly well but its obz you know everyone. My friend used to live in the house and date the girl’s girlfriend who lived in the there. A couple of guys come up and say their cops she lets them in and… you just don’t do that, its bad because its not her fault but here the tendency is to sort of feel that way because you should have known better. I guy I know who was car jacked said it was his fault because he didn’t look behind him when he pulled in. That’s weird but such common sense in someway; it’s not the criminal’s fault (it is and they do report it of course) but your stupidity in those situations because you knew they were out there. To add to everything their house was again burglarised the next day when someone pried the security bars of the window apart to jump in – nothing you can to there, at least almost everything was gone.

Excuse that little side note, but as a result of that a few flyers were post around about it as a warning and listed a community website, so I went on. The have a lots of stuff including a neighbour watch section, to keep informed of what to watch out for and to keep better statistics, a lot of things you wouldn’t report to the cops not worth it but the website is perfect. They’ll even email you with updates if you want. I thought this was bull-shit but it’s not, a woman read the email 10 minutes before a knock on the door from ‘cops’, crazy eh! So they keep updating it with descriptions of people to watch out for, they were seen breaking into cars chased off properties, and roofs (yup roofs to avoid the 50kg rutwellers) or one that creeped me out and had me looking at all the walls around my building, a guy who climbs storm drains to break in. Well I finish up this one later because Seamore needs feeding and changing.

Use a little sense with your scent

Scent free zones or even the idea of such things is a completely ridiculous idea for any South African. In the past I have discussed this many people and they think that it is hilarious. I would say the majority of people here were perfume/ cologne on a regular basis and would never think twice about, it is unheard of that people are allergic to scented things. In most cases I have no problem with it, I haven't started wearing any just because it has been drilled in my head for so long that scents are bad and the only place you can really where them is going out to a bar, everywhere else is basically scent free. I just returned from a quick pee break and there was someone in the other stall, I was in the bathroom for maybe 30 seconds before I was inundated by the strongest perfume I have ever smelt, obviously the women next door was trying to cover up smells but for fuck sake I nearly died. I was only in the bathroom for about a minute and I left with a horrible headache, how is that possible. I realize that there is no rule against scents but give me a break there needs to be a least a little common decency.

It is very rare that people here have allergies it seems, there are some but nothing compared to NA. My old roommates were allergic to quite a bit, and gluten seems to be a pretty common allergy but really not much else. You never see packages that say may contain nuts, and half the time its difficult to even find out. I know I'm not allergic to nuts but they still bother me so I do try and avoid, so the other day a little outlet here on campus had cookies, you don't get cookies here you get biscuits so I was quite excited. They were even chocolate chip (my fave) so I ask the women is there nuts in them, figuring there would be, she kept saying no there chocolate and I said I realize that but do they also have nuts, no no no was the answer - guess what they did! Its not like they couldn't or shouldn't have know they were baked about two feet from where they were sold so really. But if I actual was allergic it could have been very bad. I don't blame the women she probably had no idea why I was asking and probably didn't even realize you could be allergic to nuts but still.

I wonder why the huge difference in the frequency of allergies between here and NA, is it that people are more likely to go to the doctor to find out, there just wimpier so they are bothered more, I don't know. But I was thinking (I have absolutely no proof or validation for this theory) that there are lots of people allergic to gluten here, and I was thinking that it has some connection to the fact that maize is used and is much more common than wheat for many. So people are not as used to it in there diets and have developed an allergy? Again no idea. But related to that, I read awhile back that there has been a huge increase in the amount of bread sold and a decline in maize (maize being the cheaper) so the government was using this to state that there has been an increase in low economic class income as they aren't resorting to maize and can afford bread. Crazy eh?

The Problem with being good...

Over the past few years I have stopped killing bugs, it just didn't seem right. I have mind you been made fun of extensivly for this, especially for my catch are release tactics that I used on fruit flies when I lived in Bridgewater. I have been continuing to do this even with the ginormous things that they call bugs here, do be proud.

Now here's the problem with my moral stance on murdering bugs, what happens when you become infested... I have not become over run, actually I've seen very few buggies lately although I still have several bites to prove that there still around. I just read an article (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=nw20070312091528444C682189) about these monks whose temple has become infested, and they are against killing and have tried several methods of removing the ants, and still have no solution. I hope beyond hope actually that I will never find myself in this position because I think I would find something to get rid of the bugs but then I have to live with the guilt of killing thousands of poor innocent creatures even if they do tend to be ugly and even a little creepy.

Jinxed

I jinxed myself I said I wasn't going to comlpain about the cold if I made it through summer well... I complained about the cold yesterday (I didn't mean to really) so of course today is over 30 and this heat wave is expected to last a few days. Maybe it was the new jersey I bought yesterday, just like sun glasses as soon as you have a pair you'll never actually need them.

The Law of Me

• I had one of the nicest Sunday's I have had in a very long time. A cold front has been around for a few days now which means that I was able to curl up with my blankets and read. I literally haven't been able to curl up inside a bunch of blankets and just read since August. Especially during the day it was not humanly possible to cover oneself with a blanket, so to be able to spend an entire day curled up under a blanket I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was even planning on working for a few hours but once I realized I was not going to be able to work while I was all curled up I gave up the work in favour of my blankets, now that's a great work ethic.
  
  I think I must be the denses person sometimes. Somehow I missed the Cape Town Festival street party this weekend (the festival runs for a few weeks so I can still do other stuff but still). The street party closes down one of the longest and busiest street in the city centre and has been called the SA version of Rio Carnival and I even read the paper almost everyday, I've heard people talking about it but I didn't realize it was Saturday, and I missed it, so very sad. But to make it even better a friend of mine held this event/ gig called pussy's on fire on Saturaday night as well, it's meant to promote and show case female bands, DJs, artists and whoever else had something to include. I think it was a great idea and they are going to hold them occassionally but this was the first one and they wanted to make sure a lot of people came so that there would be more, but me being the denses person around I completely forgot about it and spend the night watching movies with friends. How hopeless pathetic am I?
  
  I did go out on Friday night and so my weekend was not a complete homebody weekend but why is it that when I do have a homebody weekend I miss out on all the good stuff? It's like the law of me, something good's going on I don't want to leave my house, if I want to go crazy the only thing I find to do is stare at a wall. Now that the work week has started and my weekend of homebodiness is concluded I see a lot of wall staring in the coming week, this is also covered in the law of me (subsection 2), I have a boring/ relaxing weekend and during the week I get all of this bottled up energy that just wants me to take it out and have some fun, but to no avail as I am a dedicated student. Maybe I'll switch things up this week and do some watching of boiling water instead.