sorry it's been so long...

Last week I managed to get at least one of my exams out of the way. It was Making of the Modern Middle East, and I think it went pretty well. I wrote on Israel/Palestine, Egypt, and the end of the Ottomans. People sounded pretty stressed, but I think that it went ok. Which I'm sure you all know means one of two things: it went pretty well, or it went horribly. I guess that I'll just have to wait and see...
On Thursday Emily and I went to the V & A Waterfront (V&A for Victoria and Alfred). We went to the aquarium there and got to see lots of cool stuff. We were there for the penguin feeding, featuring mainly jackass penguins, a type of penguin unique to South Africa. Two things to note here: first, I'm in a hemisphere where penguins roam free, second, they really are called jackass penguins. I also got to see a cuttlefish, seahorses, and jellyfish. All in all, a very cool place. Afterward we went and saw some vaguely bizzare chick flick. Good for a rainy day I guess.
The V & A Waterfront itself is kind of a bizzare place. It's a humongous mall, one of the most visited attraction in Africa (how sad is that). It's a weird mix of African kitsch and high fashion stuff. It's way too big and just kind of overwhelming. I think that my system tolerates shopping as well as the next person's, but there's something about a bloated mall selling everything you never wanted that's just too much. I guess I do a lot better in smaller venues, or when I know what I want from a specific place. Long story short, it's way too much.
Other than that, I haven't been up to too much. My friend Hannah and I have managed to get through season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (if you haven't seen it, it really is much better than you think), and are hoping to get through seven as well. I have all of this coming week off. My exam schedule is pretty horrible, just the one last week, then one on the tenth, two on the eleventh, and I leave the twelfth. Gross. I pretty much have to be packing as I study and say goodbye. Sometime this week though I'm hoping to go to Stellenbosch with some friends, so that should be fun. A short road trip to go wine tasting and hiking? Count me in!

Well, love you guys loads, and I'll see most of you very soon. And I've put new pictures up, so feel free to check them out!

a marathon

So, I managed to finish and turn in all of my semester work yesterday, but it's not over yet! I have my Middle Eastern politics exam on Wednesday, and in the proud SA tradition, it's half of my grade. Stressful to say the least.
I'm hoping tomorrow to go to the Saturday morning market again, as well as to the aquarium with the girls I mentor at LEAP. I haven't been to the aquarium yet, and I'm actually really excited about it. And tonight there's an African culture night, which hopefully I won't have to pay admission for. If I do, I just might have to reconsider going... Ugh. It's so hard, because it's nearing the end and there's still so much to do, but nothing is free. I'm sure it'll all work out though, it just takes some planning!
Sorry I can't write more, but honestly nothing too scintillating has happened recently. The past however long really has just been about getting the semester wrapped up. But classes are over now, and I can't wait to fit in tons of fun things in my last couple of weeks, at least when I'm not freaking out about exams...

Lots of love!

Holy Hell

So these past two weeks have been somehow both uneventful and overwhelmingly stressful at the same time - ah the joy of the end of the semester! I've have several papers that, while interesting, were also a bit like pulling teeth. Who knew that Palestinian nationalism was not just intuitively obvious? Go figure!
Seriously though, most of my time has been spent holed up in my room, drinking obscene amounts of tea, instant coffee, and decidedly non-instant hot chocolate (think milk, a sauce pan and cocoa - aka a great way to short-term procrastinate), and reading never ending amounts of literature on the world at large. Some part of it is actually extremely liberating though. Since going to IU, I've been so focused on biology that I kind of forgot that there was in fact a larger world out there. Between Middle Eastern politics and Southern African archaeology it's been wonderful to start thinking big picture again. I remember how much I used to enjoy spending my highschool study hall hours just surfing wikipedia to learn about whatever interesting event caught my fancy at the time. It was so nice to feel somewhat broadly-based. I feel like this semester has to some degree, albeit maybe only termporarily, re-awakaed that in me. Even all of this blogging and non-science paper writing I feel has somewhat shaken me out of a sort of biology induced stupor. Mind you, that doesn't mean that I can wait until next semester. Organic, phyics, and mycology all at once? Hell yeah!
Sorry I haven't written about the Cederberg rock paintings. If you ever really want to know, just ask me when I get home and I'll give you an earful. There's so much worth saying, and I'm not sure that I could even really do it justice via this format. Fascinating stuff though, and you know you can count on me to get excited to talk about it!
That's about it for now. Hopefully it won't be so long until another post, but I warn that this particular wave of intensive academia won't be over until next Thursday...

Love and miss you all!

it's going to take even longer...

I just realized that I don't actually have time to say everything I want about the road trip to the Cederberg mountains, but I'll try to before the end of the week. That should give you some indication of how much school work I have, which has unfortunately dovetailed into a serious lack of motivation about school / over motivation about knitting and crocheting.