so long, Hubert.

today, i am going to tell you a story.

once upon a time, there was a mommy and a daddy who loved eachother very much, but we'll skip that part. 9 months later, the mommy gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and there was joy throughout the land... or at least the hospital ward. but something was not right. the baby had a little brown spot right next to her left ear. her parents cooed about it being a cute baby beauty spot, when it was in fact a little mole, with the potential to become big and ugly and, in the words of Lauren, sick nast.

as the girl grew, so did the mole, and with time she became aware of its presence. the girl, who we will call Hannah for story purposes, even went so far as to give it a name. she named it Hubert.

now the sad part of the story comes along. when Hannah started a different school in the 4th Grade, she found out that her new classmates were much more observant than her previous ones. suddenly, everyone had discovered Hubert... and they would talk about him and his strangeness right in front of Hannah. of course, Hannah started to feel ashamed. she would try to hide Hubert away with her lame excuse for bangs, but that didn't work. she would cover her ear with her left hand in an attempt to cover him up, but as soon as she needed to write, she'd have to take her left hand back, and then everyone would notice Hubert again. everything she tried failed dismally, and so the unthinkable started to happen... Hannah began to despise Hubert's existence.

by the 7th Grade, all of her classmates had gotten used to Hubert, and Hannah began to feel fine about him again. but, as it so happens, in the 8th Grade, Hannah once again started a new school, and the comments about poor old Hubert began to fly thick and fast again. Once, Hannah was approached by a boy who informed her with a certain sense of honesty and clarity that she had a mole growing "there", as he pointed wildly in the direction of her left earlobe. promise. so, of course, Hannah began to notice Hubert's presence again.

of course, during this whole time, Hannah was growing, and so was Hubert. he began to get in the way of things like hairbrushes and combs and squirrels. yeah, not squirrels. anyway, there came a time during the 9th Grade when Hannah decided to investigate the possibility of having Hubert removed. this was a hard thing for her to contemplate... he had been such a big part of her face for so long.

on the 1st of December 2008, Hannah finally went to a special kind of doctor called a Plastic Surgeon, who specialised in giving rich people face lifts and boob jobs and also happened to be a qualified Mole-Taker-Off-er. (not to be confused with a plastic sturgeon.. you know, the kind of fish that eats rubber.) His name was Doctor Zinn and that made her laugh a little bit... in her head. he told her all about what was going to happen, calling Hubert names like "benign" and "unharmful". finally, he made Hannah lie down and gave her an anaesthetic shot right in the middle of Hubert, which would only sting "for a second" but in reality hurt for a minute at least. then he took out a creepy-sounding shaver thingy and proceeded to shave Hubert off, layer by layer. it took him a total of 2 minutes to finish the deed... then he put a ridiculously tiny plaster on Hannah's face and told her to leave it there until it fell off.

Hannah felt different... and the same. she kept poking her head because she thought it was funny that she couldn't feel the whole left side of her face. then she started singing "Anasthaesia, Anasthaesia!!" to the tune of that crazy animated movie Anastacia's theme song, and was relieved to find her humour intact.. she would've hated to lose that along with Hubert. because she kept poking the spot where Hubert was, it started bleeding profusely, so for the next few days she walked around like a head wound victim.

she even started acting like a head wound victim... you got it, crazy. in the head.


finally it stopped bleeding, and she took all the peripheral bandages off.

(haha, i made you tip your head sideways! haha!)

on the 9th of December, while at a thrift store in California, USA, the ridiculous bandage also fell off, and all that she was left with was a scab on the side of her face and the memory of Hubert.

since then, she's found out that several people have moles exactly where Hubert was, and it is a very bittersweet feeling. the memory of Hubert will always remain with Hannah... but from now on, she will go through life Hubert-less, with just a faint white scar on the side of her head as a reminder of what once was.

THE END.

in other news, guess where i've been hanging out lately?

i know you've been dying to ask me...

.."where have you been for the last century?"

okay, calm down! it hasn't been THAT long. it's only been 3 weeks and 3 days. yes, i know that's a long time to be gone... *blushes indignantly*.. but i'm sorry! will you forgive me if i give you a rundown of ALL that's happened in those 24 days, so that you feel compensated for? 

on the 3rd of November, i started... FINAL EXAMS! *cue ominous background music* they went all the way through to the 21st, but i had quite a few days in between exams off, and on those days, i went to my mom's work with her. now, that may sound boring at first, but bear with me. my mom teaches First Grade at a primary school called John Wesley. (it's a Methodist school, a ministry of our church - i bet you couldn't tell that by it's name, huh? ;) ) since we're nearing the end of the school year here in South Africa, my mommy dearest has been going off her head with admin and suchlike, so i am the stand-in teacher for her class. (side-note: i'm pretty much a terrible teacher. my sister got all the education genes.) but... I REALLY REALLY LOVE THESE GUYS!

Mandisa M, Nothando and Asanda N - three of the five cutest girls in Grade 1!

the kids with our special Christmas message - they each coloured one letter in, and then we put them all up together :) they were so excited! i did the "S" in "THIS"... i am ridiculously proud of my valiant efforts ;)

this is my favourite kid in the world. his name is Manqoba. i call him MQ. i love him to pieces.  THE END.

this is Promise. his nickname is Pro-Kid, and he's the most adorable bundle of energy ever.

on the 14th of November, my family and i went up to Johannesburg - a 7 hour drive from where we live - to visit my Gran. it was a pretty awesome weekend because...

...i got to meet up with a pumpkin and a peanut

no, seriously. Despina, on the left, is Pumpkin; Hayley on the right is Peanut. i am Pancake. all together we make up the Pumpanuts - food triplets with a fetish for Lonehill Estate and co-founders of the campaign against skinny jeans and the Jonas Brothers! we met up at Clearwater Mall, got stacks of South African music and then sat down at Mugg&Bean, where a teabag split, a monster-sized scone was massacred and a ridiculous amount of laughter ensued! i love you guys so very much :) thank you for hanging out!

...my heart broke and grew stronger over the course of a few hours

we visited the Apartheid Museum. words can't express how amazing and harrowing this place is. i believe with all my heart that we can't move on from the past if we don't fully understand the past, and this museum has left NOTHING out. a word of warning though: if you're ever in the vicinity (haha) you should take a whole day just to get around it. we went for about 3 hours and i still missed half of the museum. it was more than worth it.

...my sis and i got to act cool with semi-famous people!

hi, Chris'n'Judy! 

(for the uneducated, Chris is a guitarist in one of the best worship bands in South Africa, ::harbourlight::. he and Judy have an up-and-coming band called Idle Friday, which is equally amazing. they are our friends. that is all ;) )

on Saturday afternoon, we met up with these peeps and then spent the rest of the day at Judy's abode, watching The Princess Bride and playing difficult games like Fezzik's Rhyming Quiz and Risk! :) After delicious pasta, we went off to Velskoen, one of the only drive-in movies left in SA. and guess what we watched?

EAGLE EYE!

boy, was it fabulous, even though we missed the first 15 minutes and i got a cramp in my neck from weird positioning! thank you for the night out, Topher and Jude!

...i had soft-serve ice cream from an ice cream truck for the first time in FOREVER.

i think ice cream trucks are the bomb. no doubt about it. so when we were sitting in our gran's room the morning that we left and we heard the distinctive tinkering song that defines an ice cream truck, my sister and i leapt up, ran outside and waited in childlike anticipation. needless to say, i was so excited when i got mine that i managed to tip it slightly to the side... and the whole thing fell on the ground. gah. luckily, the lady in the ice cream truck was nice and gave me another one, which i promptly gobbled up! even my Gran, who's really sick, decided she wanted one, so my dad got one for her and she ate it sitting up in bed. it was too cute for words! :)

...i got a pack of Peanut Butter M&Ms!

the photo says it all. trust me on this one.

when we got back on the 16th, i was anxious to watch the Top 6 performances of So You Think You Can Dance. because we don't have DStv (the equivalent of cable TV) at my house, i get my friend to tape it for me, so it was actually from the week before. can i just mention how crazy i am for Mark and Twitch? if you want to know what i want for Christmas(besides Mark and Twitch themselves), go here and here. unfortunately, on the Top 6 night, Mark left... it started me crying and i didn't stop for a while. i guess i had a lot of pent-up emotion about things... but i am okay now, so don't you fret! :)

i have also been going to the beach a bit - twice in 2 days, actually! the first was this Friday, the 28th, when i accompanied the Third Graders from JWS to the beach and a crocodile farm. it was fuuuun! 

the next beach trip was this Saturday - yesterday, the 29th - when my family and i went down to Mtunzini, a beach town about 45 minutes away from us. we got there at about 5 PM and played around at the beach, which was fantastic. 

then we went out to dinner at my favourite place EVER - The Clay Oven! 

they serve the most scrumptious pizzas there, and they also have board games at the counter which you can play while waiting for your food and eating! we played Scrabble... which i won, so it was great :) 

i had the MOST delicious, if contradictory, pizza. this is because i ordered a Vegetarian... and asked the waiter to add chicken. what can i say? i'm a carnivore! :)

another thing i have been doing is cleaning my room out frenetically, because in 6 days, the girls in our family leave for AMERICA! we'll be away for 4 weeks, and during those weeks, a window is being put into my room. this means everything has to be OUT!

so there you have it, dearest blog-readers - the past 3 weeks and 3 days in a nutshell! i must sleep now, because tomorrow... I AM GOING TO A PLASTIC SURGEON!! eek! i will post about that tomorrow night, though :) i forgot the include these two things: we also celebrated Thanksgiving, and i had The Best Time Ever with my second family, also known as my fellow drama students. i will add these stories to this same blog... tomorrow! (in other words... everything is happening tomorrow. got it?)

are you satisfied with my summarising skills, friends? and, more importantly, do you love me again? :)

lightbulbs

Nancy Face wanted to see my pretty hoodie... and since she's one of 5 people who've ever commented on my blog, as well as the most frequent comment-leaver, i thort i'd oblige her :) (oh, and she's awesome, too... but you knew that, right?)

it was a fateful day when i discovered this hoodie, i must tell you. i can't even remember how i found Zambooie, but find it i did. and then i somehow discovered the Relient K merch. and i was browsing through, quite leisure-like, when suddenly, my mouth dropped open. 

i had seen The Hoodie. 

*cue Hallelujah Chorus*

it took me a while to recover from slack-jaw-itis, but when i did, i kind-of screeched. and continued to gape. for a very long time. then i sighed, saved the picture in my "Things I Want But Will Never Entertain Thoughts Of Getting" file, and went away to mourn quietly.

a week later, an email arrived in my very own inbox. (that in itself was pretty impressive.) it was from my auntie Kymmie! i was rapturous. my aunt Kymmie is The Best. so i opened it and began reading. after the preliminary greetings passed, she wrote, "I am going to be sending some things for Sindi [for her Matric Dance] and was wondering if you're looking for something specific [that I could get you]...  So maybe a favorite hoodie or jersey of yours could use replacing..?" 

 i didn't read any further for a while. instead, my mind was on a constant replay of a certain jacket covered in lightbulbs. what to do? i didn't want to sound greedy... but i wanted that hoodie. a few days later, i sent my dear aunt a diplomatic (i like to think) email,  in which i told her of my desperate plea. and guess what? she got it for me! it was packaged beautifully, along with a baby blue Deon-style To Write Love On Her Arms hoodie tee that she picked out especially for me.

on the 22nd of March 2008, i became the proud owner of my Relient K Lightbulbs hoodie. it has been nearly 7 months... and i don't love it any less :)

THANK YOU, AUNTIE KYMMIE!

end of the month

so, it's the end of the month. which means i get to stay up all night - or at least until midnight - and use up the extra internet download. YAY! i have discovered some fantabulous things, which i will now share with you. are you comfortable? good! :)

- i heart The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. My Guardian Angel is honestly one of the most beautiful love songs i have ever heard, and i got to watch this video again:

aaah! Face Down is the bomb, Ronnie Winter is muy talented and beautiful, and RJA generally just rocks the party. good times!

- i equally heart Death Cab For Cutie. i watched the whole 8 and a half minutes of this video, which means you can, too. but don't get too concerned - it's enthralling, i think. the song is called I Will Possess Your Heart.

- Relient K is the current featured band at www.zambooie.com! i owe it all to zambooie for my pretty hoodie. them and my fabulous aunt Kymmie. i will post a picture of it another day, though... i need to get off now!

i blame it all on Relient K.

if it weren't for two lefts not making a right, i'm pretty sure i'd still be wanting to wear girly shoes in two years' time. but... it was not to be.

i don't suppose i can get away with blaming Relient K entirely, though. it was mostly Andrea, my cousin, now that i come to think of it. she was the one who introduced me to the phenomenon of Christian Punk Rock, and especially that of my now-favourite band. a band named after an old Plymouth Reliant. good times! but let me begin at the beginning and end at the end.

it was December 2003, and it had been 4 years since i'd seen my American family(excluding my gramma, who visits us fairly regularly). i was, and still am, closest to Andrea, my aunt's eldest daughter, but we hadn't been able to see her for at least a week since arriving in the US of A, because she'd been terribly sick with flu.

she eventually recovered, and on the night we finally got to see her, my gramma - whom we were staying with - decided to have a cookie party. the whole family arrived and, as usual, there were hugs and kisses galore. after chatting about trivial stuff for a bit and eating more cookies than should have been legal, Andrea, Sindi and I retired to our makeshift room, where we engaged in very deep, meaningful conversation which went something like this: "Oh. My. Gosh! Orlando Bloom is so cute! have you seen him in Pirates of the Caribbean and the Lord of the Rings movies? wow! he's so good looking! I think he's just the best actor in the world." 

eventually, we decided we should have "husbands". working in reverse, of course, i stated that since i was the youngest of the party, at 10 years old, i got to choose first. and who did i choose? you guessed it... Orlando Bloom. then it was Sindi, and she chose, after much deliberation, to go for Shane West(of A Walk To Remember fame). all the while, Andrea sat patiently on Sindi's bed, smiling to herself. hmmm, what was up with that? i'd just stolen the guy we'd spent about 20-odd minutes gushing about. she shouldn't look so... serene! i figured i'd find out what was going on behind that placid look on her face, and the following interrogation ensued.

Hannah : Andrea? who's your husband gonna be?

Andrea : oh! well, i could've told you that ages ago. Matthew Thiessen!

Hannah and Sindi (collectively) : WHO??!

Andrea (frowning) : Matthew Thiessen, of course. also known as Matt T. don't tell me you don't know who that is?

Hannah and Sindi : we don't know who that is.

Andrea : *gasps* you poor uneducated souls! he's only the coolest, best, most awesome guy around in existence. he's also the lead singer of a band called Relient K. they just released their third album. i can't believe you haven't heard of them!

what followed that evening was what could best be described as a Relient K attack. Andrea made us listen to all of their albums. when we stayed at her house, we were constantly surrounded by Relient K posters and music. even when we went to her youth group, a song i vaguely remembered, about a carpet tasting like coffee grounds, was playing in the background. they were completely and utterly inescapable. 

and Andrea was particularly enamoured with a song called In Love With The 80s. off of their most recent album at the time, Two Lefts Don't Make A Right... But Three Do, it was subtitled, "Pink Tux To The Prom". i think Matty was having identity crisis at the time.. but that is besides the point. after Sindi and i got our inevitable copy of Two Lefts, we listened to the album non-stop, and could sing along pretty much by the end of the week.

somewhere along the line, Andrea coined the phrase, "pink chucks to the prom". as in, pink Converse Chuck Taylors... because it'd be slightly awkward for a girl to show up to the prom in a pink tux. if you know what i mean.

Andrea never got to wear pink chucks to her prom, since she was homeschooled. but only recently did i decide that i was actually going to wear pink chucks... to my very own prom. (or Matric Dance, as it's called here. but that's another story.) in just under two years, you can betcha i'll be wearing those babies with pride... and it'll all be thanks to Matty Son's identity crisis and my cousin Andrea.

now all i have to do is buy them. *gulp*

i feel so terribly little.

uh-oh! the Dreaded Day is just around the corner. On Monday, my sister Sindi turns 18. and i am not yet 16. bah... so not cool.

obviously, my sister has always been older than me, so it shouldn't feel like such a big deal. but it does... it does. she is almost finished high school, too - she has less than a month, including finals - and that doesn't really help in the Making-Hannah-Feel-Better-About-Her-Littleness department... especially when i think about the fact that i have another TWO years of slogginess. 

but that's not even the worst part.

in February next year, she'll leave home for good. she'll be off to study at Rhodes University, all of 10 hours drive away, which means i finally get a room all to myself. so i should be happy, right? right. the thing is, i've never not shared a room before. and even though she gets on my nerves sometimes, there's no one i love like my sister. whenever she's away, the room feels lonely and it's just a tiny little bit harder to fall asleep. needless to say, i think i'm going to have a hard time dealing with her leaving. i really will miss my Sinderella.

but onto brighter and better subjects! tomorrow, as a gift for her, we're going down to the closest BIG mall around, Gateway, (it's an hour and a half away, in case you're wondering ;) ) with 4 of her friends. my mom and i have been banned from their exploits once we get there, so we're going to go have fun on our ownsomes. possible activities include watching a movie and buying books! yay :)

My Gimli is Bomb

Take a look at this cat. He just makes me laugh.