.."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? :)
