One of the best experiences I’ve ever had was going to an ostrich farm.  I learn’t so, so much about ostriches and I even saw tiny little ostriches that were about 2 weeks old.  I fed them, petted them, spoke to them and looked at all the products that can be made with their feathers.  It was VERY interesting.

But THEN, I heard I will have to ride on one.  Of course this is a once in a lifetime experience, so I couldn’t say no …. so I did it.  First they made us get on to the ostrich while the ostrich was standing still just to get a feel for it and to teach us where to hold and how to put our legs etc.  The dude made me sit on Christina, who was just magical!

After getting used to the ostriches and calming down a bit, it was time to ride on one.  Apparently females can only ride on male ostriches while males can only ride on female ones.  It makes sense I guess lolol …

Being the pansy I am, I give a couple of good screams, but I have to admit, it was MAD fun!!!

If you ever get the opportunity to do this, go for it! 

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SO my mom sent me this email today that really made me giggle!  It looked something like this:

This actually happened to me before, I wanted to clean Dug (my laptop) and then I got the vacuum cleaner and when i looked at my keyboard, the vaccuum cleaner sucked up my O key I was mad bleak and had to sift through HUGE amounts of dust to find my silly O button!

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So, I have this fascination with toy stores.  Now, I know what you’re thinking: “lol, yeah because toys stores are awesome” … but sadly some people don’t share this sentiment.

I hate shopping, especially clothes shopping *shudder*.  You have to get clothes you like, then you have to find your size, then you have to go to the fitting rooms, then you have to look in those mirrors and try not to burst out in tears and then after you are thoroughly depressed you have to pay all that money to buy the stupid clothes.

Toy shopping on the other hand (this includes games ofc) is way different.  Toy shops are truly magical places filled with many magical things, things with “try me” buttons…  I always press the “try me” buttons   I’m one of those crazy people who would press all the “try me” buttons in the entire isle.  Some might think this is childish, but I don’t really care!   The toys available today are so awesome compared to the toys I had when I was growing up and checking them out is indeed a fun filled activity!

I went to a toy store today actually, it was amazing.  My boyfriend and I were checking out all the awesome toys and I became somewhat nostalgic as I walked down the lego isle.  We came to the fancy dress isle, and there were tonnes of hats.  Of course I tried them all on and decided that the Viking one was my fav!  It reminded me of How to train you dragon.  Maaan I wish I had a dragon, how awesome would that be!

LOL!

Right after I made this post, I went to read some C&H and found the cartoon below.  I thought it was quite relevant and I can strongly relate! Hahaha

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So today was my first day as a volunteer.  My boyfriend and I volunteer at a children’s home.  My job is basically to help kids with their homework.  There are a number of Afrikaans kids who don’t have anyone to help them with homework as all the social workers are either English or Zulu.  So, I mainly focus on the Afrikaans kids (especially the girls).

Today was an eye-opener for me and it made me think about how ungrateful I really am.  During a casual conversation with one of the girls (13 years old) she made it clear that she hates all the rules at the children’s home.  Of course I told her that rules aren’t always bad and I told her that I know how it feels to have soooo many rules because my mom is quite strict.  Her response to this was something along the lines of: “yeah my dad is also very strict! Once my brother and I had to run away from because he was hitting us with bricks! I was purple for weeks!”

Shocked at this response, I looked at her and noticed that she didn’t seem to be phased about it.  I guess in a place like that you live with people who have been through the same kind of stuff you have.  I guess it becomes normalised.

She also said to me: “you know, last year my dad gave me R300!!!” … now, R300 is a lot of money and everything, but last year is long gone.  Her dad should make more effort with regards to taking care of her.  I asked her if she bought herself something awesome to which she responded: “YES! I bought myself some toiletries and yogurt”.  This made me really sad because to me, toiletries and yogurt are normal things on my shopping list.  When I get R300 I usually spend it on something like a game because toiletries and yogurt are necessities and not luxuries.

I have to say I was quite lost today as I didn’t know quite what to do.  I asked everyone if they had homework and of course, everyone said no (damn teenagers!)  I did however introduce myself to all the girls and the social workers.  The children’s home has really awesome staff.  You can really see that all the social workers care really deeply about all the children.  They are quite strict, but in a good way!  Although they try really hard the kids live primarily on handouts and donations.  You can see that by looking at the state of their clothes, schoolbags and rooms.

The girl I looked after today took me to her room to get some notes because she had to study for a test.  She opened her closets and they were all sooo messy – just papers everywhere!  She has no files or folders to put her work in and she had no highlighters to study with.  I think I should take some folders with when I go next week.  It feels good to do something just for the love of the matter and I’m quite looking forward to next week.

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So this week was graduation week!  I wasn’t planning on going at all because most of my friends were not going and those who were going had their ceremony at another time.  At the last minute however, my best friend phoned me to ask if I’m going because she decided to go.

So off to Adams I went to hire my giant black bath robe and funky hat.  It was quite a mish mish to get everything sorted because it was like right in the centre of town.  There were taxi’s and busses all over and it was a struggle to get parking.  Anyway, the lady asked my height and then proceeded to attack my head with a measuring band.  Luckily they had some more academic wear available for hire, or else I would have been in quite a fix.

The degree I did (BA Internet Studies and Media and Cultural Studies) belonged to the faculty of humanities.  I had to wear the giant black bath robe with a cerise pink sash.   Of course I took some piccies before the ceremony, but I had absolutely no idea how the sash worked!  I tried it from all angles and it kept falling off in the middle of photographs (what a noob!)  The piccies came out okay though, mainly because I had such an awesome photographer… but at one point the sash was on my hips! lol

So soon enough the ceremony started and I was separated from my peoples (my mom bro and boyfriend) and I had to go sit all the way on the other end of the hall with the graduates.  I sat next to a very kewl guy (definitely a geek) and we spoke about all kinds of stuff.  I was only too glad that I landed next to him as the speeches were quite boring.  I remember at one point he started to correct the spelling and grammar errors in the little booklet we got… what a grammar nazi!  It was quite shocking how many errors there were though! :O

It was finally time to get my degree on stage but it was quite nerve wrecking as there was so much to remember.  Before the ceremony we each got a name card.  We had to give this to the person announcing the names, then we had to walk to the chancellor to be hooded (he basically slapped us on the head with a hat).  I haven’t even knelt properly when he slapped me!  After that we walk to the third person to whom we hand our sashes.  We then had to turn to the audience while the guy puts the sash around our necks.  Then we had to smile widely while they took piccies of us.  Finally we were allowed to leave the stage!

I guess I’m happy that I went to graduation.  It was quite boring, but in the end it wasn’t soooo bad.  It’s not something you can experience everyday

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