Monday

Did you know that the worse the food tastes, the faster it goes through your body? True Story. Proven over and over again here. I feel like i am always in the bathroom. (not sure that was something i should share with the public, but i don't really care)

So yestrday, Sunday, i slept in in the morning. I don't go to Sunday morning church, i just listen to Mark Driscoll online from Mars Hill. LOVE IT! so i got up about 10 and turned on Mark while i tidyed up a bit. I paused him so that i could go take a shower and then finished him while i got ready for the day. I then started to read my Bible to get some of my reading done. Did i ever tell you about my Bible reading assignment? We are reading te Old Tesament in one semestr. So i have to read 10 chapters a day. 7 days a week. however, i missed a few days. So as of tonight, i am 63 chapters behind. THAT IS A LOT! Anywasy, i read tll lunch. Then i came straight back to my room and worked on my homeowrk. That is all i did all day, except for one hour i went to the beach. I need to stop thinking for a minute and a friend was going to go jus to dive in and then come back. It was great. A perfect break! It was so beautiful out too. I needed to be outdoors. Then i came back and worked on homework once again. I did a total of 9 hours of homework. My brain hurt. I got to bed eary though, it was around midnight, so thatwas nice.

I was supposed to wake up this morning for a Skype date, but i slept through my alarm. So sad. Classes were fine, nothing special. Except for a teacher that tld us we were going to have a test ttoday so we prepared over the weekend and then today he said that he was kidding and that he just wanted us to study. RUDE!

Since classes were over i have just been going back and forth from my room to te library getting some things done. Talking to people, not really doing anything of importance...aka avoiding homeowrk. I talked to my mom for a while, which was wonderful! Now i'm writing this before i start in on the little homework that i do have. It should only take me about 3-4 hours, so not so bad. It's nearly 8pm though, so i guess i should go make myself a cup of coffee and get started!

I promise to put more pictures up. I have been having trouble getting them to upload in a timely manner, so i give up. But i will persevere and get it done.

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday, and that it is just as hot and sunny as mine was!!

what now?

You know, this whole school thing is kind of getting to me. I feel flustered and excited at the same time. I have only been in the REAL classes a week yet it feels like I have been doing them for a month! So far the homework is not too bad. It’s not easy, and there is a lot of it, but it’s not depressing me yet. It’s currently Saturday night at 10:15pm and I have not started my homework. I am planning on doing that after I am done here…but really….if I was honest with myself, I know I won’t till tomorrow.

Oh, funny story… So i had church last night and didn’t get back to my room till just after midnight. So today I slept in till 11:30. I was planning on going to a friend’s house at 1:30 so I didn’t want to start my homework and be interrupted. (notice how I justified my way out of doing homework…don’t worry, I see it too!) So I decided that since I nearly could not see my floor, I should clean my room. Plus I had a big bouquet of pretty yellow roses and lily’s from Daddy for Valentine’s Day and they were not shown the best welcome as they kind of just blended into the mess and didn’t stand out as they should have. I put everything on my bed and desk and vacuumed first. It needed it bad! Then I rearranged a few pieces of furniture and then got distracted. So even now, as I’m writing this, my bed is coved in “stuff” that needs to be put away. Most of it is my clean laundry that I never put away that now needs to be ironed before getting hung up. But at least my floor was super clean! So anyway, I went out with my friend and when I came back to my room I opened up my door and immediately thought “oh my gosh what happened!” and I had this thought that everything in my room was gone! Really…it was just clean. Shame on ME! I opened my door further to realize that everything was safely there…on my bed, in a heap. Ok…maybe that was just funny to me.

Tamsyn, my friend here, picked me up we went to the mall. She needed to figure out a present for her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day and also needed to pick up a few things. Then we went to her house and baked brownies and sugar cookies and decorated the cookies for Valentine’s Day. It was lots of fun! I didn’t get back to the college till 7:00. Then since I was back, UNO could start! I have them trained to wait for me! HA! And now I am here, writing this at my desk in my room.

Classes this week were fine. Nothing really exciting happens. It’s just class after class…assignment after assignment. One cool thing is that we have 5 periods each day. And most of the students have a free period somewhere in each day. With the classes that I take, I get the last period off everyday. (sort of. Thursday I have class, but the teacher said that I don’t have to come cause it’s just computers and he doesn’t even like having class 5th period so he said sometimes he might not even go. LOL!) So when we all break for lunch, I am done, while everyone else has to go back to class for one more period! I love it! I totally lucked out!

I know that I said I would explain PEP and PAP when I found out…and so here is goes. PEP is Personal Enrichment Program. Every Wednesday we meet as a class and learn…personal enriching things….whatever that is. It’s different every week. And PAP is Prayer and Accountability Partner. It is another classmate that we team up with that becomes our prayer partners for the year. Tamsyn is mine. So each Wednesday we have from 8:00 – 8:30 to meet and talk about how our week is going and to pray for each other. It’s pretty cool. We didn’t split up this last week as it was just an introduction class, but I am excited for it. We have that from 8:00am to 11:00am. Then we have Tea Time and then we have an actual class. We are doing English this year. It’s all about how to write a proper research paper. I think it will be interesting. However, having one class for 3 hours is NOT fun. I like the 50 minutes classes…not the 3 hour ones. We sit on wooden chairs all day…and my butt HURTS at the end of each day. Oh well…life goes on, right? So that is it…PEP and PAP. Oh Tamsyn and I made notebooks to keep track of our prayer requests. We decorated them the other day. It was super fun! They are beautiful. I didn’t get a picture of hers so I will wait to upload them till I have hers as well.

I’m running out of exciting things to say….this blog is getting harder! With classes getting kind of boring, I don’t have much to talk about.

Do you have any ideas? Anything you want to know? Anything you want to see that I can take pictures of?

Power Encounter Fellowship

Donovon-fellow student, Otneil-evangelist that started the church, also a fellow student, Michael-pastor of PEF, also a fellow student

Failed!

I totally failed! I don’t know why I thought that I did a post about my weekend, but I SO meant to. Now that I have started classes, my days are squishing together and I am becoming forgetful! Again, sorry about that.

Friday night of last week, I went to church! I love my new church. It’s called Power Encounter Fellowship. It’s the church that was started by a few of my fellow students. It’s strange to see them in a pastors role as opposed to hanging out in class, but I really like it. I think I have mentioned it before. There are about 25 people that attend on Friday nights, and then we now have a Sunday night service and there are about 50 to 60 people that come then. It’s a great time. Myself, and my friend Megan are the only white people that attend. So it feels strange at times, but it also feels perfectly fine. Everyone is so great!

Saturday morning was the big BEACH DAY! YAY! Jolene was supposed to pick me up at 7am, however, she texted me the night before saying that she was going to push it out a bit and pick me up at 8:15 instead. Which was perfectly fine with me, cause…really…sleep more? I’m not one to turn that down. Plus, we don’t get back from church on Friday nights till around 11:30 usually, so I was tired anyways. I got up at 7:45 and got ready to go. Packed a bag with some sunscreen, my costume (swim suite) and a few towels just in case I needed an extra. I met her in the parking lot and we took off! It was about a 45 minute drive to the beach. The church that Jolene attends, Hillsong Church, Cape Town, was putting on the beach day so we went to the beach they had decided on. We got there around 9am and wandered around the beach for a while till we found everyone else. They were just starting to set up. They had a huge sound system and platform to play music from. I was expecting, just as you might have been, that they play Hillsong music all day…but no. The first song that started out was “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. I laughed out loud. But I like that song, so I sang along as well.

Jolene and I got our spot all sorted out and just sat down to apply sunscreen. Which is when we both realized that we each brought sunscreen and both of them were 6spf. Not 30,or 45 or even 60 like normal white people wear…we had 6. We applied liberally! I made a mental note to apply once every ½ hour just in case. Even if it didn’t help, it might calm my nervous about getting tourched!

They made an announcement that there were going to be surfing lessons. Jolene wanted to try it so I volunteered to stay back with our stuff. I really wanted to try it as well, but we also didn’t know anyone else, and we valued our stuff more then my surfing lesson. I was fine with it. I will take another lesson another time. We also entered a sand castle building contest. SO MUCH FUN! I have not built a sand castle in a LONG time. We paired up with another couple of girls and had a great time! We didn’t win, but we sure did have fun. You could tell we were all the intellectual type cause we had PERFECT corners and lines and details to it. The kids that won did an AMAZING job. They built a resort! It was huge and had a running waterfall. Seriously! We all knew they would win and were happy for them. The prize was a one night stay for two in a Cape Town resort. The team consisted of 8 boys under the age of 12. I have no idea what they are going to do with the prize, but we were still happy for them.

Jolene did great on her surf lesson and got up everytime she said. I was sad that I could not watch her because they took the surfers down to a different part of the beach and her team went during our castle construction so that kind of made it hard for me.

We shared a lunch box they provided and then decided to leave for the day. We wanted to hit another beach on our way home. So we left. But first stopped to grab an ice cream they were offering of course! We drove about an hour to the other beach. It was beautiful! WE had lunch a little restaurant on the waterfront and then walked over to the beach. We noticed that there was a lifesaving team doing some practice swims so we got a good seat right up front. So fun! We cheered loud for the cute ones! =) After we were done making fools of ourselves, we left. Jolene had to be at work later that day so we needed to get home. She dropped me off at the college and I went up and took a shower right away. I could tell that I had gotten some color, but was glad I was not burnt. After my shower I decided that the afternoon deserved a nap time. So I gave in and climbed into bed! I slept for about 3 hours. When I woke up and went over to my sink to freshen up, i noticed that my body felt stiff. So I looked in the mirror and I was a flipping TOMATOE! I was hot, and red and was in pain all over! My shoulders, neck ears and face were the worst. Strangely, I got one little strip on my lower back, most likely when I was bent over building the sand castle and then the tops of my knees were red as well. I applied nearly a whole bottle of lotion. I didn’t have any aloe or even any moisturizing lotion so I had to just use what I did have. Which was Cool Water perfume lotion. I smelled awesome, but I’m pretty sure those types of lotions are not meant for sun burns. I’m sure they are ONLY meant to smell.

At this point, I was going through my closet realizing that I didn’t have anything that was strapless! Like a top that I could put on that would not bother my shoulders. I became VERY creative and decided that I would just use one of my skirts. HA! I have a skirt that is made of just jersey material that I used back home on hot days when I was just around the house. So I folded it in half and put it on up over my chest. Sometimes, having a big chest is USEFUL! It worked PERFECT!!!! I loved it! So that top and a pair of shorts were my outfit for the next several hours and each night after that till now. I did put on a different tank top when I went down to play UNO. Cause really…no sunburn can keep me away from UNO, YOU KNOW! Sleeping was painful, moving was painful, smiling was painful, and even just looking at something felt painful…or at least I thought so.

The next morning I got up and got ready for the day. No shower. I went downstairs and around here everyone hugs everyone. It’s just part of their greeting. Like…every time you seem them! I think that I give out like 200 hugs a day. Cause I see the same people all day. And they feel the need to hug every time! Now, I would think, if you see that someone’s face is BRIGHT RED, you might think that their sunburn would be elsewhere as well so maybe you should be careful. Oh no, not here. They see you have a sunburn and feel the need to hug you and rub your back and pat your shoulder. I wanted to scream GET OFF ME! So many times. But…I use the calm spirit God has given me and I bite my tongue (literally) and say “thanks, I’m doing well, it’s nice to see you” and then I slightly whimper under my breath.

So Sunday morning I had lots of those hugs, and then at noon, I had Michael, my friend (and pastor of Power Encounter Fellowship) take me to the store. I needed to get some aloe lotion. Then he dropped me off at the Boost Africa Gallery. I think that I have mentioned this before, but then again, maybe I just thought that I wanted too and I thought about it so much that soon I just figured that I had done it. (you ever do that? Cause I do that all the time.) Just in case I have not told you about it, or in case I told you in the latter half of a post that you had given up on reading cause it was so long, I will again state what it is. Boost Africa is a non-profit organization that provides school uniforms to students so that they are able to attend school. They mainly focus on the young ones, like in grade 3-6 but sometimes they have older kids as well. Here in Africa, no matter what school you attend, a uniform is required. If you don’t have a uniform, or can’t afford one, you are not allowed to come to school. And if the kids are not in school, they are on the streets begging for money or working in order to help out the family. Which is where they start to learn about how to be in a gang, and getting into criminal activity. So, Boost Africa uses the money that is donated and pays for students to get uniforms and their books and such so that they will stay in school and get educated. Therefore, stay off the streets for the most part. Boost Africa’s office is right on the beach down the street from the school. And the school that they help out with is just down the road as well! The office, is a cottage that has been transformed into a 3 flats. So currently there are 3 different people renting rooms and they have the joint restroom and kitchen. Then what would have been the main living room and sitting room has been turned into an art gallery where artists can display their art and sell their items. When something is sold, they then give a portion back to Boost Africa. Most just give 10%, but some give as much as 30% of the sale.

When my mom was in Cape Town last November, she wandered into the gallery and realized that it was something that I would be interested in getting involved with, so when I arrived here, I called of the director of the organization and we met at the gallery to go over all that they do and how I could help. Everything is a volunteer basis and they have the gallery open 6 days a week. (closed on Mondays) Mary, the director, asked if I could help out by volunteering to work at the gallery so that herself and the one other volunteer can have a break once in a while. I was more then happy to do so.

So this last Sunday, I went in and volunteered. Mary was there the whole time, as I needed her to show me what to do, but I had a great time! I picked it up quick. She also has a bunch of computer things that needed to be taken care of so I was able to help her out with that as well. I stayed there and worked for about 4 hours. Then Michael picked me up and we went to church.

Church was great again! There was a guest speaker that did a great job! My sunburn still hurt and it was a lot more hugging, but I really enjoy the people, so I didn’t mind. (that much)

I will attach a few pictures of the church, as well as the Art Gallery in another post.

I hope you all are doing well! Sorry it took me so long to get around to telling you about my weekend! Things are hectic here!

My day in detail

I have been asked what exactly my day looks like, so for today, I will take you through everything that happens. Detail by detail…as if I don’t write enough already! HA!

My alarm went off at 6am. I sort of laughed and hit the snooze button. Cause really…I KNOW I’m not going to get up at 6am…but I just can’t seem to set it for later than that. I hit the snooze button until 6:45 and then thought about getting up to shower. I then realized that I had taken a shower the night before so I decided to go back to sleep for a while. I slept till 7:30. Breakfast is served at 7am, but all they have available is bread for toast and cold cereal. Since I have a milk allergy, I can’t do cold cereal and let me tell you, toast EVERY DAY gets so old. One Tuesday’s they offer porridge as well, but really? YUCK! Wednesday they offer eggs and bacon, but not in a delicious way, sort of in a … not so appetizing way, and then Thursday they have more porridge and then Friday just toast and cereal again. So, I skip that meal. Well, actually I eat a granola bar or have an Advocare shake. To this morning, I got up at 7:30, put on some clothes, ate a granola bar, brushed my teeth, grabbed my bag and left for class by 7:45.

First period I had Old Testament Literature. We had to have read the first 10 chapters of the Bible and to start on our first lesson in our study guide. Not that hard, and I had it done. In class we talked all about the book so the OT and what they are called and the groups they are in. Then we started to memorize them to prepare for the final. It’s not too hard of a class yet, but I’m sure it will get there soon enough! To start the class out one of my classmates opened in prayer. He is from Ethiopia and said the prayer in his native tongue. I have no idea what it was. I just waited till I heard other people saying “amen” and then I knew it was over.

Between classes we have a 10 minute break. Mostly people just go outside the classroom and sit in the courtyard till the next class starts. I like to stay in my seat and get ready for the next class or to read so that I can get a head start. Plus, I don’t need to get out of my seat every 50 minutes, I find it annoying that there are so many breaks. Second period started and the person that opened in prayer was from the Republic of Congo so he prayed in French. I took two years of French in high school and learned nothing. So, I understood nothing. Again I just waited till I heard him say Amen. It was now English class. The night before I knew that we had to do ½ of lesson 1 but I was not paying attention and I did the whole thing. No matter though, cause we never even opened our books. The whole class was about the difference between the word meanings of live, live, life, leafe and leave. A WHOLE 50 MINUTES ON THAT! I can understand why, these people don’t get it. And they had LOTS of questions! Amazing. I hope that this is not a picture of what the rest of the year will be. I really hope that it picks up a little. Or…a LOT! Oh, and me, with my not so good spelling, had to correct the teacher…jeeze! I was annoyed that whole class. The teacher kept asking questions and then when nobody would say anything she would look to me and I would answer them. I have learned not to say anything until called upon so that I don’t look like a know it all. It’s actually more frustrating than it sounds though.

After 2nd period, we have another 10 minute break. Then we have Chapel. We have different speakers or teachers or events that go on each day for Chapel. The 4th years (seniors) here at CTS have to preach a sermon their last year in Chapel, so today was one of those. A student named Marvyn spoke. It was really good, and he seems like a really smart guy. I liked it! After Chapel it was Tea Time. We have a 1/ 2 hour tea time each day. We just get a cup of tea or coffee and there are usually sandwiches made for us.

After Tea Time, I had 3rd period, which was good ‘ol Public Speaking. UGH! Class started and the teacher wrote 3 topics on the board. She then told us to write an introduction to a paper using one of the subject. We could interpret the subjects any way we decided. We only had 5 minutes to write it. I thought that was more than enough time. At the end of 5 minutes, and I’m sitting there waiting for her to say, “TIME!” she pipes up and says.. “ok, well since you all have trouble with English, I will give you an extra 5 minutes” hhmpf! After the time was up and were all done, she said, “ok now I am going to call upon a few student to get up and read what they wrote. Heidi, you can go first.” I thought I heard her wrong, so I looked up and she and everyone was staring at me. Great! I hate this class and our first assignment and I have to go first. (Emily thanks for jinxing me last night with that prophecy!) I grabbed my notebook, walked up to the front, read what I wrote and walked back to my desk, all without lifting my head. And, without throwing up…I so I guess that was positive. She called two more people and then we moved on to other stuff. I wanted out of there so bad! The class eventually ended after what seemed like 4 hours which was really just 50 minutes and we had another break.
Stinking breaks!

4th period started which was Man & Sin today. Our teacher is sort of hardcore, but good. He is a great teacher, but also a stickler for the rules. We were supposed to do our Lesson 1 in our study guides. He asked that we all get our books out and he went around and checked everyone’s assignments to make sure they were done. He said that if you for some reason were not able to finish the homework, don’t’ bother coming to class. Which, I can see why, but to make that a rule and to state it in a loud voice was a little strange. He made his point though. I am actually excited for this class and I hope to learn a lot. Hopefully he will not go as slow as the other teachers. To open this class, he had Simon open in prayer. Simon prayed in German.
Interesting day!

After 4th period it was lunch. I went and got my food and ate it while in a Missions Committee meeting. I did not have any classes after that so I went to my room to start on my homework. I worked for about an hour and then decided that I needed a nap. At this time it was about 3:30. So I set my alarm for 6:00 and fell asleep! I woke up and went to dinner and then came back to my room and studied for another 2 hours. At 8:00 I got a text saying that UNO was on in 5 minutes! YAY! I figured I would play one hand and be down there for about 15 minutes because I still did have lots of homework to do tonight. At 10:00 I realized that I needed to be done. I had played 5 hands of UNO and was getting tired. I called it a night and headed upstairs. Upon getting back to my room, I remembered that tomorrow, Wednesday, is a PEP day and we don’t have classes like normal. So no homework is actually due till Thursday. GOODNESS!

I got online and answered a few emails, checked my facebook, talked to a few people on skype and now I am writing this. It’s just after midnight and I am still wide awake. Nap + Coffee = 2am bed time. I think that after I am done with this I will finish up my homework just so that I have be ahead of schedule. I have church on Friday nights, so not having homework would be nice.

Here is my daily schedule: (there are 5 peiods a day, starting at 8am and ending at 2:45pm)

Monday: OT.Literature, English 1,Public Speaking, Man & Sin,Free
Tuesday: OT.Literature, English 1,Public Speaking, Man & Sin,Free
Wednesday: PEP/PAP
Thursday: OT.Lieterature, English 1, Intro to computrs x3 hours
Friday: OT.Literature, Man & Sin, Public Speaking, English 1, Free

PEP and PAP are every Wednesday throughout the year. PEP is where we get together as a class and learn how to use what we have learned in our classed in the real works. This might mean having a speaker, or lecture from a teacher or even going off campus to do a practical ministry at a church for the morning. And then PAP is where all year long we have the same subject and learn one specific thing. This first semester we have English. We are learning how to write papers. Our final paper for Man & Sin is the paper that we will be using to learn with in this class. This information is all that I have been told. After tomorrow, I will be able to better explain what it really is and what we are doing. Also, tomorrow they might tell us what PEP and PAP stand for. Like I said before…communication is the their strong suite here.

I am going to be getting driving lessons soon. They didn’t happen today as Mary, the lady teaching me, was too busy, but maybe tomorrow!!! I will keep you updated! Scary! Sitting on the wrong side of the car, shifting with the wrong hand and driving on the wrong side of the road…I’ll be fine, I’m sure.

My sunburn seems to be getting better. It is not as sore as it was yesterday. I have put so much lotion on. I have used nearly a whole bottle in the last 3 days. I REALLY hope I don’t peal/peel (sp?) too bad!!!

Have a wonderful day everyone! Talk to you tomorrow!!!

oh, and i have pictures of my church and of the Boost Africa Gallery, but i don't have the patients to upload them tonight. Maybe another day this week.

I'm done blogging!

well...sort of. I am going to be taking my blog off of Facebook. I will still have it at it's real address, www.heidifields.blogspot.com but i will no longer have it feeding into facebook. For a couple of various reasons. If you still would like to follow along, and you only read this on facebook, then find a way to bookmark it. Sorry for the inconvienence but it has to be done. This will take effect with the next post tomorrow about Day Two!

Thanks!
Heidi

Day one!

Did you know that college is hard? HA!...i learned that today! It’s flipping hard! And it’s only going to get harder! I think somewhere along the line I asked for this, but right now I just can’t seem to remember it. We started classes today. I had “Old Testament Literature”. Which the teaches said that in the 4 months of this semester we will be reading the whole Old Testament. We have to read 10 chapters a day. Which, really, is not that bad, but added onto everything else, it’s going to be hectic! We also have to learn the books of the OT in order as they appear in the Bible, but also in genre order. Which, I know I learned back in middle school, but that was like…15 years ago! It shouldn’t be that hard. I am not worried about that one.

After that I had English 1. The teacher was surprised to see me in the class. She thought that I was going to drop it and take something else seeing as English is my first language and I should already know everything in it. I just decided to keep it cause I could use a refresher course. We have lots of papers due for that class, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Then I had Public Speaking. I wanted to barf the whole class. I HATE HATE HATE speaking in public. And if you want to really see me sick, give me a mike. Seriously, I get the shakes. I can’t seem to form a single thought when speaking on front of large crowds. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this subject. I want to drop it. And, normally I would go to the academic dean and change the class, but, I think that sticking this one out might do me some good. I need to get OUT of my comfort zone and learn to able to stand in front of people without leaving my stomach in a pile on the floor. So I’m staying. For now.

For 4th period I had Man & Sin. I am actually really excited about this class. I think that I will get a lot out of it. I like the teacher and he seems more interested in seeing that we understand the subject matter then testing us on it. Which is nice. I’m not saying there won’t be tests, but I just might enjoy this one.
5th period I have free today. Which is super nice. I thought that I was taking Paul’s Salvation Letters, but apparently not. The school is not that great at getting out class schedules so it was hard to tell what I had and what I didn’t. I am not sure how the rest of the week is going to go.

Tonight’s homework is as follows:
OT. Literature: Read 10 chapters of OT and write a 2 page paper on how they effect me and my spiritual life and how I can apply them in my future. Also I have a three page essay due next Monday that I need to get started on researching. The essay subject is “what is the theological definition of inspiration? What does inspiration mean when referring to the Bible?” I have to use at least 2 sources.

English 1: Just as as FYI…the syllabus for this subject is 11 pages. I have to use my study guide (which is just a work book with our lessons in it) and complete half of Lesson 1. Which is 16 pages long. So, I have to do 8 of them. Also I have to know each key words in that lesson because she said that she likes to give pop quizes and hand out black sheets of paper and say “what are all the key words and their meanings?” hhmm…. Oh, and I have a test on Thursday that I have to study for.

Public Speaking (aka: Learning how to swallow your own vomit): The teacher said that at the beginning of each class she will randomly call out a student or maybe two if there is enough time and give them a subject off the top of her head and we have to do a 5-7 minute speech right there in front of the class. (I’m glad I’m totally sun burnt, cause I don’t know if I could go any redder from being up in front of people) I don’t have much to do for this class tonight. We divided up into roles for the class because as our final project, we have to do an event together of getting a speaker to come to class and talk about how to speak to people. But there is a lot of planning that has to go on. So, we had to choose a president, 2 vice presidents, a secretary, 2 people for hospitality, 1 person for publicity 2 people for planning and 2 people as the technical people. I was voted as vice president, but quickly got out of that role! Cause that involved speaking out loud in front of people and I I don’t want to do any more then I have to in that area. So I was able to snatch up a position on the planning team. THANK GOODNESS!!! We also have to do a book report on a book that they didn’t give to us. We have to go check it out of the library , read it and write it and turn it in next week.

Man & Sin: I have to read and complete the first lesson in my study guide. It’s 16 pages as well. Plus the teacher asked if I would keep notes of all that is written on the board and email it to him after class. (and me, not being able to say no, said “sure, no problem!”)

Other work: I have to complete an evaluation that was due on Friday. This should only take me about 45 minutes. I have to read 10 pages in a book that we are reading for “Life groups”. I have to write a two page letter to God stating what my expectations are for this year at school.

I also received a letter today from a friend so I need to respond to that, before I forget, and I need to do my laundry and I hated lunch so I need to figure out how to get off campus to get some food and I need to vacuum my room and I have to do my dorm chores for the week. (cause we do them on Monday’s, Wednesday’s and Fridays)

It’s already 3pm. I’m feeling slightly overwhelmed and it’s only the first day. This just might be a very long year! But then again, I might just be freaking out cause it was more than I expected. Things may get a lot better soon! Maybe I will get the hang of it and stop freaking out. Who knows!

Oh yeah…and I joined the missions team. We have a missions chapel on Monday that we have to plan for and then Spiritual Emphasis in two weeks that we need to plan an outreach for.

Plus, I told Mary from the non-profit that I’m helping out with that I would help do her Newsletter. She wants it out ASAP.

I hope all of your Monday’s are going better than mine did!

Swedish UNO, you know!

Did you know that UNO was a contact sport? Did you also know that it can bring out the heathen in you and make you swear! True story!

As you know by now, I have a nightly habit of playing UNO. It happens at 8pm, or shortly there after. If I decide to stay in my room and not play, they guys call to me from down stairs and won’t stop calling or texting me till I come down. I am not one to shy away from a good dose of peer pressure, so I go. I play, and I have a GREAT time. No matter what, I know that at the end of the day, I am able to laugh. There have been days where it was the best part of the day! UNO, how I love you!
It all started with the Swed. Simon. He brought his cards and wanted to play one night while we were all just sitting there chatting and drinking our nightly cup of coffee. Cause, you know, at college, 8:30-9:00pm is tea time! /coffee time! Cause we are all up studying till wee hours of the night. The UNO is a little break to get our minds refreshed. Anyway, Simon brought his cards out and we played a few nights normally. Then, he started to teach us all these rules that we had never heard of. (and maybe you all know about these rules but they were new to me!)

So, when someone playes a 0 of any color, they are allowed to switch hands with any player they choose. When someone plays a 7, everyone must put their hand on the card, the last person with their hand on the pile, has to take two cards. (this is where the contact part comes in. There have been many nails broken, many arms scratched and many fingers jammed, not to mention all the slapping that goes on) You know when you open a brand new box of UNO cards and there are two blank cards in there. Just white with nothing on them? Well we put those into the deck and when someone plays that card, we all have to switch cards with the person to our side in the opposite direction of what we are playing. Did that make sense? So if we are playing clockwise, we have to pass our cards counter-clockwise. Also, if you have the same number and color that matches what was just played, you can play at any time. Which usually skips a bunch of people. (and makes them mad where upon more slapping happens)

It get’s really intense! The other night, we had a big ‘ol fight. There was someone playing that is more of a control freak and was all about the rules and wanted to make sure everything was going properly and we were more about having fun and seeing who we could get to pick up the most cards and we make up rules as we go, so when this person started making things difficult, cause they are not very quiet about how they feel, we all started getting frustrated. Then they would shout at people that were taking too long to think about their play, and then this person would be on their phone and not paying attention and then get mad at us when we asked her to play. Anyways….it got to be a very emotional game. Several people walked out of the room mad. Oh boy! UNO!

Since then we have resolved our issues and that person is better and having more fun and not taking the game so seriously! Thank goodness! That was a few nights ago and we have had fun ever since.

So last night, I never ended up doing my homework. But it wasn’t due until today, so felt ok about it. However, it’s now nearing 11pm and I still have not done it. Ugh! I got part way, but now I have to finish the last few pages of reading and write the paper. Good thing I am a fast typer! We also have a 7 page questionnaire that we have to fill out but each question is an essay answer. And that is due tomorrow as well. Oy! I have that nearly done, I just have 1 question left. I don’t know why I stopped, but I just got bored and didn’t want to work on it anymore. It's like when you are eating and you everything on your plate except one bite. It somehow feels better to leave it there. Maybe again, that is just me.

Saturday is coming up! And I’m totally excited for the beach! I just SMS’d the girl that is picking me up and I asked her what time I would need to meet her in the parking lot and she said 7am. SAY WHAT?!? 7am for a beach day?!?!?!!? Yikes! It better be one awesome beach! No matter, I’m totally excited! I will get up whenever. It’s just sleep, right? She said we are going to one beach on the other side of the mountain and then we are going to go to another one after that later in the afternoon. Apparently the first one is a trip with her church. So that will be fun to meet some new people. I still have not found a home church, so maybe this will be it!
So tell me…what is YOUR favorite bored game? Or card game?

snooze

So, the time has arrived. I have officially settled in. How do i know this you ask? Because this morning, i hit my snooze alarm 3 times. For those of you that are unaware of me and my love for the snooze button, let me enlighten you. Back home, i would purposefully set my alarm to go off 2 hours before i needed to get up, just so that i could hear the sound of my alarm being turned off and then knowing that i was allowed to go back to sleep.
I fall asleep super fast when this happens and so for the short 10 minutes between alarms, i get the best sleep of the night! It's a love affair that, like most, got me in trouble pretty darn often.

Then today..all day, i kept thinking about the assignment that i have due tomorrow. Thursday the 4th. And i kept making plans of when i would start working on it. But those times arrived and...well...i changed my priorities! First i was going to do it right after classes/lunch so that i would be done with it and not have to worry about it the rest of the night! Classes ended, i ate lunch, and then realized that i had committed to "work duty" with the other girls to clean the dorms. This week, my job was to sweep and mop the hallway and two sets of stairs. So i started on that, but then shortly after i started sweeping, i remembered that i had a meeting with the principal that i had asked for, so i handed off the broom and went to my meeting. After it was over, i finished my sweeping and mopping and such and thought, maybe now is a good time to start my assignment. I went into my room and WHOA...i had not opened up the window OR turned my fan on at all, and i had not been in there since the morning before classes. So it had been 8 hours of pent up heat sticky humidity and a slight stink i could not figure out. UGH! I opened the windows, put the fan on and then tried to find where the slightly "off" smell was coming from. Soon, i realized that it was my flowers. I'm glad they lasted this long, but sad to see them go. I think i need more flowers now. They were looking a little sad and you know that smell that wild flowers get when they are on the old side...it's like...stale...something, i don't know how to explain it. It reminds me of the smell you get when you leave a head of lettuce in the plastic bag in the crisper of the fridge for two months without touching it. i know it's not just me that has done that...a few times. Please tell me it's not just me.

Anyway, so i was airing out my room, and then realized that i needed to change out of my clothes into more comfortable sweats and then with the room being so warm and toasty and now i was in comfy clothes....i took a nap. Reading and writing will happen later, after i wake up in a hour. It's just an hour. And then 3 hours later i woke up! I woke up, because someone was knocking on my door. I didn't answer at first, cause..I WAS SLEEPING...but they didn't stop! So i got up out of bed and answered the door, cause obviously it was important. It was one of the ladies that lives here but she is not a student and she came to give me a lollipop. Like, a sour sucker...whatever. I took it from her while saying "Seriously? for me? Thank you so much!" but in my head i was saying "SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?" I had to wake up for THIS????? You knocked on my door for two whole minutes for a SUCKER?!?!?!?! BAH! GO AWAY!" but alas, i was nice. I then shut my door and threw the sucker on the desk while at the same time crawling back into bed. I slept for another hour.

I woke up to a knock on my door. I slowly got up, as again, they were not going to be ignored apparently, and guess what? SAME LADY! This time, however, she was telling me that it was dinner time and she knew that i was sleeping and didn't want me to miss out. So, i guess it was nice of her...right? I still felt as though i was being rudely awakened for no good reason. Cause honestly, the food is not worth getting out of bed for!!!! I am still in this mood where i feel that i need to attend every meal just to make appearances so that everyone knows i'm nice and not hiding in my room. When classes actually start on Monday, i won't feel like that anymore. So i got changed again, cause now i was all sweaty from sleeping under the covers in an 80 degree room! and then i went downstairs. Dinner was guess what!?!?! Chicken and rice! Like every other blasted meal around here. I took very little and didn't even eat all of it. They did have bananas though, so that was the highlight of my evening. After dinner, i went up to my room, thinking, ok, it's time to start my homework! I have to read 60 pages and then write a 3 page report on it. Not hard, just time consuming. We are reading a book so every 2 or 3 chapters they want a report. So i have done two of these already in a week. Like i said, not hard. But i got back to my room and my laptop was just sitting there at the end of my bed...slightly glowing, and calling my name, saying "i have emails for you to read....and facebook updates for you...and blogs to write!" so i gave in and sat on my bed and started writing emails and reading blogs and checking facebook, just as it asked me to do! I loved it! But...the problem is, my battery died. So i went and plugged it in and was getting everything back up and running, when low and behold, i realized that two hours had passed and it was time for UNO! The guys were calling me from downstairs (as they are not allowed upstairs) saying..."Heidi...it's YOU KNOW time!" Repeating that over and over and over again until someone hears them and comes to get me. HA! I always have my music on, so i never hear anything out my door. So, i went downstairs and played UNO for an hour and a half. Now, its 11:00pm and i am just getting back to my room when a fellow student asks me for help with her paper and with figuring out her computer. So, i happily go help her. I'm there for about 20 minutes and then come back to my room to finish up my blog! Which, i am still working on (cause as you all know i'm long winded) and its now going on midnight!

I still have not even taken the book out of my bag. All of this i just told you, goes to prove that i have now settled in. I am snoozing just fine and procrastinating very well! Things can only go downhill from here!


PS. Thank you all for your comments on the last post, i didn't recieve any emails saying that you had problems! You are the best!

PPS. My mom and dad arrived in Haiti today. Let's remember to keep them in our prayers!

YOU KNOW!!!

My grandpa died on Thursday. We knew it was coming, but still, it’s hard when it actually happens. And being so far away and not being able to hug my mom was harder than I thought it would be. I LOVED my grandpa so much! Even though he was not saved, and he had a foul mouth sometimes and he made up the best stories and passed them off as truth, he was still my friend. I could be totally myself with him and he didn’t judge. If he didn’t approve, he would just say “well…it’s not my life!”
My mom called me on Thursday afternoon her time, which was 1:30am my time. As soon as I woke up and heard the phone ringing, I knew who it was and what she was going to tell me. Nobody calls me here. Everyone uses texting. Especially at 1:30am. I had just gone to bed about an hour before. And after we chatted for a few minutes, I could not sleep. I just stared at the ceiling. I didn’t feel anything. Not sad, not happy, not relieved, not anything! Numb. I got up about 7:00 out of bed and got dressed and went straight to class. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just went and sat down. A few people asked what was wrong as they could tell that I was upset, or at least not my usual happy huggable self, but I just couldn’t even talk. Class started and we had opening devotions and then we started in on our speed reading lesson. As soon as the teacher asked the first question to the class, I burst into tears. I have not really cried in about 3 years. It all came out. I ran out of class and down the hallway and fell onto the sidewalk just balling! I could not stop. Apparently one of the students from another class saw me and they came over and tried to console me. I still could not stop crying. I just cried and cried and cried. Then I finally decided that I was done. I gathered myself up and went to the restroom to wipe the mascara off my cheeks and then went back to class. I was done. I have not cried since and I have not even been down about it. Yes, I am sad that my grandpa is gone, and I will miss him, but I knew that it was coming. When I left the states I said my goodbyes knowing full well that it was the last time I would see him. I still remember walking away from him…not actually wanting to leave. I am not one to dwell on an emotion for long. (unless I’m fighting with my sister, then I can be the longest grudge holder you know!Love you TIESHA!.) So all I needed was that few moments to break down and then I was ready to pick myself up and move on.

It’s over. He is gone. I can’t change it. Move on. His life stopped, mine didn’t. I need to remember that.

Friday was rough and I had a headache the whole day. I was constantly approached by people telling me they were sorry to hear about gramps and that they would be praying for me. It was nice of them to say it, but it was like every time I got to a point of not thinking about it, someone else would come bring it up again. I needed to get off campus. I had not left in nearly two weeks and I was ITCHING to get out! (yes, I did leave campus for a brief time the Friday before, but it was on a mission and not as though I was able to feel relaxed) So I set up a time to meet with Emily and get away for the day. She picked me up Saturday morning at 9am and took me to the mall. (my homeland) She had to meet someone for breakfast so I went off on my own. I LOVED IT! I just wandered around. I am totally broke, so I had no money to spend beside the necessities, but it was nice just to get off campus and see different faces. I was able to walk around the whole mall and pick up a few things that I had on my list. I then had some lunch and Emily and I went back to her house. I was able to hang out there all afternoon and just feel like a normal person. Not a trapped student in a dorm room. Side Note: I was always a little sad that I never got to experience the dorm life back after high school when I should have gone onto college…but now, I totally am glad that I didn’t do it. I HATE it. End Side Note. Seeing the same people day and night for every class, meal and prayer is a little much. Especially coming from living on my own and being able to have my “quiet” time whenever I chose.
Where was I ?? Oh, yeah, so I was able to spend the whole day with Greg and Emily. (my Africa parents) Emily let me use her kitchen to bake, and that was WONDERFUL! Oh how I miss baking and cooking and creating in the kitchen! I made some chocolate peanut butter bars. They turned out pretty good. Not my best, but they were decent. Especially since I had to remember the recipe from memory. Then Emily and I watched “Becoming Jane” which was fabulous! I loved it! And then I got online and was able to check my email and also I was able to talk to my mom and dad for a while on Skype and get an update on things. So that was nice. While I did that Greg and Emily made some homemade pizza and we ate that while talking to their daughter Audrey on Skype. She kept us well entertained! After dinner we sat down for an episode of The Big Bang Theory (hilarious show) and then they took me back to the college. I was sad that the day was over, but so tired as well that I was glad to be able to head to bed.
I got all my things out of their car and headed to my dorm room. I entered the hallway and there in front of my door was a pitcher of water with a bunch of beautiful flowers! No note. My room is right outside of the girls lounge so they all heared me come in as they were in watching a movie. I put my things down and came into the lounge. I thanked them for the flowers and they said that they didn’t get them, that a boy had dropped them off. Ooohhhhhhh……. They all loved that one! Apparently, one of the guys here on campus who is my friend bought them for me to help cheer me up from grandpa and his passing. He is such a nice guy. He is from Sweden and totally is precious! His accent and broken English make me laugh out loud! He has become a good friend and I appreciate our friendship. I think that we have a special bond since we are the only students that are NOT from Africa. Also, we are the only ones that seem able to operate a computer properly so most students tend to come to us for help. Hhhmmm. Anyways, I thanked him later that night during out nightly ritual of UNO!

UNO…on goodness! SO MUCH FUN! Who knew you could get frustration out by playing UNO?!??! We do full contact UNO. It get’s rough! I won’t lie, I have come away with a few bruises! It’s fast, it’s tricky, it’s THRILLING! And Simon, when he has one card left, he says YOU KNOW! Cause he can’t say UNO with his swiss/german accent. It’s hilarious. We now all say YOU KNOW! And then laugh. HA HA HA!

On Thursday I re-arranged my dorm room. I was bored. So I took everything out of my closet and re-folded it all and put things in new places, then I re-arranged my furniture. After I was all done, I realized that I liked the original places of the furniture…so moved everything back. I felt very accomplished that day.

Since I now have the above mentioned flowers in my room, I have noticed an increased number of insects. Which is not a problem…just annoying. Last night, I had a JUMPING SPIDER!!!!! I tried to kill it with bug spray, but just managed to get the window sill all soaking wet with spray…the spidar had jumped to my bed. So I grabbed a tissue and tried to catch it. It jumped away. But it jumped TOWARDS me! YIKES! I am not scared of spiders…at all! However, if they are trying to jump on me, I just might let out a little shout of alarm…maybe. Well…most likely. The spider jumped, which made me jump, which made me step on my phone which happen to go off right at that moment because I forgot that I had set the alarm for the evening just in case I took a nap. Which made me scare even more. It was an intense few seconds there. Honestly, I secretly and silently cursed the darn spider under my breath. I grabbed my coffee cup with the flat bottom and finally out-smarted the spider. You see, the technique is to smash it when it is coming down from a jump. It has a hard time jumping in concession…smart…I know. It’s what college is doing to me!

I am going to be involved with a charity here in Cape Town. I don’t remember if I told you all that before or not. It’s called Boost Africa. (google it) I am going to meet up with one of the directors of it here tomorrow. I’m totally excited! I need something of my own that I can do off campus and get involved with. Plus, it has to do with children, so I will be in my element. I will update you after I meet with her. And I will try to take some pictures! I promise!

Today during Chapel, I decided that I need to try and become better friends with some of the other students, so I went up to an upper classman girl that I had met once and I said that I would like to get to know her better and that I thought she was pretty and that I had a feeling that we were going to be good friends. She looked at me a little strange (cause you KNOW I said all that in one breath in like 3 seconds) and said “ok, thanks” and then I felt awkward and so I went back to my previous seat. Hhhmm…I was not sure what to think of it. But I had done what I normally do and tried to be outgoing and get out of my comfort zone. So even though I felt strange about it, I also felt a little sense of accomplishment. Anyways, at lunch, I was just finishing up and this same girl came into the lunch room. Now she is not a resident of the campus, so she goes home after classes and classes were now over for about 40 minutes so it was strange that she was still there. She looked in the lunch room and found me and came over and said “Hey, I’m going to the Beach on Saturday to just relax before the real classes start on Monday, do you want to come with me?” WHAT WHAT?!?!?!?!!?!? In my head I said very loudly “YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!!” but to her I said, very calmly, “that would be great, thanks for thinking of me. Here is my phone number just let me know when you are here and I will come out” BOO YEAH! HA! Now who is the cool girl! It’s me…It’s me…It’s me!!! HA HA HA! I shall for sure take pictures of the beach, and my new found favorite friend on campus and secretly my new ride for outings, even if she doesn’t know it yet, and I will post them next Sunday.

I need participation for this one here folks! I have been told by a few people that don’t have gmail accounts that they are not able to leave comments. I have changed a few things in the settings of my blog to see that you are able to, but I don’t know if it works unless you tell me. So, if you cannot comment, please email me at heidijoymichelle@gmail.com and I will try and find the problem! Thanks for your help! For you Facebook only readers…shame. You should join the real deal at www.heidifields.blogspot.com …just sayin’. My blog says that I only have 14 people following me…and I KNOW that is not true. Stand up people and make yourself KNOWN! Just so that I can feel better about writing this silly blog. HA!

Here are some pictures of the flowers that Simon got for me! I hope you all have a wonderful day and week. Again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I LOVE YOU!

The beloved internet

So, just as an FYI, the internet here on campus is HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!! It goes in and out all day and some days it just decides not to work. So, for the last two days, it has been out. Shame. I have had many things to say, but no available connection to say them. It's a rough life without a Blackberry...i'm telling you! I just finished lunch (another wonderful prison meal) and now i am waiting for the library to open up so that i can finish one of my assignments. Then i will go to my room and do a full update. (i am in the computer lab so that i can keep an eye on the library door) Oh i have lots to tell you my friends....life is wonderfully hectic here!

I hope you all are having a wonderful first day of February!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!

BUTSOFT

Today was a good day! Not that they all have not been in some way good, but today i was just a happy person! All Day! Amazing. I got up early, had a skype date with some friends and then got ready for the day. Since i was up so early, i had time to actually do my hair and put on makeup and dress in something other then just jeans and a t-shirt. I wore jeans and a jacket today! I think making an effort and actually doing something in the morning makes me far more awake and ready for the day then if i just put my hair in a "regal up-do" (pony-tail) and throw on some clothes and go to class. I felt more....ALIVE today. We started the class with a new instructor today. She is going to be our English teacher and she is also the principal of the school. (i may have mentioned her before) So that makes things fun! She is super nice and a great teacher but she is one of those chheeky tricky people that is super sweet to you, but still mark your papers down...i have been warned about her! I am excited though. so today we talked all about the expectation of us on how to write a proper paper. Form, style, content. That such stuff. Very thrilling. (NOT!) Most of the stff we went over i already knew, which was nice. Some of the stuff was a little different then the way i learned it 10 years ago, but i followed along. One cool thing, is that we are going to learn how to speed read! Sorta. The teacher only had about an hour today to go over it and an hour tomorrow, so she is just giving us the basics and then we can come to her if we want to learn more. I totally am going to do it!!! I have always wanted to know how to speed read! Like that robot...what is the movie called where that robot reads like super fast? Jonny-5 ???? Somthing like that. One of my favorite movies (even though i can't remember the title) I know i most likely will not get to the speed that a robot is at, but i will sure try! This has me really excited people...you don't even know!

After this whole academic day is done, i am walking out of class and the English tacher comes up to me and says "Heidi, are you going to take the English class" ? Come again?...i didn't even know there was an option NOT to take the class! She said that she thought that i would be fine without taking it and that i might find some other class more interesting! YAY! However, i told her that i don't think that i should just say no to it. I think that i should have to test out of it. If i can pass a test that she would normally give at the end of the semester or year, then sure, i'll move on, but if i don't pass the test, then i would like to take the class. She said fine. That we would look into it. Then, we also discussed doing the same thing with a few other classes, so that is cool!

As a few of you know, i said that i would be putting my grades on this here blog to share with you how i am doing. Now i don't know. I got my first grade back and i'm ashamed! Remember back last week when we took that test that was just to see how we are doing right now and how much we know? It was like a placement test? Yeah...well...remember that Bible test that 150 questions and i finished it first? That didn't do so well for me. I feel like a stinkin HEATHEN in this place! Instead of giving us our real grade for the test, she gave us our "percentage ranking". It's like out of everyone ever who has taken this test, what grade percentage am i with? Umm....i got 15. out of 100%...i got 15%. UGH! These thoughts were starting to run through my head..."i KNOW i am a Chrisian, i KNOW that i have read my Bible, i KNOW this stuff" but still...apparently my memory and what year exactly lot's wife became a pillar of salt is a little fuzzy.

moving on...

We also did a 3 part english test. Part 1) there were a bunch of sentances and we had to pick out each word and say what they are. Like verb, noun, proper noun, adjective, any many more things that i had never heard of. (honestly!) I got a "D". SORRY TIESHA!!!!! I know i should have paid more attention to that in high school. But honestly, in the 10 years that i have been in the work world and not in school, not once has an employer asked me to conjegate anything or have me pick out all the proper adjectives out of a contract or work order or antyhing! No joke...never happened. I feel bad that i got a D, but i totally have it justified in my head. I'm over it.
Part 2) Write a letter to a coal pen place and ask for an exchange. I got an A+. 100% Thank you very much! I have proper letter writing abilities!
Part 3) Write an essay on why Bible schools are important for the growth of a church. I got an A+! hey HEY hey!!!!!!

I am really glad that these scores were not for real. They don't go on any document in my file or anything. It was just a "See where you are" test. when we leave the school, i hear that we have to take the Bible test again. THANK YOU GOD! I will be able to redeem myself!

I can not promise that i will share every grade, but i think that i will try to share most. I think it will keep me positive about what i am doing and knowing that i have to tell it to a bajillion people i might try just a little harder. Maybe.

We got a new girl today!!! YAY!!! We are now up to 5 girls!! We have a total of 14 in out class now. It's great! She is a little shy, but will get used to use soon enough. We still are the quietest class they have had in a long time. We say NOTHING in class. They have to coex (sp?) things out of us just for a discussion. It's kind of funny. So many of use are "thinkers" and not loud people that if you ask us a question, we like to think it over before we offer an answer. Ha...i can see when the teachers get frustrated, and it makes me laugh.

I'm going to let you all in on a little frustration here that i am having. It's about toilet paper. Not a common subject, but one i feel the need to vent about. And honestly, what is a blog besides one big vent session?!?!? So, the school here is not doing the best financially, and they have given us a "supplies" budget. Out of this budget, comes the purchase of TP. They also do not have it in the budget to hire a cleaner this year for the girls or boys dorms. I don't know what it is like in the boy's dorms, but here in the girls, it's pretty tidy still. However, it seems like we NEVER have any toilet paper. How is it that 10 girls go through 6 rolls of toilet paper in 24 hours? Huh? Apparently last year they had an issue with it as well because they had someone stealing the toilet paper. Like they would replace the roll and a few hours later it would be gone. So then they went to issueing each person a roll and then you had to bring it with you when you went to the restroom up here in the dorms. STUPID! WHO STEALS TOILET PAPER?!?!?!?!?!? For the last 3 days there has been nothing in the restrooms. My mom, the darling know it all before it happens person she is, secretly snuck two rolls of toilet paper in my bags when i wasn't looking. So i had my own to tote with me. However, you never really know if there will be any each time you go, cause maybe there was a full roll when you went a few hours ago, but now...could be gone! So i am bringing my roll of TP with me every trip! It's annoying! And, since there has been no "cleaning crew" established yet, there is nobody in charge of refilling it. It's like we all think that someone else will take care of it. And...i just found out today, that when you DO go get toilet paper refills, you have to sign for it so they know how much you are using! Oh GEEZE! This place is so crazy!

I was in the restroom today and i noticed the new roll sitting there ON TOP of the old roll...people are way to lazy around here to even change the roll, and the new roll had it's wrapper still on it. This is what it looked like.



i thought it was funny.

i have lots more to say, but i think that this has gotten too long! I will save my stories for another time! (Knowing me, i will most likley posta gain in a few hours! HA!)

Thank you to all of you who have written me email and notes! I really appreciate you! And for those blog stalkers out there that like to read, but not comment...i appreciate you too!

I got a letter, i got a letter, i got a letter HEY HEY HEY HEY!!

I finally got my first letter!!!!! Well it was just a card, but i LOVED it! It was from my sister, Tiesha! She sent it on the day tat i left, so it took about 15 days to get here. I have sent several letters home, and they have arrived in about 7 days.

PLEASE WRITE ME! I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting mail, like everyone else, i'm sure! And i even have a "color page" wall! So if you have a kid, know a kid, are a kid or just like to color, send me your masterpiece! I only have 3 up there so far that are pages that i brought with me. I need it FULL! It's going to be a long year and i need some decorations in here!

Thank you very much!

(for those of you reading this on Facebook, please go to my actual blog and you can get my address off of there. And my phone number if you want to chat or text too! )

Wednesday

So today is Wednesday and i just finished classes. It has been a good week. Nothing really exciting has happened...well...unless you call an unruly game of UNO last night that got out of hand, exciting!?!?!?! (which, i do, actually!) Re-match is on for tonight! I showed a little bit of my mad skillz last night in card dealing. I am now known as "vegas" in our after-hours card club. Just making Bible school memories...that's all!

We are still in the middle of our orientation. We have been going over theological things about what they teach here and such things. Tomorrow, starts the classes on how to write papers here and what is expected in the non-theological classes. We will finish out our week with that, and then do the same thing all next week. Oy! Then on the 8th, our real classes start!!!! I have not had any homework besides reading thus far, however, i just noticed that we have to turn in a 3 page paper tomorrow from our homework tonight. It's no big deal, however, after talking to a few students, i am the only one that has decided to do it. Strange, i know. If it's homework, you would think, "ok, i have to do this and turn it in" right? Apparently that is not a common thought around here. If they feel like it and if it doesn't get in the way of their "life" then they will do it. Maybe i was just raised different. So, that is what i will be working on tonight! (actually, right after i am done with this, as t library closes at 4:30 and that is the only place to print.) They don't have personal printers on campus. Also, you have to pay $.20 a page! Long papers can get EXPENSIVE!

Yesterday, as i was walking into the hall where the meals are served, i scratched my toe on the door. Like it took some skin off the top of my toe. OUCH! Then, last night as i was laying in bed reading, i felt a slight sting on that toe, and i looked down and a mosquito had bitten me RIGHT ON THE SCRATCH! What the heck! Now it hurts double bad!

This morning when i got up, it was raining. I believe that i jinxed myself by putting that it had not rain since i had gotten here in the last post. So i took a shower and got ready for the day. I put on my sweatshirt and jeans and wore my UGG's. I walked downstairs and it was BRIGHT AND SUNNY!!!! i decided not to change as maybe it would raid aging in a little bit. Nope. I was sweating ALL DAY! At a short break that we had i booked it back to my room so that i cold put some flip flops on, but didn't have time to change completely. I'm so used to rain making the weather cold. I forgot that here...if it rains, it gets muggy!!! Which just intensifies the sweating! I'm glad i'm out of the classroom!

I have not taken any pictures of anything, but that's cause i have not done anything. Sorry. My classrooms are not very interesting, but maybe i will try and get some of my fellow students. Maybe.

I hope that you all are having a great week! Enjoy your Wednesday!

FIFA!

Fédération Internationale de Football Association. That is what it means...basically it's the soccer association that deals with the World Cup and such stuff. You know...like the NBA, or NFL or whatever. This...is soccer, or football as they call it here.

GST@CTS, this here college that i'm attending, has decided to kick all students out from June 11th to July 10th or so because they are going to use the college and the dorms rooms as a hostel for groups of people that are coming in. I suppose they will open it up for individuals as well, but mostly it's going to be groups. They are going to have each room set up like a hotel type thing and have a 24 hour catering service and laundrey service and such stuff. So, the lady in charge of making sure that it all gets done is a friend of Emily, you know, the lady that i stayed with when i got here. Anyways, i being new to the country and not having many friends yet, have no where to go for that month. So, i needed to find a way to stay on campus. Emily introduced us and voila! I am working here on campus during that time! I will be able to stay here on campus, most likely even in my same room! We met adn talked about some things that she needs help with and what i could do for her. Basically i am going to be her assistant and i will oversee the laundrey service and the catering and such so that she doesn't have to carry such a big load. We will be hiring catering and laundrey services but i will be in charge of making sure that all runs smoothly as well as any cleaning crew that we decide to hire i will make sure they are taken care of. Honestly i'm excited for it. It's going to be such a crazy time for Cape Town and there will be so much going on that i'm excited to be involved! There are expecting a full house for the whole month that the games are going on. I believe they are going to offer 200 rooms. (i could be wrong about that) and they are going to be putting 4 people per room. Now, these are just regular dorm rooms so a little squeezy, but people need a place to stay, so they will!

I'm totally excited! I can't wait till the time is closer and there is something to do!

Any questions? Ask away!

week one is done

Today is Saturday. It's my first saturday at the college. I can't believe that i have been here for only a week already! It seems like i have been here for so much longer then that. Friday, we just had lectures all day. We are doing this personality test type of thing that all the first year students do. It's actually really really cool. It's called Flag Page and it tells you what is positive about yourself and what your top 5 motivatons are which is what makes you do what you do and what makes you react the way you do to things. I have learned SO MUCH about myself. And others really. I have learned how to understand myself much more. And really, that is what this whole adventure is about, finding myself and my place in this world and gaining an understanding of what God has for me in the future. I would say that in this first week of school, i have learned more about myself then i have in the last 10 years. If you ever get the chance to take the Flag Page test for yourself, i would recommend it.

So anyways, we just talked about that all day long. Until lunch at least, then we were free for the day. It's sort of nice and sort of frustrating to be in this school. For me, understanding the book and the teachers is fine. English is my first (and only) lanuage. But for about 90% of the students that is not the case. The teacher has to go at such a slow pace that i find myself day dreaming a lot. Once they go over a section, we then have to go through the class just to make sure everyone knows what was said. And let me tell you, my class is starting to come out of their shells and they are TALKERS! Again, nice and annoying at the same time.

After classes and lunch was over, i went up to my room and made a few phone calls and read a book. Then the girls were walking down to the Pick and Pay (grocery store) for some ice cream so i went along. I needed to get off campus anyways and a walk sounded delightful! It was only about 1 mile round trip, but it was just right. I got back to the campus and changed and then headed out with a few friends to a church service. One of my friends that is a student here, named Michael and his friend Otneil started a church about 6 months ago. They have service on friday nights. I have been talking to Michael about it ever since he strted it and now that i am here i was more then excited to see what it was all about. From the time they started it until about three weeks ago they were meeting in a friend house. Now they have moved to a building that they found. The owner of the building said they could use it free of charge. They don't even have to pay for the electric bill or anything. And there are two restrooms on site, Praise the Lord! It is a small building, but it works great for what they need it for. In total, if everyone showed up, there would be about 40 people that attend the church, but this night, there were only about 25. It was amazing to see God work in the people through the worship and then the sermon. Michael did an awesome job as well as Otniel that started the service out. They have so little there to use, yet they do so much and are touching so many lives. It made me think about my life and all the "stuff" that i have and yet, how many lives did i touch with it? Not many. They are really in need of an overhead projector, you know like the old school kind that uses transperancies? (sp?) Right now, they are printing the words to worship off on paper and handing them out as people come in. But they don't have enough money to do that every week so they have to collecte papers after each service. It worked fine, but having an overhead would work MUCH better. So be praying for that please! They don't take offereing as far as i know seeing as most of the people that come, don't have anything. So everything must be donated.

The service that night ended up going really late and we did not get back to campus until 12:15am. I then went to bed and didn't wake up until 1:30 pm. I was still sleepy, but decided that i needed to get up and stretch and leave my room while it was stll daylight! I found a few people in the courtyard and sat and chatted for a while. Then went back upstairs and took a nap. I was exhausted! After that i got up and took my book down to the courtyard and read for about an hour. Then went upstairs and showered and got ready for the day. (at this point it's nearly 5:00pm) then i decided that i would go do a "photo tour" of the campus! It was great. It was nice to be out in the sun! I took nearly 200 pictures and then loaded them onto my computer and then had issues uploading them so i gave up till i had the energy to care about it. Blogger only lets me upload 5 pictures at a time and they take like 15 minutes per upload. I really didn't care to spend the time doing that.

Then i did a workout. 30 day shred by Jillian Michael's. Good stuff. So glad i brought my yoga mat. Then i took another 45 minute nap. HA! Then i came down for dinner and chatted on skype to a friend for a while. Which was awesome! Now i'm writing this and trying to figure something else out with my pictures. I might try adding a link to the blog instead of adding the actual pictures.

see if this works and let me know...cause this was like 1,000 times easier! (you must copy and paste the following link)

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=Heidijoymichelle&target=ALBUM&id=5430047383187192929&authkey=Gv1sRgCJ2KsKvamvLmvAE&feat=email

Now i am sleepy again and am going to head to bed! I am supposed to go to church tomorrow morning, but have no idea what time the service is. We shall see if i make it. I might just sleep in!

Beetle Juice

This was in my shower with me today!!! Until i killed it with my pink conditioner bottle! I shower ALONE!

Remember the Titans!

I love that movie. I have seen is a bajillion times and have always enjoyed it. However. Today, we watched it as a class. First this thins morning. We were told tomeet in the sudent lounge at 8am. We got there and all sat and watched the movie in it's entirity (what is that word?). I have never felt so bad watching a movie before. For the first half, nobody smiled or laughed or anything except me and the swiss guy and one girl. (the only whites in the class) So that made me feel like a heel. I guess living in America where black oppression is not really a huge thing, or at least not as much as it is here, i never thought about the movie in that light. I just thought it was a good movie about blacks and whites coming together and playing football. yay. Now, today, it was more like i was ashamed to watch it with everyone and be white at the same time. I felt bad for the jokes and the way the blacks were treated in the movie. I never realied how callased i was to that sort of thing while in the states. When i have traveled i never think like that, but since it's not a big deal at home...i don't know. I don't think im being very clear on what i am trying to say, but just know we watched the movie, and it was awkward and then we talked about it aftrwards and it was no longer awkward. It was a very interesting day. We had our first "chapel" today. However, it's not like you think chapel is. It's not this mini church service or anything. They just are not sure what else to call it. Maybe something like "community hour" or i don't know..anyways, it was all the announcments for the year. What we are going to be doing and what is going to be happening with te school and FIFA and our breaks and such. (i will explain FIFA in a later post) Then we had tea time and then we had a class to go over everything that we have already gone over and then we were done for the day. I had a meeting with the FIFA project manager (again, i will explain later) today so i missed lunch but that's ok. i had some popcorn.

About 2pm i went out to the court yard near the ladies dorms and sat down with a few other students. I swear, if you could have taken a picture, we looked exactly like those college magazines or advertizments. We here all at a picnic table, 3 girls on one side, and a girl and guy on the other side with one more guy playing his guitar with one leg up on the bench. The sun was shinning just to the side of our table. It was awesome! Totally a "college moment" for me. Which i have not had many of yet.

I just have to wrap up a few things tonight with homework and then tomorrow is FRIDAY! YAY! Although i have no plans for the weekend and no car, so....there might be a lot of posts. HA!

When i'm bored...stuff happens!

So tonight i could not sleep. I wanted to sleep. I had a long day so i should have been super tired and ready to sleep. But no, i couldn't. So i got up and decided to put to use all these craft products that i brought with me. I have 6 classes that i will be taking this semester and i bought a notebook for each one so that i can keep them all separate. Here are some pictures of my late night sleepless boredom.

BEFORE:


DURING:


AFTER:








And now it is midnight and i have to be up at 5am to have a skype date with my "girls night in" girls! Goodnight!

The Scavengers VS. The Nerds

Today, Wednesday, we had an outing! It was a team building event is all that we were told. We had to be ready to go and in the parking lot by 8am. They said wear clothes that you can get wet and dirty! HA! (that made me a little leary about this whole thing)

We all got on the bus and took off for this mysterious place. It was a 45 minute drive out into the wine country. We ended up at a Christian Bible Camp where they had this obstacle course that is AMAZING! We all loaded out of the bus and met our instructor. Her name was Mariska. She had us split up into partners and then we had to do this game where she would call out a word, like "Knight" or "Horse" or "chivalrous" and we had a position to get into with each word. So when she said knight, one person had to get down on one knee and the other would have to sit on the knee that was up...does that make sense? And then she would said horse and the partners would have to do a piggy back sort of thing. Then she would say chivalrous and the person would have to pick up the other person and hold them in front of them, kind of like when a groom carries his bride over the threshold of their house or whatever, you know what i mean. So anyways, she would call out these word and we would have to get into that position and the last person to get into that position was out until there was only one partner set left. It was silly and fun and we all laughed so much! It also was awkward. I just met this dude two days ago and now i have to get on his back. Strange for me.
After that, we walked over to the obstacle course. We were split into two teams. Each team had a bucket full of water. The point of the activity was to get across the whole course, without stepping off the course that was about 3 ft off the ground and without spilling the water out of the bucket. If you spilled you lost 2pts, if you touched the ground, you lost 2 pts. However, there were times throughout the course where Mariska would call out "Community" and we would all have to hold each others hand and connect in a line. The first group to get to this, would get to add two points. So therefore we could not get too far apart from each other. It was CRAZY and the course was super long. It took us about an hour and a half to complete the whole thing. There were 8 people on our team. That is a LOT of people to get through a whole course and then to not spill the water as well? Goodness! We ended up ending our game with a -6 point total, however the other team had a -28. They spilled their WHOLE BUCKET! HA HA HA!!!

After that we walked over to a big storage container and had to take our shoes off. We then were given 6 long round logs, 3 big drums and some rope. We then were told that we had 15 minutes to build a raft out of the said material. There were directions on how to assemble it, so that was nice. (again we are in our same teams competing against each other) My team was AWESOME! We got the raft completed and were just tying it off when Mariska said, "you have 7 minutes left, but i want you now to switch rafts with the other team" OH MY GOODNESS! They were horrible! Their raft looked like a 5 yr old had built it. Our had looked like it was professional! So now we had to give them our great raft and take theirs and do our bes tto fix the mess before the time was up. We did our best. Mariska then brought out life jackets and we had to put them on and take our rafts over the the pond. Now this pond was more like an oversized mud puddle. It was DISGUSTING! I put my hand in the water and let the water just cover the top of my hand and i could not even see my fingernail polish color cause the water was so brown. Anyways, so we each hd to put our rafts in the water and then get on them and paddle around a course that was set out in the water. We were supposed to do the course twice and whoever got done first won. So the other team (the nerds) put their raft in first (our old raft) and they sat down on it and were all settled by time we got in the water. Once out raft hit the water and the first person sat down, it fell apart. We then had pieces of this raft in our hands and we are all just standing there. Mariska said that we had two minutes to put it together but could not get out of the water. uuummm...not possible. We then realized that one of the ropes had broken off the drum so we would have to get another drum from the storage unit. So we hefted the raft back out of the water nad up onto the bank. We then took the next 10 minutes taking the whole thing apart and starting over like we should have done in the first place. We built another AWESOME raft! We got it in the water and then realized that our team (the scavenggers) had 8 people while the other team only had 7. So i volunteered to stay out. And then on the second time around the course i would switch with someone. So they did a count down and Mariska said "GO" and the teams were off! Sort of. I don't think that African's know how to row a boat/raft. It was HILARIOUS! After about a whole minute, both rafts were still in the same spot. They were just moving side to side. Eventually they got the hang of it and just as they started to move, Mariska said they could lose one person so that there were only 6 people on each raft. As my team started to take off, one of the guys on the other team decided it would be a good idea to stand up on the raft to try and balance it out. (later he said he thought he might weigh more if he stood. HA!) Once he attempted to stand, one of the drums came undone from the raft and everyone fell head first into the muddy water! ha ha ha ha ha ha...it was SO FUNNY! they pulled their raft aside and tried to re-tie it except they just tied it in random place. They then tried to get back on and all were dropped off the raft again! Apparently, when we had switched rafts in the beginning, they did not check to see that we had completed tying anything. Their fault! So after the second titanic episode, they gave up. They were told to bring the raft and all it's pieces out of the water. My team, had by then made it around once and were on their second time doing the course! I was their cheerleader along with one other fellow from our team. They did an awesome job! That was WAY not how the activity was supposed to turn out, but Mariska said that it's one of the funniest things that had happened.

We were all wet and happy and tired! We had a little chat about team work and then it was time to head home. We did the drive back and got back to campus just in time for some lunch. Then we had the afternoon off. It's now 5:00pm and i am SO TIRED! I am really glad we did not have classes after that! I think i will be heading to be early tonight!

Doing this event today has made our class one big family! It was great and worked like a charm! It's nice to know everyone so well now. I'm sad that our whole class was not able to make it. Hopefully when the rest of them arrive, we will be able to get them feeling like part of the family in a short time.

I will post pictures from today as soon as i am able to get them off the school website!

I hope you all have a great Wednesday as i'm just finishing off mine!

Heidi