Coffee Addict

Coffee and I have always had what one can call a complex, and often strained relationship. In fact I usually have quite bad reactions to caffeine. One Coca-Cola can cause hours of headaches.  I never used to be much of a coffee drinker, but once I got to university those late nights doing assignments have forced me to drink a lot more coffee than I’m used to. This is where it gets complicated.

At this point in my life the coffee I’m drinking is Instant coffee, filled with lots of milk and sugar. Sometimes I barely enjoy what I’m drinking, but I still drink it in order to get my boost of caffeine. I could easily drink about three or four cups of terrible coffee a day, especially during exam time.

Last term my Writer and Editing class was given the opportunity to escape the Writing Lab and venture out on a number of field trips. One of those field trips led us to the inner workings of Homeground, a very popular coffee roastery in Grahamstown. I’ve had numerous cups of take-away cappuccinos on my way to Drama lectures, since Homeground is just across the street from the Theatre. I was amazed to see the inner workings of a coffee shop that I have visited numerous times, but have only seen the outside.

The owner of the rostery spoke with such passion about coffee. She mentioned that to her coffee should be untainted, so that you can taste the nuances in the flavours. She even compared it to wine tasting. As a wine lover and taster this thought stuck. Imagine if I could taste my coffees like I taste my wines. Develop my palate. Sounds like a challenge I’m willing to try.

I’ve discovered that I am starting to become somewhat of a coffee addict. Constantly striving for that great cup of coffee. Recently Provost coffee shop opened right behind my res! Naturally this is a lot more convenient for me than going to Café De’vine or to Homeground. Built in the old prison it has a lot of history. If you are looking for me I’ll be in the upstairs nook with a cappuccino and my study notes.

http://www.theprovostcafe.co.za/Contact/contact.html

(PS the best cup of coffee that I have ever had was a Vanilla Cappuccino from a coffee machine in Italy during a Europe tour five years ago. We stopped at a rest stop with literally a wall of coffee machines. In the midst of being bombarded with coffee choices The Vanilla Cappuccino stuck out.)

Onesie with the socks

Tiger Onesie

Not going to lie; this post is not about anything important. It’s more like of a comment of an interesting social trend that had started to develop. Namely the "Onesie".

At the beginning of the year I went out to one of the local waterholes. Halfway through the night a very tall man bumped into me. I turned around to confront him, but was speechless when I saw him. I immediately recognized his face; a first year from a res up the hill. But here’s the thing- he was dressed like a tiger. Yes, in a full tiger suit. All I could do was laugh. Since then I’ve seen him, and many other people, dressed as mice, zebras, crocodiles and tigers. 

Now many people have asked me: “Elri, what exactly is a onesie?”

Onesie is a commonly used word for loose-fitting casual jumpsuits for adults, made of knit cotton. They are mostly intended as loungewear or sleepwear, but have gained significant popularity as stylish street fashion.  Onesies come in many sizes and patterns, from polka dots to animal characters

 

Animal onesies

Originally, Onesies is a brand name of infant bodysuits. In 2008, when casual jumpsuits became increasingly popular, the press started discrediting them as "adult onesies" and the name seems to have eroded to a generic word. OnePiece, a company founded in 2007 by three Norwegian students, has been credited with popularising the garment as a piece of lifestyle fashion. Nowadays, however, several on-line businesses and department store chains sell adult onesies.

Even Macklemore mentions Onesies in his “Thrift shop” and is seen wearing a Batman one in the video. But onesies have been around for quite a while. Adult onesies have appeared on USA TV show such as Scrubs and Friends in 2007. 

Macklemore in a onesie

I’m not sure that I will ever have the guts to wear a onesie on a night out, but they sure look comfortable. I wonder how long the novelty of these onesies will last. Apparently the 17^th of May is Internatonal Onesie Day.

You never know… maybe next year.

Scrubs- J.D in a onesie

Viva Italia!

Buongiorno! 

Last Saturday Rhodes University hosted its annual International Parade. Thousands of people from the university and the community took part in celebrating countries from across the globe. Res and societies are all assigned a country to represent during the parade.

This year, since we have an Italian exchange student in Beit House this year, we picked Italy to support. Start a week in advance we starting making decorations. We spent a few hours each evening painting flags and banner, while Elena, our resident Italian, played Italian music and taught us some basic Italian phrases. Discussion of Dante, Ferrari, Nutella and the Pope followed. She told us about her home and about the different dialects they spoke there and about all her favourite parts of the country.

At 9am on Saturday a group of Beit girls gathered in our Common Room to blow up green and white balloons and to paint our faces with the Italian flag, which, by that time, we were already very familiar with. Armed with a huge flag and numerous banners we set to the Bot Gardens- the start of our Parade.

Walking down we mingled with other res and their flags. The good-looking boys ahead of us proudly held up their Brazilian flag. Slowly, but surely more and more people started gathering and we surrounded by many other countries. By then the mood was very festive. People were singing and speaking different languages. I was taught a few Italian, French and German phrases, which I can now awkwardly attempt.

We walked through the streets of Grahamstown with our flags flying high. Little children ran past us with flags over shoulders. There was singing and laughing. I felt proud to be at a University who takes part in an event like this. Diversity is celebrated and we open ourselves to learning about another country. After walking around town we turned and walked back to the Great Field, where songs and dances were performed and all the countries gathered in a line with their flags.

 Thank you Rhodes for once again showing me how lucky I am to be here. How lucky I am to have to opportunity to experience diversity personally rather than just hear about. It’s a shame that many people did not take this opportunity to learn something about another country. Sure our world has many problems and some of those were evident during the parade, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. Viva Italia! And Viva Rhodes University.

For now all I can say is: Ciao 

No other school so dear

It is deeply ironic that a few days after I blogged about my high school it was rocked by a scandal (as far as high school scandals go) after one of its current students was arrested for assault and the supposed ‘assault’ video found its way onto the internet.

The school dedicated a bench to a girl that passed away from cancer recently and 'victim' felt she didn't deserve the bench, so she told the girl’s sister this. Naturally the sister reacted badly. I don’t condone violence, but if someone had something like that about a family member of mine who died of cancer I may have punched her harder. Such a violent reaction is sometimes a very a instinctual reaction to a threat. This kind of verbal abuse feels calculated.  It's disgraceful that someone has to turn to violence (or worse, in my opinion, this gross level of verbal provoking from the girl supposedly 'assaulted'.)

I’ve watched the video on the news and it really was not bad as everyone is making it out to be.  As disgraceful as it is in my 5 years at Eunice I saw one fight that was possibly worse than this one, but no one filmed it and the students were punished appropriately. Also during that fight my classmates tried to stop it rather than laugh and film it.

Our country is dealing with terrible acts of violence on a mass scale and this should not even be compared to those crimes. How can we call this "assault" when women are beaten to death in our country? It is scary that this is deemed news worthy when our country has more serious issues that need attention.

I'm still a proud Eunice girl.  Eunice is an amazing school and it has taught many young women about how to behave. It is incredibly sad that this affects the schools image. Once a Eunice girl, ALWAYS a Eunice girl! No other school so dear.

This is a video reflecting Eunice’s true qualities:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQabba6llDU&feature=share 

The revery alone will do

  If you haven’t noticed yet, I am a super literature nerd and I truly wish that I could be like Emily Dickinson. (Correction: I wish I could write like her; not live like her. Poor girl was a bit of a hermit.)

Emily Dickinson was a very prolific private poet, despite the fact that less than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime.  And even less survived over the years. 

She acquired local notoriety; she was rarely seen, and when she was, she was usually clothed in white. Legend has it that later in her life Dickinson wore white all the time. When Thomas Higginson met her in 1870, she was dressed in white; her one surviving dress is white; and she was buried in white. Emily Dickinson life story is filled with a lot of mystery and she is known for being a reclusive and distant person, yet her poetry is filled with a lot of beautiful insight concerning life and death, faith and doubt and what it means to be human.

Watch this space - I may still be getting an Emily Dickinson inspired tattoo this coming vac!! I'd most likely fall in love with the person who gets me a complete collection of her poems. 

In a shocking chain of events I mention John Green, who discusses Dickinson's obsession with white: 

"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee. And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few." 

Too much for Abercrombie and Fitch

Recently American retail store Abercrombie and Fitch has been under fire after the 

a

uthors of the new novel “Rules of Retail” revealed negative comments by their staff.  In 2006 CEO, Mike Jeffries, stated that they will only be catering for a certain type of customer; namely skinny customers. I’m not even making this up. He basically said that any girl who fits into a size large isn't welcome at their clothing store. Thus they don’t stock XL or XXL sizes in women's clothing.

Even though these comments were made years ago it is clear that the clothing brand still operates under than philosophy. It makes me sick to think that this is actually a marketing tactic. They are encouraging young people to be exclusionary and for people to judge those who do not look a certain way.

"A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Jeffries went on to say that they only cater for a ‘cool’ crowd, thus implying that being ‘cool’ as anything to do with your appearance. Well, this is 2013 and most of their customers are no longer in high school.

I don’t know what else to say. As someone who, according to Jefferies decription, would not be allowed to shop at Abercrombie and Fitch I’m a little put off by this concept. I think that no one should shop there if that is their philosophy. I’d rather wear comfortable, larger clothes than any of that pretentious crap they have to offer.

Andrea Neusner, from the Huffington Post, wrote this absolutely wonderful reply to Jeffries remakes. You go Andrea Neusner:

Dear Mr. Jeffries:

Thank you for clarifying the reason you do not carry sizes larger than a 10 at Abercrombie. Your customer is an "attractive, all-American kid with a great attitude and lots of friends." I am a mom of 3 daughters, ages 17, 13, and 10. They are all thin, attractive, all-American kids with great attitudes and lots of friends. They shop at Abercrombie. I believe they are your target audience.

Please find the enclosed clothing, purchased at our local Abercrombie/Abercrombie and Fitch stores. My thin, popular, cool kids will not need them anymore.

Not only will I not let my kids shop at Abercrombie again, I will not let them wear what they already have in their closets. Normally I donate our unwanted clothes, but in this case, I wouldn't want any unsuspecting thin, cool person to send the message that being exclusionary is OK.

 Sincerely,

Andrea Neusner

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-neusner/abercrombie-sizes-mike-jeffries_b_3247213.html

 Youtube Star and Celebrity Commentator Michael Buckley has one of the best 

reactions to these comments:

"XL girls have XL personalities and they don't need to be wearing this basic shit…" 

Confronting the Ogre

(During a writing class a few weeks ago we were instructed to interview a part of ourselves; namely our fears. This is what I discovered. Note: This is very different to what I usually write and naturally I left a few too personal things out.)

His name is Failure, but to a special few he is known as Rejection. He is a striking figure; both beautiful and terrifying. He has a prefect face yet in his eyes lurk something sinister. He waves his hands and decisions are made. He creates pressure and anxiety. He weaves doubt and molds regret.

The problem is that I am only starting to notice him now. He has always been there; standing next to me. He loves going on dates with me and it’s hard to turn down his advances. I know that he is always there. Lurking behind every move I make. He comes to me, because I am not quite ready to tell him to leave. There are chinks in my armour. Cracks my mirror.  Instead of light, darkness sneaks through. He comes around, because he is the house-guest I invited in once and now he refuses to leave. He comes here, because he is known here; familiar here.

He becomes powerful when I am weak. He succeeds when I don’t. He remembers every mistake. “This is who you are now,” he says.

So we struggle on; just the two of us. Caught in an endless tug-of-war. Every day I fear that he gains a little more ground into my side. But I fight on, because he may be strong, but I’ve worked too hard to let him overpower me. So I push on and one day I hope that he will be the one who is overpowered and weak.

For now, I’ll just heal the rope burns on my hands. 

Vincit qui se vincit!

Happy birthday, my dear alma mater, Eunice High School, which just turned 138 years old!  Three years out of school and I still can’t believe how much has changed. How much I’ve changed...

I haven't thought about school in ages, but recently at a digs party we started talking about our school days and all the things we remember from back then. I was shocked to realize that I could not remember my school song, even though I sang it at least once a week for 12 years. And on weekends to make my Gran happy, of course.

 

My Granny at the pool naming ceremony. 

My family has a very special relationship with Eunice High. I am a fourth generation Eunice girl and the sixth family member to matriculate from Eunice. (My sister being the seventh naturally.) My dear Granny Colleen was a swimming coach and very active supporter of Eunice for many years before her death. She not only helped many beginner swimmers make it through the Midmar Mile, but she also managed to watch every play Eunice had ever performed. When she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer the school named the swimming pool after her in a beautiful ceremony. She passed away a mere three weeks later. A month into my Matric year. A week  after she was honoured in our Eunice walk-in at the Inter-high gala. And the day after my 18^th birthday…My Gran was an amazing human being in so many aspects. It is impossible to think of Eunice and not think of her. "Our blood will always be Eunice green."

I am embarrassed to say that I was eventually forced to Google the lyrics to the school song. Bits of the song stood out. It’s strange to think that three years after school that the words make a lot more sense than what they did back then. 

The garden at school which became
my hangout

“The future will not fright her, she fears nor change nor strife, for she dwells beside the waters of wisdom and of life.” At the time I was so scared about leaving home to come study at Rhodes, yet here I am years later comfortably settling into my life. The future does not fright me anymore. Even though I faced strife head on I never feared it. Eunice gave me that strength and at Rhodes I truly learnt what it felt like to dwell beside those waters of wisdom and of lie.

Eunice’s school motto is ‘Vincit qui se vincit,” which means “She conquers who conquers herself.” It took me years of to understand what that meant for me. But now I get it. To succeed in your life you must first better yourself. You must first fix your attitude and then face the world.  In order to do great things you must first start trying to understand yourself. I’ve had many issues in my life, but I’m slowly starting to understand that I must be willing to change; to learn. Eunice taught me many lessons that Rhodes just confirmed.

It makes me think about how far I've come and the person I used to be, compared to the person I am now. Eunice paved the way and I will always be thankful for that... ♥ "Eunice Eunice! No other school so dear."