is it?

i just made "is it?" the name of my newest facebook album so i feel a little dumb doing it for a blog entry also, but i'm basically obsessed with the phrases "is it?" and "how's it?" (used to start a conversation/as a substitute for "what's up," it's kind of like ciao in that it can be its own entity but can also be a response to "how's it," but now i'm just rambling so...) so here we go.

currently sitting in the leslie social science southside computer lab 1 sweating BALLS. seriously, i never knew what it was like to sweat until i came to cape town. the wind has totally disappeared and now it's just hot, since i guess february and march are the south african month equivalents to our late july and early august. it gets pretty cold at night, like sweater and jeans cold, and is usually somewhere around that temperature in the morning, but once like 9 or 10 a.m. hits it shoots up to 85 and then you just want to die, especially walking up the hill to upper campus or even just from middle to upper or up jameson steps. alskjfh. i am visibly sweaty and therefore tucked into the farthest corner of the lab. unfortunately, no one here believes in chairs, so i'm sitting on a stool with my disgusting self and specifically back exposed for the whole world to see. god, life is so hard.

anyways, i still need to post the second half of my garden route blog which will theoretically happen this weekend, but i have a few observations i wanted to write about before that occurs.

the best indicator for distinguishing between americans and south africans, etc. is footwear, specifically lack thereof or some form of obvious leather. i've started subscribing to the south african policy of walking around campus barefoot as often as i can, because apparently it's totally acceptable to forego shoes in cafes, in class, on the shuttle, wherever, and i am so into it. if one does wear shoes here though, i've noticed the guys wear leather loafers regardless of how hot it is, usually with board shorts because of the huge surf culture here, and girls wear these great sort of grecian strappy leather flat sandals that i see everyone, literally everyone, wearing but can't seem to find in a store.

more ramblings... all of the guys here are attractive, literally all of them, in a sort of conventional (i hesitate to say bland but it's sort of true, sorry bout it) yet still interesting way. a lot of guys also favor what i've dubbed the stellenbosch fauxhawk, which can range anywhere from the carefully disheveled gelled look we all know and love to the greasy, mid-scalp down scummy variety.

i'm definitely getting into more of a routine now that classes have started, which i guess is good. a lot of people are trying to get away from the mentality that this is just a vacation and really start to exist here, but i'm sort of unwilling to do that and still want to go out all the time (relatively speaking) and do things a lot, but that unfortunately requires money and no responsibilities, which i know have little of and many. i lucked out and have NO CLASS ON FRIDAY, so that opens up the potential for weekend trips and stuff, which is awesome.

on the agenda for the next few weeks: climbing lion's head, stormers vs. crusaders super 14 rugby game, and stellenbosch or constantia. SO PUMPED.

xxx.