Living La Vida Rhodent

Yesterday was the end of my first year English lectures and tutorials, they taught me all they could and for my sake i hope i still remember it or else i foresee a huge problem! This being Rhodes University [University with the most alcohol consumption in the Southern Hemisphere apparently] being notorious as the gathering place and birthplace of all alcoholics we were having our last tutorial at The Rat and Parrot [said to be the bar that sells the most alcohol again in the Southern Hemisphere,we don't do anything small it would seem].


Upon arrival at 'The Rat' as it is affectionately know to all Grahamstownians, it was packed full of economics, management, geography and even Chinese tutorial groups there to give one last toast to an awesome year of scholarly productivity [that is the ruse at least ,Rhodents will stop at nothing simply to drink]. So there i was discussing post modernism in literature, art and all facets of post modern life over a double vodka and coke in the beer garden, mellow and content with my life as it has turned out and i thought to myself, this has been the time of my life and i always knew it but it wasn't until that moment sitting in the breeze of fresh spring trees without a care in the world but to live out the day in sublime happiness that the penny dropped.
Most unfortunate was that i had a boring Journalism tutorial straight afterwards, up a steep hill on campus, i quickly understood why drinking during a hot day is inadvisable, i was huffing and puffing, squiggling and squaggling my way up that hill sweating like a Tijuana whore. On my music player blaring at full volume was Oasis' Champagne Supernova and of all the people i've known and people i will come to know i missed my best friend the most.


'How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you while we were getting high
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high

Some day you will find me caught beneath a landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me caught beneath a landslide
In a champagne supernova,
A champagne supernova in the sky

Wake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath a landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath a landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova

'cause people believe that they're
Gonna get away for the summer
'cause you and I, we'll never die
The world's still spinning round, we don't know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you while we were getting high
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high

Some day you will find me caught beneath a landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me caught beneath a landslide
In a champagne supernova,
A champagne supernova,

'cause people believe that they're
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we'll never die
The world's still spinning round, we don't know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you while we were getting high

We were getting high'


[replace high with drunk,lol]
and just as i reached the building i get a call to come down to the pool to smoke hubbly and chill [which is also code for perve over the hot bods], i spent the rest of the day hanging out with friends, having spicy nachos for dinner and reveling like a pig in shit in my awesome life.
Of all the things this year has given me, it's given me a life unhindered, dreams uncomprehendable and growth immeasurable to who i am becoming. For the first time in my life i feel like i'm living and not just existing, i'm going places, i'm meeting new people, doing new things, feeling new things and knowing so much more than i did before.


While most focus on the partying, drinking and general debauchery which is synonymous with Rhodes University they fail to mention the family you find here, the friends who buy your food and electricity when you've spent all your money on lord knows what, the friends who carry your drunk and disorderly ass home and the friends who let you be who you are, whoever you decide that is. It seems la vida loca to most, it's la vida Rhodent to me.

Taebo Hoe

A few weeks back i went to a fairytale themed party as Ghetto Snow White in my Converse All Stars and long white dress [for lack of a better outfit]. Tragedy struck me blind when my size 32 dress wouldn't zip! Granted my breasteses have grown but not so drastically, it was then that i noticed the appendaged fat on the side preventing the poor zip from reaching it's desired destination. My flatmate had to zip me up and i am both pained and embarrassed to say a little skin got caught and screams were heard in the next room.
By no stretch of the imagination am i a fitness freak but i'm blessed with good genes and a fast metabolism ergo I've never really had to worry about it. However i'm a proud foodie, which means most things deemed for human consumption i will at one point consume [if they happen to be good,at many points]. So to combat inevitable obesity [because anyone who knows me knows not to even suggest dieting and portion control] i decided to get back on the old TAEBO and let Billy Blanks whip me into shape.


I made this decision on Sunday night, i was so excited i tossed and turned till the wee hours of the morning [like a child going on a holiday to a exciting destination, in my case destination get-back-in-your-dress]. The burning ring around my eyes, lack of fresh bottled water and lack of proper space didn't deter me [a premonition of my size 40 ass buying two seats at the airline counter kept me going].
Fortunately the basic workout lasts 28 minutes and 23 seconds [a minute longer and i would've died], there i was sweating like a Tijuana whore [one of the many reasons gym was not an option,i have a thing about sweating en masse, more to the point, being seen sweating]. I found myself competing with a ripped geriatric of no less than 60 in a two piece gold bra and tights [eeuw i know] i soon found to no avail as she breezed by the roundhouse kicks and double squats that i instantly gave up on. When Billy Blanks said that's all for today folks, i could've kissed him! The exhilaration i felt at planning to do something and seeing it through, getting back my health and shape was worth it...until today.
It's Tuesday and muscles i thought atrophied sometime in 2007 have rejuvenated with a painful vengeance as i cannot walk or laugh without feeling sharp pains in parts of my body i'm sure i wasn't born with! It's true about no pain, no gain...to console my paining body i had a brownie [okay i had 3] but i'll work them off tomorrow.

Look at me, i'm a Taebo hoe and i'm loving it!

Edge of the World

The exact memory bounces excitedly on the edge of my consciousness today. I remember my excited squeals, bounding up and down the sand dunes in my new bathing suit [how 90s is that word, lol] running against the sea breeze like I’d take flight if I ran fast enough, chasing the sea gulls who would fly off onto their perches on the cliffs and stare out at the ocean like something was crawling out of the horizon into their view.

Growing up in rural KwaZulu-Natal and then to a small town I’d always been surrounded by rivers, pumps, ponds and dams so I was no stranger to large and dangerous bodies of water. I must have been 4 or 5 [my mother never had the best memory], we drove to Port St John’s, the pride of the Pondoland region on the Wild Coast. I imagine it hasn’t changed much since except there are less sea shells and more pollution. The sun shone so much brighter by the sea, the air was cleaner and the breeze so much happier [I could eat ice cream all day] suffice it to say my 4 or 5 year old life was made! My mother told me to choose a spot and stand still, I remember the sand rapidly moving beneath my feet tickling me while the sea seemed to draw me in, I ran off screaming scared that it would carry me off [parents really shouldn’t tell their kids these things, they tend to haunt for life].

 It was all so scary and exciting at the same time and I revelled in that feeling and I think that’s the feeling we all live for, that new thrill, unexplainable yet all consuming, caution to the salty wind and a day adventure for the ages. It’s true that you are the same person you were when you were 5, older and perhaps wiser but still that kid asking too many questions for your parents to answer; in awe of the ocean in a shell and overwhelmed by the vastness of the world just outside your door.

Watching all those spy movies there’s always a satellite scene, zooming and zoning in onto some location roaming for the bad guy’s whereabouts [he’s usually somewhere in the Caribbean] and in that instant the bad guy is found lounging at the beach; Mojito in hand surrounded by gorgeous bikini clad locals vying for his attention. And that’s how I’ve always felt about the ocean, the edge of the world where I can always be found [if you happen to have a high power government satellite].

When you stand at the edge of the sea, you’re at the edge of a continent with a sprawling ocean before you, life and death beneath going on as it has for eons. When I stand at the edge of the ocean I’m a blip on the face of the visible world, I like to think God can see me clearly.

I like to believe I can jump in and be carried off into another universe like a black hole does in outer space, I like to believe I’m at the start of something so that when I step back I’m in a new day, all the previous washed away by the sea, carried off the edge into some endless abyss.