Greetings from the Mother Land

Hello friends and happy new year!

Well I finally got through the roughest finals of my life thanks to a 4 day extension on some of my papers... Clearly there's no way I could have written 5 papers, which totalled over 80 pages, in just a week. It was very intense and I pulled many all-nighters, but working over XMas weekend wasn't all that bad--it's rare to get presents and freshly baked cookies during a study break!
Conclusion: clearly being a senior at Smith is rough, but being a senior and taking 3 seminars is just masochistic. And my masochism continues because I basically had zero time off between finishing finals and getting on a plane to go back to South Africa... which is where I am writing to you all from. Indeed, Eve is back in Africa and loving it :)


So I'm in Cape Town participating in a 3-week symposium on Int'l Mediation and Conflict Resolution which is organized by an American org but taking place at University of Cape Town (check it out)... The classes/training sessions are pretty intense since it's essentially 9-5 every day--particularly hard on me since I am not fully human until noon. But I'm learning a lot about mediation (not mediTation), methods of conflict resolution, and diplomatic skills etc plus meeting some of the top people in the field, as well as the future leaders in the field, aka the other participants in the program. The group is pretty big: 80 people from around the world (DRCongo, Rwanda, USA, Holland, Norway, Colombia is a small sample), of all ages (the range is 19 to mid-30s but most are college age), and all different types of experiences and backgrounds (clueless sophomores to the former assistant to the Congolese President). Clearly there's so much to learn from the other participants and it's such a great opportunity to forge a future network...

Basically I'm feeling like I'm really equipped to solve all of the world's problems... Just give me a year or so and BAM! World Peace ;-)

Anyway, even if those plans don't work out, I'm still having a great time back in Cape Town. Ok, that's not entirely true because I got some terrible food poisoning this weekend and I literally spent New Years Eve getting to know the toilet down the hall... way to bring in 2006, right? I'm back on track now though and I'm loving the hot sunny weather, the food (the kind that DOESN'T inflict 2 days of debilitating illness), the beach, the beauty of the city and all the other wonderful things about Cape Town. I'm especially looking forward to re-connecting with some of the people that I met when I was here last year (or technically 2 years ago now), in particular my precious homestay family in the township. I'm heading back to Langa this weekend to see them and my little sisi Tina who is now 4 years old! And clearly I am bringing her and all the neighborhood kids tons of gifts... I love being Santa :)

Anyway as much as I LOVE sitting in a computer lab while the sun is shining outside, I think I'm going to leave it at that for now... I hope you're all well and I look forward to seeing some of you in the UK in a couple of weeks when I stop through on my way back to the USA!

2 minute update

I'm apologizing in advance that I won't be updating you with my usual loquaciousness, eloquence and humor... I'm keeping this one very short, basically to let you all know that contrary to popular opinion, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Nope, I'm pretty much still here, clinging on ;)

Ok so rewind to the last update when I was on my way to Greece... Jax and I had a great trip; exploring Athens, eating amazing Greek food, going on excursions (well just one excursion to Delphi), enjoying the sunny weather, dodging sketchy Greek men, trying not to get run over by crazy drivers, counting how many stray dogs we saw, and obviously partying.








Since fall break, I've been working my ass off--juggling lots of academic work and traveling to MUN conferences at Yale and UPenn. In fact, I'm pretty much up at Smith only Sunday evening through Wednesday night, and I've literally had NO social life... Speaking of which I have to get back to the library to work on a draft for my super fun seminar paper on the civil war in Algeria.
I guess I'll be seeing a lot of you in NYC for Thanksgiving :) and I hope to hear from the rest of you soon...

Back to school, sort of...

Hello everyone!!!

Wow, that was enthusiastic. Three exclamation points... (Aline is rubbing off on me, plus it's been a while since I've written one of these). The thing is, it's a lot more enthusiastic than I feel, because I'm tired and I'm sick. Sick and tired you could say, but that's the wrong connotation. I'm tired because it's after 2am and I've been going non-stop all day, and I'm sick because I have bronchitis (which landed me in the hospital on Saturday, but, no worries, I'm a LOT better now).

Anyway, hi :-) I miss you guys, even those of you who go to Smith, because I never see you. Yes, being a senior is not so much about socializing/partying as managing the shit loads (sp? 1 word or 2?) of work that my professors sadistically impose (those bastards), while simultaneously trying to participate in extracurricular activities (such as, for example, being President of the Smith World Affairs Committee... yeah, that's me. Can you feel the aura of power?) AND, most fun of all, trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with THE REST OF MY LIFE.

Indeed, apparently there is life after college. I had no idea. In fact, I plan on sort of keeping it that way. After a couple of years of inevitable flailing around the 'real world,' I plan on comfortably reinserting myself into academia, where I will hide for the rest of my life. I will set the world record for 'longest time to complete a PhD.' It'll be fun, I swear.

So besides all that excitement, life has been pretty decent. Post-Oxford, end of summer, was pretty hectic...Settling back in NYC, seeing my family, catching up with friends, chilling up at the country house, and moving. Yeah, my family moved again. This time, all the way over to the East River! But the new apartment is really nice, perched on the 47th floor of a beautiful modern building. What? 47th floor? That's right. I swear, if you squint, you can see Miami from my living room.

Well after helping with the move (in fact I managed the whole thing bc my parents weren't around, and trust me, it was exhausting amounts of work), I continued moving, all the way back to Western Massachusetts. And, I'm not going to lie, despite my earlier grumbling, it is good to be back... though I definitely needed my (amazing) year away in South Africa/Amherst. It's just nice to be back in such a fun eclectic town, on such a beautiful campus, in a fantastic room (and with a view I might add, though not quite a Miami view), and in such a supportive environment.



The only downside is that I've almost been too busy to enjoy it! I haven't been around much between a weekend in Boston (thanks for letting me crash Stephy), a weekend in NYC, and an overnight in DC for my grandfather's funeral at Arlington (a particularly beautiful and moving ceremony bc my grandfather was high-ranking in the US Navy and was buried with full honors).
...And the crazy schedule continues for the rest of the semester between various conferences up and down the East Coast, and my fabulous upcoming vacation.

And that brings us to the present, because I'm leaving for this fabulous vacation on Thursday evening... Yes, I'm taking fall break (usually a 4-5 day weekend), turning it into a full 8-day vacation, and going off to Greece! This trip has been greatly anticipated because we've been planning it for over 6 months! I'm meeting up in Athens with my friend Jacqueline, who is currently studying abroad in Tel Aviv, and having a week-long adventure... which you will obviously hear all about once I get back.

Anyway I hope to hear from you all soon... Stay well!

PhDs and cocktails

Sorry if I've been a bit lax about updates recently... since I've finished my internship I don't have free internet access anymore ;-) Though I enjoyed and learned a lot during my stint at Africa Now, I have revelled in my newfound freedom... God knows what I'll do when I actually have a real full-time job. Unfortunately this freedom has been slightly curbed by the classic British summer weather, which basically means you always carry an umbrella, a sweater, sunglasses and sunscreen because you simply never know... Some of my plans have been hampered by inclement weather, meaning I've spent a couple of days just lying in bed reading all afternoon, which, if you know me, is rather close to my idea of heaven.



On other days, I have been keeping myself busy and doing classic Oxford activities like strolling through the botanical gardens, going punting (which involves a long, rickety boat, a long pole, and usually lots of Pims and champagne...) and going to my book club (aka embracing the inner geek). In fact, my inner geek loves Oxford and wants to stay here forever... she particularly loves the fantastic celeb spotting (little sample of people I've met here: Toni Morrison, Stephen Hawking, and Kofi Annan--the night before the terrorist attacks).





But don't worry about me! Despite the obscene amounts of reading (13 books in 7 weeks), the inner geek is still 'inner' and the party girl exterior has her fun too... There have been a fair share of crazy nights in Oxford... In fact my group of friends reflects this dichotomy exactly--an even mix of PhD students and bartenders (you know I love my bartenders).





Well I'm actually off to visit some of the touristy attractions in Oxford this afternoon, I'm trying to fit in all that stuff in my last few days... And I guess I'll be seeing most of you in NYC next week!

How everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster...

It’s been a while since my last update, sorry ;) Though I’ve been rather busy, it’s more a lack of inspiration that’s to blame… and the fact that internet was cut off at my house on July 1st (personal email at work is generally frowned upon… oops).

Anyway, Oxford has been treating me very well. I actually just decided to extend my stay by a week (home on Aug 8)… and of course it started raining exactly 10min after I got off the phone with my British Airways booking agent—-classic.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve perfected the distinctive skill of being the 3rd wheel. This is mostly thanks to Steph and Elliot who I have had the pleasure of staying with on my occasional weekend/overnight excursions to London.



Those excursions were very frequent over the first few weeks, but recently I’ve been staying in Oxford a lot more—not because of the terrorist attacks in London, though those did rather shake me up, considering I was on a bus in London at the time of the attacks (and I would have been on the tube if I hadn’t been lazy and taken a taxi to the bus station… very clear lesson learned here: lazyness is a lifesaver).

But no, despite my luck, it’s more Oxford itself that keeps me here. I just keep meeting loads of interesting people and making new friends every time I go out, which undoubtedly sounds very corny but is also true. Plus, I’ve been on a few dates, though they’ve all been somewhat involuntary. Well not so much involuntary as accidental, think less sleazy-villian-kidnaps-innocent-woman Arnold Schwarzenegger action film, and more badly written overly serendipitous romantic comedy with B-list actors.

Well, in other news, my favourite neighbourhood graffiti was painted over this week. No more shall my daily walks to work be spent pondering whether “strict adherence to any religious dogma is intellectual suicide.” I am now sadly limited to the somewhat less eloquent musings about President Bush… On that tragic note, I leave you.

Euro-tripping

After last week’s pre-MTV interview freak-out, I am currently freaking out because I’m actually going to be on TV tomorrow!! It’s on MTV International but I have no idea what time my segment is airing, meaning I expect all of you in Europe to be watching MTV all day tomorrow… But no worries for those of you in the USA (or you non-satellite TV people in Europe), I’ve got a special Xmas gift in mind ;)

Anyway post-blowing the minds of the MTV producers, I flew off to Amsterdam for the weekend to meet up with Ivan and a friend of his… We had a great, albeit brief, weekend in the original city of sin. We visited the Van Gogh museum, walked along the canals, saw some monuments, wandered interminably through the red light district (thanks for that Ivan), which literally has red lights everywhere, and may or may not have smoked some quality marijuana (I will neither confirm nor deny the previous statement).

Overall it’s a really cool city and, despite the legal drugs and prostitution, it actually felt sort of clean and healthy. Everyone cycles everywhere (Ivan can attest to almost being run over several times), there’s no rubbish on the streets (the canals are another story), the architecture is cute (though some building seem to be gradually falling into the canals), public transport is clean and safe (well not so much for stupid tourists who stand on the tramway tracks), and the city is generally bright and airy. Basically I’m a big fan of Amsterdam and I definitely recommend checking it out…






I got back to the UK on Sunday evening and hopped over to London for a couple of days for a series of lectures/panels on the G8 and on ‘why does Bush care so much about Africa?,’ which was particularly interesting because the title was not meant to be facetious… As you can imagine, some of the Africans in the audience def got a little riled up during the Q&A.

After all the excitement in London (which included a reunion with my friend Casey who I haven’t seen in FIVE years), I’m now back in Oxford sitting at my desk in the office, where I’m clearly getting a lot of work done. I’m basically just killing time before leaving early this afternoon. The office is quite chilled out… classic NGO, highly educated, slightly hippie vibe, where the whole "9 to 5" thing is open to interpretation-- for instance half the office randomly decided to go to Wimbledon on Wednesday afternoon and we’re all going to Shakespeare in the park next week.

So work is cool and the Oxford social life is gradually getting there. I've met some really cool people (yeah I'm talking about you Muthoni) and my housemates are a rather eclectic but very cool bunch… Mandy and Nick, who have been together for a year, just finished university at Oxford Brooks and now have jobs in Oxford until further notice (it’s the kind of place you can get sucked into, think Northampton/Amherst). Beth finished Uni last year and bartends at a very trendy bar near my house. Her French boyfriend Ben, who works at the same bar, basically also lives with us. Then there’s Marius, an Afrikaner from Jo’burg who I think is unfortunately developing a crush on me, and Maria, a Spanish student with severely limited English (luckily Mandy was a Spanish major).

Our house is cute, with a nice garden in the back where Beth and her bf practice flaring (flipping bottles around Tom Cruise style). As previously mentioned, I live in the studenty, quirky, multicultural area of Oxford… Just a little sampling of stores on one block to give you an idea: a Brazilian art gallery, an antiques store, a tattoo parlour, an internet cafe, a discount hardware store, a little hair salon, and an über trendy tapas bar. Plus there are tons of restaurants in the area, and alongside the fastfood places and the more traditional Italian/Asian stuff, there is some more exotic fare: Jamaican, Polish ("the vodka specialists"), Indian vegetarian, a Vietnamese noodle bar, and more Kebab take-aways than are strictly necessary.



Ok all this food talk has suddenly made me realize that I haven’t actually eaten today, besides nibbling on some fair trade nectarines in the office… Off to lunch and then London for the weekend!

Africa via Oxford? Another Eve update

When I left you last I was on my whirlwind Eurotrip, somewhere between Italy and France. The week in Milan was very ‘divertimento.’ It’s a nice city, but one that needs some tweaking, such as air conditioning (NOT optional when the temp. averages 32°C in summer), maps of bus and tram routes (it’s always a bit of an adventure when using public transport in Italy… who knows where you’ll end up!), and functioning ATMs (when one stops working, apparently the entire system shuts down… another example of practical Italian thinking).

Other than that, there are some things that the Italians have just right. #1 on that list is clearly FASHION and SHOPPING (gentlemen, you may skip the next few sentences). Now, all the big designers are in Milan but at the same prices as NYC, so going to Armani/Prada/D&G/Gucci is a waste of time. However, there are tons of nice boutiques that are very reasonably priced by European standards. And yes, I did do some serious damage in the shoe department ;)
Another thing that the Milanese have right is ‘aperitivo’—evening cocktail period where for the price of one drink you have an open buffet with tons of salads, pastas, breads etc It’s a fabulous way for financially constrained students to basically get a free meal (and by financially constrained, I mean broke from shoe shopping).

So in addition to the shopping, eating, drinking, and sightseeing, France and I left scorching Milan for one day and took the train down to the coast. The train ride was an adventure in itself and I think the whole day can truly best be captured through pictures.









Anyway, after Milan, I spent a long weekend in Paris before heading back to NYC for a whole 4 days. A logical stop-over on my way to the UK, don’t you think? Actually I went back home for my sis’ high school graduation (congrats again Anne-France!), which I combined with a week of packing and partying. I had a great send-off party at Luna Park, a very nice outdoor bar in Union Sq park, and later at Cain (yes, I still heart Cain, despite the door bitch).



Anyway I moved to Oxford last weekend. My neighbourhood is pretty, um, interesting… Lots of students, plus soap-dodging hippies who drive old Saabs and walk around bare-foot, East Asian immigrant families who own taxi companies and ten thousand small grocery stores apiece etc. It’s the quirky multi-cultural part of Oxford, which is a nice way of saying that I don’t walk around alone after dark. But it’s all good, I survived Langa ;)

Unfortunately, my grandfather passed away last week, which was obviously very sad and hard to deal with since I’m so far from my family. However I’m quite busy with discovering Oxford and meeting new people that I haven’t been too depressed. Plus I started my internship at Africa Now last week and it’s going really well… The office is small and quite laid-back. We listen to music and the director makes coffee and tea for everyone (you better believe I love this role reversal). Some of the work I’m doing is the classic boring stuff like writing press releases and processing donations (donate online now!), but other things are quite cool like compiling case studies and being interviewed by MTV News.

What?!! Yeah, I’m being interviewed by MTV news because of the work Africa Now is doing for the Make Poverty History campaign (makepovertyhistory.org). For some reason, I’m the only one available and the director thinks that I’ll be great since I’m young (aka MTV audience age) and supposedly articulate and knowledgeable the issues. However, I am clearly FREAKING OUT. The interview is tomorrow afternoon in London!! AHHHH!!
Ok, must chill… *breathe*… Anyway I’ll obviously let you all know when it’s airing, but I think it’s only on MTV Europe.

Well, after my first TV appearance, I’m flying to Amsterdam for the weekend to meet up with some friends which is probably exactly what I need right now, if you know what I mean. Anyway I’m off for now… More info about Oxford, my housemates etc on the next update.

Eternal sunshine, literally

I know it's been a while since my last update, mostly because I've seen most of you since my return from South Africa... plus I doubt any of you want to read on about my day to day life up at school (fascinating as it is). Generally it was a great semester; 'studying abroad' at Amherst College (high school actually), living with boys (3 of 'em!), having a crazy 21-bday partay in NYC (caviar and pink gorillas?), organizing a huge tsunami relief fundraiser, partying hard, and working harder.



Anyway the semester is over and done with (finally) and I've now been on summer vacation for a little over 2 weeks... which doens't seem like much time, but feels like a lot considering what I've been up to. After a week of partying (and sleeping... oh sleeping is good) in NYC, I took off with my friend Rob from Princeton and Mark, one of his friends from GWU, to Reykjavik. I can see you all scratching your heads in bewilderment... indeed, why would someone want to go to Iceland? Well hopefully this little update will convince you.

So the hypothesis that I formulated during my stay is: Icelandic people are crazy. And it was confirmed over and over again... Reykjavik is one of the craziest party cities that I have ever been to--this coming from someone like me. We met a bunch of Icelandic students who were more than happy to show us around to the good bars, buy us ridiculously overpriced drinks and practice their (very good) English. The nightlife starts around 1am--that's just the pregaming. The real partying doesn't get going until around 3am, which of course makes sense since the sun is shining. A lot of places stay open until 7am on Friday and Saturdays because it's the traditional 'runtur', which is basically a city-wide bar crawl. Plus we happened to have landed in Reykjavik during graduation weekend, so the partying was all the more crazy.







In addition to lots of drunken stumbling and making jokes about Vikings (the best Icelandic beer is actually called Viking), we did a bit of the touristy stuff... saw the geysers (2 of only 5 in the whole world), some waterfalls, some volcanos, the mid-atlantic ridge that is slowly pushing Europe and America away from each other. I also went on a 4 hour horse trek around lava fields... Basically your usual tourist sights ;) We also walked around Reykjavik and visited the giant phallic Church and the Icelandic Historical Museum, which had fun activities for kids like dressing up as a Viking (which I did) and reconstructing heathen graves (which I did not).







Plus we saw lots of the sights and other cool stuff during our evening stumbles around town, a nice aspect of the eternal summer sun. One not so nice aspect is that it tends to make sleeping in a hostel with no black-out shades rather tricky. I think Icelandic people just deal with it by getting smashed every night, a tradition which we tried to adhere to as well.

A few last notes about Iceland and Reykjavik:
-it is the most expensive country I have ever visited--$20 for a cocktail in a normal bar (aka NOT a super upscale/trendy place)!! To put things in even sharper perspective: some of the taxis are Porsche Cayennes.
-the mullet is back (or maybe it never left)...and this applies to both men and women.
-a red light is only red if there is an old lady in the middle of the road... and it is never red at night.
-12 degrees celsius is hot weather! Break out the shorts and tee-shirts, and get yourself some ice cream!
-Icelandic rock music is very angry, which I suppose is understandable when you only have 3 hours of sunlight in winter... in addition, Icelandic people are notably sexually active (not to say promiscuous), which is understandable for exactly the same reason.

Well I'll stop boring you all about my little Icelandic journey... besides I've been in Italy since Monday so all of this is ancient history ;) I'm taking Eurorail to Paris this afternoon for a long weekend with friends and family and then back to NYC for 4 days before taking off to the UK for the summer!!

Craving some biltong

Well I presented my Indep. Study Project stuff (again) for a special research symposium at Smith last weekend... Looking over that thing that dominated my life last semester brought back all those great memories, and also the not-so-great ones (um, bedbugs anyone?)...
I have this list of all these South African idiosyncracies that I miss and that I think we all actively need to work on bringing over to the statess... For example, integrating "hectic" into our everyday vocab, calling traffic lights "robots" (because they clearly are), walking around barefoot--everywhere, calling napkins serviettes, and systematically removing all trash cans (or "rubbish bins"). There are obviously some things that we all love about South Africa that will never hit it big here, like putting mayo on everything (including pizza--yummy, *gag*), making cream soda the color of fluorescent nuclear waste, making people pay for plastic bags at the supermarket, and, of course, minibus taxis.
Otherwise life has been pretty decent, particularly the last week since the weather has finally decided to cooperate. Unfortunately, the nicer the weather, the less work gets done... which is tough considering how much work there is at the end of the semester-- ugh.
Anyway, I actually have a pretty cool summer lined up so far. I'm taking a bit of a break after classes end and traveling with some friends to Reykjavik for a week, then visiting a friend who's abroad in Italy for a week... After that I'm interning at this foundation called Africa Now that's based in Oxford, England. They do some pretty cool work and it's a pretty small org (at least on the British end) so I'll hopefully be able to actually do some real work for them. Anyway that lasts abour 6 weeks and then I'm going to Sierra Leone (and possibly Liberia) with a few kids from Amherst because we've started an org and raised some money to build schools for girls. I'm really excited about that trip, though my parents are clearly freaking out about security. It's all good though because we're going under the auspices of UNICEF so we'll have a UN security detail (sounds pretty hardcore, right?)... That takes us to the middle of August and then... I dunno... probably just relaxing :-)
I hope you're all well and that the end of the year isn't too hectic!

Goodbye South Africa

Last weekend was a flurry of goodbyes to Cape Town, shopping, partying, and days on the beach (though not in the water because the Atlantic there is basically the Antarctic Ocean). It was quite difficult to say 'bye to Cape Town, a city I have after 4 months come to consider another home.

On Tuesday morning, after our free weekend, the whole group was bused to Hermanus, a pretty beach town about 2 hours from CT, known for the "best land-based whale watching in the world!" Of course, the whales are not currently around, so we saw jack shit. We did spend a fair amount on time on beach, and actually swimming in water as this was the Indian Ocean.






We also had some pretty corny "de-orientation" sessions about the issues of re-entry etc... Bascially you all should be very sensitive and eager to hear about my experience :-P All is all though it was great to spend the last four days just with our group. On Friday after a nice lunch on a wine farm, we drove to airport and said goodbye to our Academic directors and to the kids who were staying around CT for the holidays.




Anyway, I'll gloss over the 22hrs inside an airplane, which basically consisted of watching many many crappy movies and downing several mini bottles of wine. So after a grand total of about 32hours of traveling, I got back to the USA yesterday morning! And even though I'm slightly traumatized by the bloody cold, I am happy to be home, back up at my country house, with my family, my dog, and our new kitten. I am planning on sequestering myself here for a couple of days to unpack and readjust, but I will definitely be back in the city and ready to party on Monday evening.
Hope to see you all very soon! Happy Holidays,
Kisses,

Eve