Dick of Africa

My brother has begun a youtube channel called Dickofafrica. It is rather funny (to say the least). If you are into crass-looserish-make a fool our of yourself brilliance you should have a watch. Although he has just begun he has had as many at 2500 views on certain videos. And his channel boasts the top South African comedian at the moment on youtube. Caspar plays the role of Dick, a 'he means well' type of character who lacks in sufficient social skills. He has a controlling and rather intimidating father who is never really around and we follow Dick on his journey to self discovery. Even though Dick is a bit of a looser that would definitely get bullied at school viewers feel a soft spot for him, we can relate to him and even maybe learn one or two things from him, like "things to do in the bath". Dick also explores and questions social norms, like "is bathing only for girls?" and "why do people hate Justin Beiber so much?" We watch him go for midnight feats, have ritalin trips, sit in the bath and wee in his pants.... Oh and I feature in one of the videos, well, part of me does. I play his 'biological' half sister who he has to meet, but something really really embarrassing happens and we see how Dick deals with this catastrophe. Anyway, go watch it... There is a link on the side of my blog!!
Wohoo!

Blood (the true kind)

So I have been watching this series called True Blood, I know I know, it has been out for ages and now the bloody vamp days are long gone. But sometimes desperate times call for new a series to keep me sane between these four walls. Books somehow dont have the safe effect, I love to read, dont get me wrong but I find that when I read in the day my eyes start to get heavy and before I know it I am asleep dreaming about unicorns and evil puppets. SO I have stated to watch True Blood. It is good. Really. There is something about it that just keeps the viewers gripped. And to keep me interested in something IS something. I am the type of person who gets bored before I even begin to begin something. Anyway enough about me. True Blood. Well I believe in the beginning it does need a certain amount of viewer dedication. You might feel the urge to put a stop to the raunchy inter human-vampire porn that takes a hold of your computer screen....Or not. What turned me off about it in the beginning was the Southern accents that are clearly put on and need a bit of getting used to. But apart from that its cleaver ideas, interesting characters and twists keep us coming back for more - even if its simply to hear Bill shout "Sookie!!" which sounds more like "Sookeh!!" with his paler than pale face and his fang teeth that come out to play when he gets excited. I dont want to spoil anything by giving away the plot, but what I do want to say is that even though the story line is absurd it touches on real life issues such as racism, hate, religion, love, friendship, sex, drugs, alcoholism and lots and lots of DEATH - just to name a few....And at the end of each episode you are bound to feel freaked out/grossed out/slightly turned on...?
YA.

Exams

The time has come again when we all have to get down to our books and LEARN! The thing is, though, for me it is my only time of rest in the year. Because it is up to me how hard I study of course and it is up to me when the alarm goes beep! So around this time I like to ruffle my feathers a bit and take things easy. For example, sitting on the lawn in front of res listening to my ipod (notes lie patiently next to me - but alas, are not removed from the grass), wine on a Sunday evening, even if im just by myself (tut tut) always goes down well - I only have to STUDY tomorrow!, quick Jack sessions (tea and cuddles - that is all i am revealing! BTW -SOMEONE IS INTERESTED IN ME!), late night facebook sessions (who would want to miss one of those ridiculous status updates from a 'friend' you have only kept for the shits and gigs!), peanut butter and provita's (always available in Kira's room) and last but not least True Blood. Let me just write "Sookie!!!!"....Ah that felt good.
Before you get the wrong idea though, I am a good student, I do get rather serious about exams as repeating such subjects as: Costume Theory and Voice Theory would be the end of the world. I repeat. THE END. So it is always good to get some work in, among other things.
Ooh ooh, I did a prac exam today. It was Afrikaans Speech where I performed a poem and a prose piece. Now let me just say that not in my wildest imagination did I picture myself ever standing in front of an audience performing in a foreign language (wait, Afrikaans doesn't count as a foreign language really does it?), before I came to Stellenbosch. So before I went on, I took a sentimental moment to reflect on my year. And I that song by Eminem played in my head "I'm not Afraid"... Ok this is not meant to get deep. So ya, exams are beginning and pretty much before we all know it they will be DONE and we wont feel as wonderful as we thought we would feel whilst stressing away making notes, but never the less we will all be galavanting off in our different directions back home. It has been a WINNING year and here are the photographs to prove it!
PEACE x

Silent Night

I am the greatest healer in the world and not doctor can compare. I cure malaria, flu, diabetes, and even aids! I even get you the man that you desire when your alone at night, in your bed. But remember, nothing is for free darlings

The time has come, my first ACTUAL role in an ACTUAL play (apart from the nurse in our school's musical Oliver - which was very, very, bad). After months of little rehearsal, I am going to be on stage tomorrow night performing Ma Ntombi, to the best of my ability! Every inch of my body will go onto overdrive in order to sustain the freaky herbalist- sangoma- voodoo woman's character. The thing is though, is that because of the amount of concentration that goes into my character's physical movements alone, I find it hard to get my words, words down! Like the other day I told one of my potions of 'old people' to 'do your thing' because my mind went blank! But alas, this will not happen again, I wont allow it!

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?

I was on a run (the other day) and the overplayed song by Drake came on my ipod. "I could really use a wish right now, wish right now wish right now!" Anyway, as I was listening to the lyrics I thought of wishes and the things I used to wish for as a kid. I remember there being endless opportunities to 'make a wish' when I was young. Lots of outings to parks where there would be wells, lots of blowing out of other children's candles on their birthdays claiming it as your own and lots and lots of shooting stars appearing in the sky even if they were just figments of childish imagination. Thinking of this I recollected on some of the bazaar, selfish and sometimes evil wishes I wished....

Plop goes a 1 cent coin (rem those 1 centers?) in a grimy fish pond in the Berea Zoo in Durban: "I wish that I could get a guitar" (WTF would I want a guitar for? I spose cos I hated my violin and piano lessons so much i just WANTED a guitar...?)

Plop goes a shiny 5 cent into a fountain across the road: "I wish that my brother would get smacked more often" (Ok I think this was just after I had seen him getting smacked for the fist time as he did something VERY naughty and I remember watching it in delight and hoping it would happen more often! It didn't.)

The blowing out of my candles after the disappointment of my presents (clothes, books, puzzles... I wanted a baby doll that could wee!!): "I wish that christmas would come quickly (my bday is in April...It was a LONG 8 months)

I rem the endlessly winning the wishbones and thinking "I wish to be a teacher", or "that santa was actually real", or that "I could know if god was true or not" and then one day I wished that "i could make anything happen!" This was a revaluation! Imagine making anything happen? Like, making yourself look like the girl in the 'Mizz' magazine, or being so cleaver you didnt have to go to school, or better yet- being able to speak gibberish like all of the cool kids in school, or getting money for tuck everyday, or being able to watch '16 SN' movies, or getting braces (and then when you do get them) getting them off, or winning the lotto and having your parents ask YOU for pocket money and last but not least to get a life time supply of sweets and never get bad teeth or fat. That would be AMAZING!!!

Anyway about 10 or more years down the line I came across a really cool wishing well at the Biscuit Mill in Cape Town. Kira and I decided to make wishes and this time I am not going to tell you what I wished for :)

Akiratheo produksie!

lady bird or lady bug? and shame, my bug was a guy

Today I found this lady bird / lady bug I cant think of which one it is!? inside of my running tshirt. The weird this is, is that I remember it accompanying me on my run a week or so ago. I felt lucky and thought that my ITB in my knee wouldnt come back because of the lil guy. He really helped. He stuck to my bright green running shorts all the way and no pain came to my left knee! Anyway I kind of forgot about him when he suddenly went missing. However, today whilst going through my washing I bloody well found the thing. 1 week and 1 wash later the thing still lives!! But he was in a bad condition so I chewed a piece of my golden delicious apple and put him on it (i though it was a good equivalent to a hospital bed for bugs). He moved around it at first but then went still. I tried to revive the lil fellow but he kept rolling onto his back submitting to the possibility of survival. So I finally put him on my carpet to let him enjoy the last few minutes of his life amongst fluff. When i went to check up on him he had totally disappeared. I am hoping he managed to use the life left in him to fly out my window but the chances are slim. Perhaps I will find him under my slipper. I hope not. Anyway this is in dedication the the lil guy who gave me all the luck he could give me this week:
My washing was dry by my second tumble session (usually it takes about 3-4)
I memorized everything I needed to for Monday
Kira got some luck too ;)
My bank card allowed me to buy a garment at YDE on Sat
My Mom and Sham came to mystics and didnt do anything embarrassing
Sushi was half price opposite mcdonalds
I only had 1 - a very successful silent night rehearsal
My car hasnt been clamped for all of my bad parkings
There was no section meeting tonight!!!
I have found Afrikaans prose, i think
AND i still have 4 episodes of gossip girl to watch!

The Worst Movie Ever!

Of course, it just has to be a Rom-Com! Letters to Juliet, a truly awful film, forces watchers to go on a 'honey moon/ business trip' with a Blonde and a Hunk number 1 to Italy. The Italian fiancée (Hunk number 1) treats Blonde like crap (almost as crap as his acting!) He finds food and wine more important that his perfect mate so she ends up doing her own thing. She somehow finds a letter behind a brick in an ancient wall where women over the years have written letters to 'Juliet'. "I have to write back" she announces. This is when Hunk number two arrives on the scene (American oke trying to be British thus his accent sounded a bit South African at times) and for some reason decides to be even meaner to Blonde than Hunk number 1. Nobody knows why, he is just plain mean. Then we meet Hunk number 2's grandma. She is the lady who wrote to Julia all those years ago. They decided to go on a hunt for her long lost love. All the cliché things happen. The end.
The only person who deserves recognition for her effort is Vanessa Redgrave who plays the grandmother. Whilst I was watching I wondered why she decided to involve herself in such a vapid and predictable screenplay. Blonde is the chick who played the airhead from Mean Girls. That was where she belonged. In fact, didn't she win an award for that part? Anyway, I'm sure it was a money making creation over a work of art so I give it to them. I mean I bought into it! I went and bought a ticket! (Even if it cost me R30 at the local cinema where we have to specifically ask the women on duty to turn the sound up every time.)

I checked out a few critics on rotten tomatos and my fav critique is "The story is as straight and obvious as raw spaghetti."

Bottom line:
No wonder they decided to show it in the 'small cinema' and put a South African film 'Egoli' in the big one. In case u were wondering, I live in Knysna and we only have 2 screens at the movies, one biggie and one smallie :)

2010 is now (my sentimental blog post of the month)

"When I get older I will be stronger
They’ll call me freedom
Just like a wavin’ flag"

I watched the first game in Trafalgar Square, London where South Africa scored the first goal of the world cup. The moment was like nothing else I have experienced. The hush of the all 2000 South Africans who gathered there to support their team was defining as the shooter (who's name escapes me) ran towards the goal and as he scored the crowed interrupted around me before I even realized that we scored a fucking goal! My friend Dylan was with me and his eyes were almost watering with pride as he picked me up and screamed ''I cant believe it!!''

Even though Bafana is out, the pride in this country remains strong. The world has come to us! The world has come to us for one of the biggest sporting events on the planet and we are capable of pulling it off! This is a special time for us, our country has an air of excitement, activity and hope with the sounds of vuvuzellas filling the air.

South Africa, our time is now, 2010 is here!

A terrible breakfast on the whole

Ok so my mom and I, after an hour of pilates decided to go for breakfast. Usually we go to il de pain but today we decided to try the place accross the road and OMG, terrible, terrible decision!! Ok so we arrive and unluckily we get this OTT hippy guy who has probably just matriculated from Knysna High and has decided to stay in knysna for his gap year, or like, for the rest of his life. That kind. Anyway, we order coffees and I get the one with a heart shape on the foam. I hope he wasnt implying anything! Then we wait....and wait. Our waitor, after having about 2 cigarettes in the back yard which is visable for all of the customers he informs us annoyingly that the chef is just off to buy more supplies and because of the delay he is going to bring us a taster in the mean time 'on the house!'. My mom and I sit there as patiently as possible. Something we both have to work on. Here comes the taster. Toast with anchovy spread. Neither of us are appetized in the leaste. I force some of it down and my mom strategically does a bit of rearranging, making it look as though she had also had a 'taste'. Ok so we wait again...And my mom orders another coffee. This time the waitor tries to entertain us by asking us to guess what picture in on the foam. 'Its a dog!' I say in an eager tone (which is faked well, i must say). The waitor dissapears off to have another cigarette, this time with a hippy friend. 'Shall we go?' my mom asks, (she obviously misses her phone which she left at home, she is such an addict when Sham is away!) 'NO!' I say, 'we cant just leave!' (I start to wonder if I am the ONLY sane person around). After about an hour of waiting a member of the highly trained kitchen staff comes out and informs us that the food will be out 'shortly, they are just waiting for a guy to arrive back with the yougart' (he is probably waiting in a que in the local spar). 'JUST bring it out! Dont worry about the missing yougart' my mom demands.

To cut things shorter here is a list of what happend next...

-Mom ate her fruit salad with milk instead of yougart

-My poached eggs were hard and cold

-The waitor dissappeard when we needed to pay

-When he arrived out of the loo he could not work the till

-He used a calculated 4 times, each time he checked the value changed, he started to panic

-My mom offered to just pay R150 and forget about the calculations

-He agrees and then doesnt have change for R200

-By this time I am already out at the car, it was all to much to bare

-As my mom gets to the car we speed off with a wheel spin and then find ourselves behind a slow truck the whole way home

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Helen and I got bored......

HIGHLIGHT to view

Its been 5 months at University and I cannot explain to the extend that I have grown, learned and experienced this year. But now the holiday is upon us and the vibe is in the air. (Well, almost, i still have fucking 'costume theory' to write on the 31st! At 7pm! Could the drama dep be anymore cruel??!) But as I begin to pack up my room I find myself reflecting on my new life at Stellenbosch University.

Arriving here was exciting but also nerve racking. We were ruled by the HK members for 2 weeks and I felt that instead of coming to the freedom of varsity I was trapped under the system of 'Jool', a traditional, government school-ish initiation process that lasts 14 nights. Anyway I managed to come out of it alive. Having only to battle with tonsillitis and conjunctivitis - not the greatest 'itis' combo, and extreme lack of sleep.

After Jool came lectures. I remember being overly excited by all the knowledge we were given! All these interesting relevant facts contrasted hugely to the shitty stuff we were forced to learn at school. I GOT INTO THE SWING OF THINGS (oops pressed caps lock) slowly, I was able to get all my tasks done but found it hard to get rid of nerves and angst. I suppose it was the new environment and all my drama year being Afrikaans, but it took me about 2 months to finally relax and ENJOY University.

I now can honestly say that Uni is FANTASTIC. Especially Stellenbosch in general. Being away from home has forced me to grow the eff up! I now take responsibility for everything that I do. If I eat out of a bowl i must wash the bowl and put it back on the shelf. All that.

I have met some amazing people, I have learned to like Afrikaans people, I have found the perfect running route and I am able to drive to crazy Cape Town. I no longer feel as though I need to fit in. People here are whoever they want to be and there are no queen bees or intimidating men, really. If I see a jock who thinks he is 'all that' i simply ignore them. It works well.

And these exams have been absolutely wonderful. I have had so much time to study, read, watch movies, party and MAKE A BLOG! I am very excited to going home, a break is always needed but I will be keen to get back here. Get back to my new life and back to creating my future! :)

Man, Angus is awesome.

I mean, seriously. I've been bugging him to come out for ages, but I guess he's been too busy being totally awesome and having wild sex with lots of women. Finally, however, he must've had an opening in his schedule, because he decided to grace me with his presence.

He arrived fashionably late, and proceeded to charm everyone in sight. We all danced the night away, until Helen disappeared into a dark corner with some guy named Greg. I began to hit on a guy, but after I jokingly asked if he was gay, he replied, "Yes." I danced with him awkwardly for a while, but then decided that my time was better spent drinking diluted vodka. True story.

After I realised that I'd locked myself out of my room, we called the USBD to pick us up. I raced to Steers but, alas, they were closed. That made me sad.

The drug-sniffing dogs in the back of the security van were going crazy, so Angus decided to make friends with the guard in order to distract him, since he is so brilliant and always on the ball. *swoon* I was then driven to McDonald's (what a gentleman) where we watched some guys chug tomato sauce upside-down, which was also totally awesome. Helen and Greg met us there, and we made our way back to MetaNowhere (Angus's unmatched driving and parking skills left me in awe).

As we walked to the front door of the rez, we were attacked by ninjas with water balloons from Helm's Deep. Angus's superhuman reflexes caused him to emerge unscathed, but the experience left me wet. Also, I got water on me.

We raced past the security lady, who was so taken aback by this handsome example of manliness, that she kept on yelling, "Who is he?!" Angus kept on going, since he must be used to these kinds of comments.

He used his unmatched upper-body strength to transport an extra mattress to my room, even though I kept on insisting that it wasn't necessary, since mine was big enough for two. Him, being the gentlemen that he is made a comment about not taking advantage of my inebriated state, and then went to bed AND TOTALLY DIDN'T STEAL MY LAPTOP, NOR DID HE POST ANYTHING ON MY BLOG.

FACEBOOK

Why do we all have Facebook?

Lets think about this for a second. How many of us would give up our facebook life for R1000? I know I wouldn't. Face

book is so dam important. Its virtual reality at its best! In this virtual world we get to see photos and read comments that have been posted

by our MANY friends. But really what we are se

eing are idealized facebook beings. How many people are willing to be tagged in a photo of themselves in bad lighting when they have just woken up and they have a very large (and very real) pimple on their face? Not many. Even men are worried. I remember taking photos of my brother for a fb album and out of 20 he chose one to go on and then accused me of being a bad photographer. Its this 'image' everyone is after. This ideal image of themselves that they are excited about publishing to the world. And the STATUS'S, well there could be a whole new blogpost about them.

Ok so why do we do it? Is it because we can find out abo

ut what our friends are up to? Is it because we cannot be bothered to give them a call and ask how they are doing? Or is it simply because there is an active part in

our brain that says "GO ON FB- YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED!".. and when you log on only to realize that you have 1 notification and it is to a group invite to something like 'save the whales' you su

ddenly feel immensely disappointed, especially as you have just changed your status to something you thought was witty and nobody has 'Liked' it...yet. Bummer. Oh well give me +- 5 minutes and I'll refresh the page... Am I speaking from experience? You might wonder. Well yes I will admit. Facebook is an element in my life. One I would regard as rather big. Considering I am on it everyday. But I wonder, I wonder if facebook were to pull the plug, what would happen then?

Well my answer is: We'd probably all log onto mixt more often.

Anyway for the fun of it here are a few idealized images of some of my friends and one of me, Im being safe so as i dont get into trouble...

PS: These are all wonderful pictures and were perfect profile pictures at the time!!

A night on the town

Stellenbosch used to be a scary place to go out at night. Kira and I used to get all glamed up but when we got out we were shit scared and every night came to the conclusion that people here are LAME. And hooking up with guys is impossible. Back then times were hard. Like we had just arrived and everything seemed new and foreign. The clubs were too packed, the men were too jock and our res room beds usually called our name at about 11pm. Yes. I repeat. Sad.

The thing is we didn't want to just go out to hook up with guys but we wanted wanting, we wanted to be met, you know!

All of that now just seems like a distant memory... Nights out now are filled with 'mystical' events. Helen has introduced us to DUB and drum and bass music at this club called The Mystic Boer. The club is unlike the rest. There is a proper vibe. People are NORMAL. Ok they're weird and thats why I like it there. Normal to me is weird these days...

So a typical night now entails predrinking at res and then hopping from club to club but ALWAYS ending up at Mystics and the occasional (not regular!....) trip to mcdonalds.

Tonight Helen and I are going to set out on our journey at about 10.30pm we have a bottle of four cousins (which is 'cooldrink' to her) to keep hydrated. I am wearing all of Helen's clothes as usual and she is of course wearing mine. Our great plan of becoming famous for a good cause by spreading peace stickers during our night out was an 'almost fail' last Friday. We managed to give out about 20 stickers but then got carried away.. (to the sound of the music! duh). So tonight we may make more

of an effort to 'take over the world

1 peace sticker at a time'...but we'll see.

Die Andwoord! Afrikaans talent at its best! I am not being sarcastic!

INSPIRATIONS

TOP 10 inspirations!


1) Jaci and Gys de Villiers! For telling me I can act.

2) Sophia Baskin for being such a good actress herself (as well as all of our plays we would do for one another back in the day!)

3) Dad, he is such an eccentric he makes me feel sane! And gives me the courage to just FUCKING go crazy

4) Mom for being my best friend and for ALWAYS being there for me

5) Sham for giving me so much knowledge and acceptance

6) Caspar for being my first acting couch

7) The Grahamstown festival (it just gets me so excited!)

8) All the first year drama kids... you guys are fantastic

9) British films, e.g. The boat that rocked, my summer of love, Notting hill, etc. they are the BEST

10) Helen Mirren

The first post!

YAY-ness! How exciting, i have just spent a good couple of minutes sorting this blog thing out! How exciting and a great time waister!

So ya lets begin shall we! Ok so today I had an acting exam. Anel, Luzaan and myself performed our little scene which had a beginning, middle and end! It was titled The Unknown and we have been working on it for a while now. Anyway I am a fortune teller and I end up telling Luzaan that she is going to win the prize of her life and that Anel is adopted. String the two together and these complete strangers become mother and daughter! Total genius Id say! HA! Well we shall see what our marks were, but with that aside I had a lot of fun working with the two of them and I will miss our practices in Anel's flat!

It is almost the end of exam time here at Stellenbosch and I cannot tell you how opgewonde (excited!) i am to go home. Yes I know i will get a little bored after a while, but I really just want a change of scenery. This holiday (when i get bored) i am going to have to learn my lines for the play that i am in called Silent Night. I am a white sangoma herbalist. Ya. Oh and i believe that I AM THE GREEEATEST HEALER IN THE WORLD. Its going to be fun. And of course challenging. I seem always to land up with these larger than life characters (i almost wanna put FML at the end of that but i am resisting.) One day i might land up the role of the mom or 'normal suzy'. Cant wait.

Anyway time for me to find some inspiring pictures and quotes for this blog to look more aesthetically pleasing!
Tata!