PhD comics

I love PhD comics. The strip above is so like me its embassing.

Busi's party

Back in Grahamstown

So I am back in Grahamstown from my stint in Cape Town.

In my absence, my Church had a prayer vigil, Christians@Rhodes had a mission, my brother went on camp, my flat got broken into, my car battery died and my former digsmates went to the Greek ball (as you can see in the pic above!)

Thankfully, it seems nothing was actually taken from my flat - the burglers were probably disturbed by the armed response people. Hooray.

Being in CT was fun, but its good to be back and get into the swing of things again!

Gratitude

I'm eating a haddock and broccoli woolies microwave meal for dinner. Yummy.

I was thinking yesterday/this morning how I have lots of things to be grateful for. I am grateful to be at Rhodes, to have learned fourier transforms via flipping-and-shifting methods. I am grateful for two great supervisors, tons of resources at my disposal, a great lab of people, a great staff in the department. I an really grateful that I have had the chance to travel and see other universities, and go to a few conferences. I'm grateful for having gone through an undergrad programme which developed lots of practical skills I use now. I'm grateful for people who believe in me and encourage me.

I often get discouraged academically, but the truth of the matter is that the Lord had put me is such a favoured place, in terms of the background I have, and the place I'm in now. And I am very grateful to him. I commit it all to Him.

Great quote

I just found a great quote:

"How easy it would have been in South Africa for the natural feelings of resentment at white domination to have been turned into feelings of hatred and a desire for revenge against the white community. Here, where every day in every aspect of life, every non-white comes up against the ubiquitous sign, "Europeans Only," and the equally ubiquitous policeman to enforce it - here it could well be expected that a racialism equal to that of their oppressors would flourish to counter the white arrogance towards blacks. That it has not done so is no accident. It is because, deliberately and advisedly, African leadership for the past 50 years, with the inspiration of the African National Congress which I had the honour to lead for the last decade or so until it was banned, had set itself steadfastly against racial vain-gloriousness."
- Albert Luthuli

A week in Cape Town

I've been in Cape Town for a week now. So far, I:

• Have given 5 lectures. Its hard.
• Went to the inaugural lecture of Prof Ian Scott, entitled "Equity, Merit and Development: Critical Tensions in Higher Education in South Africa and Abroad." Very interesting - "equity related educational strategies are a central component of development."
• Have hung out with Taryn, Emma, Linda, Roshni.
  
• Went to Busisiwe's 7th birthday party! There was a jumping castle! Woot.
• Went to a lunch time lecture organised by the UCT YCL (young communist league), where the SA minister of Intelligence, Ronnie Kasrils, spoke about the conflict in Palestein. Very interesting.
• Went to Taryn's cell group - great bunch of girls. We did a Bible study on a passage from Romans.

It has been quite an eventful week!

A picture is worth a thousand words

Choosing a picture to represent a preson is a significant thing. A few months ago there was some scandal in the news involving Bill Cosby, and the article in the Daily Dispatch that covered it included the most horrible picture of him - he looked... smarmy. He looked like the kind of person who could have done what he was being accused of. And I thought: "Now, is that fair?" They must have tons of happy Bill Cosby pictures on file, but they chose the one that made him look like a creep." Because they wanted people to think "hey, we thought this oke was a nice guy, but actually, maybe he is creepy..." I suppose. So the picture we choose to represent someone says alot about how we view them and how we want others to view them, even if our choice may not be deliberate.

So anyway, I saw these two pictures of the new Rhodes VC in the "this Week at Rhodes." These pictures are definately saying something! Something good.

UCT: Pro's and cons

Pros:

• great coffee
• great food - so much choice!
• its beautiful
• the smell of the sea

Cons:

• expensive coffee!!!
• no drosty lawns
• you can't really walk safely through middle to upper campus at night
  

A post

Minoshni poined out that it has been a while since I have blogged. I have been saving up all my blogging thoughts for next week when I will be in Cape Town, probably with a fair amount of free time and not all that much access to work. So I will be free to spend my life blogging.

Nonetheless, let me post here to break the blogging silence before I go.

Thought for today is a quote from the book Dune:
"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration."

When I actually allow myself to realise it, I see that I am afraid of alot of things. And fear often motivates what I do. Unacceptable! Perfect love (God's perfect love) drives out all fear, and humility (or correct identity) drives out fear too. The two are strongly linked I guess :)

To security!

The cool kids

Oliver and I, the cool kids at the back of the bus. On the way back from the mayoral dinner at SAIP. On the other side, at the back, were Richard (taking the photo) and Sean.

I'm such a girl

I was walking down High Street today feeling tired and bleh and I bumped into a guy I know. Who said "How are you? You are looking radiant..."
:)
I felt instantly cheerful. I'm such a girl!

I can do it too!

I can do the salt trick too!

In the background, Nicole. With hot chocolate and a marshmellow. Nicole and Romona came over for dinner - they are great.

SAIP

Last week I was at the SAIP (South African Institute of Physics) conference at UWC. I heard some good talks, some completely-over-my-head talks and gave a talk myself. Posters for preference in the future!

I also met a great bunch of people - some UKZN guys (Sean and Angela and Michel (sp?) and some undergrads too) and some UJ people, a couple of old Rhodians (Ingle Gledhill and David Roux) and saw the Hermanus people and HartRAO people.

"Science is sometimes a very human interpretation of nature." Harm Moraal

The picture at the top is Richard Grant's party trick, from the Banquet on the last evening!

The power of the arts

"When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake"
- Plato

Its the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown at the moment. Today I went to see a play called Prodigal, written and directed by a couple of people I know. I just went to support really, but I was actually so... impressed is the wrong word. It was really moving, the story was good, the acting was good. It made me cry and it made me think and feel. I reccommend it.

Kim

This post in about Kim McAlpine. Kim is my travel partner at the moment - we are in Cape Town to see our supervisor, Dr Athol Kemball. Kim is the intrepid driver who whizzes us around Cape Town in our rental Citi Golf and endures my apalling navigation skills with good cheer. We are staying in her sister Susan's house. The picture above is Kim with her sister's cat, Possm. Possm is somewhat psychotic. He is a wild panther trapped in the body of a stripey kitten. Which is no good for the couches :)

Anyway, Kim is doing a Physics/Astronomy MSc. You can see her Physics page here. She is very with it when it comes to things Physics/Mathsy and she has even approx. mastered AIPS, quite a feat. I admire how she is determined to figure things out properly, to understand things properly.

What else? Kim has an adorable dog named Max, who she dotes on. She is a stirling pet owner, which says alot about a person I think. Kim is also into all sorts of cool things like scuba-diving. She is adventurous like that. She has a cute house which she invests hours into making pretty. In fact, I think Kim is into beautiful things. From her house to her clothes, to enduring with eye makeup.

Kim is the social coordinator of the Physics department, and is (to use a terribly cheesy phrase, which is nonetheless true) "loved by all." She only had to complain of the heat and our lab got two airconditioners! :) She is very friendly and hospitable.

She is great to travel with because she makes up for me being shy :) And she is fun. And interesting. And is brave enough to drive in Cape Town.

C.S. Lewis quotes

Some fantastic C.S. Lewis quotes:

"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."

"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable."

"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."

"Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities."

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

"I gave in, and admitted that God was God."

For Oliver & Nathan:
"The real Oxford is a close corporation of jolly, untidy, lazy, good-for-nothing humorous old men, who have been electing their own successors ever since the world began and who intend to go on with it. They'll squeeze under the Revolution or leap over it when the time comes, don't you worry."

"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way.""

"You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."

And the grand finale:
"You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me."
:)

(from this page)

Minoshni

Over the weekend I was chatting to someone (Donnae!), and Minoshni's name came up as one of my digs mates. And Donnae asked "Who is Minoshni??" Presumably she was intrigued by references to Minz on this very blog.

So this post is about Minoshni, or Minz (or Doo, if you are Mutsa). You can see her on the right in the picture on the top, its a pic of the grad garden party.

Minoshni is very cool. She likes her feet, she had fuzzy pink gloves but now they are gone :(
She is an uber-cool DJ. And a journalist. She may become an investigative journalist and go undercover as a janitor. She looks after a beautiful work web page and a blog. Check out her blog for info on India, cricket, and the life of Minoshni.

She runs the yearly RMR Cuppa for CANSA, she runs the Ad team for Cue, she does the RMR ABSA Top 40. Evidence of the fact that she is multi-talented! And a brilliant leader, I alway love listening to Minoshni's Leadership Tips.

She may or may not start an exciting training business which we came up with in the kitchen, some years ago. She is learning french. She is very grown up with all sorts of things like life insurance. She likes princess movies, like me.

I'd better get back to work, so I'll wrap off with "Minoshni is cool." :)

Graduation 2006

This year John and I graduated together, which was rather nice. This is the best photo from my brother's camera (the rest are not that great), especially for Minoshni :)

The Breakfast Table of The Lord

I've been doing some blog surfing recently, having found Dilly's blog, and Carla's and Danie's and, heck, Natalie's and Lindsey's and Donnae's and so on and so on. Which has made me feel that my blog is decidedly unspiritual. Which is fine, Fridges and Kepler are important too. There is no sacred/secular divide!! :)
Anyway, last night in Bible School I got thinking about... the breakfast table of the Lord. So this is my semi-spiritual post on... The Breakfast Table of The Lord.

"You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies" Psalm 23:5
I have this image of The Table of The Lord in my head. Its really long, there are lots of people at it, they're having a great time and celebrating. Kindof like Christmas dinner with the family. Except with goblets and stuff. I don't know why, but tables with kings have to be partially medieval. Sounds great. Like the Audio Adrenalin song Big House: "A big big table, with lots and lots of food" :) (Also, a big big yard were we can play football.)
Anyway, then I got thinking, what about the breakfast table of the Lord? As opposed to the party/dinner tbale of the Lord. The atmosphere at the breakfast table of the Lord must be completely different. A breakfast table is alot smaller, for one. More intimate really, at breakfast its mostly just family. And its me as I am at the breakfast table. Still kindof groggy from sleep. Maybe still in my PJ's, in my glasses, hair a mess. Probably haven't brushed my teeth yet. But thats fine, because its breakfast. And the breakfast table is very chilled out. You don't have to even talk really, if you don't want to. Breakfast is a good time for comfortable silences. Or if you do want to chet, you can chat about your day to come, your yesterday. Just livin' life stuff.

So as for me, I want a place at the dinner table of the Lord, definately. I want to celebrate and laugh and praise and rejoice. But I also want my all bran and tea at the breakfast table of the Lord, in my blue bunny pyjamas.

A Fridge

I bought a fridge today. Scary stuff, very Grown-Up. But the Lord is good!
"The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he adds no trouble to it." Proverbs 10:22

Now I just need to make a plan to get it delivered to my flat. Any ideas anyone? Apparently you should transport it upright. Its a Defy fridge, which I am really happy about because they have 2 year warantees and apparantly they are very good about fixing things if the need arises. Hooray.
I looked for a picture of it to put here for y'all to see (google images!). I battled to find the right one by gooling "defy fridge," so I just tried "defy." And then I didn't find any pictures of fridges! Certainly not in the first rew pages of results anyway. And aweful lot of "Defy Gravity" though :) Its funny how we figure out these "laws" about the world and then we are excited about the thought of breaking them.