Things are crazy in this newsroom... and we're only putting out an 8 pager tomorrow. Grahamstown is getting busy, streets blocked off for food stalls, everyone is super excited. Why oh why did I always go home at this time in the years before?

Apparently on Friday town is going to explode. They 'import' 300 more policemen to G-town for this time.

I have tickets for Pieter-Dirk Uys's new show, 'The End is Naai'.

Grahamstown is tingling today.

Photos to come.

Ok, so here goes - first day of Cue. Editorial meeting at 9, designers come in at noon, and we're all systems go.

I'm crapping myself. 3 am, here we come.

Walking to the printing unit to put myself in charge of a good R5000’s worth of book print run, I walked past the botany department where I used to have my linguistics 2 lectures in second year in 2002

digression #1: I’ve always been lucky with numbers when it came to the year and my education level coinciding – I was in std 6 from 1996 and so on, matric in 2000, and my university education always ran parallel too, first year in 2001, second year in 2002, et al…

I remember the venue was pretty small, and I was just getting to know the people in my class who were taking ling for the enjoyment of it, not for the easy (phonetics, easy, right!) first year credit.

digression #2: Rhodes has this habit of always putting you in a lecture venue that in no way links to your chosen field – as a young BA student I attended the majority of my lectures in venues such as Zoology Major, Chemistry Minor, and – in this scenario – Botany Minor. Never had one in Arts Major, strange.

So as I walked past, I noticed this little wooden ‘blockade’ effort that forced people to walk into an alleyway in single file, and prevented motor bikes and car from shortcutting from the road above (there was one at the top of the alley too). While a small annoyance, it’s an obstacle I had to pass, and queue to pass, countless times over the weeks of 2002, and often enough in my other years.

It’s gone.

The top blockade remains, but one of the wooden poles of the bottom blockade has disappeared – thus, you can now walk straight through the two poles that used to demarcate a no-walk area. Their very use was to establish this zone. Now you can walk straight through.

This freaks me out, and I think I know why.

Space has always been quite an abstract concept in my view. That’s the space around you, hon, not the big black stuff (whole ‘nother post altogether). I am afraid of heights because I feel like some higher being must be very pissed off that we’ve had the audacity to build upwards. Petronas Towers, Beacon Isle Hotel, it doesn’t matter how high or low, we’re just not supposed to be there. Consequently, the idea of elevators also leaves me cold. We’re tempting fate, we are.

Which is why I still walk around the invisible blockade. I know it sounds crazy, and I don’t believe in superstition (although I don’t walk under ladders). It’s akin to the idea of bungee-jumping. I feel you have NO right to complain when the rope snaps after you’ve flung your puny mushy unprotected body off a bridge. You’re just not supposed to be there!

Dashboard Confessional have their new song, Vindicated, on the Spiderman 2 soundtrack! It is sooo sweet! And Taking Back Sunday, and Yellowcard, and The Ataris...

*back of hand to forehead, waves other hand to face* I think I need a glass of water...

Man, sometimes I wished I lived in the US.

from RollingStone.com:

...CDs of rare and live recordings by JET, SUM 41, OUR LADY PEACE and the TRAGICALLY HIP will be included with cases of Labatt Blue Beer beginning at the end of the month...

Beer and rare OLP? Damn.

Me eyes are sore. I have memory loss. Again. On the walk home... (why did I insist on that? Did I walk home from the rat?) I remember I had stopped in on Design labs... rushed here this morning to make sure I didn't post something horrific. I remember struggling to type, and holding my keys through my fingers as I walked in case I was attacked. I'd have been useless if I was.

Maybe I'm just searching for the happy medium in drunkenness - I'm not happy if I'm too sober, and blank mornings like this freak me out. So I keep drinking to balance it out.

Oh, and the tie photo has been taken. It's not as nefarious as I'd hoped. I'm so soft.

So soft, in fact, that I'm off back to bed.

Germany is now out of the Euro. I vill NOT support ze Dutch (ischn't that vierd?) simply because the dude in the orange glasses annoys me. His skill annoys me too. I'm thinking I'll switch over to Portugal.
It's saddening how my hopes have been dashed. I mean, I actually watched their games! I had a team! Sat next to my very sad German friend who couldn't look at the screen after the second Czech goal, and rubbed her back as she whimpered "Ollie Kahn... Ollie Kahn..."

I call upon you to help me implement a change.
At uni, I have developed some friendships over the years - some close, some 'what's his name again?'. There is a very special kind of friendship which I've found at Rhodes: the 'hey you!' relationship.

Walking on campus, see person who: dated a chick in my res for a week/was in my first year Philosophy tutorial/is Lucifer's perve-boy/was in a Journ group with me in 2002/and so on...
As such individuals walk past, it is customary to smile as they are within passing range, and say "Hey!".
This is routinely followed by a reply, in the same vein but perhaps with slight variation upon the initial greeting.
"Hey you!"

Now here's the sticking point. As far as I'm concerned, this guy or gal is pretty close to qualifying as an unknown to me. If not for the fact that we both (usually) recognise each other's faces from somewhere, this interaction wouldn't take place.

So: don't ask me how I am.

Firstly, I don't want to really get into it, so I'll probably say that I'm fine. We're not tight like that, you and me, okay 'hey person'? Thus... answer already known.
Secondly, the sheer physics of the 'hey you' passing don't allow for this extension of communication. By the time you've said it, and I've heard and registered it, you'll be equally next to me. People don't stop walking for these rendezvous - if we did it would take an hour to get to your next lecture. So, I have to answer you; you're already past me, I have to turn my neck to ask how you are (because not asking when you've asked is just rude) and by the time you've replied I'm out of earshot.

If you too encounter 'hey people' (remember, if someone is a 'hey person' to you, you are one to them too), do me a favour and don't ask how they are. If this is currently a habit of yours, drop it now. And if they ask you, don't reply.
C'mon, if we all work as a team I know it can become a reality!

Unless of course it's just a Rhodes phenomenon, in which case I've ranted on for a whole blog about it...

I'm laughing so hard right now!

While searching for music on resnet, I happened across a folder of MP3s called 'Napovers', presumably a recommendation of songs to play to put the anonymous girl (with last night's make up still on) in the mood for some morning loving in your university-issue single bed.

Songs include:
Bob Carlisle - Butterfly Kisses
John Mayer - Your Body is a Wonderland
Mariah Carey - Hero
Boyz II Men - I'll Make Love to You
Savage Garden - I Knew I Loved You
Shawn Mullins - Lullaby
Lonestar - Amazed

Now if only there was a song that could ascertain whether her name is Kristy, Tracey, Brandy or Mindy...

Right now, I'm pretty much waiting. Waiting for the proofreaders to get back to me on any changes for the book. Waiting for girls in res to finish their exams so I at least have a reason to go out and get cut. Waiting for fest to start, and Cue to get rolling.

The Rat and Friars were really packed last night - I was a bit too sober for this kind of a squeeze, and the shennanigans that come with it.

Jenny introduced me to the "Jenny-Fahker" - a shot of gold tequila followed by a shot of OJ.

Reminds me of drinking tequila and OJ mix straight from the plastic bottle, sitting in Ian's boot outside of Brollocks.

Watched two utterly hammered brunettes fall over, once as we came in, once as we went into the Mouse and Budgie for a table, and once in front of us as we left to go dancing in Friar Tucks.

Went halvies on a box of cigarettes, which sits barely touched in my bag now.

Danced to early Michael Jackson in high boots. Feet are consequently sore.

On the way home, avoided the rain by running into Mr Burger. This was a good time for a strawberry milkshake.

Got into bed at 3, read two sentences of a People article on Brad and Jen.

Got up at 1pm.

I've been reading The Onion for a while now - I want the job of the guy who invents hard-news stories for arbitrary events.

Mugger Can't Believe Crap Victim Has On MP3 Player BOSTON—Following the successful mugging of a jogger in Franklin Park, petty criminal Derek Mesker announced Monday that he cannot believe the shit he's found on his victim's Philips 20GB MP3 player. "3 Doors Down? Maroon 5!" Mesker said, scrolling through the songs. "The new Counting Crows?! Man, I'm glad I pistol-whipped that motherfuck." Mesker added that the first thing he did was toss the device's "gay-ass" teal neoprene case.

Coincidentally, this is also the line for general content in Grahamstown's local rag "Grocott's Mail", but of course, the residents consider it real news. All hilarity is thus lost.

I officially fall under the category of 'walking dead' today. After enjoying watching soccer for the first time last night (it helps when you have a german girl giving you info about each player) I decided to have a relatively early night.

My neighbour had other ideas.
While not on par with the TLN of last year, my neighbour was loud last night. Let's just say she had a guy over.

And over.

And over...

Now while I'm super happy for anyone catching ac - I'm nice like that - she probably got more sleep than I did. Or, at least, more satified sleep.

*yawn*

This book project has me all topsy-turvy. My sleeping patterns have gone for a loop (you've got to love that whole gripping onto the pepper spray as you exit the design labs at 4.15am) - the world seems a very strange place when your sleep hours run into single figures and your daytime is filled with res admin and trying oh so hard to get InDesign to just... just... CO-OPERATE.

The Lucifer is leaving for her 21st birthday gift European tour. London France Belgium London. I am ever so jealous. Ian is contemplating Europe too, and is definitely off to Scotland sometime in the near future. Me, well, I'm in Grahamstown until the 11th of July. A very empty Grahamstown.
So while the first-year Journ students piddle off to Cape Town and Jo'burg for their internships at Glamour and GQ, and while Luce eats French pastries, and while Ian does everything I want to do before I get there (bitterly jealous - does it show?), it feels like I will be laying out this goddamn book in this Eastern Cape limbo until the end of time. I'm thinking a trip to to Port Alfred is in order. Or one to PE for that tattoo perhaps... maybe a little pain will pinch me out of this Albany nightmare.

I know I CHOSE to stay for Fest. And for the run-up, to get all manner of J4 projects 'out of the way' (read: slightly more conceptualised, nothing really done). I guess I just want home.

C'mon, you know I have to gloat.

What can I say... it's either a case of CHEATERS (intentional tampering) or LOSERS (mechanical failure due to sub-standard cars), and in both cases I'm super happy so hey - congrats to Rubens and Jensen.

That's all ;)