Time Flies When You're Having Fun

I can't believe another 4 months have passed and I have to say "see you later" to another place I have grown to love and cherish. I admit...I am not very good at letting go and saying good-byes. I suck at it very bad, actually. I almost get unemotional so I can avoid bawling like a baby. And then it hits me minutes, hours, or days later when I am alone and then it is too late to do anything about it. This time around, I want to tell people how I feel upfront and in the moment rather than waiting until later.

I can point out who I will miss most.
And that, to me, is a success. It means that I have grown close to people who were completely new strangers months ago, but now have become some of my closest friends. I am relieved that those who belong in that pile also live where I have homes: the south and the northeast.

------ (warning: sap level will be on high) -------

It's unbelievable.
It hurts.
Really, REALLY hurts.
I've been repressing it pretty well.
But....
It's starting to hit me all of a sudden that in a matter of a few days, I will be taken away from here.
And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
I even tried to check if I could extend my flight for a few days.
But I know my parents would flip out and it would also probably cost me more than my entire ticket.
As much as a few days in Cape Town are golden and irreplaceable, it won't be worth it. I'll just be teasing myself and allowing myself to get even more attached.
It's sad to be parting from friends and my co-workers. But it is even sadder that I don't know the next time I will be back.
I was completely certain I would return for the 2010 World Cup, but now I have changed my mind. I fast forwarded in my mind to how it will be, and I pictured a changed Cape Town. One with ginormous waves of tourists, commercialized everything, a facade. And I know how I will react. It will taint my image of the Cape Town I love. So instead of having two years to wait, I will wait a few more than that. And it will be okay because I would rather have the Cape Town without all the tourists, although I technically fall into that category.

Crazy.
Crazy crazy crazy.
I am not going to sleep for the next 72 hours. I planned ahead and saw everything I wanted to see from Cape Town and around, but I still need as much time as possible these last few days.

I'm not ready to go back to the real world. Not just yet....

hey cape town.
hey friends.
a piece of my heart belongs to you.

Love Today

Everything about today has been splendid.
I woke up and expected to see the white fog that has been covering the mountains for the past week. Instead, I woke up to a patch of sunlight (yay!) and a glimpse of Table Mountain. It has never looked so good. The only good part about having glass doors as windows is to look out and see something. anything. Throughout the day, the fog has dissipated into thin air and now I see the Cape Town that I grew to love. The mountains towering over the city is so very comforting.

Work went really well too. Knowing the fact that these are the last few days I'll be working, I have been extra motivated and focused. I also had a chance to talk to some of my co-workers on a more intimate and beyond-business level. One co-worker, Nomonde, has been one of my strongest inspirations here. She has a heart of gold. She invited me to her house for dinner with her husband tomorrow. I'm really excited to see where she lives since I've never been to that part of town before. I am truly going to miss our long conversations in the kitchen/lunch room... Another co-worker, Leigh-Ann, is about ready to pop! She is expecting a baby boy next month but I don't think she'll make it... She always comes over to me because she knows I want to feel it kick. We're throwing her a surprise baby shower this Friday. Which reminds me, I need to go buy her + her baby presents!

Tomorrow is going to be a bit jam packed. Starting with a busy day at work, driving home with Nomonde for dinner, and then going straight to the airport to pick up Agnes. (!!!)
But that is tomorrow and I shouldn't be worrying about that.

So back to today. And my love for today.
I had a conviction to make a video collage of my experience here. I've been documenting a few events, such as concerts and sporting events, but I need more footage of EVERYDAY LIFE and my friends. I love pictures and all, but there is nothing more real and true-to-life than live..action. I started to take some videos on the way home, and I learned the hard way, but I shouldn't be driving a manual in traffic at the same time.

Yep, so I'm back to driving a manual. A white Chico to be exact. It's fun (well, not the part with no power steering. But at least I'm getting some exercise in my non-existent work out plan). I drive barefoot, always on low gas, with my iPod in both ears, and a crack of my window down. I hardly miss the automatic Hyundai that Courtney took along her road trip. Driving manual is so much fun - the pick up is good and it saves gas. I doubt I can return back to automatic driving.

We're planning on going to Pancho's for dinner tonight. Mainly for Doug's going away occasion. Sigh, another friend to say see you later to. But he's supposed to move to Georgia, so I'm sure I'll see him around again.

Anywho, I am such a workaholic..but I need to finish the catalog so that is calling my name now.

lataah

Oh, the Irony

Remember that dream I wrote about in my last post?
Well, I was talking to my brother the other day and being the forgetful guy he is, he always asks me the date I am coming back home. To be 100% sure that it was May 31st, I dug through my Gmail inbox and found the e-ticket, expecting it to say: Departure - May 30th, Arrival - May 31st. To my disbelief, my departure is at 1:40 pm on May 29th. To describe how I felt, it felt like someone punched me really hard in the stomach (even though I have no idea how that would feel like).

I have been hanging out with Lauren a lot more, recently. We go out to drink and dance, throw after-parties aka eating our hearts out and talking about everyone's silliness, then attempt to be productive in the day time. Well, in the midst of all these activities we have been bonding over our love of S. Africa and the dark despair of having to leave. But her and I are both the type to try to stay optimistic. The last time we spoke about it was at Lola's Cafe on Long Street, talking over her 4-cheese macaroni and my two-choice Indian curries. She reminds me a lot of my Lyon roommate, Claire, because I usually bring up how much I will miss something. Their response is usually to forget about it and to just focus on the now and make the most of it. It's good to have people like that in your life. They kind of just bring everything to light and slap some sense into you. I haven't brought it up since. Not out loud, anyways. But after looking at my calendar, and going forward a few pages in my weekly planner, realizing that 3 pages later I will be at home, well. I can't help but think about it again. It's like an annoying tick that won't go away.

Well, on the brighter side of things, my friend that I met in Lyon is coming to visit for a week!! I am super excited about it because it will give me more reason to go out and explore the city.

Plan is to go out tonight, so time to wrap up some unfinished work. Cheers.

Sea of Sadness

Interns are dropping like flies.
Saying "see you later" to 8 friends is exhausting. Especially if you don't know the next time you will see them. Optimistically, I will cross paths with everyone I have made special ties with but realistically, I won't see most of them ever again. In addition to sending people off to their worlds back home, it struck me that it is finally May. Scratch finally. What I meant to say was ...already May. I had a dream a few days ago while sleeping at a backpackers in Noordhoek. The date in my dream was April 30. One of my friends, Doug, approached me saying that I had to leave for the airport right away. I had to pack my bags on the spot, say my goodbyes, and bawl like a baby on the way to the airport. In my head (in the dream) I thought my ticket was actually April 30, when in real life it is May 30. So it was definitely plausible in the dream that I had misread the ticket by a month. When I woke up, I had a deep heavy feeling in my chest because I thought I had to go home that day. That's when it hit me. My conviction. I need to keep making the most of what is here. If anything, I need to make more of it. Time is too short. Days go by slow, but months go by fast. I sit here, my third month into my internship, and it breaks my heart to think that I will have to leave in 3 weeks. If I had it my way, I would stay until fall semester. But Boston and summer school is calling my name, so I gotta run with that. I guess the brighter side of all this sadness is that most of the closest friends that I made here are from school or from the south. Reunions will definitely be possible.

.....

Yet, I am still swimming in my sea of sadness.

Thought Bubbles

• April is coming to an end and it scares me that May will go by just as fast
• Only 10% of me misses home. Does that make me insensitive and immune to homesick feelings?
• I had one of the best weekends ever. (Such a redundant comment on this blog...)
• What did I do? dance at TigerTiger, S. Africa Cheese Festival on a farm, rugby game, Goldfish concert at The Assembly, dance at Zula for 4 hours straight, good food in good company, church, and then attempted to catch up on sleep.
  
• This week consists of 3 "holiday" days...aka I only need to go in to work tomorrow and Wednesday!
  
• Catalog deadline is coming up!
  
• I love the bookstore. I can spend hours alone just browsing through cookbooks, travel guides, photography books, & etc.
• Music is my soul. Love it.
• Autumn in Cape Town. In April! Who would've thought.
  
• SO many friends are leaving this week.... It breaks my heart :(
  
• I really, really hope Agnes can come visit me from Lyon. That would be....amazing.
  
• Raspberry soda is so yummy.

Cold in Cape Town

Weird. I don't like it being cold in Cape Town. It's really throwing me off and making me start to believe I am back in Boston. And by that time actually comes around, Boston will be hot and summery. So yeah, it's weird how seasons work oppositely here. The rainy season is supposed to hit pretty soon, but I can count on one hand how many experiences with rain I have had.

Coincidentally or not, a lot of my friends have been asking me lately how I can compare my experience in France with the one I have here. It's a question I get baffled with every time. I feel as if my words to describe Lyon and the amazing experience I had will not do it justice. It was sincerely the greatest time of my life. I owe a lot of it to the people I was with - living with 20 Americans from different schools and getting to attend an American-based French university together were opportunities for me to broaden my horizons and tolerate all sorts of people. Somehow without my knowing, my mind was opened. I just let it break free out of the bubble I have been stuck in for the past however many years and I just let it see the world. I learned a lot. A lot about the culture, the people, myself. Probably the most growth I have experienced in such a short span of time. And maybe that is why I have had the same high expectations for myself here. Not to say that I have not been growing and learning. I definitely have. But my experience in Cape Town is set up a lot differently from the one in Lyon. Although I live with many interns my age from the states and other countries around the world, we all have different schedules, different jobs, different goals, different personalities. I love getting to meet everyone and hear about what brought them to Cape Town and what they are doing here, but I still sense the lack of community/family-ness that I had in Lyon. That is the one big thing I miss about it. But I mean, apart from my living and social situation, I love Cape Town. It's a city I can see myself in later on in life. I admit though, it is straining to be immersed in some of the worst epidemics and challenges of the world. Life isn't made to be easy here. You really have to work hard for what you want.

I am planning on doing a personal township tour this weekend. I feel myself getting too caught up in the westernized life. I would really like to start breaking out more into the true South African ways and culture. I still have a month and a half left, and I really hope to see more of it before I leave.

Back on my feet again .. (literally)

The freak accident that was aforementioned in the last entry led to a series of battles for me - both physically and mentally. The situation started off being really funny to me, but then it just started to get uncomfortable not being able to walk normally, run outside, hike, dance, or do any other normal thing that I would do. And two days after, I got a throat infection and had to go into hermit/gimp status for a week. During that week, I battled with myself because I felt like I was finally going through my breaking point homesick period. It was necessary though. I thought a lot of my family and friends back at home, thought a lot about my time here and what I would still like to do and accomplish, and other thoughts about life. So now that I am pretty much all better, things have been starting to turn around. Maybe it's the fact that I moved upstairs into a single, or maybe it's the fact that we turned our manual car in and got an automatic, but all these little things have been starting to have a happy influence on me. And ultimately in the end, I just have to say that life is good. Always. Despite all the bumps in the road, there are signs that show how beautiful life can be.

So I know this post is long overdue since my last one, but like I said...I was in hermit mode and abandoned all my usual duties, including blogging. To recap, here a few of the things I've done since the Garden Route.

-Robben Island tour (very interesting & powerful to see Nelson Mandela's cell in person)
-Skydiving (one of the most incredible things I've ever done in my life)
-Taste of Cape Town (amazing venue with Cape Town's most highly acclaimed restaurants. loved it)
-Llandundo Beach (to chill - beautiful beach)
-Velvet Thursdays (dance dance dance the night away)
-Franschhoek (quaint, French vineyard city - did the Huguenot Chocolate Experience & bought lots of chocolate)
-Fattened up a bit more with sushi and such (mmm-mm good)
-Quality time with friends (sleepover, movies, guitar hero, cooking, eating, chatting, etc.)
-Caught up on some reading (re-read The Alchemist and part of A Long Walk to Freedom)

I am really happy with the way my friendships are developing here. Although there are apparent cliques and circles, I try not to fall into just one. All of the interns here are so interesting. They are all here for different reasons and for different time frames, and from all over the world. From Canada to the states to Sweden. It's amazing being able to connect with these people from all over. And especially being able to develop relationships with my work family. I call them family now because that's what they feel like. We share problems and advice, we concern and care for each other, we share food, we help each other. I am going to miss them most. They are teaching me something from South African culture that I have not obtained from anyone else. Their love for life is so strong that you can't help but get caught up in it. And not to mention that work is going well too. I missed my last deadline for the product catalog, but it was honestly an unreasonable amount of time admitted by both my supervisor and I. To take individual photos of 300+ products, editing them, pricing them, and putting them into a brand new catalog format... it was overwhelming for me. But after a meeting last week, we extended to two more weeks. I just want to get the website design and the catalog done before I leave. That is essentially my deadline. And in between, I still visit our program sites in the townships. Driving through the townships never gets old for me. It puts life into perspective for me.

Life in Cape Town.
It's still surreal sometimes.
Something surprises me everyday about this place.
Something beautiful. Something shocking. Something real.