Finger lickin' good

There's a funny thing that goes on here on campus every Thursday. The main campus right outside the math building gets totally taken over by a crazy party in the afternoon, and people go totally ape-$*@%. Usually there is some sort of sponsorship by a big company, they set up DJ's, entertainment, give away free stuff, etc. Last week it was Nivea (and the Nivea dance troupe), today it is KFC.


The main steps get totally overrun. It is a total trip to see all these kids yelling and screaming every time the announcer yells into the mike, "Does anyone out there love KFC!?!" As I write this, I can hear the crowd lovin' it (sorry McDonalds). They even had a contest to see who could eat the special "colonel burger", fries, and coke that they're currently pushing.


Who says consumerism is dead?

A sad day

Well, today is a sad day. After having my friend Amanda here for the first two and a half months of my stay, she has finally left the country to seek her fortune as a postdoc at the prestigious Cambridge University. Good for her, but it was really nice having her here, and she will be missed. Of course, she's coming back here for a conference (read: to celebrate American Thanksgiving with me) within a month and a half, so I'll see her soon. I don't envy her, though - I hate traveling, and she'll have to do a lot of it in the future. Luckily, she's an excellent traveler, as evidenced by her near constant world jaunts while in grad school in NYC...

Those cheeky monkeys

This just in - yard monkeys are lying bastards...

The Yogic Mind

Is it true? Has he gone off the deep end? What's the deal with all this vegetarian food?!?

I've just returned from my first yoga experience. Man! It totally rocked! The local Hari Krishna monastery hosts a bi-weekly power yoga class. I have always (well, after knowing some hippie-dippie friends in New York - you know who you are, Kristen ;) wanted to try yoga, and so when my new potential friend in the math department mentioned that she does yoga at her gym, but that there is a local one that she's been meaning to try, and maybe we could all go together... well, I decided to make a run-on sentence. Also, to try out the yoga. And dude, it was totally physically strenuous, but fun! Lots of stretchies, but lots of balancing actions that made your legs want to buckle. I'm not really sure how to describe it, but it was cool. By far the coolest part was at the end, though, when we lay down on our backs, the teacher turned out the lights, and tried to hypnotize us into relaxing. Man, it worked, I was so chilled out. And afterwards, they provided a delish vegetarian meal to enhance my soul, complete with the Hari Krishna monk who came out to sit with us and chat, discussing everything from black holes (that was from me) to Intelligent Design (which I also pontificated about... hmmm, maybe I dominated the whole conversation...). Anyway, the monk was really cool, and his comment about how he's been chased out of every local mall and banned by the security guards was quite entertaining. All-in-all, the experience was a trip, and very pleasurable - I'll definitely check out yoga again. One comment, though - upon finding out that I was to start yoga this evening, a friend forwarded me this article - and it was dead on. There were definitely a significant number of hot (bendy) chicks, as well as a sleazy dude who immediately started hitting on them and making them uncomfortable (no, not me... I was too busy sweating to make anyone uncomfortable).

No such thing as free parking

A few thoughts on some minor oddities (read: differences from America) in Cape Town.

Parking: You have to pay for parking everywhere. It's not much, usually a couple of rand (maybe 50 cents US) but in every parking lot, along the side of every road, everywhere you go, there are dudes there who collect money from you to watch your car. I think it's more of a way to find employment for people than anything else, 'cause anytime I ask someone about it, they always give that as the biggest reason for it. The really odd thing is that I think this started here as an unofficial process - people would hang out in parking lots and watch to make sure your car is not stolen, and then ask for a few rand compensation. Eventually, the bigger malls, establishments, etc. stepped in and made it official, gave them neon jackets to identify them as employed by the mall, and you were required to get a ticket from these dudes. But still, a lot of places just have unofficial guys hanging out watching your car whom you're expected to tip. It's not a bad idea in principle, either, especially with the crime level what it is (although frankly, I still haven't seen much crime since I've been here), but I can't figure out how these guys got the general public to trust them to watch their cars! It does seem to work quite well, though. And makes parking in parking lots a little easier, 'cause these guys are there to point you to empty spaces.

Quitters never win

So first of all, before I go off on another rant (I won't, I swear), let me inform you of the the talk that I gave here at UCT last week. I've finally managed to get it up on the web. There is a link to both the pdf of my slides and a podcast of me giving the talk. For some reason, I have been unable to get the podcast to download properly in Firefox, but it works in Internet Explorer, I don't know why. Anyway, if you want to hear about the latest paper that me, Jeff, and his student Andy are coming out with, feel free to look there. If you don't understand it, you'll probably be in good company with the rest of the people in the cosmology group here, who are not string theorists. We're so misunderstood...

So, on to the rant. No, not really. But after the bender I went on last weekend, I decided to quit smoking (which I had started up again here, having been somewhat stressed about beginning in a new country, etc.). Very noble cause. But it is really unnecessarily stressful! I've quit smoking millions of times, and have never had the difficulties I've gotten here. First of all, it's just been plain stressful. All week, I've been on edge, have had trouble concentrating, and have had trouble sleeping and been extra tired. But then I've also been feeling kind of sick, with a cough and sore throat, and I'm starting to imagine that maybe it has something to do with quitting smoking. Both of these symptoms only come up when I'm lying down to go to sleep. Last night I was up half the night coughing up gross phlegm, but then as soon as I got up this morning, not a cough to be found. Maybe I'm totally talking out of my ass, but I think it's all the gunk that built up in my lungs which is now deciding it doesn't want to be there. I suppose that's a good thing. In fact, I'm quite grateful. I just would like a chance to get to sleep...

Speaking of the drink-fest of last Friday (which I wrote about), I have just returned from having the second official beer o'clock of the UCT Gravity and Cosmology Group - quite the success! And this time it didn't turn into a night of excess (in case you are wondering, it's only 7:30pm - the group outing having begun at the hour of 4:30... look, we don't work ourselves to death in Cape Town...). Even more of a success. And all thanks to me - I had to work my ass off to get these people together to go out for a drink, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and I think it is good for the group to relax together, and good for me to have a chance to meet people and make friends here. So raise your glass, and begin the weekend...

Crazy weekend

Wow, this was some weekend. I had a great time (mostly) and took a ton of pictures, so here goes...

Friday, I began what will hopefully become a weekly occurrence with my research group, some of whom are shown to the left (Therese, Emma, and Kishore) - beer o'clock. There is an awesome little faculty pub type of thing on campus that serves good beer and has a nice atmosphere - it has a little outside garden and a fireplace (though I think the time for fireplaces has come and gone - spring has sprung). Anyway, it was very fun, and successful. After most people had gone home, six of us (Therese, Kishore, Emma, Chris, Viv, and myself) decided to head back to Kishore and Emma's place to continue the party. I brought Jack (Daniels). We had a great time, and I got to know all four of them much better, which was great. Needless to say, however, after staying up 'til 6-freaking-am, I had the worst hangover I've had in years. After waking up at 2pm and dragging my sorry ass home, I went back to sleep until 11pm, got up for a couple of hours, and then went back to sleep until 8 in the morning. So to summarize: Friday night was a blast, Saturday was a complete write-off.

That being said, Sunday was amazing. Having slept for a good 24 hours, Jeff and Amanda called me up to see if I wanted to go to Hout Bay beach with them. I was keen. An hour later, we, Jeff's mom, and sweet little Mishka were on this beautiful beach throwing the miniature American football around and sniffing all the other dogs butts (well, not all of us were throwing the football).

Above: Mishka.

Right: Arrival at the beach - how's that for a kick-ass beach view?

Below: Jeff and Mishka - notice the bizzaro castle in the background.




























After cavorting around for a while, we piled back into the car and drove over to `Fish on the Rocks,' the best fish and chips place in South Africa. To be honest, they were phenomenal fish and chips. They then bought a whole fresh fish from the fresh fish market, we drove home through the unbelievable mountain/coast views and had a killer fish-braai. Hey man, THIS is the South Africa I want to remember! A good time was most definitely had by all, especially Mishka, who was TOTALLY exhausted by all the physical and emotional activities of the day...