At home with the family for Christmas and I’m very happy to chill with all of them and to take a much-needed break from my Masters dissertation and the course I have to retake next semester.

Went to a friends traditional wedding proceedings this last Saturday and it was so bittersweet. In about five or so months, she will be saying ‘ I do’ and she is going to be the first one from the inner circle to take the plunge and it will be interesting to see how that is going to turn out and the kinds of changes that it will bring up in our circle. But I won’t be here to watch and partake in it and thats sad but hey, change is part of life and I have to learn to take it in my stride. I wonder who is next, tihiiiii Its been odd to come back home and reconnect with a couple of my friends and see that with others there isn’t any more we can talk about. I previously agonized about these kinds of changes but I guess in getting older, I have gotten wiser and it has hit me that there is nothing wrong in realizing that just because we were friends once, does not mean we have to continue ad infinitum.

I won’t be able to blog anymore in the next week before the coming year and so this is it. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.  I wonder what the new year will bring in my personal and professional life, also to this blog. I remember finding out that I am leaving for Jo’burg to study and starting  this blog in order to keep up with my pals and those I had left at home. Maybe it will be more about the personal things I like and all the interests I have and all the other things I would like to do…I would like it to reflect the personal growth and the direction that my life is taking going forward. I was also thinking that I should continue with those blogging groups I had joined and meet people and get feedback and all that.  I have been reading these blogs (the 20something newly weds) and they keep asking for feedback and what have you and it feels so cute. So, me? What should I write about?

God bless and prosper all that read this:-)

im obsessed with reading this sign on the steps to class everyday as i go up the stairs to second floor

i dont like these birds that come to the tables at lunch, they smell and im obsessed that their feathers have diseases of sort

when cooking following a recipe, i like to lay out all the ingredients on the table BEFORE i cook…it feels like im on telly

i cant shop without a shopping list, but then again i like to list many things down, i feel really free that way

i like to iron my towel on a cool iron, it feels so nice against my skin

my new evil and very time consuming compulsion is the need to read blogs from newly weds…..i am damned is what!

il read this later when i have time

still wanting to do my pottery classes but the servers and thing are to die for

a sad truth, we keep learning lessons in life, some are easy and fun but the greater majority are tough and gut wrenching and at times, threaten our very core and indeed we feel like we would die…

just looking through some of the links and here are a couple:

Who does this? a blog of a kids fashion sense? seriously?

who wears these clothes? on the real tip

a novel idea….

for the foodies out there-

I like this guy a lot

It seems at 21 I knew it all or I came very close to knowing a lot of it. Was skimming through some of the stuff I wrote from back then and other than these quotes below that meant something to me then and now, If im honest, I really learnt a lot from my younger self….tihiii. ENJOY

Love does not dominate, it cultivates – Goethe

 Many waters cannot quench love: many rivers cannot wash it away.

 If you are far from the one you love, you love the one who is near.

 The one who loves least controls the relationship.

 I’d rather be with God in the dark than alone in the light – Corrie Ten Boom

We have to change our patterns of reacting to experiences for our problems do not lie in what we experience, but in the attitude we have towards it – Akong Rimpoche

 The pain of waiting is nothing compared to that of regret.

It is impossible for us to break laws; we only break ourselves upon them – Cecil B. De Mille

 God will not do by miracle what I am to do by obedience.

 The greatness of a man’s power is in the measure of his surrender – William Booth

Vision: the ability to turn a picture of the future into passion                                                                                                          

You can’t trust your affections, but you can rely on love and character

 It is possible to have a fulfilled life even if there are many unfulfilled desires - Dietrich Bonhoeffer                                                                              

 Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you -        Aldous Huxley                                                                

 Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God- and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need?   C. J. Mahaney 

Decision, we make them. Then they turn around and make us. And sometimes they break us.

 God doesn’t play dice -   Albert Einstein                                                         

 We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are – Anais Nin

 If you don’t care to be crucified emotionally in a dating relationship, leave the saving and changing of others to the Lord – Josh Harris

I was reading Ps.83:14-15 and i was just wondering is there a place for such prayers in this day and age? Like when can i set out to pray as follows

Like the fire that burns down the forest,

or the flames that consume the mountainsides,

chase them with your gale winds,

and terrify  them with your windstorm.

If im pissed off at a relative? a boss? bad service? unfortunate leadership? WHEN?

Superfreakonomics is out! Who wants to buy it for me,eh? Do i see hands…?

 i am as above…..

today i said all that i have been thinking silently about for almost a week now. today i let you know what i feel, but what, if anything, did it achieve?

next time

losing patience

not for too long

losing myself

i jacked this from her who i learnt from her and i put it here coz thats what i often feel about you AND the other you.

I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.
William Blake

Resentment is weak and lowers your self-esteem.
Barbara Sher

Resentment or grudges do no harm to the person against whom you hold these feelings but every day and every night of your life, they are eating at you.
Norman Vincent Peale

You gave him an opportunity of showing greatness of character and he did not seize it. He will never forgive you for that.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I really wish I could take a year off next year and do all these quaint things you know!

• Teach English in a foreign country, Spain although I hear they are racist
• Work as a bar tender in London or New York, I wonder if this is glamourous
• Work in a winery in France
• Trek through parts of Europe
• Go to Malindi or Jinja this year for sure
• Do the drive between Joburg and Cape Town with friends

So my sister and I took to the road a couple of weeks back and it has been quite an experience. I AM SO DETERMINED to do it right this time round, it has been nerve wracking too but It will be done…..

BBA is such a yawn…I wonder why I looked forward to it! Can’t wait for it to start

Reading this now

Sad about Caster… and how its all being publicized and how petty the Australians are being about it all

Listened to a sad show yesterday about whether to read your childs diary or not?

Met a lady today morning who I think was making racist comments about the bus driver and I just wondered….then the bus came! YEY

I dont want to name-and-shame the blog I have been reading the  last couple of weeks BUT…its about this 25 year old chick who has been married for the past year and how she and her pals are all getting married! so its hubby this, shower the other, friend this married this day and the other one married the other one…yuck,yuck,yuck..which made me wonder! has she no single friends who arent married and what must they feel like? (il just choke myself now/ il just jump off the ledge/ il puke on the marital bliss overdose)…eek! but what do my pals and i all have in common that makes those around us just want to choke themselves or us,whichever is painless??

BIG BROTHER STARTS ON SUNDAY…hallo no life,tra la la la:-D

Two in one day? Mhhhh….

Lady in red

I’ve never seen you looking so lovely as you did tonight
I’ve never seen you shine so bright
I’ve never seen so many men ask you if you wanted to dance
They’re looking for a little romance, given half a chance
I have never seen that dress you’re wearing
Or the highlights in your head that catch your eyes I have been blind
The lady in red is dancing with me cheek to cheek
There’s nobody here, it’s just you and me, It’s where I wanna be
But I hardly know this beauty by my side
I’ll never for get, the way you look tonight

I’ve never seen you looking so gorgeous as you did tonight
I’ve never seen you shine so bright you were amazing
I’ve never seen so many people want to be there by your side
And when you turned to me and smiled, It took my breath away
I have never had such a feeling
Such a feeling of complete and utter love, as I do tonight

The way you look tonight
I never will forget, the way you look tonight
The lady in red
The lady in red
The lady in red
My lady in red (I love you.)

YOU Know how we do!

A friend of mine came to see me about two months back and these are some of the pics I have from then that don’t have people in them:-)

I have had one of those weeks where the days seem to run faster than the 24 hours allocated to do them in…I have been getting to bed with just enough energy to just turn out the light and drop dead.

Excited about: my friend coming over for the next week and all the mischief we shall get up to, getting on well, coming clean with a friend, this  and this too! All the tools I need to feed my blogger-reading addiction.

Not excited about: marking 75 scripts THIS weekend (before the mentioned friends visit), my honesty that led to a conflict, the saids friends departure and the job hunting process

I guess, its a slow Friday and I just wanted to write something:-)

Oh no but i got something after that that i had wanted to write about all week…we went to this church on Sunday, all glitz and big screens and loud guitars and moving Worship and it confirmed to me once again why I’m such an Anglican…If I settle here I’m looking for a church like the one at home, very traditional but with myriad opportunities for me to serve at…speaking of which I was hearing about the thing that I want to be involved in: I want to work with little girls or guys, about 11 to 13 and maybe get involved with them for a couple of years and just help them navigate through live, love and faith and that thing…thats of course before my friends and I all start having babies and then we can do that for them

I was watching some show last night on BBC Knowledge, Saira Khan the Apprentice runner up chick was taking us guys round Pakistan her home country though she was born in the UK. Clearly she is a muslim woman who has some rights as she grew up in a foreign country and what. The whole thing therefore had a gender slant and two really touching things just jumped out at me. There was this assylum ( I don’t like the mental image this word conjures in my mind…) that housed women in varying degrees of mental breakdown and at first it begins with a few of them and then towards the end, there are like 2010 of them and I just wondered, is this peculiar to Pakistan or all over the world are there so many women breaking down? Is it the fact that they are women, the war waging around, or the religion? Then there were a couple of guys who dress up as women and they say how they feel like women deep down, ok they are so pretty but yaani, if they sleep with men are they straight or gay or whats the deal? yaani they were pretty chicks

one bad day…a little set back and then a burst of fun and enjoyment and then back to square one and the vicious cycle continues as such… I found out that a friend of mine is going back home this past weekend and for some reason I will really miss her though I’m sure we shall continue to talk just as often…I pray!

I do hearby promise that if I get married I will never call my husband hubby! How gross it is