I want to be like Gandhi.

I bet your all wondering what the heck the title of this post means. I assure you that it will make complete sense as you keep reading. My mom sent me a quote the other day that was said by Gandhi when he had come over to South Africa for a while. It goes like this, "I was born in India but made in South Africa... it was after I went to South Africa that I became what I am now." - Mahatma Gandhi. This simple little quote made my day as I had been previously down in the dumps on feeling so overwhelmed. I have to make sure that I continue being patient as I am here in South Africa. Change is not going to happen over night. I like that Gandhi allowed for himself to be immersed into South Africa and to come out of this country being a new man. I only have such high hopes that I when I leave South Africa I will be much different then when I first arrived. 

As for today I have completed my first week of classes in South Africa. Only five more weeks to go. It is so strange thinking that I will be done with classes in five weeks. I am still in semester mode and keep telling myself, oh I have all semester for that final paper. That is when I have to wake myself up and realize that I have midterms in two weeks and actually need to start taking school seriously. For some reason being over in South Africa messes with your brain. You have zero motivation to do school work. Today was torture for me in classes. I could not stay awake for art to save my life. We were in a tiny, hot room of only eight people. Which means that if you sleep its super obvious. I could not keep my eyes open to save my life. We had four hours of this class too. The worst thing was that we could hear people enjoying going down the giant slip and slide that was out on the main lawn. All I kept thinking about was why do I have to be in class???

Went to the mall again, of course! I swear I think I may go to the mall at least three times a week while I am here. It like the best source of entertainment. Needless to say I went to Mr. Price again and ended up buying some more clothes. It is becoming addictive. The best part of tonight was that there was a random little outing to the local restaurant near campus called the Keg and Hedgehog. A couple of us girls decided to go out for dinner tonight to just get off campus. Immediately when we get there everyone is staring at us like were FREAKS! Let me tell you us Americans really stand out. I found out tonight that because were so loud that is what gives it away. As soon as we got to the restaurant I spotted the waiter in which I noticed how beautiful he was. At that moment I realized I wanted to marry a South African. (Just don't let my mom know I said that. She is convinced that I will fall in love and marry a South African and never come home.) Well we got to know him fairly well and we even got his name although I am still unsure how to say it or even be able to write it. Something that was rather funny was a table of older men who asked if we were apart of AE which is African Enterprise which is the name of our campus. We of course said yes and then the guys looked at each other and was like yes I just won 10 rand. So we had people betting on us. The thing that is interesting about South Africa is time is much different then the states. For example someone could say that they will pick you up at 10am but that could mean anywhere from 12pm to 10pm. They are very carefree and lenient, whereas Americans are uptight and if you not five minutes early your already late. So as for dinner it took a total of three hours for us to get our all our food. We of course enjoyed it! After dinner I came and hung out my roomie and just got to talk. I look forward to more talks and getting to know her even more. Tomorrow is our first Saturday excursion and I CANNOT wait! We are going to Birds of Prey and I have heard a lot about it from previous semesters. I will be sure to share all about it tomorrow. 

P.S. For those you could not comment on my blog I realized that I needed to change my profile setting so I did. You all should now be able to post a comment! :)