Milja's Term 1 Report

Milja's first term ended today. I went after school to get her report card as she is in Johannesburg still.

A- Advanced Algebra

A- Art & Design

A Biology

A- British Literature

A Business Studies

B Model United Nations

A Western Civilisation (History)

("B" 83% to 86%, "A-" 90% to 92%, "A" 93% to 96%)

Her Grade point average was 3.86 with a maximum of 4.

Some of the comments she got...

"Milja is a complete pleasure to have in class. Her hard work ethic and positive attitude are much appreciated..." (Brit Lit)

"As Science student of the month of August, Milja has ranked at the top of her class the entire term..." (Biology)

Way to go!! :D

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Thursday evening

I spent another evening at Sean's yesterday. He picked me up when he came past the house after school. We went to Mainstream to top up my phone and for Harrison and Matias to buy some bubblegum for today - they have civvies day (wear own clothes) and it's also gumball day or something...

We watched some tv then went downstairs where we played cards for a while. I beat Sean 10-6 in games of Crazy Eight which is very similar to Uno. After a while we went out to Mainstream again to rent Fifa 2005 (of course). We came back and had food that Justice had served up. Chicken burgers mmmmmm mm. We played some more cards (me winning again) then headed upstairs to play Fifa. Sean and I were pretty evenly matched, I narrowly beat him on aggregate (after swapping teams in between games to make it even) 4-3. Then I played Harrison and beat him 6-0 :)

Not a hugely eventful evening, but still fun. It was good to hang out with just one other person for a change, rather than 5 or 6 that normally gather when we do something. Sean leaves later for J'burg so I will see Jamie B in the evening, then maybe surfing with him tomorrow. I hope it's sunny like it is again today. I think it's been beautiful now all this week, the first time since we've been here.

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Hout Bay at dusk

Taken from Sean's house .

Hout Bay sunset. Hosted on Zooomr

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To the Pool

It is a delicious day here. Minna and India invited me outside to the pool. India and I had a quick splash, only up to my thighs, but it was very refreshing. The water is up to 20 deg C, and will continue to climb to a more comfortable temperature.

More photos at Zooomr

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Sean's house

I had a fun evening with Sean last night. I went to his house at 7pm, via the shops, and with some foil for his hubbly. The plan was to watch the Champions League games that were on, but after checking which channels and what time they were being played, we realised that we had 1hr 30mins to waste before they started.

The live-in chef, Justice, had prepared us some food, very tasty as usual, and we watched some highlights while Sean had some hubbly. We left to Primi in Hout Bay to fill up the time before the games, which were incidentally all at the same time on 3 different channels.

At Primi we got a table facing the TV :) and had a few beers. Sean has this thing for banana on pizza and he persuaded me to agree to get a banana margerita to take away which we could eat while watching the footy.

We went back to his house at about 8:30pm and we decided to watch the Inter v Bayern game, even though I mentioned that it could be a boring as they are both solid teams, and that the Liverpool v Galatasary game would be an interesting one. After about 8 minutes we swapped to check the other scores and low and behold, Liverpool had scored already. We watched it for a bit and caught the second goal (14mins) also.

Harrison was home and during the game we were talking about phones. Their mum's advertising company, of which she is Managing Director, has just recently had Virgin Mobile as a client and the family are getting new phones because of it. While flicking through the phone magazine they had, I showed Harrison which phone I liked the look of and instantly he phoned his mum to ask if she could get me it! I'm not getting my hopes up as it's probably not allowed. We'll see.

The games were good fun to watch and flick through. Liverpool nearly lost their 3 goal lead, but held on for 3-2. Bayern were too strong for Inter, who, with 2 men sent off, didn't have the best of nights. Barcelona were lucky with a 90 minute equaliser away at Werder Bremen who had done well to shut the champions out all game.

Flicking through the channels after the footy, Sean found a hypnotist program which was quite funny. One 'sketch' was the hypnotist fake punching a boxer and the boxer being able to feel every punch and falling over even though they were about a metre apart. Another was a guy in a busy street being a movie director, trying to get his cowboys and indians to act properly for his film. Also, there was a woman who sat with 2 strangers (who she thought were her relatives) in a cafe which was funny enough, but on top of that, she fell asleep every 10 seconds as she talked to them. The other people's reactions were hilarious.

I left at just after 11pm, came home and went to bed. I'll go again tonight, this time with Jamie B, who has also been left behind by the crew who are in J'burg.

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New feeds

Yesterday I added my photo feed to the site (top right, orange button). This feed will also take e-mail subscriptions so any new photos I upload will be delivered straight to your inbox.

Dan's photo feed at Zooomr

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India singing

India has learnt a few songs from creche. This is I'm guessing her favourite as she sings it quite often :)

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(Too much of an) Early start

The alarm went off at 4:15 this morning to give time for Milja to get ready before leaving to the school. The bus was leaving at 5:30. The next thing I knew Milja was saying we had to leave in 2 minutes as we had both fallen back to sleep and it was now nearly 4:45, the time we were going to leave.

Milja rushed round, I made her some coffee and we were out of the door at about 4:55. It was still dark (unsurprisingly) but the dogs were still desperate for food and to get outside for their morning poop.

Only 3 cars passed us on the way, all on the way out of Hout Bay. We arrived at school at about 5:15 so we had plenty of time. Only Roxi was there before us but Charlotte followed us in through the school gate. Soon the whole group (about 10 people in total) had shown up , 3 of which (Junior, Jamie and Baker) had been at Junior's all night and had not slept. Jamie was quite moody :) The group left a bit late as they were waiting for Junior's brother to bring him his sit jacket which he had left at home, but in the end they couldn't wait any longer and left without it.

The brighter sky was starting to rise from the East as I was driving home. Driving through Constantia Nek, the highest point before dropping down again into Hout Bay, I could see an low orange band of sky behind the silhouette of mountains that line the East side of False Bay, with Constantia sprawled out flat in the foreground.

By the time I got home at 6am, it was much lighter and the birds were singing. I went straight back to bed and had to fight the increasing amount of light coming through the window, but I was out until 9:40 when Minna woke me up to go to work.

Milja is having fun in J'burg so far. They have been to a museum about apartheid and now hey are out shopping and having lunch as a group. They will later go to the houses where they are staying. Milja is supposed to be on her own, but she is hoping that she can either switch with someone, or that she can join someone else. The conference starts tomorrow morning.

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Me and Sean against the world

Milja is off tomorrow morning (5:30am drop-off at school, guess who's taking her!) to Johannesburg on a school trip to visit another American International school, AISJ. Together, they are creating JOMUN, a UN conference for the students to take part in. Milja is representing South Korea in the Environmental conference.

Milja's class is made up of all her friends, (Jamie, Junior, Charlotte, Roxi etc) apart from Sean, who took the class last year. It will only be him around until Sunday afternoon (even he leaves on Friday to visit his Dad in J'burg) when everyone arrives back. Looks like a quiet weekend for me.

Today is Milja's last day this term. She texted me earlier to tell me that she got A- in both Art and Business although she's a bit confused/annoyed that they're not As (brilliant marks throughout the term). Next week will be a break for M&M, just as my online Java course starts :) Great.

I am out to the trampoline in a jiffy. It's sunny and warm today although a bit breezy.

I put some photos up today so have a look-see if you have time - Zooomr (photo RSS feed).

3 months yesterday until Christmas :D

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Androcles and the Lion

Matias' play, Androcles and the Lion, was last Thursday and Friday evenings. The whole family went to see it on opening night and we all enjoyed it. Matias was Caeser's right-hand-man and did very well. The cast was made up of Grades 4-6.

The play was held in the little theatre at AISCT, apart from the last scene which was in a small courtyard. There, the audience watched from upstairs through open windows.

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Long weekend part 2

Friday

• Stay in watching Frasier and get to sleep early
  

Saturday

• To Sean's around lunch time
• Hang with Sean and Jamie
  
• QPR win :D
  
• Quick shower at home
  
• Leave at 10ish to Claremont
• Go to Cubana restaurant/bar
• Back to Sean's around 12ish minus Junior via petrol station for food
  
• Stay over at Sean's
  
• (Harrison and his friend stay up all night playing Sims 2)
  

Sunday

• Wake up
• Have fresh muffins and coffee
• Play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on PS2
• Try to arrange the day
• Go to Cavendish Mall via the house
  
• Eat lunch at Primi
• Go to Jamie's
• Hang at Jamie's with Jamie, Sean, Junior, Jamie B, Ryana and Charlotte
• Trip to petrol station for chicken burgers and pies
  
• Stay over at Jamie's
  

Monday

• Wake up
• Have an awesome fry-up
• Chill for a bit (too cold for surfing)
  
• Go to school to play tennis (cos the sun came out)
  
• To Constantia Village for a tiny lunch with Sean
• Come home to work
• Write in the blog...
  

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Long weekend

.full of work.

all uni stuff

all south korea research for ModelUnitedNations!!!!

maths, biology revision and all sorts, just for one day next week! ... but thats good, only one more school day for me in this term, then a nice break :)

((((...... should do those thank you cards during holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) )))))

feeling better today, not so much of a sore throat. me and matias have monday off so am quite pleased about that one.

we borrowed a Frasier series from Sean (as we wait for our Will and Grace from Amazon!) and have been watching that tonight while the others are helping out with the play at the at school. (although they should have finished ages ago so i dont know whats keeping them.)

Dont know if we will go out tonight, pretty exhausted from this week. i think pizza and frasier and SLEEP sounds like a good idea :)

Have a good weekend everyone

Milja

ps.sorry about the crazy typing/sentences, very tired.

Mobile blog

I spent a bit of today creating a mobile site from where it is now possible to read the latest blog posts from parawars on your mobile phone/PDA.

Point your mobile browsers to...

http://winksite.com/parawars/m

[Hint: Try out the Opera Mini browser (free download) for your phone. It is very competent, probably much more so than your phone's default browser.]

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Outside

It's a lovely AMAZING day today. Probably the hottest we've had here so far. I was fed up sitting inside so I've brought Matias' mac out to the trampoline. Megan and Siru are out here too. Megan is playing with her ball under the trampoline and Siru is doing nothing (as usual). There is one wafer thin whispy cloud t hat I can see, otherwise the sky is bright blue. The air is mega warm and a bit sticky. It has been hot before here but when the air is hot too (rather than just the sun), the temperature soars. Megan is panting madly running around.

The guys will be back in a bit from school after they drop Sean and Harrison home. Matias has the first of two nights of the play he's in tonight. Milja and I are going to watch tonight and Heikki and India will watch it tomorrow (Minna is doing the face painting so will be there both nights).

I'm going to get a few bounces in before the crowds return home.

Thanks for telling me

QPR have another new manager. Ian Holloway was booted out in the summer to be replaced with former reserve manager Gary Waddock. But at the moment QPR sit on the bottom of the Championship and they have changed again, with John Gregory (188 apps for QPR between 1981 and 1985, previous manager at Aston Villa) coming in to help breathe some life into the team (everyone hopes).

I only just found out. I should really be up to date with my team, especially with such a big change to the club.

In other football news, Milja and I were round Sean's last night to watch South African Premier League game between locals Santos and Jomo Cosmos. The game was quite boring (Harrison even changed the channel mid-game cos he was so bored) but in the end Santos won 1-0. They have now risen to joint top - leaping over Cosmos in the process - after 5 games. Jamie will join us there again tonight to watch more. The joys of having a nearby friend with digital tv :D

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On time

We drive past the airport just before turning into UWC. It's not a hugely busy airport, but I have a look out for planes when we go past. Last Wednesday I spotted a plane on its approach miles out as we were still driving towards the airport. It came right overhead as we drove past the end of the runway.

Then yesterday, as if by magic we were driving to work and I spotted the same plane coming in to land. It's not that impressive as the flight is scheduled every week from Port Elizabeth, but I liked how punctual we seemed to be :)

More photos at Zooomr

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Happy Birthday Janne

Hyvää Syntymäpäivä duud.

You're getting old :)

More insane clouds

Sorry that this is another post about clouds, but these ones were quite special. It was a beautiful day last Friday and we were driving towards the school coming from M&H's work. Heikki suddenly noticed this cloud formation in his mirrors. It was like thin mist gently falling down the side of the mountain, but unusually, the whole side of the mountain was hidden. Quite remarkable. This is the back-side of Table Mountain, viewed from a South-Easterly point.

Falling Clouds. Hosted on Zooomr

As usual the photo does not do the moment justice.

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Milja's new fashion sense

An update on what clothes Milja is going for these days since moving to Africa...

:D hehe. She was actually dressed up for the school's "Blast from the Past" day last week.

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Where we are and what we do

I have created a map on Flagr showing all the places we have been here in South Africa. Hopefully it will give people a rough idea of the place we live nowadays...

My South Africa

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Tuesday 19th

Milja has been ill again today, this time with a fever and sore throat. She stayed at home, even though she would have preferred to go to school. Instead she has had to revise for two tests she has tomorrow.

I did the school run this morning, picking up Sean and Harrison on the way. Minna also stayed at home as she went to the school at 12 for Matias' dress rehearsal for a play he's in on show this week (she is doing face paints), and because she has a broken tooth that needs seeing to. Heikki left early for work.

About mid-morning the scaffolding arrived for the roof extension/re-modeling. It is not at all like the scaffolding in England/Finland, more like part of a tropical rainforest...

Yesterday and Heikki were late home from work as they were busy picking up a trampoline. It was promised if Matias got good grades recently, which he did (both he and Milja are still doing very well). Milja and I spent a few hours earlier assembling it together and having a quick go. From inside the box it looked quite small but it is actually quite a large beast and takes up a considerable part of the garden. And, as it is black, it is lovely and warm to lie on when it is sunny. We had fun playing with Siru, making her jump for food and seeing her reaction when she landed on a bouncy surface :) She coped really well in fact.

UPDATE: The poles are for the roof, not for scaffolding. My mistake :)

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Studying Online

I recieved a letter towards the end of last week telling me that I had been accepted onto the online Beginning Programming with Java course at Exeter University. The course commences October 2nd and runs for 15 weeks until January (200 hours of work).

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Milja Polaroid

A close-up, drawn-on polaroid photo of and by Milja.

"Lines" Hosted on Zooomr

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Update

Just a quickie... I have things to do today (esp Perl). I'm at home as I have a bit of a headache.

The game on Friday was real fun. I played for the teachers/parents. The game ended 2-1 to us. I was up front and brought on 10 minutes in (we swapped around a lot) and scored in the first half, after hitting the post early on. In the second half I was up front again but hardly got any service (even though I was running around non stop). It was good exercise and I think everyone enjoyed it.

Homecoming was in the evening. It was just like a disco I suppose, so the younger guys were enjoying themselves, whereas we were all kinda bored and looking forward to leaving. Eventually we did leave and we headed to Peddlars (again) where we sta and talked until we left for home. Some of the guys were planning on going out to Cape Town, but in the end apparently went to a resataurant in Hout Bay (we were dropping people home at this point and would have gone out to meet them if we'd have known they were just down the road when we got back home).

On Saturday, the family met up with Tapio, a Finn who is a representative for YLE (Finnish BBC) here in South Africa, and his Norwegian wife and her relative. We went to Muizenberg and drove along Boyes Drive, a road along the side of a mountain to try and spot whales. There were a few there, closer than last time we came. We then headed to a restaurant nearby.

The rest of the day we spent at Jamie's, where he had a few people round.

Yesterday was mainly spent at home not doing much (ie: watching Father Ted). Milja and I took India to the market to ride the hourses there, and we got chips from Hout Bay beach for lunch. The best chips around.

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Key to the problem

I did a small but very annoying thing this morning. As is custom nowadays, I was helping Milja get ready for school by collecting her various books and stuff needed for the day and putting stuff in her bag. Through routine, I put in the keys to Minna's car.

About 30mins after the guys had left, Minna came in asking for the keys. I suddenly remembered in horror that they were with Milja.

I was planning on staying at home today. Tonight is the homecoming dance/event thing, and all I have so far is black trousers and a white shirt (I am looking for a brown jumper or tie to match Milja's black dress with brown accesories). The second reason I was not going in with Minna and Heikki is that the football game I am playing in today starts at 3pm, so this would mean leaving from the university at about 2pm, cutting M&H's work days by about an hour (I know how they love to stay at work!).

Minna spent a good 20-30 minutes this morning looking for a spare key to the car, trying to get it going without the alarm going off, and ringing the car dealer for help. I had to get ready in 5 mins so I could get to work with M&H, which meant no shower/breakfast/lie in :)

Now we have to leave at 1:30pm to go via Blue Route Mall so I can fit in a bit of a shop before the game. The plan then is to rush home, have a shower, get dressed for homecoming, then dart back to Constantia for a meal (at a sushi place, ergh), to the dance, then out with everyone to Cape Town.

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Brilliant music video

Some of you might have seen this before as it has been going around the internet for a while, but it is such a good video.

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High School Football

Yesterday, as Milja mentioned, there was a fun raising event at the school, plus two football games. The Junior team (up to grade 6) played first, then the Senior team went on. They played against ISCT, a similar local school made up of international students. There was also a braai, which smelt sooo nice, and drinks and a raffle - the norm for a fundraiser.

I think the score in the Junior team game was 6-0 to ISCT (!). Matias' friend, and fellow Finn, Joona was playing for AISCT. I was hanging around with the guys in the Senior team (Sean, Jamies etc) before the game. As the match was starting, the coach, Matias' teacher, Mrs Jencik, asked me to help her with tactics :) (after going to practice on Tuesday). So I became kind of a second coach, shouting to the players and pointing out to Mrs Jencik things that could be improved on (and becoming bestest mates in the process, hehe). Maybe I could become a permanent fixture at practices and games...? We'll see.

Later I am playing in the teacher/parent vs senior team game. Apparently at first I was predicted to play with the team, rather than the adults, so I don't know who I'm playing for. I still need to go shopping to get some football sock (mine are in the wash), and I had to borrow some really old boots from Sean's brother last night so I don't have to play in my socks like the other day. Update on the score maybe tomorrow (homecoming tonight).

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Blast From the Past

Today was one of our theme days at school. The newly elected school council has made loads of activities for us (partly so they can raise money) and to build school spirit. Today we all had to dress up as something from the past... was quite funny.

some of the people were wearing really funny clothes.

after school, the council held a braai (bbq) for the school with other activities too. there were a few football matches and dan was busy helping the senior team coach woman person. they are like best buds now its really funny, good for dan though cos she wants him to play all the time ! :)

sean's car wouldnt start up again.. so we were stuck at school until a tow-truck came and started it... problem: sean was playing in the match so me and dan had to sort it out.... another problem: we couldnt turn the engine off and had to have it on for like 20 minutes while sean was playing still and chatting to the others! but he didn't care at all.

got home. did lots of work. then realised i have study hall first period.. doh!

ZZZzzzzz

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Tuesday

I stayed at home yesterday as I was quite tired and felt a tad ill. I was originally planning to sleep again after M&M had gone to school, but I couldn't and went on the computer to attempt the Perl task that was due at 11am. I didn't succeed too well but got the basics!

At around 12 I left to Mainstream, a small group of shops in Hout Bay on the beach. I was looking for a white shirt to go with my new trousers for homecoming. I also grabbed some food for lunch while I was out and topped up my phone with some credit.

When I got home I put my sausage roll and drink on the kitchen table and went outside to say hi to Turbo who 'lives' on the back patio area. As I looked inside I saw Siru chomping down my sausage roll like a maniac. I don't know how she got high enough to pull it down from the table as she is quite a small dog. The smell and chance of extra food obviously gave her a super boost. That was my lunch gone!

At about 2.30pm I left to M&M's school. There was mention beforehand that I could take part in the school football practise, as Milja's friend Jamie is sports coordinator and could get me to play. I turned up without boots or sport clothes on and wasn't expecting to play. Jamie, though, worked his magic with Matias' teacher who runs the football team, and I was allowed to join the practice (which also includes Sean and Jamie (another one), and Baker and Webster who we've been out with before). The team runs from grade 7 to 12, boys and girls, so there is a broad mix of players (esp. with a 20 year old playing!). It was fun to have a run around and play some football. The game at the end of the session was a bit scrappy but it was fun. I was in defence with Milja's friend Charlotte, with Jamie in goal. Sean was up front for us. We won 2-1. I am looking forward to the teacher/parent vs student game later this week, in which I will be playing against the guys from yesterday. Hopefully I can help put a few past Jamie and/or stop Sean from scoring too many. It promises to be a laugh at least :)

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Busy people

The weekend was another goodun. We did quite a lot - surfing, shopping, eating, watching football, going to the movies, driving around.

Friday evening we had all planned to go to Peddlar's on the Bend, a lovely restaurant in Constantia. After eating, though, half the group wanted to leave to the clubs, but 5 of us stayed and chatted until last orders. It was really good to just sit and talk as opposed to being in a loud club.

Saturday morning we were up early to go to Muizenberg (where the recent shark attack was!) to go surfing and bodyboarding. Milja and I borrowed Minna and Heikki's wetsuits and bodyboards and the others - Sean, Charlotte, Jamie and the young sports teacher from their school - all rented surfboards and suits from the surf shop on the beach. The weather wasn't too nice, cloudy and 17 deg, but thankfully the water in False Bay is slightly warmer than it is on the Atlantic Coast near us. Everyone had trouser-length suits apart from me who had short-length, and Milja had Minna's 'wet-socks' to help keep her warmer.

The waves were tamer than I imagined, as the place is a hot-spot for surfers (apparently yesterday they were trying an World Record for the most amount of surfers on one wave there). It was really fun trying to catch the waves just at the right time to be able to be carried all the way into shore. We could go quite far out and still touch the floor so we could get on the further out waves easily. All of the surfers had never surfed before except for the teacher, so it was funny watching them stand up then fall off again. I managed to catch three waves to the beach, and Milja was just cold. We stayed for about 1hr 30 and left to take Charlotte to a Student Council meeting.

Our day got a bit scrappy after this. Milja, Sean, Charlotte and I drove to the school to find it completely deserted and we found out from the security guard that the council had just left (we were quite late). We couldnt get hold of anyone so we drove to Jamie;s house to pick him up, but he was still with the council somewhere. Turns out they were at a fabric shop (?) and then later at a pet shop (?). In the meantime we went to Charlotte's amazing house, which is a huge, new bungalow with high ceilings, massive doors, large open-plan design with a really nice pool (and Macs in every bedroom!). She got changed and we went to Canal Walk to find Milja a dress for homecoming which is on Friday. While the girls were shopping, Sean and I sat in a restaurant watching Everton comfortably beat Liverpool. We sat next to an 60-something Evertonion who was loving every minute of it and texting his mates who were at the game.

In the evening a few of us headed to Sean's to watch Wedding Crashers. The evening turned a bit sour though, when Roxy, his on-off girlfriend decided to call/text non-stop complaining that she wasn't there, and it took ages before it was sorted. I was OK sitting watching the footy while it was sorted, but it kinda ruined my evening. We were going to order pizza, but as everything was only sorted out late, we went out in Hout Bay to look for a restaurant... We couldn't find any open ones so we drove 15mins to Camps Bay where we eventually found somewhere that was open. We had pizza but had to hurry as Charlotte had a curfew at 12:30.

Sunday was a bit more relaxed... meeting up with people and going to Canal Walk again. In the afternoon, like last week, we went to see a film, this time "You, Me and Dupree" which I enjoyed but other people expected it to be funnier. Again we headed to Primi for a bite to eat and then went home for early nights.

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Red mud

Red mud Hosted on Zooomr

How to know you've arrived in Africa.

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Clouds in South Africa

As I listed here, one of the things I love about this country are the clouds. They seem to interact far more here than in England or Finland, mostly because of the mountains around which are much closer to clouds than the normal ground level is. The mountains also create differed air streams and weather systems so clouds behave differently.

This morning I was in my bedroom after Milja and Matias had left for school and looked out East towards Mandela Park (informal settlement) and saw a lovely red shade on the bottom of the low-hung clouds over that side of the valley. The sun rises behind the mountains that line the East length of Hout Bay and this morning was shining through in between the top ridge of the mountains and the clouds.

Further over round towards the North there was much higher cloud and the sun catching it gave a different effect.

Then, as I looked further round to the North, this time along the side of the house, I saw thick white cloud tumbling fast into the valley from the West. I went out the front door to get a better view. The cloud was piling in from the Atlantic side of Hout Bay, and as we drove to work along the Atlantic route, we drove up right into the cloud and could see it clearly rising up from closer to sea level, up over the mountains, where it then fell into Hout Bay. You just don't get that in Niittykumpu or Saffron Walden :)

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Fun with programming

What's this....?

"cheese"

Answer: A cheese string.

What's this....?

"g"

Answer: A g-string.

Ha ha ha.

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Stroke of luck and a 1-1 draw

Yesterday after school Matias went to Harrison (and Sean)'s house. Milja and I left at just before 7pm to collect him and at the same time get some food shopping done.

As we arrived, Sean jokingly asked if I wanted to watch some "soccer" (he has DStv digital TV and I have mentioned before that we should watch some games soon) so he scrolled around some channels while we waited for Matias to get ready. I noticed suddenly that Finland were up next on one channel, playing their Euro 2008 Qualifier with Portugal. It was cleared with Sean that I could stay and watch it.

So Milja left to the shop, and in the meantime I was given Harrison's dinner (!) and settled down to watch the match. It was a good game, Finland played really well against the 4th placed team from the World Cup. It was gutting to see two well-placed headers missed by Sami Hyypia in the first 20 mins, but I was happy to see a brilliant piece of play that put the Finns 1-0 up.

Milja returned, the boys did some work, the chef, Justice, made three extra dinners so everyone was fed, and in the second half Milja and Sean started to work on Sean's 6-page English essay that was due today.

Of course, Portugal equalised and then went down to ten men, and of course Finland couldn't muster enough class to win the game, but it was a good, spontaneous evening. I will be going round again soon (with a pre-arranged gift of beer) to watch some more "soccer".

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Techincal Tip for Windows Users

As standard, the fonts on Windows machines are jagged and not anti-aliased/smooth (on Macs they are). I found this tip recently which takes care of this and smoothes the edges of all text, making everything look much nicer in my opinion (XP only).

1. Right-click the desktop and select Properties
2. Go to Appearance tab
3. Click on the Effects button
4. Select ClearType from the second pull-down menu

^ Normal text in Windows

^ With ClearType on

Some people with older screens (non-LCD) may find that it doesn't really look that good (ie: blurry). But try it out, it might make your computer usage much more pleasant!

Tip from here.

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Reading more

Now that I have a reasonable amount of time on my hands (and limited monthly Internet bandwidth), I am starting to read more. I am currently reading a book that Milja's grandma bought for me for Christmas, Hour Game by David Baldacci and have recently finished Velocity by Dean Koontz.

Yesterday I came across a really good book website which allows for neat organising/rating/commenting for books, aNobii (I haven't quite figured out what the name means...). I have added to my 'shelf' the books I have here in South Africa and which books I had read in Finland and left there. There is also a Wish List that you can add books to, which have links to Amazon to buy them (some are very cheap). There is also a section that recommends books to you and shows you other members who have similar 'shelves' as you. At the moment they have 9,554 books on record but this is always increasing.

I will try and use the site to increase the size of my book collection and therefore fill my days with more than watching pixels. And when the sun starts shining I will have an incentive to sit outside reading and getting a tan.

My aNobii page is here.

PS I can hear Minna singing along to James Blunt in her room from here, very nice Minna :D

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Fold up sofa

If you think your fold-up sofa-bed is cool, can it do this? How cool.

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Happy Birthday?

I just looked back into last years September posts and saw that today's post was a congratulatory post by Milja to Clare on her 18th birthday. So I'm guessing that HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLARE is in order for this year's post also.

Today is rather warm. There is no sun - just cloud - and inside is the normal nearly-chilly temperature, but when you walk out the front door, you are hit with a wall of warmth.

Some electricians came this morning, I think trying to fix some things and figuring out what the random switches that don't do anything do.

I just had some bread for lunch. There's not much food in the house so I treated myself with some cheese and jam (no, not together) sandwiches and mango juice. We (me & Minna) are at home today because India is unwell. Heikki went into work, but at 7am to get the Land Rover's wheels fixed on the way, so I decided to stay at home rather than get up so early. We both missed the Perl lecture, but we have done our homework (!).

Yesterday afternoon we had a strange little 'occurance' concerning two of the dogs, Turbo (male) and Megan (female). I was inside at the time and was called out by a frantic Matias and Milja to the dogs being stuck together at their behinds. We tried to part them, but couldn't, but they eventually did come 'unstuck'.... Crazy dogs.

For the students among you, check out stu.dicio.us, which is a handy and simple online student organiser - lecture notes, todos, grade manager and file manager. I have been testing it with my Perl course and for learning Afrikaans, and I have found it very handy to have. All notes are auto-save and can be edited quickly and easy. My page is here.

Also, while I'm talking all computer-y, I downloaded a cool photo organiser application from Google called Picasa, which is similar to iPhoto on Macs. I made a lovely desktop background with it to remind me of what weather I will be missing this winter :) - link.

I have been busy today dating some Polaroids we took in England and yesterday I was making Thank You cards. I think I have made half, but we have run out of the decorations so production has stopped for the mean time. Plus, Milja has been busy with work and revision (2 exams today!) so she hasn't made any, and I think I'll wait until she can help before making any more.

I'm off to learn some more Afrikaans.

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The Geek

Milja has turned into a Geek, officially. (Well, she has been a geek-under-cover all the time, but we just haven't seen it).

She had been getting great results during our time in Finland, and she has kept the grades up in the new school here in South Africa too. Recently in her mid-term report she got straight As and a B+.

Looks like she will beat me in grades at this level of education (B, B, C at A Level).

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Wooh it's Monday

I'm at M+H's work again today as we have just had the first Perl lecture. I am now busy installing it onto my computer ready for our first assignment - writing our name :)

Our weekend was fun. On Friday evening, we headed out to Sean's house down the road, where we, plus Jamie, Junior, Roxy, Baker, and later Webster, hung out, listening to music, and being loud :) Sean's mum works alternate weeks in Cape Town and Johannesburg, so they have a live-in (male) chef called Justice. He had cooked us all burgers, which were delicious. I would love to have a chef, how cool! At about 9ish, we headed out to Claremont, a district about 20 minutes away from Hout Bay, where we stayed well into the night. After planning on staying at Sean's house overnight, everyone else was dropped off home on the way back to Hout Bay, but Milja and I decided to go still, even though we had Minna's car for the evening and could have driven home. It was a good choice, as Sean's spare bed is very comfy!

On Saturday, Milja and I planned to go shopping in the day, but we ended up waiting until late-afternoon to leave, as Minna said she'd come with us later. Matias had Sean's younger brother, Harrison, round, and we played Uno.

We went to Canal Walk, the hugest mall ever, and looked for a suit for Milja. She is currently taking Model United Nations at school and is going to Johannesburg at the end of this month for a conference. She is representing South Korea. We stayed for a few hours there, eating dinner (mmm lovely noodles), and buying new rings for our noses, as we can now take out our sleepers. But no suit.

Last night was fun. We headed out to Claremont again to watch a movie with Sean, Jamie and Charlotte. We saw John Tucker Must Die, which ended up being OK. A good film to waste time with. Afterwards we went to a pizza place, Primi Piatti in the same mall, and watched Italy play Lithuania. We all shared a very tasty Mexican pizza before heading to drop Charlotte and Jamie off. We stayed at Jamie's for a bit before leaving for home bed.

Milja has a lot of work this week, even before it has even started. She has 2 exams, 2 essays and a lot of other assignments and bits and pieces. Plus there is the Homecoming Ball (very American eh) next week and neither of us have smart clothes, so that's added stress (for her :) ).

The builders who are doing the roof re-vamp didn't show this morning. I don't know when they will start. Minna was saying this morning that she didn't think that they'd come.

I had better get on with this Perl thing...

Maybe Milja will write something on here soon.

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Steve Irwin is dead

I just heard the strangest of news. Steve Irwin, the crazy crocodile-lovin' Austrailian is dead. It's a kinda shock because he seemed a bit immortal with all the stunts he used to do. He got stung by a stingray through his chest (...ouch) and suffered cardiac arrest and died instantly at the scene. He was filming for a new documentary.

Full news here and here.

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Things I love about South Africa

• Having to drive over mountains to get anywhere from the small town we live in, Hout Bay (nickname = "The Republic of Hout Bay"), which makes my ears pop every time.
• The number of 'extra' jobs that people have here, eg. car-park marshalls, newspaper sellers at road junctions, and people who fill your car up and wash your windscreens/check oil at petrol stations, all of which give poorer people the chance to work.
  
• Driving over one mountain from bright, clear blue skies on one side to thick, dark and low cloud on the other side.
• Winter weather that is cold and/or drizzly and/or windy one day, then 20+ degrees and beautiful the next.
  
• Mountains that drop right from their peaks straight down to the sea.
• The large range of wildlife such as whales, sharks, ostriches, penguins and baboons all literally down the road.
• Heart 104.9 FM, Cape Town soul.
  
• Driving along the Atlantic Coast on the way to M+H's work and being able to see for miles and miles over a deep blue ocean to the horizon.
• The huge differences between the poor informal settlements and the large, grand shopping malls.
• The style of houses.
  
• Amazing cloud formations, especially over mountain peaks.
  
• The large number of views are not possible to photograph, either due to a) not having the camera with you, and/or b) not having good enough camera equipment/expertise to picture the scene the way it is in that moment.
• Things like this.

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Babble

I'm home alone today. The cleaner, Joyce, is here although she's ill and may have tonsillitis! I think the work ethic here is to do work no matter what. Quite an old-fashioned ethic nowadays...

We have 13 'official' readers of the blog according to the stats (right column). We have 7 e-mail readers and a few people who are using either Firefox RSS reader or another reader. :) Hello!

The sun is shining is shining very bright today. Clear skies, just one shade of blue. I'm sitting on my bed, and the view I have is through an old white window with security bars out towards palm trees just outside the window, the swimming pool in the garden below, more exotic trees beyond, and then a large mountain climbing up to it's peak, which I reckon is about a kilometre away. Nestled just about half way up the slope, poking out just above the line of trees in our garden, I can see the highest few houses of the nearby slum, Mandela Park, which nowadays has proper full-on houses and tarmac roads and such. Still an informal settlement, but getting there. Joyce lives in one of the new houses.

Milja and I are heading out to one of her male friend's, Sean's, house where we'll hang out with her other mates. I think the plan for the weekend is beach/cinema/out in town, so it should be a goodun, and we should be covered if the weater changes.

The first PERL lecture is on Monday. Heikki is doing them every day, so I can't really stay at home every day like I have this week (apart from yesterday), but on the plus side, it will save valuable Internet bandwidth if I am not online here. Apparently, as there is a monopoly in the Internet market here, a 5GB monthly bandwidth limit costs nearly £100. Not very cheap - and quite restrictive! It equals out at an average of only 33MB of bandwidth per person per day in this household (5 internet users).

I'm just about to have some lunch, and then I will start making Thank You cards for the wedding, which are going to be quite late.

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