I have so much to update here but the time to type and correct escapes me lately. It escapes me so much in fact that now at the end of month I have 1 GB of rolled-over data to use up before Tuesday! The student Frank is very disappointed in me - that is like 7 episodes of Anime and a lot of Manga!
So here is 8 current things going on in my life:
Travel: I am travelling back to Botswana for the second time this month on Tuesday. It is kinda exciting to see how much progress has been made on site and frustrating at the same time as the nature of managing contractors seems to be a lot about cracking a whip over their heads about deadlines. A figurative whip only - made of long argumentative meetings with finger waving and pointing and aggressive shuffling of papers.
Exciting travel: The year 2013 may seem FOREVER away but the Gang is planning a huge trip to The United Kingdom together to go visit old and new friends. I am way excited at the prospect but the time line is long to allow everyone's budget to catch up.
Wedding: (I am proud that this isn't the first point) The wedding is 90% planned and 5% booked at this stage. We took the parents to visit the Wedding venue we want to hire... which started out so well and then crumbled into sulking and loud voices over chapels versus churches. I have also started trying on wedding dresses which has been fun and scary. Fun - every dress makes you feel like a princess. Scary - no body ever looks like the model in the same dress. :( my body is funny sometimes.
Mother-in-law: (Speaking of parents) My mother-in-law-to-be is in Johannesburg at the moment and staying with Mr Thursday. It is a little tough because it means I don't see MrT as often as normal because he spends every evening with his mum. Not a big surprise because he last saw her in April - for one luncheon meeting. I am in a little bind as to what to call her when I speak to her. It feels impolite to call her by her first name and impersonal to call her Mrs B and for some one who I have only spent a few days getting to know in the past 20-ish months it feels odd to call her "Ma".. just yet. On top of that we haven't really graduated past polite conversation and awkward silence. The language barrier is still up most of the time... A Language Barrier that MrT says I must fix. Languages and me are not great friends... yet.
Interwebs Randomness: I discovered tagxedo. it is awesome. Look at the tag cloud it helped me make about this blog. (I am however unsure if it took the most recent 5 posts only..)
It is a little amusing that proposal is bigger than Engineer. Travel is the most common word - which is quite alright with me.
One year ago: My nephew is almost one year old! He is getting cuter as fast as he is getting naughtier. The naughtiness is always accompanied with a big toothy grin. (lesson - teething babies have very SHARP teeth. The cute playful coaxing of their fingers into their mouths is a trap!)
I confess that despite my good intentions, I am a dotty Aunty who pays too much attention to him and not enough to the entire rest of the group when I see him. I only get away with it because everyone else seems to find his behaviour fascinating and adorable. Tragically I have been only able to baby sit him once so far because I was sick and unavailable all the other times. I may post a whole set of pictures when I have them readied.
Frankie's Castle: I am still no closer to anything definite as far as housing goes. My landlord will publish a price soon and at the same time I have my eye on a 1and a half room apartment in the next suburb while still debating the monetary benefits of moving home to my parents for 8 months. The exciting news is that I found a really nice potential home for MrT and me once we are wed. It is only available from April next year so it fits our plans quite nicely. And it is very close to our current homes so we know the area pretty well.
Peace: I had an epiphany in church this evening. The Englishman is thinking of moving back to his home country at the end of the year because he feels his current girlfriend is on the verge of breaking things off. The Lindt Fairy and I were discussing this and we feel that he is a love struck idiot whose girlfriend doesn't deserve his devotion. She doesn't seem to want to make any extra effort to make their (temporarily) long distance relationship work. And so I was thinking that the Englishman will be filled with regret giving up the opportunity working here if his girlfriend breaks up with him anyway at a later stage for another reason.
Then I remembered how MrX had also said to me that he never wanted to lose me while were dating long distance. How the exciting job was null if he didnt have my support. (or something like that - it is too late at night to dig through old archived mail). And yet, in the end of the relationship with MrX, it was harder to keep things going than to let things (continue to) fall apart.
MrX is getting married in a few months and I confess I have been less than pleased to hear the news. It riles me to see them living out plans that MrX and I had also dreamt up at one time in the past. It irks me to see their happy lives put in front of me. (hey we can't always be mature and rational all the time - my nephew has taught me much about being selfish... but then I am not 11 months old)
Then this evening while pondering the Englishman's situation, I realised that I should be over joyed for MrX and his future wife. We may have broken promises to each other and broken our relationship off and failed the aspirations of the two and a half years of dating long distance. And yet we have both liberated ourselves from the mire of the past and now... he is happy again. (or so I hear)
And so for the Englishman - I am ready to tell him that he is being a moron if he asks. But I realise that even at the sacrifice of an opportunity to continue to work here in this country, irrespective of whether his relationship does eventually live or die, it is not the end for him. If his plans fall apart - new plans can be made. It is a tragedy to never move on from when things are disappointing... because disappointment itself is unavoidable.
