Let the games begin

Week one of classes: day 3. I had to drop a 1st period class because I quite literally missed all the lectures this week. My alarm wouldn't cooperate and I took it as nature's way of telling me that an 8 am class simply wasn't in the cards for me. So I've been getting to my Game Theory course, meeting at 9 AM, then International Trade Bargaining at 10 and Medicine in the Making of Modern South Africa at 11. It's nice to be out of class at a reasonable hour and have the rest of the day to myself. I'm getting into the groove of hitting the gym when its not crowded in the early afternoon.

On a more interesting note, UCT's billion students have arrived from all points and converged on campus for the beginning of classes, so we're just starting to meet our peers. I've been pulled into a crowd of hipsters, which makes me feel miles cooler than I actually am. They liked my Nike dunks and decided I had the right vibe and was sufficiently "chilled" enough to fit in with their group. My two better friends in the group are Styx and Junaid. Styx is a tall black kid with a huge afro and awesome style (naturally, as he is a hipster). Junaid is super laid back, loves "trance" music and while he looks like a dark italian, is considered "colored."

I even got to sit with them on The Steps. The Steps provide a forum for mass people watching. All types of people filter up and down with the backdrop of Table Mountain looming on one side and the entire city stretched out in the distance on the other. Just like any school there are students filling types which include but are not limited to: polo-wearing eurotrash, punk rockers, hipsters, fashionistas, shorts-too-short jocks (South Africa hasn't gotten the memo from the 1990's mandating that men lengthen their shorts to above the knee. We get an eyeful of man thigh here) and a whole other spectrum of in betweens.

For as forwad-thinking as some of the fashionable, blackberry carrying students are, this country has not thought so far as machine dryers for clothing. We literally wash our clothes in a washer that's around a square foot in size and then hang our clothing on lines. The things we take for granted, man.

More later about Tiger Tiger last night. Two words to tease you: EURO TRASH.

My love from The Steps,

A