Adjustments

Wednesday, February 18th, 2015

2:00pm South African Standard Time

Weather 81° F Sunny

I am loving South Africa. I have made many adjustments over this past week and I am loving each day’s new adventure. I have had to adjust to everything from planning out my 3 meals a day all by myself to knowing that pedestrians don’t have the right of way. It is no doubt a different world here. Some things better some things not so much. Regardless, I am having a blast and living each day to its fullest.

I am in my second week of classes and they are going well. My classes here have had a very slow start with little to no work, assignments or even material to study. I know there are a lot of factors to consider and it could just be the particular classes I am taking. Regardless, classes here start much slower and less intensive then classes at St. Cloud State and even high school. The assessment method is quite different as well. The common grading method at St. Cloud State is a continuous assessment throughout the semester with a final exam at the end that cumulatively make up the grade. Here it is primarily 2-4 tests during the semester and class attendance that makes up my class mark. If my class mark is above 50% I am eligible to take the final exam where I must score about 50% to pass the class. If I have a class mark of bellow 50% I would not be eligible to take the final exam and in turn automatically fail the course. It is a system that I am going to need some time to get used to, but I have no doubt I will manage. It will be interesting to see if it is more challenging to put all my effort into a few tests versus multiple assignments, projects and papers.

A requirement of being an international exchange student at NMMU is to take a community service learning course. Last Wednesday the other international students and I were given an orientation on a dozen different projects that we could select to be our weekly service project. They ranged from working with kids in the poverty ridden mission villages outside of town to packing food for students that can’t afford meals to even working with penguins at a local marine bird rehabilitation facility. I chose to volunteer at the Summerstrand Cheshire Home for disabled adults. The home provides a permanent residence and care for 54 disabled adults and 90% of which rely on a wheelchair for their mobility. The home also provides day care for families who need a member watched during the day while they are at work. A small group and I will be volunteering at the home on Mondays for 2 hours every week. I am looking forward to this opportunity to give back to the community while I am here.

In the back yard of our hotel lies the Humewood Links Golf Club, one of the most challenging links golf courses in the world and one of the top 10 golf courses in South Africa. On Friday, Gabe and I got on the best clothes we had, and went to play a round. They have a very reasonable student rate, $10 for 9 holes and $12 for 18 holes and have clubs available for us to use. The course is beautiful to play on. Each hole has an ocean view making it seem like we were in paradise the whole round. It was wonderful to relax and just purely enjoy ourselves for an afternoon in the beautiful outdoors. Since Gabe and I both don’t have class on Wednesday’s, we are making that our golfing day when we can.

Erin just asked if I wanted to go to the beach on this lovely day. How can I say no? 80° and Sunny…no-brainer.  

Beautiful Morning Run

Flat tire on the cab

Cribbage with Lily

The Boardwalk Casino & Hotel in Port Elizabeth

The Boardwalk Casino

Fish in the Boardwalk pond

Blake and Titus

Blake and Adrian

Skyping my friends back home...I miss you guys!

"The Crawl" on campus