Of Two Minds

Unlearning To-Do List: Walking/Driving/Biking on the left hand side Saying "Howzit?" instead of "How are you?" Referring to things as "take away" instead of "to go" Avoiding conversation with people on the street Saying "cheers" instead of "bye." (I'm kinda letting this one linger) Interestingly, a lot of my unlearning has to do with living in NYC rather than being in Cape Town. Like being afraid to cross the street, weaving through people at high-speeds, expecting to find make-your-own to-go salads and fresh juice everywhere, and never going out because everything is so far away. Now even my brother is in close proximity. (!!) Finding a job again is a huge pain but I managed to find a part time gig at Fireworks which i LOVE and which leaves room for after school tutoring (both with SMP and, hopefully, a paying math tutoring gig too). It also leaves me room for all the things I said I was going to do with my time

Before I start, this post began writing on Tuesday or Monday, I believe, but due to an internet failure at the house, no longer working where there is mostly reliable internet, and cafe wifi being abominable, i've only been able to post it just now. And its not the quality of writing i'd really like and due to the rushed nature of borrowing internet it's a little scattered. Act I: A conclusion In the final week, I am home sick and tired. The home sickness is actually helpful because it reminds me that I should make this time count. The tiredness, however, is very much getting in the way. Weather reports are wildly innaccurate more than 24 hours out, though, so i don't really have a sense of what to expect. I still have yet to actually get on Table Mountain. I would love to have a nice long day-hike. Dayhike? Day hike. Initially, I was really reluctant to be upset about being in Cape Town. I mean, I've read so many other people write things about Cape Town

Or is it that we just always forget to look for them? A warm shower under a starry sky on a cool night and a promise to myself to be kind, strong, forgiving, and motivated with the hope that I will someday forge the same compassion in my relationship with myself that I have found easily in my relationship with my boyfriend and take for granted in my relationships with my family. Yeah, I guess it has been a good two months.

Between facebook statuses and frustrated blog posts, I haven't done the best job of articulating my experience here and letting everyone know all of the great things that are happening. This Summer has not been what I expected nor what I would have tailor made for myself, but it has been engaging. I think I'm learning a lot though I can't yet decide exactly what. Aside from personal growing experiences, my time here has also been great for a number of reasons. Cape Town is beautiful. Its one of the cleanest cities I've ever visited and the night life is exciting. There are plenty of bars blaring the worst music 1990s USA has to offer, but there's a lot of great live music and interesting djs. The city is also built around Table Mountain , which makes for difficult navigation but gorgeous views. My walk to and from work lets me see it in all states of changing light and reminds me how privileged I am. but in a good way. Observatory, where I live, has a lot of cha

General Conversation, Getting Around rand >> south african unit of commercial exchange R8 >> $1 cheers >> bye petrol >> gas ..., hey? >> ..., amirite? minibus >> minivans and the informal form of transit most people take. surprisingly safe, affordable, and reliable. the fare taker may attempt swindling you out of some rand, though. Food chips >> fries spinach >> swiss chard english spinach >> spinach sweet potato >> something that looks in shape/texture like a sweet potato, but has red skin and white flesh. apparently they also have orange sweet potatoes and white sweet potatoes. I have not yet spotted a white sweet potato. The red version is cooks up softer than orange ones like we have. yam >> yuca, maybe? i have never seen a vegetable like this in person before.  roughed up, almost pineapple-like brown skin, white interior. kale, unfortunately, does not exist here. peanut butter, strangely, does, making

Winter finally arrived in Cape Town, and with a vengeance. The weather today is blustery as all get out with heavy rains and winds and a few spots of light drizzling and cold gusts. At the moment it is positively pouring. A great day for nesting. Fortunately, I moved into my new abode today. Most likely, I will be staying here until the end of July. It should work out just fine, provided I can figure out the function of that weird red light that blinks in the corner of this room. The house is in Obs in a residential area near the main strip. It's a riverside walk away from work and not too far from the city center, either. It operates as a venue once a month for poets and musicians and has been dubbed The House of Joy. It has a nice kitchen and a large dining room. The couple from whom I'm letting are very kind. After getting settled, I went across the bridge to Lower Main Road for lunch at Hello Sailor . On the way home, I was able to stock up on spices and oils at the

Cape Town is beautiful. The weather is beautiful. The hostel is ... bearable. My classmates are fantastic. So far, I've been alternating between nervous and excited which is usually a good sign. I'm pretty disoriented still and I have no idea what to expect and I won't even really now what's happening until Tuesday or Wednesday I bet. Some thoughts On Internet: While the hostel has it, my computer refuses to recognize it, and those who are able to connect are regularly kicked off. However, at this cafe, it's totally good. I don't think it's a Cape Town problem, I think it's a hostel problem. On Race: I have already heard three people make comments ... actually, less comments and more whispered points in conversation about how dangerous black people are, one older white woman, one man from Botswana (east asian? i think that gets classified as "Indian" here, regardless), and one black man from Zimbabwe. I... am not thinking clearly enoug

Hey All! Wednesday morning I take off for South Africa. I'll be using this blog for the updates, so stay tuned! Also, I totally got a deal on skype so I can call cell phones and LAN lines all Summer. AWESOME. If you want, Skype is totally free and does not require a webcam, but that's kind of what makes it awesome. Go to skype.com Near the top, skype is written in blue and white. To the right of that is a menu bar. Scroll over "get skype" then, under Computer, select the type of computer you have. Download free skype. The rest should be straight forward but send me an email if you have any difficulties. Once you have skype, go to Contacts > Add Contacts You can search for me either using my full name, Alexandria Eisenbarth, or my skype name, alexandria.e I think Arizona and Washington are in the same time zone right now. I'll be 9 hours ahead of you folks. East coasters, I'll be 6 hours ahead of you. So if you live West, when its 8 am there, it

As a teenager, I got in the habit of posting deeply personal prose and diary-like entries to my blog. I often disabled comments because I wasn't interested in who actually saw it or getting any kind of feedback. I'm still not entirely sure why I saw it as so important but it still offers me comfort. At the time, I considered my posts angsty when, in fact, I was dealing with some pretty intense shit. As teenagers we're fed this word, "angst," to explain away why we react so strongly to life. When I was a child, I would get very very upset. Then, older people would tell me jokes and try to get me to laugh. This made me more upset, especially if it worked. As an adult, I still struggle with discerning between problems that are hard and problems that are trivial. I also struggle with knowing when it's appropriate to laugh and take ourselves with a grain of salt and when it's appropriate to react strongly. I am tempted to write "As a young adult,&q

She cringed at the thought of another cigarette. Her body was punishing her for a night of indulgence. She felt the thick smoke rising slowly from every pore, her organs tired from all the work. A memory. "I keep you working just like Cinderella!" her mother would apologize when she was too ill to get up. "Just like Cinderella!" she told her organs, who groaned in response. A classmate held out to her a half-empty pack of Marlboros in offering. "No thanks," she responded. "I'm letting go of my mom." -- He had been knocking at her heart for months now. She hadn't noticed before and smiled at the thought. "Hey!" he knocked, "Let me in!" She felt sorry for not noticing, but forgave herself. She'd been so preoccupied with the hurt, how could she have noticed such a polite, gentle rapping? Furthermore, she thought she already had let him in. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to leave you out th

I have almonds in everything. If I'm trying to avoid eggs, I'll throw some in fried vegetables for protein in the morning, I mix almond butter with carob powder and raspberries for a dessert or just eat it plain, and I recently discovered the many uses of almond meal. I'd had the suspicion for a long while that I could make fried chicken with almond meal breading and, after looking up a few recipes to get a vague outline, I gave it a go with my lets-just-try-it-and-see cooking style. It was awesome, though perhaps a little flavorless. I tried to make it again last night and it was AMAZING> amazing. So good. Next time I'll even measure myself so I can try and do it again. Another food I've been missing is pancakes. I love pancakes. And it turns out you can make them with almond meal. I tried to make them for the second time this morning with questionable success. Well, I wasn't going to to do it at all, but I ran into a problem with a cracker recipe .

Speaking of new tastes, do you remember your first oreo? First candy bar? Of course not, but you've probably heard about it. Your parents were trying to keep you off the stuff for as long as they possibly could but then, one benevolent aunt came along and saved you from a childhood of aromatic deprivation. Your eyes lit up and suddenly you were a fiend for the sugary pleasantries of life. Not being able to have any kind of sweetener or sugary fruit for 3 or 4 months, I was able to experience in memory what that was like. Over break, Joseph and I went to Mischou , an incredible bistro in Pike Place. Among other things we got a little bit of a wild rice mixed salad without realizing that it had been sweetened in orange juice. The first bite blew my mind. My eyes lit up and I exclaimed, "It's so sweet!" staring at Joseph, incredulously. Like a pioneer at Christmas, I was full of appreciation for the intense syrupy brightness oranges contain within. Since I'm not

As of late, I have been contemplating the addition of a cooking blog to my current blog repertoire. I do a lot of experimenting in the kitchen and I want a way to document the things I try. Furthermore, I am currently working with a pretty restricted diet. As more and more people are becoming aware of intolerances and allergies that they have to the foods that are staples of our cuisine, it's important to have resources for working around these foods. Another problem I run into with the resources that are available is that many raw, food intolerance, or allergy websites present these extravagant recipes that, while delicious, may cost an arm and a leg. Sometimes the barrier is simply that since I'm cooking for one, I can't keep a large assortment of vegetables in my refrigerator at all times. However, building an additional blog for that seemed unnecessary since I have a hard enough time keeping these two updated. Plus, my cooking is very inexact and doesn'

I was just feeling tired. like REAL take-a-nap-and-sleep-til-4am tired. But it's way too late for me to have coffee without oh-my-god-i-can't-fall-asleep-and-now-its-5am awakeness. Which was when I remembered cocoa powder has milder levels of caffeine (yes? i don't know.) and that i could totally make a smoothie with that and some almond butter. Because I use almond butter for everything all the time. I honestly have no idea how much i used of everything because this was a "lemme taste. what do i need?" procedure. First taste was really weird because I haven't had cocoa since being put on this diet in October. Immediately afterward being put on the diet, I tried to make some cocoa almond butter bite things, but that was when I realized that cocoa is mad bitter. Also, the only sweeteners I am allowed are Stevia and xylitol. Since you have to work so hard to find xylitol and I was just embarking on this journey, i used stevia. Which, if you're used to re