Pi Day , team lunch, St. Patricks Day and Girls Night

and i guess i shouldn't forget to mention that Paintball is planned for today along with ice-skating perhaps tomorrow.

I guess i sound like a serious party animal but truth is, I'm working off the envy of the people back home and their work-less public holidays.

So Pi-day is a strange geeky nerdy day which only Americans can identify with because no-1 else int the world has a date format that goes month-day-year .

so when 3.14.year (22/7 or Pi) arrives...it only happens in the states. I was terribly confused when i found out about it because I still automatically revert back to the day-month-year format - in my world 3.14.year is impossible!!!

Team lunch...well for me this was just an excuse to spend social time with my team. They're amazing and witty and diverse and proudly individual...and amazingly hard workers so its was kewl to see them take a break and catch their breaths

an amazing thing happened at lunch...well after lunch but due to living by tight time schedule.
I paid for  my meal, but couldn't wait for change because i had to race back to work for A-course. So i asked Greg to hold on to my change and id get it from him in the office...

I didn't get back ti the office till Thursday morning,,,a  half a day later

And i found my change on my desk. According to Greg...it had been there from the day before. No1 touched it!!! the beauty if being able to trust your co-workers\. I was absolutely surprised.

Moving on to St. Patricks Day...that was Thursday. According to the Champe this is how it goes...

"St. Patrick’s Day is a Catholic holiday. A very large portion of Ireland happens to be Catholic. As for Saint Patrick, when he was about 16, he was captured from Britain by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. After entering the Church, he returned to Ireland as an ordained bishop in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he worked. By the seventh century, he had come to be revered as the patron saint of Ireland.

St. Patrick’s Day is a Holy Day, but outside of Ireland, it is largely a celebration of Ireland itself.

Americans tend to celebrate by drinking, wearing green (if you wear green, leprechauns can’t see you and won’t pinch you), and eating cabbage and bacon (Irish Staples). A lot of Americans eat corned beef because during the mass Irish immigration to the US, bacon was too expensive and corned beef took substitute."

Basically , for us worker bees,  it was a normal day. But every other person seemed rather excited about going downtown for some green liquid.

So finally girls night came , with chick flicks and chocolate delicacies planned as the highlight. Work took precedence as it always does. By 7:30pm the study/work -group had dis-assembled ; the earliest for the week. DCespite looking forward to this ina  biig way, we landed up wishing that we didn't have to go.

The get together, albeit 9pm onwards was nice...just being out of the academia , work, formal behaviour box was wonderful because i got to meet the real people that have created the legacy.They're normal after all, and wonderful at that too.

All in all, a long and wonderful and amazing week.

These are few and far between in SA. I can also attest to not being too envious anymore of  the public holiday braai crews in SA anymore. Iv had my fill of fun this week,

ski slope sliding n ssssssssssssstoppin'

POST 100

Last week was a shock to the system as training went full swing and i became so overwhelmed , i thin ki forgot to breathe. By friday , afetr many late nights and complicated problems, i just needed some shut eye and a good book.

Instead, i chose to go to Canada for a family reunion of a sort. I got a 3 hour drive to Toronto from Erie via the niagara falls to be met by the bubbliest bunch of people i've met in a while.  So sleep wasnt a question, but for a change it was worth it.

Canada was great , the place is more city like so i loved it , the diversity rocks, the freedom (to not have to look over your shoulder every second) is enjoyable...i def want to go back.

So after a greeeeeat e weekend away...reality hit me with a report deadline looming. I walked around the office on Monday liek a Zombie after my first attempt to complete the report. Monday night...my final attempt resulted in one of those all nighters reserved for uni kids and programmers.

By Tuesday i was the picture of "happiness": droopy eyes, shabby dressing , yawning punctuating my sentences.

Wednesday ...it was downhill from here
Lectures from 1pm and project update required

Thursday ...
Project presentation...and would u believe a change again

Friday...i remember a Janazah...sad

n more recently i stayed up to hear from people back home( whi btw knew i was waiting ) and im still waiting

its past midnight

im pooped

i cant go to the group activity because im too tired coz i waited up
 did  i mention im tired

what a week...and this was supposed to be an easy week.

good luck 2 me

First heavy snow storm

20 02 2011

This past week has been amazing in a whole lot of ways

Getting over jet lag- i keep waking up at random hours , just because! And then i cant sleep again!

then there's work ...yep we hit the ground running and work , training , living all started as the plane doors spat us out in this foreign land.

• Monday morning we pitched up at the training facility and went through the motions of getting settled.
• Tuesday we got an induction
• Wednesday we had lectures
• Thursday we were assigned projects
• Friday we got access cards

In-between all the formalities , there were workshop tours , discussions about the differences and similarities between our employers and trainers and briefing on what to expect of our projects.

We've also had some (failed) attempts at team building. Paintball , bowling(i dont know if this was offficial) and lunch of which we haven't managed one as yet! We wil have to try harder. Last night we made it to a get-together which was not my scene but at least a beginning.

some other unusual things strange to the SA eye:

Snow melts very fast

When we arrived here last week , snow covered almost everything. Over the week , snow turned parking lots into quicksand mud grounds, gutters have been really full even though the rain hasn't come as yet.

so i looked out my window today and would you belive it, it turns out theres a basketball court down in that snow covered area! Not an icicle left in that clearing.

And the fountain to the left of that is even visible now.

Michelle Obama is on a mission to make Americans more health concious. So Feb= "heart month" and in a flash mob style fashion happy shoppers in malls start dancing in unison to get their daily exercise.

This train locomotive in a workshop is what I call a Monster Loco. The SA loco's below can fit quite comfortably inside this Monster with space for a person to pass. I was completely wowed with the size of these. SA is definitely the petit kind.

finally (only because im running outr of pictures) Pennsylvania is essentially landlocked but I found the strangest vehicle out here...

uhuh, thats a ship. These guys build ships in the local ship yard!I dont think this pic does justice to the size of this ship...its ENORMOUS. how they get it to sea is beyond me!

anyway , I was hoping to go to New York City this weekend but low and behold there isnt a bus that can get me there in good time to actually expereince the city. I still had a fab day yesterday because Aunty Rookiya and Uncle Goolam (My Grandads brother and sister-in-law) drove from Canada to spend the day with me  :-D

how cool is that ??? They're super awesome. Uncle Goolam is just like my late Grandad and Aunty Rookiya has to be the youngest , most active grandma around. Im going to see them next week .

I off course have to concentrate on work and training and ReDineo aswell. But I almost feel like a tourist now...:-)

Valentines Day in a white washed city

The Learning Centre is all kitted out for the occasion

This is the Residence Inn(below)...my home for the next 3 months ...pretty looking hey :-)

There is beautiful , soft snow all over the place...its cold outside and people dress like eskimo's

A school, I think, on the way to the Training facility ...its like a picture out of Dead Poets Society

Charlottes Webb connecting the wooden homes

Snow outside the window incidentally of the swimming pool area

Typical house in Erie

11 02 2011

I woke up yesterday morning with a start enough to scare the accents off the air hostesses who were walking up and down the isle as American air hostesses usually do, using words like trash and lavatory instead of  dirt and toilet. I finally realised that I was on my way to America!!! The day before, much like the 3 months preceding the flight in question, had been a gas(erm I'm converting too...i meant petrol) guzzling, traffic enduring, last minute packing, visa collecting, double checking race to  get everything done. And then almost shell-shocked , i boarded the plane ...

and at 8am South Africa time, 1am America time ( i have no idea what time it was in the area that I was in at that specific moment), there I was discovering what actually happened!

Shock and horror aside, at 6 am (US time) I arrived in Atlanta where true to their hospitality non-Americans were ushered into long queues with documents and forms in hand. "special" people , like myself found themselves in the "ssss" office for the second time in one trip having to validate the need to travel to the USA. *SSSS-  some sort of special security check which singles out individuals and subjects them to frisking , verbal information confirmation, scans and gunpowder detection (yes i was subjected to these)

When flying into Johannesburg (or out of JHB for that matter) the world seems to be painted green with random spots of blue and brown adding depth and detail to the picture. Flying over the Miswest here in the USA , the shapes landscapes look very similar. The landscapes are covered in white with paths carved to depict roads.Its a different kind of beauty with little perception but rather flawless tranquility.

on a closer look , or perhaps a close encounter when driving on a different side of the road with a differently operated car one quickly realises that Its not flawless. driving on snow and ice is tricky and wheels quickly skid. Driving on the wrong side of the road , or right side as it may be, is mind boggling. we often follow force of habit and change to the left side which is verry dangerous. My first "driving lesson" in the vehicle went very well though. Yay. Thanks Walter for letting me drive to WalMart

Walmart is my newest fav mall/store/supermarket thing-a-ma-jig. It sells everything and its in the next street so im already planning my next trip.Its also open 24/7 so its very convenient. I think Im gonna get shopper of the month award, Ive been ther twice(nearly thrice) in the matter of 20 hours.


The accommodation Im in is the biggest surprise of all. I though that I was a bit crazy when i entered the lobby and a few nasty looking kids came bouncing by in "bathing suits". The swimming pool next to reception was actually full of people enjoying themselves. So what hey, we swim in winter in SA. Besides, i figured it was a warmed pool. It turns out that the hotel is linked to a water theme park adjacent to it. The kids that i saw were only a handful of hundreds of little people and their parents enjoying the slides and splashes of the park. Also linked to the hotel-theme park arrangement are a host of restaurants and more accommodation.
It looks like the valley of the waved with a roof.  might just be losing my mind.

Perhaps its all just a weird dream. When I wake up, It will all be very normal and I'll go build a snowman.

cheerios ;-)