The Long Weekend
Christmas is only a week away and the long weekend was really a start to holiday spirit and relaxation. I think it would be a bit boring giving a day by day account, so here are some of the highlights, in brief.
End of year University of KwaZulu-Natal marks were made available on Thursday. Of course, the phone and Internet systems crashed under the influx of students after their marks. As a result, I only found out my marks on Friday morning. Anyway, I received 84% for Media & Communication: Strategic Corporate Communication and 85% for English: Gender and Writing. I worked my ass off for the horribly airy-fairy Strategic Communication course, so that mark was understandable. I am a little confused about the English mark though- it sounds 10% too high. I went into the exam on around 78-80%, and I thought one of my two essays was complete waffle. I was expecting 76% for the exam at the highest. Maybe moderators were upping marks- I have no idea.
Meanwhile, my sister meanwhile has completed her Social Sciences degree cum laude. Paul was very disappointed with only 71% for his big Honours project. I can understand his frustration. He worked extremely hard and consistently on his project and everyone who saw it said how good it was, including several lecturers when he presented it. He should have at least received a First (76%) for it. The only reason we can possibly think that the mark was lower was that the documentation on the project was weighted heavier than the computer programme that was the project. If that is the case, the University Computer Science department are idiots completely separate from the realities of the working world. Anyway, I knew not to harp on about things, especially since it was obvious that Paul was quite depressed by his mark.
Otherwise, Thursday, the day of the incredible humidity and thunderstorm, was a Christmas Tree day. With my sister away, I did a large part of the tree decorating by myself. Here are two pictures of the tree:
At Paul’s house in the evening I ended up putting up their Christmas tree and decorating it as well. I think I have finally mastered how to string lights properly and lay tinsel on the branches so that light and colour is balanced across the tree - my former Christmas tree decoration weaknesses.
Otherwise, much of the weekend was Paul and myself- playing PC games, hiring Robots on DVD (stunning looking, but weak storywise) and trying to finish off Christmas shopping and present wrapping on Sunday. Things felt relaxed, normal and natural. A little additional intimacy added to the mix did not harm matters either. I’m not going into details there except for the fact that there were a lot of mediocre ‘erotic’ teen movies on Saturday on DSTV, including Wild Things 2 and Cruel Intentions 3.
We didn’t really see, or hear from any of the crowd all weekend. After I sent out my Christmas party invites via SMS and didn’t have any responses, I was beginning to worry the network was down or something. Warren came over on Friday evening for a small braai and to play a game of Settlers of Cataan (we really need to get hold of the player number expansion so we can play more than 3-4 players). In the course of the evening Warren revealed himself to be a complete Smallville addict, harping on about Clark and Lana and Jason and Lex and some magical stones, which was very amusing.
Actually, I’m not correct in saying that I didn’t hear from anyone all weekend. I’m meeting Hayley, down from Secunda for Christmas, for coffee at the Pavilion tomorrow morning (Tuesday). Gareth and Denbeigh also RSVPed about the Christmas party on Sunday while Paul and I were shopping at Musgrave. It is so nice and handy knowing someone who is a chef- I may have misheard in the noisy Pick n Pay but I was sure there was some remark about Turkish Delight ice cream and apple crumble being brought to the bring-and-share evening on Friday. Inspired by such dedication (or is it female competitiveness?;)), I think I’m going to make my pizzas, which I haven’t done in over a year, and which involve making the base dough from scratch.
End of year University of KwaZulu-Natal marks were made available on Thursday. Of course, the phone and Internet systems crashed under the influx of students after their marks. As a result, I only found out my marks on Friday morning. Anyway, I received 84% for Media & Communication: Strategic Corporate Communication and 85% for English: Gender and Writing. I worked my ass off for the horribly airy-fairy Strategic Communication course, so that mark was understandable. I am a little confused about the English mark though- it sounds 10% too high. I went into the exam on around 78-80%, and I thought one of my two essays was complete waffle. I was expecting 76% for the exam at the highest. Maybe moderators were upping marks- I have no idea.
Meanwhile, my sister meanwhile has completed her Social Sciences degree cum laude. Paul was very disappointed with only 71% for his big Honours project. I can understand his frustration. He worked extremely hard and consistently on his project and everyone who saw it said how good it was, including several lecturers when he presented it. He should have at least received a First (76%) for it. The only reason we can possibly think that the mark was lower was that the documentation on the project was weighted heavier than the computer programme that was the project. If that is the case, the University Computer Science department are idiots completely separate from the realities of the working world. Anyway, I knew not to harp on about things, especially since it was obvious that Paul was quite depressed by his mark.
Otherwise, Thursday, the day of the incredible humidity and thunderstorm, was a Christmas Tree day. With my sister away, I did a large part of the tree decorating by myself. Here are two pictures of the tree:
At Paul’s house in the evening I ended up putting up their Christmas tree and decorating it as well. I think I have finally mastered how to string lights properly and lay tinsel on the branches so that light and colour is balanced across the tree - my former Christmas tree decoration weaknesses.
Otherwise, much of the weekend was Paul and myself- playing PC games, hiring Robots on DVD (stunning looking, but weak storywise) and trying to finish off Christmas shopping and present wrapping on Sunday. Things felt relaxed, normal and natural. A little additional intimacy added to the mix did not harm matters either. I’m not going into details there except for the fact that there were a lot of mediocre ‘erotic’ teen movies on Saturday on DSTV, including Wild Things 2 and Cruel Intentions 3.
We didn’t really see, or hear from any of the crowd all weekend. After I sent out my Christmas party invites via SMS and didn’t have any responses, I was beginning to worry the network was down or something. Warren came over on Friday evening for a small braai and to play a game of Settlers of Cataan (we really need to get hold of the player number expansion so we can play more than 3-4 players). In the course of the evening Warren revealed himself to be a complete Smallville addict, harping on about Clark and Lana and Jason and Lex and some magical stones, which was very amusing.
Actually, I’m not correct in saying that I didn’t hear from anyone all weekend. I’m meeting Hayley, down from Secunda for Christmas, for coffee at the Pavilion tomorrow morning (Tuesday). Gareth and Denbeigh also RSVPed about the Christmas party on Sunday while Paul and I were shopping at Musgrave. It is so nice and handy knowing someone who is a chef- I may have misheard in the noisy Pick n Pay but I was sure there was some remark about Turkish Delight ice cream and apple crumble being brought to the bring-and-share evening on Friday. Inspired by such dedication (or is it female competitiveness?;)), I think I’m going to make my pizzas, which I haven’t done in over a year, and which involve making the base dough from scratch.
Comments
Your Christmas tree looks great - very festive. We have a small tree on our table because of the dogs. I can only imagine the fun our 2 pups would have with a tree like yours!
I hope you enjoy your Christmas party with the gang.