Bag and Shoe of happiness
So the first week of school is over. My class is nice, they’ve accepted me after the first day. I still haven’t got any contacts tho, so this weekend will be spent alone, again. But i get a feeling this is the last time.
I desperately need a means of transport to become more independent. I was hoping to get a scooter this weekend, but the guy i’m buying from seems to be away just this weekend so i will most likely get on on monday, i hope. Otherwise there is a girl in class who is selling her old one, but the resell value on that one isn’t as high, so i aiming for the other one. It’s a Yamaha BWS 100. The BWS stands for Big Wheel Scooter, which apparently makes it an off road scooter. Ever heard of anything like that? 100 stands for 100cc, which is the size of the engine, but even despite that Johan assures me it’s the best possible scooter to get, and since i don’t know squat about those and i can’t get a vespa, i’ll trust him.
The first week of school was pretty intense. I worked from 9 to 20 every day, and was done by Thursday afternoon with only printing left for friday. Unfortunately everything took a lot more time as usual, and i help out Suzanna with her project a bit too, so i ended up at home around 15, just before the heavy traffic hit. I really need my own transport.
The result of my first week at CPUT and a small miniature showing the backside.
In other news, my favourite sneakers broke. It’s a pair i bought when i was last in Vienna, since i couldn’t find a pair i like at home. I exchanged the shoelaces from the original black ones to red before i came here, so its a very personal pair of sneakers to me. All the more annoying that they broke.
But, very unusually for me i decided to fix them myself. This course of action is probably inspired by the book Bohemian Manifesto which i am (still) reading. I could have given them to a shoemaker for repairs, or even worse thrown them out and gotten and new pair. But they weren’t all that badly broken, all that happened was that one seam broke on the outer side of the shoe, so it wasn’t really a hole, just a minor cosmetically rip.
With some determination i took a sewers kit and a red thread, and i sow up the rip myself. I’m actually pretty proud of myself. The new seam is very visible, and adds another nuance of red to the shoe, and a whole lot of personality. It feels incredibly good to do something practical with your hands, without any prior knowledge or training or help.
The new seam in my shoes
It’s incredible how good a rip in your shoe can make you feel.
PS. sorry for the crappy quality of the pictures recently, i’ve been using my new camera -.-
Hadoken!
School started today for real. My first assignment is to digitalize a bag design. Most students have designed their own bags in their previous year, but since i just joined i got to pick a bag i would like to digitalize. I picked one based on what i would like to learn, but also one that i think i can improve on. Don’t have a pic of it, but i’m going to show you the final product 
Here’s a bit of the artwork so far:
A piece of art created for a school project, original concept artists name unknown.
I’m not doing the Graphical Design program full time. I’m going to pick away some courses i’m not so interested in, like history, and do my own projects in the meantime. Which would be the GVC (GGVC?) web site ^^ Looking forward to that.
Living away from home
Heja
So things have been happening at the University. Next week is the first week of school for normal South African students. The first years have an orientation week, but everyone else just continues their education as normal. Not sure how this is going to work out for me, as it’s becoming more and more obvious that the university here hasn’t really got a plan for receiving Masters students. So people are unsure how it is supposed to work and preferably it would be nice if someone else took care of that problem for them. I’ll be there Monday morning, but i ‘m still not sure what will happen. I would love to do my own projects, got at least 2 proposals.
This is a picture specialy for Ahrens. Check description.
I have started moving my blog to my private domain. You can look at its start here, but it’s just an empty page now. Depending on what happens in school, i will be working on creating my own CSS and some custom features. I hope it’s easier than i think it is, but understanding someone else’s code is never simple. My goal is to have a couple custom made CSS you can choose from and exploring the blog in terms of usability.
Since i moved here, the cultural differences have been creeping up on me slowly. I really love how the generally mentality of the people is. They are all really friendly and eager to meet a new face. One major difference i’ve noticed is eating at home. Not many people do it. There’s no point. It takes time and effort, and is likely to be more expensive than eating out. So very few people cook at home, and they do it mostly for pleasure. It made me realize, the the way of life i had been taught at home, doesn’t have to apply. ‘The proper way’ of doing things is just a way i’ve been taught because of local reason, cultural or habitual. Interesting.
If you peel all of that away from me, i wonder what would be left?
*lick*
Hello!
I’ve been away on a two day trip with Chriss Greenwood, the guy i meant on Couch Surfing, hence i was unable to write at that time. But to keep you entertained i am uploading a list of animals i have seen in the wild since i came here.
Please note that i am not Mr. Camera Conjurer and also not Made Of Bandwidth, so i only have pictures of three of them.
Ah, and it seems that my statistics have drasticly improved since i complained no one visits the blog the obvious course of action is to complain more! Logically speaking. I’m not a logical person.
- Kolibri – Just flew up to me, noticed i’m not a flower, backed out and flew away.
- Seals – Well you might have seen the video yesterday, yes?
- Human – buggers get everywhere.
- Chameleon – Roll a spot check, difficulty over 9000. I don’t have a picture because i couldn’t find it again after i went to get the camera.
- Zolbane Bengtslayer – A huuge insect, possibly a beattle. Curious little fellow, but not to bright. It had a fatal physical attraction to my grill.
- Bird with tail -The tail was three times longer than the bird. I really wish i had my cam with me.
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- No, really
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- Giant Sea Turtle… and grass.
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- Dramatic Rock Rabit
Postponing
Heya
I’m working on a bigger post expaining the majority of my move here, but it’s so big it’s taking time and effort. For now i have a little treat for you.
I’m finaly moved and settled in with Johan, one of the professors at my school. I got my very own room here, and it’s a totaly awsome appartment. Johan is an amazing and intrigueging guy (avoiding the word interesting here), and i hope to learn more about him and from him during my stay here.
I’ve also found out more about how school works. Apparently masters student are much more valued here. I don’t really have the same possition as most students. I’m even able to propose a project which i can do as part of my education. I think i will do the GVC website that way, it’s a wonderfull opportunity to work with a user group that needs my work.
Oh and about the appartment again. It’s got really good internet, by a wireless modem! And i don’t mean that it sends a WLAN around, it acctually gets the internet via 3G. Amazingly good speed. Johan chose to do it this way because he refuses to use land lines, that are owned by Evil Corporation. That means i have decent internet.
So here’s a treat for you. I would edit it but for some reason i don’t have Movie Maker 
Does any one know a good alternative?
Comment or something
The statistics on this blog aren’t exactly encouraging
I’ll write something proper from my new place
I should Twitter
Yo!
So i have a couple of news but i’m literaly too tired to write about it all, so i’ll BULLET it into your head.
- Wind and sun makes cousken a dull boy
- Done with all Swedish reports
- moving out tomorrow
- Found out how school works here, it’s awsome for masters
- Will probably do the GVC website as a credited projet, please please please
- Saw a Flat, will keep looking
- Met Chriss Greenwood, wonderfull chap.
- Goodnight
Another quicky
I’m sitting at a cafe right now, waiting for a download that will hopefuly make my 3g modem work. So it
s time for another quick update
I found a place to live! One of the teachers at the university overspent on hist christmass shopping, so he offered to rent me his guest room. The very good thing about that is that i will live close to Suzanna, and have a local nearby as well. And free itnernet 
There’s a download cap, so i will try not abuse it, but that means i will be able to work on this blog seriously ^^
I’m going to the University soon to talk to him about it, then i have one more viewing of an appartment in walking distance to the Uni. The one the teacher offered is out of town so i would need to drive or take the train, but that won
t be a problem i think. It’s a really nice neighbourhood.
In the evening i will meet Chris Greenwood for dinner and a beer. He’s an arts teacher i met over couch surfing, so that could be interesting
I think i will move out from the hostel tomorrow or on wednesday, so i’ll keep you updated.
I wanna go to the beach and sunbathe :/
Update
Hello mates :=)
Here’s a quick update – Right now i’m in South Africa on exchange studies Most of you know that already.
I’m still staying at the hostel, going to look at server appartments the comming week. The internet here is modem speed, so that has put a stop to my plans regarding this page, but i hope to get something better as soon as i settle down.
I plan on resurecting this site a whole lot. I will move it to my personal server, which is aatk-design.com. The point of that is that i will be able to play around with the CSS there And seeing as i am studying graphical design here, that can prove interesting.
Cape town is pretty awsome. We got a lot of sun, wind and mountains, and those are all things i love. The plant life is really african here, but i haven’t seen much of it yet. It’s not really my thing to go hiking alone, or even to the beach. I’m expecting to do more things once i get some friends at school.
I do plan on making more things happen once i get serious internet, but for now i will try to make more of these short updates
