Small victories...

I have just found that I am about 2/3's of the way through the horrible task of coding these summaries. My host and I had discussed having the students write summaries before I arrived, but when he set the assignment he didn't give any restrictions - so we have a pile of about 100 summaries ranging from 4-30 pages long. It is taking a LONG time to go through them. It is not fun work. The later summaries are restricted to one page, so the project should get better...

I met another dorm-mate this evening, a guy from Ireland here to finish his PhD in law. I found his accent hard to understand, then I remembered how much I've adjusted this past week - I felt the same way about people here last Monday and now I understand almost everything. I still miss the names of things sometimes though.

Ever since going to Kirstenbosch yesterday, I have been contemplating whether I feel comfortable being so much more well off than the average person in this city. People in the gardens all seemed well off, and the restaurant had quite a stuffy atmosphere. Part of me wants to go to the winelands and eat at some fancy vineyard on Saturday, but another part of me wants to go do volunteer work. I'm sure if I lived here I would find ways to contribute to society and not just take advantage of fitting into the upper crust. I would like to interact with more of a range of people - but I don't know of any safe way to do that. At least I know I'm helping disadvantaged kids at the university. Still, they have made it to university, so they are doing well. It is important to help them succeed though - the drop-out rate can be very high here.

I think I will take a reading break then do some more coding before bed. I have to space it out - it is just not fun.