TTT: Heavyweights

Last week with Top Ten Tuesdays we discussed the best light and fun books. Recall that it was really difficult for me. I did find some really nice suggestions on some blogs (there are light books out that that don’t feature love and bunnies! Who woulda thunk it?), but today we discuss books addressing tough subjects, and naturally this is more up my alley. I have learned that I need to learn to be a little more upbeat or risk scaring people away, but there is space in the world for serious matters. Here are my suggestions:

In honour of the newbies

Today, my little sister moves into her new residence for her first university year. Our parents will be helping with the move, and I know it will be a difficult day for them all. I wish I was there to help.

I remember so clearly how hard the goodbyes were when I first came to university five Januaries ago. I remember anxiety, and begging them to take me home. And I remember them wisely advising that it would get easier. As much as they wanted to take me home with them, they knew that it was neither the healthy nor the educated decision. I have faith that while the goodbyes will be equally hard this time around, my sister will feel more welcome than I did.

A Tired, Anxious, Excited Post

It’s amazing how few places offer free wifi. But San Francisco does, and I’m super glad!

One of my (sponsored, not self-paid) tickets is First Class. It’s a first for me (see what I did there) and it’s pretty cool. I’m so full on good food that I don’t have much else to do during this layover but be on the internet (because I’ve already ogled all the lovely book stores).

Upon saying goodbye to the boy at the airport (I said bye to la familia 1000km before that), I had to suppress an unexpected bout of tears. I thought it was happy tears. But on the plane I got pretty anxious. I realised, wow, this is happening. Oh my holy cow, THIS IS HAPPENING.

Holiday Slump

Thoughts: I’m feeling blue. I looked forward to these holidays, and I don’t want them to end, but at the same time I feel like I’m drifting around. No exams to study for, no student government projects to work on… I’m reading a lot, which I should love, but I feel like I should DO something!

I don’t want Medicine to be what defines my life. Surely there must be more? I don’t believe that it is the ultimate goal. And I don’t believe that I can’t be anything worthwhile before I finally get that piece of paper. But what to do? Is this a normal feeling?

Semester at Sea continues to give me sleepless nights. Visas are a constant nightmare, so much so that I now need to apply for a temporary passport so that my travel agent can apply for my Moroccan visa once I have already left the country. Their embassy won’t let me apply for the visa before mid-January. Only, I don’t think one is allowed to have a passport and a temporary passport at the same time.

The only thing that has been helping for my… what? Frustration? Is running and chocolate. But not being particularly fit, I can only run so far.

GoFundMe Campaign: Semester at Sea

As many of you may recall, I have been given the great opportunity to attend Semester at Sea Spring 2013. A while ago I unfortunately got news that I had not received the scholarship I had hoped for – and needed – to make SAS a reality.

So I got moved to an economy cabin, applied for more scholarships, and managed to receive a total $15,500 in scholarships. The remaining $8,000 is a lot less, but still a lot for someone dealing with the South African exchange rates. It is still more than my entire tuition and boarding costs for a year. I have approached so many businesses in the past month that I have lost count. I am still at $8,000.

Semester at Sea: Stumbling

Not such good news this update around. Scholarship and Aid results came out last night, and my Presidential Scholarship application was unsuccessful. I did receive a need-based grant, but the venture remains financially unattainable. We’re talking 20K US-dollars that I don’t have. And with the recent strikes in South Africa, our exchange rate went from an unaffordable ZAR8.44 to a dollar, to a ridiculous ZAR8.74.

To give some meat to the matter, $20,000 is more than the total sum of alllll the study debt I’ve rung up in my four years of study.

Book Review: OMG QUEER

Hope. Fear. Desire. Despair. Promises. Betrayals.

Lesbian. Gay. Bisexual. Transgender. Questioning. Intersex.

This anthology of short stories gives voice to the rising generation as they define what it means to grow up queer in the twenty-first century. What is it like to grow up in a society that embraces you in certain ways but discriminates against you in others? How do you choose a label from the alphabet soup, and should you even have to? By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, comical and caustic, these stories, imagined and told by youth across America, provide a snapshot of queerness at the dawn of the new millennium.

I had big hopes for this book. The blurb promises a tangible look into the lives of modern young LGBTQI individuals.

Retina Burn [Trigger Warning]

I saw a woman jumping to her death.

She is a regular at medical emergency for suicide attempts or parasuicide (nobody seems to know). She always manages to run away before she is taken to the Psychiatry ward. Did you know that women are less often successful at suicide attempts than men? It is because they tend to go for “softer” methods.

Letter to the Lost

Hallo.

Yesterday was Spring Day. We all know that spring only really begins 21 September, but that’s okay because 1 September always held a kind of magic. I recall prancing around in a tutu and butterfly wings on a miserable 1 September long ago. It didn’t matter that it was cold… it was Spring Day!

TTT: Good Intentions, Bad Habits

After a short hiatus, I am joining up with Top Ten Tuesday at The Broke and the Bookish again. This week we discuss our top (or should I say bottom) ten bookish confessions.

I’m not really into the whole “must-feel-guilty-about-something” way of life, so I wasn’t 100% sure if this list would really accomplish anything, but here goes.