Out of Africa: Ticking Clocks

Hello.... my title has many meanings. For one, it is clearly needed for blog posts. One of the girl's blogs here is called "My New Normal" and that is so true for me! Another week (or two or three) passes and school, service, and sightseeing are my new normal! Another, is that my time here is winding down. I'll be home in about a month! And the third meaning is I saw Coldplay in concert!!!!!
School is a weird concept here. It's "hard" only taking three classes with 10 kids. And we all live together. At times, we actually eat, breathe, and sleep a single assignment. Or, five assignments.. Such is life. Typically, the academics of my program are perfectly balanced with my service, while remembering that we're all in this amazing country wanting to explore. My capstone, finding an NGO to bring to the hospital, fell through. Luckily, I had planned for that and am now encouraging reading through three different branches of the hospital. Reading Buddies, where the school aged kids read to the young babies is my what I'm most excited about. I will also have the babies' nurses set aside times each day to read to small groups of kids. And I will have the Occupational Therapists having reading groups with the adults. This should be a more sustainable project, so I'm actually really excited about it. Hopefully, there is enough time to organize it all.
Sightseeing has taken on a new frenzy. Everyone is realizing that our penny-pinching days from the beginning and middle of the semester has stopped us from experiencing different parts of Cape Town/South Africa. A group is doing two nights in the wine country. We've gone to see cultural movies. Going out to dinner. The beach! And, last weekend, I went shark cage diving! It was amazing! I saw five great white sharks and almost touched one. I was too nervous that it would feel me touch it and attack me. It was actually just like what you watch during Shark Week. The sharks come out of nowhere and look like they're staring you down. I stayed under for about 20 minutes using a snorkel-esque apparatus to breathe. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Maybe when my mom comes...
Here are some pictures from a talent show, the concert, service, my "new normal."