Work and Play

Friday was chaos! I had promised to help my sister bake the cupcakes for the cupcake-party 21st we had at Kirstenbosch (will post piccies soon), but had a few hundred things to do before then. I had told Harro that I'd meet him at 1:30 to discuss continuing the funding to Engineers without Borders (EwB) for the Township Caterers Project for next year.

Recap: The Dept. of Chem Eng at UCT is doing this big bad research project involving various aspects of the treated wood problem. There's one guy doing his PhD on technology deployment, another on the health risks of cooking with the wood, another group on economic consideration at transport nodes etc. EwB is doing the fun part: actually implementing technologies to the people who need it!  Harro is the head of this research endeavor, simply titled: TD4SUD or Technology Deployment for  Sustainable Urban Development (scary acronyms!)

Staff of Societi Bistro restaurant

My head has been on the chopping-block lately since I've been concentrating pretty hard on my thesis and have let things slide a lot!  I've realised that I need to become Superwoman and take more control of this again, or else I'll be remembered as the most colossal failure of the year!  I thought I'd get to campus a little early from the hospital, and do some research for EwB, but I got a little distracted with updating the EwB tab on my blog...check it out! Then, Holle and Anya emailed me and said they'd love to meet and discuss how the Energy Research Centre at UCT can help us, and get an update. So I thought that I should go round and check them out first, before Harro and get it out the way..So at 1:30, I'm in Anya's office, trying to explain why the project is falling apart, when I get a call from my head of social research, G, who I'd ALSO told I would meet at 1:30!!!

Well, somehow I managed to meet with all three groups and give them each what they needed to know...Don't ask how I managed to schedule 3 meetings at the same time!  Thank goodness it was Friday and I got to go for a gorgeous run on Seapoint promenade before supper with friends at Societi Bistro! This place is a little pricey, but definitely worth it! My mushroom risotto was absolutely delicious! And no, I'm not just saying that because my friend's brother, Stefan is the head chef...See Stefan, I even said it on my blog!

http://www.societi.co.za/Societi_Bistro/Home.html

So right now I'm busy doing my homework! And I've found tons of resources from people who have done similar stove projects all over the world. The World Bank, Hilary Clinton and University of California, Berkley are amongst them!

If you're interested, check out some of these links: I'm so impressed by the amazing work being done!

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