Circlips and City-chic vs Township-chic

Harmonic gearboxes. Torque. Actuators. Deep groove ball bearings. AC Servo motors.

If these words confuse you, don't worry, you're not alone. Isn't it strange that after more than 4 years doing Mechanical Engineering, the mention of a 'circlip' can still leave me puzzled. I remember my first year, when words like 'sprocket' and 'cam-shaft' in class sent me into a mild panic. Then it was different, I was in a class of 100 and there were just 9 girls. It was half comforting to learn that although many of the guys came from Engineering families and had been taking car engines apart from the time they could walk, most were as confused as I was! (Not that they'd ever admit it). UCT's current first year class has about a 40:60 split of girls to guys, so we're getting somewhere.

I joke with my class buddies that I've had to "grow a pair", as much as I risk sounding like a FCP for that, being around this many guys for this long has that effect on a girl. FCP = Female Chauvinist Pig...

(By the way, a circlip is just a c-shaped piece of metal that fits around a cylinder to hold things in place).

Surprise, surprise, I've actually been enjoying my design assignment. Its real this year, and I'm being exposed to so much! Not just that silly machine component plug-and-chug nonsense that a certain "favorite" lecturer of mine teaches. (Sorry, this is a personal joke for you V.G., I know you feel my pain!)

Yesterday I went to the UCT RAG fashion show, a friend had entered the design competition. All in all, it was fun. I love any excuse to scrape away the grease from under my fingernails and put on some heels and some red lipstick! (Joking!) ((about the grease, not the red lipstick ))

My friend did well, I'm very proud of her. She's soon to be an electrical engineer, and juggling engineering with fashion must be a challenge, bu she pulled it off...Quite literally actually.. (The outfit she designed had a long shirt attached with magnets, which the model tore off half way down the run-way, turning it into a super-sexy dress.) You've just got to love engineers!

I've put up my friend's design below and a few of the other good designs...the theme was township-chic vs city-chic. BTW, RAG, the organizers of the event is the organization that raises money for SHAWCO! So it was all for a good cause :) ...but of course.

How hard is your life?

Well I've been sick all week, and had to drag myself out of bed and downstairs this morning because I had a delivery. Imagine my surprise to see what it was...well, you know who you are, you sneak!

So I've been sick, but still ridiculously busy! I had to cancel the project braai today because of the rain-it looks like the infamous Cape Winter has come knocking. I hope he goes away for a while longer, the cold doesn't suit me at all!

The good news is that I've pulled up my socks finally and have planned out the whole of next weeks event already!

Monday: Focus group session (serious)

Tuesday: Trip to Gugulethu and Nyanga (always great)

Wednesday: Project workshop (my my my...)

Thursay: Coffee with Head of EWB (looks like someone wants to check my progress ;) )

Friday: Project braai (fun/relax/sigh)

In between all this, I have to hand in a huge Design assignment. Life Cycle Cost Analysis, plus an Optimization...I don't even know how to start! And then there's a meeting with my future thesis supervisor to give him a report on our MTN science center project...SCARY!!!

I keep thinking "How am I going to do it, how will I survive?" Then someone I love sends me these pics, "in case I need something for my blog", and I think, "Thank you mum". How did you know? It turns out that I didn't just need it for my blog, but for myself too. Its so uncanny how these things work out.

Well take a look at the pics and ask yourself, "How bad is my life, really?" And be grateful. I know I am.

Coincidence or synchro-destiny?

I just noticed something pretty amazing. In my last post, I quoted a paper written by 'Mistro and Hensher.' I had taken that sentence straight out of a term paper I submitted last year for a course, Industrial Ecology. I hadn't even realized it when I posted it, but now it just seems so coincidental.

The topic of the first workshop I held this year for my project team was The Upgrading of Informal Settlements. I invited a professor from the civil engineering department at UCT to deliver a talk. He had published over 50 papers and was accepted at a resident expert in the field, and guess who it was? Professor Romano del Mistro, the author of the paper I had unwittingly quoted months earlier.

Coincidence or synchro-destiny? It doesn't matter. The workshop was very well attended, and even though we couldn't get the projector to work, Prof del Mistro had everyone on the edge of their seats, wide-eyed and left with swelling hearts. His vast knowledge and deep understanding of the situation, not exclusively from an Engineering standpoint but from an underlying and critical social and cultural one, made him an invaluable asset to kick off our project. Thank you Prof.

The colours of "The Rainbow Nation"

I got a crash course in project management this weekend from a real, live management consultant so I decided to have a focus group workshop. It worked really well and I'm happier about where the project is heading now. We're having a project braai this Friday. FUN!

Afterwards, my dad picked me up and we went to Hout Bay for snoek and chips, a tourist must-do in Cape Town. Hout bay is a very funny place, I have to say. On the one side, you have this stunning scenery, some of the most beautiful stretches I have laid eyes on. There are mansions covering the North-west slopes of the bay, and I don't want know the average price of a home there. You have this gorgeous little bay, right, and its full of Europeans.

But then on the other side of the mountain, just behind all this lavishness you have Imizamo Yethu and Heinberg informal settlements. Heinberg is a predominantly coloured township whose community has suffered endlessly as a result of commercial fishing companies gaining exclusive rights to fish in Hout Bay, crippling the economic core of this once-thriving community. Imizamo Yethu (IY) is populated mainly by black Africans, many of which are immigrants. Last year I had the opportunity to visit IY. I walked through its narrow streets and pathways in the dead of winter, in the rain, with a woman who lives there. This was a turning point in my life. She led us up the road, past where the tar ended and the dirty, washed-away, irregular pathways began. The shacks were so close together that there was hardly any place to walk between them. Nothing grew. I saw a few toilets and had a look into one of them. It was broken and full of human waste. These communal toilets were all that the residents of this township had in terms of sanitation. Can you imagine living without a flush toilet in your home?

One of my tour-guide's neighbors had a municipal electricity box above his shack, and she had a live cable, running from his shack to hers for energy to cook and heat water. A common sight in informal settlements are the networks of electricity cables radiating from street poles. In IY, they were low enough for a child to reach, and the crude joints had no insulation. It follows that fire outbreaks are also a very common occurrence in townships, which isn't helped by the fact that shack building-material burns like tinder, spreading the fire so fast that there is little anyone can do to stop it.

IY is a particularly sad place, since the segregation of the community means that there is no sense of working together, sharing or helping one's neighbor. Rape, theft or worse atrocities are daily occurrences. Joe Slovo township, for example, is a very cohesive community, willing to uplift themselves in the spirit of Ubuntu. This, and the harsh, sloping terrain of IY are some of the reasons that initiatives are more likely to implemented elsewhere.

I could go on and on about the countless problems faced by people daily in IY and other townships, but the reality is that there is not much that I can do. South Africa currently has the highest Gini coefficient in the world (inequality rate between rich and poor). Currently, there are roughly 2 million households living in informal settlements and ‘the South African government is to overcome this housing backlog by 2014; but doubling the budget will only achieve this by 2030’ (Mistro and Hensher, 2009).

The problems faced daily in informal settlements is a serious and ongoing one, and only by widespread awareness of the situation, and an acceptance of responsibility by every citizen, will any major change be realized. I think it's time for South Africans to stop sitting back and waiting for government to provide. There is so much each one of us can do by sacrificing so little of our lives.

If we each did just a little more, gave just a little more, maybe then the colours of The Rainbow Nation would finally begin to blend, breaking free from their perfectly clean individual stripes and flowing as one united stream. Maybe then could we finally learn Ubuntu, understand it and truly embrace it.

Good food, great wine, amazing company!

The title of this blog mentions cocktails and dancing till dawn, and I know I have been perfectly boring this year because of my training, but I made up for it this weekend. I thought I'd share some of the awesome places I visited.

Firstly, on Thursday my family got a selection of breads and cheeses from this awesome place in Newlands, Bon Fromage. Everything in this quaint coffee shop had something to do with cheese. I've wanted to try it forever, but never got around to it. So we had this cheesy picnic at Rhodes memorial. Pretty awesome!

Thursday night was a good friend's graduation from pole-dancing level 1. I was a bit wary about this one, having burnt a few bras in my day, but I went along to support. It was actually pretty cool, I must admit. More pole-fitness than the usual objectification, so I warmed up to the idea. My friend was pretty amazing actually, it was great fun! I'll play the video at her wedding-will be interesting... ;)

After that we went to this tiny, incredibly unassuming place just off Long Street, Julep. Now this place is really something else! I walked right past, because there was no sign on the door. Inside was intimate but really funky, and was full of really interesting-looking people (including a huge fat man dressed as a nun.) Now if you're willing to wait, the barman will whip you up the most wicked Old Fashioned bourbon cocktail! Can you spell amayzing?

On Saturday, after the race, I got out to do a bit of dancing at Saint Yves at Camps Bay ( the new Ignite nightclub.) The crowd I went with were super cool and I had fun, even though I was ridiculously tired. I didn't wear heels due to the blisters, but it's a really classy place, and a must for party-lovers!

Sunday we explored the cape-town markets and had a long lunch at Beluga, Greenpoint (my favorite restaurant). I had more prawns than I should have, but this is my celebratory weekend, so I say "Bring it on"! I love Beluga, and if you havn't been there yet, please do yourself a favour and go. Half price sushi and cocktails everyday from 12-7 and all day Sundays. The home of the original "half-price sushi". Try the white Lindt chocolate Begnet balls with butterscotch sauce and home made ice cream. Literally heaven.

And I have to mention a certain delicious home-cooked North-Indian chicken makhnie. I really was spoiled this weekend!

Well today is work work work. After all that fun (and eating) I need to catch up.

I know I run like a girl, try to keep up!

So I guess you're wondering if I finished or not...

The race was simply beautiful. We started in the drizzling darkness. Somehow I got a C-seeding, which was a bit of a mistake since I should have been an E. So I started off with the really good runners who raced past me. leaving me in the dust. The first 5km were the hardest! I got my rhythm though in time for the 11km mark, where we met the infamous "Southern Cross drive": a two km uphill struggle!

Psychologically, it was tougher than it was physically. I realized this about half-way up and after that, it was a breeze! I was shocked at how okay it was. The scenery was absolutely stunning, a privilege reserved for the runners. It looks a bit like this, only way better. Imagine, the 56km runners get to see the mountain, and both oceans (as well as Chapman's Peak!!!).

Coming in from Rhodes drive onto the UCT sports field for the finish was just great, it was literally like coming home. People were shouting "GO UCT" and "well done IKEYS!". Running in my UCT colours made me feel so proud, and I sprinted down the finish line laughing. The supporters helped soooo much, I'm not kidding! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I finished in 2:31:07, just short of my goal of 2:30 but I don't mind. I have done the Two Oceans! I was on a serious buzz at the finish, and randomly met some people who turned out to be pretty awesome. Running races is such a great social experience and a chance for you to meet people with similar interests. After all, runners have to be driven!

My parents and most of their friends finished the 56km, and enjoyed their runs. Well done to everyone who finished. It was definitely not easy!

TWO OCEANS- Here we go

Tomorrow is the TWO OCEANS!

I'm doing the half-marathon and my folks are doing the 56km ultra-marathon.

We hit the road at 6:00 am. 21 kilometers. Two and a half hours. 11 000 runners.

I haven't been this stressed out in ages.

Anyway, I might have some good news, but lets just concentrate on the race for now. I don't know how I'm going to manage to sleep! At this stage, I just want it to be over...

Good luck to all the runners!