Feeling at Home

Today has been a little bit more relaxed than yesterday. We got a chance to take the shuttle to the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus this morning. We got a tour of the campus, access to the library and computer labs, and each of us got our own UCT ID card. The campus was great and bustling with activity the whole time we are there. The school has about 25,000 people and is mostly non-residential. As a result, most students come to campus in the morning and leave at night. It was packed the whole time we were there. Something that was really cool to me was how diverse and integrated the community was. There were people from everywhere and it really looked like a cool community. I’m sad that I won’t get to spend more time on campus. We don’t have any of our classes there, so there are very few chances to interact with the campus. I hope that I can find a way to get integrated.

After our time on campus, we were free and I wandered around and got some food at a local place. I also got my phone for South Africa. I’m really starting to feel comfortable moving around the neighborhood. It is starting to feel familiar and my confidence in my own sense of direction is increasing. Hopefully I’ll keep getting more comfortable.

We also had meetings with the service learning coordinator today and I have narrowed my groups down to two. I will take more time to describe them tomorrow or Thursday when I have decided on one. Both of them work in the public health sector. One of them specializes on HIV-affected individuals while the other works on issues of malnutrition and wellbeing. I think I would be happy about both placements and I’ll let you know more about the one that I’ll be working with this spring!

This afternoon I went for a longer run to get outside. The weather is still warm, though it’s very windy. Hopefully the running weather keeps up because I’m really enjoying going out with friends to run and explore Observatory and the surrounding neighborhoods.

That pretty much sums up my day. As a bonus, I have some pictures of my time in Cape Town! The program director’s wife took some pictures of our first orientation session while we were meeting with the professors. Though the pictures are just from the Stanford Centre, they are pictures of me in Cape Town. Hope you enjoy them and I’ll try to put some up in a few days. They can be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/sgstanton/SpringQuarterOrientation#.

Tim