You can't cross the same river twice

I enjoyed going to Oxford the other day; it was nice being in an academic town again. It's odd, but there really is a certain studenty feel to the place. It made me miss wandering around the UCT campus; it made me miss being at varsity, doing the whole academic thing. Going to lectures, studying - just learning new things (although I don't miss tests and tutorials and exams).

And then I started thinking about other things I miss; I used to do First Aid for the rugby team at school, and each Saturday I'd wake up early, collect a pile of ice from the freezer, and go down to the rugby field to watch the game. We'd have to be there rain or shine, and somehow it was always fun.

I miss the holidays in Robertson we used to have when I was a kid. We'd stay in a chalet, and go swimming and ride the supertube, and go into Barrydale to do shopping. It was fun.

I miss doing archery - I only did two lessons, and the first time I got horribly sunburned, and the next time I managed to bruise my arm really, really badly, but I enjoyed it anyway.

I miss working at Axcess - we were working on interesting stuff, with cool people, and it was really great.

The thing is, that I miss UCT, but I wouldn't want to go back and do another degree now. I wouldn't want to wake up early and go to rugby. Robertson would be unbearably boring. (On the other hand, I would go back to Axcess in a heartbeat, if we got all the same people together again). And I know I'm not the first person to think this, but the time, place, and activity are all tied up together, and you can go back to the place, or do the same activity, but you can't go back to the time.

And I have to keep that in mind, with moving back to SA - I'm not going back in time; I'm not going back to Axcess, I'm starting something new, just in an old place. Doesn't mean it won't be good, but it won't be the same as before :-)

There are some things that I'm not looking forward to:
- Lack of communications infrastructure. Ridiculously expensive phone calls, mobile contracts, and don't even mention broadband (or what passes for broadband there; I think that the ADSL is too slow to qualify as broadband, and GPRS certainly isn't broadband).

- Bank fees. Paying for every transaction, even getting a balance from an ATM, is going to take some getting used to again. Not being able to use a debit card will be the worst; not that they don't have debit cards, but you get charged each time you use it - the same charge as drawing money from an ATM. Mostly I used to use my credit card as a debit card, but you can't really use a credit card for small purchases like you can with a debit card. And while I'm on it, why are charges always a percentage of the transaction amount? It's an electronic transaction; whether it's for R1 or R10000, it doesn't take them any more effort to process it. So why should you pay more?

- Politics. I know everywhere has political problems, but it just seems so much worse there. It's partly the race thing; for example, the ANC is going around renaming roads and places to honour ANC heroes. I think that most people agree, if reluctantly, that some current place names may be offensive; but then rename things to be neutral, rather than ANC-centric. What if, say, the IFP comes into power, and then renames everything after IFP heroes? And then the DA, and they rename everything, and then the ANC, and they rename everything again... I understand renaming the airport from DF Malan to Cape Town International, but now they want to rename it again to... something or other, after some ANC guy. It's just silly. And our politicians seem to all be pushing their own agenda; they're generally incompetent or corrupt (although there are some exceptions, like Trevor Manuel).

But the thing is, while those things are important, they don't really affect your day to day life :-) You get used to the expensive communications; you learn to optimize your banking transactions and stop thinking about it; and if you don't read the news, you can avoid most of the politics ;-) And there's the mountain, sea, sun, kirstenbosch, familiarity, and family. People to laze around with over the weekend, in the sun, with the blue sky and green grass... I'd put up with a lot for that!

Sightseeing

So I finished work on Monday; it was kinda sad to leave. The first job I had fell apart so quickly that I was just stunned; the second, it kinda fell apart and I resigned, but I really hated leaving. The next one, well, I was really glad to get out of there. This one I didn't hate, and I didn't love; I wouldn't have left, except that I wanted to go home. So I kinda had mixed feelings about leaving (for someone who doesn't like change, and who gets really attached to things and people and places, I really make life difficult for myself!).

I go home next month, and then the whole thing starts again - finding a flat, finding a job (and going through interviews again, aargh!). I want to get a car, and at least I'll have a bike again, yay! Hopefully I'll find a job I like, and make friends, and maybe, hopefully, even meet a guy ;) In the meantime, though, I'm catching up on some sightseeing; yesterday, I went off to Oxford and the Cotwolds.

I went on the London Walks trip, which is reasonable value. We went from Paddington to Oxford station, where there was a bus to take us to the Cotwolds. First stop was Minster Lovell, where we wandered around and saw the ruins of Minster Lovell Hall. Very pretty place, and it was cool to stand in a real ruined building - you see it on TV, but it's different being there in person. And to see the foundations of the outbuildings - it was a bit of a Time Team flashback :-)

At the village church there was a scene that I just had to take a photo of; file it in the dictionary as a definition for 'irony' (hmm, maybe I should have cropped and zoomed a bit; if you can't read it, the sign says 'Welcome'):

And this picture is exactly what I always imagined when I heard the word 'cottage':

We then went off to Burford, for lunch, and then on to Oxford. We did quite an interesting walking tour of Oxford, and even got to go inside New College, and saw the dining room (again, just like I always imagined!) and the chapel. All very cool, and I was really chuffed to be able to buy a real Oxford sweatshirt, from a real Oxford college store :-) I got to see the Ashmolean Museum, although unfortunately there wasn't time to go inside; same with the History of Science Museum, which sounded really cool.

I also particularly liked the gargoyles at New College:

Tomorrow I'm off to Bath; this time, I managed to get really cheap train tickets, so I'm going on my own rather than on a guided tour. I'll do a City Sightseeing bus tour round the city, and go to the Roman Baths and the Pump Room; hopefully it'll be interesting! Monday I'm off to Edinburgh for the day; I know it's insane going all that way for one day, but... well... for some reason I decided to do it, and it's too late to change my mind now :-) I'm really excited about that one; again, it's a bus tour round the city, and entrance into the castle. Woot!

Things That Bug Me

Some things really bug me. Really, really bug me, to the point that I feel like a frustrated little kid throwing a temper tantrum, because complaining just doesn't help and nobody cares.

Here's a cartoon chaser, though:


It's from xkcd, a brilliant comic I just discovered. Some of them are funny, some are cool, some are insightful. But this one made me burst out laughing, out loud, even though there was no-one else around :-)

So, things that bug me. Like Google deciding that I have to switch my blog to the new GoogleBlog system, associated with my google id. I don't want everything connected to the same id; maybe I want to keep my blog and my searches and my email and my usenet posts and my googletalk logins all separate. But Google just doesn't give you that option. And being signed into one automatically signs you into all the other services, even if you use them in a different window - so while I could theoretically use a different google username for each service,
it gets really difficult to do so. It frustrates me, and I know that they don't care, won't do anything about it, and I'm just going to have to change the way I want to do things.

Which, incidentally, is what bugs me about Microsoft - I have to change the way I want to do things, because it doesn't fit in with the way they do things. Even just on my own PC.

And here's something else - my dad's Epson printer stopped working yesterday. Without warning, it started blinking red and green lights. Eventually he managed to find out that this means that 'parts are worn and need a service'. It turns out, that after a certain number of pages, the printer decides it needs a service and refuses to print until it's been serviced. There's no way to override it (although I suspect flashing the bios might fix it; after all, there must be some way for the service tech to reset it, right? But there's no user way to override it). So to be able to continue printing - and remember, this happens without warning, halfway through a print job - you have to take it to Epson to have it serviced. And the service costs about 80% of the price of a new printer. And there's nothing you can do!! And no-one at Epson cares! And it certainly isn't on the packaging; you don't know this when you buy the printer. This really should be illegal; it's planned obsolesence. Your printer essentially expires, with no warning, and there's nothing you can do. I know we always joke about things breaking the day after the warranty expires; this is like that, except it's not a joke.

And broadband in South Africa bugs me unbelievably much; but I'm not even going to get started on that one. All I'm going to say is that it's ridiculous and pathetic; both in terms of monthly costs, installation costs, speed, stability, and customer service.

Well, enough complaining for now. Enjoy the weekend :-)

This one's pretty good, too:


Oh, and here are some more things that bug me: companies who have email addresses, but never reply to their email, or who think that just because their ToS says they'll respond in 14 days, that really is a reasonable amount of time to have to wait for a reply, or who do reply but with an automated or monkey-driven scripted reply, based on keywords in your email, that just regurgitates the info on their website and doesn't answer your question at all (tiscali's particularly bad with this).

And websites who check your browser version, and if it isn't one they recognise, advise you to upgrade to the latest version of IE. Firstly, I'm not going to change my system for the dubious privilege of viewing their website; secondly, while I don't expect everyone to design their sites for access by mobiles, at least acknowledge the possibility that your visitor is using a perfectly up-to-date version of, say, PocketIE. Or that they might be using a system which they can't upgrade - a mobile, or a *nix system on which IE wouldn't install, even if someone, bizarrely, actually wanted it to.

I'm sure i'll be back with more. But for now, goodnight :-)

Aaaaargh! And Blogger, who's site works on a mobile, in that you can log in, choose a blog, view your posts, edit a post - but then doesn't let you click submit. Aaaaarrrggghhh!