The Wedding Crashers

As promised, here is my update on my search for a date for the wedding, or as it should be called, the “Wedding Date Woes”.

Sadly, my previous post did little to inspire guilt in any potential dates, and so I resorted to subtly making it known that I needed a partner by changing my Facebook status to assorted variations on the theme of “Candice is wondering if there are any eligible bachelors out there who would like to come with her to a wedding”. After 3 weekends of this, I only got 1 response, from Thomas*, who sounded eager, but then realized he was going away with his family that weekend. It was a case of “so close, and yet, so far” – something I have got used to in the last few weeks. After realizing that Luke, Duncan and Chris – all perfect, eligible bachelors - were unavailable, I moved onto the less obvious candidates on the bachelor list. First up was Shaun*. We get along fantastically, but having just returned from Cape Town*, and leaving for Austria* in a couple of days, the date of the wedding was a bit problematic for him. And so, I moved on to Alex*. This was a little more complicated, given that he is actually my ex-boyfriend. Nevertheless, he is a great guy and we still get along very well. I also knew that he would be the perfect person to take on a road-trip, because he loves travelling! Alas, it turned out that he was travelling to Sabi Sabi for the next few weeks… At this point, I must admit that I was starting to panic. The requirements for the date were moving away from “eligible bachelor” and towards “available and willing”, or at least “unlikely to make too much fuss if I abduct them”. Peter* seemed to fit the first category, and was thus the next option, despite having only known him for a few weeks. After much emailing, however, I discovered that, with his sister away and his grandparents being old and frail, it was a less than ideal time for him to disappear for 3 days. And so, I moved onto my last real option, Aaron*, an engineer, who was unfortunately writing a supplementary exam in the week after the wedding, and needed to commune with his maths textbook. Between these individuals were a few less notable others, who were not really options, based on their current girlfriends. Awkward!

And so it was on Tuesday morning, when I phoned Becka and told her that I wouldn’t be coming. I felt really bad about this, especially since I was the only school friend of hers who would be going. I was also incredibly disappointed, partly because I was looking forward to a weekend away, the wedding itself and just having fun, and partly because of the date saga. I know that the level of disappointment is generally proportional to the level of expectation, and so, if one has little or no expectation, one will never be disappointed. The thing is, I don’t think my expectations were unrealistic. After the engagement party, I really thought that getting a date would be easy, as I thought that I would either be in a relationship, or be able to find a date fairly easily, especially since I have a lot of lovely guy friends. Clearly, I was not meant to go to the wedding! My only consolations are that the guys all had legitimate excuses (none of them were like “Sorry, I can’t, I have to cut my toenails that weekend”) and that I have now well and truly got over any fear of rejection that I might have had! I have also saved a heck of a lot of money on petrol and accommodation (part of which I’m going to spend on getting my passport – and maybe a massage, as Luke suggested). And, I got a really gorgeous, (albeit horribly expensive) red dress out of the deal – one which will hopefully eventually be worn to a wedding, along with a lovely, eligible bachelor on my arm!

*names of people and places changed to protect the identities of the innocent/guilty/unavailable.

The Wedding Planner

As I mentioned in my previous note, I’m attending a wedding in 3 weeks time. I’ve been extremely excited about this for most of the year – although the excitement has turned to panic in the last month.

The wedding is that of my friend, Rebecca and her long-time boyfriend, Danson. I’ve known Becka for most of high school and we’ve remained friends during varsity. She and Danson are one of the nicest couples I know, and while I’m usually pretty adamant that people should avoid getting married young, I’m certain that Becka and Danson are perfect for each other. The wedding itself is being held on 29 November, at Cathedral Peak, which is where Danson proposed, and Pietermaritzburg is Becka’s home town, so the area has special significance for both of them.

In my experience – mostly gained from watching numerous TV shows and movies - it is perfectly normal for the bride to be in a state of panic – or moderate anxiety – prior to the wedding. As far as I know, the guests are not really supposed to partake in this worry – they are supposed to show up at the wedding, comment on how lovely the happy couple looks, have a good time at the reception, smile in photos, eat some wedding cake and then go home. Easy. Fun. But somehow, with 3 weeks to go until the wedding, I am a bundle of nerves, for one simple reason: I don’t have a date!

Now, I should’ve learned from my previous experience with dates/partners/plus-one’s. When I was invited to Becka’s engagement party at the start of the year, I struggled to find a partner. I asked Luke and Duncan (both of whom were away for the weekend), Steven – who had a braai to go to – and Chris, who had to go to his brother’s birthday dinner. Just under a week before the party, I managed to get my friend, Ben, to come with me, and we had a fantastic time.

I seem to be experiencing déjà vu, ten months later… I have the wedding gift, a gorgeous red dress, and have organized to drive down to Cathedral Peak and camp at a camping site nearby. Alas, my search for a date has not proved fruitful. Luke is travelling to the other end of Kwa-Zulu Natal to complete his scuba diving qualification, Duncan is unavailable and Chris is away for the weekend. And now I am stuck and confused. I honestly have no idea who to ask! In my mind, it really shouldn’t be this difficult to find someone to come on an all-expenses paid trip for a weekend and to look good in a suit for a couple of hours! It’s pretty much a free holiday!

But, it is proving surprisingly difficult to find someone – and I don’t think this is because I’m being fussy. I don’t particularly want to take someone I don’t know very well, because the 5 hour drive - and 3 days together - could be a bit of a problem if it turns out that the random brother/best friend who is “so hot” proves to be seriously lacking in the frontal lobe department. On the other end of the spectrum, I know at least 2 guys who would give their left arm to come with me, but I’ve worked really hard to draw boundaries with these individuals, and taking one of them to the wedding will probably give them false hope about romantic possibilities with me – something I definitely don’t want to encourage! But because desperation is sinking in, I have now even seriously considered calling my ex, Alastair, out of sheer desperation, because I’m considering not going, because of my datelessness – and because there is no way I am driving to Pietermaritzburg by myself (for the sake of both my sanity and my safety).

At this point, I am holding thumbs and hoping that some lovely (or at least “alive” - because beggars can’t be choosers) boy-person appears and says “I’d love to come with you!”, or at least shuffles his feet, puts his hands in his pockets and says “Okay, fine, I’ll come”. Either way is fine with me!

The Holiday

As usual, this post begins with an apology for the sparseness of my blogging in the past few months. This has mostly been due to varsity work and exams, which have taken up most of my time recently. Fortunately, exams went well, and I’m now waiting for the results – and hopefully my acceptance into Psychology Honours at Wits!

Needless to say, the “20 Firsts” list was also put on hold, due to time constraints. Luckily, I’m now faced with the prospect of 3 months’ worth of holiday, and so I should be able to tick off at least a few more items from the list. This is likely to be my last “proper” holiday for a while, because of Honours – and hopefully Masters. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do for the next few months, but so far, I plan to go to work at the vet, as usual, read (both psych textbooks and all the books I’ve received this year, and which have remained on my bookshelf while academic texts have taken priority), sketch and paint (especially the half-finished works which are lying about), learn how to use Photoshop, potentially house-sitting, and hoping to catch up with friends (who I hope will not be joining the annual exodus from Johannesburg to the coast). I’m also going to a wedding in Pietermaritzburg at the end of November and hoping to go to Cape Town in January to visit assorted friends and family. Other than that, I’m pretty much going with the flow and seeing where things take me.

Survivor

When I started my “20 Firsts” challenge a couple of months ago, for the most part I pretty much just wrote down random things that I wanted to do, and that’s how the list was compiled. One of them was going camping – not because I’ve never been camping, but because I really haven’t been camping since I was about 12! Since I wrote the list, I haven’t given very much thought to how I’m going to accomplish the items, mostly because I’ve been incredibly preoccupied with varsity and other “stuff”. So, I was amazed when I was actually invited to go camping by someone who doesn’t even know that my list exists (unless Dustin happens to read my blog and I don’t know, which is a little creepy!)!

The camping trip itself was centered around my friend Dustin’s 21st birthday party, and the theme was “Survivor” – inspired by the TV series. The invitations were scrolls, which told us that we were challenged to “out-drink, out-party and outlast!”, while surviving 21 hours! I was a little nervous about the party itself – not for fear of being devoured by “lions, tigers and bears”, but rather because I would be camping with 30 or so engineers, who form the bulk of Dustin’s circle of friends, and for those of you who don’t know, engineers are generally quite weird, especially en masse. Nevertheless, my friend Brad and I drove off to Dustin’s house at the Vaal River – aptly named “Vaalium” – on a Friday afternoon and prepared ourselves for the festivities (or having to crawl through mud and climb trees)…

Having arrived, we were greeted by Dustin, who handed us our buffs, splitting us into either the purple or orange team. We dragged our bags down to the river (a move we would regret at 4am, when the temperature dropped severely, but which was done based on the spectacular view), and set up camp. I set my 2-person tent up by myself, while next to me, 3 engineering guys (Andrew, Jonathan and Malcolm) tried to figure out how to put up their 2-storey mansion of a tent, and ended up with a couple of extra tent-poles, which was somewhat suspicious. So far, we had completed challenge #1: building shelter. We then walked back up to the house, where a ferocious game of volley-ball was underway. I took this as an opportunity to practice my photography skills, because I’m a hazard to myself and others on the volleyball court, although the engineers did eventually convince me to join them (and then spent the rest of the match deflecting the ball away from me).

How many engineers does it take to put up a tent? (Jonathan, Andrew and Malcolm)

With most of the survivors having arrived by this stage – and having suitably exhausted themselves with building their “shelters” and defeating one another at volleyball and pool –, it was time for supper. The most challenging part of this for me was not eating the entire garlic bread myself. Yes, as much as I am generally a picky eater, I can’t resist garlic bread! Luckily, I was soon distracted by the salad – and Malcolm kindly agreed to move the bread to the other end of the table…

The majority of the rest of the evening was spent playing pool, meeting engineers and listening to the merits of aeronautical and mechanical engineering over industrial engineering, playing “30 Seconds”, learning how to sokkie with Malcolm, listening to the merits of aeronautical and mechanical engineering over industrial engineering, eating chocolate cake, sitting around the campfire while discussing the merits of aeronautical and mechanical engineering over industrial engineering (which almost ended with me asking Richard if engineers EVER talk about anything else), and eventually ended up on the tennis court, at about 00:30am, playing doubles tennis matches with Malcolm, Rob and Andrew, and then action cricket with whoever was still awake and sober enough to participate at that hour! The most impressive part of this was definitely Rob, who is a lovely indie-emo boy, who became strangely enthusiastic about tennis at 1:30am, and was tearing around the court, drink in hand. Tennis was actually a lot of fun – although that might just be because Malcolm let me serve, and because Dustin really did look like John McEnroe!

At about 3am, we wandered off to our tents to get some much-needed sleep, and we woke up at about 8am, where we traded stories about who snored, who had kicked who in the head, and whose feet were the most frozen (I’m pretty sure I won!). Then, it was time for breakfast – lots of coffee, left-over cake and some scrambled eggs, mostly eaten by very tired, somewhat hung-over groups of people – and the packing up of tents (and the question of how to remove tent-pegs from the ground when they’ve been hammered in much too hard), and the eventual trek back to Jo’burg!

And that was my camping trip! It was certainly not what I expected, but most definitely enjoyable, and I’m looking forward to the next one – regardless of the scenery, activities, company and food!

The Vaal scenery - worth freezing for!

Music and Lyrics

I am going to apologize for this post before I even begin it. For all of you who are not into somewhat pathetic, adolescent romance or who are likely to throw up at the mere suggestion of the age old scenario of “girl meets boy, girl likes boy, girl thinks about boy and wishes for more than a platonic relationship”, I suggest that you skip this post and return to my blog in a couple of weeks, when I am sure I will have written another far more cynical, saccharine-free post – most likely about some more death-defying moments on the M1 highway.

For those of you who have chosen to keep reading however… You have no one to blame but yourselves!

For the record, I don’t generally like posting “stuff” about my relationships – I can’t stand people who brag about how awesomely wonderfully fantastic their sweetie honey-bear significant other is. I also can’t handle long posts by the “desperate and dateless” contingent, as they bemoan yet another Saturday night spent at home by themselves. I’d like to think that my situation is at least a little different, although I’m not so sure about it.

So, I like a boy. It has been a long time since I have found someone who I like this much and who is incidentally a real person (I frequently fall for movie and TV characters, as well as lines in emo songs). I will not bore you with descriptions or details of his looks or personality – for your own sanity, and for fear that he may read this post. Nonetheless, he is lovely, and the kind of boy-person I would like to refer to as my “boyfriend” – if I may be so bold as to use that term. Oddly enough, I would probably also settle for him just knowing that I like him and him being okay with me liking him, because I am a little nervous of rocking the boat, and that is why I have not told him how I feel.

Before this gets any more nauseating, I will get to the point of this post. Basically, I was driving home the other day, thinking about the relationship between him and I and wondering what will come of it all, when a song came onto the radio that ironically epitomized my situation. The song is by a South African band called Freshlyground, and it’s called “I’d Like”:


“What would you do if I kissed you?

What would you do if I held your hand and laid you down?

Would you find me overly familiar towards you? Would you call me insensitive, and say that I deserve to die?

What do I do with all these feelings tearing me up inside?

What do I do with all these wasted hours dreaming of you at night?



I'd like to call you sometime…



What would you do if you knew the truth?

What would you do if I told you the story of my life?

Would you find me overly familiar towards you?

Would you call me crude, fling me aside to the birds?

What do I do with all these feelings holding me back inside?

What do I do with all these wasted hours dreaming of you at night?



I'd like to call you sometime.

I'd like you to need me one time.

I’d like to call you sometime.



What would you do if I kissed you?

What would you do if I held your hand and laid you down?

Would you recognize it’s a need I've been fighting for so long? Would you recognize it’s a hunger only you can fill?

What do I do with all these feelings warming me up inside?

What do I do with all these precious hours dreaming of you at night?



I'd like to call you sometime.

I'd like you to need me one time I'd like to have you all the time.

I'd like to call you...”


So, there you have it. I don’t know what he would do if I kissed him, or if I just told him how I feel. Admittedly, the situation is not quite as romantic as the song itself, but it comes pretty close. I have no game plan at this point – just lots of uncertainty as I wonder about the situation. All I know is that if he asked me out, I would say yes.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Before I begin this post, I must apologise for having neglected my blog in the last month. While I have been extremely busy, the main thing that has prevented me from writing has actually been the title of this post. I've had the idea for the post for at least 2 months, but haven't been able to think of a suitable title for it! It would appear that by choosing to make each post title the title of a movie or TV series, I've seriously limited my options! This post is supposed to be about my yoga class, and I have noticed a severe lack of movies entitled "10 Things I Hate About the Lotus Position" or "My Big Fat Greek Sun Salute". So, in desperation, I have opted for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", as it is at least Eastern (though Asian, and not Indian) and sounds somewhat yogic. If anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know! Now on to the actual post...

I love yoga. I've been doing it for over a year and I love the serenity of the movements, alongside the challenges of some of the postures. Plus, I have the coolest yoga teacher, who was incidentally also my matric English teacher! There are a lot of things that I am really good at - like balancing - and some things that I still haven't managed to get right, like the "Little Bird" posture (your knees balance on your elbows and you support your body weight on your hands). Classes are always interesting - and often amusing! For example, a couple of weeks ago, we had a new teacher, who was filling in while my usual teacher was away. She has just qualified as a yoga instructor, and was extremely keen to show off her abilities. As such, she manically corrected every single position we did - including "The Corpse" (lying flat on your back. How hard can it be to be a corpse? If you can sleep, you can do this!). Having repositioned all my limbs (and even my toes) for The Corpse, she proceeded to lead us in the usual end-of-class relaxation and meditation session. Yoga teachers love tell people to do mystical things, like synchronising their "inner" and "outer" breath, and breathing colours. This teacher told us to "harmonise our life currents", which almost sent me into fits of giggles (while everyone else in the class lay in their perfected Corpses, harmonising away). Oddly enough, I do believe a lot of the concepts that go along with yoga, like chakras and auras and such. It's really just the "mystical" way that yoga teachers incorporate them into classes that amuses me!

The "Little Bird" pose

Nonetheless, I am proud to announce that I have made progress with the "20 Firsts" list, because on the same night that I learnt how to harmonise my life currents, I also managed to do a shoulder stand! I was tired of doing the "easy" option at the end of the class (I usually do "The Bridge", which isn't too difficult), and so decided to give the full "Shoulder Stand" a shot. Much to my own surprise, it was actually quite easy, and I got quite comfortable, with my legs dangling above my head, in a suitably controlled, yogic way! And the rush of adrenaline (or possibly all the blood rushing to my head) was amazing!

The Shoulder Stand

I haven't quite got to the full "Head Stand" yet, but I'm working on it, one yoga class at a time. Updates will follow! Maybe I need to fully harmonise my life currents first...

The Wedding Singer

As I mentioned in my previous post, wedding bells have been ringing for my friend Duncan's sister, Sarah and her fiance, Graham. I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding on the 28th of June, and I was incredibly excited (and somewhat nervous) about it - excited because I absolutely love weddings (it's a girl thing) and nervous because of the prospect of finding a suitable dress and wearing heels for a couple of hours!

The big day arrived, and I set off for Duncan's house, dressed to the nines in my gorgeous red dress and black satin heels. I was greeted by Duncan - who looked dashing in his kilt, despite his uncertainty as to whether or not his knees were supposed to be visible - and ushered into the house, where assorted family members were gathered. I was duly introduced by his dad, and chatted to the bridesmaids, who I knew from my high school days. After a few more minutes of milling around, we set off in Duncan's car with his mom and the makeup artist, with me holding the buttonhole flowers and spare bouquet. I have noticed something about weddings - despite the facade of calm and serenity which the photos show when you glance at them a couple of months down the line, the behind-the-scenes preparation always involved panic, a late bride, forgotten garters and general stress for the family of the betrothed! And this chaos is capable of permeating innocent guests as well, as I discovered travelling in the car to the wedding, with Duncan's mom brushing his hair as he drove and telling him that getting speeding fines was okay, provided we got there on time (we were already 20 minutes late), worrying about whether we had lost family members who were supposed to be following our car, and wondering whether Sarah would be on time!

We did get to the church though, and by the time Sarah walked down the aisle, to the sound of bagpipes, all the panic of the afternoon (and probably of the prevailing 8 months) was forgotten. The ceremony was beautiful, the bride looked amazing and yes, I cried (and amazingly not because my feet were aching in those heels)!

Having made it through the most important part of the wedding, we drove to the reception venue, where I found myself among an assortment of Duncan's family again. This was initially somewhat terrifying, but I recovered after a cup of tea (caffeine and sugar being the surest way to regain sanity) and actually managed to remember most people's names. I was seated at my table - along with 6 people I had never met - and told that we were playing a game in which we had to identify the movie that the song which was currently playing was from. This proved to have great entertainment value, and we were undoubtedly the most jovial table - although this may have been because we were the closest to the bar! Dinner was lovely - even in my humble, vegetarian opinion - but the highlight of my evening was undoubtedly Duncan's singing. Yes, in case you were wondering who the said wedding singer was, it was Duncan, who has been doing opera for the last few years. He and Sarah's friend Xena sang "All I ask of you" from "Phantom of the Opera". And yes, I cried again, because it was beautiful! And I'm pretty sure that I wasn't the only one crying!

The rest of the evening was filled with dessert (lemon meringue pie!) and dancing with Luke and Duncan, garter-throwing and bouquet-catching (I failed miserably, but maintain that I'd had enough of the bouquet, since I'd held it for Sarah for most of the afternoon). And, in case you were wondering, my photographic skills did improve enough to take some decent pictures of the wedding! All in all, it was a fantastic evening, and my feet did eventually recover from those heels, which I actually managed to dance in (although I did take them off during dinner and the speeches), and which almost became comfortable at a point!

So, here's to weddings, kilts, handsome young men singing in kilts, heels, and good times with friends!