Collette on the pros and cons of completing orientation

I have very mixed feelings coming off of this first week of “non-orientation”. On one hand, it is nice to not have a rigid schedule to stick to, and have more free time to do things in smaller groups. Coming with this, though, is the fact that we are seeing much less of the people living at the other house. Given the size of our group it is hard to try and make plans on our own that can accommodate both houses. However, this promotes everyone to mix things up when we go to class and have the chance to see everyone at once. It will be nice once we finalize the timing for our classes.

For those who don’t know, we have been making our group decisions off of something known as consensus decision making. In other words, we do not decide based off of a majority but rather once everyone has agreed upon a compromise. I can understand the logic behind this process, however with such a large group, and (in some cases) with so few options, it is proving to be very difficult. Fingers crossed that on Wednesday we will be able to come to a quick decision!

Per usual, I was late for the Jammie to campus on Thursday morning, so myself and a few others ended up walking all the way to UCT. It wasn’t so bad, except for the heat. By the time we got to campus it looked a little bit like we had all gone for a swim. Luckily UCT is one of the few places here that has great air conditioning so it worked out nicely. I was surprised at how quickly the two classes went by also. Whether it was the content or the teaching style, Vincent did a great job of keeping me engaged through all that history, which is no easy feat.

I had a great first independent weekend, from going to the beach on Friday up until Eric’s birthday dinner on Sunday. My favorite part was easily the hike up Lion’s Head, despite being extremely unprepared. I had no idea that we would actually be scaling rocks for a little bit, but it was so unbelievably cool, and the view at the top was amazing. I feel confident in saying that Eric probably had a good time celebrating his birthday up there. The only thing I would change about this weekend would be opting out of surfing at Muizenburg beach, but hopefully we will be headed back soon.