Not all sunsets and elephants

**WARNING: This will be an offensive post. You may not like my language nor what I'm saying with it. If you're sensitive, stop reading now. Because I don't care if you're uncomfortable. You've been warned.**

So my weekend was less than stellar. Since we live in a fenced-in area, anyone who comes to campus has to be let in by a guard, and they radio the people at reception whenever someone shows up who's unexpected, and they figure out whether to let them in or not. Well, reception isn't open on weekends, so everyone who stays on campus full-time has to take turns doing that job. They do it by household, and this weekend it was our turn. Radio duty wasn't that bad, and it's even kind of fun to have a call sign, but then of course there's always some unexpected crisis when the newbie is on duty, and that was a lot of fun to deal with. People are stupid. That's all I'm going to say about that. I took Saturday, well, most of it, until things happened that I didn't know how to deal with, at which point I turned it over to Vivian, who handled it with grace and skill. And then she took most of Sunday while I went to the park.

Then it was 40°C (104ish°F) on Sunday when we went to the Kruger, so all the animals were hiding in the shade not moving or submerged in water. It was slightly boring. And incredibly hot. And humid. And did I mention that it was really freaking hot? I really was hoping to see something exciting. Well, I did manage to get a good picture of baboons and a few other animals that I'd seen before but didn't necessarily capture up-close. And I'm pretty sure I found Rafiki's tree. This thing was fuckin' massive.

Work on Monday was pretty much just eight hours of cataloging. Ugh. I mean, really? I do not want to be a cataloger for the rest of my life. I don't mind it sometimes. In fact, I actually like cataloging in small spurts. But when there's nothing else to break up the day, it gets old pretty quickly. Such is life. Next week should be better.

Then today I had to go back to the doctor, and there was no one to drive me separately, which meant I had to go on a town trip, which meant that I spent 90% of my day waiting. That, and the driver wouldn't pick me up at the doctor's office, because he had "too many other things to do" and made me walk to the mother-fucking Pick 'n' Pay, at which I still had to wait several hours for him. Keep in mind that I've got a gimpy knee (which should be fine, but it still does hurt sometimes), and even though it's only a few kilometers, I've got a gimpy knee. Plus I've been to town all of three times and I really wasn't sure how to get there, and the way there wasn't exactly the safest place to be hanging around. Even my roommate who knows the area doesn't like walking through that way by herself. I got friggin' cat-calls from the locals while I was walking by. I'm not sure what this driver has against me that he made me walk to get picked up, but he refused to come get me at the doctor's office.

And then he friggin' picks up some random people who aren't even from the college and drives them across town. I fucking hate this driver. I'm never going to town with him again, if I can help it. The entire time there and back, he refused to make conversation with me, he was LATE in leaving the college, which, in turn, made me late for the doctor. AND he made me WALK. I'm not sure he quite understood what I was going into town for, even though I'd been limping around campus for two weeks with a bandaged knee and he was dropping me off at the doctor's office. I think he's slow. Or maybe just evil.

I mean, really, what kind of dick-head makes a gimp WALK across town? Fucking seriously. Asshole. If I were a more vindictive person, I'd report his ass and get him fired. But I'm not like that. To be honest, I think it's because I'm white. I've seen the way he interacts with other white people here, and it's very curt and minimal, and just something in his eyes tells me that he resents the fact that he even has to talk to them. However, the way he acts around other black people, he's the most talkative, friendly, smiling human being you've ever met. You'd seriously think he's got multiple personalities. And it's not just people he knows, either. People he's never met before are the same way.

But, whatever, I've tried playing nice with him, and clearly he's having none of it, so now I'm just going to avoid him altogether. There are plenty of people here who don't care about what color you are and will be friendly to you regardless. Most of them, in fact, have moved past the whole 'race' thing. This guy, apparently, hasn't. I'd like to say perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions and give him the benefit of the doubt and maybe his English isn't that good so he just didn't understand what I wanted to be done, but I've got a tough time believing that, because having to walk across town like that really just pissed me off. It didn't help that it was hot outside too. Not nearly as hot as it was Sunday, but no brisk autumn day either.

Anyway, I eventually got back to campus and worked for a few hours. Thursday they're moving the printer to my desk area and installing publisher on my computer, which will allow me to do more interesting projects from time to time, which I'm happy about, and supposedly next week we'll be finally getting those fiction books to sort through and give to the local schools or put in our collection.

Found out they half-fixed the screens in our house. They replaced the actual screens, but just put new mesh in the same old frames, and the frames were the bigger problem than the holes in the screens because often they wouldn't open or close in the windowframe because they're all bent out of shape. They're a little better, because the repair guy had to get the screens to move in order to repair them, but they really just need to be replaced. In fact, the whole building should just be replaced. Bulldoze it and start over. Make it critter-proof. Some days I just want to shoot the fucking squirrels. My roommate has taken to throwing things at them when they don't shut the Hell up and let her sleep. I'm not above poisoning them if they keep this shit up. Seriously. I hate these freaking squirrels sometimes. I've woken up at least half an hour before my 6AM alarm for the past three days because they're making so much noise, fighting over nest space in the morning.

Ah, well. Life goes on. I'm looking forward to Thursday, because not only do I get to do more fun things at work, but I'm going on a bush walk in the wee hours of the morning, which is the best time to catch large predators.

I really should upload more pictures, but I'm so damn tired. Maybe next time.