Posted on 22 May 2009

Me: “If you and Debbie”
‘Debbie’ interrupting: Actually, my name’s Nerina.”
Me: “Oh my word, sorry!”
Nerina: “That’s okay, people do it the whole time.”
Norval, to me: “Sorta like people getting confused between you and Paul.”

Ciffy, seeing me at Lisa’s dress-up: “You look so much like this painting in our living room! It’s of the most beautiful girl in the world, and when I find her, I’m going to marry her! [Just as I’m about to get really pleased about the compliment] And you almost look like her! Not quite though.”

Lisa’s brother Matt, in a letter to her at her 21st: “I remember thinking you were small, weak and ugly, not realizing that this was natural for someone your age. Then, when you started growing out of it, I started realizing that you might actually be human.”

Lisa’s brother: “And you always used to come home with those certificates for diligence. Now I can finally tell you: certificates of diligence are for those people who work hard enough but don’t get the results. You’re like a nerd without the brains.”

Lisa’s dad: “People have told me that you only start living at the age of 50 [at this point, all the old people at the back start cheering] No, wait, don’t cheer too fast. ‘Cause it might be true. But at that point, you’re worn out, tired out, and spread out.”

Paul B, on his trip to Hongkong: “Grace, I must just tell you: I. love. Asian. people.”

Lecturer: “Have you ever wondered if as intellectuals, we have greater capabilities than the average man on the street, just because we have a higher endurance for boredom?”

Anja: “Now that was a brain fart!”

Larita: “Ag julle, die aand is nog ‘n embryo.”

Me: “What happens if you don’t have children?”
Rob: “Don’t look at me! I can’t help you out – I’m already married!”

Me: “She’s got the De Villiers look about her”
Paul: “Woah, that’s not nice.”

Irene, from the garden: “Could one of you plug in the washing machine?”
Paul: “Don’t talk to us as if we live in the type of household that’s going to help!”

Paul: “Wow. People are going to think I’m really nasty from all my comebacks, but I’m not. I’m just smart.

Me and my technological advancement..
Irene: “What are you looking for in a phone?”
Me, very seriously: “It’s definitely got to have sms capability.”

Paul: “Where does the word Ridonkulous come from?”
Me, very seriously: “From the words “Ridiculous’ and “donk”. …oh.

[Paul, mock-punching me, but missing and punching the wall instead]
Me, muttering as I see this: “Stupid.”
[Then I go and walk straight into a box.]

Paul, during a late night munching session: “I bet you R100 that I can stick this wafer up your nose.”

Paul: “In the absence of independent witnesses, I am always right”.

Angelo, sighing next to me in Humarga: “Sometimes I think we pay the university to torture us.”

Philip, helpfully while peering over my shoulder: “3000 words? That’s like nothing for a thesis.”

sometimes context plays a bigger role than you think….
Nicolai: “We should get the girls to have a competition where they grow their arm hair!”
Paul, not paying attention to this suggestion, suddenly on the topic of my head hair: “Grace, your hair is too long.”

Lecturer: “Who should i get to read? Tasneem?”
Tasneem: “Did you not see me trying not to catch your attention???”
Lecturer: I did! That’s why I’m asking you!

Posted on 3 April 2009

postgrad seminar..
Adri, talking about Mary Magdalene: “…as his closest believer and decipher.. [realizing that’s not quite what she meant to say]… I’ve swallowed my alphabet.”

Adri: “Like my brother says to me whenever I try to argue with him about this kind of feminist stuff: ‘You’ve been liberated now, so shut up!'”

Head of Department, muttering to me after Adri finishes her presentation on feminist theology: “She’s going to be turned into a pillar of salt with this type of research.”

Martina, just before she’s about to present: “I hate public speaking, so I’m going to die soon.”

Karin, suggesting I read psychoanalytic theorists: “Just ask Dr Klopper, he’s got this ‘Lacan for Dummies’ gui..”
Daniel, interrupting: “What are you trying to imply? That’s very rude!”

Me: “Your glasses offend me.”
Deon: “Your face offends me.”

Deon: “I’m better at being culturally insensitive than you are. ‘Cause I’m Caucasian.”

shirt-shopping…
Byron, looking at a shirt I’m looking at: “No. That shirt just says ‘I’m from Monaco, and I have five mansions, a million women and a yacht’ written all over it.”
Me: “So why not?”
Byron: “If you have all of that, you don’t have to say it!”

Paul B: “I never buy from YDE cause their stuff always looks a bit weird. But when you wear it, it’s cool ’cause it’s from YDE.”

Me: “That’s so CUTE!”
Byron: “And that’s exactly why no guy in his right mind would buy something like that.”

Gizzy: “I didn’t know Elvis Presley was dead until someone told me last year. [seeing my incredulous face] What?? How was I supposed to know? No-one ever talks about old people.”

Gizzy: “I’m going to start another band like Abba. But my band’s going to have Abba’s name backwards.”

Lecturer: “I’ve noticed that this year many of the first-years barely know their alphabet. I’m not kidding. I say this as someone who has to make extra sure himself about the order before he says anything.”

James, comparing soccer players to rugby ‘men’: “If soccer players were to start playing rugby.. they’d be holding funerals for them right there on the pitch!”

Richard: “My gran said the other day ‘It’s not necessarily that the new idea finds a support base easily; it’s cause all the people holding on to the old idea die off.'”

Afrikaans professor, while introducing a world famous philosopher, accidentally forgets the last syllable of a word: “He is also a sculpture.”

The optometrist, peering at a white sticky substance keeping my frame together: “Is that… Prestik??!”

Posted on 19 December 2008

Kim: “I’m going up to P.E. next year for my Zuma year.”
Me: “Ooh, I know people who’re in Natal for their Zuma year! Maybe they can help you out!”
Kim: “Is that close?
Me: “I think so..”

Allan, using his croissant as a map: “This is Natal [points to one edge]. This is P.E. [points to another side]. They are not close.”

Minah, looking at the sticker on her Smarties box: “Is this Frenchie a woman or a man?”
Me: “Minah! He’s got a moustache.”
Minah: “You never know. Women today…”

Minah: “The Portugese, they don’t speak with any commas.”

Julie: “The Rhenish girls know her as the Screaming Pregnant woman, but to the rest of us, she’s just Adele.”

My girls: “Why didn’t you do anything for the talent show?”
Me: “I don’t have any talents.”
Mandy, in dead earnest: “Yes you do!!!!!!! Sarcasm!” [a bit more wistfully] “I wish I could do that…”

Jenni: “Alistair and I started dating at 15, but I wouldn’t recommend that actually ’cause we had to work through a lot of issues and you know, childishness [at this, Alistair points at himself].”

someone: “Happy anniversary Alistair!”
Alistair, looking at his wife Jenni: “Yeah, I’d just like to say that God has been so kind and so good and so very very generous.. to Jenni!”

Guy: “As an expert Rubix cuber, what would you say is your greatest strength?”
Richard: “I’m colourblind.”

Steph to Joe: “I don’t appreciate the way you just smear your sunscreen on like that.”

Paul B: “Guys are completely useless around girls they like.. They see the girl, and they’re gone… Completely paralytic.”

Sarah, after numerous grammatical errors: “I can’t believe you’re an English honours student!”
Me, unintentionally: “Yeah, sometimes I speak bad.”

Nora: “Peppermint crisp tart? I don’t really like mi.. oh wait, I just ordered a mint mojita!”

Johann: “‘Straight’ doesn’t mean you like girls. It means you only like girls!”

after giving me numerous directions back to Stellenbosch, Deon’s friend’s final advice: “If you get lost… Survive.”

after I try explain something, Jan and Irene both shake their heads: “No.”
Jan, surprised by Irene: “Oh, I thought it was a general Kim thing to be out of touch with reality. But it appears it’s only Grace!”

30 seconds
Steven, explaining The Pussycat dolls: “What little girls play with.”
Ryan: “balls?”

band talk…
A: “Now George wants to play lead.”
B: “That’s not going to happen, we already have a lead guitarist!!!”
A: “You know how George is…”
everyone contemplates, before C cuts in: “Fine, then we’ll let both of them play lead…” [continues as everyone starts protesting] “… and we just mute George!”

nerdhood and metal rock..
Pieter: “Dude, I’d swear you guys would have more fans if it wasn’t for World of Warcraft.”

A, realistically: “Once Diablo 3 comes out, I don’t think we’ll be playing any gigs for a while!”
B, even more realistically: “Even if we did, half our fans probably wouldn’t come to the shows!”

Posted on 10 April 2008

Byron, looking at my student card: “What do your initials H. E. stand for?”
Paul B, chipping in: “Cause we figured it should stand for Highly Energetic!”

Me: “I hate to share this with you guys… but MY FINGER’S STUCK IN THE TEA CUP HANDLE!!!! AND IT WON’T COME OUT!!!!”
– it came out. 5 minutes later.

Paul B, coming back from Java’s toilets: “Grace, which side were the men’s bathrooms located on? Cause I think I might have used the wrong ones…”
Byron, going off and coming back after hearing this: “Yeah, Grace, it’s quite confusing.”
Me, going off and coming back: “You guys, I think I just used the men’s bathrooms.”

Jeanneke and I try to figure something out…
Jeanneke: “16!”
Me: “14! I was mature for my age!”
Jeanneke: “15. You weren’t that mature!”

Grant, to George: “Wow. Now that you’re a boyfriend, you seem so much more mature!’
George, taken aback: “REALLY?!?!”
Grant: “No. Just felt like saying that.”

Grant, after Kiki and I both ditch our movie plans: “It’s going to be a good day. There’s suddenly so much of it though.”

Me: “I love finding money in my wallet when I didn’t think I was going to!”
Grant: “You know what’s cooler though?”
Me: “What?”
Grant: “Making your own!”
– Grant makes me worried about his off-campus activities…

Kiki, about female lecturer: “She just seems to be able to make every topic she talks on about herself! I mean speaking about J. M. Coetzee’s Boyhood, she’d probably be like ‘When I was a boy…’!”

Paul, after my driving: “We are instigating life bans from today, and you just got ONE AND A HALF!”

Liezl: “I can never remember any good jokes, and I don’t tell them well anyway, but that doesn’t stop me!”

Gizzy: “Watch out for that one! He’s supernice, superfriendly, and before you know it, you’re in a relationship!”

Andre, working on the computers next to me: “Yay! I hit the bibliography!”
Me: “Oh, no, that’s the worst part!”
Andre: “Why? Cause now you’ve finished your assignment??”
Me: “No, cause all of the nitty gritty detail!”
Andre: “Oh phew. Like I understand you’re a nerd, but that’s a bit much, even for you!”

Irene: “Where’s Jan?!? You should visit him! I miss him!”
-THAT’S RIGHT, JAN!