Burning that midnight oil...

i'm sitting here, ensconced in an afghan as I sit atop my fuchsia chair in my warm and cozy room. But I can tell that the winds are ferocious outside. How so? The imperceptible intermittent rattling of the windows provided a hint, the forecast professing blustery environs clued me in further, but what sold me was the cacophony of screeching, howling and furious whistling resounding outside...what sold me was the cacophony of screeching, howling and furious whistling resounding outside when I took off my earphones. Brr~ Lucky I'm enjoying my cozy confines in here and not fighting the cold out there=) And that's just how I prefer it! Funny how, back home, overcast days were my favourite. Despite enjoying sunny days more so than before nowadays, I still favour the pretty grey skies (hehe yea, yea, to each her own=p Hey, it's not the getting-drenched-in-the-rain that I'm revelling in...) but I think, besides it being all hot climate-wise back home, that the clincher was because I could enjoy it all while tucked in the warm indoors. And that's how I prefer it;)

Anyway, here I am on a tangent designed to distract me from my studying. It really is, at best, totally ill-advised but *sobbb* I need a break! Assessments for this run is scheduled for tomorrow morning and while the 6 stations sound daunting, truth be told I just can't wait to do the damn thing and get it over with. Then, it'll be closer to finishing the year up and going home!=D

The other day, the trainee intern on my team was telling us about her electives in Cape Town and was talking about the whole land dispute with the white farmers. I must say I thought it was quite...interesting. Then I came across an article about it, triggering my interest again. Basically, during the white minority rule, they dispossessed the blacks of their land. South Africa promised 12 years ago with the fall of apartheid to return a third of the commercial farming sector in black hands by 2014, but as it is, only 4% of the industry belongs to the black majority. Restitution allows blacks to apply to have their rights to the land that had been taken from them restored, or to seek financial compensation from the government. Now, Minister Lulu Xingwana has said that price negotiations with the current white famer land owners would only be held for 6 months and if these talks fail, officials would take measures to seize the land. The local law doesn't enforce the need for the minister to have a court order before proceeding to seize the land. However, farmers may appeal to the courts if they think that the claim on their land is invalid.

Xingwana has noted that most of the farmers have been quite supportive of the government restitution, offering to sell their land without a fuss, but there are the more stubborn ones who are impeding the process and seemingly making the need for seizures necessary. South Africa has rejected any comparison but with the persisting land-owners who are less inclined to quietly sell their land and with there being only 4% ownership currently, memories of the violent episodes of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's land redistribution program in the late 1990s are surely being dredged up...

*Phew~* Heated topic eh?