Feel it, it's here... - Thought Leader

By Stuart Thembisile Lewis

Ah, what a month and what a World Cup! It was a showcase of all things South African which the world will not soon forget. From prophetic octopi to the Hand of God version 2.0, 90 000 vuvuzelas pointed at 11 Mexicans and 49 million hands over hearts of green and gold, from the zebra-striped stadium of Nelspruit to the giant calabash of Soweto, we had it all.

I was lucky, I got to do it all. I watched Siphiwe Tshabalala net the opening goal of the cup with the crowds at Innesfree, saw the Socceroos trump Serbia and the Ivorian Elephants trample North Korea in the stands at the beautiful Mbombela Stadium, screamed on Netherlands in the final from my favourite couch and caught the most exciting game of the tournament, Uruguay versus Germany, in 3D. If you thought those little cameras in the corner of the net were scary, you don’t know the half of it. I even managed to sneak in an incredibly short ride on the Gautrain.

The one thing I didn’t manage to do a lot of, however, was study, which in hindsight may have been a slight mistake. At least I’m not alone in that. Thousands of students across the country are preparing to go back to school and almost immediately thereafter write their mid-year exams, the one problem being that all they’ve thought about over the last month and a bit is soccer, soccer and more soccer as opposed to more interesting things like trigonometry and Shakespeare.

So the students of South Africa I say: that was one crazy holiday but now feel it, exams are here …

Stuart Thembisile Lewis is a 17-year-old student and an aspiring writer slash journalist. This is an editorial he wrote for his school paper.