Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Oh I am definitely blaming it on the rain

I’m having a few concerns tumbling about my mind.

No. 1:

Why on earth can I not find a nice white bra in this town! Ok, to be fair, …in the shops that I’ve been perusing. They’ll sell me red, black, silver, blue… colour-me-a-rainbow. But no simple no-frilly-flowery-ridiculous-sewed-patterned decent-priced cupper to up me chest. I just want a bra that won’t stink of mould after a wash. Is not barely there. Looks just like my other lovely lingerie. But comes packaged in WHITE.

This is quickly becoming some form of feminine quest for me.

No. 2:

Well. This involves too many things. So let’s leave it and move on. Cause my head aches just tucking about how I will avoid telling the strange readers.

No. 3:

Why am I allowing this government department to convince me that the best place to hold next week’s training is some holiday resort town!?!? And why did their numbers of attendees suddenly jump from 11 to 17! And most importantly, how am I going to convince my donors that all this possible exploitation really is valid for us to “achieve the project objectives”.

No. 4:

Anyone can call themselves a writer. Half of the “anyone” can write a book. Half of the half can publish the books. About 2% of THOSE folk can write any piece of literature that will “make it”.

Could I make it?????
Is the risk worth it???
Writing sure feels like a self-gratifying exercise.
….Hey! So does aid work!

No. 5

I gotta stop making up random numbers & percentages like halves and 2%ers.

No. 6

Is the chocolate cake worth it if it just ain’t made to the taste craving you have.

No. 7

Looking back on this list. I think I need a more stimulating day job.

Re-enter Thought No. 2

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Point 6 is worthwhile exploring further. Is it worth eating something that you know won't satisfy you? At times, yes. However, a week later when you're still carrying those extra kgs ...well, still yes...it's chocolate, after all!!!

Tell us about Point 2.

boldly benny said...

I've also been blaming the rain this week.

I have to agree with DBAWIW, cake is always worth it. If cake doesn't satisfy you then eat a slab of chocolate - this makes sense to me!

Champagne Heathen said...

DBAWIW - Actually, The craving did magically went away. But I still had a chocolate. In case and all!

Point 2 - right now it is all about 50% chance of going 2 ways. Next week will tell. So till then, I'll have to respect the privacy of other involved. Like a teaser!....

Benz - Ha ha! What if the slab doesn't satisfy it either!!!

Anonymous said...

is it still raining up there?

From the Monocle's top 10 ideas to adopt #5:

MIT's Poverty Action Lab is at the forefront of a new movement in development economics - and it's changing the way we think about aid in the process.

...the idea is simple: design controlled field experiments to test aid programes in much the same way as pharmaceutical firms test drugs.

Results are often surprising. In Romania, one test found that offering, free computers to poor children led to lower academic performance.

'One of the reasons aid and development policy doesn't work very well is that people shoot in the dark,' Banerjee says. 'Our agenda is to get some guidance from hard knowledge.'

Monocle, Dec/Jan 09.

An interesting new take on development.

Champagne Heathen said...

Numero - I could not agree more with that finding. As blatantly obvious as it is. These development projects should be growing from a small "NEEDED" base, rather than the US government throwing a few million at an organisaton & saying leave SA & go & reach 90 000 children in Ethiopia. WTF do we know about Ethiopia and its countless problems & complexities & needs... this is even assuming Ethiopia is 1 big homogenous area, which it isn't!!

And that is where the quality disappears & no impact is being made. Or even worse, you are further screwing up the situation!

Start small. Get it right. Then grow a little more.

But the aid machine does not like this. Not like this one bit. Bigger. Better. And thousands of numbers - whether they be kids or dollars. That's what its all about.

...

And yup, the rain just keeps on raining. Though I quite like this actually!