ChampagneHeathen

Change It

2011-11-11T03:28:00.001+02:00

Well scramble me up some eggs and call me an ovo-lacto vegetarian; but if the world doesn't just 180 degree swing on its axis sometimes!

I am far from claiming "I put it out there & the world listened", because then I have to ask just how damn loud the "world's" iPod has been set on for the past two years. But after an oxygen kick to the brain of sanity in a trip to South East Asia, I came back stipulating change.

It was either that or I boated my way back across the Indian.

And then something different happened and change arrived with bouquets and chocolates in hand!

Ta da!

Enter stage left….

- * New leafy-green space-included apartment in kick-fucking-ass good area for an insanely did-my-mamma-threaten-you price; (Followed by I'll-send-my-mamma-over fights over oven cleaner residue and steamcleaning discrepancies with old rental agents. It felt so good to win that one. Bastards that shoved us into a mouldy shoe box and demanded all our worldly goods for 2 years and then that I became their "make it new" bitch.)

- * New job in Aboriginal issues; Bring oooooooooooooooooon the controversy! Oooooo man, Oooooo man I'm going to get paid to shit-stir;

- * New prospects …Masters Masters Masters! Cannot afford it and will forever owe my intellectual property to an Australian uni but bring on Higher Education and a new zero to the pay cheques!

- * Australian-validated drivers license (SA driving test is 110% harder, I'll have you bigoted money-grabbing bureaucrats know!);

- * The media programmes I loathe & hate are getting pulled up for the scum they are and the hate-speaker of Australia got a good court slap;

- * Drawing of naked human bodies finally ticked off my "Resolutions" list after appearing there through most of the 2000's. Nothing like a saggy scrotum to unleash the artist in you;

- * And general just ease-in and feel accepted aura wafting about the place as of late.

The colleague folk are starting to find out that my secretarial days are numbered and all are falling in weeping masses about my feet. It's good to kinda see how well I excelled at the short-skirt-can-I-order-you-a-pen-or-refill-your-printer tasks.

And damn sad to be heading off, actu.ally.

Cause snobs may condescend the job but it's more social than a Pick 'n Pay strike and any diplomat would be wise to do an internship in this field just to realise what wording works, what approach fails miserably, and how to toy with the bosses' minds in general.

Funnily enough, I came to Oz thinking maybe I'd do more barladying stints, because of the social chatter factor, and this unexpected can-you-step-in-for-a-week job gave me 9 good amusing months of it.

Funny. Life.

Timesheet Titling

2011-09-18T13:12:00.001+02:00

On the same day that an old political peer became a Doctor, I was awarded the exciting and career-advancing title of "Timesheet Administrator".

This prestigious acknowledgement was handed over to me by my overly-excited Administrator Boss & 'the woman from HR'. It took place during an hour-long briefing session, which is in preparation for an even longer "Training Session" before we "Go Live".

(As my mother asked, Does that come with a payrise? ... No. No it does not. This is all about prestige, not about immoral cash!).

Indeed. These are exciting times. I am surprised anyone is still awake to read up to thi......zzzzzzzzzzzz..........

What was that about Timesheezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...............

I am certain "life" blogs were once to hand over wit, insight and most especially, tales of oneself dripping in enviable aromas. "Be Jealous of Me! Be Jealous of Perfect Happy Wise Me!"

I fear that this one is now doused in pity & shame. So this is a new angle for me, and I figure, let's run with it...cause it ain't "glamour" but it sure as hell is headshakingly amusing.

All that said, I COULD get passing observers jealous through ramblings of how I managed to cruise about South East Asia for a coupla weeks recently & feel like I had been awakened from "A Nanny Reprimanded My Island" coma, ....but I now believe it is far more entertaining to detail off just how my life has reached this pinnacle of career success!

I tell you, I did not even know such titles existed till this week. That such tasks were possible! Or that I would have such a sense of humour about it.

Now excuse me, I am off to request Maintenance updates my job titles on my office door & perhaps I'll even make a badge.

Because if I can't make you jealous, I may as well make you chuckle in pity for me. And pat your back in happiness that my life has not gone according to any well-structured 5-year plan. Maybe it was all that barcounter dancing...

In other news, Australia's biggest political issue at present …other than Gilliard being told by the Kiwis to get on the Spouse Bus "Cause We don't believe in no female political leaders on The Even Colder Smaller Island!"

…is the deep fear that one rickety row-boat load of "Boat People" is going to arrive on Australian shores & completely annihilate harmonious civilization as we know it.

Well, they have some sound evidence to base this on, as after all, the same did happen only a hundred years before...

Down The "C" Ladder

2011-08-01T09:02:00.001+02:00

Where have you been woman!!??

Well let me tell you, I have been 'up' to great feats. No mere mortal has successfully achieved what I have done in the past five months. Well, ok, maybe, and perhaps it happens every day, but rarely does it get put into one's Five Year Plans. It certainly wasn't in mine. ... "Bar tending in skimpy glitter" was probably higher on the list.

Nonetheless, in impressive skill & charm, I have successfully worked my way down the corporate ladder!

Step by step, I have gingerly manoeuvred my way from managing projects to now secretarying them. And let's not kid about & fluff this in gloss, I ain't talking about no "Secretary General of the UN" here.

Why no. I am the friendly voice on the other side of that first port of phone call. I am also the dumbass going "uh.... can you repeat that.... you want who? To do what? uhhh....suuuuuure... Please hold! [cut off phone call "by mistake" now]".

It's delightful. Quite delightful. The old grey men play their part by passing inappropriate comments & doing the dirty 'secretarial look-up-and-down', the strangers who all approach my desk think I am an idiot & speak slowly & rudely to me, I take more coffee breaks than one's pumping veins can move the caffeine & sticky sugared treats, I smile sweetly & tilt my head & try not to swear while I quietly dig pained nail marks into my desk during which someone like you stands at my desk shlurping on coffee and making droll conversation knowing the secretary (sorry... receptionist... sorry... administrator) is trapped & forced to listen "with delight".

... sadly, I have not yet butterflied into the short skirt high heel stocking with loaded seam stage of the role. But we hold out hope!

And surprisingly, the folk are actually quite delightful, and for the first time in years, I am having fun work days. Who knew! Take that deceiving Five Year Plan! I will not succumb to your wily ways!

...."Delightful. Quite Delightful" said Alice as she reached over for another piece of sticky sugared cake, to take her further down the 'rabbit hole'...

No, but really, how are you?

2011-03-08T02:54:00.000+02:00

Right, so I am no closer to finding this “clue”.

Or finding my way out of the war being waged on my body by some lurgy. 5 days and counting of staring at walls and feeling like’ death by head cold’ is leopard crawling through my body.

Or! A new strange phenomenon. Explaining away on an almost daily basis to mates that I am good, happy, smiling and doing juuuuust peachy. Yes. Even in spite of not having a life purpose; a.k.a. cubicle job/ partner earning the moola/ belching teething baby to clasp to my chest in terror.

But no matter what I write, I hear them tut tutting their heads and saying, The Lady Doth Protest Too Much!

No words seem capable of getting through that actually, it is amazing how wonderful unemployment can really be when you accept, embrace and use it to sleep in, pull out stray hairs, and catch up on all sorts of books from economics to French language to oil drilling drunkenness. And on seeing how much money you can spend on a boozy night out with mates before guilt cuts through the gin and hammers a reminder to you of the lack of affordability of this activity. (So far, gin beats guilt any night!)

I have grabbed on and motor-boated the dear “Unemployed” label with relish this time!

[Now if only that label came with more dollar bills to stuff down my “G”.]

But, in friends’ minds, it would appear that unemployed is as unemployed does. Fuck it, Forest, what does that mean anyway?

“Are you ok? No, really?”

“I know these are difficult times”

“Why don’t you go home for a visit” [Because those sneaky airlines are now requesting cash be handed over for their tickets. Capitalist Pigs!]

“Shame hun. You will be ok. You do know that. Don’t forget that. Hun.” [Vomit]

To which, I am forced to rewrite the same email in a multitude of ways.

It’s like trying to convince Aunty Mapel that you love single living and are not weeping your spinster self to sleep each night; to convince First World people that Africa is not just one giant continent filled with dirty children covered in flies sitting in dirty puddles of water; or convince Zuma that Carla Bruni, hot as she is, ain’t gonna accept Wife 5 as her next life role.

I reckon Zuma stands more chance with Carla than I stand with convincing people that cashless unemployment does not mean my world is falling apart at the seams. But that it actually makes for great night-time convos, over mid-strength VB, cause honestly, I can’t afford the gin…

The Clue (Like The Secret... but not)

2011-02-28T08:43:00.000+02:00

See, I’m a chickie who prefers to go with the flow, see where life takes her, ‘place self in mildly interesting setting and just add drinks’!

And this approach definitely ensures life can get very interesting. Keeps you on your toes. You never know what you gonna get…

Or where you will be for your impending Change Of The Decade! Rah!

But I have discovered a problem here. A slight ‘glitch in the system’ ,if you will.

That while you have many laughs and gawddamn-I’m-glad-I’m-came-out-of-that-with-no-wait-no-dignity-left-but-at-least-I-have-my-purse-this-time moments in your past, your present and future definitely start to get a little sketchy and more tricky to navigate.

This guy I live with (and there is only one, despite how that might have come out) is the opposite. The guy who has covered all bases, researched down to the last colour, pixel and impending cost of that issue going awry, and then gone with a completely different option. After a few years of watching him I am starting to realise this sneaky thing.

There are times in one’s life where it might actually pay to be prepared. To have a plan. To have done some background research, pre-answered all possible questions, considered the possibilities and weighed the debatable scales.

That if I wanted to keep dancing on table tops and nearly adopting street kids from Melville pavements at 3am, then my approach is killer. Strap a camera on my forehead and send me forth!

If I want a job, success in some form of a “career path” and even a “5 year Plan” outline (and someone please shoot off my right toe for using those phrases), if I want to pass a job interview, or go on an amazing trip to celebrate all that has been up until 30, then I might need to have a fucking clue.

Right. So. Where does one start finding the patience to outline and weigh away and plot towards this Clue? And do these activities come with cheap cocktails?

[And if you tell me “The Secret” or some other Oprah-esque answer, then I might be the one putting shots into your right toe.]

The lunatics will run the asylum...

2011-02-09T15:50:00.001+02:00

Day 1: Apply for job. Even though it is for "social development". Upheave mildly. Apply anyway.

Day 2: Receive Response.
No. Sorry. You were rejected because you did not meet our requirements.

Count number of hours. Reckon that they didn't have enough time, that they're full of shite.

Balls are already against the wall. Given up caring. Fire back email "Why? Which requirement?"

Day 3: "Why?" is answered
"You did not ask for enough money. That said, you asked for just a bit too less. If you reapply, and just ask for more, we will consider your application. Kind regards, We Make Crazy Look This Good"

Day 3.5: Reapply. Asking for $10,000 more a year. Check your mental health online to see if you are not the crazy one.

Day 3.9 Have a really good ironic chuckle (chuckle in that way that you stab your eyeballs with stolen pens from the current job's stationary cupboard) because the last dear ex-boss was quite happy to tell you that, despite your post-grad, your fairly exceptional fieldwork & inside information, and your 8 years in the business, you were damn mad to expect so much as the (pittance of a) salary that you were expecting at the previous job.

The lunatics will run the asylum...

All that said. Melbourne is treating me quite well lately. Despite the Couch of Unemployment lurking in the corner of my sight, all is going swimmingly! Excuse the pun.

I am even noticing from recent posted photos, that I may have got myself some sense of fashion!

Note; fashion. Not style. Fashion. Let's not get ahead of ourselves after all. That might be as mad as expecting a real job (cough. career) before I turn 30.

(Speaking of which, anyone know how to turn off this self-reflecting at new decade nonsense plaguing my mind? It really is exhausting & causing me to do things like move-fast-and-sweat).

If I spoke Mandarin, I could've been selling wine in China yesterday. Dammit. Crash course anyone? I'm soon to have loads of time on my hands anyway. And not enough money to keep it busy with wine.

Unless the crazies reckon I have asked for sufficiently insane lumps of cold hard cash & give me that job of saving the world.

Our car in the middle of our street!

2011-02-07T07:23:00.000+02:00

So the cyclone gave us a bit of a spanking with its tail end...

And cars ended up floating down the tram tracks, followed closely behind by the trams, the trains, and surprisingly-buoyant concrete drain covers.

All while I was armed with 2 bottles of warming champagne, high heels and a whole lotta wet at a tram stop.

And my Friday night suddenly took on a whole new stream when the downpour collapsed over Melbourne.

But not one to ever be deterred by a flash flood, or an amphibious Holden, I wisely sought out refuge in what I realised would pose to the be the most sensible of bunkers should we be walled in for days yet - the corner bottle store

Which just happened to also be holding its weekly wine tasting! Tally ho, dear boys, bottoms up.

Wow, it is really pouring out there… but have you tasted this shiraz!

Mmmmm. What a tasty flood that turned out to be!

The Answer is 42

2011-02-03T07:56:00.001+02:00

A friend of mine died during the "holidays".

She was someone who was a mate probably before I knew how to focus my newborn eyes.

By this stage of our lives, we were on the sidelines of each other's lives mainly; as family friends often become. Where you know the big happenings, have cheesy dances to old school tunes, cheeky memories, you help out each other out through kak or confusing times, you slot back into seeing each other so easily, when you do. But the two of you don't need to be there daily.

It becomes monthly emails and always barracking for the other.

I watch what her family now goes through as they mourn & deal with this. And that is the most painful bit.

Because there is not much you can do, but watch them have to process it, realise & accept gradually that she is not so close for that call or quirky remark or bitch or laugh or love, she's lost from their every minute.

They search out new support systems without dishonouring her. No one wants to close the gap that she's left, but you cannot stand still forever. But how can you not.

She & I did a lot of bantering.

She may have published a very dirty book with a lot of my very dirty stories in them.

It is "funny" though, when I am having a kak low moment & get that not-so-awesome glance into a nemesis doing so much better than me in life and my jealousy gets the better of me, when I realise I am way below benchmark, and might even be going backwards (downwards?) I now realise that none of that really does matter in "the end".

People said she didn't have an easy life, there are some stories that get me so worked up that she had to go through them, she definitely fought her way through some kakness. But to see how many people are heartbroken, who cherish her and still miss her daily, to realise that even if she was on my sidelines she's left a gap.

All those people in her daily life wouldn't even have the first clue who I was, or that she was important to me, and I watch their stranger comments and am awed by their love and respect for her.

She was so incredibly loved by those people that did love and know her – that there was so much importance to her living. Even if her life was not playing fair.

Even if you only have one friend, or only your family loves you, even if every career option you have tried for has failed, you're unemployed lying on a couch out of options & have only eaten stale rice in a coupla days, didn't manage your level of study, you ended up in a much smaller world than your teenage self dreamt of, or your arch nemesis is one step away from ruling the world while you are considering applying for the train driver job opening…

....none of that really matters.

It's sad that death is what has to bitchslap us back to this reality and this simple lesson. Particularly me. Particularly now.

To stop the comparing. The vying. The struggle to achieve goals that actually are obsolete in the end. To show up folk who aren't worth it. To keep pushing for a path that won't lead to my objectives, but it is the most obvious, and always makes for great conversation & some awing. That it is about quality, not quantity.

There is value to life that we cannot comprehend. Even when your life gets dented along the way.

So, for today, ease up on yourself.

I have to go finish a job application to be a train driver.

Feet & Potatoes

2011-01-31T06:25:00.000+02:00

Oi oi oi, what’s going on here. Why all the silence. Like a damn ghost town on a go-slow!

Or I am just working damn hard and can’t be hassled with things like personal thoughts. …Ha!

Ha ha ha…. No.

Actually, I have been putting in some work hours. Reading about the delightful topics of murder and rape of women in Australia. Can’t say that it really leaves one with much to say by posting hour.

I had an amusing moment with some SA ex-pats about this the other. Forced to partake in an evening with them.

I mentioned that this was my latest job. Reading crimes against women in Australia. And I have never seen such denial pour out of every last orifice in such a quick turn-around time.

“What? What crime? No no no. I am sure you don’t have much to read!”

“Well, ha, imagine you were doing the same study in South Africa! You’d still be reading the first week’s incidents!”

Ohdearyme. I didn’t even understand why the comparison came about. There I was just munching into my homemade (in that way I bought it from a store, put it into a bowl, and tried to pull off that I had made it out of a moment of generosity & domesticity! I bleach, I cook, I damn well know where the cheap deli section is in this town!) potato salad & making small talk when the next thing we were getting into a diplomatic “situation”.

Sadly, dear Denialists, even Utopia has terrible things happen. Wherever Utopia is. As long as there are living breathing creatures, bad & sad things will happen. You cannot run far enough from that reality. I am sure even the Martian amoeba must cope with crimes of sorts. Whatever an amoeba crime might be…

So I diverted and said something “better” like “Hey, did you read that global report that says Australian houses are the most expensive at the moment for the least quality!”.

Well that went down like a ton of bad-quality bricks! Probably because we were sitting in a recently purchased house….

So other than continuing to ostracise myself from my old "we're-not-from-that-country"men (luckily my Aussie mates all support me in all my foot-in-potato-salad-mouth remarks), reading myself into a nervous wreck, I am doing quite well.

I am doing this strange new activity that some apparently call “running”. I like to call it “walk for two minutes, move really fast for one minute without spraining anything, resume pleasant walking for two minutes… repeat”…. So far… the beer gut is staging a sit-in in protest of this new activity.

I know they knew that I didn’t make that salad.

CrazyWhiteWoman:Recovered

2011-01-13T04:39:00.001+02:00

Here's a link:

CrazyWhiteWoman:Recovered

It ain't me. It is someone who I once knew well.

And no, that isn't some strange reference to me being another me back when me was not this me. I am me, always have been, still am... me. Ha! Fok. Best I get back to work... While I still have it...

Anyone for goat

2010-12-22T09:23:00.001+02:00

I recently found out that when the development organisations shove brochures in your hand and say "Dare to give differently! Dare to give a goat!" that they actually mean,

"Dare to give differently! Dare to pay my salary!"

Or something along those very sketchy vague lines.

Apparently these brochures are now meant to explain that you are not actually transacting a goat, but that the money goes towards their agricultural programmes (goat) or education programmes (stationary) or micro-economic programmes (chicken) in distant far-away needy countries … or in "Africa" in the case of our continent; because who needs to recognise +50 unique states when you can show continent-wide neeeeed.

I digress. And I do so without a goat in hand, still.

What is also not so kosher with me is that this means, these organisations are banking on their street donors not holding them accountable. They are lying to us, pretty damn clearly, and they know that they can get away with it through a cute "I bought you a chicken this Christmas" certificate.

We pay them money, we get a certificate, we've bought off our conscience, impressed a loved one who receives the certificate, and our side of the transaction is done.

They take the money. Bank the money. And put it towards some vague programme, where the word "goat" might not even feature in the entire Implementation and Operations Plan.

These sneaky development folk also do not detail any beneficiary. So no beneficiary can hold them to account either.

"Where's my goat dammit! I don't need a goat! But if someone paid money towards me receiving one, well, we have a lekker braai going here, I want that goat!"

Not-for-Profit a.k.a. International Development a.k.a. How to make others feel guilty when you lie.

Job Bizarre

2010-12-21T10:18:00.001+02:00

Hello Job Search, my old friend....

I've come to flirt with you again....

2010 - The Year of The Job Bizarre!

I have racked up 4 this year. I am hoping for a job offer for a 5th tomorrow.

Let me assure you, it definitely sparkles up a CV... that many chops changes can-I-explain-this-in-person-over-an-interview!

And this doesn't include the babysitting pain that I thought I was returning to when I arrived back in Melbs in January 2010.

"How can you afford nail polish, babysitter? I thought you were poor?"

"I stole it from your mamma!'

All have been odd. Two have nearly required "industrial dispute" status. None have led to my riches coming in & my sugar-mamma status finally settling down onto my aging self.

Bring on 2011... it could only get more entertaining...

Apology Boost

2010-11-25T10:01:00.000+02:00

Being a person who clings to the Calm Bar by barely a pinky, I tend to end up having to apologise or expecting an apology fairly often. Far too often.

My knee-jerk Rah Rah side is always rallying away at the front of my personality. Or as my partner delightfully puts it, My Inner Jack Russel.

Whether it’s that I “see” most things in the wrong light, that I just don’t get some senses of humour (I don’t. You’re not funny. Why would you add bad witless bigotted humour to that topic.), or that I am a touch more blunt back to you as you may have been to no one in particular, that side is often pulled out (perhaps) a little too fast.

… or to stick with the analogy, It’s the one that manically laughs as it releases the pinky from The Calm Bar.

Yesterday, I fell off the bar straight into one of those “Oooooooooooooooooh, is that what you meant. (Though, even knowing what you meant still doesn’t make it funny). You fucked up, I fucked up, let’s just call it quits & you can buy me a beer” situations.

Being a maturing lady, I decided to pull out the apology to my side of things.

It was graciously accepted (It was as carefully worded to not take full blame, mind you) and, loved was confessed all round.

But once I got going, there was no stopping me. I was pulling apologies out left right & centre at folk who didn’t even realise we’d ever “had an issue” between us.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan, apologising! What a self-gratifying activity!

Look at me! I am a big person! I am mature & can admit my mistakes & take the humble pain punch to my personality!

And now you love me even more! You did not realise I had such depth to my character, strength to my core, until I told you that you were a judgemental, bigoted, narrow-minded, ignorant arrogance of an acquaintance (in clever & witty words & logic, thank you). …which I then followed up with an APOLOGY!

So… who wants to fight… I could use the ego boost!

Video Gaming Empathy

2010-11-17T09:38:00.000+02:00

Ever since two little white lines bounced a white square back and forth on screens and called it video “tennis”, video games have taken a whole heap of flack for destroying society.

The other morning, through soggy all bran breath, I watched as sensationalist morning tv people (I really need to invest in that $20 digital set top box already; more channels has to mean more dilution of crap media) debated their fears of video game violence.

Some new video game in a series of video games is out BUT this one is more violent than the last ones! Aren’t they all?

To Age Restrict or Not To Age Restrict. YAWN. Pass the orange juice…

But for once it got me thinking;

So all these “kids” are “being exposed to too much violence”. But so what? What are the results?

Its hardly like I’ve seen kiddies rampaging down streets tekken’ing the shite out of every dreadlocked man walking on his hands & wearing clown pants or cruising up in their pink convertibles (well, because they can’t drive yet, I guess) to prostitutes and ask if the ladies are “hogging all the action”, let alone getting their hands on some uzzies and firing at random in abandon warehouses.

[Let alone seeing frenzied tennis players marauding down these same streets trying to smash every last ounce of gusto out of any white block that bounces past.]

So what’s the violence issue? What have these sensational folk being trying to put their finger on & say, “Ah ha! THIS is what is missing & what our kiddies are going to be missing soon enough!”

I’d say it’s “Empathy”.

And “The Human Consequence”.

These video gaming kids are at that age where they supposedly should be exposed to all facets & lessons & boundaries of life. They need to learn in multiple ways that life away from their dinner table and family banter is not just shooting the crap out of the guy hiding behind an oil barrel.

[The same way kids who grow up in shopping malls need to learn the whole world is not for sale or to be sold & priceless value is present in some incredible places, people, elements… sop sop]

So; let’s just build some empathy into these war games then.

Cause video game kids will be video game kids, and honestly, I’d rather have a video game kid than a heroin-experimenter or an arsonist. And maybe even more than a “Paris H Mall Rat” even.

I reckon that every war video game should be legally obligated to include “Empathy” stages:

Now that you have blown the shite out of Afghanistan, you have 200,000 Internally Displaced People on your hands. What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO??

- Stage “Build A Refugee/ IDP Camp”. You caused these people to flee the danger, now you deal with them, their terror & trauma, and living without any stable society. You lose points for outbreak of communicable diseases, poor sanitation, and all rapes that take place in camps. You increase points for creation of education tents, reintegration of refugees/IDPs back into their communities, and reuniting “orphans” with families;

- Stage “You’re The Nurse/Doctor”. You save the lives of all the injured soldiers (your side & the other side) by making use of everyday unsterilised items. Lose points for every limb you lose to gangrene, life you lose, and outbreak of dysentery amongst the patients. Increase points for every life you save, and act of ingenuity with “lack of” equipment and you earn bonus points for every enemy life you save;

- Stage “Build a Feeding Pipeline”. Now that your war has halted all agricultural activity & wiped the shite out of fields and usual “to market” routines, people are just a touch starving. Luckily a country on the other side of the world has grain to donate. Get it to these people. As cost-effectively as possible. As quickly & calmly as possible. Without pissing off any sides. Or letting the food fall into the hands of any one side who will abuse the food supply, manipulate the innocent folk, and screw your good PR over!

- Stage “PR & Media Relations”. One side is claiming you are only in the area for oil, and that you are giving preferential treatment to “the other side”. They can even link your side back to some unknown but “highly dangerous” terrorist elements down in Antarctica way. How do you solve this & keep the money coming in in in ! HOW DO YOU!? RAH! GO!

Man, the options of these are endless!

Where’s a video game techie and a politician when I need some!

“Empathy Every 5th Stage Video Game Law” – I can see it now.

That, or I need to stop reading law reform articles over morning tv & soggy All Bran….

List of A Bitch

2010-11-11T09:43:00.000+02:00

Girls. Fas.cin.ating.

Some just never grow up. Those childish traits you blame on high school seem to just stick with some right through their teens, well-entrenched into their twenties, co-pilot along the thirties, and I reckon will still be holding on strong into pension-me-an-adult-nappy years.

Let’s get one thing straight here;

There are an unaccounted for amount of everyday females in this world who are just not nice.

These women who go about their daily lives desperately seeking subtle forms of power and validation by using their femininity in malicious ways. Who manipulate, underhand, charmingly backstab, and wheel-and-deal so well that even the toes of the devil curl in fear.

[This is not to say “Males are the better gender”. Men do not come into this space].

Women who would step over their own mother for the last cupcake. And then go upchuck it cos mamma toooold you not to eat no refined sugar.

After years of observation, I have gradually built up a List of A Bitch.

And I share it only in the interest of helping humankind. And perhaps getting a little of my own back.

Signs to Steer Clear or Smile and Back Away Slowly, while showing No Sign of Trust:

1. Gossip Sign – if they regularly bitch about a mutual friend to you, then they are regularly bitching about you to a mutual friend. This also means – if they’re divulging other’s secrets to you, you can sure as hell bet on that last cupcake, your confidentialities are well publicised.

2. Ah Honey Sign – If you get the patronising “Ah honey”, big-eyed shame and generally your skin is crawling with irritation at “Now don’t think this means this is your fault!” (I wasn’t); just know it can be made better by pulling your own big-eyed shame look, pat her on the shoulder and say “Thanks huuuuney, I knew you’d understand because I know you know how this feels and have done all these same mistakes!”

3. Photo Sign – You trawl through the drunken photos from the night before and you start to notice one person amongst the boozy masses never has a grin out of place, doesn’t grow a double chin like the rest and her eyes are always well-focused and woo’ing that camera lens a little too intensely. Then you know there is a little too much perfection. The head is tilted too correctly-angled, the grin too congenial, the hands too well placed. And there you have Poser Perfection!

If the camera captures this, start to watch the unwavering pose when that camera is not around. See!

4. Gusher Sign. “You ARE too lovely”, “You are SOOOO clever”, “Ah, I just looooooove you”. But you never call? You never write? You know less than nothing about me? Can I introduce my partner who I’ve been living with for three years and… “Oh, I know ALL about him”. But how?

5. Too Lovely – this is a trickier than tricky one. Because there are so many girls that are plain lovely, who are thoughtful or sugar-sweet or guiltily kind. Then there are those who resemble these so audaciously, until suddenly …one slip. One out-of-place lie. One “ouch, was that my back, is that your knife, naaaa, I know you! You wouldn’t!”. One “sorry I forgot to mention this vital piece of information that has conveniently screwed you over yet has not screwed me over, but rather benefitted me as there was bugger all other folk in the running”.

These sorts of bizarre smack-you-in-the-back-surprise moments that make you furrow your brow, look at them sideways, and think “Hang on! … naaaa, they are too sweet for that…” And you my friend, have been Suckered. By the most devious kind.

You start to watch her, and see this happen more often than you ever realised, watch how others have realised but never say anything, everyone just plays into this bizarre acceptance game.

And bitchiness is validated. We keep allowing it to play about everyday in subtle ways.

All you can do is be suckered, recognise some signs for "next time", and walk away knowing (hoping) you were the bigger person.

All in all. Some chicks. So odd. But why? Still?? Why?

Ah well, pass the cupcakes…

Cultural Claimers

2010-11-09T10:07:00.001+02:00

There's a lot of conversation around old Johnny The White Zulu at the moment;

And with this goes a whole lot of slagging off of folk who claim that they are all culturally-integrated up because they dance & sing to Johnny. But only Johnny.

Slagging off in much the same way as people slag off folk who

- think they're tough for boozing it up as far south as Braamfontein,

- bought a shirt with an African outline on it in as exotic a location as a certain Rosebank shop and wear it with pride in public,

- say "I've visited Soweto" by spending a "visit" in a tour-guide bus & only alighting from it at Wandies & beelining it straight back in by the time that beer was warming,

- loudly say they have "seen the real face of Africa" AND "know how to solve its problems" by cuddling a poor kid in an orphanage in a clean secure Northern Suburbs institution

- knows a coupla lines and words of a few "other" South African languages and throws these randomly into any old irrelevant conversation

You get the picture.

An Aussie "Cultural-Claimer" would be one who thinks they know Aboriginal culture by

- having paid a visit to Uluru for a few days one winter holiday

- buying, and loudly wearing, a shirt that says that they chose NOT to climb Uluru

- only ever hearing didgeridoo music through Xavier Rudd's albums

- speaking to an Aboriginal guy for 5 minutes in the largest Melbourne market & bought some "original" artwork off him for over $100

But, the thing is, these folk at least got on the bridge.

It's all about Cultural Bridges.

Back in Jo'burg, we even had an actual physical in-your-face cultural bridge. Once Nelson Mandela Bridge went up, a whole lot more cultural diversifying started happening. Friendships moved from Melville, past the Color Bar, to Newtown, with Nicky's Oasis serving up milk stout, and developed into leases in Jeppe Street and daily business meetings in some unknown hovel of an overhauled CBD corner.

Now Rea Vaya is going up, the Gautrain has discovered a whole new suburb, and the Bulle got themselves so far south that they forgot to not accept beer from strangers, but got cultural hugged & loved with some rugby thrown in.

Few people are as adventurous as to just head into some sprawling mass of an area they have only ever heard would skin them alive to "check it out". Why would you "just take a drive" into Soweto? Let alone veer off the Transkei road and pull up outside a homestead for a chat & some dinner.

But so many people do seem so eager to discover and then claim so many aspects of all other parts of South Africa's diversity. This is a good thing An eagerness that should be strengthened, not ridiculed. And I reckon, what is chomping at this need in people's heads is howhowhow.

Many people would venture into the unknown culture or area or language or new food option if they had a bridge, on which to use slow cautious steps.

So! We need to opportunise (ha! Can you say Meeting Speak!) these bridges, to stop folk hovering on them, and gentle coax them over into the new worlds.

Not to slag them off.

Because I have had many people guide me into my best cultural experiences from SA to Oz; and I think Xavier Rudd is damned lovely. And love being told in disdain then that I haven't heard anything yet, at which point, the next bridge gets put on the iPod & I discover... The John Butler Trio...

A Gush To Melbourne #1

2010-11-07T02:09:00.000+02:00

Your weather is kak. The winters are far too long & the transition into the glorious summer living is like dealing with a woman on a bladder infection.

But once that weather does get here; it’s all shweet & forgiven.

I think. I don’t think we’ve reached summer yet, Toto.

So, in light of the fact that I tend to only slate the city & country of hosting, which is fairly unfair because they are gracious hosts and have not once slated my coun.... oh... wait...

But because I am the bigger woman!

A regular feature of all that is good with “The Island” in Top 5 listings:

1. I’m not going home for Chrissy (Aussies. Nicknames. For everything. You deal with it); which gutted me – R35 000 two people return between the 2 weeks of global Christmas travel – was quickly turned around by 2 sets of sweet Aussies who invited us to their family Christmas meals. Its gonna be a fat old bulging festive season. That’s how generous your chilled-out Aussie is. I appreciate that.

2. My team won the Grand Final. HA! HA HA HA HA HA!!! Even if there were two of them. Because who needs overtime, when you can have 2 weekends of partying like it’s the end of the world & you’re going down in a blaze of glory.

3. Tuesday was a public holiday. For a horse race. We got to drink champagne instead of afternoon tea. I got to ignore the job that doesn’t pay but cracks the whip, and get toasted on champagne too.

4. Multiculturalism. You think Jo’burg CBD was incredible as the microcosm of Africa. Melbourne’s 8 blocks of a city is one big MEET-and-GREET-your-opposing-culture-and-mix-that-in-with-everything-inbetween.

5. A tv character died in a car accident on a popular tv programme. This fictional incident made headline national news. People were gutted, crying into their online forums and over the radio waves. The actress had to come on tv and explain herself from LA. The country is not convinced.
As my mom said in reply when I sms’d her about this incident, “Sometimes it’s nice to live in a bubble”.

Unprivatised

2010-11-07T01:38:00.000+02:00

And I'm back....!

With berry nipple tassles & sparkles on my toes.

Excuse the glitch. I just publicised my blog in all the wrong circles. They know its there. I know that they know. But we all like to know that its a known farce & knowing keep up the farcities.

Plus, do not ask me how, but old Melbs has a way of sucking time. Just gone. Wvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww............

And the day's over & not one inspiring thought other that "Yes, I got a train seat without vomit as the accompanying passenger! Score!" has passed through my head.

Let's remedy that right about here - although, that said, anything that does come out of this head is going to have a stale red wine stench to it as I battle through a cheap hangover. Damn The Arrival Of Summer Rooftop Gardens!

Onwards we go; with berry nipple tassles & sparkles on my toes!

Fema-uh-oh

2010-10-13T15:46:00.000+02:00

Feminism: That brief amusing period in history when women believed their successes could be based on more than just their looks.

...comment comes out of the very disturbing ridiculous idea currently doing the glossy bubble rounds, that women can have children, fine fine, we fashionistas will allow you that icky act, but then they must get back to looking as stylish & pre-baby as possible.

Forget that breastfeeding, woman!, get yourself to a gym! And pilates! And earning enough money to keep up with the trends, and be the envy of all your gold-glitzing community, by ignoring that crying needy lump, although doesn't it make a delightful accessory ...in these clothes we recommend you purchase for it... and get back to lunching and socialising!

Now THAT'S something to aim for in your life!

Forget raising a life to the point where it can keep raising itself in some self-adjusted way, forget just the achievement in becoming a mother (idea scares me to... well... to The Pill), it's all about how you look doing it at the end of the day!

All about envy!

Dammit woman! Stop feeling so proud of you & this kid! Have you seen those stretch marks! Just look at that flabbing stomach. Why! Look at H.Klum. Look at HER stomach & how many children she's had! What. Is. Wrong. With. You.

[Even. Woman becomes first female Prime Minister of a bloke society! ....But what did she wear when she got there? Buy our magazine now to find out!]

Dumb asses.

Trottle On

2010-09-30T05:18:00.001+02:00

Business as usual trottles along on The Island.

1. The Guy has buggered off to some gorgeous desolate area, off the continent this time, for 30 glorious days of tropical island and then “home” time. (Oh the incredible overwhelming jealousy!)

2. I am about to start a (yet another) new job.

Which does make life a little tricky. In that way that there are only 5 days in a work week, and I have 3 bosses whose thoughts at this exact time about my work commitments would add up to 8 days per work week.

This would concern me, if the one job had paid me in the last month. It hasn’t. So tally ho! Onwards we go! To something far far… as random.

A remark was made that I am somehow succeeding in finding as many unknown nooks and oddities of this town as possible in my ever-continuing aspiration for a “real” job. You know. One where you can actually explain, and explain with pride, what it is you do while small talking at cocktail parties.

Not that I cocktail party. I think you need a real job to crack those types of invites. Right now my invites seem to include, “Want to come to mine, drink as much as possible, till someone vomits”. All class!

3. And Australia can’t seem to stop drawing.

- It drew its election.

- It drew its “Aussie Rules” “Footy” AFL Grand Final on the weekend. And trust me, the Grand Final result has been far more devastating than the election result!

If only I could explain the chaos that is the Grand Final! If any of my countless bizarre-odd-not-odd-odd jobs could give me a decent working computer, I would upload photos of the chaos, but ah no, ah well, sorry for us all. Just take my anonymous blogger word for it. Think cults, think team colours, think kombis with songs blaring from sound systems, posters in every window, street parades the day before, taking time off work to watch practice sessions, an entire day dedicated to match preparation – and that’s just for the tv viewers, big name acts before the match, bigger name acts after the match, and a whole lotta betting on every single aspect.

(I would like to be the man who bet it would be a draw last week!)

- And, now, in the “draw”ing spirit… Australia has been unable to offer up a definite and resolute “Next Top Model” winner;

If you have not caught it – because it is all over the airwaves here! -

4. Anthropologically fascinating is that while this is the top news story for the past 2 days here, a South African newspaper informed me that Australia’s first Aboriginal MP received a standing ovation in Parliament yesterday.

Gotta love media prioritising.

Gotta just love it.

Got Milk

2010-09-20T08:38:00.000+02:00

One of the “joys” of being a do-gooder save-the-world-through-a-drum-beat-and-excel-sheet is the more tie-dyed folk amongst us that love to discuss their alternate ways & reckonings some days.

You never really know what they are going to pull on you.

Whether a flute or a look of complete disdain when you pull out some technological tool (cell phone) that involves wire & tin; tin that was ripped from the womb of the earth and made to escape from the DRC on the back of some kid who was covered in flies.

(The kid has to be covered in flies. I have yet to see an image in this country of an African child that is not covered in flies and grasping at dirty water… Fkc. Gotta Love First World Development porn.)

Saturday brought about my greatest moment of do-gooder guilt yet when an accented long-haired man exclaimed;

“Oh.Dear.God.No! You’re not putting M.I.L.K into your tea!? Do you realise that is MILK! Do you know where MILK comes from!?”

Cows?

Or the devil?

I’m confused.

“No No No. We are the only creatures that consume milk after we have been weaned! Did you know that!!! Did you!”

No. Uh oh. No. I didn’t. Hold on, didn’t Heidi drink tea in those Swiss Alps? What about goat & llama milk, is that alright?

“It is just not right! None of this global milk drinking is ‘alraaight’. RAH!”

Uuuuuh, my tea is getting cold….

“Do you know how they GET the MILK from these animals!?”

JA! I’ve seen it happen. Aaaah, chuckle, all these cute fat arse cows spend hours in a field eating & shitting. Then they just know when to get in a line & stroll on home with their massive udders swaying about. The farmer sticks on some gadget, and the milk flows out….oh… why are you looking ill… am I wrong about this?”

“And what goes INTO that MILK. Not just MILK! I assure you”

Yes. But. That “stuff” isn’t that shite for you. Excuse the pun. After all, look how it improves cheese!

“Cheese! Well, cheese is different! Mmmm cheese…….”

It is??? Milk, bad? Cheese, good?

Ah! But it’s ok! I’m a 2% low fat girl, really!

And with that I strolled away to break some or other law of the biological universe by finishing my cuppa.

Who knew milk drinking had become a worse social than smoking joints & using tin phones? Though, I do have to point out, I’ve noticed a severe lack of those habits going on in the animal kingdom too.

Some days are just harder than others to be a do-gooder.

Face rub

2010-09-15T08:25:00.001+02:00

A strangely painful and awkward lunch led my partner & me to search out some cheap beer & chilled-out folk.

Which led to my face being rubbed in a woman’s breasts and me walking out of the pub $15 richer. The two incidents fairly unrelated.

What a Saturday!

Earlier in the day, we’d been throwing about advice to some folk who’d be travelling to South Africa. It got nowhere pleasant or to no real point rather, and so I excused us under some bad reasoning of needing to work on a Saturday night (Ha! One day I will be that proactive!), and sought out the closest pub for a needed reality check.

Now this pub is the very same pub we had ventured into on our 3rd day in Australia; when my partner had needed a toilet break while we apartment-searched. … He strolled in. And stopped. I strolled in. Was greeted by a smiling barwoman. And I stopped. Cause her bare breasts were also smiling away at me just inches above the mahogany counter. 3pm on a midweek day. Were all Aussie bars like this? … we were informed by friends later, that no, this was a complete “lucky fluke” on our touristing selves.

We’ve since learnt it is a fairly renowned titty bar; frequented by Footy supporters for a bit of liquidating (& oogling) before matches.

To Note: Titty bars are not to be mistaken for anything as “classy” as strip joints. The girls aren’t the point in a titty bar. The beer is. It is still a pub, whose staff just happen to all be women, who all happen to prefer pulling pints & rubbing bar counters while their wobbly bits wobble freely in the fresh air. Topless barwomen. Skimpies…

Think The Jolly… with more nakedness & rubbing. Well. Knowing the Jolly, the same amount of rubbing.

Ah well. So be it. Nothing wrong with it & as long as no-one minded me, I was not too fussed to chug away at some cheap beer in this joint as the only female patron. The point was the beer, and to try keep a straight face while not pulling a glance-down when ordering more beer.

There’d be moments of some naked woman prowling about on the bar counter to cheesy music and admiring drunk men. Fine fine suip suip. She would grab a man’s head, stuff it between her boobs and rub at will. Then stick some ass near another man’s face and fondle away.

We met some tradies who explained why the country was in such dire straits: “that’s what you get when you let a woman run the country!! Ooooooooooooooooo HA HA HA! Suip” I got chatted up by a geriatric with a wandering hand: “Oi grandpa!” And a couple of youngsters bet me that I wasn’t who my ID said I was. Which is how I earned $10.

Then they said that not only was I not who I said I was (but was actually their mate’s sister), but that my ID was not what it appeared to be. Which is when the barlady, who was playing mediator, showed them my bank cards while handing me their wagered extra $5.

And that’s how I earned $15 in a titty bar!

More beer & laughter. Another prowling woman, cheesy music, and admiring men.

When suddenly this lady prowled over to me, apologised to my boyfriend, grabbed my head & rubbed away…! The men cheered! And I blushed redder than a prude in cucumber veggie patch.

And that’s how I got my first ever titty-face-rub.

Had to happen in Oz, of all places.

I lied about the part where I walk out $15 richer. I was in a bar after all. That money was spent on cheap beer before you could say “prude in a cucumber patch”.

Fluorescent me some freshness

2010-09-08T05:19:00.001+02:00

I am sitting in near darkness.

Out of protest against fluorescent lights. RAH!

I just can’t. I cannot bring myself to flip the switch and spend another eight continual hours under those burning yellow ill-luminators. I would rather have the ounce of real light getting through the metre-wide crack between two concrete buildings and walk out of this building slightly more “fresh”.

It’s bad enough that all the windows in this building are bolted shut. To prevent suicide. Are you kidding me. If you’re going to jump, and be too dead & plat to deal with the consequences, some pane of glass and a bolt are not going to stand in your way. Nanny-mentality strikes again!

Ironically, its lack of O2 that makes me want to throw a brick and jump. That and these fucking overbearing fluorescent-your-soul-fake office lights!

Its also crap that my view is straight onto a concrete brick wall. Honestly, what bright-eyed diploma-shining architect thought up THIS brilliant slit-a-vein-never-see-light-again-even-when-windows-come-included place!

Anyway. So. I type this in near-dark. And I LIKE it! Except when the sun goes behind a cloud….like now…what the fkckyiwerhe’s the screaenn ogone

Lawful Interviews

2010-09-07T07:58:00.001+02:00

I had a job interview (another month of my life, another job interview) recently enough, with an organisation I have always admired.

Somewhere near the end, the interviewers sprung on me that the work I would be doing would not necessarily be legal in the countries I would be doing it. I would have to be ok with this. Would I be ok with this?

Caught up in the moment, and in that interview determination of "This Job Will Be Mine! RAH!", I nodded along. Of course! Sure! What's a little bit of illegality between colleagues! I commit crimes all.the.time. Why, just the other day, I crossed a Melbourne street when the little robot man was RED! [ed. that's a lie about committing crimes all the time, dear overhanging CIA & Oz-CIA Big Brothers… poetic licence and all that…]

And as I rallied the interviews on, some voice in some crevice of my mind, probably that pesky conscience, started a low screaming, "Uhhh………………NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

When I walked out, I started to hear the "Cough, cough, excuse me, over here, yoo whoooo, yes, me! That old thing, your conscience! Wanting to have a little chat. No! You will not break the law. That completely defeats international laws and cultural rights. It damn near borders on Imperialism. How could you ever get up on your soapbox about other cultures that try to impose their ideas of what should be legal & illegal in your culture & country, if you can't have such respect. LET ALONE that if the authorities of that country discover it [ed. considering the organisation is present in that country, I am pretty sure the authorities are actually aware of these "illegal" activities and choose to turn a blind eye] or decide to get tough on it, you're out of that country forever. Let alone what could happen on your "permanent global record"… Cough. Oh ja! And not forgetting those damn morals you claim you have. Just saying. Cough. Yes, I do need a glass of water to clear my mental throat. Cheers".

In end, the dilemma wasn't mine, as I wasn't offered the job. Perhaps the back-of-my-mind voice had been screaming louder than I thought in the interview.

Could I have forsaken some of my morals for what I reckoned was a cushy job? I will never know.

Well that had a bit of a let down ending.

Like argh and grunt

2010-09-06T06:36:00.000+02:00

My partner is becoming distressed that he is losing his intelligence.

This fear seems to be based on his increasing use of the word “like”.

Like, I totally agree with him. If he, like, just stopped to think how often (no, wait, that’s too big a word)… how like sooooo many times he says the word, he’d realise (no…), he’d like click that he is sounding stupid as.

As what?

Like, just as stupid as!

I also have this growing fear, particularly during my writing times, when I suddenly realise I have lost a word. It has pure and simply escaped my vocabulary and fled. I am sure it once existed in my mental vocab bank, but as I ransack my brain, it has simply vanished. I am now words shorter than when I first arrived on this island.

I blame morning tv.

And too many teens.

Except, its not just teens. Its twenty-somethings, newspapers, writings by colleagues. Socialist states mean socialist vocabs and there’ll be none of that fancy incomprehensibly bourgeoisie talk here, y’hear!

Ha, I love a good jibe at First World Education and its flawed ego!

But where are all the big expressive complex words going? What is with this superlative emphasising “SOOOOOO” ‘like” “terribly” “unreal” to convey whatever distressing point you have.

No no, fool, there are more exact words for that “sooooooooooooooooooo” and “Totally”. Try them out. Let them smatter over your tongue and out your lips. Words for the masses, I pronounce!

One train trip left me somewhere between amused chuckles and plain old gawping, after I was forced to listen to twenty minutes of school girls chatting. If “like” had been a dollar paid towards third world debt, that conversation would have long since taken us out of all this crippled-developing-countries debate and economies would be flourishing.

And that’s all I have to say today, because all this thinking has hurt me brain.

Fair dinkum as.

For Your Own Safety

2010-08-25T14:28:00.000+02:00

I just got back from an under-the-radar trip to South Africa. Because you gotta go home every once in awhile. Massage that soul & all.

And to check up that the folks aren’t spending all the inheritance during their child-free older years.

… they are… which just led to me spending some straight back…

Everyone wanted to know how Austraaaaaalia was, did I want another double gin, would I live there, when am I coming home, how about another plate of biltong, was it working out. I woo’ed and wow’d them with my tales of how the continent is not all that bad. It’s made up of convicts’ kids and missionaries’ kids. The trick is to stick with the penal bunch.

But, as soon as I hit O.R. Tambo & watched the Springboks lose to a hail of vuvuzela’ing foreigners, I got the cold smack of reality that is the missionary descendants.

“For You Own Safety”…

For your own safety, we are going to check your hand luggage twice, ensure you only pick up your duty-free booze as you march single-file onto the plane, check your passport thrice, and ensure NO ONE smiles! This is not a party in your aeroplane sort of joint, lady with the blue rinse! We will have you know what a serious business this flying activity is. No swinging sixties drunken pilots being coddled by short skirted airhostesses anymore! No more free lunches on this flight. Oh no! This is a sit-eat-watch-listen-sleep when the lights are out-piss when we take the seatbelt sign off-wake-yawn-watch-listen-march off style of route, for the lot of you! Why, you ask!? Well, don’t! There will be NO questions on this flight! But if you must know, For your own safety, Of course!

And so during the following thirteen painful hours, I was reminded of that distaste that this Island manages to coat about, using their fear-inducing glass-caged citizen-tranquiliser motto of…

“For Your Safety”, we are only going to serve free drinks during the meal, and that means only one free drink per passenger per meal.

We are reaching a spot of air notorious for turbulence, so we are going to put on the seatbelt sign, JUST IN CASE PEOPLE, ITS FOR YOUR SAFETY!

“Can I have a full cup of tea, please, sir?” NO! Did you not heeeeeear the captain! Deargod man, this is a NOTORIOUS spot of AIR! I can’t have passengers just flinging tea about over every possible air burp! Generally I would give you half a cup but for such defiance, you get one quarter!

And every fleeing Poffadder ouma & bitter Koffiefontein oom nodded their heads in unadulterated agreement. Ah yes, this is why we are exil’ing! No more THINKING for us! We act when and how we are told! This. Is. Bliss!

Ag tog, this is luvely! This little speaker above will tell us when to act, when to eat, when to toilet break, what to fear, what not to eat - …which is why I spent the last hour of the flight scoffing down my SA chocolates & crisps. I would rather be sugar-sick than “declare these indecencies” to Customs, or worse yet, chuck them… Because, rid of them you must be! In case a plague of Tempo Bars breaks out and joins the frogs, camels, flies and bunnies in swamping The Island.

The Nanny was back and she was beating me with her spoonful of fear while walloping me with hypothetical uncertainties.

After the 10th announcement in as many hours (I fear I do not kid on this, I even filled out a “Customer Feedback Form” in complaint of the overzealous announcer), I strolled up to the “Free Water” (offered in miniscule cups that require you to stroll every 2 damn minutes… for your safety, we don’t want you spilling room temperature water on yourself after all!) place located conveniently next to the “Ladies Only” toilets. And as I strolled back fearing that I had not wiggled an ankle in the appropriate amount of time or slept with my seatbelt on the outside of my blanket, the voice boomed the cabin;

“Passengers are reminded to NOT stand up & walk about the cabin when the seatbelt sign is still illuminated!”

The eyes glared at me. I shuddered. What now! I had broken the laws of the islands. The Voice went silent. It had pointed me out. Outted and ostracised me sufficiently. I knelt down and praised the Voice for its compassion in not voting me off the island right there and then. I was a dissenter. And now I was branded. Let me step out of line one more time & imagine the mayhem that possibly maybe surely could and would break lose.

The bubble might be burst! Reality and, horrors, the Boat People, might come streaming in!

Incredibly all stayed calm. In fact, even that notorious patch of air stayed surprising calm.

The O “HayTCHA” and S folk sighed in relief. We got lucky. This time. But never let that guard down! Never let the people not be aware of how we are protecting their safety at all time, in all places, for all sorts of reasons!

When I got safely back to my seat, strapped myself in, and ensured I had my reading light on and window shade firmly down, I “quietly” bitched that perhaps, just maybe, The Island was little OTT. My expat neighbour, who had hogged the middle seat the whole night while loudly singing to himself between bouts of boozy snores replied “That’s why this country WORKS!” Hic! Now stop the gay people marrying and the tanned women wearing those black clothes over their faces, give them motorbike helmets instead, and the universe will finally be in alignment! Hic!

Ah yes, alignment. And all will be protected about the bubble ‘ey.

And a few hours later, I stood in front of a Customs lady who asked me inane questions about biltong and reasons for daring to take a trip out of such a “lucky counry” for the outside dangerous world, however briefly. I glanced to my right and saw the Blue-Rinse tannie hand over to her Customs Lady a small Pharmacy package of panadoes. The Lady nodded with approval and ticked the boxes. OhForFuckSake. I am never getting back in. I will be bust right here & now. My guy will be left to roam mateless for years to come while I suffer it out back in Africa.

Which is when I sucked in my pride, unscrewed my backbone, and I in turn coughed sweetly, and bravely enquired ever so politely from my Lady, “sorry, but I’m half way through a course of antibiotics, do I need to declare this medication?” as I half-heartedly grasped for the untidy pack in my one piece of hand luggage.

A glare of ultimate uniformed services came back at me and a rude “No!” was thrown down onto me.

“But next time…
…you must!
… For your own safety!”

Loss of Humanly Interacting

2010-08-23T09:03:00.000+02:00

Let's see if I remember how to do this thing again...

...

Hundreds of folk,
Clicking on phones, blackberries, ipads, laptops,
Desperately trying to connect, to reach out, be touched, interact with
On virtual social networking sites,
With coded friends and facades of mates,
All to escape the 'real' loneliness and impersonal big city life,
While all desperately trying to ignore the hundreds of humans pressed up against them on trains.

Why Work Five Days?? WHY!?

2010-08-04T10:50:00.000+02:00

How on earth do you do these 5 day work weeks again!??!!

My head hurts.

I am recalling what "daily stress" is.

I live in a confused multi-tasking bubble.

And I am twenty minutes late to leave here & get to a pub for BEEEER!

Gotta go!

One Yrrrrr

2010-07-28T09:02:00.000+02:00

This week is our one year anniversary of being in Oz.

Or should I say “1 year in Melbourne”, considering how little of this big island I have yet seen. (Outback photos still to make it onto here)

ONE YEAR! OMG!!!! …. Naaa, not really. So be it. One year. That’s nice.

I am more amazed that it has been five years since Brett Kebble off’d himself in that group-murdering sort of way. Allegedly.

This week of 2010 I am overwhelmed with too much information from too many angles. I am not keeping up. 2 jobs & a volunteering thing that can’t be cut off. Too much in the news. And too many people with too many social requirements.

A 2009 year ago I was freezing my fat arse off, mind-numbed, jumping between reading novels, staring at FRIENDS episodes, feeling kinda lost, kinda isolated in some distant suburb in a bigoted expat strangers’ home, searching for apartments in areas that were alien, and occasionally spamming people with my CV.

Not much has changed on that CV spamming front. Or on the looking for apartments. Except now I know what streets we are dealing with here!

But finally my head is allowed to work in one of my two city offices (HA! How fancy does THAT sound!). ((It should not sound that fancy. In fact it should not sound fancy at all)).

I am starting to lessen my hold on information flows from the west. Slowly slowly I am allowing my inbox to pile high rather than send back random waffle, just to stay in “touch”.

I love that I can walk. Walk everywhere. And that I can read every morning on a train to the city. That lunch is Mongolian Beef on Noodles for cheap cheap. Or just sushi rolls. If nothing else, when I move on, I will miss the $2 sushi rolls!

I am not completely settled & at ease. And I still don’t have any of those incredible in-town friends that are important to living. I still reflect too often for it to be healthy. But at least I was given time to reflect in the past 12 months. And wow did I. I had several years of slow-moving career to reflect over & kick up a few gears & goals. And past social turbulence to iron out into deeper understanding. Yes, I do feel so much wiser & in control. And I like that feeling.

I have achieved one goal of using the time in a “politically quieter” corner of the world to up my ante on other global issues. Fas.cin.ating. It comes highly recommended. The national anger & knee-jerk reactions that lunge out of the wrestling match that exists between SA politicians and SA media don’t cloud my global information consuming & I can start to apply perspective to issues back “home”.

I have been exposed to a very ugly side of South Africa… hiding out here in Australia and on the world-wide-web. White supremacy at its ugly racist “forgetful” best. “I don’t see why they say Apartheid was a crime against humanity, its not like we did anything that bad”… And for once I was dumb struck & said less because I knew “he” was saying this statement to me because he knew I did not agree with it & he was trying to stir me into an argument.

…back to happier things… blinkers blinkers…

My partner seems more relaxed. … incredible amounts more relaxed and in philosophical control… life in the middle of fkc-off nowhere for a coupla months will do that to one. It will also grow you a beard that you refuse to shave off. . . ….. that beard mention is still related to my partner. To him. Not me.

I now comfortably refer to my partner as my partner. That’s how you do it in Oz.

He cooks. I clean. Because I once was too feminist to learn how to cook, “cause I wasn’t going to be any man’s cook!!” … which apparently has meant I am now one man’s cleaner. I need to have a chat with those feminist mentors of old! I have had to face up to some ridiculous feminist notions here & just get on with making sure our “walk-in-cupboard” home functions. Cause I can burn as many bras as I like, but that doesn’t appear to cause dirt to bugger off, sheets to hit the Laundromat, or paid-for groceries to appear.

We have progressed to being able to afford more than 2 beers in a night! Now THAT was a momentous occasion for me! To turn down invites cause there is just too much going on. And know what’s what and when that what is where’ing.

I tried to get jobs in other industries. And failed amusingly miserably. I still wish to get the hell out of this industry cause it seems obsol-patronising-elete out here.

I found a coffee that I can drink daily (double macciato). Even if I have yet to find out how to spell it.

I did not write a groundbreaking novel from my unemployed couch.

But I did scrub a bath clean of its years of pink mould.

Voila! One year!

Do I like Oz? Well, it’s a big island. A bit tough to generalise into one sentence sum-up. I hate their media. It could possibly be the death of all that they hold dear. Their politicians forgot to mature out of the high-school debating club. Their footy rocks my Collingwood socks (except for when I am listening to why it is a superior sport to the one I am watching on a tv at the time). And their people in this here Euro Town, at least 90% of those I have met, really are gorgeous. Generous interested bunch who speak a funny language.

[I’m trying to get into the juggle of 2 jobs, 2 computers, 2 internets. Daily blogging is collateral damage as a result but will also up its ante all in good time].

Random Convos

2010-07-22T10:36:00.000+02:00

I love how life just Monty Python foot stomps on any grumpy stereotyped thoughts you might be trying to pull out of a day.

There you are closed-mindedly boxing away some group of people or events, and life just says, “But what about THIS exception, which isn’t really an exception, but maybe the exceptional norm!” And you are left feeling bad for judging, but happy for being wrong.

So as I grumpled my way to the rain soaked train station today, thinking, “This town is suffering from Bit City Syndrome. No one looks at anyone. No one wants to acknowledge there is a living breathing feeling person standing inches away from them. We are all islands in a sea of ignore-able human avoiding beings. Why won’t anyone just SEE me!”

When some Spanish man approached me & pulled out some of the most amusing “I can see you av passion & fire in you!” lines.

Uh, well, that is impressive insight as I just stand here staring at a train timetable notice! Can I help? What exactly about my half-awake eyes & badly dressed style gave this away?

And so a most random conversation got going, between grumpy me & some spanish musician that ....yes, yes, I av dated some South African women, you are not eazee women, so tell me how is South Africa now, eets economy... and lasted as long as it took for the delayed train to arrive, when he said cheers, and that was that.

If it was a pick-up line, he wasn’t pushing his luck….

That might have been because of me setting my “relationship status” straight when he pulled out his second line of “I can see you are not in love. Love, it has hurt you…”

… Ha! No! I am very much in love & that is even why I am on this corner continent, cause of some guy! And that look that you see about me is the extreme dislike I have for being out of my warm bed to stand in freezing drizzle waiting for a very late train, without shots of coffee near at hand!

But he chatted away. The train arrived. And we parted ways.

It was a random quick moment. But it perked me up. And made me realise I was wrong about the “Too Big City Syndrome”

Thanks life! You won this one.

Rich Again!

2010-07-21T09:39:00.000+02:00

And then something else happened on my return to “civilisation”,

I landed another job.

I now work 5 days a week!

I’m rich!!!!!!!! Until they tax me 40% of the second job’s wage. Foooooooooooooooooooook! Apparently I do get this back at the end of the Fin Year or something though. I am not too sure. I am too poor to pay for a tax man to know how rich I could be.

But this new job now leaves me begging the question of who is going to wash the sheets & vacuum the carpet in our cubicle flat? Cause I ain’t giving up my weekend to chores! I guess we will just live like other people our age in this city, and accept & embrace the relative filth around us.

If we’re returning to dirt at the end of this big life, we may as well get accustomed to it?

The new job is on the topic of human rights abuses in an African country.

Add this to my current HIV-themed job, and maaaaan, I am going to be a keg full of laughs at those cocktail parties when I get asked “And what do you do?......”

TIOz: Red Sand & Very Little Else Needed

2010-07-19T09:03:00.000+02:00

(Photos to arrive some day after this)

I feel revived!

Well. That’s what I was thinking about 2/3rds of the way in.

“I feel damn exhausted and think I will take long leisurely showers every hour for a week and please can you drive just a little faster so I can finally use a “real” toilet and will one of you grumpy men smile already! Oooo man, I can almost smell the beer from here!” closely sums me up by the end.

Naa, not actually. I was still loving the experience by the end of my trip. But knowing there was a shower & a toilet where I’d close a door & shut out the world, as well as the last preciously saved clean clothes, in just a “few” kilometres time did make thoughts a bit skewed.

I loved the trip. And have so much to write out that I have kinda writer blocked myself in being overwhelmed by where to start & how to do it justice.

I climbed Uluru! Which would be wonderful if it wasn’t culturally frowned on to do. D’Oh. And we stayed on a cattle station just outside the resort, which does give that much more authenticity than the tourist trap.

Then we packed up two vehicles, stocked up on water & diesel, and headed wester than west, to where permits were required & the road was corrugated mud & sand…

…to the 30 year old “office” caravan, which hasn’t been clean in about 29 years and 364 days! Ha!

And there we worked. Up at sunrise, winter temperature be damned. Down by 9pm. Exhausted. In a setting that could cousin up to the Karoo. But only if you doused the Karoo in buckets of red sand.

Everything always served with red sand.

I stood on mountains in the serious middle of nowhere. Where I’d be well aware if that day’s lone car drove along the sandy path in the distance. Not only because I could hear it because of no other sound pollution, but from the red sand dust it kicked up miles into the air. Then I would hike down that hill, crawl my way down a ravine, and clamber up the next side to the top of the next mountain.

Or walk across two “fields” of Spinifex growing on red sandunes, for my sins. Spinfex? The spear of grasses. Do not let it touch you!

I lived out of a tent, cause the swag was just too small for two of us.

Warmth was a 10-week growing bonfire that feasted on “snappy gum”.

The toilet was behind enough bushes to not be spotted by the other 4 to 6 campers. And toilet paper had to be burnt. Lovely. But its funny how quick you adjust to “disappear behind bush, scrape a hole with back of shoe, squat, get it done, bury & burn if necessary, done!”

We ate well. We didn’t hygiene too well. BUT! Because I was a girl, the “camp manager” was not only charmed by me but reckoned I needed luxuries, and so we actually were allowed to shower every night, bar two. The Guy loved having me in camp as a result. Although, by “shower” I mean, jump in to a small cubicle tent behind the caravan, turn on taps, get wet, turn off taps, soap up, turn on taps, rinse, turn off taps. Out in less than a minute. Those who showered for 2 minutes might have the water turned off on them.

We drank tea from “the billy” every day, in the most random of spots, because there is always time for some tea from the billy (tin can dumbed right on the fire, and you make a handle from the car’s pliers, to pick it up & pour).

One highlight of this on-the-go fire “kitchen” being where we had some chicken schnitzels by chance in the truck’s fridge around about lunchtime, so those got thrown onto the car’s jack metal base plate, put that over the small on-the-go fire, braai’d it all up and grand feasts were suddenly so easy. Car grease & all. Mmmmm.

I saw one kangaroo the whole trip. One!
But saw so many camels with their flapping flailing camel lips by the herds.
Some of our companions even met a camel hunter & his blood-soaked Jack Russel.
I might even have eaten some camel. But I enjoyed the buffalo medallions more.

There were spiders of all sorts everywhere. Spiders that put up camp between bushes for you to meet very up close & personal when you strolled between the two bushes. AAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!
Spiders with lumo green eyes that scuttled about at night and when you saw them you decided maybe you wouldn’t squat behind that bush, thanks.

F$%king flies. And apparently I had it eassssssssssssssssssy, with the winter temperatures. They especially loved to perch around my sunglasses as I was taking a precarious step down the ravine. And I had to just accept that 20 would be hovering on & around me at any given afternoon hour.
As long as there were more hovering around The Guy, I reckoned I was ok.

Big Red Bellied Ants that liked their pink flowers & carried them about in pride.
And dingos that were always on the outskirts.

But often, I’d wonder, where are all the animals? Some days I felt like I was in the Kruger, at one of those remote viewing spots near the Moz border, where you can see for miles, and can spot all sorts of animals dotted about. Not here though. Not much more than camels. And carcasses of abandoned burnt-out cars on the single road through.

I got sunburn and/or wind chill burn. Cause nee maar fok, that wind was cold when it blew across the plains. Serious Antarctic cold. And you could literally hear it move, from a starting point to an end point. I even woke up with frost on the inside of the tent one morning, inches from my nose. I would start a morning with 10 layers, no skin exposed, reach afternoon drenched in sun cream & minimal layers & a massive fly-covered hat, and then be layered up soon after 4pm.

I saw more stars than sky. And a luna eclipse. We even had the privilege of meeting a star guy at the one cattle station when we were home-bound, who showed us spectacular sights of Saturn, double stars, arrow clusters, matter & no matter, through his mega telescopes.

I had the privilege of meeting Aboriginal Elders who camped with us for a few days. And visiting 1 or 2 Aboriginal communities, to stock up on water & basic provisions. And all I know is that now I know 0.02% of “that situation” and am more mind-fkced confused about it than when I was 0.01% of knowledge behind that.

There is a whole lot of happiness. There is a whole lot of confusion. There is poverty. But does poverty matter if people are happy? I don’t know, I did not get to ask. And there does appear to be a whole lot of contempt by the white residents in the areas. A lot of reminding of “whose paying the taxes, who is receiving the taxes, and who is doing what with the tax money”.

One thought I did keep getting back into my head is how “cultural” the need for money can be. That the culture I am from sees money as a goal, a pursuit, a definition of self. And that here was a culture that would rather not get paid for those extra days because they would rather be at home with their family. That money is to be shared to all as soon as it is received by one person. But is this sustainable? But is the pursuit for money sustainable?

And even, I was reminded, from just a few weeks of intense simple living, how possessions are really meaningless at the core of life.

I think South Africa & Australia has so much to learn from each other & teach other & help each other out. Because I might be quick to judge at first, and I know Aussies who visit SA have been quick to judge us, but I keep reminding myself that my county’s “successes” come from a different background and need and majority/minority. That we are nowhere near “solved” but might only be at the beginning of the story & maybe Oz is further along it? Maybe they are on a completely different path? Maybe they did get it wrong? Maybe not? That the situations might not be comparable? And that all the Australians I know in Melbourne are engaging and would like positive things to come out of the current confusion of how to empower & bring back self-determination to Aboriginal people.

And every day when I got up in zero degrees in a temporary bedroom shelter & found a private public space outside to ablute, and put on clothes I’d been wearing for countless days that stank of me and of last night’s fire, I did remember how so many South Africans are doing this every day, and that they don’t think that they need a medal for it. That it is just their life.

So. All in all. This city girl beat her camping fears & successfully & happily camped for 2 weeks. Sad to come back to my heater and structured city life where you are surrounded by so many people but really engage with even fewer than when living in relative isolation.

When you have so little, you do realise that you do not really need so much.

P.S. During it all, I was reading a book called "Listening To Country" by Ros Moriarty. She's a white Tasmanian woman that married an Aboriginal man, and the two of them have strived to bring White Oz closer to Aboriginal Oz. I do have to wonder how much her story influenced my experience.

P.P.S. I have also been told to read Ernie & Sally Dingo's books for more insight into this all.

OUT-of-office-BACK

2010-06-22T13:12:00.000+02:00

Right. I'm off.

To a place that looks a lot like this... That's right. Put the swag up right about .... on that lovely looking sandy rock! Aaaah, what a view... of nothing....

Now go back to the map... I fly from Melbourne (via bluddy Sydney. wtf) to Uluru/ Ayers Rock. (Uluru is a sacred Aboriginal site... and a ridiculously expensive tourist trap/resort). To meet up with these guys who have just driven 600 kms for a beer... and to pick me up.

Best the guy be more excited about seeing me than seeing that 1st beer in a few weeks!

We drink some beers. And then drive 600kms back. To the middle of n.o.w.h.e.r.e

Are you looking at the map (well, of course not, the hope is you are looking at this very word...). See that spot right where Western Australia-meets-Northern Territory-meets-South Australia... Wave at me!! Howzit!

Then we drive BACK to Alice Springs. Many days and only half that amount of clothing and even fewer showers later. And fly back to Melbourne.

Fkc. It promises to be an incredible experience!

And now here are two more photos from The Guy from another, slightly more civilised spot in the Outback from last year. Does it not look like your dream holiday!

Shear Shear Shear. Now look a leeeettle to the right. BHAM! Ha ha ha ha! Cracks me up every time.

P.S. GO BAFANA!!! I'll be back to see you in the final! Even if you are on the side lines, waving your flag with me!

Over The Top In Silver Pants

2010-06-21T15:05:00.001+02:00

So I climbed onto my fkc-I’m-late train this chilly morning. We merrily chugged along one whole station stop. And then we stopped. And stayed stopped.

And my train, my entire line, along with 7 other lines of trains across Melbourne, got kicked off our means to get to work and told to find other ways to work.

And why?

Why close down half of a city’s public transport system?

Because some kid in silver pants had a gun in the area of a sports stadium somewhere near the city.

And the authorities were having none of this.

One kid with a gun and some crimes (burglary & speeding while resisting arrest and being “armed”) causes havoc with an entire city.

W. t. f.

The newspaper stories told me over the course of the day that some nineteen year old punk robbed a house at 3am in the outer suburbs. Then robbed a petrol station. And by 7-something aye-em, he was speeding along the highways at a terrifying 130 km/ hr being chased by many a cop car, marked & unmarked (well, those unmarked cars may as well now be marked!).

Things get a little blurry after this, but somehow this guy strolled over a foot bridge with a shotgun in hand. And has not been seen since.

Which is right round about the time I was missing my train & figuring I’d “just climb on the next one”.

The cops know who this kid is. He’s been tried for many other charges many other times. I would think this meant that surely the cops could just hang out around his mom’s house for a coupla weeks and HEY PRESTO! Arrested! Again!

Nee maar fok.

I really seriously cannot decide what I think of this whole incident.

Am I highly amused by the over-the-top level of effort & fear of a kid with a shotgun in public?

Or am I seriously impressed?

Is this the level of effort we should be expecting in South Africa?

Though, what really has had me rolling about in my cynical lawless citizen mirth is;

- The kid was wearing SILVER PANTS! How the fkc do you lose someone in SILVER pants. And whothefkc wears silver pants to a burlary!

- One of the biggest points pushed in this story is that the kid was driving a shockingly distressing and fast speed on the highway…of 130 kilometres per hour. And people wonder why I am paranoid of stepping my Jo’burg Driver self behind a Melbourne steering wheel!

- A kid had a gun. And this is the reaction. I cannot imagine how on earth South Africa would function if the cops did react like this to every person they saw with a gun.

- I no longer carry my key ring pocket knife, because it is illegal in this city. And so if even a key-ring pocket knife can cause fears of packing weapons, it is not too surprising such a reaction to someone carrying a gun. Or is it….

I think I am amused.

But that’s just Jozi me.

Vanilla Fine

2010-06-18T10:22:00.000+02:00

I can’t put a handle on this place.

Do I like it? Ja well, it’s fine.

Fine fine.

Vanilla fine.

Do I love it? I would not go that far.

It reminds me of too many weeks in Northern Suburbs Jo’burg. You need to get out of it occasionally to recall the other world just on the “cluster complex” shoreline. A colour chaos beat emotion and in-your-face rather than bubble-wrapped.

I hate the silence. Seriously. Why is this place so quiet? But for a hissy-fitting possum.

There is not much wrong. The people are sweet. There is ALways something to dooooo. SoOoOoOo cultural. If musicals and all-round sports events are your thing. The former isn’t, I’d rather bedbunk with a possum. But there are also Moroccan soup bars, tappas and cava, Chinese theatrics, Comical festivals, musos every night, and dead bodies in formaldehyde on display. If you care for them.

But one year in, and, well, I still feel like I am imposing, pushing, trying too hard. No great friend to just kick back with. Or call up for a beer cause I am having a shite lonely day (mainly cause I have not been in physical seeing speaking hearing contact with familiar humans for three days running… the joys of working in academic single-cell grey halls when no-one’s at home). My senses of belonging and identifying have called in AWOL.

I don’t get “it”. Why can’t I just embrace and rub it into my bosom with the absoluteness of love and fun.

What is this massive gap?

Is it as simple as a job?

I have had great moments here.

Is this just an extended low on the back of a job interview that won’t transpire to anything, freezing grey weather, the guy gone too soon after he returned from being gone so long, the land that I am trying to forget for a few years being slammed into my face and nostalgia every time I turn on the TV or open a newspaper article for this month, on the back of a cold and possum insomnia?

Some other South African living in Melbourne shouted across the Facebook waves “I LOVE THIS CITY”.

How is it that two people, so similar, just see it so differently.

P.S. Or, to quote an Aussie favourite, You know what I might need... What's that? ... I need a can of Harden The Fuck Up.

P.P.S Or Maybe I just need a holiday... in Hard Country...

World Cup Jet Lag & Possum Insomnia

2010-06-17T09:14:00.000+02:00

Some people take a hot water bottle to bed. Others take some hot skanky stranger.

I take a broom and an iPod.

And for no kinky reasoning other than that hissy-fitting insomniacal drunk possum.

It hisses. I bash. It charges about the ceiling. I bash the ceiling some more. This routine hits Hour 2, and I bring in the iPod.

Nee maar fok. Between the late night soccer (football) and the possum, I am doomed never to sleep during the day’s dark hours again.

I have World Cup Jet Lag & Possum Insomnia.

And that is why I can only type this much zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

TIOz Boet

2010-06-16T09:26:00.000+02:00

When I wrote yesterday’s post, I did not quite realise what a massive issue the vuvuzela now is. Wow! Jeepers!

…Ouch!

…because there are some serious haters of humanity and africanity out there & they are using this simple instrument to unleash their wrath. On simple calm opposition of “we hate the damned thing, please stop” comes piggy-backers with such loathing for someone different that I start to feel nauseas. Disturbed.

More than disturbing.

Let Love lead the way & all that hippy shite that isn't so shite when staring, stunned, at such hate & ignorance & lack of desire to wise-up.

But this is a month of happiness & celebrations so, moving on faster than we’ll score our first goal of tonight….!

I’m leaving you lot.

Not yet, but in a week.

I figured, in my delightfully selfish way, that you do not get to have all the fun & uniqueness this month. I would like to claim some for myself!

And so I fly off to Uluru (Ayers Rock) to meet up with a possé of desert rumblers (4 men and a trailer that dates back to before I was born) and join them for two weeks in their wacky exploits…. uuuuuhhhhhh, freezing our arses off while being red-sand blasted. YEAH!!!

Because one always wants to sleep squashed in a one-man swag with your partner who has not cleaned in a good week in the desert during that delightful time of year, winter.

Bring on half being made up of Aussie blokes who use the empty landscape to be all that their blokedom can allow (porn & swearing). With Shower Hour allowed only every second day. And the best toilet being the behind of a bush, watched on by dingos & flies.

Bring on camels & desert turkeys. Seeing a very very different side to Australia than European Melbourne. And spending time with The Guy while he does his thing, me supposedly tagging along as an assistant. Assisting with what exactly, only the Outback days will reveal.

But I figure, it must be done, because if it isn’t now, it might never be. And like the World Cup appearing in my own hometown, I will forever kick myself for not getting it into my head to DO and GRAB something with this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The vuvuzela soundtrack

2010-06-15T07:44:00.000+02:00

Is it a piece of plastic or a piece of culture?

Did it matter? Now it does. Now it is a piece of culture.

Week Night English Football has the soundtrack of chanting British Louts singing their famous songs en masse & with impressive unison. Filled with sexism and swearing and repetition.

Port Elizabeth cricket has the soundtrack of that brass band. People the world round now know the St. George’s pitch simply by hearing some pop tune being enthusiastically percussion’ed out during sports hour.

Weekend Rugby has the soundtrack of some family member swearing at the television. COMEOOOOON REF!!! WTF ARE YOU ON ABOUT!!!!!! ARGHRGHGAGHHHHH WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO CATCH!!!

Saturday afternoon South African soccer/football has always had the soundtrack of that plastic one-note horn, which characterises a curling kudu horn, being blared at supporters & opponents alike...

South African soccer noise… fun emotional chaos epitomised. The vuvuzela being chaotically blown, to a crowd gone wild, and the commentators gone wilder, particularly with their regular LADUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMAs!

[Man, how I wish they’d get the World Cup commentators to get into the LADUUUUUUMA spirit as well! I am even doing my best to teach it to the oblivious “is it time for the footy yet?” Aussies].

This has been a weekly tv-room characteristic as family members watched with rapt attention as Kaizer Chiefs dominated everybody! (Ok, ok, I might be biased, they’re my team. I don’t follow many sports with regularity, but I always have a team to support!). I barely ever watched the soccer, but just from the noise in the background to my life, I knew what was going on, and I knew all was right and calm with my world.

It is silence that disturbs me. I did not grow up on that.

So it is amusing to step out of the noise & realise the unaccustomed folk might find it annoying. To me, it is just there. A Saturday afternoon soundtrack.

And THAT is what they mean by culture. If you want to experience soccer in South Africa, then you need to know, that is how it is experienced. With a BARP, colour, and chaos. And even a live chicken sometimes! HA HA.

Ex-colonisers & “superior” Developed Worlders, we realise that you think you are civilised, and that you would love us to be “civilised”, “controlled” and “emotionally dulled” too. We have listened, and even tried to understand and be like you. But now, in this very moment, over such an insignificant issue, is when you are given a perfect opportunity to understand what we’ve been saying. Why we keep asking for cultural understanding and why we keep saying you are not there yet.

It is more than appreciating our food styles, or giving our musicians an award at your ceremonies, or examining our cultural paraphernalia through a museum’ed lens. That to understand us and make us all equal, you have to give a little bit too. Be made uncomfortable. And to eventually decide you may as well learn how to appreciate something so different to what you know.

Allow yourself to be converted. And then you will start to realise why so many of us have heartstrings yanking us back to cultures of Africa. Passion colourfully valued, emotion blaringly displayed, and noise made chaotically fun and overthetop.

Cause we’re not listening this time. Our vuvuzelas are too loud for us to hear you! And we don’t need to listen to you (arguably that may be because our current coloniser, FIFA, says they like our unique noise).

We are equal by decree of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and just by our ability to blare into your tight-arsed noiseless emotionally-controlled rooms and heads!

Damn bluddy Africans. Always have to make a sing, dance and noise of everything!

... and don’t we love ourselves for it!!

So incredibly Proud to be SOUTH AFRICAN

2010-06-11T07:58:00.000+02:00

Who can write at a time like this.

Who can READ at a time like this!

Ke nako. Insanity. Ke nako

- When we won the award 6 years ago, I had thought I’d be experiencing the tournament with at least one child of my own running about. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA! How very wrong.

- My heart is aching to be home.

- (White) Australia will never ever know this feeling that South Africa is experiencing right now. Because they will always be too comfortable to know how to nationally fight in the face of outside patronising adversity. (Which is why the bitter racist ex-S.Affers love it here… patronising in peace ((Sorry, I had to do that stab. I had to deal with some bitters in the past day. Blood boils)) ).

For 6 years we have listened (some South Africans have listened since the 19^th century) that we are useless, too disorganised, we cannot do it, we are not up to “civilised” standards.

And all these celebrations are a big FUCK YOU! We did not listen! Because we knew we could! We can! We have! And we are doing it OUR STYLE!

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARPP BARP BARP! ==========<()

- There is a fkc load of controversy going on quietly on the sides, and we don’t want to face it right now. And we know we will in our hangover. One interesting example I was made aware of yesterday: Why are coke vendors out of business for this tournament? Coca Cola doesn’t want to know who they are right now, but in 5 weeks time, Coke will be back to asking them to sell for the Multinational. Could some plan not have been made, Coca Cola??

- We have extreme poverty in South Africa. From here on out, money had better be wisely spent. But remember, even poor people are allowed to experience rich emotions. Emotions of hope & pride that this world cup is bringing.

And in the words of others:

Some broadcasters actually requested that the humble vuvuzela be banned from the stadiums, but FIFA chief Sepp Blatter couldn’t hear them for the racket that was going on and ignored their pleas. This is an African World Cup, the first of its kind, and the locals are going to make this a unique tournament unlike any we have seen before. So let’s not approach it with these imperialist attitudes. Let us embrace the vuvuzela for all it symbolises. Vive la difference.

(Oz newspaper)

Whatever the critics might say, the authorities are adamant that the World Cup has delivered what it set out to do: improve the image of South Africa, show the world that an emerging African nation has the skills and smarts to put on an event of this proportion and, importantly, act as a rallying point to unite this fractured society. The World Cup here is a celebration of African pride and a stimulus for self-belief.

''We are ready,'' reads the slogan posted all over the nation. They are.

(Oz newspaper)

With a dollop of the right attitude, this country will change your life.

(Supersport advice for foreigners)

They'll call me Freedom! Just like a Waving Flag!

Ke Nako!

Go Bafana!!

Well done South Africa! You did it!

Ok. I am ready.

2010-06-10T09:32:00.000+02:00

After getting into a serious downward funk yesterday evening,

...right about the time my country was going off its blasting vuvuzela'ing head.

, while my reality was 8pm. Melbourne Time. Train Trip bound for empty flat. Pouring with rain. Knowing I should've been in my country,

And having about 20 hours since of going through turmoil of sadness, extreme jealousy, so much pride I could just ululate, happiness, tears, fear for how much more intense all these emotions are going to be on Friday night, ...back to sadness, jealousy, pride, grinning, overwhelmed with awe & happiness...

and of desperately reminding myself why I am not at home right now (uuuhhh.... coming up blank...oh. right. support for the guy or some nonsense. no no I love him. not nonsense. But do I love him more than my country on a month-long party.... uuuuhhhh...) and lost in court-style questioning of why the fack I did not listen to my boyfriend last year for us to hold off plans for one year.

2009 Champs: Are you mad. We can't just hang around without jobs for a year for a football tournament. Yes, I know it is going to be incredible, but we just can't! Thankgod one of us is reasonable in this relationship!
2010 Champs: Fkcing idiot, you 2009 Champs!!! Damn! You! Were you not thinking! I am SURE you were not! I am SURE we could've found a way to hang around in unemployment for a year. Just one year! Grumble grumble. I'd curse you if it didn't impact on me!

Thankfok The Guy is so far into the middle of this Island to not know what he is missing. Otherwise, we would be on the next flight home. Responsibilities be damned.

And because my parcels of mirror socks have yet to arrive...something about strikes and deliveries in 6 weeks (uuuuhhhhh).

Off I took myself, finally, to The South African Shop, to purchase some visible Gees. Wait till those unaware see me tomorrow on Swanston Street!

I have held out on visiting this shop, because when being local be as the locals be, shop where the locals shop, pay reasonable local amounts for tea & beer & sweets. But it was dire. My funk was extreme.

Now my bank balance is extreme, but, at least, I. Am. Ready!

It is time!

YEHAYEHAEYHAEYEHEYAHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Feel it! It is Here! (There) (Sob...pass that scarf & savanna)

Bordering Latex Gloves

2010-06-09T09:51:00.000+02:00

Free TV in Oz has a certain obsession with crime, real life stories, and with tracking down the criminal.

Theme 1:

I barely know the difference between NCIS’s, Bones, Castle, SUV, Cold Case, Lie To Me, Medium, House (viral crimes) & whatever else the fack all appear at exactly the same time of night. One after the painful other. Detectives who will catch the bad guys, but only after thinking everyone else did it. Even the granny in the corner shop. And they always only get it in the last seconds, thanks to an unlikely sparkling clue. While toying with unadmitted sexual tension between themselves (the detectives, not the bad guys, …or the viruses). I cannot be blamed for no longer knowing which I am watching or for thinking the one that I watched last week is the same programme as I am watching this week, just a continuation, a little to the side.

Theme 2:

Follow this with time slots of real-crime stories – drug wars of the 90s, bikies, gangs of criminal mothers, every last child kidnapper profiled. I stopped watching these when I realised I was freaking out in thinking every other Aussie was a machete-wielding paedophilic Wolf-Creeking madman with a moustache (Always with a moustache). And more especially when I found myself agreeing with new laws which allow no Melburnian to carry even a pocket-knife in this town, while cops are enabled to slap on those latex gloves & feel-up any “dodgy” moustache-i-oh-d train passenger.

Theme 3:

And the third is a type of programme I know comes from the bowels of government propaganda & brainwashing. Where we watch allsorts government “security guards” smack those latex gloves on & body search innocent border crossers (better know as international passengers) and car drivers and beach swimmers. Border Security. Customs. Border Patrol. Highway Patrol. Beach Patrol. Beagle Patrol. Dog Unit.

Not only is the government security of all forms patrolling every last inch of this island and its continental shelf, but we get to spend our relaxing evenings watching them do it! Awesome! Hmmmm.

I believe it is all conspiracy to make this nation even more law-abiding than it is, made to believe they WILL be caught if they bring even a dollar more into the country than they have declared. That all mayhem is about to break loose in the customs zone, but thanks to a highly-trained taskforce, we are safe from non-english speaking men with casio keyboards tracing coke.

And nothing twists the mind better than thinking, fok, but I have also carried loosely-packed carrots at the bottom of my carry-on luggage by mistake & travelled internationally too! I could be like this sobbing girl on tv… ohdeargod no, there go on those latex gloves… no no I won’t want to bend over & assume the position! Thank you for warning me BORDER PATROL! I will never dare not tick the appropriate box on the custom sheet again! I will never lie that I have not been on a farm in Africa for the past 6 months when I know, I just know, that I have!! Not the latex gloves!

[Meanwhile, for all this insane hysteria about bringing foreign plant matter onto this island… can someone please explain to me how the fkc camels and llamas not only got onto this island, but roam freely, and are not breeding like those damn frogs that caused all the live importing headaches! Not every last species is going to kill this island off – IS IT! Now let my hiking boots in!]

Border Security. The fear of my tv-watching life now. Damn those beagles!
And because The Guy has headed back "in" for 5 more week.
Is all why I so enjoyed this:

"Makes ya smell nice, doesn't it.... Nice 'n beuuutiful"

Quoting We're Learning

2010-06-08T10:19:00.000+02:00

Just something that really made me smile - all the way from New York (Times):

Last Saturday, Christoffel Groenewald found it hard to believe he had waited so long before visiting Soweto.

“There’s a vibe here you just don’t get when it’s white people alone in Pretoria,” he said before the game.

By rugby standards, he was modestly dressed, with only wildly oversize blue sunglasses to enliven his wardrobe. He had boarded a bus that morning, crossed the racial divide and come to an epiphany: “Black people are better at accepting white people than white people are at accepting blacks.”

Mr. Groenewald, a 37-year-old engineer, was standing in a stranger’s crowded front yard. He continued his thought: “If black people came to our stadium, white people wouldn’t be as welcoming. White people wouldn’t be selling them beer, inviting them into their yards, grabbing them by the arm and asking them to come meet another white person.”

He paused to consider his conclusion and seemed compelled to add, “White people wouldn’t even do that for other white people.”

Behind him, blacks and whites sat together on benches. A newfound friend, Mandla Tshabalala, ambled over, beer in hand, and said, “Everyone is mingling with everyone here. South Africa is a changed country now.”

Up the block, Louwtjie Bekker, an off-duty policeman, called the scene “South Africa as it ought to be.” He said: “People are exchanging their cultures. We’re learning how the other lives.”

[About the Super 14 Semi-final & Final taking place in Soweto this year]

Headers

2010-06-04T10:26:00.000+02:00

My head has been everywhere but straight this week.

But now the guy is done here and is good to go back to the stretch of camels, red sand, and the nothingness that is The Aussie Outback.

For 5 more weeks.

That was fast…. And furious, in a lovely way.

But before I start complaining about that, let me just say to this interweb, are you guys trying to drive me into some chronic homesickness state - with all the damn Ra Ra South Africa and its four years of Hard Work paying off & looking great…
Look at my Gautrain….
Look at my flags on the highway…
Howz about this window sock flags…
And adverts via social sites, emails and even the conspiring Aussie tv!
And… putting doccies about SA on an aussie channel every night!

Oh woe is me. Sob sob suip

What I would not do for some home fun time right now.

But I’ll suck it up, along with a coupla Aussie beers, blast my vuvuzela at the ranting 4am possum, and watch my footie team shalack my guy’s footie team into 5 weeks later!

Head everywhere. Heading home.

World Knowledge

2010-06-02T10:33:00.000+02:00

From a man who will always say it better than me...

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

...

Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

No Title

2010-06-01T08:00:00.000+02:00

Israel, you're breaking my heart

That is our culture

2010-05-28T07:56:00.000+02:00

I am a cultural relativist to the core.

You definitely cannot watch a 10 minute piece on a Sunday Night “doccie” programme or read an article in a glossy mag to know the issues at the heart of a cultural concern. And then flamboyant your judgement loudly around.

But even a good doccie, a peer-reviewed journal article, or quick field trip “in” would struggle to bring complete understanding of someone else’s culture. Culture is too deep, complex, and entire-life-explaining for that.

So, while female circumcision [The ultimate litmus test of someone’s cultural relativism, it would seem] makes many women of many cultures scream in horror & bay for elders’ blood in the death to this practice - Before death of the women who undergo it - I have to ask, where is the space for those women of that culture to be heard. And which of those women do you choose to listen to.

Women are not homogenous the world round. Hell, women are not homogenous within a single culture or town. I would hate to be associated with some of the South African English-speaking white Jo’burg girls I have met [which I may have told one or two in a boozed state. Sorry]. It gets down to who you identify with, who understands you, how inclusive & how exclusive.

What I do then reckon about female circumcision is that, one woman in that community would advocate against it, showing up its negative sides, which the rest of us then flaunt about to our other cultures. But her neighbour or sister might be shocked to know that she might not undergo the practice. What does this mean for her identity, to her community, to her past generations, to her sense of culture & how to live life. She might choose social inclusion & cultural acceptance over physical issues.

What many of us women forget is, just because you’re a woman, doesn’t mean you understand me. And certainly does not mean you get to speak for me.

Funnily enough, even male circumcision is so culturally-based. Here I thought it was the most normal act in the world. That most South African cultures, mine very much included, believe in circumcision at some stage in a boy’s life. For health, religion, culture or all of thee above. I have always known that any boys that I pop out will be chopped, for health reasons.

Apparently, in Aus, this is not the case. And you’d be hard pressed to find a run-of-the-mill doc who would circumcise your baby boy on this island. Men in America even have groups shouting about how you are torturing baby boys by doing The Chop. WTF, I think. “How backward”, I think. How backward, they think of me.

In all of this pondering, I have been looking for some cultural comparison to use against all those talking simplistic folk of western cultures who love to say Our culture is Better. Culture is Linear. You “Progress”. And every other culture wants to progress to Ours.

But I don’t want comparisons of “tools for controlling your daily world”, of food & dance & dress, or how capable someone is to survive in a desert setting, and definitely not of the overdone comparison of sexual cultural practices. I have been searching & contemplating.

So, to those who still really think Our Culture is better!

The culture I come from does not consider repercussions beyond our generation. Beyond our borders. Beyond our day-to-day living. We forget to (choose not to) (were never taught by our elders to) follow the lines forward and backwards and sideways over time and space to see what we do now has past & future & linear implications.

A trader on Wall Street bets against a fluctuating currency of some random small country. He does this by clicking on a mouse while looking at numbers and considering that he needs to feed a family tonight. His bet screws up a foreign country, and hits employment & trade abilities of that country. Someone, far away, is affected by no longer having a job. How is this new man now going to feed his family that night? How is that family going to survive now? But, the trader never knew this guy’s face, had never even heard of the name of this guy’s town, so what does it matter. And unless someone has shoved the information into his face, he is taking no responsibility for it, feeling no guilt, and not going to consider it. Because that is just the way the system works, mate.

People drinking champagne for lunch in New York today impact on a family’s food security in a mining town near Welkom tomorrow. It is now known as The GFC. The difference is, the bankers got bailed out, the miners did not.

People the world round today are shouting at BP for the horror that is the oil spill. Yet, none of us look at our demand for oil in almost every aspect of our lives. BP is not just some giant devil, randomly pumping up killer sludge. How was this computer that I type on built, how did I get to this office where this computer is, what is powering everything around me.

We sell off our best healthiest most nutrient-packed produce (and land!) to richer countries, while we scream at our politicians for not doing enough about the health of the nation. And then a volcano erupts and grounds flights. The sellers of this produce suffer massive knocks, to the extent that people lose their businesses & are made unemployed, so that they join their fellow citizens in starving… while the produce rots because it cannot reach European markets, which contracts stipulate it belongs to.

We choose to not think about these things. Maybe we read it, but then we let it go. Watch a movie & be “shocked”, and let it go. We choose to say, Well, I know that Trader, and he means no harm. I need to drive to work don’t I. The issue existed for as long as my webpage was open for. Why can a farmer not sell his fruit to whomever he chooses. I don’t know how this garment got to me so ‘so what’. And so we blinker up, bubble-wrap around, explain away, and forget.

We shop for what we want. And demand Now Now Now. We live for Now and we forget the generations before, after and to the sides of us.

We see life in linear, so no wonder we cannot understand the cultures that don’t.

We buy cheap crap in the name of this season’s fashion. And we toss it out next season when it has a hole in it, or scuffed heels, or lack-lustre gleam. We CHOOSE not to think about any of the implications in who made it, how well it was made, what it was made from, how that material was obtained, how it was shipped, how it was sold, who was employed to sell it under what terms & conditions.

And why did you buy it? All because a glossy mag or an ad on a tv channel told us to buy it. The same glossy mag or tv channel that told you Female Circumcision was Wrong Wrong Wrong.

That is our culture.

Seven Random Champers’ Facts

2010-05-27T07:25:00.000+02:00

So MammaMeeA recently gave me some blog love. A Versatile Blogger Award!
Why thank you lovely lady!

And then she demanded me to expose to however many people pass here seven devilishly delightful things about myself.

So… everything you never needed to know, and a whole lot more!

:

1. I have a job interview in a few weeks. I received the phone call on Tuesday afternoon when I was more than slightly boozed touring the wine country of Melbourne’s outer regions. Thankgawd I did not actually answer that phone call! I am quite amped about this job, although a mate has warned me it has the potential to be a whole lot of problems & lacking in love.

2. I am scared of monkey people. As in people dressed up to look like half monkey/half human. This obviously stems from watching the original PLANET OF THE APES very late at night as a very little kid. Loved ones treat this with the empathy you can expect from my loved ones… and thoroughly enjoy playing on this phobia! By letting me settle into some tv watching & suddenly pressing play to a carefully-paused part of the PLANET OF THE APES dvd. To which I scream in fear. And they laugh their heads off.
Or by giving me gifts of monkey dolls that squawk. That I still own, for some sordid reason.
A whole lotta Circle of Love!

3. When I started this blog, many many buzzlightyears ago, I held onto a whole lot of unresolved issues. I wonder if these issues would still be with me if I didn’t have this blog to publicise & discuss out this crap with the unknown world. I really wonder why it took talking to strangers to get me to deal with that shite. What once enslaved me & my mind barely passes through my concerns anymore. And I love that realisation. AND! It was all financially free.

4. I have no intention of settling in Australia for the rest of my life. But I don’t really know what I want to happen when 3 ½ years here is up. Melbourne, to me, is like Jo’burg Northern Suburbs, with a whole lot more multi-culturalism, trains and footy. And less water shortages, family, and people talking loudly in the streets when I am waking up (and I miss that so much! It is just too quiet here!). This place has grown on me, but it is far from who & what I love at the root of me.

5. I fkcing hate cold weather. I have a mental block against the phenomenon. I sit there, with my legs wrapped around an oil heater, saying “I can feel it in my bones…. the cold is in my bones!!” as I pull a K-mart sleeping bag more tightly around me. I really do move less, think less, want to do less when the day is cold. And I really think I should get over it.

6. I like to drink milo & instant coffee, in one cup, together, in the afternoons.

7. I have always prided myself on being such an independent woman. I can take on the world intellectually, socially & emotionally. But I can’t cook. And I have always had a financial safety net. And I think I have been kidding myself on this independence because of those two factors. Independence means having more rather than less control over the factors that could change your life in the next hour or day.
Now, while I realise that the independence was fairly fake & superficial, I take it as a challenge, to get that Independence that I always used to believe that I had. (While staying in a loving relationship with a man that just wants to provide for us, in all ways)

Voila! Some nonsense about me!

Now I must tag some folk, for any unaware blog readers to be able to increase their happy blog exposure:

1. HairToday
2. Po of SouthAfricanSeaMonkey
3. Cam of Parklife
4. SonnyvsDan
5. Spacebook
6. Dancefloor Tragedy
7. Noodle
8. Patchwork
9. The Spear
10. Boldly Benny... cause maybe it'll entice her back

Clean & Lace

2010-05-26T09:24:00.000+02:00

The guy is back in town!

….Brilliant!

This required a few days of pre-cleaning.

Hellloo sparkling bathtub!

I am not entirely comfortable with the great beaming pride I have been feeling for this accomplishment. Between me and a trusty sponge, historic cleaning times of past tenants have finally been damn-tiringly now erased. But surely I should have been more excited with, say, getting distinctions for university subjects or being asked to present my knowledge in workplaces. Instead though, I can now stand & stare at the white that is a bath and think, ‘Yes, I brought that colour back!”

But I don’t, ok. Not all day, anyway. Standing, staring, at a bathtub that I cleaned, back to health, with my own two hands, and a sponge. Moving on….

And then there were a few days of shopping, for food, beer, wine, and good underwear. Ensuring that there were a few decent “outfits” in order and ready for action to remind the boy what he’d been missing.

I’m not entirely sure why though… considering he has been living with only 4 other blokkie beer-swilling (if they were allowed to in those parts) meat-ripping unshowered men for the past 5 weeks. Any underwear that I put on would’ve been likely to send him crazier than a monk clicking onto ETV after weekends’ 11pm (SBS for Aussies)

Well. And then he was here. And none of you prying eyeing lot need to read about that part!

He’ll be cruising about, him and his swag of red sand & beard of Outback pride, for another week and a half. And then he is gone again. Into the abyss that is the ‘Stralian Desert.

Strange who we become in our excitement of someone’s return. This time round made me into a 1950s Suburbia Woman.

I can’t wait to see who I’ll turn into when he arrives back after his next stint!

MamaMeeA, I hear you, and I’ll be 7-Uping tomorrow! Thanks for the gorgeous compliment!

Logic. Now at a Uni near you

2010-05-20T09:17:00.000+02:00

Aaaaah, logic.
One of the greatest Holy Grails of humankind.

It escapes all of us, most of the time.

Especially such logic as:

"It costs the country millions of rands to fight crime ... maybe bring back the death penalty. Why is Zimbabwe safer, why is Botswana a safer country? It's because they have the death penalty," Lourens Hamman said angrily.

Ah, but, Botswana also has a diamond-based economy. Perhaps it’s that.
Zimbabwe is a pinball failing state. Perchance there is a connection there.
Both countries are so much closer to homogeny than South Africa. What does that do for one’s ability to think before you murder.
Both countries are landlocked. Who knows! Maybe it’s the ports that create the murderers!

There is a monumental leap of assumptions, so wide, in Mr Hamman’s statement that even Evil Knievel might not dared have chance it.

Incredibly, comparative politics is considered to be a science. Even if a social version. Y’know, studied by us folk who struggle more than a pizza to feed a family of four once we graduate.

And because it is a science, this means, if you don’t know the formulae, have the tools, and wear thick gloves & goggles, you’re either going to lose an eye, just create sludge, or in cases like this… get it so wrong that hysteria is what comes foaming out of the deductive test tubical logic.

Please please please can laymen stop comparing Zimbabwe and South Africa, politically.

"Ho hum. Yes. Look. One man of one race went manic & wouldn’t let go of power & so took farms away in a violent & unjust way from inhabitants of that land that had another skin colour.
There is a man, next door, of that same colour (and because “I” only judge on colour, I am not going to look further into their similarities AND EVEN their differences). He is also the leader of people. AND! Even! At times the word “land” is uttered through his lips. Or rather through the lips of ministers in his government.
OBVIOUSLY! This will mean the same thing will happen!"
Obviously.
No.

or

"I read in my daily tabloid newspaper that someone was murdered within my country.
I have not read in my daily tabloid newspaper of any murders in that other country.
This must mean there are no murders in that other country!
Voila!"

Who needs thorough research & years of peer reviewing when I have selective sensational journalism & lazy thinking on which to base my hysterical public statements. RAH!

Rah indeed.

Logic. It is taught at a university near you. You should perhaps sign up.

Meanwhile. I support the protest against crime. I do not support the logic reported on here (granted, it does look like a fairly sensational reporting style, so I won’t base a thesis on my thoughts to this protest). And I do not support the reinstatement of the death penalty.

Let alone flawed logic. Great leaps of assumptions that people who murder consider the punishment before they do so. And lack of research that shows the death penalty holds any of the benefits that supporters of it believe there to be.

Because, I think you have to be full of a whole lot of hate to wish another human to be killed. Or you do not view that person as human. And that reflects you, and issues you should deal with in yourself, not that other human and the issue they should deal with in them… not that they could, cause they would be dead, on your superior wishes.

Pricing

2010-05-19T07:13:00.000+02:00

Cashier: There’s no price sticker on this item. Do you remember how much it was?

Customer Champs: Uhhhhhhhhhh. Nope.

Cashier: Can I just make it as much as this next item? It’s $1.

Customer Champs: Uhhhhhhhhhh. Sure. ….. …… …… Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh………..do you mind if I just remove a few stickers from say, those bottles of wine & this slab of Swiss chocolate and I’m sure I don’t know what that price was for these deli meats and olives and other expensive eat things. And I’ll be back, I just need to pick up those crayfish tails I forgot off my list. Those ones that also mysteriously seem to be missing their price... .... .............

Don’t you love when you meet someone who apparently takes their job as seriously as you take yours.

Moment of Crazy

2010-05-18T06:18:00.000+02:00

Have you ever wanted to be the crazy person on the train?

Shout whatever out-of-the-blue statement suddenly leaps into your head as you watch the crowd trying to blend into one another during peak-hour transporting.

How would they react?

“I JUST WANNA DANCE!”

There’s a freedom in craziness.

And the more people consider you to be crazy and off the norm, the freer you are to act and do what you would like.

To really reach your aspirations, like pack a small bag and heading off to Afghanistan, when offered work there.

Although, I don’t know if I completely agree with the idea of crazy people’s freedom. Because many of the folk on the train who are being crazy have a distressed look in their eye. I should know, I am quite happy to be the person sitting next to the crazy person.

Sitting next to. Not sitting as.

But one morning, one lovely crazy morning, I am going to just shout out that sudden thought, slogan, dry joke or lyric in my head. And watch as nothing happens. Cause no one wants the freedom that the crazy person is offering.

-------------------------------------------

In other news, Aussie police are supposedly calling for Australians to get themselves off Facebook because a girl was murdered, and her murderer had stalked her through Facebook.

And here I thought stalking and murder and fcked-up people had long since existed before the global devouring of Facebook.

Next thing, cops will be telling us not to go to bars after dark! Madness!

Although, when you consider this, means that they are condoning drinking in the day.

And I am all for drinking in the day.

Allows you to realise your crazy side on public transport on the way home…

Let’s Move It Along People

2010-05-13T06:19:00.000+02:00

There is this delectable moment when you realise that you have moved on.

Whether it’s from a group of friends, from a way of living, from a job, or simply from one stage of life to another.

This moment is happening for me now.

What I clung to, which had let go of me many months ago, is no longer that relevant, that enticing, that needed by me anymore.

10 months down the line, and I do not hanker back. The “me” now would not slot back neat & tight.

Friends that were just acquaintances have faded into the wings. Issues that were only daily now escape my passion. Routines have been upheaved and dumped on their heads (and strangely, some of what I wished for then has been realised now).

What is left after the sifting is gaining infinite value. While people and events are now seen in a long-term lens.

And suddenly I have connection to this “Here” and my daily life “Now”. There are inside jokes, there’s dark alley knowledge, and a calmness of saying, I can live here now without guilt of not living there now.

It is the moment when you get to reclaim your “now” from your fear and nostalgia and realise you get to love tumbled-up moments again and own whatever happens from here.

Bizarrities

2010-05-12T08:07:00.000+02:00

Well freeze my nipples into a north-pointing direction but, maaaan, if this town has not got itself damn chilly.

If any person is still stuck on the image of Australia being all desert, sunburn and showering in a bucket from water restrictions, just visit ye ol’ Melbs in winter.

Temperatures range from ‘sun with icicle-packing wind’, to ‘damn chilly’ to ‘fkc-me-a-kangaroo-just-ice-skated-past’ cold. With everything drenched in a light coat of damp.

And the locals just point and laugh and say things like “Just wait till winter has really set in! Then you’ll see cold! Mate” while they sit back and suck on cheese-fried chicken parmas and pots of VB.

But we’re not here to talk about the weather.

Why the hell is shoulder-humping Justin Bieber baby-baby-baby’ing every time I hit the television’s “mindnumb ON” switch?

And why did my age group not get to scream, faint, swoon, clutch at close-up posters, & go basic nuts over some half-arsed singer?

A little too young for Jason Donovan (who never visited anyway).

A little too old for the Hanson Three. Who are now married with several kids & a mortgage.

To be fair, that Justin kid is quite cute. The thing is, the age difference means I could’ve bred him myself.

Damned if this cold doesn’t freeze your brain into “Bizarre”. At least I know which way north is.

Power of Lady-like Surprise

2010-05-10T15:08:00.000+02:00

It wasn’t like I was looking to get involved in some international diplomatic conflict.

Or even to throw punches in a beer-drenched brawl.

But it was the Drunk Train. Anything goes.

Well, to be completely accurate, it was the semi-drunk train. Leaves about 20 minutes before the Drunk Train of Saturday Nights. But the really shellacked folk are not notorious for their time-keeping skills and so have been known to stumble on one too early.

Dutch-courage maybe. Love of harmony more likely.

But it started with some open gawking at the drunk bogans in my train carriage. Chuckling to myself as they jumped about at the sight of coppas, bitterly complained that they’d caught the wrong train, interrogated who’d snogged who after downing a bottle of what…

… and one of the boys taught one of the girls how to take a piss off the moving train while doing a booze-balance between two carriages.

Qualiteeee Entertainment.

At the realisation that they were not yet done boozing it up, but their transport was heading further into suburbia without a drop of something tasty, one of them started shouting for some general public assistance on where to find an open bottle store at 1am (minus 20 minutes). To which the as-yet-unseen guy behind me started “assisting” with some oddly seeming routes & locations.

This all incited everyone into an apparent pandemonium. Words started to be shouted. Slurs got thrown up and hurled. People did fist charges. And the man-glares were coming out.

The tension was ripening. Abuse & punches suddenly were seconds away.

And I was slowly clicking onto the realisation that I was the only person between these two “camps”, with nothing to protect me but a very conveniently discarded 1-litre empty vodka bottle.

When did this all happen? Where has all the fun & silliness gone? And damned if I am going to be hysterically prancing away from any midnight flight club scenes at this tired hour.

I turned to look at the outsider guy who had started stirring the drunken pot. Only to realise that this really was not a wise situation for any of us now. He was an Indian guy. And if you now anything about controversy in this town, it is the media vulture-ing up on stories of Indian guys who have been beaten up severely on trains & at train stations very late at night by drunk Aussies.

Oooooo fok. Thought the other immigrant in the carriage, and reached a little closer for the empty bottle.

“What the fkc is your problem mate”
“You’re my problem mate”
“What the fkc mate”
“Why don’t you try that bottle store. I promise you it exists” [It doesn’t, and if they got off the train, they’d be screwed, lost in a remote suburbia till dawn]
“Fkc you mate groooowwwwwllll”
“No fkc you!”
Glare
Glare
Tension
Building.

Which is when I personally had, well, had enough. I just was not in the mood for media coverage & blood. And so I did what any sensible puny little girl on her ace would do when seated between some drunken violence.

And I stepped in.

“Ok! Enough! No no no! I will not have fighting right now! Tula! Go back to your own mates & get back to laughing like idiots. I was enjoying that. No, you, you, stop glaring”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

I then made the executive decision that words would not be enough. I stood up, moved one seat on, and placed myself directly in the eye line of the two main glarers,

“Oh please. Stop now. You’re being such boys”. And then I broke out the widest toothy grin.

And so there was silence. Hushed Confusion. WTF Are You On Chick became the general expression in the carriage, as I sat back & enjoyed my Power Of Surprise.

So it was that every time the drunken Aussies guys turned around to do a pitbull glare at the guy behind me, one of them would be greeted with a goofy grinning happy lady… who never took her reach out of an empty vodka bottle.

Just call me Champagne Of Arc. At your Aussie service.

Fostering entrepreneurship

2010-05-04T15:51:00.000+02:00

During the daily website paddle, I read an article that had the journo calling for increased grassroots entrepreneurship in South Africa. He said that our government obviously is not about to tend to the poorer individual’s plight so best that the individual getting tending to it him/herself. He gave Hanoi as an example, where informal food stalls & shops abound all over busy thriving trading streets. Why is this not happening in SA? Why are the people in need of a lift up not finding ways to lift themselves up?

The one (At that stage, Only one! How lovely!) commentator said, that’s all well & great but so often bureaucracy do not allow these informal traders to operate, or to operate where they will reach the real demand, that our policies and practices severely discourage entrepreneurship at the resource-and-power-poor level.

It reminded me of my time put in at The Soulless Office Park.

We had 4 options for food purchasing:

1. Expensive dull-tasting offerings at the franchised coffee shop

2. Expensive greasy “sandwich” shop food where the owners spent their time screaming at the staff more than focusing on your order

3. Get in car & drive 10 minutes to nearest shopping rat-in-a-cage-tuned mall, pay for parking, pay for stress of lunch-time traffic, find fast food… and by then your lunchtime has ticked over

4. The Sandwich Lady – she arrived every day around 10am with a coolbox of fresh well-priced well-stuffed sandwiches, drinks, chips & chocolates. You could take food on credit. She knew your name & all about your life. She was another member of staff in your mind.

[Are you picking a bias for my choice of meal…]

One day the two office-park eateries complained about this little entrepreneurial spirit. And they demanded The Sandwich Lady not be allowed to operate in the office park.

We all protested & signed petitions & shouted complaints of unfairness.

A compromise was found… The Sandwich Lady would get to the gate of the office park, the security guard would phone all the companies & let us know she was there, and then we could all leave our desks, leave our buildings, and walk up to the gate & buy food outside if we would be so inclined to.

I don’t have stats, but I can’t imagine this “Big Business Bullying” did her business any good.

She was still operating when I left. She even snuck onto the grounds & up to our offices on my last day to hug me goodbye.

Funny how much kak the little man has to put up with.

Time To Smile Better People

2010-05-03T05:40:00.000+02:00

I am becoming addicted to Xavier Rudd.

This first video is one of my favourites:

Better People

A fellow South African mate described him as Australia’s “Johnny Clegg”. I’d liken him more to Ben Harper. But all in all, he isn’t either. He’s pretty unique. And lovely. And infectious.

You just want to dance, and hug, and love everyone. To fight for rights – in an "it's all good" embracing way. To understand all people. And to smile!

I got to watch him in concert on Friday night. Which was made even more special by his clever collaboration with two South African guys – Izintaba.

Me, my SA mate, and her bunch of dodgy Aussies & Kiwis danced up a storm of chaos… which I of course ululated all over. A stage set with the South African flag & the Aboriginal flag.

I am re-inspired to try get myself into the Outback & experience. Especially after chatting to The Guy last night as he told me he has been having the most incredible conversations with Aboriginal Elders & he really wants to try sneak me along next time…

“Is that a Sheila in your swag or are you just packing some extra weight for those chilly desert nights?”

And so… to spread the infection, and to cheer anyone up on a chilly season-changing Monday morning, watch this video:

Time To Smile

Really. Choosing between To Love or To Hate, why would you choose the latter.

5 Awesome Things

2010-04-29T07:12:00.000+02:00

In the spirit of 1000 Awesome things, and to get the mood Up Up Up (ohgod, I think I now have an 80s Lounge toon in my head…)…

Here are my 5 Awesome Things of the moment:

1. Catching water in your mouth in the shower

I don’t know why this one thrills me. But it does. That’s the point of awesome little things I guess. Small pleasures.

Maybe it’s because my boyfriend got some tropical disease from a similar act. And then the dangers of it were immortalised a scene in Mexico in the SEX & THE CITY movie.

Because you just can’t suip on and spurt about clean fresh water everywhere in the world, so when you can, and when you do…. It’s gooood.

And it’s the closest I get to regular waterfalling.

2. Slippers

I hate winter. I love good slippers.
Good ones, thick, balls of fluff on your feet, couldn’t wear them on a summer evening. Reaaaaal slippers.
I have been that person who has worn them to a university exam.
I am wearing them right now.
There’s not much else you need to say about them. You just gotta wear them.

3. “Just One Drink” Mistake Big Nights

Should we stop here for a quick beer?
Sure thing! Just one though.

And as you reach the last tasty sips of your one glass, the great convos you’ve delved into mean you can’t just stop it all right there…and so you order just one more “Sure, another!, but just one more, ok”…. And 5 hours later you two have knocked back your bank account in tasty beverages, you now know most of the people in the pub, you’ve sung your heart out to the best tunes, maybe done a dance stint on the bar counter, you guys have solved the world’s problems in the interim of waiting for a 5th jug of beer or next cocktail on the menu, maybe you’ve ended up in the Camps Bay Life Guard house drinking port with strangers, maybe you’ve kept it tame enough to not have moved on from establishments, but all you know is the convos have been excellent and the laughs only doubling by the half hour. You don’t have any photos of it, cause you didn’t think the night was going to turn out like this.

And at some stage - but nowhere near yet - you and your mate might have to face reality & tomorrow.

4. Good Camembert on Good Baguette. Only.

Not just any old could-have-found-this-in-any-corner-of-the-world baguette, but the kind that would make a grown Frenchman cry. Bringing tears to his eyes as he is reminded of the home of his childhood. One that is crisp, fresh, you would devour it in a split minute if you weren’t sharing & had a whole wheel of delicious gooey ripe smelly cheese to plaster all over it.

The moment is only made better when there is a lack of cutlery, and you have to slather it on with either a trusty credit card or your fingers.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

5. The sun hitting a comfortable lying space.

This could be your bed. A couch. Even a carpeted piece of floor. All it requires is getting horizontal. Not much comes close to being able to lie in the sun, especially when it is Antarctic-Stole-My-Nipples cold outside. But in that block of sun, it is oh so toasty.

And…wow… look at that… did I have nothing to do for the next half an hour… oh, and look, is that my good book so close at hand… Noooooothing better.

Until your dog comes along, finds you lying in his patch of sun, gives you a groot slobbering lick & stands on you!

5 Awesome Little Things that make my days better

our reflection in our own computer screen

2010-04-28T08:32:00.000+02:00

Why are we choosing to hate before choosing to love.

Knee-jerk reactions of claiming our anti-say.

To tear down & vomit out negativity. Before offering Construction, Positivity, Encouraging Alternatives, Clear ideas, Plausible wisdom.

When did the world become traumatised? When was it not?

When did we begin to relish hate? Where along our development did we get perverse thrills in cyber fighting.

Forward emails about “them”, about how much “they” resemble historical evils. Hit search for acquaintances to follow and “dislike” in malicious voyeurism. Troll over a person’s freedom of celebrating in blogged expression. Try and “we” will crush you down with words & emotions.

New realms. New ways of interacting. New but lost.

Something that has been eliminated from our community selves, that thing that makes us stop, realise there is a human/ person/ being/ emotional creature behind the typos & pixeled words?

Where did all this hate come from?

The enemy is much closer than you think. It isn’t “them”. Faceless them on the other side of cables & glass screens. It’s you. It’s me. It’s our reflection in our own computer screen.

I am disturbed . hurt . perplexed . by who I have been, who others have been, how easy words are to type & to destruct. how drained I feel when I step away from interactive world webbing.

People are hurting. People are traumatised. People need solace.

But how will it come from forums of hating.
Of vomiting negativity out.
Of Cyber Rage.

There is a middle ground in cyber-living. Between Rainbowed-over Frivolities and Traumatised Hurt. A space that resembles living respect. An interaction to make like you are talking to someone face-to-face.

Happy Freedom Day, South Africa

2010-04-27T04:52:00.000+02:00

What crazy things would the Apartheid government have done to the freedom of the internet had it existed back then?

Who gives a damn!

Ha! Today they aren’t around, and the power & freedom of the internet is.

Today you tweet, blog, email, facebook and youtube your political thoughts without fear from deceptive prosecution.

Today you are friends with who you are friends with because of who the friend is, not because of what criteria the government dictates.

Today a politician goes bos in tyrannical ways and your fellow citizens make a catchy house remix from his rant.

This weekend two people showed their love & commitment to each other by getting married… and they were homosexual, of mixed cultures, or of any other once-forbidden criteria.

You turned on the tv and were not presented with the same advert in various races.

Children learnt that their language of Pedi is as valued as any of the other ten official languages in a free country.

You got onto your feet and walked where you wanted to.

You spoke to who you wanted to.

You applied for any job you wanted.

And you fought for that job with all other South Africans who also dreamed of that job.

You bought booze/ boerewors/ postage stamps from the same counter as every other South African.

Your rights as a homeless person were as respected as the rich folk with a mansion in Sandhurst. And you voted like any other citizen.

You shagged a person you were attracted to. Who once was forbidden to your group.

You danced with a person you found fun & crazy. Who once was forbidden to your group.

More than 20 of you congregated in a room.

No one slipped on some soap in a prison cell.

Today you read a South African novel that wasn’t an analogy for political racist overpowering.

Today corruption was exposed. And addressed.

A politician of the leading party apologised to his people for being arrested because it was found he still had too much alcohol in his bloodstream.

Today sports teams recalled their international game played over the weekend.

A journalist wrote a scathing attack on something the government did. And someone in the audience wrote something more scathing in response. The secret police were not called out.

Today a community took to the streets in protest that their services were not arriving. They shouted their voice. They claimed their space. And freely demanded their rights.

Today I listened to a song in Afrikaans, a song in Sotho, a song in English from another continent. I wore clothes designed by a South African-educated person. And wore jewellery given to me by a Zimbabwean also seeking his welfare in the “America of Africa”.

You bought a car that you worked for and your job paid you well enough for.

A school textbook was written and none of the lines were blacked out.

And people complained. Complained like they had forgotten what a gift ‘Freedom’ is. Complained like they have been free for so long that their comfort might make them forget. Lucky them.

Lucky us.

Happy Freedom Day, South Africa.

Melancholy

2010-04-26T10:38:00.000+02:00

I miss my best friend.

Can’t he come home for a bit. A smooch. A shag. A jabber. Crap coffee & something he has cooked up.

He is supposed to be calling on the Sat Phone for 2 minutes just now. What if he doesn’t?

He called on Friday night when I was well into a bottle of cheap pink wine & French tooons. Boy, did the tears flow at the sound of his voice. He updated me that life right now is “too hot, too dry, too remote”. And was gone.

I blame this melancholy on the shorter days, the chillier maximums, the long weekend of not too much purpose but too many tequilas with acquaintances part-way through. On the weekly real-job rejections that keep phoning in.

And perhaps that I just went and snuggled my way into “too dependent”? But if you don’t, what’s the point?

What is the point. I’m caught on an endless loop of “What’s The Purpose?”

Diagnosed with Fatalist Depression. There is no cure. Just ignore the questions.

But at least I got to watch my footy team SMASH the ANZAC opposition yesterday at the Cathedral of Sports Stadiums, the MCG.

A mate said if he hadn’t been with me since the start of the game, he’d have thought I was boozed. Several hours of full-on giggle attacks. How can you not be highly amused at the passion and pain of grown spectating men throwing their voices & souls at other grown playing men in minuscule shorts bouncing a ball right towards a victorious loss!

Cause YOU KICK LIKE A GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRLLLLLLLL!

I miss my best friend. I miss him not being around to laugh at my giggle. Or to tell me when not to drink that “one more” tequila. To tell me that the job rejection doesn’t matter, I’m still worth so much more. And how proud he is that I cycled 20 kms and didn’t collapse in an unfit heap for the rest of the day. To stop the self-reflection sometimes and let me get on with the giggle.

Communicate Hooooooome!

2010-04-22T06:19:00.000+02:00

E.T. Communicate Home!

I can hear her, my grandmother, as her lipstick smacks the foam filter and she takes another drag of her B&H across the phone line. And she says “Harden The Fuck Up, deary”.

Well. To be honest. She wouldn’t have sworn. But she had moments of resembling a mafia head so I thought I’d put her into character.

Back in her day, the hubby (my grandad) would get up, pack his case, chug down some pulpy OJ, walk out the front door saying a “Cheerio!”… and be gone sans communication for 6 months.

No calls, no letters, no Facebook photo albums, doubtlessly the random sms of “Brilliant! Noombies!”. No nada, cause there amongst Africa’s rocks & craters, there wasn’t exactly a postman & world-wide-interweb-connected laptop.

If “something” happened - Y’know, that “thing” that no one really but kinda does skirtingly allude to – how would she have known. How would he have found help fast enough. WhatifWhatifWhatif…

But she sucked it up & got on with raising kids & perfecting a smoking habit.

Basically, it’s just complete “unknowing” that completely unnerves.

I have it eaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasy. Comparatively.

The last phone call I got was from a phone booth in Tjukayirla. (I think. I know it began with “Tju” & was in Western A and Google Maps appears to be highly un-fucking-cooperative in detailing their one-phone-booth towns in that region). That was two nights ago. Fine. Fine.

And unless someone skims past in a low-flying plane carrying a fake palm tree disguising a cell phone tower, that’s all I get from The Guy for the next 5 weeks.

But I still know that if there’s an emergency, I have a “Sat Phone” number that I can reach him on. And I apparently do not need to pawn off a kidney anymore to pay for the call. Rumour has it that one wife regularly calls it for a “Hi! Bye” check-in. That wife is also well-employed, as is her husband - I stress over costs when I send texts to the other hemisphere. “Hi! Bye!”s are therefore less vital than say, my kidneys.

So the “Whatif” emergencies are sedated. No News is Good News! (Funnily, it was my grandmother that was always yapping that in my ear).

These are even the days of richer fantastical camps having satellite dishes so big that people use them as plunge pools on quieter days. Folk in Angola’s jungles have a better chance of catching some sports games then folk in the town of play. (He isn’t at one of these camps. His motley crew are hoping for technology as high as a shower in a still-existing caravan).

These days, it’s all there;
The Flying Doctor services
Emails
Skype
Phone Booths & Phone Cards
Texts
Roads
Cell phones
GChat
Hand-written letters delivered through others who have travelled via
4x4s
Blackberries
And maybe even a postcard if I remind often enough
You’re generally going to land lucky with at least one of these.

I haven’t, but…
No more “Cheers, I’ll see you when the work is done in about 3 years”. These days companies & societies have strict rules of “fly in & fly out” time periods.

5 weeks. That’s 5 hangovers. That’s doable. That’s eeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasy, deary.

It still doesn’t make the first night painless when you get kinda maybe “argh, I want to tell him!” big news & there’s no way of letting him know instantly.

Damnmit New & Wonderful Globalising Technology! You’ve made us weak!

90 days

2010-04-21T05:14:00.000+02:00

I know the other day I posted about Mbeki & at time just getting what he was on about in exploring other avenues than only "western medical science" when combatting HIV & AIDS in a Southern African context.

My points were about Choice & about Holistic Healthcare... about Holistic Care & Support & Treatment of the health issue.

I am not sure if it came through heavily enough in the post; but I will never ever deny the benefits of ARVs. I won't. I particularly won't when the treatment comes with a home-based carer to support the patient in their treatment. Yet, a hands-on carer is a human-resource heavy option. This means, distressingly, it is not an option from everyone on treatment or everyone needing treatment.

I saw this ad the other day (and cried my little eyes out just because, because, for me)... I've always loved TOPSY's work.

Doesn't it just make you smile at the end.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but you're gonna have to put a coin on it"

2010-04-20T08:12:00.000+02:00

The boyfriend is in his last days of phone contact as he heads northwards through Western Australia.

This was established when I received a text message last night saying: “They serve topless in Kalgoorlie!!”

Some investigation awhile later lead me to find about “Skimpies” – girls letting it all hang out in the name of Outback High Entertainment, bare mammaries gliding in follow-through as they push your pint of XXXX across the ashed & beer-slopped bar counter.

And this is when the team of guys were still dining in the more polite establishments.

Further investigation informed me that in this town the shooters have even been rumoured to contain breast milk (wtf?!?!) and that many a barlady prefers her outfit to consist of high heels, panties and… coins on her nipples.

He called later that night to slur into my ear from a pavement about he’d had an extremely insightful DMC with a local about how “those damn womens groups came into me town and said No More Nipple! And now the Sheilas have to glue coins onto their nipples! Dammit! Where are me good old days!”

RAH!

Where indeed.

And then the biggest earthquake in 50 years struck the town this morning.

Apparently this “certainly ruined [the] cup of coffee this morning” of the local hotel owner.

If this is what he is still experiencing in areas populated enough to have cell phone reception, I cannot wait for 5 weeks time when the stories of serious Outback living come flooding in!

Rollercoastering

2010-04-19T08:22:00.000+02:00

All travel has its ups and downs.

Hell, all of life has its ups and downs.

I could be sitting back in Jozi, staring over my old school, through the office window, which I spent so many Procrastination Moments picking away at the “film” that hid the true natural light, and think “Fok. Am I still here? Haven’t moved far, have I. Haven’t done much in the last forever have I!”

Only for an incredible “Up” to be happening a week later.

Same as here –in this “Not Champers Land”. The “why why why am I doing this?”

I’ll get into a convo with someone who is shocked that I used to be as high up the ladder as a project manager.
“And what do you do now?”
“Ha! I babysit & get accused of stealing the brats’ mother’s nail polish cos I shouldn’t have enough cash to paint my toenails pink. And I try to recreate the mad dreamings of a madder professor. And I don’t really have a single good friend in town to just talk to without feeling ‘Careful what you say to this person. You can’t be sure you’re not freaking them out with your true self right now. Slowly does it’”.

And then there’ll be an Up. Something subtle but good enough to make the experience seem “worth it”. (Worth what, being the existential part of the argument)

Recent Ups & Downs, in a whole new style:

Up: Doing a spontaneous morning of healthy fun exercise “stuff” that involved a free pilates class and a 20km bike ride to the city & back, in the gorgeous autumn sun

Down: The pain I feel today throughout every single last muscle and the drawn-out motivation it is taking me to get body parts to move. And the sunburn.

Up: Getting a job, getting money, finally being able to pay your way & buy necessary items

Down: What items suddenly seem “necessary” now that you have disposable cash. Only for you to buy it, pass that “return date”, and realise that the corduroy pants might be a little less ‘necessary’ than daily meals & travel tickets.

Up: Being offered a deal on a car that is too great to pass up

Down: Being offered this deal in a country that not only requires its cars to earn a “roadworthy certificate” before being sold to the next driver, but actually requiring to be “roadworthy”.

Down .1: The definition of “Roadworthy” being slightly different in Australia as it is in South Africa. South Africa’s definition “Moves in expected ways & can carry any dreamed-up item”. Australia’s definition requires “Windscreen to not have cracks. Boot to open as it originally did & cannot be held up by walking stick to keep it open. Rear wiper to be able to clean away dirt”. (Why on earth do you need a rear wiper to make the car able to move along a tarred surface!??!)

Up: Friends that visit

Down: Friends that leave when visiting time is up

Up: Learning new terms & funny expressions to describe everyday things

Down: Not knowing what the fkc a person is saying because of a Clash of Accents

“Gdaryhowzyadoincenievajemdrnut”

And THAT is why I am not a waitress in this town!

Rosé!

2010-04-12T14:46:00.000+02:00

There’s a Norwegian in my bed. No no, not like that. It’s a girl.

... no...

wait????

... argh... not like that either!

But if you care to join my boyfriend’s mind in that thinking...

And I am suiping on a bottle of good old RoSé!!!

Oh how I have missed you, miscreants of wine types. Kinda trashy, but in that classy Scarlett Johansson way. French days are but a taste away from my memorising.

Life this side. Rollercoaster hour. The boy left me for some more Sheep Shearing Shite in the Outback. He is gone for 5 months. 5 weeks in. 2 weeks out, typo 5 months.

The 5-Weeks-In involve bugger all communication. The only good friend I have living in Oz has packed his togbags & is testing how I handle the Big Bad Arrogo World on my Ace. I am seeing it as 5 months of Selfishness awarded to me for Time Well Served. Hey! Hey! Bring on yoga, art, random political afterclasses & foreign filming…!

Since then, A hundred and one Tradies have traipsed through my house as they fix my burnt-out hot water tank (Aussie for “Geyser”. Say Geyser & you get the same look as “packet” and “robot” and “just now”). It burnt out about 30 seconds before the clock ticked into Easter Sunday. Not even the greedy could be convinced in for the two holy-days after that. Our landlady apoplexied at the idea of human beings not having access to tappable hot water, but we reminded her we’re from Africa, 2 days of no (hot) water is only gonna make us nostaligic.

Since then, We’ve/ I’ve had the sparkies, the chippies & the blandly-named electricians pay hourly visits. I now have running hot water. But no longer have kitchen cupboards. It’s a give-and-take sorta wheeling & dealing.

I have a bike! My very own in about 20 years! AND! I have ridden it twice! SUCCESS! Can I stop now? Cause my arse hurts. I even rode it to my 1st yoga class in 10 months. And then no longer had the energy to ride home. What the fkc do you do, when stuck in artic wind far from home with only a bike but no fuel to get you home! I can’t recall what my solution was, but I know I well-pissed off my first motorist & then didn’t move for the rest of Sunday in its entirety.

My boss & I discussed the possibility that what I do in the name of employment makes laughably no sense. And so we adjusted some words. And hey presto! I have purpose again!

All news from South Africa has, honestly, just been shite. Friends of loved ones have died (and no, fokken Eugene is not included on that list). Eugene died. Malema sang out of key. And so Hysteria now appears to reign supreme. The missing link that will blow all other missing links out of the evolutionary water was found & not enough gave a fkc. And that upset me. But thrilled me to know, that as much bad press as our media gives us, we are doing incredible things in spite. [Read that journos, in spite!] So while it might have passed most South Africans by, the rest of the world has acknowledged that the minds & money of WITS have done something monumental.

And then a Norwegian ended up in my bed, with a bottle of Rosé wine in my glass, and my boyfriend was shearing sheep in the Outback.

Where is the compassion?

2010-03-31T06:36:00.000+02:00

I am exhausted by, shocked by, disgraced by, hurt & saddened by, SO ANGRY AT!

the people who condone Apartheid. Who say that non-white South Africans did actually benefit from Apartheid. Who argue that Apartheid “wasn’t that bad”.

Even, but many degrees less so, at the ignorant who claim “Life was better then than now. Look! Even this one black person claimed so!”

Apartheid was a form of government that sought to oppress human beings under the pathetically simple difference of the colour of skin.

It told, and treated as such, people with a darker skin pigment that they were stupid; that they were undeserving; that because they were stupid & undeserving they would not be afforded the majority of rights; that the Apartheid government knew better & acted as such.

Oh the benevolence…!

It ensured that people with a darker skin tone could not access public education (Bantu Education Policy 101) & public health of a standard that people with a lighter skin tone could.

Non-white South Africans did not have the privilege of accessing private health or private schools because Apartheid policy ensured they could not be employed into jobs that paid well enough.

They were made dependent on the state, by the state’s policies, and then were made to bend & break & live sub-human lives because of the state. Benevolence? Oppression?

I have just been told that black South Africans received schools because of Apartheid. And this therefore means that they did have some benefits under the Apartheid regime.

Should this make them grateful. Ag Gee Voster en Verwoed, you kept telling me I was stupid, dirty & sub-human. You ensured my family was split up. And that I had no choice of voice, movement or who governed me. But you did give me a building to learn Bantu Education. You’re amaaaaazing.

Would these schools & clinics & roads &….shacks?... not have come about without Apartheid? (I would argue they would AND they would have come with decent resources AND funding AND maintenance under 90% of other governance options, unlike the Apartheid government offered up).

Any infrastructure created for non-white South Africans was created in spite of Apartheid, not because of Apartheid.

Their areas of segregation (which they had no choice over) were allocated minimal government funds and so their schools & clinics had minimal resources – to a degree of human rights abuse.

Why can some white South Africans not comprehend that humans were abused physically, psychologically, emotionally, and economically for decades. And that THAT WAS WRONG!

That this hurt people. Millions of people. That it affected people. Millions of people.

How can some white South Africans laugh this off? Condone this? Support this now that their eyes have been opened, now that they cannot “turn that blind eye”?

Was Apartheid education that good at brainwashing these people?

Did it brainwash the compassion out them too?

Do people really still hate so much, based on skin colour? That they do not see a human being standing in that skin?

“How on earth you can claim that policy & practice of Apartheid, which never aspired in any way to treat black South Africans as “equal” or even human, benefitted black South Africans is incredibly insulting. You are saying “be grateful to your oppressors”. Have some respect for what the non-white people of South Africa have gone through and survived”.

(I have to stop reading the comments on online articles!)

Blonde & Blinding

2010-03-29T03:00:00.000+02:00

It has come to my attention that every blonde twenty-something Australian girl is engaged.

She is not married, nor in an unidentified relationship, and most definitely not disastrously single. She is simply engaged enough to be throwing her left hand around like a loose window in a hurricane.

I’ve been standing on trams, involved in conversations at lunches, doing the most random of task within close proximity to these girls, when I look down and BHAM! Suddenly I am staring into the centre of the sun! Blinded! Stunned! What the hell is with all the glare & shininess!? Only to realise some massive rock has caught me at just the wrong angle. And it is attached to some blonde giggly Aussie explaining to a neighbouring stranger on what her colour scheme will be.

There is something so shiny about these rings. I think the term is “newness”. Like it was pulled on by the girl just an hour before. And every hand gesture being made since is to bring its existence to the world’s attention.

On Friday I was attending a particularly Femo-nazi luncheon (Yes, these things apparently really do exist. Shoot me now. More of “We the oppressed women…. Can you pass the latte… ooo I love your Gucci bag… RAAAH! Burn a bra!”) when I had yet another “Staring Straight into the Sun” moment courtesy of the giggly prada-clad girl opposite me at the table.

Acting dumb, giggly & arrogant – check
Blonde – check
Aussie – check
Couldn’t be older than me - check
Ring – check check where are my sunglasses check

I looked to her friend, to see if my growing theory really had merit. Also blonde, Aussie, twenty-something. And there too was some very shiny, very new, chunk of rock & gloss gold on her wedding finger.

I never noticed rings like this in South Africa. But then I didn’t live amongst the Natalians, where this trend is also fairly renowned.

And girls of all other hair colours never bring about this wonder & blindness. I have never thought to look at the wedding finger of any other girl. But there is something about the highlighted blonde, who seems dressed to impress a society mother-in-law, twanging away in her ‘Stralian voice that makes me think “This chick has to be engaged”.

Now for me just to start putting on my sunglasses before checking her hand in a test of my theory.

Untitled as yet

2010-03-25T14:21:00.000+02:00

You don't trust my knowledge
Because yours is incomplete
You don't know where I'm from;
how I've worked
how I've thought
How I've fought.

You only know my fellow citizen
The one covered in flies, shit & poverty
You only know if we have food or none
How clean is our water
How brown is our savanna
Y'know. You think.

But I'm here now.
I'm in your face.
I'm fighting here. now.
Listen. List!EN!
I speak English too. too.
You'll know me now. if you just listen.

Don't assign me to your shadowed streets.
Employ me. In conversation.
Knowledge is transferred.
Imagine how much more you'll know, when you know, my knowledge

Thought for Today

2010-03-25T06:38:00.000+02:00

'Bloggers are the buskers of the interweb'

#SpeakZA campaign support

2010-03-24T02:32:00.000+02:00

Most days, I find the media to be full of nonsense.

I read them with as much critical analysis as I’d read some “interest group”s advocacy materials.

I always ask, What’s the intention here? Why is this story the lead story? Why go at the story from such an angle? What are they not mentioning? What did they miss? Was all of this done just to sell more newspapers than the competitor?

But I will always fight for the media to report. To tell the story. To go at it from any angle. To have the freedom to explore a story and then relay this story to the democratised public, who are supposed to know all public information to make informed political decisions.

The Media has become the 4th arm of the state. And without them, well, the executive could get up to a lot more coercive troubles, the legislature would be running an expensive muck, and the judiciary could idle away their times under their silks.

Occasionally some media take it too far. They become the intimidators. They become too narrowed & subjective in view. Hype is created over an exhausted issue. And the other arms of the state are forced to equalise the situation again, call for some objective order to be reinstated.

Now, delightfully, with social media the public also has some hand space on the media “reins”.

As much as that damned comment section after an article grates me more than gravel along a chalkboard, it at least allows for people to throw back their opinions and interpretations at the journos.

Blogs cough a point of correction.

And other editors love to expose crap reporting.

Accountability and transparency appear to be higher than ever before.

Why all these stories of corruption, laziness, lack of action? Because our media creates transparency that was once hidden. It doesn’t reflect new types of politicians.

I don’t know how much hype needs to go into Malema and his cronies trying to intimidate journos. I often feel that the media gives Malema too much credit for the power he holds in reality. He speaks what he wants, but can he act on what he speaks.

However, I do appreciate the idea that the social media recognises the formal media’s right to speak, to expose, to not be intimidated when pointing out some “inconsistencies” between a political figure’s ideological rants and his bank balance’s supporters.

And so I add my voice to today’s blogging against the ANCYL’s attempt at intimidation of South African journalists.

Some explanations & others blogs on this:
- Sipho Hlongwane: Thought Leader Blog
- Chris Roper: Blogs 4 Free Press
- The Daily Maverick: Blog campaign against ANCYL’s media threats goes viral
- Twisted Koeksuster's "Can we really learn from our past"
- 6000's "Tomorrow"

Every year. Every single silly year.

2010-03-23T01:55:00.000+02:00

Getting closer to it, I know the annual event is going to be changed. Slightly different. Surely it can’t resemble the silliness of the past events.

There will be New friends. New settings. New ages.

Maturity has started to set in. My cheeks have dropped. I have lines. I look disparagingly on youthful bliss and silly frivolity.

None of that here! This year!

And it rarely disappoints in being almost the exact same.

Mayhem.

Pop a pint of Guinness & colour me St Paddy Green.

Fokken Irish. Why’d they put their Saint’s Day on my birthday! There could’ve been some consultation on this!

Fokken green leprechauns. Green hats, green beer, green tunes from green accordions. Free green booze if you’re wearing green. Oooo. Pick me! Pick me!

5 people and a card game in a corner of an Irish pub as the sun starts to set. Nothing like putting back a loaf of bread (Pint of Guinness) in 5 seconds as punishment for choosing the red card. Dodging door taxes and losing sunglasses to “the greater cause”. Skirt the cops & charm the bouncers. “Ma’am, please can you move away from the mens’ porter toilets” “Not till I manage to sneak my mates through this here hole in the fence sir”. Moving 20 folk up a block to where the bar counter is more accessible & the music is sung by someone who’ll break into “Happy Birthday” karaoke on demand. Finding myself jumping around to The Killers, grinning like a bogan on downed rum…oh. Wait. And then having a coupla free pints with a last man standing. Finding out my new drinking buddy is actually the owner and he’s had to endure a 29th time of hearing its my ooooooold birthday. Friends slapping friends of friends cause of all the bum grabbing. My father on the other side of the phone for a birthday chat, 2pm pristine work office day on his side, midnight pavement stumbling my time. And a 3 course curry meal at 2am while discussing the intricacies of some earth-changing issues from my couch.

Happy Birthday to me for last week!

29

Fokken 29.

The Power Of Choice

2010-03-11T09:02:00.000+02:00

Sometimes, when reading about the AIDS Denialism that was (is?) our government’s approach to HIV and AIDS, I get a lightbulb moment and understand what Mbeki was saying. Some of it anyway.

I just had such a moment.

I once was in an argument with someone about medicine, true health care, and medically resolving a problem. If the patient is not comfortable, even extremely uncomfortable, with the treatment, is he then treated & the problem truly resolved?

The situation presented to me was of a poor black South African man who was having headaches and battling to see. He went to a western science doctor and to a traditional healer.

The western doc gave him glasses. The headaches ended but the man never liked or trusted the glasses and rather never wore them. He ended up choosing headaches over the western medical “solution”.

The traditional healer gave him a muti that did not take the headaches away either. And it didn’t give him better sight.

My opponent argued that this man was stupid. Because the solution was clear, and the poorly-sighted man was refusing it for muti that was doing nothing.

My argument was that neither solution had won or helped this man. And that this man was not stupid for not being comfortable with a western medical solution. There are countless ideas or approaches that each person rejects in life because we do not trust them or are not comfortable with them.

The man must be comfortable & embrace a solution for it to be a successful solution. Western medicine does not have all the answer and does not solve all the problems. Despite what its disciples argue to others.

I have even more examples, including a person who chose death over chemotherapy. Medical science did not solve her problem, even though it claimed to. Another person I knew well chose death through heartbreak over life and antidepressants.

Western medical science can create a pill or a pair of glasses. This does not mean it has solved the medical problem. I am not discounting the incredible achievements of medical science. But that a problem needs to be solved holistically, sustainably, and this goes beyond chemicals or tactile inventions.

Mbeki argued that ARVs are that pill, that tactile invention. But they will not necessarily resolve the root of a HIV-positive person’s medical concern, and they definitely will not solely resolve the HIV pandemic in his country.

Which is why our government continues to promote Prevention campaigns as much as it addresses treatment issues. Nutrition and a healthy life style can do incredible things and do play a role in an HIV-positive person fighting the disease within their body. Poverty has played a key role in the macro-level transmission of HIV. When you cut away the hysteria & simplicity, Mbeki had some valid points. If taken into account in the nationwide fight against HIV, these points work towards a holistic solution.

The difference between Mbeki rejecting ARVs for South Africa’s Public Health system and the elderly man rejecting a pair of glasses is, Mbeki never gave any of the other of millions of South Africans the choice.

Welcome back to The World Of Work

2010-03-10T11:00:00.000+02:00

How long does it take you to get over a job after being unemployed for 6 months?

….uhh, what week are we in now?

Less than 4 weeks!

Helped along by the loss of First Pay Cheque by Admin;
That I am still desk-hopping because the boss hasn’t found me a space yet (doesn’t remember that he needs to);
And the darling boss and I had one of those parallel conversations the other day where it sunk into me like as inevitable wall of cold dread that we both have very very different ideas about how we want this all to go & what we want produced;
And that his ideas mean I have no clue what on this sweet earth is going on or how I am going to pull this one off.

All this proves….!

A job is a job is a job.

No matter what over-air-conned fluorescent spot of this Office Space globe you are sitting on.

Where the one colleague smiles too much and just sees the world too well. Getting up for coffee means small talk and polite chuckles with people you were never really introduced to. Where people all try to be politically correct but you know exactly who they are bitching about, even if you have yet to meet that person not really mentioned by the in-circles-talking. And your window (well, one of the desk I hop on & off…) faces a brick wall.

A job is a job is a job.

But all of this is improved by the fact that I have something new for one other day a week!!

What once was called “slavery” now is apparently re-termed as “Volunteering”

Unpaid technical work done for some organisation that has taken on the simple task of trying to close the global wealth gaps.

Eaaaaasy!

Especially when there’s bugger all money in my bank account motivating me on!

Welcome back to The World Of Work.

(And deargod no! The organisation is not that crazy Marxist place! The one that has sucked me in actually believes in dialogue & considering ranges of perspectives in calm rational manners. Or so they told me during Round 2 of interviews. 2 interviews for a job I won’t be paid for…. )

Howard you come up with such a Ruddiculous Perspective

2010-03-03T06:07:00.000+02:00

Damn those alternative views!

Damn those minority cultures sucking off our British-built land!

If they are going to be here, let it be in the shadows! But damned if they can actually integrate. Because then they might actually influence us!

Apparently, that is what is what the old government, run by John Howard, reckoned. And still does.

Every South African loves to fight back against any Oz argument with “Ja well, let’s look at your Aboriginal situation and that little past of Stolen Generations and Shoot to Kill the First Citizens”.

The scary thing that I am realising is, is that quite a few Aussies might not have a clue what such crude South Africans are talking about.

In the same non-educating way that most white South Africans who were schooled between 1948 to 1994 were not taught any historical perspective but Die Volk’s, many Aussies were not taught during their school days that the past held some severe racist violent policies and laws.

In terms of SA - I even got into a conversation with an ex-pat here who couldn’t understand what really was so bad about Apartheid.

It was during this conversation that I had a lightbulb moment of “Oh!” This middle-aged guy had only learnt that “Apartheid is segregating the races equally for their own good”, as opposed to what I was taught, that “Apartheid is racial segregation for the benefit of one race through the subjugation of other races…and this is how it was done…and this is what the opposition said to it….”

Or how he was taught that “the Dutch arrived to chaos of “the natives” in South Africa, created order, were bullied by the arrogant British and had no choice but to “Voortrek”, and as a result created order across The Land. But then those damn Brits caught up, so the now-Afrikaans nation was made to fight wars against the evil-intentioned British. Nonetheless, by the mid 1900s the Afrikaans nation was eventually able to get into power & start creating “The Volk” through Apartheid. He was taught the good side (only) of the Afrikaans nation and its history.

Not exactly what I was taught. Having gone to a British-based private school – the private nature of it meaning it could slot in a few sneaky other perspectives, around the very British outlook. I learnt that it was the Brits that brought order to the land…. And then I had a post-Modern English teacher who demanded we all started reading post-colonial literature and I became “slightly” lost in 1000 perspectives and options, never having found my way out since.

So. Here I now sit in Australia; a country that once ignored all perspectives but the British history. A mate of mine even said she was taught that Australia’s history went back 200 years. Even the Portuguese & Dutch histories were excluded. An Australia whose “core set of values flowed from its Anglo-Saxon identity”.

Since her school days the country has a very different face. Aboriginal groups have found their voices and are demanding their “space” in history. 1000 new cultures have landed, settled in, reproduced a few generations and now these 10000 cultures are dominating the learner landscape. The identity has changed.

And with it, has moved the voting of the people and so the current government of Kevin Rudd seems to not only acknowledge the new and the original identities also existing in Australia but he is trying to go about rectifying it all.

In 2008, he apologised to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who had their children taken from them, who were taken away as children, and who suffered through the laws and policies of successive governments.

This past Sunday, headlines said that the government had decided the new school curriculum would include more Asian and Aboriginal perspectives. I chuckled when I saw this and thought “Gud un y’ mate”

Only to read an article yesterday about how not everybody was too chuffed about such an insane idea!

Other perspectives!! No no! We’ll have none of that here!!!

So, it was disbelieving laughter that made up my reaction to such paragraphs as:

Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne said the [proposed new “added perspectives”] curriculum was ''unbalanced'' and seemed to push ''a black armband view of history''.

This was a term coined by historian Geoffrey Blainey to describe a gloomy view of Australian history focused on the treatment of minorities, especially indigenous people.

''While there are 118 references in the document to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people and culture, there is one reference to Parliament, none to 'Westminster' and none to the 'Magna Carta','' he said. ''Grade 9s will consider the personal stories of Aboriginal people and examine massacres and 'indigenous displacement', without any reference to the benefit to our country of our European heritage and the sacrifice of our forebears to build a nation.

…would be better for students to have the curriculum that they have now under the states than for them to have an unbalanced curriculum that will do them more harm than good,'' he said.''

DAMMIT! Do NOT let those Grade 9s think anything BAD went down in this country! No gloooooom here! Not on such a sunny island where we try to only be stressed about sport!

No no! Then they might actually…! What? What might a new perspective do to the brain of a Grade 9? Create love, respect and appreciation for other cultures? Realise the world is vast & history is positively overwhelming and complex? Create a love of learning and reading and exploring? Actually critically analyse what one reads and is told? Stop Indian Bashing?

It is good to see that my Australian mates are as perplexed by this reaction to adding in new perspectives. Perplexed because they thought their country had moved beyond this archaic colonial way of thinking. That the “Howard Days” were long since past. And how it is recently, with the developments in past years, that in retrospect just how biased the world view they were taught was, and have now been able to learn that there was so much more to their history.

All I know is, if the Opposition does get into power next election and change the curriculum back to “One Imperial perspective”, then this immigrant is gonna be out of here on her arse! They won’t want “my type” stirring up things here with talk of “African perspectives” as well!

Guards of The Mail

2010-03-01T04:45:00.000+02:00

Who needs Marxists when you have the comments sections of Mail & Guardian online articles!

Wow. There are a whole heap of angry, irrational, refuse-to-see-anyone's-point-of-view-or-deny-the-absolution-of-mine South Africans about! And they all have access to the internet, all day, every day, with lots of spare time to read articles, comment, & keep up with and keep adding to comments.

I have a 3-day-a-week job after a six month stint of holding unemployment embraced to my bosom, and I don’t and didn’t even have such time on my hands!

Who are these people??

I would fear these people in a paintball fight. I see them as just standing in one cemented spot shooting wildly about, at all and any moving target, with rough abandon, as they scream devilish anti-slogans of hate.

About Nothing and about Everything.

The journos can write for them. And they’ll praise the journo & attack “The Others”.
The journos can write against them. And they’ll attack the journo. But “the Others” will praise the journo.
Them and “The Others” others being the same in all but who is calling who racist in which direction, negative in which direction, and stupid because of what typo.

Hate SA, or love SA, they all seem to argue it with as much unconstructive wording as they can collectively conjure from yesterday’s rant.

I come across an article. Read it. Consider it. Toggle my way down to see what good counter-arguments might be put up to *BHAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* Swear spit rant make-no-sense abuse-the-person-for-the-person-not-for-their-argument prejudice bigot-about hurl-cutting-lines and actually make no decent references back to the actual article.

Do you type to your mother with those fingers?

Constructive comments on this site are becoming too few and far between this regular “Irate”. And so free speech is lost in the cacophony of too many free speeches?

My other thought while doing a SA catch-up:

Is the M&G on some sort of bet about how many times they can mention Malema in 2010?

Why is every single lead story about him as of late?

Is the editor shagging his PR person? Cause, bad publicity is better than no publicity!

NO ONE is THAT newsworthy. Especially someone who does not even hold that much power in a country.

And no, he doesn’t. Despite what the media says. Despite how the Bitter Ex-Pats are spinning him into their new pin-up.

Bugger. Now even lowly me has mentioned him in my ramblings! Elevated him beyond his relevance! It’s like a damn curse!

Vindaloo Against Violence

2010-02-25T05:15:00.001+02:00

Since about the time that I started packing the suitcases for Oz, I have been hearing stories in the news about local idiots in Melbourne beating up Indian students.

No one is too sure why. And everyone seems to have their own theory about it:
- It’s racial
- It’s because Indian students are staying in the outer areas of Melbourne (which are poorer so apparently then more dangerous) & working long hours (so travelling when gangs & “louts” are looking for trouble) - They are just in the wrong place at the wrong time
- As one government guy said to the media: Indian students are “flashing” about their possessions too much, they need to be more discreet about carrying laptops and wearing good watches (Sensitivity is… ! And girls wearing short skirts were “asking for it”??)
- The media is picking up on only these stories & making them out to be racial attacks because the attacker was a white Australian & the victim was an Indian national in Australia. Attacks are happening all over because there are violent idiots in this city. Most of these attacks are not actually racial, we just don’t hear about them.

Whatever it is, it’s been distressing the whole city.

And many people in India.

Indian government officials have been calling for students to not come over here & hurtling angry demands for action over the oceans.

Australia apparently launched campaigns in India to say, “We’re alright, mate. Most of us love you & most of your students have a brilliant time. Don’t stop coming over”.

Which was followed up by The Media, in that typical “sensitive” style of theirs, starting up “dialogue” of “Is our tax payers’ money being wasted in India on campaigns”.

The Oz government also sent Shane Warne over to India to chat to people. Uhhhhhhhhhh. Can someone please explain this “diplomatic” tactic to me. I can’t say that it is the word “appeasement” that springs to my mind when I imagine old Shano rocking up on my doorstep to chat about cultural relations. …. I do think “hairplugs” though.

What has been lacking though is the Oz government launching a campaign here. In Melbourne. Y’know. That site of the attacks. Educate, mediate, bring about awareness and love. A campaign of “Lets love our foreign students cause they are actually the ones bringing in all the money while the local students pay ¼ price fees and get concessions on everything from transport to water bills”.

So some local Melbourne girl decided to take it upon herself and show some form of solidarity & support to Indian nationals who are living in Melbourne. And came up with “Vindaloo against Violence” – last night, people in Melbourne were supposed to go to an Indian restaurant in a demonstration of appreciation for Indian nationals who are living here.

I am not a fan of always emphasising a culture through its food. “We want you here cause we like your food” and “We don’t hate immigrants. They’ve added to this city! Through their cheap take aways & restaurants….and dance as a new form of exercise”. The constant “Food, Dance & Culture” emphasis becomes a bit trivial in cultural appreciation & respect.

But this was a great idea, because other than a mass march – which would probably bump into the 10 other marches that take place through Melbourne each day, everything from Stop Torture In China, The Globe Is Getting Hot In Here, to You’re Killing The Live Music Through Taxes – how are you going to show mass support in a cost-effective manner?

And it was easy. And oh so tasty!

I am still bulging & loping about in fullness of everything the menu had to offer! Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Why oh why when you finally start groaning under the weight of food & muttering you just cannot eat anymore is that when a restaurant brings you a few extra free courses!

We spoke to the restaurant’s hostess/ waitress about why 12 of us had descended on their little establishment. And she added yet another theory to it all.

She said she’d heard talk about the “V against V” campaign, but she wonders how much it is actually dumb drunk Indian guys picking fights with dumb drunk Australian guys in dodgy areas late at night.

So. We resolved nothing last night. But we ate well! And made at least one Indian restaurant a bit more prosperous!

BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP!

The Cult of Marx - What Not To Do

2010-02-19T03:56:00.000+02:00

I picked a fight with a room of Marxists the other night.

Well, that goes straight onto my “Not To Do” list in future.

They’d plastered posters of Madiba all over university campuses & I figured, lets do something different, check it out, see what Aussies are saying about SA and Mandela. [Please note, I reckon that 99.9% of Australians would not support them or what ensued from there]

I should have realised this was a bad idea when I walked in and was accosted by some butch chick dressed as Where’s Wally, asking me “Are you a Socialist?” first and for my name only after that.

“Well… uh… I’m…a… me? I don’t know. I’m South African, that’s why I’m here”.

They were having none of that. A whitey South African in their midsts only seemed to swell the developing anger & disgust in the room. 90% of the people in the room may have been white, well off, and twenty. But at that moment, to them, I was obviously not “A Worker” and so was to be reviled.

I meanwhile was gulping back the voice saying, “Get the fkc out of this cultish room and go and join the real workers at that pub you passed on the corner. Singlets, Footie talk and beer are only a few yards back”.

But I am a great defender and supporter of my country & I stayed to listen to the most swayed, biased, unfounded pieces of nonsense.

I watched (and cringed to my core) as the room of people stood up to shout in Aussie white accents “AMANDLA!” with big grins on their faces.

Finally I stood up & had my say,
· That I was under the impression that the way the Nats got into power in the 1940s was through the support of the white working class, actually. W.o.r.k.e.r.s. The type this group howls in support of every two seconds;
· That actually, peaceful resistance was in fact instilled by Ghandi who’d been hanging around our neck of the woods at the time, not through Harlem and African-American groups;
· That I found it extremely disrespectful for this Main Speaker to say that what Mandela had done after getting into power, of granting amnesty & creating the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, was completely wrong & abhorrent. One of the reasons the world is awed by & reveres Mandela is his compassion & ability to forgive;
· That we had apparently stood at the brink of civil war & it was through the granting of amnesty & the drive for reconciliation and peaceful handover that we have stayed as stable as we have;
· That until you have stood on the brink of civil war, you cannot pass judgement on what is done to prevent it [oooo, they really did not like that point, these 1st World Aussie middle class extreme lefties];
· That you cannot discount how powerful the Freedoms of Movement & of Choice are; those Freedoms that immediately came about in 1994. That sure, we are still developing and social and economic problems abound, but those two Freedoms mean WE ARE NOT WORSE OFF THAT BEFORE!! (so please could every second person in the room stop telling me that my country is worse off). We have the tools of equality, of nationwide development, of entrepreneurship, hope and potential for any South African to realise their goals, and that true economic equality is getting there;
· And that I do like or support Zuma, but the majority of the South African working class appears to love him. And they, the “workers”, wanted him in power, they identify with him, and that is why he is in power. [Ok, fine, it is much more complex than that, but its not like these guys are into complexities, and I needed some point to mention the word “Workers” again]
· I mentioned HIV, in terms of how that is a real threat to the working class in South Africa, but that bored them. A disease does not give you a punching bag or enough reason to attack Liberal Western states or organisations.

The whole room was on their feet ready to tear me down with their “points of order” as soon as I sat down. Tjo. If there had been a trapdoor in the floor beneath me, dropping the hell through it might have been a good idea at that point!

Some middle aged woman who earlier had been so sweet next to me, sitting there and chatting absolute nonsense before the talk, stood up and said,

“If this fucking aid worker wants to tell us this… blah blah… crumbs from their table… we [the workers] will not accept… this fucking girl… slag off aid work some more… fuck… revolution… Workers! Fuck. RAH!”

Well! Wow! Feel the love! Let the first rock to the head be thrown by the falsely-accommodating motherly figures!

Then a group wank fest basically ensued.

Calm points started to be spoken which would turn into some screaming tirade in 2 minutes and finally this satisfied round off smirk of “workers” “crumbs from tables” “evil western powers” “poor Palestine” “Evil white owners of SA industry” “we will not accept the words from this [tone turns to dripping disdainful disgust] aid worker” “workers” “Revolution!! Revolution!” “RAH!” “AMANDLA”.

The 30 year old white eloquent Main Speaker, born into a first world privileged country that champions free speech and the adherence of minimum wage, shouted at me that “We will not accept the crumbs from your table!”

“My table???” “You accepting crumbs???” I’m the South African here & you clearly have never known what it is to walk 20 kms to work each day, what the pit of a mine shaft looks like, or what a lowly exploitative wage meant if you tried to wet dream it, sweety. Let alone! What it means to do daily practical work of assisting people get access to education and health care and uphold legal rights… what us “dumb” aid workers do.

I had wanted to stand up again and point out the “irony” of her voice being that of a white well-off middle class person from The Centre telling us that the actions of an African black man [Mandela] from The Periphery were wrong. But I was feeling just slightly out-numbered.

During her closing speech she reached orgasmic heights as she started to speak of how there are STILL secret police going about in South African townships, seeking out and taking out the people who do not want Eskom to be privatised! How?? How do you know that?? How can you justify such an unfounded claim?? Does any South African reader know anything about these secret police? Our police currently do not get paid enough to pull you over for breaking a traffic law… why on earth are they going to waste their time following up on folk who support Eskom??

She continued, in her apparent support of Eskom (I did not even bother to get into arguments about this, it was so pointless), how people across SA still do not have access to electricity! Is this not shocking! Uh………..yes, we call this loadshedding and it is actually BECAUSE OF Eskom!!! Fkc. You people are dumb and uninformed.

There was the twenty year old in a minuscule gold dress sipping on her beer and telling me to buy their magazine [See, sorry, I’ve been a worker in Oz, I don’t have the money to afford your worker’s magazine], tell me about how they will fight anti-feminists, homophobes, racists etc… and me think, “Well, wear that dress amongst some workers in a Jo’burg taxi rank, while you try to gather solidarity, and see what happens!”

But my cherry on top was having a sixty year old woman turn around in her seat and loudly shout at me that
“Ghandi is actually a mass murderer!”

That had me on the floor rolling about with laughter! It had become too much. Next they’d tell me Mother Teresa was a raping elitist and Jesus was a bigoted anti-Semitic.

Sixty year old Marxists, “No! No! Do not laugh at me”
Champs “Sorry, but I have to!”
Sixty year old Marxists, “NO! His peaceful actions led to the murder of thousands of people”.
…but hadn’t your comrades all just shouted at me that they wanted civil war in South Africa? Will you guys get some continuity going here? Don’t you realise what revolution means in reality?? It means the death of bystanders for the championing of one group’s cause.

Then they all had a cigarette and lay back in false satisfaction.

And I was forced to walk across the room through them hoping to not have a knife in me by the time I reached freedom. Not that any of them would ever have the “courage” to put convictions behind their violent words.

Someone beelined through the crowd to me and I just swore. He looked at me and said, “You look like you need a beer? Can I save you from these Marxists?” He then had to pull me through the crowd, appeasing them only by telling them his mother was Russian and his grandmother had been in a Russian gulag.

And so I was rescued and bought a drink by some journalist who is writing a book on SA, sitting in a pub with the normal people, still shell-shocked from the disturbing narrow-minded outdated beliefs of the desperate ideologising that is the Melbourne “Socialist Alternative”.

Maybe this will be the last time I say “well why not check this out, it’s something different!” Ha!

P.S. I have since had it pointed out to me that these people were probably wonderful Marxists because historical research has shown Marx to be deeply unpleasant, vindictive and racist.

I’ve been culturally integrating

2010-02-16T11:54:00.000+02:00

After Aussie Day comes…. New Zealand Day!!!

In very close, very lovely succession.

A little more low key than the flag-caped BBQ-as-many-roo-loins-on-the-Yarra-banks-as-possible Australia Day.

On this “5th Australian State” day, the Kiwi bbq never really gets going thanks to all the Kiwi beer tasting that requires priority.

There are time-out lessons in lingo… though buggered if I can recall anything beyond
“Ok Champs, I am wearing j.a.n.g.l.e.s.
“Jangles”
“And you are wearing g.l.a.m.d.a.l.s”
“Glamdals”
And so what are these?”
“THONGS!”
“Noooooooooooooo. Drink more beer!”

You are made to bow down in the presence of anyone who had a forefather present at the signing back in the day. Signing of what, and what back day is also a little hazy. And the day seems to be centred on insulting….everyone! The more of one nationality present, the more you insult them and their funny twanging ways.

Ha! The Aussies present hated us by sunset! Yes!

But I must say, I have quite taken to Aussies now. The little sweethearts warmed the cockles of my cynical African heart after I was forced to bed down in waterlogged camping with about 40 of them (plus the quota handful of foreigners) for the past week.

I had gotten myself a side week job and headed to New South Wales to manage the camp of a hoard of Honours students (Swarm? School? Posse? Litter?). It was my job to ensure that each and everyone of the ute-load-stomached soy-only-drinking did-that-go-near-anything-bovine I-haven’t-eaten-for-10-miutes lot of them were fed & relatively happy.

When they grumbled, I threw chocolate frogs at the problem (them).

In exchange they would give me lessons on Aussie culture & nature. Although, by the time we reached the conversation of the udders on kangaroos I started to smell a fairly tall pouched hopping rat.

It was great. Fun. Lovely to be out & about & experiencing “the land”. And then, after one day of aura’ing sweat, it started to rain. And rain. And fkcing rain like we had camped down in an equatorial outpost in monsoon season.

For 4 solid days, I trudged in rain, dressed in rain, shopped & drove in rain, chased possums away from the food in rain, braved long-drops in rain, bedded down & bedded up in rain. I would wake to see a thermorest idly drifting past me & close my eyes to the sight of a wallaby doing backstroke.

We drove back in rain. I’ve been washing clothes for 2 days that still stink of mouldy rain. And the next Aussie that tells me I must shower for only 4 minutes because the country is undergoing a drought is going to get a Fat Klap and sent camping in New South Wales!

And, with all glee and chuffed pride, I can FINALLY. F.i.n.a.l.l.y. say, after 6 months of being in ‘Stralia, eating more roo steaks than I have drunk platable wine, and having racked up sightings of only two roadside kills of Kangaroos, I have finally seen real live bouncing grass-munching real Kangaroos! Fields and fields and golf courses of the big guys, just sommer chilling.

Which did make me ask the Aussies, “like what on earth do kangaroos actually do???”

Which might have been when the conversation led to their udders…

So. It’s been a good few weeks. And now I am into Day 2 of “Work”. And maaaan, if my head is not aching from trying to recall the skill of concentration!

Not kangaroo. Wallaby. Smaller. More willing to engage in one-on-one convos

F^!@*%@^!E@%$!$@^%$! F%!$@^%!$^%@!$!^% possum. Just look at it munching away there. Little obese bravado rat's sidelined cousin!

Aussie in his natural setting (pre-rain)

KANGAROOS!!!!!!!!! Damn blurry creatures, they are though!

Is that what I think it is... haven't seen 1 for so long...

2010-02-03T06:14:00.000+02:00

I am rich!

I am respected!

I have purpose!

I. HAVE. A. JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YEHAEYHZEYAHEYAHEAJHEEYHAJJEYHAEYAKHDBAFRTYWEYEHEYEHAYEHA!

Much of last night was spent with me grinning & saying, “Its ok babe, we can now afford that! I’m now rich! I have a job!”

To his protests of “Well, actually, academia & your real research job doesn’t pay as well as this fantasy Getty Oil job you seem to mistakenly believe you have”.

To which I would ignore him and slip into dreaming about how I can now afford a 3rd beer on a Melburnian night out. Order a bottle of wine in a restaurant. Find myself in a restaurant where the tables are as stylish as being made out of REAL wood & not warped plastic. How I will no longer have intricate debates with an 8 year old about whether the hired help – me – actually has any intellectual capacity considering her (my) type of work (babysitting). Or be interrogated by the same kid & her sibling about how can I be wearing pink nail polish on my toes, they thought I was poor.

No more!

I will once more have a valid reason to stand up each morning & hit the clogged roads. Be entitled to complain about feeling like a rat in a cage when secretly I am so chuffed that my bank balance does not rest on a Third World country’s mood swings, but rather increases monthly. I might even make my own Australian friends! And learn the inner workings of the inner city!

It all looks sun shiny good today.

On that note, I am off to the bottle store’s cold room to lie on some slabs of beer….
As what I also have is an apartment that thinks it is an Easy-Bake Oven. 35 degrees outside. Roasting Chicken temperature inside.

Sweat sweat sweat.

But it’s ok. In 2 weeks I’ll be working in the sweet sweet airconditioned surrounds of a university office.

What Australia Day Involves

2010-01-29T05:20:00.000+02:00

We woke up on Australia Day & thought “What a day for a holiday!! Yeeeeeeeesssss indeeeed. Austaaaalia Day!!! Yeah! Hmmm.... Dooby dooby dooo... ho hum.... Well, now what…”

I had been warned that there are only 2 rules on this day.

1. To do absolutely not a stitch or inch or moment of work.
CHECK!

2. To have your first beer in hand by midday.
Uh oh.

But what else!?

Aussies replied to our sms’d questions of “Now what??” with – it’s a family day, get yourself to a bbq.

Greeeeaaaaat. We don’t know any Aussie families. And it’s a bit late to charm our way into anything, ain’t it.

Now what?

So we headed into the city and were confronted by more Australian paraphernalia than a Baz Lurman movie. Everyone was wearing flags as cloaks, flags across their boobs, around their heads, as bag fillers & cap jewellery.

Flags flapped flaccidly about the city from every pole.

How patriotic! How… odd. All these Human-Flags were foreign. But VERY foreign. Not a stereotypical Aussie in sight.

See. All the Aussies have families nearby. And all the families are hosting barbies. So all the aussies clear out from their own celebrations and leave us orphaned immigrants to fly the flag high.

So we watched some tennis in Fed Square & wandered about taking in the festitivities and buskers and foreigners watching me watching them watching me, till I could take it no more & declared it Beer O’Clock.

To which 2 mates responded with “Let’s Barbie on the banks of the Yarra. We’ll bring the slab & the kanga sausages. You just rock up”

And a good afternoon, evening, night was had by all immigrants in the end!
Because all barbie'd meat ends up between 2 pieces of pre-sliced bread. Note the free public barbeque being used. And the 1st of the day's beers. Aussies spotted! Drunk & swimming in a river you shouldn't swim in.Initial view from our spot on the Yarra banksMiddle of the way view from our spot on the Yarra banksFinal view from our spot on the Yarra banks. Then we stood up to watch the fireworks...which is exactly when my camera decided it had had enough of the day & died on me.

It is interesting that not all Australians celebrate this day.

Some people believe that this day signifies in history the European invasion of Australia which led to the death of many Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people apparently mourn on this day, as does most of Queensland (Rumour from an acquaintance has it). I’m not yet sure why Queensland had its own special mention in her rendition – is it mainly made up of Aboriginal groups? Or are Queensland residents sympathisers of the Aboriginal history?

And some Aussie folk believe that the celebrations should rather be held in September when Australia fought with Turkey… in Turkey… I’m also not sure why that proves Australian Day, but I guess, if you are going to change things to make everyone happy (except the Turks), then why not that moment.

Why I Despise Australia Today #1

2010-01-28T08:23:00.000+02:00

Disclaimer:
This is for those low travel days. When all you see is the shite and home could Only Ever Oh Definitely Offer Better (Ha!). It completely recognises that this is one-sided, unfair and probably a pack of misguided lies. Well. Not lies. But narrow-minded and not-really-revealing-the-whole-story. (Only some of it anyway). Because everyone is allowed narrowed-minded angry days where you just want to shout at your surroundings because they are so different to your comfort zone. And some days, your body, mind and soul just want comfort. Even citizens within their own countries have these days.... obviously, otherwise we wouldn’t have the extreme & despised form... The Expat.

#1. Aussie’s Free TV News

Aussie Free TV News is shite. It is shiter than shite. It is buried with its head so deep in the sand you would think the head had popped out somewhere else and might start reporting on the other side of the world.

BUT NO!

The free tv news is local, pedestrian, boxed-in and so lacking in intelligence it would make even SA tabloid journos cringe.

Example 1:

Monday night’s 6pm Prime Time News.

Item 3 is an “in-depth report” on how a handful of local Melburnians were charged $800 by a malfunctioning parking metre, instead of the usual $8. Interviews take place. Accusations that are not followed up on are made. Everyone shouts. And hysteria is created within minutes. About parking metres.

20 minutes later, somewhere near the end, within 30 seconds all done in a rush:

“An Ethiopian Plane Crashes & Kills About 90 People. But Next in International News. Are British Tabloids Right When They Report That Brangelina is On The Rocks. Stay Tuned For Our Award-Winning Current Affairs Show That Has a Special Segment On The Inside Story Of Hollywoods Hottest Couple”.

Sorry? What was that? Did I hear about a country other than Australia, Britain or the United States mentioned there?? Go back! Go back! Fkc it. Lose concentration for 20 whole seconds & there goes the world....!

It’s not that there is not news to report on this continent. There are boat loads of immigrants floating off the coast, the international world is funnily enough not that far off, Australians’ lives are being affected every day by global events. Rumours even have it there is some news-worthy stuff going on right here on this soil! But Sweep Away Sweep Away!

It’s not that this place is so “perfect” that a kangaroo’s death is all that can appear in the news (as happened yesterday!). This continent makes a conscious choice to not report on international political events... unless they take place in English-Speaking Western countries.

It makes life “Happier” that way.

Unless you are an International political scientists. Or just a broke global-minded person.

(I actually had a good Australia Day (sneaky b@stards like that!), so I’ll just make this list a regular segment and stop at #1 for now... Tongue In Cheek! It's Tongue In Cheek Ok!!!)

I thought we both spoke English

2010-01-27T05:49:00.000+02:00

Champs Heathen: Thanks, and could I also get a packet for that…

Aussie Sales woman: A wha’??

CH: A packet.

ASW: A wha’??

CH: A pac. ket. A…uh…. Welll… A….bugger… A… [Blank Stare]

ASW: [Blank Stare]

CH: [Blank stare]

ASW: Oh, a bag!!??!

CH: YES! A BAG!!

Jetlagged love & resolve

2010-01-25T08:21:00.000+02:00

If you don’t want to miss home, do not go home!

Simple.

Apparently.

The past month was too good. And it wasn’t just that it was home.

Weeelll.

Maybe it was.

But it is also because I love Africa. I love Southern Africa. I love all that is the chaos, the diversity, the contrasts, the personalities, the reality-in-your-face, the burst bubble and challenges and smiles and passion that goes with that.

To not drive my mind across the brink though, I have to forget about that for now. Now being for four years.

FOUR YEARS. What will I miss!?! Will my “Self” survive this bland safe bubble-ness. I keep asking, thinking, fearing that I will get sucked in, and lose myself. But I also need to not think it, to keep my sanity for this year.

I am back in Oz. Determined to beat this damn continent. Win it over & make it fall desperately in love me. Charm it with my all! ….after a quick stint recovering from jetlag on the couch watching the Oz Open.

So to 2010 and its consequential 10 resolutions:

1. Find a job
Who would’ve thought this one would appear. Here. Ha!

2. DO those art classes that I have been threatening to do for the past year
Even if the left side of my brain is rotting away with each rejected job application, at least I can steroid up the right side!

3. Write a book
This experience has to lead me to money in SOME way. Why not some cheesy chick lit book that promises to be the “Next Sex in The City meets Bridget Jones after one too many Devil Wears Prada’s”!

4. Carve my own space in this town
The only way to keep my form of sanity is to make it my own.

5. Sit up Straight
My spine just can’t cope with the C shape anymore. And my growing tummy definitely should not be allowed to cope with the C-shape anymore!

6. Walk 2 kilometres a day
When the fkc did I write this one!? What hellish concoction lead my brain to think this one up during the New Year’s Day Zone!?

7. Keep up better contact with wide range of friends
I am admitting recluse defeat. It was such a lovely few years of relative solitude though.

8. One crazy travel trip!
18 hours on no sleep in Singapore on Wednesday might almost count though! But if there is not a Scandinavian and/or some painful hungover flight where I consume all perishables on board, it does not count.

9. Less Facebook!!
With reclus’ism must go voyeurism. It is not real. It is silly. It is not reality.

10. Recover from jetlag with afternoon stints on the couch watching pro tennis

At least I know one will be achieved before today’s sunset!

Photographic Summarising

2009-12-15T03:07:00.000+02:00

Because I have run out of verbal inspiration. Actually, I think I've just completed my final batch of words for 2009. And I don't need to think till some stage in 2010. Here is life by photos. Well, not all of life, cause I am forgetting to be a tourist. But. Here are some photos.

I would've put up some photos of The Diamond Hunter's Sheep Sheering experiences but he appears to have (wisely?) locked his camera from me lifting photos. Not sure how he did that.

....Bastard....

Now for the photos.

BAMMMMM!

Flinders Station. The station to upstage all stations. 100 years and counting. You haven't been to Melbourne if you haven't been to Flinders Station... well, don't I just sound like a 1950s Jazz Croooner...

Champs gets closer & closer to the Aussie outback. Blue Gums, 37 degrees, & dirty water! Now lets find me a croc....

Kookabura sitting in some old tree. La la laa ddee. Cookoboura. Kokakabura. Bugger it. Big fat Aussie bird. Parking off In a tree. That Aussie blokes with banjos like to sing about...

And Talking about singing... Busking. Anywhere anytime... The new plan is that I'm gonna be his back-up singer if this job thing still doesn't materialise... Dooopp Doooopp Peee Dooooo

4x4'ing. Bluddy fkcing hell. Have you been 4x4'ing. The mission IS to get stuck in the mud!

Then the 4x4'ing got scary. Spooky woods... with freaky things carved onto them...and blood (or tree gum, whatever) dripping from them.

Serene camping view one way....Aaaaaahhhhhhhh

Parking lot view the other way.....

Winnipago Conference 2009 hits the camping world, and we got to fall asleep under the stars to the whirling of someone's onboard toilet!

Can you see who this is!? Hey hey! Are you jealous yet! I'll give you a clue... "Can't find a better maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.........."

"Will you damn rock mob get the hell out of here already!!!!'

Etihad Stadium just could not get rid of us. 2 1/2 hours later. Ben Harper on one guitar, Eddie on the other... The lights came on but the boozed rockers kept singing.

Back to some Flinders shots... This time "with Tram" YEHAYEHAEH. Man, this shot would've been better in focus.

"Meet you under the clocks" or some other cheesiness. Clocks of departing train lines. Very important. Very bluddy stressful. You still have to get through the ticket things & a thousand people, across a station, down useless escalators and onto your platform.... Renaming this shot: "Champs' Fitness Regime"

Merry Merry Christmas from Melbourne!

Some other photo moments:

Picturing Melbourne

Why I've been so quiet

Quoting 2

2009-12-11T07:21:00.000+02:00

“The Cold War was cold only for the rich and privileged places of the planet”

The Wasted Vigil, Nadeem Aslam

“…thanks to new research, we have learned that the international movement of educated people changes the incentives to acquire education, sends enormous quantities of money across borders, leads to movements back and forth, and can contribute to the spread of trade, investment, technology, and ideas. All of this fits very uncomfortably in a rhyming phrase like "brain drain," a caricature that would be best discarded in favor of a richer view of the links between human movement and development”

Think Again: Brain Drain, BY MICHAEL A. CLEMENS, DAVID MCKENZIE

Congress of The Unemployed

2009-12-09T03:37:00.000+02:00

Employment continues to evade me.

My determination to get something signed by the time the sponsored holiday HOME (!!!!) came along has failed.

And I am slowly psychologically accepting defeat & become ready to accept any job. “Secretary Champs Two Thousand And Ten”.

It’s not that I think I am “too good” to be a secretary or some such snobbish bullshite. It’s just that I feel I have worked so hard at my tertiary studies and career movements to throw it all in indefinitely to a “job to get by”.

This will be a job. Not a career.

Yesterday was a particularly rude rejection that left me crying on a bus because of how stupid their email made me feel. It had come from the company that offered me hope of a job working with African charities, took it back abruptly, put me back on the short list, and took me off again with no word to me until I followed up, then came back pretty much declaring that I was an idiot to imagine I would make the interview round. Why are the gatekeepers to my industry so lacking in compassion!?

Yesterday I was the freak on your bus.

Last night The Diamond Hunter (I think it is about time he had a better term than “The Guy” and it was his original nickname from my brothers) received some mail about joining a union. This sparked a fascinating interest in me…

CH: That’s it! I am making my own union. Congress of The Unemployed!
DH: And what exactly are you guys going to do, Champs? Sit around and have a collective mope about not having jobs?
CH: YES! Damn straight! And then, when someone has received a particularly rude or unfair rejection we will go and protest outside that company’s offices. I will show these Aussie unemployed folk how to dance & disrupt in true protest style!

By this stage Diamond Hunter was ignoring me to do something employed-person related, while I day dreamed of sweet collective support, through the means of a socialist tool. Oh the worker-irony.

CH: Yes! Disruption and discord to the daily runnings of employing companies! That will be our focus! Though, this is not to say I, as Chairperson, will be against any forms of “gifts” from the richer companies, to keep us away from them. Not some petty $3.20 coffee, mind you, I am talking big sweet bucks here, of all the rainbow colours my unemployed eyes have yet to see.

I will then distribute these funds amongst the union members. We will find release from our stress by protest dancing, and find support & sustainability through “gifts”!

Surely it is not blackmail if you are unemployed?

ExPat vs. Immigrant

2009-12-05T03:06:00.000+02:00

This appeared in last Friday's mX - the free daily newspaper that people read on Melbourne trains, trams and buses....

There MAY have been sms'd in, in response... I wouldn't know... I don't manage to see the mX too often out here in my neck of the woods.

"Expat (mX, Fri), yours words are shameful and counter-productive to the millions of people working so hard to make South Africa and 2010 successful. Visitors to South Africa, remain as vigilant as you would in any new big global city, but don't think twice about visiting! You'll fall in love with our energy & positivity and be part of our development - Safely South African"

My country might have a lot of nonsense, but that does not give you the right to tell unknowing people to not visit it and experience it for themselves! Every single time you do, and every time you bad mouth my country, you insult the people I love, the emotions I hold, the people who care for me, and the incredible work being done by so many people of every demographic. My country change daily, and unless you were there, in the centre of it all, not just passing through your parents' home five years ago, hold your tongue and MOVE ON politely.

Hell, the Aussie plumber even told me this week about two of his mates who moved over to South Africa, (not together, two incidents), because they went to visit & fell in love with SA and have no intentions of coming back here.

HA! Suck on that Expat! I am the irritation in the Negative Expats' side!

Ego Boost

2009-12-02T04:35:00.000+02:00

Anytime I find myself in too much of a slump, feeling too sorry for unemployed defacto immigrant me, when I really need a lift and that Oprah-WALK-ON moment… I take public transport.

Why? Because if you ever are looking for an ego-boost, it is Public Transport that will put you into contact with the people who give you that in seconds.

It’s because mingling with such people floods you with thoughts of, “I might be in a fkced-up situation, with little forward-motivation. BUT AT LEAST! I am not as screwed up as that guy”!

Like the guy that stands at the shopping mall bus stop to take photos of the buses. My Guy once got caught in a convo with him, stuck in bizarre dialogue about what kind of bus do you think this is? A Honda? No no, maybe a Volvo? What about that one coming up? Ooooo excitement. CLICK. Then the odd guy jumped on the bus and started hounding the bus driver with questions about makes and models, before getting off the bus, and taking another photo.

When I saw this guy, he dashed behind the bus stop, and quickly only his camera snuck out to “CLICK”.

Or the man who declared his undying love to me as I was taking my seat on a bus.
CH: Ha. Thanks very much. Oh look. My book.
TrueLoveMan: Yes. You never know when love is going to arrive but suddenly it does and it could be anywhere here on a bus or somewhere else but here it is and we find it here on a bus because I love you yes you are the love of my life and now we all know in front of all these witnesses that there is such a thing as true love here on this bus because yes I have found it here on this bus with you on this bus here
CH: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I find it is weekends that really bring out the “Ego Boosting people”. I am not sure if they are diluted in the week, or if they just realise how much more impact they can make when the trains are less empty.

The heroin family taking up four aisles of seats with their stuff as they dash between bags, babies and sudoku puzzles. And you in the 5th aisle are thinking, surely they can’t move up anymore, before having some cruddy bag shaken onto you for her to retrieve sandwiches for the 5 year old kid that is busy trying to walk through the closing train doors onto a platform. And every other passenger, but these two OD’ing adults, has their eyes popping out of our heads thinking, please please please watch your kid! Ohgod, I actually hope that isn’t your kid and this is a bad choice of babysitter for the day!

There are bus moments when a delightfully sweet old lady climbs on and starts up a sugar-sweet convo with you, only for you to realise she is talking to her neighbour from 1957 and your being just happens to be in the way. You never are too sure if you are meant to respond to yes, how the youth of today are loitering about the milk bar a little too much lately.

Or you tram it through town and suddenly find yourself caught between some stylish Asian chicks and a druggie, with dirt under her nails and picked scabs all around her head. My Guy has retreated to the other side of the tram because he doesn’t want a tetanus shot. And the druggie is waving her rubbish bag of possessions around and tells me, a little too upclose, that these biatches don’t know what they are talking about, why are they are ignoring her, she’ll take them on, oh yeah, she’ll show them. While they try outstare some spot on the tram floor. And I am just doing my best to not laugh at the fkced-up-ness of the situation. Cause a hint of a smile could land one of those nails in my face.

It’s the “dolled-up teen chicks” though, that reaaally bring through that sense of superiority. With comments and conversations so dumb that there is a section of the free daily newspaper dedicated to what they might have said and you overheard; and I LOVE IT!

Chick 1: Like, what I don’t, like, get is why do the people in like France and Russia have to go and make up their own languages. Like why can’t they just stick with English?
Chick 2: Wait, what’s Russia?

And you slap your forehead in pain at what you are hearing, and every other passenger is just doing this slow shake of their head. Except Chick 3, who is thinking, like OhMyGod, why didn’t this quadruplet woman in the newspaper just stop letting them come out after two!

Or some ten year old, all clean-cut, pulled-up socks, pigtails in hair, pink-outfitted, backpack packed with sarmies and orange juice, leaning around her boozed gothic mother, who is just trying to get her alcohol-drenched muscles to keep her standing up, to tell the mom’s boyfriend that he is a “fkcing cunt”.
“Seriously Mom. Why does HEEEEE have to come along today. Can’t the bastard just have stayed on the mattress”.
And the mom slurs something incomprehensible.
And the “Fkcing Cunt” stands in his Doc Martens, faded tats, and straggly hair, just staring ahead.
And I wonder if I should get Child Welfare on speed dial for these delightful Sunday afternoon moments.

The joke is, in that sick unfunny way, that these guys all get free education and health care, welfare cheques and $9000 every time they pop out a baby, while us idiot immigrants babysit their kids, care for their elderly, pack their supermarket shelves, taxi & bus them about, and nurse them through their ODs.

Ah fkc. Now that I got me all depressed in that realisation, let me go and find a bus to travel on or something.

World AIDS Day 2009

2009-12-01T02:12:00.000+02:00

"AIDS remains one of the leading causes of premature death globally", Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General.

World AIDS Day today.

A day to think about – highlight – bring awareness to – bring empathy to – everyone who is affected and infected by HIV.

And I guess, if you live in South Africa, there is an incredibly good chance that you are affected by HIV.

Are you?

Maybe you are even infected. When did you last check your HIV status?

But this day is not about “hugging an AIDS Orphan” or commiserating with people who can only access health care and health information through our Public Health system. It is about getting a dialogue going between you, yourself, your partner(s), your family, your friends, the people that share a household with you, people at work… Anyone in your daily life.

What do you know about HIV.

What do you THINK you know, but is actually a very dangerous myth and simply hearsay.

What do you do to keep yourself and your loved ones HIV-negative or living Positively, if you are infected.

Do you discriminate against people with HIV, thinking “oh, they deserve it, they had unsafe sex, it’s the children who are born positive that I feel sorry for”, or some such shocking discriminating narrow-minded justification. A justification you allow, to passively accept your fear of the disease, rather than taking on and working through your fear, and fighting back against the disease and the complexities around it.

Because ANY HUMAN can contract HIV. Anyone. And we need to face that first, before we can move forward in our fight. And we need to accept that AIDS is one of the world’s leading causes of premature death.

Does it matter how a person became infected. Are you only willing to face HIV and support a HIV-positive person if you approve of the way they contracted it.

So what if someone had unprotected sex. At the very biological root of it all, so what.

Have you?

This person is now sick. And this person deserves health care, love, correct information, guidance, advice on the future and the future options for their family.

Until there is this love, guidance, advice, emotional and medical support, the virus will rule us.

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I left all my red ribbons in SA. I feel almost manic in wanting to find something to wear to recognise this day.

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Some Stats & Facts from the UNAIDS Epidemic Report 2009:

􀂃 Latest data indicate that fewer than 40% of young people have basic information about HIV and less than 40% of people living with HIV know their status;
􀂃 The number of new HIV infections continues to outstrip the numbers on treatment—for every two people starting treatment, a further five become infected with the virus;
􀂃 Despite considerable progress in treatment, global coverage remains low: in 2008, only 42% of those in need of treatment had access (compared with 35% in 2007).

For other UNAIDS Fact Sheets, by region, and the Epidemic Update 2009 Report, click here.

Let me Introduce you

2009-11-30T12:13:00.000+02:00

The first time I met him was when I was taking out the rubbish one evening. All I could think was “Yoh! But aren’t you obese!”

The next time was when we bumped into each other on the pavement. He turned and fled.

My Guy started to ask around about him. And that’s where it all became very amusing. To me, at least.

The prissy office mate at My Guy’s work informed him in her disdainful tone that this guy loves nothing more than to get drunk. And once he’s moved in, you’re not going to get rid of him. So Be Warned! Get rid of him now!

Be warned! If you are not relentless and call in some professionals, you are going to end up with a snoring slobbering drunk possum suffering from Sunday morning Losers in your ceiling!

And that is what we now have.

I have a possum. He looks like an obese cat. And is cute and cuddly in that rabid stray wild animal sort of way. But he has his charm. Who could not be charmed by an antisocial drunken basketball of dirty hissing fur, that sounds like a hefty man when he walks around the ceiling.

The story goes that he likes to eat the fermenting berries, these get him drunk, and then he lopes home, “slips” (crashes!) under a tile, and is supposed to pass out in a snoring slobbering obese stupor. With poor me lying in the room beneath.

What she did not warn us about, was that he is an agro drunk. This guy has hour-long sunrise hissy fits like I have never heard them.

4am Sunday mornings and there I lie, shouting at the ceiling that I deserve some sleep too, I too am suffering from cheap-ass wine! As he hurtles about the ceiling above me hissing in hysterics at some chancer bird that has come near his “ceiling domain”. Or at the broom-banging from our neighbour’s side who also doesn’t want the guy snoring above them.

I didn’t sign up to ever be kept awake by a lover’s snores, so I certainly did not agree to be woken up and kept awake by a possum’s snores!

But! My revenge is Nye! I recently found out where he sleeps during the day (for some reason he moves on from the ceiling at some stage. Oh. I’m sorry. Do I make too much noise for you in my room below!). And I now have every intention of scratching and banging up a babalassing headache cacophony with occasional flashes of bright sunlight into his bloodshot boozer eyes!

Ha!

How I love digsmates.

Aussie Positivity

2009-11-24T02:44:00.000+02:00

And then it feels like the planets just realign. Or Karma finally says, “Ok, you’ve had enough negativity for now, lets add some positivity to this tale” and works her magic.

And the atmosphere around you changes.

Let alone several very sweet people, including some dear strangers, trying to work their magic to get me employed…

The woman from that Aussie company working for African charities has fought with her superiors to secure me back in the applicants list.

I want to just kiss her Aussie cheeks!

Which cheeks, I guess, depends on how well I get through the aptitude tests and interviews.

Maybe it was my spamming “But WHY don’t you want me” email campaign. Perhaps she found this blog & was reduced to tears of guilt. Or maybe she is just a good person like that.

Then, an out-of-the-blue random job I applied for – in that last minute reshuffle-a-cover-letter-&-email-in-the-CV- way - came back within a weekend and requested a meeting. The man found my cv “interesting”.

And this is a man to be reckoned with. Working for a company to be awed. A quick googling yesterday turned into hours of reading and feelings of intimidation.

So off I hobbled this morning at sun-break for a “coffee” meeting.

Fok.

It’s been a LONG while since these feet found themselves steering highheels on pavements. Only for me to walk straight past the office because I couldn’t really believe they are based in THAT company’s building. Seriously? Suits & finance people? And me???? And I can sit on a topper floor doing good??

I had to recheck my make-up in restaurant windows several times to ensure I did not look like a clown with badly applied make up. There amongst the rich folk.

He pretty much said that the job would not suit me. I’d be banging my head against the desk in boredom within a few months. Personal Assisting is not my place anymore. But he found my CV so interesting that he wanted to meet with me. And to fight for me to get a good job in the industry, because it needs impressive passionate people like me.

"Look. I know you can do this job. But I don't think you should be doing this job. But that doesn't mean it ends here & I leave you in the lurch".

Then I wanted to just kiss his Aussie cheeks.

He also told me that one of the companies that interviewed me ages ago & rejected me has a bad reputation anyway. (Funny how that works out. You tell yourself that at the time, but you don’t really believe it).

But now, that my feet are free from their arched straps, I best be getting back to job applying. Because as sugar sweet as this all is. I still have not signed on any dotted line and not secured anything. Other than 2 hours wages from today’s babysitting.