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Point-by-Point by Tom Cat (Volume 6): Devil of Exams – BE GONE! *poof*

These are arbitrary ramblings because I wish to ramble….

1. I am as happy as a bee because I finished my exams today. I should now hopefully be in possession of a law degree. How is that? One day I was in school, the next day I was writing the last exam of my law degree. Alas I cannot say I am a qualified attorney or advocate…. But I can say I am a qualified legal advisor. heh heh. My exams (I think) generally went well, but I don’t really want to say so because when I do say so I end up doing really crap. And I cannot afford to fail anything, not just because… well, you shouldn’t fail anything, but because it would involve me having to come back from Japan early to write a supplementary exam. This could not only mean that I might have to write an exam on my birthday, but it would mean I would have to fork out a gargantuan amount to come back on an early flight.

2. Which leads me to my second point. I am also happy as a bee because in two weeks I should be shopping around in Osaka for a new camera (which will lead me to point three in a moment). I don’t think I have ever been so excited for a holiday before. Japan looks like an absolutely fascinating place, but I think what is going to make my holiday particularly exciting is that I’m going to be going with two very special monkeys of mine. What also makes me excited is the lights – oh, the lights. Observe a photo I took from the user ‘Magician’ on skyscrapercity.com. It is of the lights in Shinjuku, an area of Tokyo that looks just up my alley. yay.

3. My third point relates to the camera I am going to buy. My old camera – a Casio Exilim Z500 – died a lonely death a few months back when the lens melted. I was terribly careless with it, and certainly used it like crazy (loved it too!), so am very sad that it is no longer. I am thus looking for a new one, and I have identified two new ones that are dirt cheap in Japan.

The Z-1080 will cost Y28 800 (R1800) and will give me a 10mp camera that comes in five colours (pink, gold, blue, black and grey). In addition, it comes with a special video mode that was specially created to be YouTube-compatible. And it contains software which makes uploading to YouTube easy-peasy.

The Z-1800 will cost Y32 200 (R2012) and will give me a 12mp camera. It only comes in black and grey. It has blur reduction and will take proper photos when you’re a shaker, like me.

I’m currently leaning towards the Z-1080 because a) I’m not exactly going to take a 12-mp photo that will be like 1000Mbs big, b) I like the YouTube option on the Z-1080 and c) I like the fact that I can get it in pink. (I won’t, however. I think I shall get in blue)

4. My fourth point relates to the funny crap that is now on DSTV. The satelite provider has I think got a little nervous about the new satelite providers that are due to come on board pretty soon, and so has reorganised the ENTIRE system into one big mess. They call it the ‘DSTV Shuffle.’ Bitch, please.

It’s not easy remembering where channels are, you know. Now you have to remember that this channel is on 238, and this one is on 117. So in order to satisfy my craving for doing something mindless, I went channel flicking.

I came across TBN (Trinity Broadcating Network). There was a show about some pastor from Nigeria who was claiming to heal people. People would come on to the stage, and he would direct them to stand in a certain way (“You must stand this way… A little to the left… Right hand on shoulder”), and then the husband would say, “DEVIL OF ASTHMA, BE CURED!!!!!” And then the wife would faint (most dramatically I admit), and the crowd would roar with approval and sing hallelujah and PRAISE THE LORD. And then the smug pastor would say…. “Yah… Yah… Look at the power of Jesus blah blah blah” and then the sheep in the audience would look at him adoringly and they would cry and jump around looking like gorillas on crack.

One must ask how different this form of fundamentalism is to the crazy dude who flew United Airlines flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania whilst repeatingly saying that Allah is on his side. I would say that is as bad, because although this ‘pastor’ is not leading his congregationg into a field in Pennsylvania, he is leading them into a path of complete stupidity where they are fixated towards a concocted view of Christianity. And the problem with this blind belief is that it can, and has led people to kill others in the name of this belief and where there is no concept at all of a middle ground.

Obviously the channel (or rather the TV programme) should not be taken off the air because it can hardly be said to incite people to commit violence against others. But I do think it incites and encourages people to be sheep in a world that needs us to NOT be one. And I do think that we in South Africa must be careful that we do not adopt a standard in our lives that does not involve questioning people, whether that be religion, politics or the fact that your garbage hasn’t been picked up for two weeks. And I think that we might find ourselves having that tendancy especially where we are merrily travelling along the road to increased economic prosperity where our shopping clouds any sense of judgement or questioning we might once have had.

5. Which leads me on to my fifth point. So I don’t know if you know, but Gordon Brown and his clan of gypsies are in big shit because somehow a whole bunch of private information relating to 25-million Britons has gone missing and might be in the hands of some dodgy person who might use the information to do bad stuff – like marry you. I have found the debates in the House of Commons to be so interesting because Gordon Brown has actually been apologising profusely for the blunder and has taken full responsibility for it.

But what I think is most astounding for me is that Mr Brown is actually taking the blame for it. And the idea is so foreign because, in South Africa, it is a foreign idea. Can you imagine just for once Thabo Mbeki or Manto Tshabalala-Msimang actually taking the rap for the many blunders they have taken? On the contrary, if they are criticised such criticisms are de facto considered to be completely unjustified and inspired by an underlying motive to disempower them. And, as was shown by the sacking of our deputy Health-minister, are often blatantly kicked out.

So yah – watching British parliamentary debate certainly does show the long road South Africa still has to go.

5. And my last point is that I have another date tomorrow with my boyfriend. He rox.

Madam & Eve on HIV Denialism

I don’t have much time to write anything substantive, because I need to preserve what little mental energy I have for rebutting that irrebutable subject known as the Law of Evidence, which is proving to be quite the evidentiary burden to discharge.

And there is actually a lot to say…. I wanted to write about radio stations (idea came from a new blogger - YAY – who commented on my post below) and I wanted to write about how I have been glowing today because of The Mac, whom I am getting rather fond of. But these things will have to wait for another time.

 For now, I am going to post a Madam & Eve cartoon. I have been reading Madam & Eve for a very long time, and I think they are absolutely fantastic in their humorous and acute renditions of South Africa today. I think they were an invaluable education tool and helped me become more aware of the country I live in.

The cartoon below was drawn up in some particularly dark days of South Africa, when government refused to recognise the link between HIV and Aids and refused to give out free anti-reteroviral treatment. That actually leads me to another thing which my blog must investigate – the outbreak of diarrhoea in Limpopo which the cause thereof, according to the TAC, is not being recognised by government officials. But again – that must come another time.

 Here is the cartoon. I love it, for I love dry senses of humour.

 It was only once the TAC took the government to court did they finally provide free and universal anti-reteroviral treatment. It’s still disappointing, however, that there are many other ARVs that do not have as harsh side effects as current ARVs, which are still unavailable either because the prices are still too high or because government has simply not allowed it’s distribution in SA. Again, another topic to discuss on another day. Oi Vey.

Kisses. x

The Dream Deferred

So remember I spoke last week about that article written by Mark Gevisser? Well, I went to his public lecture this evening which was really very interesting. He is an acute person who I think has very unique insights into South Africa. He expresses himself eloquently too, and one looks up to him a great deal because of this.

He gave a fascinating presentation of Thabo Mbeki’s life, and illustrated how his history and where he comes from has very much shaped the way he sees the world. I’m not going to go into it right now, not only because I am tired and wish to go snooze, but because I think it is all eloquently explained in his book, The Dream Deferred. The title of the book is based on a poem by Langston Hughes, which goes like this:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

From my understanding of what Mark Gevisser was saying, the dream is that of a utopic Africa, encompassing our aspirations as a united South Africa – the typical rainbow nation construct, where we all live happily together as one. We certainly held this dream aloft in 1994, and held it up high in 1995 and 2007 (our rugby world cup victories, for instance), but do we allow it to defer and sag like a heavy load?

The answer, of course, is that we do, because our cynicism overrides any high aspirations that we have. We either have these high aspirations, or we don’t (remember the dichotomy between the two extremes in SA?), and there is no middle ground in South Africa.

Gevisser’s interpretation of Mbeki’s idea of the dream is that it explodes, perhaps into a million little pieces that again become dreams. And so Mebki encapsulates his ideas of the African Renaissance, for instance, where we remember our roots and embrace them to continue realise our dreams.

We have this idea in our lives that the ultimate goal in life is to reach home base – we fight and we struggle and strive towards this goal. Gevisser says that we have reached that home – we have reached that goal where by and large we are, for want of a better word, free. And for sure there are instances where we are not free, and our home is by no means perfect, but we must realise that home is the platform upon which we build our dreams for the future.

I recommend you all go read the book, not only because I think it is going to give us insight into our ‘complex and clever’ president, but because it should be essentially reading for any concerned citizen of South Africa. Proviso: One should not read this book as being a complete appraisal of Mbeki, because it isn’t. It’s merely a look at the world through Mbeki’s eyes.

That is all. Goodbye. x

ps: there was an annoying man during the talk who loudly told a panelist to keep quiet for she was talking too long. Irrespective of how long this person talks, I think he was being rude, and he should be ashamed of himself.

pps: i loved how Mark Gevisser said he was a proud Johannesburger because we were a bright and intelligent city with lots of buzz. And you could see this in the massive turn out. I thought – ‘yeah baby!’

ppps: only 21 more sleeps to go before Japan!

pppps: i have a date on Saturday night with an uber sexy and naaaice bee.

The picture below? I couldn’t think what picture to put in, so I put my photo in of this park in Killarney. I loved how the Jacarandas bloomed to make this natural archway.

Point-by-Point by Tom Cat: Volume 5 (Three WONDERFUL points!)

So whilst I am jamming to the sounds of Mango Groove, I thought it would be best to write a Point-by-Point post because a) I have not done so in a while and b) there are many points I need to update ya’ll on regarding my three-month disappearance into the abyss of deep, dark and scary Joburg.

1. My future is finally sorted out. I got articles at a small firm about five minutes from where I stay. I worked there part time for about 10 weeks or so (seems like longer, actually), and besides the really short commute to work, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. The people were really nice and friendly, but I felt my mind was being wasted on the work I was doing there. I didn’t feel challenged at all, and I don’t think that was because of what work I was allocated, but it was because I don’t think commercial law and general litigation excites me terribly. I kept on contrasting this to the work that I did at the law clinic in the Refugee Unit, and I really enjoyed that because I felt I was doing something more meaningful. One of the cases we had was an appeal for an asylum seeker who had been denied refugee status – hearing his story and crafting his case for him was perhaps one of the most satisfying tasks I have ever performed, and I felt this way because the work that I was doing would to a large degree influence the direction he takes in life. And so I decided then that the work I need to go into has to make me feel like I’m having an impact on the greater scheme of things, and feeling this way is important to me because (at least for now) it gives me a far greater sense of identity.

So you can understand perhaps that I was feeling rather depressed about the prospects of doing my articles at this firm for two years. I was dreading work because of the work I was doing. Which is why I was overly ecstatic the day I got the email saying that I had been awarded the SAIIA-KAS Scholarship. This scholarship entails me working as a research intern at an international affairs think-tank at Wits University whilst simulataneously doing a Masters in Human Rights law. I will mainly be involved in research, but also organising events (I think), so it’ll be at work that’s exciting and not mundane. I cannot tell you how delighted I am, and how grateful I am to the Karma that be that I have got this opportunity. It makes me smile just thinking about it, and that’s what I like to do when thinking about my future.

2. I am going to Japan in just over 3 weeks time. YAY! I am going with Shakti to visit Sarah, and we are all very excited. We are going to Sapporo, Tokyo and this small town called Ueno in the Kansai region, which is very near it seems to Kyoto and Osaka. Going to be there until the 9th of January, so will be there for a month and a bit. I’m hoping I’ll be able to blog there, and I think I will given the propensity of the Japanese towards technology and the widespread provision of free Wifi internet access.

3. I recently returned from an AMAZING trip to Cape Town. I went down there for a Model UN conference as I was tutoring a bunch of kids from Kimberly in the Northern Cape province. It was amazing because I met some wonderful people and we had a wonderful time! I finally got to explore Long Street, and find myself really enjoying this one bar called Joburg. hehe. But also had such an amazing time because they took us to tour some fascinating places, including the Holocaust Centre and Robben Island. It was ALSO amazing because I met a lovely British boy there who had taught all over the world and knew about a thousand languages. And so he would read to me in Spanish and French and I would go gaga. I also found him rather yummy. I think the best afternoon was the Sunday afternoon we went for sundowners at Camps Bay. It was not only filled with excellent company, wicked cocktails, sinfully divine ice creams from ‘Sinful,’ but the afternoon ended with this amazing sunset over the ocean. Sigh… I could so easily move to Cape Town. SO easily. Indeed it all ended too quickly (most unfortunately) and I had to come back to 3 weeks of hell at university. But I shall never forget it, and the best part of it all was that it was all paid for and that I’m getting paid for tutoring the kiddlie winks. SCORE, i tell you.

Some photos for ya’ll…

1. I love this shot of all of us at Camps Bay because I think it captures the essence of the fun we had.

2. The Boy, me (the gargoyle sunglasses still need to be replaced) and one of the teachers from Kenya.

3. My little tuttlings from Kimberly. They did an admirable job of representing Brazil on three topics – i) Climate Change (Brazil’s cows emit a lot of methane – bet you didn’t know that!), ii) HIV/Aids and stigmatisation and iii) Child labour.