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.

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.

Point-by-Point by Tom Cat: Volume 4 (A pimping session)

Three Points to today’s Point-By-Point by Tom Cat – all pimp either me (heehee) or someone else.

1) Pimp Represent. omg omg omg I just LOVE this blogzine. It’s fresh, it’s crispy, it’s funky, and to me it represents everything that is FANTABULOUS about Joburg and South Africa in general. It should be a required stop everyday for any South-African-consciencious South Africaner.

From their website…

“Represent is a specialized one-stop, all inclusive information portal. It’s a lifestyle blogazine that has an eclectic mix of entertaining and enriching content ranging from the arts to technology. Because it is updated frequently like a blog and carries varying content like a magazine we have coined the term blogazine to best explain what Represent is.

The Represent community is made up of different citizens residing in various areas all over the world and our content is driven by the people who subscribe to it. Even though the Represent team supplies the content, the subscribers often generate some of the content on the blogazine making us all one big happy family!

Represent has been operating since February 2005 and has grown in leaps and bounds since then and by using word- of- mouth viral methodologies we have spread the word and continue to do so every single day.”

2) Pimp Putumayo. I’m sure you’ve all heard them or at least have seen them in Exclusive Books or CD stores. They are a collection of CDs from around the world – each CD comprising a collection of music from a specific part of this lovely globe. I have decided that I simply have to start collecting them, and my first CD is French Cafe which, surprise surprise, plays music that one would normally expect at a French Cafe. It makes me feel all soulful and mooooody, and very.. er.. Marie Curie mixed with Brigette Bardot and a twinge of Charles de Gaule (gasp!).

My favourite song on the CD is one by Sanseverino, who sings Mal o Mains. I have no fuggly clue what he’s singing about, but the combination of jazzy rhythms and French flair is enough to get me jumping about my room in drag. eish.

3) Pimp MYSELF. No, alas Kevallion Stallion and I did not get through to the finals for Moot, but I was placed (with four other people – shhhh) as 3rd best oralist, with 78% – which, for our friends from over the seas, is a distinction in SA. I was also happy today because I received my Competition Law assignment back, and also received a distinction there.

Alas – I still am in perpetual worry about my future, and I find myself in these periods of worry where I develop a good ol’ Victim Attitude (VA) to life and I think WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO. But then I snap out of it and continue with life in the present. But still – sigh – these periods bug me. Intensely. Perhaps I should go see a Clairvoyant who will tell me (hopefully) that this time next year I will be married to a rich dark handsome man with lots of money.

Oh yah… Hope you liked my use of colour in this post. The hospital-green of my blog is simply TOO terrible. But alas, I cannot change it.

Point-by-Point by Tom Cat – Volume 3 (A two-week catch-up!)

Yes, Yes, I know it has been a gazillion years since my last blog post.

 Indeed, as Angel opined, I had gone kyknoord. Which, I think means I went AWOL.

The truth is that I have just had so much work to get done. It has been an incredibly busy two/three weeks, with difficult assignments due, many gazillions of meetings, academic talks, and of course, lots of bunny hopping to do.

 To give you an itemised list of what I have been doing…

• Academic Talks by…
  • Armartya Sen - a Nobel Prize-winning developmental economist (1)
  • Nadine Gordimer - a Nobel prize-winning author (1)
  • Trevor Manuel - our minister of finance (1)
  • Edwin Cameron - a Supreme Court of Appeal judge (2)
  • Faarooq Manghere – director of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Project (1) and,
  • Fikile Vilakazi – director of the Centre for African Lesbians (1).

    The first four took the form of a conversation, where Armatya Sen talked a lot about economics that I’m afraid I didn’t really know much about. His accent also wasn’t the most coherent, and so I struggled to hear him, and instead ended up checking out who was in the audience, which resembled of Who’s-Who of Joburg’s academic arty-farty elite. The last three took the form of a student forum, which my society (Wits Model UN), as well as Golden Key and the Law Students Council all co-organised, and it involved a public forum discussion surrounding the issues of gay rights etc etc etc. It was quite stimulating (I thought) and students appeared to enjoy it, which you can find here if you really wish… http://www.youtube.com/joburgtom  

• Oh yah. One other academic talk we (Kev and I) went to was one given by Ruthann Robson, who can be considered the ‘Mother’ of Lesbian legal theory, is a visiting professor from an American university. Anyone, she talked about sexual constructs which we create in society, which was very interesting and indeed mind-opening. She ended off with this question: “If a man wishes to legalise his sexual relationship with his dog, and he claims that the both he and the dog do this consentually, should we allow him to do it? No, of course not! But just consider the fact that the argument we are using to say No, is the exact same argument other people used to justify the criminalisation of homosexuality – ie that it’s unnatural and that it just can’t possibly be consentual.”Ok.. so yah.. even liberal-ass me finds it a bit of a whacky concept to get one’s head around, but it’s nevertheless an interesting argument, and I think it could be applied to say, for instance, two consentual adult brothers wishing to legalise their sexual relationship.
• Afterwards, Kev and I (and Kev’s new boyfriend, our friend Angelo) went to Ants in Melville. I think I have blogged about this restaurant before (maybe on my blog), but i simply have to blog about it again, because I LOVE IT!!! The restaurant is rather rustic in it’s nature, but it serves the best pasta, and chasing the pasta done with a good glass of red wine just fills with such joy. It’s the type of joy that just is.

  Afterwards, we went to the Oh bar, which although isn’t normally anything to blog about, will be blogged about today because I got a cool shot of the ceiling… I think it looks incredibly 70’s disco.

  

• Besides all the academic talks, we also were given a lecture by Edwin Cameron. He gave us a lecture in our HIV/AIDS and the law course, specifically on how the criminal law can and does interact with HIV/AIDS. I have sort of forgotten the gist of what he had to say (I know, I know, bad student are I), but I remember it being fascinating, and that’s all that matter really.
• Somewhere in the past two weeks, a whole bunch of us also went to go see the musical Hair at Montecasino. The cast was really quite excellent, and they sang with such passion. I also thought they were very brave when suddenly they all appeared out of nowhere NAKED. *gasp* And they just pranced about willy-nilly (hehe – my use of puns are cleva, neh?) without any inhibitions. I was also suprised when I saw a guy that I once went on a date with. It was, incidentally, one of the worst dates I had ever been on, because I ended up having more of a bond with his straight male friends than him, but I still felt imporant and stuff cos I knew someone from the cast. heee heee.

  Anyway, afterwards we went to the new lifestyle extension at Montecasino, which as far as fake Italian goes, is not bad. And coming from me – that’s something. They have a musical fountain too, and I took a video. I hope it comes out. If it doesn’t, then go here… http://www.youtube.com/joburgboy, and have a look for it somewhere on that page!

• Other than that, I have been lank busy with assignments, bru. I have had Competition Law and Moot to get through, and they both been incredibly looooong and incredibly difficult. Moot was perhaps the most interesting one, as we got a topic and you have to argue for both the applicants and the respondents. In this case, the applicants was this NGO who represented people who had been raped, murdered etc, and they wanted to hold the government responsible under the constitution for failing to secure their rights to freedom and security of the person, life and dignity. One works in teams, and so Keval did the applicants, and I did the respondents. And I found it really difficult because we found in many of the issues raised that the government simply didn’t have much of a defence. Procedures weren’t followed and certain core constitutional obligations were totally disregarded. So I ended making up THE most whacked up and convoluted arguments for the government. It wasn’t really that fun.
• But it’s over now, and I am preparing to enjoy my weekend. Today is Freedom Day in South Africa – 13 years ago, South Africa went to the polls to vote in the first truly democratic elections. The country is now a teenager, and isshowing all the volatility and promise that a country of this age would typically show. It makes me proud to be a citizen of a nation that is so young and has such room for improvement.

  HAPPY BDAY SOUTH AFRICA!

  

• Before I leave, I must note that I haven’t checked this post for spelling errors and the like. And so I apologise in advance.

Point-by-Point by Tom Cat: Volume 2 (DHA = GR)

• The Department of Home Affairs is the most useless fucking government department in South Africa. Sarah and I went to the Edenvale office today to collect various documentation, namely a passport and ID for Sarah, and an ID for me. After waiting in the queue for an hour, we got to the front, and were dealt with in the rudest and most arrogant way I have ever experienced. L. Tsebe (name and shame tactics rock) was incompetent, arrogant, nasty and a general pain in the butt. The Department is equally useless, having smudged Sarah’s fingerprints and not bothering to tell her about it. So now she has to reapply again. Her ID was ready, luckily, and although I applied on the same day, my ID was not ready. I’m convinced that it was ready, but L. Tsebe was simply tired of seeing my face and wanted me out and away from his sight. But whatever. I wrote a nasty note (and I never write nasty, for I understand what it feels like to be behind the counter) about what a useless department the DHA is, and although I know my complaint was not going to be taken seriously, I told them that the entire country (and much of Africa too, if you think about it, with it’s useless Refugee section that messes entire families about – and I know this too because of my work in the Refugee Clinic)… anyway, I told them that the ENTIRE country perceives them as THE most useless institution ever, and they should be ashamed to work in such a crap place.

  In retrospect, perhaps I was being a bit harsh. But it’s really not my fault they’re a bunch of fuggin useless sloths with no brain cells. They reminded me of my ex-boss: a bland brick wall.I am angry, as you can see.

• I have got so much work to do. Sooooo much work to do. I am fucked. Fuck.
• No one has phoned me for a job position next year. I am beyond the point of caring. I don’t even want articles anymore. Right now all I want is a law clark position at the Contitutionl Court (deliberately misspelt so that the search engines don’t pick it up). The working environment looks fantastic, it’s something that i’m really passionate about, and it’ll be an experience that is akin to gold. Either that, or I’m going to go study an MPhil in Justice and Transformation at the University of Cape Town.Study? STUDY?Yes, Study. My foggies turned around to me the other day and suggested that I consider other plans for next year, like studying. I was like (in my head, of course): “HELLO! What have I been saying for the past 3 months?” But I still love them muchly. And I’m quite glad that the pressure to find articles has lifted. Slightly.
• Talking about families, tomorrow I am going away on holiday. I am sooooo excited! I cannot wait to smell the fresh sea air again! And what’s even nicer is that I am going down with my whole family. We haven’t been together on holiday since I was about 12, and so it’s going to be a really nice experience reliving our trips down to the coast as a family. My dad used to scream at my sister for never remembering what an arrestabed was (I know – arb, but it was important to him), and I used to scream at the top of my lungs that my dad needs to find a parking space because “the sea is running away”… ie, the waves.I will be taking my laptop down, so hopefully the blog will be getting regular updates. I’ll be able to show you photos like…

  

  Ja. Nee. Bet you’re jealous, neh?

• Lastly, I cannot tell you how much I am addicted to Facebook. It is simply, scary.