The sky might be falling on our heads!

But, logically speaking, it probably isn’t.

Over the past year or so I have been starting to feel a little despondent. Not an easily-locatable (apparently Microsoft agrees that that is in fact a word), deep sense of depression. Rather a kind of settling sense of dejection that I was not, in fact, the proverbial Big Cheese. For someone with my sense of self-importance, this is an alarming realisation.

However, the latest set of news is good. My ship may actually be coming in, albeit one wooden board, one nail and one sail at a time. I have just been offered a short internship at a major law firm. While I thought I had actually made up my mind to pursue the life of an academic, I cannot ignore the lure of a corporate environment, nor deny my desperate itch to want to wear Jenny Button. This unfortunately will involve losing the weight equivalent to a Backstreet Boy, since ol’ JB doesn’t make clothes for anyone over a size 2.

In other good news, I found a way to motivate myself to write. A little ‘Dear Editor’ letter later, and a nice wooden box turned up at my door. Ever a fan of wooden boxes, I was extremely excited. Until I thought a little further and actually opened the box. What greeted me was a Jeroboam (3l bottle, for those of you unfamiliar with the term) of Pinotage. Oh joy! That is far better than anyone’s praise!

Thus this week begins on an unusually upbeat note. All of a sudden I have goals and ambition and such things that are good for motivation.

Who knows, I may even write some…

Book caption: Avoiding Death

A just-before-middle-mid-life-crisis

Yes, it is an official medical term and yes, I am suffering from it. It’s the feeling that creeps in when all your friends are moving into the next phase of life, and you are stagnating like a puddle of water in the Jukskei stream. They all have new jobs, are becoming real people and have real responsibilities. You, however, are still holed up in the Academia bubble which is Stellenbosch, pretending the real world never existed. 

You want to dress like a rockstar and look like a model, but your energy levels just do not accommodate such luxuries. You want a fancy car, but then you realise that you walk everywhere and not only can you not afford the premiums or the lifestyle, you can’t afford petrol. You eye out the pretty first year in your class, until you realise that he was in Std 4 when you were in College. Disgusting. It’s not paedophilia, it’s just silly. I doubt the boy can even relate to “I got hugs for you/if you were born in the 80’s/the 80’s”. 

You get annoyed with people in Mercury, because you’re “Too old for this shit”, and at the same time lament the fact that you no longer know anyone in Bohemia because, when you went out, you used to be the big cheese. It’s a mission to go out on a Wednesday night (because there are like, other people there), but you hate to go out on a Monday where it feels dead. 

I’m officially stuck in the twilight which is the space between real life, and the endless ream of paperwork which is post-grad living. 

On an unrelated topic, but one completely worth mentioning, Vulcans are amazingly hot. They strike the right balance with me. 

Go forth and prosper. 

Saturday Night Lites

Dinner party with the sis

In an effort to be a good girl, and not to party unnecessarily, I was going to stay home this Saturday night. Again. Also, I have this annoying little cashflow problem that I am dealing with at the moment. How it works is that the ATM doesn’t want to give me money when I try and draw it because I have ‘insufficient funds’. I’m no doctor, but that doesn’t sound good.

In any case, this sense of resolve lasted roughly 18 seconds, or enough time for me to decide that it wasn’t worth it. The sister-lawyer apparently had some buddies doing burgers at Royale, so I decided to hit that. Unfortunately, after the age of 25, ‘doing burgers at Royale’ no longer means a bunch of people who can’t really afford it plan on going out for burgers and the cheapest drinks they can find, but rather a birthday dinner party. To which I had not received an invite. Oops.

Now grown up people think that the best way not to overstay one’s welcome is to be quiet in the corner and unobtrusive. My way, however, is to chat to everyone I see and become the life of the party. I must be growing up though, since I stopped short of proposing a toast to the birthday girl and leading everyone in a terrible rendition of “For she’s a jolly good fellow”. I say that, but actually it would have more likely been a chorus of “She comes from Finland, what do we call her? Finnish! Finnish!” Not my finest moments. I of course ended up telling silly stories about making viennas in the kettle and even used the line “It’s not quite Viennese coffee.”

In any case, I now had dinner dates with wine-marketer and wine-marketer’s-wine-maker boyfriend. I hope the boy doesn’t mind, but really, I’m not sure it will make too much difference. In any case, I went out on Long Street, wore my unnecessarily weird little space boots and generally had a good time. So much for a sense of resolve!

Invigilation

If you read my blog, you have probably come to the conclusion that I have pretty much the best job that anyone can ask for. You may be right. I am happy. No Dilbert-esque complaints for me (although I do enjoy the sadistic advantage of sending them to stressed-out friends who made the asinine choice to join the rat race). However, the only part of it I’m not particularly fond of is the actual ‘work’ aspect, so currently it really annoys me.

Yes, there have been many Farmville-filled days, oodles of hours spent idle scrolling through the vast amount of internet-filth which clogs up my newsfeed and many minutes spent chuckling over cartoons like this:

But now, alas, the brief summer of our youth is over and it’s time to put foot to the grindstone, nose to the wheel, eyes to the heavens…that style ‘o fing.


What I am referring to is the worst aspect of any working, post-graduate étudiante’s life: invigilation. If it were only the simple task of watching students sweat it out over tests they have only half-studied for, I wouldn’t mind at all. 2 hours can easily be whiled away playing battleships or hangman. No, it is the preparation that kills me. First, I have to fight my own department to give me the test papers, as if I am asking them some serious favour. Then, there is the inevitable attempt to gain access to the keys from the caretaker of the relevant building. One basically has to pry the keys out of his hand, his eyes now nothing more than malevolent slits, your own heart beating so fast you think “Am I doing something wrong?” Like when a cop pulls you over and you instantly start lying about everything out of sheer panic.


The “Thou shalt not pass” key thing exasperates me intensely. It’s not only the building caretakers who have it, but the same reaction appears anywhere with someone in a not-so-important position with a hint of power. The secretary with the bathroom key. The tea lady who guards the coffee jar. All of them use their one hold over you to exercise some grasp of power, as if making that little part of your day shit will somehow validate their trifling existence. Do I speak too harshly? Perhaps. Clearly their pitiable attempt to infuriate me has worked. Dang.

What a wonderful weekend

It’s probably time to re-enter the blogosphere. The reason I have been somewhat amiss amounts to me doing some actual WORK (believe it or nuts). Of course, when I say work, I mean personal work, writing stories and applying for bursaries. Whatever, at least it’s not facebook.


The towers came down this weekend.Towers falling I missed it, but then again E-tv news described it as ‘the mother of all anti-climaxes’. I didn’t feel bad. Of course, had you listened to the radio as they came down you would have thought that something far more momentous had happened. I mean, sure, 50 years of history and part of the skyline and blah blah blah but seriously? People said they were going to “miss them”. How? In what way were polluting monstrosities part of your life? Then people wondered how they were “going to give directions to their houses now”. Look in front of you. See that MASSIVE Mountain, dominating the skyline? The big one? The one we’re famous for? See if you can use that as a guide.


It’s at times like this when I wonder if there is really nothing sacred. We can drum up that level of ridiculous sentimentality for a building, and yet a headline that reads “100’s raped outside DRC UN camp” can pass us by unnoticed. It saddens me. But then I have the same feelings towards people who will fight tooth and nail for animal rights, but have no qualms about the millions of people living like animals next door to them. In the words of a close friend, “I will henceforth refer to vegetarians, environmentalists and animal rights activists by their collective noun: "Communists."


On a lighter note, the boy decided that since I had missed the momentous occasion, and clearly needed comfort for the loss of my dear towers, I deserved to be wined and dined and treated like a little princess. We swanned into a little French wine farm Allee Bleue just outside of Franschoek for a little wine tasting. The wines were, well, average bit for the price, very well suited. Go with whites if you ever stop by. We decided to head to the restaurant for their awesome R99 steak n wine special. But my oh my. If you are looking to have steak that doesn’t require you to re-mortgage your house to afford it, and yet you don’t want to have to go to Spur, this is the place for you.


There were linen tablecloths, and linen napkins. Silver butter-dishes. These are the things that make life worthwhile. I don’t care if that makes me a snob; I like things to be proper. If at all possible I would have my evening meal brought to me on the ring of a bell, by a well-trained and highly obedient little Creole boy.


Enough of my bigotry for one day. Sufficed to say that a lovely glass of Pinotage and a juicy piece of fillet was enough to bring on the illusive, but well-documented steak dance, which I performed to the delight and immense joy of all the staff. I feel that I enriched them.


Now go forth and find steak!

Dreams

Granted, people’s dreams do not interest me. Especially when someone says “Oh my, I had the craziest dream last night! It was, like, well, in this um, well, in like a…” You don’t remember it. Surprise, surprise. However, thank you for making unintellgible chit-chat with me before my morning coffee. You make me want to kick a squirrel.



But dreams are topical things right now, since apparently the conversation-opener one-liner of choice is ‘Have you seen Inception?’ If your answer is yes, undoubtedly there will be someone in the near vicinity who hasn’t and will protest vehemently at any discussion thereof. If your answer is no, you are that person. As a conversation-starter, I believe it is the linguistic equivalent of ‘FAIL’. Conversation fail

(Spoiler Alerts)
 Lately my dreams have been scarily real to the point of worry. As in, I sometimes can’t remember whether something happened in reality, or whether it happened in a dream. Luckily, I am in no way important enough for anyone to want to try inception on me, so we can rule that out. What does concern me is why my subconscious is apparently such an awful person.


Take last night for example: After the boy found ‘missing funds’ from an illegal transaction on his account, I accused my five year old brother of stealing from him. Only when he politely told me that he had also had money stolen from his piggy bank did I consider that we had perhaps been pick-pocketed. How did I know it was a dream? I accused a FIVE YEAR OLD of internet phishing. Apparently subconscious me would accuse her own brother of stealing.


Or perhaps the dream from Monday. I stole from the elderly. At a charity event. To buy shoes.


What is wrong with me? Now if these absurdly real dreams start becoming memories, I might start thinking I’m that bad a person. Or not. I don’t know, because no-one else does either. Why is it that we can put a man on the moon but we don’t even understand how we came up with the idea in the first place?

The Resident (Evil) pigeons are back

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am fond of small cheepy little birds. No, that’s also a lie. I was a fan of cheepy little birds until three of them became co-residents in my fourth-year flat. I now loathe cheepy little birds (especially those who like to wake at 7am).



I like hornbills. They seem harmless, like old bergies. I love soaring birds of prey, possibly because they have never viewed my tender behind as a target. The new Cadbury’s advert with the ostrich who wants to fly touches my heart.Ostrich Flight


I would think twice before tucking into a delicious side of swan (but probably only twice, since not eating it once it had been expertly killed, skinned and prepared should be a criminal offence).


However, I acknowledge the terror that can be struck into the heart of any innocent victim attacked by birds. Hitchcock's 'Birds'


This morning I was contentedly waltzing down my stairs to hang up washing before work, singing quietly to myself and generally in a half-asleep, happy daze. I heard the reverberating ‘coo co-coo’ of a pigeon and assumed there was one in the roof. Then POW! I was woken from my gentle slumber by the HORROR! Oh the Horror.


Daddy pigeon flies up off the nesting spot, straight at my head, squawking and flapping, and, since my stairwell is a tiny little corridor, his insane bird shrieks echo around the building. I drop my washing, grab onto my hair in case he gets stuck in it (wait, is that bats? Who knows? In the moment of terror you panic and cover anything you hold dear). Mommy pigeon goes all crazy cooing downstairs, adding to the general mayhem of the situation. I’m now also shrieking, using expletives to get the damn thing away. It finally worked and they went back to silently brooding at me from on top of the electricity box.


As if I REALLY wanted to steal your stupid little pigeon egg?


The bad news is that this was only the first time. Considering pigeon eggs have an incubation period of 17 or so days, this could be a very terrifying month. Phobia

It’s about that time again

That time where I get to sell my soul to the corporation so they will filter some money into my dwindling account so that next year will continue to be fruitful and rewarding.



Oh the life of a student!


That said, this week I have achieved much more to my personal growth and development. I made a new friend, I climbed a mountain (or at least a very small part of the foot of it), I sat on the swings in the park and I wrote a story. I feel enriched as a human being.  


As for my thesis, na da.

The procrastination is getting worse, since there are so many other things to fill up my time.


Oh well.

How to decode what a woman is saying:

Men and women are such different creatures. A woman will complain about wearing uncomfortable shoes (even though they are GORGEOUS) while a man stares at her incredulously. No man would ever buy a pair of uncomfortable shoes. Ever. 

Because there appears to be a cosmic gap between what we say and what we mean, perhaps this little guide should be pasted in a convenient place for every guy. That way, while having a conversation, he can refer to the key to be more in touch with what is actually going on. Captain Subtext and Second-in-Command Sergeant Insinuation can be troublesome opponents, but here are a few weapons to help you in battle:

1. Yes = No
2. No = Yes
3. Maybe = No
4. We need = I want
5. I am sorry = You'll be sorry
6. We need to talk = You're in trouble
7. Sure, go ahead = You better not
8. Do what you want = You will pay for this later
9. I am not upset = Of course, I am upset, you moron!
10. It's fine = Oh HELL, no!

Reasons I like Mondays

1. You feel better than you did on Sunday.

2. Coffee at work is free.
3. No-one expects you to party.
4. You have at least three days to make resolutions of how hard you intend to work before it becomes Thursday and you realise you have achieved nothing.
5. No-one else is in a better mood than you.