Dirty reveals

Both the message and the delivery are incredibly cool:
By Roland Tiangco.

from Haven Press

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Bite me

She says: "Look! Your foot is turning blue!" As though it were a good thing. The girl, who is about ten years old and wearing a floral dress, is pointing at my left foot with her index finger and smiling up at me. I am sitting on her parent's bed in a cottage on some resort near Sun City.

It was my confirmation present, for having affirmed my belief in God ( which I now battle to affirm), and my friend and I went along with a group of German exchange students who were placed at various homes around the country. The idea was to go to Sun City and have some bonding fun.

At the resort we were staying at they had a swimming pool and my friend and I decided late night to go swimming because it was so warm and we didn't want to play cards ( what is it with the German obsession to play cards at night?!) . So we put on our flip-flops and headed to the pool. Walking past the last chalets to go to the pool I felt a slight sting on my toe and saw an insect scurrying away. As we walked on, my left foot started to go numb and we asked a family who had just arrived if I could sit on their bed while my friend went to fetch the adults. I make it sound all cool now, but in reality I was panicking and my friend wasn't doing much better.

So the ambulance gets called, the accompanying adults arrive, my foot goes blue and some first aid guy from Sun City arrives in time to poke holes in my arms without finding any veins. He is the reason I fear giving blood now. I am sorry, but blood donation is not an option because of that poking. Have my organs instead ( when I die, please don't come stealing them from me now).

The ambulance from Rustenburg arrives, they find a vein, and lock and load, off to the city's hospital. We drive for about an hour to get to Rustenburg and I get to inhale some pure oxygen (?) along the way.

When we arrive at the hospital, the doctor is from Sri Lanka. He takes one look at my baby-blue foot and says: "Oh, it must not have been that poisonous. You can go home now."

All the drama for nothing. What a disappointing scorpion bite that was.

Un/real ( another lesson learnt)

We were talking about you behind your back. We were saying how we cannot comprehend your choice, how we could not do what you do, not now, not yet, maybe not ever. I don't know if it is worse to talk about someone when they are not present or to say to them what one thinks and thereby hurts their feelings. What is worse? Maybe one should just not say anything at all. 

Whenever I observe people and listen to what they talk about, it is interesting to see that everyone is lonely. We are surrounded by more possibilities of interaction than ever before, we can be on-line, communicating with strangers or friends or family or simply other people, and yet, the emotion that binds us is loneliness. Yes, love and hate and envy and joy and the Pandora's box of emotional reactions is natural to everyone, too, but I think we are all lonelier than we can admit. 

One of my lecturer's said that when we walk around or go to work or whatever, whenever we are in the company of others, all we want is an acknowledgement of existence. Someone to say, yes, ja, you there, I see you. You are here to me. Somehow we crave interaction but loathe it at the same time: it is easier to know what is going on in someone else's life by simply checking their Facebook or now, Google plus site. It is easier to be a voyeur than to actually speak to a person. I know, I am quite good at wasting my time reading people.com and honing my voyeuristic tendencies. 

I wonder if it will change, or if in the future we will all disappear behind the profiles on social networking sites,  behind avatars, behind screens and photoshopped images. Will we all chose to project unreality and a created persona, rather than presenting ourselves, as we are? This is quite a dilemma: in an age where manipulation of images and the creation of a personality are expected, where the search for absolute truth has changed to a search for absolute perfection, where every 10-year-old owns a better phone than their parents, hmm, in an age where we are not expected to be us, how can we? 

When we were talking about you and your choices and how we think you are lonelier than you let on, I say just talk about it. There is no need to fear being rejected or being judged ( well, if you gossip about someone I guess you are already judging them, so perhaps that ship has sailed). I like people more when they are real and troubled and problematic and strange and human than when they are an illusion of perfection. 

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Moredom

photo taken by me, in Berlin, 2008

People ask: "So, what do you want to do with your life?"
As though I should have a plan. As though there is a map I could follow, where destination:life is clearly marked and every step along the way is a guaranteed success.

I answer: "I have no idea."
And it is more than great.

Listen to me now, people. There is no fear of the future. There is nothing you cannot be ( well, yes, naturally there are limits, but not if you really want something).

We can be pastry-chef-editors.
Or English-Lit-Lawyers.
Or Mechanical-Engineer-Photographers.
Or Bedroom Philosophers dabbling in daily shifts at McDonalds.
Or Ballerinas with poetic ill-skills.
Or a Humanitarian with a degree in caring and IT.

Others get on bikes and drive across Africa. Others find fulfilment in the amount of zeroes in their bank-accounts. Others like spending their days in virtual worlds. To each his own.

I just think that my fellow 20-somethings are caught in this desert of insecurity about their life: on the one hand there are so many possibilities to embrace, there is a whole world to discover. But on the other hand the constant threat of recessions and global crises and financial ruin and abandonment and hopelessness looms behind us. It feels as though so much is going wrong and one wants to act and march on the Union Buildings and hold banners and shout in megaphones, but what for? What are we supposed to be fighting for? Previously it was simple: peace and love. Now? Also peace and love. But the planet is suffering and we need to think green and save the prisoners of conscience and fight against oppression and secure a future and help each other and all of this whilst still living and having fun doing so.

The other day some of my friends where discussing how after obtaining this degree, they wish to do something more than what it will say on the piece of paper. To be more than Commerce or Arts or Engineering or Science or Whatever. Basically, to be more than one thing. Some people prefer knowing almost everything there is to know about their field, and being experts at what they do. I would also like to be an expert, but in the end, I prefer to know a lot about many different things than just settling for one speciality.

So what lies in the future? Here is another answer: I am/will be/want to be/could be/should be/ would be/ want to be a living thinker, a graphic designer, a photographer with film, a manipulator of words and images,  a historian-artist-writer-discoverer-music-listener-editor-translator-picture-taker-non-conformer-lover-hater-human-being. 

Stumbling for Good

For those of you who don't know it, stumbleupon is a toolbar that helps you surf sites of interest to you. So basically it is random but also not, as you can specify you interests and then through stumbling discover a multitude of new websites, videos, pictures, etc.  It is also quite often a time-waster, so if you feel like procrastinating, stumbleupon is for you. Here is the link.

But now for the real news: BAM! Stumbleupon has launched a program called Stumbling for Good, which helps non-profit organisations increase the traffic to their site and thus informs more people, and maybe they will get more involved in saving the world.

Read the full article at adage.com.
This is what every website is secretly thinking:

So stumble forth, you might as well waste time doing good and making that websites day :)

Lessons Learned

I can't remember where I got this from.

I can hear you in my head, differently

When I read books, or an sms, or chat via Skype, or read your status update, or read any words in my head, I hear your voice. I say them out loud in my head and hear your pronunciation, your emphasis, your breaks, your pace, I hear your tone.

But then, you must realise, I hear what I want to. I hear the way I think you would sound. I hear an imagined you, whoever you may be at that moment.

Now believe that you do the same. You read what your preconceived ideas of the speaker dictate. You read the tone your emotional status transfers onto him/her. Perhaps this is why we often miscommunicate? We don't really hear what the other one is saying because we are listening for a tone that would suit our argument.  And here, this does not only need to be about forcing a tone one someone's writing, but also in not hearing them when they are speaking to you directly. I mean, how often have you gotten home after a long day and snapped at the question of "How was your day?", simply because it was k*k and you do not want to rehash it?

from here

But naturally hearing you in my head is not always a negative experience. It is quite fun trying to figure out some people's sms language and their tone, not knowing if something is to be taken as a joke or seriously. Normally, that c u ltr or lol or whatever abbreviations are used are quite stupid to me, because I think it makes you look dumber than you are. If you cannot spell properly in 140 characters, how will you manage over a 3000 word essay? But I must admit, I like seeing French short-cuts because I have to read it out loud in order to understand it. It is a challenge.

Anycase, this is a pretty stupid post. It is just because the other day I posted something on fb that was meant to be a plea and people read it as a rant. Which is interesting, because they missed my tone. But at least now they leave me alone.  I hope I don't often miss yours. I quite like the way you sound in my mind.


Here is an interesting article on sms-language as a pidgin language and the differences between male and female shorthand...


 

Something fishy

Something in the kitchen smelted strange. Not rotten, but uncomfortable. Like something that should have been eaten warm and had now cooled and was not microwaveable. 

After checking the dustbin and the refrigerator, we opened the microwave and found where the smell had been hiding. 

It had been infusing itself onto the sides and the glass-turn-plate-thing, it had been settling into that space as though it wanted to build a home for itself there. The microwave was harbouring a fugitive odour. 

The smell had to be defeated. Initially we ignored it, hoping it would just disintegrate. However, it was persistent. It lodged itself in there. 

We tried bicarbonate of soda, we tried the small smell-removing penguin that lives in the fridge. No no, both of them failed. 

So trusty lemon came to the rescue: sliced, microwaved on high in a water-bath for 5 minutes, it removed the fishiness and replaced it with a pleasant lemony-fresh smell. 

So there you go: if something smells strange, rub it down with a lemon. 

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Vat die lang pad

Vandag het ek halfhartig probeer oefening doen want die vrouens in die tydskrifte so veel beter verskyn en ek tog voel ek moet ook so lyk. Binne in my weet ek, natuurlik, photoshop kan almal in perfeksie verander, en dat die wêreld lelik en eg en stinkerig en vuil en vol ongelykhede is, maar daai prente op die posters laat my streef na 'n ideaal waarteen ek opstelle skryf en waarteen my openbare feminis stry en baklei. Ek weet ek is nie 'n prent nie, maar ek, soos julle almal, wil ook party dae nie wees waarin ek gevange is nie.

Toe sit ek by die masjiene, waarteen ek in elke geval gekant is, en stoot maar die pennetjie van 80kg wat die bodybuilder ou voor my met links gestoot het op na 5kg  en doen maar die repetiesies war vir my sal laat lyk soos 'n foto. Maar tussenin kom staan Joseph, wat daar werk en oor die laaste paar maande my vriend geword het, by my en wil gesels. En ek luister. Die helfte van die tyd weet ek nie wat hy sê nie omdat hy nie vir my kyk terwyl hy praat nie, en dan moet ek nader aan hom gaan staan en my oor soos 'n ou vrou in sy rigting draai.

Ook vra hy my altyd hoekom ek nie meer oefen nie, wat ek weeg en hoe ek beplan om van my gewig ontslae te raak, so dit is 'n ietwat onaangename oomblik vir my as ek hom sien. Van my gewig onslae te raak klink vir my as of ek van my hele lyf ontslae met raak. As of ek myslef in stukke behoort te sny en te se, hier, in die vullis.  Vat my vleis en vet en vel. Maar eintlik dink ek my lyf is wonderlik, in die waarste sin van die woord: ek verstom my oor hoe alles kan beweeg en kan seer raak en kan voel.  

Toe vra Joseph my wat ek met my lewe aanvang en wat my plan is. Ek sê vir hom, ek lewe vir my, nou. Ek lewe om iets te belewe. Dit is nou die tyd om te droom en wêrelde te sien. Dit is nou die tyd om nie spyt te wees oor wat my lewe beinhou het nie.

Hy sê toe vir my: Ja. Dit is 'n blink plan. Jy moet die lang pad vat. Moet nie die kort pad vat nie, want hy kan jou teleurstel en dan sit jy in die middel van nêrens sonder 'n pad wat voorlê.

Ek wou net sê, ek stem. Ek sal die lang pad vat, ook as ek nie juis weet waar hy is nie. Dalk Kaap of Korea toe? Haha. Nou daar is die eerste droom.

As bonus nog 'n Koos Kombuis gedig:

POLITIEKE ISOLASIE
(ná die break-up)

Daar is sex shops in Amsterdam
Daar's reisies op Killarney
Daar is oorloe in Afganistan
Ek weet nie hoekom jy my pla nie

Hoekom worry ek oor jou
War Games is belangriker
Die wêreld kan vergaan, dan sou
ons ons nie eerns meer kan herinner
Aan die tye wat verby is nie!

Sal die wêreld ophou draai
Net oor een simpele koebaai?
Sal Seepunt oopgestel word vir Kubane
Sal die prys van brood weer styg
Sal kanker genees kan word met marijuana
of niemand meer oor die World Cup juig?

Die wêreld is tog groter
As net ek en jy se liggame
Jou oe, so blou soos gister
Is twee klein, nietige atome
Wat niks aan als verander nie.

Jou hande is net vleis en been
Jou lyf is bruin, jou hemp is blou
Jy's maar net, onder miljoene, één -
Nou hoekom breek ek my hart oor jou?

Ek gee nie om waar Boy George is nie,
En Brook Shields kan rodreis waar sy wil
P.W. Botha is seker op vakansie
So wat is met jóú die groot verskil?

DIes net dat ek wil weet, hóé jy sonder
My die lewe voel, of jy my mis,
Ensovoorts, ensovoorts. Al die gwone:
In die hele wye wêreld
Was jý mý klein bêreplek van drome.


uit Die Geel Kafee