August-Inspiration

A while ago I post a poem.  I mentioned that I had intended for it to be a song, but because I lack any form of musical aptitude, I settled for it to only be a (rough and unpolished, because I was eager to get it up and did not want to brood over it too much) poem.

A friend of mine read the post and sent me an email with a large attachment.  When I opened up the attachment, I completely choked up and had to fight the tears.  He had sacrificed an afternoon of his life to create a composition about something which is very personal.  By far, this is one of the nicest things any friend has ever done for me.  You have my sincere thanks, Ludipan.

The file can be downloaded here.

(Note that you are free to download and listen, but not reproduce or alter, as the work remains the property of the respective copyright holders. )

Dit was vanoggend onder my aandag gebring dat vandag Republiekdag in Suid-Afrika is.  Vyftig jaar gelede op hierdie dag het Suid-Afrika onafhanklikheid van die Britse monarg verklaar.  In die ou bedeling was 31 Mei ‘n vakansiedag gewees, maar deesdae is dit nie meer so nie.

Republiekwording was ‘n hoogtepunt vir die Afrikanervolk.  Vir die eerste keer sedert die tweede Anglo-Boere oorlog was die Afrikaner werklik onafhanklik: hulle kom hul eie trom slaan en bou na ‘n idilliese toekoms in die beloofte land.

Die vrede was egter altyd in gedrang gewees.  Ver weg het die Swart Gevaar gelê en gluur.  Die Afrikaners se grootste vrees was ‘n tipe Nag van die Lang Messe waar die Swart Gevaar sou opreis en al die Afrikaners (en ander wit mense in die land) sou uitmoor en verjaag.  Hierdie vrees was groot, en ‘n werklikheid vir die mense wat die verantwoordelikheid moes dra om die land te lei.  Vir 33 jaar het die Afrikaner met hierdie vrees saam gelewe.  In ‘n poging om die Swart Gevaar te tem het die regerings allerhande flou wette probeer inbring, maar die Swart Gevaar het bloot meer rusteloos geword.

33 jaar na republiekwording het die Afrikaner uiteindelik gebuig voor die Swart Gevaar.  Dit okasie was ‘n (relatiewe) vreedsame verkiesing waarin mense van alle rasse kon stem.  Daardie verkiesing het die grondslag gelê vir ‘n Nuwe Suid-Afrika; een waarin ons steeds leef en steeds aan bou, in samewerking.  Dit was ‘n tyd van opwinding en ‘n bietjie vrees, maar dit is altyd so as ‘n volk weet dat hulle op die drumpel van fundementele verandering staan.

Toe dit amptelik was dat daar ‘n nuwe regering verkies was, het die mense in beheer van die skool waar ek was besluit dat ons summier moet oorskakel en die “nuwe volkslied” by saalbyeenkomste moet sing.  Dit was ‘n klein, byna geïsoleerde dorpie wat 100% steun aan die vorige regerende party gegee het en niemand sou geweet het indien ons voortgehou het met die ou volkslied nie.  Maar uit beginsel is ons aangesê om die nuwe lied te sing.  Die probleem was egter dat, omdat die dorpie so klein, geïsoleerd en Afrikaans was, het niemand die woorde van die nuwe volkslied in die oorspronklike taal gehad nie: vir die eerste paar weke het ons dit slegs in Afrikaans gehad.  En só het ons die kenlied van die Swart Gevaar gesing soos ons die Nuwe Suid-Afrika binne gegaan het:

Seën ons Here God, seën Afrika,
Laat sy mag tot in die hemel reik,
Hoor ons as ons in gebede vra,
Seën ons in Afrika,
Kinders van Afrika.

Daal neer o Gees, Heilige Gees,
Daal neer o Gees, Heilige Gees,
Kom woon in ons,
Lei ons, O Heilige Gees.

Hou U hand o Heer oor Afrika,
Lei ons tot by eenheid en begrip,
Hoor ons as ons U om vrede vra,
Seën ons in Afrika,
Kinders van Afrika.

Seën ons Here God, seën Afrika,
Neem dan nou die boosheid van ons weg,
Maak ons van ons sonde ewig vry,
Seën ons in Afrika,
Kinders van Afrika.

Ek is trots ‘n Afrikaner en trots op my herkoms en geskiedenis.  Ek is ook trots ‘n Suid-Afrikaner wat saam bou en vooruit kyk na die toekoms; een van verdraagsaamheid, samewerking en vrede.

Note: My apologies for the break in continuity while relaying my recent travel experiences, but I believe the occasion warranted it.  I am working on the missing installments, so watch this space.

I wrote a poem.

Actually I wanted it to be song, but I don’t know how to write music.  If anyone out there wants to set this to music, it would be much appreciated.  It was inspired by Ballad of Billy Jo McKay by Shawn Mullins.

I use to live in that big house on Wade.
Yeah, you had never been;
Guess I should’ve invited you for some lemonade.
But that was a long time ago
And memories start to fade.
Let me pour you some burbon
Then you can tell me all that I missed.

I went back to see what I can see.
Nothing here has changed much;
Dad sits in front of the TV.
Mom just got back from work
And is looking mighty weary.
We all have a hard time
Telling people that everything’s alright.

I had a friend that was like kin.
It’s been a long time;
I wonder what happened to him.
I hope he’s well and warm and fed,
And keeping away from sin.
If only I had been braver,
I’d have told him that I love him like a brother.

I never told Mandy I love her so.
And neither Des nor Kathy nor Elise;
As for Heather, I just let her go.
Now they’re all happy and doing well
While I still sit back and listen to the crow.
The bells of the church are ringing
But I can’t hear them from inside my bed.

I lie and listen to the world outside.
I had looked at my daddy
And told myself I’d never be like him.
But I scare myself when I walk past the mirror;
The ghosts stare at me from my soul’s crater.
Now I turn off that eerie light
And lie awake in the long dark night.

The smell of hospitals in Winter, and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls…

And so, another year has come to an end, leaving us to ask each other “where has the time gone?” as we do our best not to show how we shrink into our shells of mortal self-conciousness.

The past year has brought me some solid friendships and much personal growth. I witnessed miracles firsthand and was humbled by people’s generosity and love. There were the usual assortment of good times and laughs and joys. For these things I am truly thankful.

But, perhaps, what characterised 2010 the most was the hardships: owing up to difficult things and also not doing so. It was a year of trauma, as I nearly lost my father to an illness. This shakes a man out of his humdrum comforts, but not as much as the person who actually lost a father, as another friend of mine did this year. I know that these trials continue to shape me and the people around me. Because of this, I do not fear them, but still find it hard to endure them.

When I one day look back, I do not think that 2010 will stand in particular for me personally. And the reason is simple. It was the third year of my masters: a prolonging of my postponement of accepting real responsibility. But what happened, ironically, is that I did grow up and found my academic work frustrating and even pointless. And so 2010 was largely characterised by anger and resentment, mostly directed towards myself and my situation. In reality, I effectively wished that time until something better—and thus the year—would just pass away.

So what are my prospects for the new year? My usual brand of optimism for a better year? Perhaps. But this time I am more cautious; more guarded. Standing on the cusp of a new year, I know that it is not a matter of willing, but of the unforeseen. I am still not finished with my masters. I am still going to have to work on that. But I have the wonderful prospect of starting work on Monday. Finally I am entering Grownup Land. Hopefully I shall soon be moving into a new place and start making new friends while trying to keep up with the old ones. These are all exciting prospects! I can only hope that things will work out well and that my trials in 2011 will be minimal.

At the very least, I start out the new year with positive prospects. And there is nothing wrong with hoping for some good times on the horizon. So, to friends, family and strangers, here is hoping for a great 2011!

A long December, and there’s reason to believe: maybe this year will be better than the last.

Shalom Alicheim

It feels like ages since I was last here.  Much has happened.  I’ve had to say good-bye to a friend who went overseas and I have had a really buckle down and work on my thesis.  A lot of work still remains and time is moving on, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  The most significant thing which has happened, however, is that my father has been seriously sick for most of the time.  Today marks 5 weeks of him being in the ICU.  It has been a long, rough roller-coaster of a ride which oscillated between hope and despair.  At one point I was staying over with my mother when we got a call at 2:15 in the morning which basically told us that, if we want to see him still, we should go to the hospital ASAP.  I am glad to report that at the moment things are looking up.  After what we have been through, we remain only cautiously optimistic, but he has never looked better since his time in hospital.  He is awake and can communicate, but there is still a long road of recovery to go and tests which need to be done.

What exactly caused all of this and what has been keeping him in such a dire situation all these weeks are things which I do not care to recount at the moment.  I suspect that this story is far from over in any case.

Other troubles have also befallen our family recently.  Some amateur tried to break into my mother’s care but only managed to damage the lock, so that is being repaired at the moment.  Last week, my car died on me, throwing me into turmoil.  Luckily the Lord has been good and provided throughout all the respective trials.

Despite all of this, amazingly, I am doing alright.  I am really looking forward to being done with this thesis and starting a new life next year.  I am feeling the stress, but am also not frantic (like some of my friends at the moment).  I have a job interview later this week.  I am a bit nervous about that, but will push through.  The truth is that everyone is in a tailspin at the moment, but my friends still find time and energy to support me, and we still find time to have fun together.

I truly am blessed.

To many people in their mid-20s, making stir-fry is not an art; it is a chore.  While some people enjoy making food, others see it as a time-consuming daily ritual.  Thus far I have opted for the path of least resistance: I make whatever requires the minimum effort.  I have resolved a number of times to start cooking properly, only to be discouraged by hand-wavy¹ recipes² , long ingredient lists, or cooking failures.  But, last Tuesday, I decided that it was time for a change.  And a radical one.  I was going to make stir-fry for the first time.

I can’t really explain what brought on this sudden urge.  Perhaps it was some residue inspiration from a friend.  But a friend and I had been putting off seeing each other for a bit now and I decided to invite my friend over and that I would cook for us.  Once the invitation had been accepted, there was no turning back.  So I had a look in my Beginner’s Cookbook and inquired with Google (most what the vegetable names actually referred to—true story).  I found the general gist of stir-frying and felt confident enough to try my own recipe (that is what stir-fry is all about, after all).  So I went to the store to get all the ingredients, then I came back to start prepping.

First an observation from my shopping trip: making food for yourself isn’t economical, unless it is in bulk.  Not only did I find the veggies more expensive than I would have thought, but you also can’t buy just one carrot from the supermarket: it needs to be a bunch.  So keep that in mind: either stock yourself for the week when you cook, or, even better, turn it into a social event.

Ok, here are the ingredients I used:

• 300g of beef strips
• 1/2 onion³
• 1 red pepper
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 carrots
• 3 spring onions
• Some mangetouts
• Tomato paste
• Soya sauce
• Freshly ground salt and pepper

I would have liked to have added some zucchinis and/or mushrooms, but then this would have become a very expensive exercise.

Back home, I “marinaded” the beef with the tomato paste and some soya sauce.  (I apologise for being hand-wavy, but I really didn’t measure any of this.)  Some red wine or sherry should have been used also, but I skipped that this time.  I left the meat to marinade for about an hour.

Meanwhile I washed the veggies and peeled the onion and garlic.  I then chopped the onion, spring onions and red pepper.  I like my onion and spring onions nice and fine, but it is nice to cut the pepper⁴ and carrots into long strips.  I do not have a pestle and mortar to crush the garlic cloves, but my friend showed me a technique to finely chop the garlic… one which I can’t remember now.  But whatever you do, do not try to crush your garlic with a hammer… that was part of one of my previous cooking failures.  Anyway, in the end we only used about half of a clove.  Use to taste.

Now, following recipe convention, I shall switch over to the present tense.

Put some oil (I used sunflower, because I am still young and healthy) into a wok—enough to cover the bottom—and heat the wok to a high temperature.  When the wok starts getting really hot, put in the beef and spread it out over the bottom of the wok.  Leave it for a couple of minutes, keeping an eye on it that it doesn’t burn.  When the bottom of the beef strips starts to look nice and brown, flip the meat over and do the other side.  When you are finished, but it in a bowl.  Keep the bowl warm somehow: you can cover the bowl with some tinfoil or use some other insulation.  Meanwhile, without letting the wok cool down, start with the veggies (if the oil looks really little, put in a tad more).  Put in the carrots, onion, spring onions, red pepper and garlic, but only add the mangetouts at the last minute.  Stir the veggies until they look cooked, but make sure they still have some crunchiness left.  When this is done, make sure you have your plates ready, because the food is hot and ready, so dish up and enjoy!  Season to taste and enjoy!  (My flatmate swears by rosemary when it comes to stir-fry, but I forgot to try it out this time.)

I am glad to report that it was really delicious, and my guest (who also helped me out in the kitchen) also agreed.  I didn’t think to take a picture, but there would not have been time anyway, as we polished off the food rather quickly.

So, what is the moral of the story?  It is this: if I can do it, so can you!

1. I am convinced that cook, despite efforts to try and make the process look scientific, is an art.  Baking, on the other hand, is science. [↩]
2. If you are also put off by hand-wavy recipes, take a look at this website. [↩]
3. I actually just used a whole one, but a really small one. [↩]
4. Be careful with those seeds: cut the pepper in half first, then remove the seeds and only then start slicing it. [↩]

Sorry for being late, but here is my report back on the 21st GeekDinner which was held last Thursday.  I haven’t been attending GeekDinners very diligently this year, so I was keen on seeing the crowd again.  I even managed to finally successfully invite someone along again.  And so it was with high spirits that we arrived at Wembley Square in Cape Town and sought out our venue, Knead Bakery.  This was the first time which I had been at Wembley Square and for a moment or two I was perplexed about the food court (well, the floor beneath the gym, anyway): a huge open plan area area with fancy-looking restaurants flanking each side.  It was like an upscale Neelsie.  Eventually we found the place and settled down for the evening.

The food was amazing.  For the buffet we could mix our own salad, having a wide selection of fresh and tasty ingredients.  Knead is, of course, a bakery and I don’t know how often they do something like this, but the salad feature was definitely a winner, in my opinion.  For the mains, each table received a few smallish pizzas, so each one could try something of everything on offer.  The pizzas were rich in flavour without being completely smothered in ingredients, like some famous franchises like to do these days.  This allows one to savour it more and the pizzas really were enjoyable.  Knead also generously provided for vegetarians, which was good to see.  For dessert, everyone got a nice big and absolutely delicious danish.  By the end of the evening, no-one could complain about not having had enough food to eat!  Additionally, the food was well complemented by Delheim wines, who graciously sponsored us again this month.

One of the most pleasant surprises for me, however, was the German dark beer which I ordered on a whim.  While it turned out to be very pricey, it was possibly the best dunkel which I have ever tasted!  Unfortunately I do not know the name of the beer, but I can definitely recommend it if you are a beer aficionado!  (To that end, I suppose you will just have to go to Knead. )

The talks were interesting as well.  The first talk was on opensource hardware, something which, I’m sure, appealed to the engineer within all the geeks present (well, all of the guy geeks, at least).  The second talk was by Bryn Divey and introduced the exciting new venture which he is a part of.  Unfortunately I am sketchy on details and don’t have any hyperlinks for you at present, as the GeekDinner wiki seems to be down again.

There was one talk, however, which troubled me.

The slideshow karaoke was a complete farce.  While it is suppose to be lively and funny, the incoherent spectacle which we saw was, in my opinion, in poor taste and I was appalled by it.  I want to apologise to our hosts—who, as I hope I have already made clear, provided exemplary service to us throughout the evening—took offense.  I would like to apologise to the newcomers as well: that was not the standard of slideshow karaokes at Cape Town GeekDinners.

Apart from this one thing, the evening was enjoyable: we had some good discussion around the table and it was good to see the old faces again.  Thank you to the people who organised this event!

Three years ago, while I was doing my honours course, I thought about what to do in the future.  I always thought that it would be cool to do a masters and a PhD.  But I also felt young and adventurous, so I considered going overseas.  I knew that there was interest in the UK for university graduates, especially in my field.  So I made some inquiries and even contacted my brother, who was willing to help me a bit “from the other side”.  But I never got past the preliminary inquiries, as I found a topic for my masters which interested me and I decided to stay on.

Three years later and I am in a similar situation, but much has also changed.  What is the same, is that I must make a decision about my future.  What has changed is my disillusion with academia: I have no desire now to do a PhD (at least, not at this point-in-time).  At the moment I really yearn to enter the workplace.  Basically all of my friends have moved on or are in the process of moving on.  Campus is no longer fun when all your age peers have left and all that remains are horrified gasps when people learn how long you have been at varsity.

A couple of friends have invited me to join their companies: they need the manpower and will vouch for me.  Apart from these, other companies are campaigning vigorously for graduate students.  So, at the very least, I am confident that I shall find a job, even in Cape Town¹.  I merely need to make a choice which companies I am going to apply for.  The truth is that, for the past two and a half years I have not been thinking about the future, because I did not want get distracted and lose focus from my work².

But a couple of weeks ago, a thought crept into my head.  What about going overseas?  I was game for it back then, what about now?  The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.  Other than my parents, I have no real attachments here at the moment.  And two years isn’t such a long time: one of the guys who went overseas after honours is back already, with the dollars (and stories of adventure, no doubt) in his pocket!  The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.  And the more scared I got.

It seems a bit strange, that this “dream” would cause me so much angst.  Something in my heart just did not want to go.  I would not be going just for fun, but I can be responsible as well.  Yes, I am still young, but what if I miss out on something here?  I wrestled with such questions and discussed them with some friends.  Eventually I reached a conclusion: I would not be going abroad at the end of the year.  I shall stay in the Western Cape and find a job here.  I am glad that, in the end, I could reach this decision (with guidance), from a practical viewpoint: if I go abroad, I would have to plow all my funds on just getting there.  That means I would start from zero.  And not even zero, but below zero, because I still have a student loan to repay.  And my honest first priority is to repay that loan.  The truth is that I can probably repay that loan quicker (and with less stess) working here than there.  Another consideration is finding a job: it will be much easier to do here than there.  It can be very difficult to find a job through the Internet and over email.  So I might end up having to go overseas and then only find work when I am there.  That can take some time and in the meantime I would have to feed myself.  Point is, I would not want to end up, like so many other South Africans, doing security work just to make ends meet.  Finally, I do not know anyone in the UK at the moment other than my brother and his wife, but we would not be in the same city.  Not that it would necessarily be a lonely adventure: I have many friends who have contacts over there and would be able to get me settled and introduce me to a community.  But my established friends, and most of my family, are here.

I always want to err on the side of caution.  It is my nature.  That is why I shall never be an Edmund Hillary or a Roald Amundsen.  That is why I won’t have to crazy stories to tell late at night around the dinner table.  However, I am not blind to the fact that I shall be without adventure; I do crave to travel.  I also am not blind to the fact that many people I know travel (some do so frequently) when they are middle-aged or even retired.  I find solace in my conviction that being in your 20′s is not the spice of life: there are better times to come.

To be honest, I always admired the people in my matric class who went abroad for a year or two before coming back to study or find work.  It is not so much that they came back with the stories of adventure, but their (then) newfound maturity and independence.  I admired that greatly.  I felt “left behind” in terms of “real world experience”.  But while I won’t be throwing myself into the wolves’ den like they did, I shall find my own maturity and independence.  I yearn for it, and that is all that matters.

I feel good about having reached this decision: at peace and at ease.  Now to just finish up this masters…

1. Other people aren’t so lucky, of course: some feel that they have to go to Johannesburg or even abroad, as Cape Town simply doesn’t offer them any opportunities.  But at the moment Cape Town has a booming IT industry, which works well for me. [↩]
2. Hahahahahahahaha!  Sometimes I crack myself up! [↩]

Last week my cellphone was stolen.  This is my second (perhaps third) Sony Ericsson which has been “liberated” from my possession.  It happened at Bible study at church: trustingly I left my bag unattended to socialise with some of my friends before the Bible study started.  But then some unknown characters came in.  They sat in a corner (where my bag was) and spoke with some people, but left before we started the actual Bible study.  Being who we are, we are not in the habit of being suspicious or mistrusting of new faces.  Unfortunately, so vigilance on my part would have been handy.

At first I thought I had left it at home and then at the office, but after retracing my steps, I came up empty-handed.  But it was only a few days later (after I had blacklisted the cellphone and done a SIM swap) that I knew for certain that my phone had indeed been stolen: my airtime (~R200) had been drained.

The whole debacle cost me nearly R700 as I had to have my old phone fixed (I shall gnaw through my wrists with my molars  if I have to go back to an old model Nokia).  The K550i hasn’t had a happy life: I was thrown into a pool while I had it in my pocket and after that repair I accidentally drove over it with my car (yes, yes, yes, I know, I’m a very special human being, but I do know someone else who has done the same thing, so I am not alone in my specialness).  But I am being forced to refuse to let it die on me: I have gotten accustomed to Sony Ericsson phones and they have generally been good to me.

I hate to sound materialistic: it has been more than a week, bit I am still bummed about the whole thing.  I only had that phone for 6 months on a 2 year contract and it was a good phone (C702): sturdy build, GPS, nice screen, Cybershot… sure, it wasn’t a smart phone, but I liked it all the same.  On the up side, at least the K550i is fast (I am convinced that it has the same processor as the C702, but the latter has more software and therefore performed a bit sluggish).  Also, my 4GB Micro SD card was in the phone.

But perhaps more than losing the physical phone is the feeling of being violated which I have: I had the details of family members and friends on there, my Facebook, Twitter and GMail accounts could be accessed from the phone, I had SMSs from the bank on there about transactions which I made, and I had some pictures a tiny bit of information.  I think this is how a woman must feel who has her handbag stolen.  Thankfully my wallet wasn’t stolen.  As a result of this violation, I am strongly considering a new policy for myself: no more personal data, other than names and numbers, on my phone: if you don’t have your birthday listed on Facebook, I am not going to know when it is.  The important data will be privately hosted on a cloud server in an encrypted file.  It would also be good to get in the habit of periodically deleting all my SMSs: there are better, more private, places to store them than on a phone.

Moral of the story: never let one single thing (a cellphone, a website or something else) become an “extension” of yourself in the sense that you put your entire private life on there.  One day you’ll wake up and suddenly it isn’t so private anymore.

The time has come for two friends to spread their wings and seek adventure in a land far away.  Goodbyes have been said and the plane has departed.  All that remains is one last parting gift.  This is just for you two:

(Based on a famous ditty…)

I saw a man with a face of leather
Oppression past and lies present he had to weather
In a park in Perth with the sun shining
He sits and remembers, dreaming
And he sings:

“I come from a land of Southern wonder!
Where the lion is a hunter
And the duiker nuzzles his lover.
There the earth is warm, the land is tender.”

There was a woman in Adelaide
Doing trade, today a million made.
I stopped her and said “Excuse me miss,
Can you tell me what time it is?”
But she said:

“Oh!  Do you come from a land of Southern wonder?
Where the tsotsi plunder,
And the men braai sombre?
Hear the child that cries, heart torn asunder!”

A man picked me out with a fast-beating heart
He asked, “Kan jy my taal praat?”
In Sydney, it was clear where he’d rather be,
So I smiled and gave him my last Rooibos tea
And I said:

“I come from a land of Southern wonder,
Where the wine flows like a river,
And in the evening people shiver.
There the earth is warm, the land is tender.”

Best of luck to the two of you, have a great time!  Mzansi fo sho!