August-Inspiration

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!

Steampunk Costume: Introduction

A while ago a friend told me that they were planning a steampunk party for her husband’s birthday.  Being an über geek, I was very excited and immediately starting thinking of costume ideas.  The party was held yesterday and there were some amazing costumes!

What I want to do here is document how I made my costume.  It was nothing fancy, but will hopefully provide a glimpse of what you can do if you are on a budget and strapped for time.

The Idea

I’m sure that some will consider the hardest part of such an endeavour to be deciding on what to make.  At first, I thought of doing a steampunk scientist àa la Dr. Horrible.  It would comprise a few “simple” elements and a complicated device which I would make myself with moveable parts and gadgets such as a mirror, helping hands and a pulley.  This would have a fake leather base and be strapped to my arm.  This ambitious plan was binned very quickly, however, as there were practical limitations: where the hell do you find a doctor’s smock?  And those goggles?  Insemination gloves I would probably be able to find, but none of all of these will be cheap, right?

Ok, scratch that.  Next idea.

Uh, I dunno…  How would steampunk special ops look like?  It’s an intriguing idea, but it wasn’t going to float this time and my time was running out.

This was my first idea: gloves, goggles, doctor's smock (not scrubs) and an arm contraption thingy. Looks good, is expensive.

How would this guy look in a steampunk setting? Sadly, I wasn't going to find out this time around.

The good news is that you do not always need an idea of something to make.  Turns out that half the fun is making do with what you can find!

The Supplies

Enter the hardware store: a central character in our story.  For grown up men, the hardware store is a contemporary toy store: whether you are a builder, renovator or costume designer, the hardware store is for you!  This is where you go to release your imagination and feel like you are seven years old again.  So, stalk the aisles and see what treasures you can find!  Here are some of the loot I carried off:

A gun for extracting glue, foam, etc. from certain types of containers.

Welding Goggles

Some stuff I got from the hardware store and found at home.

I wonder what the lady at the checkout thought of this smorgasbord if items!

But the hardware store is not, and should not, be your only ally in your steampunk endeavour.  If you have a garage, or an old, overstocked store room, or parents, relatives or friends with many things from yesteryear, take a dive into that pile of antiquities.  This can be even more fun than looking for new stuff at the hardware store: you might even awaken an old memory or two and find yourself reminiscing a bit!  The last picture above already shows some of the stuff I found at home, here are some more:

A broken wrist watch

Random knick-knacks

An old, broken travel alarm

Leather gloves

The Assembly

A week before the party, I gathered the above items and I spray painted most of them.  But when the day of the party eventually came, I still had to assemble everything.  In the end I was a tad strapped for time!  So, here’s another top tip: make sure you have enough time and do it properly.  My costume came out alright, but I knew I could have done more.  And, looking at some of the costumes other people spent some time on, you know that theirs has a certain “Cool!” factor yours just doesn’t.  So, if you are going to make a steampunk costume, remember to leave yourself enough time to do it properly!  But luckily I had enough time to take some pictures.  Here is some of what I did:

Post spray paint

A bronze-painted carton

My idea was to attach the Pringles™ tubes as “canisters” to the carton, then to attach the metal elbows to them.  The gun then attaches to the canister through an old washing machine outlet pipe to form some sort of weapon.  The gun itself I would “flesh out” a little by adding a toilet paper tube to the middle bit and spraying that bronze as well.

“But what are you making?”  Nothing specifically: I’m just using the parts that I have to make something.  I am plenty geeky, but not enough to think up a backstory for my costume…

Trying to glue the tubes to the carton was a disaster: not only did the glue eat away at the spray paint, but the round tube provided much too little surface area for the glue to be affective.  So I resorted to using some double sided tape.  Attaching the metal elbows to the canisters was a bit of a problem.  I cut small holes in the lids of the Pringles™ tubes and pushed the elbows through.  To prevent them coming back out the same way, I reinforced the back of the lid with some of the off cut cardboard.  The weight of the metal elbows was also a problem, so I put some glue on the inside of the lids before I put them back on.

Attaching the metal elbows to the Pringles™ tubes.

On top of one of the canisters I put a flat round plastic container, which I fashioned to (more or less) look like some sort of guage.  I also stuck the old mechanical counter I had to the carton.

The Backpack nearing completion.

Now for the hard part: getting this thing on my back!  I had a few pieces of elastic band which I stitched together with safety pins (at this point I was running out of time, ok?).  I cut slits into the cardboard and wove in the elastic bands.  These I would then fasten over my chest using more safety pins.  I could also have chosen to use string, from which I could make loops to put my arms through and carry this around like a backpack, but apart from the fact that I didn’t think of this at the time (true story), I thought I could hide the elastic band underneath my vest.  I also attached a paraffin lantern, mostly just because I had one:

A cool little lantern I picked up for cheap.

At the very last minute I decided to fashion a pendant from some of the bits and pieces that was still left over.  Unfortunately I needed a base, and all that I could find was the lid of a tin of tuna:

My pendant.

I didn’t have a pocket watch: but I had the next best thing: a 50 year calendar.  I think my grandmother gave this to me about 15 years ago: “Maybe you can still use this one-day” (I was the youngest grandchild at that point who wasn’t in dipers).

A 50 Year Calendar.

Lastly I fixed a cane which use to belong to my grandfather (it just needed a new rubber foot piece).

Ok, the actual clothes: I wore long black pants and shirt with a beige-ish vest.  The shoes I wore was the closest I had to boots and hadn’t been worn in years, but they held together.  The plan was to get a top hat, but I wasn’t willing to spend R80 on a party hat that looked the part (I rather buy myself a real on later in life when I have the money ), so I bought another one for cheaper with the idea of altering it later, but it melted in the sun in the back of my car—true story.  In the pictures below, I borrowed a top hat from a friend who was more dedicated than I was.   Finally, I tried to conjure a beard out of the week-old stubble which I had—didn’t work that well…

The Reveal

Ta-dah…

Reveal #1

Reveal #2

Reveal #3

Conclusions

1. Steampunk is expensive, unless you live next to a scrapyard or something.
2. Is it worth it?  Definitely, but then you must have the money and, more importantly, the time.  Steampunk is as much an art as a genre.  If you put in the time, you will create something beautiful which you will be proud of.  If not, you’ll immediately realise it and mourn for the missed potential.

Resources

Here are some interesting steampunk websites:

• http://steampunkcostume.com/
• http://steampunkworkshop.com/
• http://brassgoggles.co.uk/blog/

To be fair, if I actually posted something here when I thought of doing so since the year started, I would have had a regularly updated blog.  But the truth is that I have been hectically busy.  I’m not complaining, though: it is good to have something to do and to have something to strive for.  I have denied myself that for the past two years and now I am paying.

What is keeping me so busy?  Well, my masters, for a change.  I have a lot to do in a small amount of time.  When I get home I’m pretty tired, but I think I’m getting the balance together.  Most of the time that I have left is going into church activities at the moment.  That isn’t to say that I haven’t had fun and good times this year!  And also some shocks and sadness.  But at the moment it is just work work work…

Our internet connection at the flat has been on life-support since the start of the year.  Luckily I’m not home so much these days, but when I am and I need the net and it isn’t there, it sucks big time (guess where I am now, 23:41 on a Sunday everning? yes, the lab!).

I hope to make up for my digital absence this weekend by putting up a fun blog post.  I probably shouldn’t be making any promises, but watch this space anyway!

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

Outside, the very first, very early bird has started to sing. A car speeds jovially down a quiet suburban street. Life on the first day of the new year, begins.

Another year, indeed, another decade, ends.

And so, wired and awake, I find myself at that very familiar place in front of a screen, with a ear to a speaker, pondering the possibility of a year better than the last.

2009 was, for me personally, a roller-coaster year. In retrospect I can roughly divide it into to parts: the First Half and the Second Half. The First Half was about being care-free, motivated, ambitious, making new friends and learning new and exciting things. The Second Half was about feeling defeated, being caught in an impossible situation, being tired, being taxed and, in a certain sense, alone.

All the details of all of this I keep to myself, for now. A highlight, though, was definitely getting more involved in the church which I am currently attending and forming and strengthening relationships there. Through such inspiration I launched a new website called Café on the Rock. While it still needs a lot of fleshing out, I am still excited about it and hopeful of great things.

As the year progressed (and in particular as it drew to a close), I became acutely aware, however, of pain, need and distress around me. I experienced some of this myself, but primarily I stood looking in from the outside as hearts broke, and silent, invisible tears rolled from the eyes of those I care about. At the very end I also bore witness to a silent exodus of friends and colleagues as they moved on from Stellenbosch to fields far, far away. The remnant is very small; I just don’t want to be the last one.

One of the greatest lesson which I feel I have yet to master is patients. But my primary instruction this I, I believe, was in humility: learning not to go gun-ho and trying to resolve situations when all I can see is one piece of a very large and intricate puzzle.

The year was also characterised by a lot of inertia and early on I realised that I would need another year to finish my masters degree. That year has arrived now and the clock is ticking down on what I hope to be the last six months of the 3 year post-graduate adventure. This means that, hitting the ground running, 2010 is going to be a year of hard work and sacrifice. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. But while I last time only had the murky certainty of continuing my studies to look forward to, I now have the exciting prospect of not knowing what is behind the next door. Usually something like that would terrify me to pieces, but I am strangely positive about it. This optimism stems from the fact that, when I finish, I grow up. I leave Neverland, and then the adventure can finally begin! In the meantime, my sacrifice will, hopefully, forge me into the man who I want to be and, more importantly, the man who I need to be.

Thankfully I am blessed with one more week of holiday before I return to Stellenbosch, to work and to my studies. But I’m looking forward to all of it!

A couple of weeks ago, I did my part in taking part in a micro Twitter meme.  A friend had spent a week Tweeting things for which she was thankful for.  A mutual friend then did the same, and I decided to do it as well.  (Another friend saw what I was doing and started doing the same.)  I would now like to repeat that list here, and make some comments and observations about the process as well.

1. The saving grace of Messiah Yeshua and the certainty, love and power of God Almighty.
2. Loving parents who have – a continue to – sacrificed so much for me.
3. Cape Town, the Cape of Good Hope, and its surroundings.
4. Borrie, die mooiste en liefste borriekat in die hele wye wêreld!
5. Trees in suburbia growing taller than the houses and the birds that play and live in them.
6. Sunday lunch, a guilty pleasure! Zzz…
7. The great weekend and fantastic friends!
8. Waking up refreshed and energised on a Monday morning.
9. Having access to health care services.
10. 10GB of free internet!
11. My health and that I can exercise.
12. Beautiful colours – which I can’t even dream of – at sunset!
13. Being weak, foolish and helpless, so that my strength and assurances only comes from God Almighty.
14. The view from my bedroom window (incl. the cats who like to play right outside my window).
15. Forgiveness through repentance made possible by the blood of Messiah Yeshua.
16. Being able to learn from the Word of God.
17. Free and Open Source Software.
18. Finding things that were lost.
19. Yet more beautiful Stellenbosch sunsets!
20. (Again) Great friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ.
21. That I am able to freely meet with fellow believers to study the Word of God without fear of persecution.
22. Food: even a poor student can feast like a king!
23. Having a good, competent veteran study leader to help me get through this thing.
24. Shabbat! Shabbat Shalom!
25. That, one-day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess: “Baruch haba, B’shem Adonai!”
26. Weekends & being able to sleep in when necessary.
27. Summa time!
28. My trip through Europe, even though it’s drawing to a close.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make seven days: I skipped a day completely (my bad) and developed a cold on the day which then should have been the seventh; having a cold tends to damped one’s outlook on things.  But, I suppose, number 29 can be having a cold, as it could have been something worse.  In fact, I can’t remember when last I’ve had a cold, because it’s always the flu or some infection or something else.  But generally I’ve been rather healthy this year: I had a good run while it lasted.

One thing which struck me, was how difficult it was to “keep the chin up”—to not complain—for a whole week.  Other people struggled with this, I’m sure.  And I’ll be the first one to say that I think people who are 100% happy 100% have some serious problems (looming).  We are all just human and experience the world as it is: sometimes good things come our way, sometimes bad things.  But then you have to make a decision: are you going to complain?  Not complaining (or, “offering a negative comment”) was difficult for me, I’ll admit.  Once again, complaining does have its place and time.  But I think that many—if not most—of us are prone to complaining too quickly.  To that end, the Internet is a great enabler.  It is your Twitter feed, after all, and you don’t control who reads it and who don’t, so if people don’t want to read about a complaint, tough luck then, right?  Unfortunately that isn’t the right way to think about it.  People don’t know what the demeanor of something you have written is going to be before they read it (unless, perhaps, the thing they are reading has a title or short introduction).  Also, some of the people who are following what you write, do so because they know you on some level and perhaps even care about them.  If your mood is negative, theirs will be affected as well.  Once again I would like to stress, however, that complaining isn’t inherently wrong: it can, in fact, have positive, healthy uses (as opposed to just keeping everything negative bottled up inside).  But frequency of complaining (or, at least, the temptation of it) struck me through this exercise of gratitude.  It is something that I am aware of in myself (sometimes) and which I know I need to work on.  (But I may be making progress: today I got a text message from a friend in which she said that I’m seeing the glass half-full, and that was without trying from my side.)

Some of the items in my list may seem a bit generic.  I am aware of that, and there are two reasons for this.  First off (and this is only my fault): I spent the vast majority of the week cooped up inside my flat trying to burn through free Internet cap on a slow line.  As a consequence, I had little real contact with the world and other people.  Secondly, I found genuine value in the small things.  Anyone can be happy with winning the lottery.  But where would I have been without my parent?  What if I didn’t have the securities which provides me regular food and entertainment?  What if I loose my sight one-day and not have memories of standing in silent awe in front of a beautiful sunset?  Yes, I am greatly blessed, and no amount of complaining and perceived wants can diminish that fact.  And this is something I constantly need to remind myself of: I become just a complacent as the next person.  I then need to stop and look at everything again.  It may seem like “looking for things to be thankful for”, but I really would have been miserable—if alive at all—if it weren’t for the hunderds and thousands of little things.

Perhaps one-day I’ll redo this exercise.  I found it refreshing, actually, as I looked at the world slightly differently for that week.  Go on, try it!

Yesterday, a very good friend of mine handed in his masters thesis.  Bar a few academic formalities to come in the next couple of months, he has finished an academic career of 17 years.  We’ve trudged through the academic quagmire together since 1999.  Congratulations, man, I proud of you and am sure that your post-academic life will be happy and fruitful!

A few of my other friends are still finishing up their theses.  They are only going to hand in on the second opportunity, which means they’ll only graduate in March.  After that, a class moves on, a generation vanishes, a remnant dies.  Of the hopeful, wide-eyed first year B.Sc. (mathematical sciences) class of ’04 would be no more.  I’ll still be here, as well as a couple of physicists and maybe a mathematician, but we’ll be the scatterlings of a remnant.

And that is a sad thought.  For me, at least.  The thought of remaining behind.  Of not finishing In Time.  It is not about finishing within the Expected Period: I’ve gotten over that “prestige” complex long ago.  No, it is about losing that camaraderie.  It’s no secret that I’m very sentimental and things like this get to me in one way or the other.  But it is not only that: it’s the Desert Island Complex: being the one left at the station because he missed the bus.

So one has to ask: why?  How did it happen that a third year is necessary for my M.Sc.?  Like just about anything in life, there is no simple answer.  But if a simple answer is to be given, it would be: that I worked part time in my first year.  Worked two jobs part time, in fact.  And that is a fair assessment: for two plus days a week for a whole year, I was tied up elsewhere.  When I got home in the evening, I was too tired to work.  So I had 3/5 of the time people who weren’t working had.  (But, in reality, that was closer to 2/5.)  But, leaving it at just that would be over-simplifying.  Moving on a year later, I had learned my lesson and quit my job.  I the scope of my work at the CS department was even reduced.  But still I vasted unaccomplished this year.  Why?  I’ve come to the conclusion that it was because of inertia: mine, first and foremost, and others’ as well.

From my side I have not been very dedicated and committed to work.  I bowed down to sloth and procrastination: “There’s always tomorrow.”  Then strangely enough, I awoke one-day and found that I’d run out of tomorrows.  That was quite a shock.  Now I’m trying to make up for it.  A year seems like a long time still for doing a lot of work in, but from experience I know now that it isn’t.  Prayer, and sweat and tears spilt in silence is all that is going to help now.

But I am also willing to point the finger once it has passed by me.  I can’t really blame others for my woes, but this year has been an expensive lesson in bureaucracy.  For example: at the very end of last year I decided to make a survey for children who have Asperger Syndrome and their parents.  I had a couple of reasons for doing this, which I’m not going to go into now.  My supervisor loved the idea.  Neither she nor I had done anything like this before, but dove right in with gusto.  We spent months designing, re-designing and fine tuning that blasted survey.  Finally we arrived at something adequate—something to almost be proud of, even.  Next step was to get clearance from the university’s board of ethics.  After a blunder on the first attempt, I submitted my request for clearance in July; I have yet to hear a single word on whether it was approved or not.  A recent query was met with silence.  And so I learned yet another little lesson: in academia, if you have to deal with someone whom you have never seen before and whom you don’t know, you are probably going to be either treated rudely or not at all.  I hope this is not true for most other universities (or even for the whole of Stellenbosch), but I’ve had my fill of submissions and request.

Lastly: my supervisor keeps me one a fairly loose leash.  This can be a Good Thing, but I’ve turned it into something bad.  I usually don’t do new year’s resolutions, but one for 2010 is going to be to get her to keep me in line.

So, what conclusions can be drawn from examining the factors which have led up to my current predicament?  A few pointers:

• Don’t dream big.  This is going to be tempting when you start doing a masters (the word “thesis” is so grand, after all).  But you aren’t going to change the world.  Chances are, two years after you’ve finished, no-one except you will remember what you did and your work will effectively be lost.  (If you really want to change the world, go join a “cause” on Facebook.)
• Don’t have ideas.  Don’t make suggestions for improvements to your project to your supervisor: that is their job.  Your job is to be the dumb, mute workhorse.
• Be annoying: badger people to whom you’ve made submissions and need feedback or other sort of answer into submission (and admission).
• Be accountable.  If not to your supervisor, then to someone else.  Nothing makes goofing off as easy as not having someone look over your shoulder.  Big Brother is your friend.
• Have a clear plan according to which to work to.  This is especially important for computer scientists.  Formulating this plan might very well be more than doing the actual work, but it will guide your ship safely and timely into the harbour of graduation.

And I’ll throw in a couple of freebies as well.  While doing your masters:

• Enjoy yourself.  A time will come when you realise that you need to buckle down or throw in the towel.  Then you’ll sweat and
• Diversify: get away from your subject matter and field.  Or else you’ll end up hating it much sooner than is necessary and you’ll probably end up bitter and uninteresting to boot.

But all is not doom and gloom, boys and girls.  I have been blessed to make a whole bunch of new friends at the church I am attending.  I look forward to spending another year there and am eager to serve there.  By no means do I think is staying in Stellenbosch for another year something which needs to be lamented.  But it is always so nice to complain anyway, isn’t it?

Wash wash wash
The ebb and flow of light
Stirs me
And calms raw nerves.
Goodnight

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