Tania.co.za

Onthou jy hierdie uittelrympies?

Ek kuier nou al omtrent 'n week lank by my ma-hulle. Vanoggend probeer ons dink hoe eindig die uittelrympie wat sy geleer het toe sy klein was, en ons kan nie onthou nie:

Olka bolka Riebeeckstolka
Olka bolka knol
Each peach muskadel
Twenty twenty... (En wat kom dan?)

Ek onthou ook 'n variant wat ek in sub-A of -B geleer het, toe ek nog op 'n Afrikaanse skool was:

Olke bolke Riebeeckstolke
Olke bolke knol
Airy chairy chicory chairy
Airy chairy tjorts!*

Ek het nooit self daai rympie gebruik nie, wat olke, bolke en knol was vir my simpel, lelike woorde, en daai common uitspraak van die res van die Engelserige woorde was vir my grillerig. Sien, ek was voor dit op 'n Engelse kleuterskool, en daar het ons hierdie een gebruik, wat vir my baie meer ordentlik geklink het:

Eeny meeny miney mo
Catch a nigger by his toe
If he hollows let him go
Eeny meeny miney mo

This was in the late 60s and early 70s. None of us knew what the word 'nigger' meant, but our nursery school teacher said it was a rude word, so we had to change it to 'turtle', and since none of us knew what a turtle was either, it later became 'tortoise'. (As a result, I thought that 'nigger' was probably a rude word for a tortoise.) I don't think that either turtles or tortoises have toes, though, not the kind you can easily grab anyway. Later on, we learned that 'hollows' was supposed to be 'hollers'. Not that that made any more sense to us than 'hollows', because the only American word we knew was 'hi', and we only used that when we were playing Cowboys and Indians. (Can you imagine the culture that brought us that rhyme in the first place, though? Or a game like Cowboys and Indians? It's probably Cowboys and Iraqis now.)

Sometimes we also added on:

And O-U-T spells out!

Die ander een wat ons nie kan onthou nie (OK, dis nou nie 'n uittelrympie nie, maar anyway) is die een wat my ma se musiekonderwyseres vir haar geleer het sodat sy die flats en sharps kon onthou, maar nou het ons die onthourympie in elk geval vergeet:

Boys eat apple dumpings
Girls...?
Fat cats go down and...?

* Ek sou hierdie woorde almal met Afrikaanse spellings getik het, maar ek het tans 'n probleem sodra ek 'n gravis of 'n kappie of 'n ding tik, dan scramble my hele bladsy sodra dit render op die Web (ek tik tans in die Notes client, nie deur middel van 'n Web-interface nie), omdat ek eendag die verkeerde encoding gekies het toe daar met die Save 'n dialog box opgekom het, en nou kan ek nie 'n knoppie kry om dit te ontlkies nie. Wanneer ek eendag oorgaan na die Notes 6.5 or 7 template, sal alles regkom, en my RSS feed sal ook dan ordentlik werk. Maar ek wil nie eintlik daai template begin gebruik voordat ek nie die nuwe custom scripting language darem bietjie onder die klere bekyk het nie, en voordat ek nie eers met 'n paar goed gespeel het, dit gebreek het, en myself verseker het dat ek dit ook kan heelmaak nie.

Hello wrold

I am swoly revocering from that thrid Panado which has made multiskating quite difcifult today but as fra as I know my wrok is up to date.

Held

My liefling, my skat, my liefdesowyd, niemand besef met watter groot stryd jou elkedag elkenag deurgebalanseer word nie. Om jou voer elkeen sy eie piepklein oorloggie en dink dis erg genoeg om oor te vloek en te suip en deure te klap. Maar jy dra sonder die luukse van sulke verval, sonder erkenning van kerk of krygorde, die verandwoordelikheid vir 'n mikrokosmos van honderde wat jou nie ken of liefhet nie, en ook nie sou liefhe as julle jou geken het nie; en die van jou naaste, jou laaste wat jou ook nie ken nie en nooit geken het nie, en dalk nooit sal liefhe nie. Jy doen altyd jou beste, is altyd die beste; en waar niemand vandag meer 'n held is nie, in 'n wereld van slegheid en goedgenoegheid, is jou beste die beste beste: Jy is my held, my held, my held.

No more arbing and zoning until it's all over

A few days ago, Marius and I sat down and planned my personal timetable for the next few months of work. Many of my friends and family who have seen my client files and personal checklists before trips (which include, inter alia, both timeslotted to-do lists and illustrated lists of clothes, toiletries, snacks and electronic gadgetry) have smiled and said that it is obvious that I am a project manager. The irony is, though, that managing time, cost and deliverables when you are only assigning a single resource -- yourself -- does not actually use any of the famous Project Management techniques. Personal time management is not Project Management. But it's still essential.

Marius and I divided up my work into four-hour chunks. Most of this work involves the preparation and presentation of custom courses in Project Management for various organisations, including Coca-Cola Shanduka, the University of the Witwatersrand, the Office of the President of Botswana, the University of Stellenbosch Graduate School of Business and Southern X. Two of these courses will be co-presented by some of our other lecturers who specialise in PRINCE2, matrix organisation structures, and cost planning. And there's also one (or possibly two, I'll know by tomorrow) hands-on course in Microsoft Project which I must teach in between, and another one specially for delegates from Nigeria, Uganda and Angola which I am trying to arrange for June. Dis 'n program wat skrik vir niks.

The challenge now is not to stay on schedule. Merely trying to stick to the plan could easily cause me to fall behind, as there is no room for contingency. The challenge is to try to keep ahead of the schedule. I am not there yet.

On Saturday, I got together with a couple of friends for what will probably be my last official social engagement for a long time. (Well, other than the Geek Dinner, of course, but that's hardly optional.) All in all, there were about nine of us (although not always present at the same time) including Jonathan and Jonathan, Graham, Chris, Marisa, Wessel and the elusive Wizard of Oz. It struck me at one point that although I did not get to know all of them through the same set of circumstances, I would not have known any of these people (except for Marisa, with whom I'd been in the choir) had it not been for the Internet.

We spent far too much money on food, coffee, and particularly on parking (this was the Waterfront after all, on Easter Weekend!), and had a generally good time, in spite of being mildly distracted every once in a while by some member of the group wandering off to have a life-the-universe-and-everything-else crisis, or running away very suddenly to hide from an unfavourite relative. We finished off the evening at Gandalf's in Obs.

 
The argument about that last free slice of garlic pita.

On the subject of crises, then: In view of my really intense work schedule, I hereby request all my friends to kindly postpone all further suicidal thoughts, car accidents, and other personal disasters till June. This morning I even had to sell my Golden Circle ticket to MyCokeFest in order to catch up with my work after a schedule variance occurred on Sunday morning. So I am missing Muse's first ever performance in South Africa! But I feel less stressed for having chosen to do so.

Several friends who couldn't make it to Saturday's arbing and zoning and who suggested that, in lieu of their absence, we should "get together for coffee on Sunday" or some such thing, probably thought they were being nastily snubbed when I told them that I really wouldn't be able to commit myself to anything until the end of May. But there's the reality for you.

Oggendgesprek

Ek was vanoggend baie vroeg al op kantoor. Toe ek later kombuis toe gaan, het een van my kollegas so pas aangekom en vir homself begin koffie maak.
"Dit is nou die tweede lekkerste ding in die oggend," sê hy tevrede.
"Wat is die eerste lekkerste?" vra ek.
"Die eerste koppie koffie."

Time, cost, scope and quality

I worked really hard. But I couldn't pull it off this time. What I should have done was to go home on Monday afternoon with the laptop and work solidly until Saturday afternoon as I had planned, but instead I still gave my attention to all the other urgent things, including the induction of new staff, and several network problems that were rendering various users completely ineffective at their work.

Marius taught me this: When bad management -- your own bad management -- is to blame for something that affects a customer or supplier, don't lie, water down the reality or wait for them to find out. Contact them as early as possible to mitigate further risk -- and confess the real reason why you can't meet your commitment. That's what I had to do this morning. I could have just pushed on regardless, we could have winged it; but I am unwilling to compromise on quality by delivering a product equal to that of my competitors. Rather an angry client now than a client who feels ripped off later because we gave him less than our best. In the trade-off between time, cost, scope and quality, I chose to sacrifice time and cost. I contacted the client, rescheduled my hotel and flight reservations, and I am pressing on with the preparations, the new tentative deadline being Tuesday afternoon, until the client has conferred with his team about when it would suit them. I have inconvenienced a great number of people who had to plan their schedules months in advance.

Oh, and my Clumsiness Biorhythm is still at its peak. I now have three fingers enveloped in pink Disney Princess plasters, following an encounter with a hot frying pan.

The one biorhythm that they don't measure

I remember when I was about 13, someone worked out my biorhythms. They say that your physical, emotional and other states are supposed to be cyclical, starting from birth, and their frequencies are not the same; but sometimes your Physical, Mental and Emotional biorhythms will all be peaking at the same time, and if you are an athlete, you should be winning during such periods. After all these years, it still seems like a newfangled form of astrological poppycock to me, because in all my days, I was only ever able to discern one kind of biorhythm, viz. the Clumsiness Biorhythm. I have not been able to establish its frequency, but I have noted that when it peaks, it usually lasts for several weeks. Exactly how many weeks is what I am now trying to establish.

Three weeks ago on a Saturday night, I was in the middle of a grande jete en tournans or some such airborne manoevre when I landed obliquely, injuring my ankle. It was very embarassing, as there were plenty of people around the dancefloor, but fortunately nobody came to my aid, so I turned onto my back and lay there for a few seconds, contemplating my position whilst looking at the coloured lights on the ceiling. I then hobbled home to put ice on it, tended mercifully by my flatmate. I got it x-rayed the next week, but it wasn't broken; the ligaments were a bit damaged, though, and the doctor made me wear a brace to prevent further injury.

At first I interpreted this event as having been struck down by the Archangel of Rock for breaking faith by dancing at All Stars, one of numerous clubs in Stellenbosch where they play mindless house music. Of course I couldn't go dancing at Mystic after that, considering my injury, so I missed the infamous raid -- not that I stay out as late as that these days anyway, given the fact that I am old enough to be a grandmother.

But a week or two passed, and just when I thought my Clumsiness Biorhythm was probably entering its period of decline, I discovered that it was actually still on the ascent. With our outsourced network techies ticking away at over R300 per hour each, I hastened out of the office to buy some cables for them from the computer shop around the corner from our office. Having concluded my transaction, I turned round fast to rush out again, and ran smack into a concrete post -- the only concrete post in the entire room, right in the middle of a huge empty space. There was a loud thwuk as my face, torso and knee hit the pole. I tasted blood and wondered how bad I looked. I found the techies smoking in the parking lot, so we discussed the next tasks as I covered half my face, and then I went to check myself in the mirror. To my great disappointment, my injuries didn't appear as serious as they felt, and even the next day, my lips weren't anywhere near as wobbly-looking as those of Julia Roberts.

By today, I reckoned I could probably risk dancing again, provided I didn't use my injured ankle too much. So I put on Tears for Fears during a break in my work at home. Dancing in the corner between my kitchen and bathroom, I whacked my heel against the edge of the door, causing a bubble of blood to collect under my skin.

There are numerous other bruises of unknown origin distributed throughout my anatomy. Since I can fully account for my time, I have tentatively concluded that I do not have Dissociative Identity Disorder, so I can't have sustained these whilst out living a secret double life as a mud wrestler. I have probably just been too busy to notice how many car doors, table corners, bookshelf edges and other solid objects I have unsuccessfully obviated during the past weeks.

If anyone knows how long the Clumsiness Biorhythm actually lasts, please let me know, so that I can determine whether I will need to up my insurance.

The Mystic mystery

Well, hello, it seems as though a lot of people are only now finding out that Stellenbosch has been such a doped-out town all along, following the recent police raids! Good morning to you all, wake up and smell the coffee... I mean weed... I mean... no, rather don't smell any of that stuff, it's all bad for you.

What baffles me is why the police decided to choose that particular form of action. I can't see how on earth that was supposed to solve the problem. Most of the students who use illegal substances (and I am not going to call them "kids" like other people suddenly do, because I can assure you that when they are boozing it up at midnight, they are asserting their adult right to inebriation) haven't got a clue about the connection between their use of the stuff and all the other crimes which form part of the distribution chain which supports the industry. Some of them will refuse to use this or that commercial product, because an animal may have been harmed in its production, but they never give a thought to the fact that some person got harmed in the process of uniting them with a few grams of crystal meth (and I am not saying that crystal meth is the drug of choice, I am just mentioning it because it is supported by such a lot of really hardcore crime). Most of them don't really understand the long-term effects of any of the substances they use either. A few do, and persist anyway.

A lot of these people use the f-word when they get cheesed off, but in person they are actually quite pacifistic. I think a lot of them wouldn't even know how to make a proper fist and punch someone without busting a few of his own fingers in the process. So I don't really see the need for smacking people around the way the police did at Mystic and Bohemia. All that happens is that people end up mistrusting the police. Half of those who use dope probably decided that smoking a joint afterwards would be a good way for them to get over the shock of the event! I can't see how the police action is going to change anyone's behaviour for the good. If anything, people will start feeling that it's their God-given right to use "recreational sybstances", because those who are supposed to represent what's right, don't.

If the punishment doesn't fit the crime, and if innocent bystanders get knocked about in pursuit of justice, it messes up the psychology of a society.

It is a well-known fact that plenty of people who visit Mystic use dope, coke, shrooms, and the like; it is also a well-known fact that Emile has been very tough with certain characters who have tried to deal on the premises. In addition, it is well known that people either arrive pre-stoned, or leave to go and get stoned afterwards, but very few people actually get stoned at Mystic (I can't tell whether the girls do coke in the toilets, I guess that probably happens sometimes, but the only place where I have ever seen it in Stellenbosch didn't even get raided). So, if dealing or using within Mystic's actual territory is not happening to any greater extent than it is happening in the corridors of the building where I live, what on earth did the police expect to achieve by raiding the place, and why rough up everybody as though they have committed some violent crimes and resisted arrest? I for one do not even use any kind of drugs at all (unless you count legal ones, like Cadbury's Mint Chocolate), and nor does my flatmate, and we both go to Mystic regularly. Including last night.

There's just no other club in Stellenbosch where they play the kind of music that really inspires me to dance.

A "nuclear explosion" at UWC

Yesterday I accompanied a friend to a lecture by Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, on global warming and the search for sustainable, clean energy, with a special focus on alternatives for South Africa. It was held in UWC's Main Hall, and although attended largely by uniformed Black schoolchildren (grade 10 or higher, according to my guess), there was also a sizeable minority of adults present. All in all, the audience numbered several hundred. Supporting his logically-structured argument about this complex subject with statistics, Dr. Moore made a convincing case for nuclear energy as the best (if not the only) option for South Africa's future large-scale power production. He made apology for the fact that in the early years, he had opposed nuclear energy on the grounds of fear, and explained why he now believes that this is a very safe option that is good for the enviroment.

The audience clapped and cheered.

The university representative said that because Dr. Moore had to go on to another engagement, there would be time for only one question from the audience. This opportunity was taken up by a very angry guy in an orange shirt who shouted at Dr. Moore. Much of what he said could not be made out properly, but the gist that I caught went something like this: "I don't have to know anything about science, but I know that nuclear energy is bad! The death of people around Pelindaba proves it! How dare you come to tell us that it is good? You want people in South Africa to die!"

Immediately an even greater cheer arose from the audience.

My companion and I laughed in incredulous astonishment at how suddenly the crowd was prepared to switch allegiance. A phrase I recently read somewhere (probably in Sense and Semblance) sprang to mind: something like, "In most cases, blustering assertion will pass for truth where audiences do not want to put in the mental energy to evaluate the credibility of a statement."

The orange man did not really want Dr. Moore to reply. He interrupted any attempts at controlled debate from the guest. Then the organiser said that Dr. Moore could spend an extra fifteen minutes there after all, and the microphone passed to another audience member, a slender gentleman who asserted that Earthlife Africa (to which the orange man presumably belonged) was an elitist splinter-group who only cared about themselves, and that he himself had worked with nuclear power for many years and could attest to how good and safe it is nowadays and how beneficial it was for all the people, especially for the poor.

An even bigger cheer went up from the audience.

The third audience member to ask a question looked like your archetypal dope-smoking lentilhead, and he spoke so unclearly that I shouted to him to slow down and articulate. He expounded some kind of implosive energy option which sounded remarkably like that once introduced to me by a former neighbour who had been in the SS and who still adheres to a lot of millenialist Nazi beliefs which have been largely forgotten by the world (or suppressed by the current German government for fear of re-awakening the horrors of Hitler).

Finally, the organiser said that one final question would be permitted, and several people raised their hands. The microphone was passed to a schoolboy, aged around 16. A massive cheer arose from the audience. The organiser struggled to bring them to order. "I realise that you are excited that one of your own has been chosen to ask a question," he said, "but please be quiet so that we can hear the question."

The schoolboy proceeded to thank Dr. Moore for coming to explain about South Africa's energy options. "I understand that South Africa is not doing a good thing by trying to solve its energy problem by building even more coal-based power stations, because these will increase our carbon footprint. I also understand that hydro-electric, wind and other power options are better, and that for all the reasons which Dr. Moore has explained, the best option of all for South Africa in the long term and on a large sale is nuclear power. But the problem is that in South Africa, we do not have enough skilled people to make these solutions a reality, and unless we solve that, people will have no option but to go for coal-powered electricity."

The audience exploded in rapture, cheering, clapping and noise of every kind.

By this stage, my companion and I had already made several massive mental shifts and had abandoned all the remnants of any notions we may have held about human beings as sentient beings, concluding reluctantly that Remington Norman may just be right about logic and reason being the domain of but a select few. It was a good question (or comment), we both thought, and it was unfortunate that Dr. Moore did not have the time to address it, as he had to leave for his next appointment. But the reaction of the audience to all the questions had been absolutely irrational. After the organiser had calmed the audience slightly (enough to be heard over the din), he said that it was clear that young people were interested in these issues, that academic debate was valuable, and that his department would arrange for an ongoing forum in which they could become involved to discuss the solutions further.

A roar of applause followed.

I don't know what was more eductional to me: Dr. Moore's talk or our observations on mob behaviour. The good guys also got their applause; but if Barabbas had been there, he may well have turned out to be the most popular personality of the day.

Stakeholder management

I hereby wish to express my amazement and admiration for the way in which the South African Breweries' Inland Distribution Centre has handled their neighbours in the industrial area surrounding their premises during changes at the Centre. They kept everyone informed, regularly delivering letters and providing a means of feedback, and finished it all off by inviting their neighbours to a party.