This post comes to you from the soft and comfortable sofa in my very own lounge. Yes, a big milestone has been passed, I am surfing the web on my own laptop in my own flat. And it is wireless so I can sit, stand, lay wherever I want - laptop allowing of course. So who knows the next mail you get from me was sent out of my hot bath, or from a bench in a park, or from a sleazy public toilet. The options are limitless!! The speed of the connection isn't however. I am keeping a close eye on the stats as we speak (resp. write, read) and I am cruising at a mere 20 KB/s on average. But this connection can go all the way up to 7 MB/s, so boy oh boy if I find the right spot (if there is any) I'll surf at the speed
of light. (please don't conclude that the speed of light is 7 MB/s, that wouldn't be very accurate).
If I told you this is the only thing I realized in the past two weeks you would scold at me, right? Well you should because that would be a shame! So I am happy to tell you I did more than just this. One example would be hiking. I went hiking for a day, on my own. Grabbed a backpack and off I went. I had bought a map earlier and discovered there's actually a pathway that leads up to Signal Hill and the Lion's H
ead right around the corner. It's a bewildering feeling to be able to leave the city and be out in the nature so easily. I walked along Signal Hill, crossed it, went along the foot of Table Mountain, rounded the bend around Devil's Peak, descended at Newlands, disturbed a marriage, climbed up to Rhodes' memorial and went back home through the CBD. There, now you can use Google Earth to try to make sense of the previous description.
It was amazing to see how much wildlife I saw, considering you are right next to a city. I saw a mongoose, guinea fowl, a snake, a hawk eating a snake and a bug that killed a spider with a body the size of half my thumb. Granted, I don't have a big thumb but I was still awed by the bug that killed a spider that big.
A part of the road I walked along was closed for traffic. Landslides, falling rocks and the overall poor condition of the road didn't allow cars. Strictly speaking it was closed for hikers as well, but I ignored it. This boyish rebellion paid off because it was great fun to walk along that deserted road. I felt a bit like an Indiana Jones of some sort, not being scared of the snakes that slid away in front of my feet, looking at the mountain slope to assess which rock would fall down next. Staring hard at the rocks (camera in close up now), with eyes like slits, as if I could keep them at bay with my heroic stare. Completely in line with my character I took my shirt off. The sun was burning but that wouldn't stop me. You never see the movie heroes wielding a bottle of factor 20 sunscreen, but I did. As far as my arms would stretch I rubbed the protective cream on my skin. And I was ready to take on the rest of the road. Merrily I walked those miles, hoping I would get a nice tan in the process. I did, in a way. But the sun burns so hard here the factor 20 was hardly enough. A colleague chuckled and told me they invented factor 50 for the piercing rays of sunshine in South Africa. I failed to see the humor of it at
that point and thought of emptying a bucket of factor 50 in his nose. No, that was exaggerated, I wasn't in that much pain thanks to the lotion I did use. None the less my back and my legs look like regular kebaps. I can just peel off the skin and shove it in a roll with some veggies for an alternative meal (would that be cannibalism?).
I am looking for things to do, ways to make me leave my flat and at best meet other people. Ideally it should be something fun too, right? So one of the thing I started was taking up guitar lessons. The first real guitar lessons since I started playing. My teacher is a South African girl who goes to the university in Stellenbosch if I'm not mistaken. Haven't had enough lessons to say I made real progress but she is definitely helping me.
At work there were two events worth mentioning, I guess. An idea I put forward about having a visual management system for our team was approved. I suggested a layout and what the content should be and that got approved as well, without too many changes. I had a white board installed of 1m50 by 1m20 and now I can start implementing my ideas. It's a good feeling I can tell you.
Next to that I was also assigned my very first solo project. There will be contract negotiations in Maputo (Capital of Mozambique) early February. Cool stuff, I want to do a good job. But most I did so far was wait for data input... a whole week I had to wait for input, send reminders, find a way to reach the persons involved... very frustrating! I will have to find a way to make it happen faster next time.
For the past weekends I have been contemplating going surfing. It is absolutely something I would like to try although I have no aptitude for these things.
Any type of board that slides or has wheels gets the better of me. But the times was about to go out and try it the weather was bad or something else kept me from going. That "something else" included the newsflash you can read at the right hand side. I know this news traveled around the world because it is so spectacular.
You know, I bet dozens of people die every day from swallowing something weird (pebbles, an eraser, gummy bears, a pencil,...) but one guy dies of a shark attach and it's front page news. One could be more amazed by those items that got swallowed. (How did he swallow a whole pencil? which gummy bear did it? What brand of eraser was it?) Mainly because the shark did not do anything out of the ordinary. Unlike the pencil in the throat of a guy, the shark did what it is meant to do: swim, hunt, bite. Pencils are not designed to enter an esophagus, so you could say it is a lot more peculiar and worth more investigation. But then again, the pencil doesn't grow up to 7 meters big and it doesn't have three rows of razor sharp teeth. And when you see a pencil you don't start humming "tuuu du ---- tuuu du --- tu du tu du tu du etc..." do you?
But I'm getting side tracked here. My point is that a poor chap ended as shark chow in the bay where I wanted to learn to surf. It is very uncommon thing to happen, but kept me away for now regardless.
I'll end this post by saying that I am currently studying for something. It involves a book, a teacher and other teaching tools. I even have an exam soon... but for/of what?
I will tell you, later.
From the comfy three seater in my flat, via the digital highway to you behind your screen,
yours truly,
W.
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