1. Have you ever been 'asked' to report for jury duty? Were you chosen to serve? If not, were you happy or disappointed?
We don’t have jury duty in SA. I have however found such a concept interesting.The jury is not yet out whether I believe 100% in the workings thereof, but it does have it’s considered advantages along with some potential disadvantages.
2. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being very), how mechanically inclined are you? Give an example to back up your answer.
Ha ha..that is a good question. I am not at all mechanically inclined. So give me a 1 or 2. In fact if my sewing machine (used on very rare occasions) had to jamb a needle I get very frustrated and after trying to unjamb the needle or whatever part is jammed, will put the machine off and wait for a mechanic to pass me by. I am pretty good with a computer however (OK so what passes as good? Probably not as competent as my teenage girls....). I can also put a plug on any appliance all by myself without electrocuting the household (pat on the back...but then that is elactrical minded as opposed to mechanical) but no, my mechanical brains ar otherwise incredibly limited. Not that I don’t find the subject interesting and informative. I do. Till today I would easily watch such programs where they explain how pumps and engines/motors work, but inclined I am not. I battle with 3D options that are not directly visible right in front of me.
3. Beets-cabbage-cauliflower-butternut squash....of the four, which is your favorite fall vegetable?
I eat and enjoy all veggies including all those above – might be one or two unknowns but I am a veggie person. I always eat my veggies before my meat and or potatoes/rice so when I am full I am full of veggies nd the meat goes home in a doggy bag (usually to be sliced up for beef sandwich). I particularly like butternut squash and spinach (not together of course) but honestly, I eat literally all veges I know of. There are a few exceptions of course but they come along as discovered. Once when on a work’s visit to Tanzania this time a year ago, they have a vege similar to a banana. In fact it’s a hard banana – it looks and almost tastes like a banana but you can’t eat it raw and it’s very hard raw. They cook it by boiling – tastes awful. Doesn’t even have a proper taste to me, so there, I don’t eat all veges. Out of the 4 above – I eat them all and even like them. Yes I know, my hubbie and girls don’t eat veges the way I do and also think a few nuts are missing
4. What do you recommend to overcome self-pity?
5 minues of self pity is good. We all need some self pity time but 5 minutes is enough. Thereafter I would take my girls or any other self pitying person to any place close by to me where people actually suffer just to live. One can start at our local old age home. There everyone is under a roof and have their own beds and food every day but the adult children (some of them certainly well off) dump their parents there and just forget about them – only visiting them once a year if the old people are lucky. That’s sad.
There are many homeless/unemployed people in the streets around us daily. In South Africa we have an unemployment rate of around 25%. The USA is currently around 10% unemployed to the best of my knowledge (BBC News, although black Americans can have as high a rate as 16%) and no doubt everyone realises that is high. Unemployment in Africa in its own is a major problem. Could be due to lower education levels, amongst other societal problems too. In Tanzania for example, it is most important to work for the government – there you are then ‘looked after’ for life as it were. However the millions that aren’t employed by the government have to find their own way of surviving and there it was apparent how many millions lived a hand-mouth existence. Everyone selling something on the street for survival – from bananas to corn or wood – just enough for the day’s subsistence too in most cases. In South Africa, there are many millions not even surviving. I will show this self-pitying person how people, previously employed, previously with a home and decent lifestyle, black and white, now live in shacks or run down accommodation due to retrenchment, unemployment, downward economic spiral. How old Black women look after their grandkids (perhaps because adult parents have died from AIDS or other illnesses – remember sub-Saharan Africa has an enormous HIV/AIDS rate of at least 25% of the population) - and how these grandparents do their best to feed and send them to school on very minimal government pensions. The pride in achieving something like this (when it is achieved) is something to admire and there are many such individuals whom I do admire. Many millions don’t of course, they all lie around waiting for the government to feed them and clothe them and give them money for free – but the ones I admire are the ones who do their best to look after their children in extremely trying circumstances. My mom was one of them – a poor white lady with no maintenance money from her ex husband, and she taught me the benefits of studying hard so one day you could find a job and move up in life and offer a different opportunity to your children. I also admire many other women especially, of all races, who bring this attitude to their children. We need more of them. Just walk the streets for one day, and I am eternally grateful for everything in my life, not the least my job, my family, my home. Every single day I appreciate and give thanks for every single thing I have. And I’m not talking possessions so much as a lifestyle and or mindset and those people that make your life
5. Do you enjoy classical music?
Yes. Not as knowledgeable as I should be, but in my mid-age am of course learning more and listening more every day. Funny how this sometimes comes with age hey? My mom loved classical and opera but as a young girl it was too noisy for me. (Yes I know compared to rock music????) Now I listen piece by piece. I enjoy the sounds of a good piano. Violins not yet my type, but I also enjoy orchestral music. That does count doesn’t it?
6. October is National Book Month...what's on your reading list this month?
Reading is my life. Unfortunately so is working and studying. So my pleasure reading is very very limited, and October will see more textbooks studied as opposed to pleasure reading. However I read for pleasure every single night 30 minutes in the bath – and am busy with a book entitled something along the lines “Don’t fool around with mountains” by Selebelo someone – a (black) South African’s memoir of his climb of Mt Everest – but first all his other climbs like Kilimanjaro, and others in S America etc on his way to Everest. I find it very interesting and fascinating. Hope to finish by this weekend. Then I have social science textbooks to read, and for pleasure I have a huge selection of books ranging from Bukowski’s poetry to travel journeys across Africa, to historical novels of Marie-Antoinette and or English history et al et al....sigh..many many choices, limited time ....
7. What is your idea of 'cute'?
Obviously applies to what. Cute immediately refers me to a soft fluffy ball of kitten or puppy. My daughter bought a ToyPom pup the other day – the poor thing is 8 weeks old, weighs 1.1 kg (about 2 pounds) and is just a ball of fluff. Cute guys tend not to be my thing, I like them not so cute like Gerard Butler or Kevin Costner or Richard Gere. Cute applies to babies or small animals.
8. Insert your own random thought here.
Well my last post I mentioned rugby and the Rugby World Cup 2011 currently taking place in New Zealand. It would be amiss of me to mention that SA lost in the quarterfinals against Australia, and that the semi-finals taking place this weekend are Aus vs New Zealand and France vs Wales. For a fanatic rugby-playing nation like SA this is a big loss and many are no longer going to watch any further games – but I will. Good rugby is up for grabs. I suspect Wales and New Zealand will march on into the finals – Wales because they are playing fantastic enterprising exciting rugby right now and the French are almost the most unreliable rugby team in the world – the A team will arrive to play today and tomorrow the B or C team might pitch up – you never know what/who you’re going to get - and New Zealand, because next to SA, they are certainly the most formidable rugby playing nation in the world and probably deserve their title should they win it. For those from USA – the USA also sent a rugby team – not being a Rugby nation they certainly didn’t do too badly, but no, couldn’t compete after the first round with the rugby heavies like England, Wales, France, SA, Aussie, New Zealand to name a few. Around 1985/1986 I went to the USA as an exchange student on scholarship – up north in New Hampshire – the best year of my life no doubt – and there I coached a girl’s high rugby team for a season. It was pretty fun.
Other than that, we’re middle October, summer is moving onto us at full speed. So are my November exams. I am an accountant by day, and wife/mom by night, when I also try fit in Psychology student. I am studying part time (ie distance learning) my B Psychology degree for me to consider student guidance/counsellor in about 5 years after my Honours etc. Many will ask “why at this stage in your life”, many others will understand. To me time and age do not delimit the opportunity for you to study further what you want to. I enjoy accounting, I have an excellent job for the past 14 years, I’m good with numbers, they come naturally to me as it were. But it was never my first option, at one stage it was my only option. And so I followed such. But now, 25+ years later, I’m following my heart to do what I wanted to all those years ago. I don’t regret my life thus far as the roads taken have brought me much happiness and ‘success’ (and I define success in being happily married for the last 18 years, in being able to give my girls a stable loving home and more economically than what I had, thus they have a ‘step up’ to also continue onwards in their lives as opposed to battling through poverty). Success is not just economics however, but often the basics come from whether you can afford a good education or not, and to me education and the results of education are what are important. We are by no means rich or even wealthy, and even compared to US Dollar exchange rate we’d be maybe average in the USA, but we can afford food everyday and schoolbooks and have a good job and such and thus I consider us ‘well to do...’. So exams are a November month thing for me and then we can move onto vacation and a sunny Xmas with a big family at home.
So till next week, thanks for popping in. I apologise for not being a great networker, I read everyone who comments here, I add you to my list, and pop in again to your blogs, but time is very limited, soon end November I will have 2 months grace before following study year, and in that time will certainly spend more time visiting your blogs. Till then it’s a short hello from me (OK the above is not short winded) and hope to see you again next week
LG
