Tania.co.za

Mandatory post-event entry, with appropriate hyperlink in accordance with requirements of blogiquette

Went to 27 Dinner on Saturday, had fun, didn't drink any Stormhoek.

End of a strenuous week

It's been a strenuous week, not helped by the fact that I've learned that my addictive cravings are more intense than those experienced by cocaine addicts. I assisted a friend in some tough business negotiations to try to make technical headway in a project which has been all but killed by the conflicting motives and business styles of the major stakeholders. I was also in on a PSNext presentation to a local division of a big international company (contact me via ProjectManagement.co.za if you want details on PSNext, the cost of tokens, how it rates against Microsoft Project, where to get training, etc.) And I have my work cut out for me from mid-November to mid-December, during which time I will be teaching a total of five courses in various aspects of Project Management to groups of Parliamentarians, engineers, policy strategists, administrators and agricultural producers. I will leave it to you to guess which ones I am looking forward to and which one I am dreading. Here's an extract from my reply to the person who engaged my services in one of these, after he sent me a message telling me what to expect from the group in terms of their commitment to learning, their adherence to agreed schedules, their attendance, their knowledge of the world around them and their attitude towards other people:

Ek het hoeka opgesien vir hierdie groep, en het maar gehoop dit gaan nie so erg wees as wat ek vrees nie... Maar ai, daardie brief laat my hart sink. Gelukkig het ek al Prediker, Job en Camus gelees en ek sal ter voorbereiding for good measure ook Catch 22 koop ten einde myself psigies te staal teen die sinneloosheid. Is hulle darem rekenaargeletterd of gaan ek vir hierdie ongemotiveerde mense die verskil tussen 'n muis en 'n rot moet leer? Ek het eintlik heelwat goeie nuus wat ek wil deel, maar ek wil nou eers bietjie tob.

Yesterday afternoon Marius sent me to attend Viridian's opening function at the Cape Town Flower Show (Pavatile sponsored the kerbstones and the cladding and tops of their bar counter), and on the way back I popped in to see Carol at her home, as I expected that the money keeping her in hospital would have run out. She had several visitors with her, who all upped and left when I arrived. She told me that some of them had cried when they saw her, which certainly did nothing to encourage her! Well, I promised not to cry unless she asked me to (and I was not in the mood for crying anyway), but admittedly, she wasn't looking good, and her breathing was difficult. I would guess that she probably weighs around 300 kg now, and there is nothing that can be done about the swelling, it seems. Her stomach is enormous and hard, like a giant orange skin which has been pumped full of cement. This is not fat, and it is not the result of over-eating, but hospital staff are nevertheless not always very sympathetic, and some of them treat her as though she brought this upon herself and deserves her lot. They won't always help her turn when she is there (and you know how narrow those beds are), and once she went for a day without water, because she couldn't close her hands (something that sometimes happens with people who suffer from sarcoidosis), and the nurses accused her of being "too fat and lazy" to hold her own glass. (A doctor doing the rounds eventually helped her.) Going to the toilet is also difficult (her aunt spent the night with her last night to help) and she can't wash herself. Some of her relatives made some clothes for her by sewing inserts into large pyjamas. You can't buy clothes that size in just any old shop. One thing that also looks quite odd is that her breasts are now so far apart that they are practically beneath her armpits, with a wide expanse in between. There are also rolls bigger than her breasts coming out at her sides beneath her arms, and towards her back. Finding a position in which to sleep without causing collapse of her lungs, or further back pain, or bed-sores, is understandably difficult. She is in a lot of pain. Well, I am glad that I went, because I happened to have some Panado and vitamin B tablets with me, and was able to give her most of my cash to pay for another two weeknights in hospital, and I sent her some airtime later as well. The fact that I was quite chirpy cheered her up (a cynical sense of humour is not always depressing!) and she sent me an SMS from hospital today to say thank-you.

Tonight I am going out with the Princess and friends. It's her birthday on Sunday. But before that, I need to give belated feedback to all my students who qualify for resubmissions, and then to get out a proposal to Mutual, and follow up on a pack of Web enquiries.

Isn't the weather just lovely today, though? I was made for the African heat.

PodCamp Cape Town, the World Cup and other tales of joy and woe

One fine Friday afternoon in an industrial area in Cape Town

Tania:	Marius, onthou jy dat ek omtrent twee maande gelede 'n kwotasie ingedien het om 'n 3-dagse kursus in Projekbestuur in Swaziland aan te bied? Ek het so pas bevestiging ontvang dat hulle dit aanvaar het. Dit sal aan die einde van November plaasvind.
Marius:	Swaziland? Congratulations. You are now an international speaker.

One hot Saturday at the Wild Fig

PodCamp Cape Town 2007. Very beneficial, from a social, educational and even a business point of view. To those of you who didn't pitch: You missed out baaadly, dudes. To the Wild Fig and to those (Keyjam, Faxaroo, Zoopy, BizCommunity, etc.) who sponsored muffins, coffee and so on: Thank-you. What a bargain. An un-conference certainly beats a conference in value for money! To the guys who left our table early: I was left to cough up 38 bucks in addition to my own bill, so someone owes me something. Did you pay your compulsory gratuity? If not, you owe me a slice of pizza!

The day before PodCamp, I received a short comment on my blog from Joy-Mari, a copywriter.
I hunted her down at Facebook and invited her to PodCamp too. Here she is with me and others.

One Saturday evening in a flat in Stellenbosch
I played chess against my usual opponent, who had beaten me in all but four games since February — and we played often. This time, to my disapproval, he decided to "level the playing field" by smoking indigenous leaves before arriving. The fact that I won the second game cannot be attributed to this factor, though, because he won the first, while he was still far more under the influence.

One Saturday night in the centre of Stellenbosch

I don't usually watch rugby, but having watched South Africa's last World Cup victory on TV twelve years ago, I decided to do it again this time. The lead up to the game in the afternoon was dampened somewhat by the fact that one of my best friends and several neighbours have a big emotional issue with the race politics which affect the game (some of them are All Blacks supporters, out of protest). If I thought that they were simply being silly, I could have shrugged it off, but I understand their feelings all too well, and I cannot expect people to not feel that way. To top it all, Carol, who is dying, contacted me, and I had to make a plan to ensure that she could be admitted to hospital again.

The other thing that filled me with some trepidation about going out to watch the game was that people were dressing up in green and painting their faces, freaking me out with fanatical Facebook status messages and other manifestations of extreme devotion to a religion which is quite alien to me. One person I know even built an altar at home consisting of Springbok memorabilia and icons. Thankfully, the Princess promised to accompany her boyfriend to the bar where we'd be watching, and since she also expected to feel a bit "out", it made me feel more "in". The other handy thing was that most of the patrons of that place like to think of themselves of individualists, and so, while there was definitely a shared enjoyment, many people had individualised experiences of it, and a group of women who tried to get a Mexican wave going, had to give up eventually. Whilst the game was exciting, I was also quite tired, and this made me relax about all the issues I'd brought with me, and in the end, the experience was one of having found my own niche rather than being so conscious of "not being part of the group". I shared nothing of the emotions of one fan who spewed out the most obscene words every time the referee judged in favour of the English. I thought that the referee was quite impartial, to be honest, and was impressed to see that Bryan Habana, who is known as a star player, can also be such a good supporting player, contributing to the glory of the team above serving his personal ambition of setting a new record. And it was nice to see Thabo Mbeki being raised onto the players' shoulders, because of and in spite of everything.

I left while the mood was still good. Outside in the street there were firedancers and parties happening on the roofs of slow-moving cars. I was home before midnight, and opened the windows so that I would still hear the occasional cheers coming from outside even after I put off my light.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow

Yesterday

I think I am a rather atypical nerd. OK, the normal nerdy stuff does happen: For relaxation, I read books on history; I get a kick out of having Jonathan Hitchcock correct my spelling, grammar and syntax, and the day before yesterday I stayed up until midnight talking to Dennis about databases, ethical hacking and *Camp. And I have plenty of hangups, as nerds usually do. But now if you look at these things in isolation, you'd think that yesterday I had a very strange day: Whilst praying in the car for a moment on the way back from work, I came to the conclusion that I should stop moaning publically about what Carol's medical expenses cost me, and visualised the scene of Jesus clearing the temple set to rock music. Later on, during my usual exercise routine in an arbitrary bar (the only one I could find that had loud music and an open dancefloor so early in the evening), I politely refused a drink bought for me by a stranger, because it contained alcohol; and instead of the anticipated disdainful incredulity, the buyer honoured me, wide-eyed, with a tap of fists, and a verbalised expression of "Respect!" Besides that, I also accidentally doused myself with paraffin, was given the telephone number of the Greatest Cocaine Dealer in Town -- which I certainly won't need to use! -- and also probably inadvertently got mistaken for a lesbian.

Today

...I need to do laundry, because...

Tomorrow

...is PodCamp! When asked by Elvira van Noort (whom I will be meeting within 21 hours) why I am going to PodCamp, I said it was because it relates to my work as a project facilitator, graphic designer, proof-reader, marketing executive, database developer, classification consultant, company clown, recruitment agent, course presenter, information designer, civil engineering technician, legal documentation editor, Web developer, agony aunt, product development specialist, photographer, skills development consultant, VNC support officer, compulsive lender of money to broke friends, business analyst, technical writer, cartoonist, software trainer, assembly line operator, and changer of car tyres. And also because I like to be around geeks.

I hope Elvira won't mind me quoting this message which she sent me as part of our Facebook conversation. I think it makes quite a nice "new media" story:
You won't believe this. My status here on Facebook says 'Elvira is looking for a sponsor so she can go to PodCamp'. Guess what happened? My Dutch friends laughed because I am making Rands and a trip down there with staying and all amounts to about 80 Euros/ 800 Rand (I travel by bus and stay at backpackers) and that is really nothing if you make Euros (I used to make 12.50 Euro per hour) so.... they got some money together!

I didn't have time to prepare a talk this time. Will be giving one at *Camp in December instead.

As I told Elvira (who will be coming down from Grahamstown), the reason to come to PodCamp is this: You may never again have the opportunity to hear all of these speakers and to network with such an influential crowd of up-and-coming new media dudes as you will at this get-together. After this, what will probably happen is that some of these people will be organised as speakers at a really expensive business seminar and they will charge big money for that. So getting it for free, so to speak (well, OK, you have to pay your trip and food and stay somewhere) is probably an opportunity that won't arise for you again soon. There are only two places left.

Oh yes, and I do intend to watch the rugby. Even I watch rugby on TV. Once every twelve years, that is.

Hey, I'm not as broke as I thought I was!

I just remembered, I have a hotel bill and about five Vodacom SMS bundles which I can submit as disbursement claims. I also discovered a total of R100 in the back pockets of two different pairs of jeans. Besides, my favourite security guard promised to pay me back all the money he owes me at the end of the month, which, judging by his past repayments, means that I can realistically expect about half of it this month, which he will re-borrow two weeks later. And another out-of-pocket friend is getting an invoice paid next week, so I can expect a repayment from him too. So I should be able to keep Carol in hospital for most weekdays for the rest of the month, without going into debt myself.

Right to life

People like to go on about a terminally ill person's quality of life, about the the cost of keeping someone alive, and about how good it would be if the law allowed euthanasia. Those sentiments don't help, though. I could easily kill Carol if I wanted to. I could simply stop giving her money, and she would die, probably from asphyxiation, but also possibly from kidney failure, heart failure, or any number of other factors, individually, or in combination.

But she does not want to die. She is bitterly unhappy, she cries a lot, she is constantly in pain, but she wants to live. It is the middle of the month, and I have only enough money for another four nights of hospitalisation left in my bank account, and one more night in my credit card. And another night in cash in my purse. After that, I have to start using up next month's salary.

I need to make more money. I really would like a pension.

Job applicants: Discrimination on the basis of gender... and intelligence

Employers have a tough time and get accused of all sorts of weird things by employees whose holy rights are enshrined in the constitution from even before they start working for you. My main client (with whom I share office space) has two jobs advertised at the moment. The one is for a Logistics Faciliator (admin job), and the other is for a Code 08 driver, who will also have some janitorial duties and who will receive computer training, with the opportunity to grow into a clerical position. Whilst there has been only a small number of applicants for the logistics position, there have been many for the latter, and the guys downstairs have been capturing calls from prospective applicants.

A number of them have taken calls from women who have asked if the job is intended for a man or for a woman, and when told that the applicant should preferably be male, have ended up getting yelled at for discriminating. "Ek is 'n boervrou! Ek kan alles doen wat 'n man kan doen! Gee vir my die job! Ek wil hom hê!" is one example. (I am going to recommend that this boervrou be interviewed, incidently.) As the only woman in the building, I have been listening to their stories in the kitchen and in the open plan area, and have suggested to them that they rather explain themselves to callers in terms which will clarify the rationale. The job requires working in what is often an all-male environment, and can sometimes mean lifting items weighing 50 kg or more unaided onto the back of a bakkie. In spite of my sizeable biceps and the fact that I can throw a decent enough punch, this is a job I wouldn't want to risk my back doing daily. So, provided that the applicant is up to it, gender doesn't really matter. I know for a fact that the boss would certainly prefer a fit and competent woman who is built like a Samoan rugby player in the job instead of a puny chain-smoking man.

There have also been some calls from men, asking the same question. Some of them have been just as argumentative. "You say that the job is for a man, but then it says here that cleaning the office is part of the job! I don't see how that's a job for a man!"

So, if we were to take only the comments of these applicants as a basis for an argument, we could come up with a nice, juicy conclusion: A woman can do everything a man can do, but a man can't do everything a woman can do. (See what great thinking challenges can be overcome by using women's logic?)

A final one. My colleage Denver got a call from one guy and in going through all the questions, he hit the following response:

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two"

"And how long have you had your Code 08 licence?"

"Ten years."

Perhaps someone told this dude that there are certain things which you should say in an interview to be impressive, regardless of whether they are true or not. Apparently he did hear the question properly, and it was only after Denver explained to him why this was impossible that he changed his insistent answer to two years.

Project Management courses in Windhoek (Namibia) and Gaborone (Botswana): October to November 2007

The famous USB Programme in Project Management is going to be held in Gaborone (Gabarone? Gaborones? Why does this city's have so many spellings?) and simultaneously in Windhoek (thank goodness I can spell this one) from 29 October–2 November 2007. If you want to come, click on these pretty words to send your details ASAP, or find out more about the course content by clicking these other pretty words. The cost is R8,500, and it includes a very fat well-recognised textook, food, etc. These courses are accredited through the Council for Higher Education, and the credits can be used towards an MBA. (Of course the course is also going to be held in Cape Town at the end of November for R7,500, but you knew that already. And there's one in Pretoria next year. And a Microsoft Project course, and an Advanced course in Project Management, and so on.)

Ja, ja, ja, shameless plug and all that. But I have good cause. (Whose blog is it anyway?)

Nice things that have happened lately

Well, there are a lot of them, but here are two that I haven't mentioned yet, because they're pretty recent:

My favourite neighbour whose imminent departure I lamented with a great display of emotion in June, is no longer immigrating to Pretoria. His new girlfriend has decided to step in and become the manager of his band, and with this support, he now sees his way clear to establishing himself here after all; and it looks like the study opportunity which he had been intending to pursue in Europe or America will soon be possible in South Africa. (That also takes off the pressure for him to pay me the seven drum lessons, two theatre tickets, one CD and three boxes of matches which he owes me within the next three weeks.)

My friend Dennis, a man of empathy and extraordinary service, has taken it upon himself to assist me in organising a fund-raising event in order to assist me in meeting the needs of my terminally ill friend Carol. This is something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I just haven't really known where to start or who to ask for assistance. ("Physician, heal thyself." I lecture on Project Management!) As suggested by Dennis, I will start posting on Facebook for event ideas from friends. Responses to this blog entry are also welcome.

Anonymous

Well, you were worried that if we met while I was in Johannesburg, I would blog about you afterwards, and since you try to maintain such a low profile, your cover would be blown — particularly after you saw what happened to that guy who made the big mistake of sending me a flirtatious message via my feedback form. Well, you needn't have worried, as I said; I am good at honouring people's privacy if they show the required respect. Which you did. And I couldn't very well not blog about you, because then you could end up feeling unimportant, and become even more cynical and reclusive. And as an ENFJ it is my genetically predestined duty to try to rescue you from such things. (Actually, whether there is any serious genetic case to be made for being an ENFJ, or, for that matter, a rescuer, I do not know, but for some reason I felt that I should find an excuse for my actions, and that one seemed convenient and intellectual-sounding.)

The irony, I think, is that whereas you told me in a previous e-mail that you think I dwell too much on the past, allowing it to affect my present, and that I should just forget about everything that's not so nice, I think the very fact that you have anaesthetised your mind to such a large degree to all of those experiences has made you less capable of experiencing extremes of happiness. And thus, the past has dealt you a far more damaging blow than it has dealt me. OK, so we were only together for a couple of hours. I could be wrong. But you did confess in numerous ways to having become dulled — you even used the expression 'comfort zone'...

Enough of that for now. I wish I could go public about the Ultimate Nerd Experience which so tickled my mind, but if I spoke about that, the one or two people who occasionally read this diary and who know who you are would eventually figure out that I am talking about you. So I won't go there.

I look forward to seeing you again.

You give a good hug.

FAQ

All bloggers who have access to referrers get some wacko Googles. Now although some of these queries may seem silly, there's sometimes a serious person behind them who really wants to know. In response to some of the seemingly mad questions that I get from time to time, I am therefore going to start an FAQ.

One of the things which people want to know from me is how to lose 10 kg in a month. I intend to answer that question sometime, but remember that to better your chances of success, you need to start out quite fat!. If I lost 10 kg, I would be underweight, since I currently weigh 60 kg, and the minimum healthy weight for my age and height is 54 kg. Mikhailo lost 10 kg in just one week while taking MSM, but he was under extreme pressure as a result of his workload, he had almost no sleep, and he ate virtually nothing during the last two days of the experience. By the time that he got onto the plane to Europe on Sunday, he was dizzy, nauseous and had suffered a severe nosebleed.

Another question I had recently was whether you can dance if you are "partially crippled" (sic). The answer is most certainly yes. You can dance if you are a paraplegic, and you can dance if you are an amputee. In time, I hope to give details about dancing (ballroom, freestyle and ballet) for disabled people in both a social and a competitive context. (You'll just have to forgive me if I don't use all the politically fashionable words, but sometimes I just couldn't be bothered to call a spade a shovel.) In spite of having the use of my whole body, I use some of the techniques myself.

BarCamp, StarCamp, PodCamp, Geek Dinners and 27 Dinners: A brief political history for Capetonians

BarCamp

In 2006 on a very cold weekend, a bunch of geeks (plus a couple of people who felt that by hanging around geeks, they could make money) met in a dark and uninspiring school hall in Kuils River, where they were very inspired. Based on similar events held elsewhere in the world (if you're really interested, you could probably get someone to explain how FooCamp spawned the BarCamp revolution), the Cape Town event was largely driven by Conrad Strydom, but nobody seems to know what has become of him since.

Many of the guys who were at the Cape Town event have now become quite famous as a result of the BarCamp catalysis.

Dave Duarte, Rafiq Philips, Adrian Rossouw and
Miguel dos Santos at BarCamp in June 2006.

Geek Dinners and 27 Dinners

One of them, Dave Duarte (a then colleague of Conrad Strydom) co-presented case study on blog marketing featuring Stormhoek, a small wine company which managed to make a name for itself on a shoestring budget by effectively harnessing the power of the Internet and social media. Graham Knox, Stormhoek's owner, spoke of how they sponsored so called "geek dinners" — parties held by computer guys who had blogs — in America and other countries, in exchange for having these guys say something about their wine on the Internet. These could be costume parties or formal dinner parties — any kind of party where wine is consumed.

As part of Stormhoek's South African launch, Dave and Graham started organising dinners in Cape Town. Here, a "geek dinner" took the specific form of a sit-down dinner in a restaurant with talks by volunteer speakers, and sometimes also with live entertainment.

The Mike-Stopforth-comes-to-town get-together at Yindees that led to
more formalised 27 Dinners and Geek Dinners in Cape Town.
In the foreground are Conrad Strydom and Miguel dos Santos.

Soon, however, some of the people who attended the parties began to feel that they had been cheated: they had expected a get-together of computer enthusiasts, but instead, they had to listen to yuppie marketing pitches and to pay a lot of money for very little food (a hallmark of nouvelle cuisine). As a result, a breakaway movement called the Original Geek Dinner was formed with the wine sponsor varying from event to event, while Dave (teaming up with Mike Stopforth, with whom he later went into business) continued with a series of events which became known as the 27 Dinners, being held on the 27th of every second month. (The latter movement soon spread to Johannesburg, Durban and elsewhere). In spite of the split, many people such Ian Gilfillan and I continued to attend both events on alternating months.

Jonthan Endersby, Joe aka Swimgeek (and other names, including his real name) and
Jaco Engelbrecht at one of the early events organised by Dave and sponsored by Stormhoek.
After this one in February 2007, Geek Dinners and 27 Dinners became two separate events.

Rather than being opposing "camps", the two groups may be considered branches (or perhaps clusters) which focus on different aspects of Information Technology. Both have a leaning towards Open Source, but the 27 Dinner movement focuses on the outward, glitzy side of new media, with a lot of emphasis on marketing, while the Geek Dinner also includes the guts and the engine room.

Through a curious set of coincidences involving Jaco Engelbrecht and Die Mystic Boer, I got to know Jonathan Hitchcock. In spite of having missed both BarCamp and all the 27 Dinners, Jonathan soon became one of the most diligent organisers of the Geek Dinners.

Rudi van Niekerk, Graham Poulter and Wessel Venter at the September 2007 Geek Dinner.

Related events, such as visits to South Africa by Wikipedia's founder, and the Open Coffee Club (run by Eric Edelstein and focusing on business networking amongst entrepreneurs) attracted members of the same crowd, and so the movement grew. (Ian Gilfillan is leading Cape Town's bid to hold the next Wikimania conference. Results are due any day now.)

Glen Verran interviews Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia at the Creative Commons event in Observatory.
In the background is Zalta, Stefano Sessa's girlfriend.

PodCamp

Being into "broadcasting IT", one of the original guys from BarCamp, Glen Verran (host of the ZA Show podcast), stuck with the 27 Dinner branch and began organising an event focused on new media. The first Cape Town PodCamp will be held on 20 October. (ProjectManagement.co.za is sponsoring a prize draw for a copy of James P. Lewis' Fundamentals of Project Management.)

*Camp (StarCamp)

With Conrad Strydom being AWOL and thus no plan for another BarCamp for 2007, another original BarCamper, Neil Blakey-Milner (a Geek Dinner affiliate who also frequents 27 Dinners) began organising *Camp — a kind of "bigger, better BarCamp".

I was a (very nervous) speaker at the original BarCamp 2006. I chose to do a short presentation on Lotus Notes/Domino as an development platform, showing some of the applications which I have developed for the Web and for the Notes client, including the templates which run content-managed Web sites such as ProjectManagement.co.za and Pavatile.co.za. (Thank goodness Adrian Rossouw told me he found it interesting, because without that reassurance I would probably would have gone and hidden myself in a cupboard afterwards.) As a keen social chessplayer, I put my name down to speak about the social aspects of chess at a Geek Dinner in mid-2007, but later chickened out. However, Bryn Divey came and sat down next to me at the Creative Commons event at the Armchair Theatre in Observatory, and talked me into doing a short presentation for the following Geek Dinner after all. I switched my subject to Project Management in Five Minutes Flat, but actually delivered it in ten minutes. Since this was quite well received, I thought it might be a good idea to do a longer presentation at *Camp, focusing specifically on Project Management software, with plenty of demos, particularly of scheduling software. I had initially wanted to present a workshop for newbies on the technical steps involved in setting up a formal personal Web presence (from domain registration through DNS setup and mail forwarding to building and uploading a Web site), but I can't feasibly do both. I have also been promising a talk on graphic design for non-designers, which I intend to deliver in abridged form at the next Geek Dinner.

*Camp is scheduled for 8–9 December 2007.

I'm back (Cut and paste from sent mail, to save having to translate into blogspeak)

>> so, did you get any recycling/ re-energising? reviving? done?

Not much, but I am OK. I worked through Saturday and got up at 3 in the morning to take Mikhailo to the airport, came back, slept a bit, took laundry to Ma, went to the office, edited a letter for Marius, processed 16 enquiries, went and picked up my suitcase from my flat and went to house-sit, staying up until a stupid hour because there is an ADSL connection! Managed to pay in another R300 for Carol. It will all be used up quite fast, though, because she needs an oxygen machine for home, AND she needs to go to the hospital again. Need to try to find some time to talk to Hospice. Carol has to reapply for disability pension and that is a schlepp because you have to queue, and she actually cannot really walk anymore (besides the fact that she should be on oxygen all the time). What is also hard is that she is extremely heavy (her body retains everything) and so it is difficult to help her with bed pans and to turn her over. The nurses at the hospital sometimes just say, "it's not our job to... bla bla bla bla".

I invited some friends to supper for Wednesday because one of them needs a bit of emotional support, and the other two are quite fond of him. I did not make the invitation for earlier in the week, because I am not really properly rested yet and I still need to tidy up -- haven't really had time to pack away everything since my return!

By the way, I also made a cartoon for my window which was inspired by an SMS conversation between you and me and a similar one between me and Bernard.

You?

Tania

I'm a jetsetter

You either love the Kulula.com brand, or you hate it. I love it. I am the target market. Since 2006, I have done more work-related travel than in the previous ten years put together, and I am now becoming a regular Kulula passenger. The whole notion of business travel was always presented as such a snobbish affair. It involved serious people with seriously expensive suits and serious-looking laptop cases. And then along came Kulula, and people like me who call their flat a flat instead of an apartment and who fix their own ear-rings with snipe-nose pliers started traveling regularly for work.

My relatives find my pre-travel procedures amusing, and attribute them my profession. The preparations, including printing and binding courseware as well as doing laundry, tidying my flat and packing my suitcase, are all scheduled on typed hour-by-hour checklists spanning the two days prior to departure, while my packing list consists of cartoon illustrations of the specific items I intend taking along.

I've been in Johannesburg since Sunday. I am presenting an intensive 4-day course in Project Management to university lecturers, researchers and administrative staff at Wits. It has been quite inspiring, although also pretty tiring. By coincidence I've just had supper with an economist who is part of a consortium engaged by the provincial government to develop its economic strategy. He would like to put me in touch with his associates in Cape Town regarding Project Management training for local government. (And what a delightfully well-spoken gentleman he was too.) Tomorrow evening I am meeting with the Director of Strategy of a well-known South African company (the undisputed leader in its sector), because it's the only time we could both find for me to do a needs analysis in view of developing Project Management in the organisation. I didn't initiate this; he contacted me.  And sometime, I really should find time to go through the 56 pages of advanced courseware I printed out in view of Friday's training in PSNext.

This is all very grown-up stuff. I suppose this must be happening because, having finally celebrated my 21st birthday (albeit 21 years late), I am now a grown-up. On Thursday evening I am seeing a long lost school friend for the first time in two decades. It was quite a schlepp to trace him, and I am very excited. He now works for Anglo-American. He tells me he has turned into a grumpy old man, and in electronic communications he calls me 'young lady', which is curious, because when we were at school, I was still older than he was, so perhaps that has changed since then. They say, you're only as old as you feel. That's weird and pretty illogical no matter which way you look at it, because if you're 104 and senile and you feel you're 32, I still don't think you'll look good in a bikini. In fact, if I think of some of the petty malice and spiritual immaturity I've seen in some 60-year-olds, I feel a full holier-than-thou 65 inside a body which according to my mother (who happened to be there when I was born) is actually over 42; although I reckon that I probably act around 18, and that, together with looking more or less 32, tends to give 22-year-olds the impression that I am 28.

Thank-you for flying Kulula.com. We are now going to land on a nice firm bed with clean white linen in a guest house in Melville. If that's not where you wanted to be, you've got big problems.