Tania.co.za

Opening up the TV to talk to the people that live inside

My window faces a section of the building in which I know no-one. And I never intended to meet them either, because it works well this way. We are close enough to wave, close enough to talk even (if we did so loudly); but we don't ever acknowledge each other's presence as the neighbours in my own corridor would do, saying hello or waving or stopping for a chat. There's an unspoken convention that assures a strange sense of insular privacy on either side of the chasm, in spite of the fact that I have occasionally caught a glimpse of some unwitting person in his underwear. Generally the curtains will be drawn when modesty is required, so what happens in each window when it is open is usually simply like a random scene on a  TV that someone else has left on on in the background while I go about my daily life. It seems as though the same convention exists from their side, because I have never glanced up to find anyone looking at me. (Not since my first week here in 2005, and that fellow has long since left the building.) This disconnection from one another is such a comfortable convention that I often feel free to sleep with my curtain open, because we do not exist to each other as people with names, just as moving elements in scenes; and as long as there is nothing out of the ordinary going on, you can be sure that no-one is staring at you.

Tonight, though, they were playing some kind of heavy rock music, and although I couldn't hear it properly, I liked what little I could make out, the rhythm and the bass notes, and I knew if I didn't go there at once I would never find out what it was. I would have to talk to them.

So I crossed the bridge to the other side...

Special free briefing for aspiring Project Management Professionals

Do you want to become a PMP — a Project Management Professional recognised internationally by the PMI (Project Management Institute)? If so, attend our FREE half-day briefing in Cape Town on Saturday, 23 May 2009. Submit your details to the ProjectManagement.co.za to sign up for this event.

Agile

If there was a synonym for epiphany, I would use it now, because I hate to default into this fashionable resurgence of words like renaissance, evangelist and... ummm... epiphany.

OK, but for the lack of a better term, I am in the throes of an epiphany.

Actually epiphanies probably don't have throes. Mixed metaphor.

Never mind.

I have a lot to say, but I will say it in sandwich-sized chunks once I get my new blog going. One of the things I want to say, is that Scott Ambler is right: we are liars. And I intend to rectify that. Let's leave it there for now, with a confession. Repentance is going to take systems change. Like addictions. With some things you can't go cold turkey.

Project Management course in Bloemfontein

Don't have time for much these days! Just a quick note, therefore, to let everybody know about the post-graduate (NQF 7) short-course in Project Management which will be held in Bloemfontein from 18–22 May 2009. There are also courses in the rest of the country later in the year (see course schedule). The Windhoek course scheduled for April was fully booked, so another one has been scheduled for later in the year, and the Programme in Information Technology Project Management due to be held in Johannesburg is rapidly filling up.

Bottom line: To get onto the Bloemfontein course (or the IT Project Management course, for that matter), contact ProjectManagement.co.za as soon as possible.