Tania.co.za

Diagnosis

They named it, finally: Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia. He has lost 25 kg. He weighs less than I do. Tomorrow they will tell him that he cannot drive anymore.

Empathy, sympathy... ugh, whatever.

You know what's ironic? Sometimes someone who is really kind, decent and sympathetic, and who says, "Tell me. Confide in me. I am a good listener. You need to talk about your problems! Try me, I have big shoulders. I will understand." can be the most stressful person to have around when I am at the end of my tether. The problem is, then I have to manage his feelings as well as my own -- if I don't want to talk, he will feel rejected, or he'll feel like a failure, or whatever. I actually slept at my mother's house last night instead of at my own flat simply because I did not want the stress of having to arrive at this building and then have a knock at my door and have to deal with someone else's invasive but well-intentioned and heart-felt concern for me.

What would have worked for me just fine would have been to play chess with some guy who doesn't know me well. In fact, I was going to play chess with one of my neighbours who has been keen to do so for a long time, but then my sympathetic friend would probably have arrived here and wondered why I chose such nonchalant company instead of having him who cares for me so deeply cooking supper for me, which he'd offered to do. So I just avoided the whole complicated thing by leaving town. I just didn't have the energy to explain it all.

I would like to thank my friends, the Wizard and the Princess, for the numerous occasions when I was feeling particularly frazzled and they invited me to join them for the day. Thank-you for not suggesting that I talk about my problems, but for allowing me to ramble on when I chose to do so anyway. Thank-you for laughing at my jokes. Thank-you for the hours upon hours of trying on clothes which we didn't really need, for gossiping, and for that exceedingly stupid video which you rented when I did not have the emotional capacity for watching the portrayal of anything resembling genuine human sentiment.

I would also like to say a special thank-you to my friend The Wallflower, for an SMS which he sent me one night long ago when I was feeling miserable and frustrated. "I just want to complain," I'd told him, "I don't want anyone to actually do anything."
"Kla soveel as wat jy wil," he replied, "Ek sal net mooi niks vir jou doen nie."

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to my friends for all the great, deep, and intense things which they have not done for me when I needed them not to!

The shrinking brain

You diagnose him with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and senile dementia, and then you want to prescribe an anti-psychotic indicated for schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder, and contra-indicated for dementia in the elderly. Who is the maddest, you or your patient?

IT Project Management: Deadline extended for course applications

The deadline for applications for the Certificate Programme in IT Project Management from 25–29 May 2009 in Johannesburg has been extended. (I had a chat to Briggita today -- thanks, Briggita!) Applications will be accepted until 19 May.

Me

It is horribly humbling, not to mention decidedly disconcerting, to learn at the age of 43 that nearly every vestige of one's individualism is attributable to a genetic predisposition.

University Programme in IT Project Management: Johannesburg 25-29 May 2009

Getting a course like this going has been my personal passion since I first studied Project Management back in the previous millenium, when I found that what apparently worked fine in construction and events management did not work well for me at all when I attempted to apply it to software development! I finally persuaded a number of people that we needed a university course like this which is specific to IT, after I ran into my long-lost hero, Martin Butler, in a corridor one afternoon shortly before a trip to Botswana to do training for the Office of the President there along with Dr. John Morrison.

The objective of the programme is to equip project managers and owners with the knowledge required to complete IT-intrinsic projects successfully. A generic approach is followed and whilst reference is made to methodologies such as Agile, PRINCE2 and others, no specific project management approach is promoted. And Martin is the lecturer. (Yay!)

We did a trial-run of this course for an IT company a couple of weeks before the delivery of the first public course, which was held in Cape Town earlier this year. They came from Bloemfontein, Durban, Johannesbug, PE and Cape Town -- 20 of them, including line managers and senior programmers -- and it absolutely transformed the organisation. Their training manager (herself an experienced programmer, who has done other training in Project Managament before), said it was the best course of any sort which she had attended in her life. I take that as a compliment coming from a training manager!

Find out more about the course here and and get an application form ASAP. (You snooze, you lose.)

Gesprek op 'n dansvloer

"So... wat is jou naam?"
"Toemaar, ek het joune ook vergeet."
"Dis CJ."
"CJ? Is jy seker? Was dit verlede keer ook jou naam?"
"Ja."
"O. OK. Ek is Tania."
"Tania, ja! Dis reg. Tania. Tania, hierdie keer gaan niks my keer nie. Want, sien, hierdie keer is ek nugter!"
"Dit maak nie 'n verskil nie."
"O. So... moet ek maar ophou probeer?"