The End

365 days ago I started on a journey. I had just left behind a business that I had help start up and felt shattered. I had committed everything to it, moved cities, left my life behind; only to have it fall apart due to differences in opinions. I felt betrayed by it. I felt lost.

At that trying point in my life, I had a crazy idea that I wanted to write. The only problem was that I didn't know what to write about, so I began to devise an idea, it would become a commitment, a personal challenge; to write every day for an entire year. I wouldn't write about anything specific, just my thoughts and daily occurrences.

If anything it was for my own benefit, for the first time I was able to expresses my feelings in a tangible format, and it helped me to move forward. It made me realize that sometimes things don't work out, but there are always other opportunities- hope.

Soon I realized that with each subsequent entry, a story unfolded and if I stuck to it, I might even have a book. Not only that, I had a subtle marketing tool on my hands. You see; I liked finding new spots, eating out and frequenting cool hangouts; and often, I would find myself including these in my daily rants. As things progressed another idea unfolded, I wanted to append a directory listing of all the places I had visited, to the end of my journal; so that those who wanted to, could not only read about my experiences but follow in my footsteps too.

What I liked about it was that it was not fabricated material made up by marketing spin doctors. What was written had integrity, it was my actual every day experiences.

To every beginning there is an end and for this particular project, challenge, literary journey I've reached my destination. It's been a roller coaster ride, there have been many ups, but not without some devastating downs; I've recorded them all. It certainly will not be the last time I write - I still have too much to say, but for now I am done.

If you are reading this as a book, then I have been successful with the next challenge that I have tasked myself with; and if you are reading this in digital format then you have only just discovered the first phase of my plans...

The PE Connection

It seems that coming from Port Elizabeth is actually paying off. I'm no longer surprised to bump into some one who is part of, what I like to call "the PE massive". We are everywhere...everywhere except in PE of course. If you ever visit PE, you'll notice there is a substatial lack of 20 to 30 year olds.

Port Elizabethans seem to have infiltrated every facet of society whether it's in business or in a social context. Yesterday, while in the Llandudno car park, we bumped into a professional surfer, who happened to go to my Junior school and later while trying to find something to eat in Hout Bay, I bumped into another. I couldn't even get away when I used to walk around randomly in Sandton City in Johannesburg, someone was bound to shout my name to try get my attention and again; low and behold it would be some one else from PE.

The freakiest incident came earlier at work today, I needed to investigate a bulk SMS solution for our project so I stumbled upon SMS Portal, one of the biggest bulk SMS providers in the country.

I signed up for a test account to see if my project could use their product and within minutes I received a phone call from them - someone I knew was on the other line. It turns out that two of the guys who started the company went to University with me, they recognized my name on sign up and decided to call me.

PE has made this world smaller for me, and for the first time, I've started to appreciate my origins.

The End is Nye

What a great day, I spent most of it playing guitar on Llandudno beach, whilst watching some surfers catch waves. It was a great way to unwind and forget about all of life's problems including the possible Swine Flu (H1N1) pandemic that seems to be gripping the world in fear.

Tomorrow is back to the office *sigh* it's the first full week of work that we as South Africans have had to face in a while, so it will probably feel quite drawn out.

I'm quite impressed with myself, three more days and I would have have achieved my goal of writing every day for the whole year! Let me be the first to say that it has not been an easy task and oddly enough it will be my proudest achievement. With the end being so close, I need to start thinking about my last post. I hope that I can come up with something significant to say!

Sweet Tooth From Hell

Like a carnivorous animal that has gotten a taste of blood, I've become addicted to sweets. I'm ridiculous. In the last couple of days I've eatan so many chocolates, candies, cakes ice cream and other deserts its absolutely frightening.

Not too long ago I was very good at passing up on the sweet stuff, in fact I was so good that I even refused an after dinner mint. But inherently, I have an incredible sweet tooth and once I have a taste for it; the craving becomes insatiable...To illustrate my point, in the last two days alone I've eaten two big bags of jelly beans, a slab of chocolate, a chocolate brownie, a foot long nougat bar, a tub of ice cream and a big helping of Bread and Butter pudding; and that's only what I can remember.

Besides the obvious aesthetic challenges that arise from consuming so much crap, there are other side effects that one should take into consideration, like diabetes. This uncontrollable lust for sweets stops tomorrow, I'm cutting it out, no more sweet stuff for a long time.

Dueling Guitars

I spent most of the day jamming and dueling guitars with my friend. There's something very special about sitting around and being able to create music with someone else. Music is like a language; one has to understand what the other person is playing; their tempo, their rhythm and what exactly it is that they are doing. Once you've figured that out; you need to try fit in, compliment it and help make it sound good.

After a couple of hours of tinkling, and feeling each other out; we finally decided to collaborate and practice to get an entire song down pat. We decided to cover a song by Jack Johnson, G-Love and Donovan Frankenreiter called Girl I Wanna Lay You Down - after an hour or so I think we got it about 90% right, both the singing and the guitars; including a cool little guitar solo.

I had a lot of fun getting back into it, it's been a while; my fingers have taken a beating, the skin off the tip is coming off and my left hand is cramping from all the fretting and sliding, up and down the guitar...

Kink

Ah what a delightful evening of caberet-esque singing, dance, entertainment and food. Kink Bar pulled off a wonderfully enchanting evening in a very sophisticated and sexy setting, it was very different from your usual Cape Town scene; as Kink decided to hold something refreshingly special for their friends and supporters.

Word on the street is that Kink will be extending and providing food lovers with a new fabulous, fine-dining spot. Knowing the people initiating this new exciting venture and being an avid foodie, I'll be sure to be one of their biggest supporters.

I was very close to spending my long weekend in Durban; staying on the beach in Umhlanga, surfing in warm water and hanging out with the Fox and Frank (two friends whose real identities shall remain anonymous). But unfortunately I could not make it due to my being late in booking affordable tickets. The tardiness however, was probably subject to the fact that I was only convinced to go on the trip near midnight of the night before the trip... while in a mildly inebreiated state.

Don't Be Alarmed

I find that every once in a while you need to change the tone of your morning alarm, becuase you get so used to it that you begin to sleep right through it. I've become more and more accustomed to mine and find it exceedingly difficult to wake up.

I decided I would change my alarm tone, the trick is that you can't have something too loud or too abrupt otherwise you'll wake up with a heart attack, but it needs to be vibey enough so that it has enough of an impact to get you out of bed. I now have a cool Brazilian song, with a delightful songstress, singing Com Você (that means "with you" so I'm told) to help me up.

Owing to the new tone, I was able to make an early gym session. It's been a while since I've been able to haul myself up, early enough, to get one of those in. I had an epiphany while I was at gym; and thought that it would be great for tonight's blog I also remembered that it would have been cool to have a Moleskine notebook to write down my idea so I wouldn't forget what it was. No prizes for guessing that I didn't have a Moleskine with me at the time and that I've also subsequently forgotten the epiphany... oh well, will scribe it if I remember.

School Yard Bully

I bumped into someone I knew at Caprice on Sunday evening, someone that I've known from way back when I was still living in East London. I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to strike up a conversation and reminisce about the good old days. What I didn't realize was, what seemed good to me was not so great for her.

You see, apparently I was a bully...can you believe it? Me? A bully? It seems utterly absurd that I could ever be such a thing. Firstly, I argued I was way too small to ever bully anyone and secondly I remember being a really sensitive, caring kid who was too compassionate to hurt another living soul. After all, I myself, was the victim of countless acts of bullying and would never want to subject anyone else to its terror.

But alas she began to recount and revealed my horrid deed. Apparently in the 5th Grade or Standard 3 as we called it back then (South Africa only converted to the Grade system half way through my schooling career) I used to sit next to her in class and one day as she got up to stand; I, the devilish perpetrator allegedly pulled the seat out from underneath her; so that when she sat down again, she would find nothing to break her fall except the unforgiving floor!

I defended that it couldn't have been me, that it must have been someone else. But as I tried to deny the accusations, she sternly states "No, it was you." She says she has since forgiven me, but gosh, after fifteen years she still remembers... I must have been the source of much resentment.

The once perfectly innocent image of myself is now crushed; never in a million years would I conceive to having done such a cruel thing. I've caught up with many other people from that era and they've all recalled the same thing, that they could not have met a sweeter kid. How? Why then, did I find the need to be malicious to her? Perhaps it was the act of some stupid school boy crush? Whatever the reason - I'm truly sorry. Please take this as my formal apology, I am an ass and if it serves as any consolation I live with the guilt that I was a bully for the rest of my life...Oh the shame!

Ain't No One Normal No More...

What I've recently realized is that there are no "normal" people... "Normal" I've come to understand is a relative term. What's normal to you, may not be normal to me and I find myself all to often meeting people and asking myself "Am I the only normal person left in the world?" The truth is that we're all abnormal. I may not realize it but I'm probably pretty strange to most people myself.

You'll find that the people you consider normal are just normal because they are similar to you; either through interests, moral values or something else like proximity and culture. But these pockets of pseudo normal people are most surely strange to some other people.

Take a very simple thing like eating beef. I love beef, but to some people, like say my grandmother there is nothing in the world that could be more morally disturbing, growing up in the East where cows are revered and treated like members of the family, she considers eating them completely disgusting. It would be equivalent of someone here in the West killing and eating a puppy...

Even with a simple thing like just eating beef, one can easily see how other actions could be taken as being offensive to others. Considering that we are all individuals raised by families with slightly different values, it's not difficult to believe that something that one does could be alien to someone else. Normal means nothing. I'm abnormal, an individual and I have come to accept that.

Movie Mania

I love Sundays, especially if the Monday after is a public Holiday. It gives me an excuse to sleep in late without feeling guilty at all; after all if the day is wasted, I still have an entire day the next day to get things done.

I seldom watch DVDs these days, but when I do I watch a lot of them,(I tend to only operate in extremes it seems) - I rented out four DVDs from the DVD store and somehow got through them all...

Parcel Parcel

I’ve been harbouring a care package from Josephine’s sister in Denmark to give to someone here in South Africa. I've had it for over a month now and finally delivered it. The reason it took me so long to get it to the intended recipient was because she doesn't actually live in Cape Town. So not only did I have to wait for her to be in town, but I also had to find some time out of my busy schedule.

During this entire period I’ve been wondering with great curiosity as to what exactly was in it. Due to the size and shape of the parcel it could have been anything, luckily there were no ticking noises otherwise I might have inferred a bomb. I had to endure a lot of self restraint not to open it, but in the end I was successful. I am proud.

The task of delivery was easier than expected. I’m not sure why, but my imagination had built up a scenario where I would be sitting at a coffee store waiting for her, but before intercepted the package, the police would arrive and try to arrest me for some dodgy dealings. I would however resist and run; the next thing a car chase would ensue. Eventually, I would have been cornered; but I would stand my ground and start a gun fight…

Seriously though, I had no idea who the person was or what she looked like, only that her name was Ilse and that I had to meet up with her at a certain time and place. As I waited anxiously at the coffee store, staring at every passer by who could have potentially been her, she finally revealed herself and I was able to make the drop with relative ease. I’m sure that package was just some girlie stuff; but if any one asks, I was delivering something of great importance, something that could perhaps have saved the entire human race even. I like the latter version way better...

Another Long Weekend

Woohoo! Another long weekend! It seems as if April is littered with them, perhaps making it the least productive month, in South Africa; besides the end of the year, during all the Yule Tide madness of course.

If I were president I would seriously just write the entire month off...With one holiday here and another one there; it just disrupts momentum and causes more incurred expenses than anything else. Our country seriously has a lot of public holidays. Actually I heard of a place once, I think it was near Mexico, that celebrated every public holiday held by all other countries around the world. I think if I were president I would make that the law!

Don't you regret me not running for president now?

Anyways, apparently it's going to be a relaxing one, as our good friend Xavier, the Frenchman has sworn off any debaucharous behaviour, although this has yet to be seen as crazy Frenchmen can't be trusted...

Almost There

Almost there, almost done with my goal. I must admit that I've been struggling to come up with things to write recently. There's only 12 more days before I reach the end of my year long journey and I'm in serious need to start thinking, so I can end off with something cool. Lets hope I break this spell of writers block...

Voting Day

My idea to wake up really early to vote was thwarted only by my, having a late night watching Gazelle perform at the Assembly last night. What a creative act; their music seamlessly fuses different genres to create a mix of funk, disco,electro-house and African contemporary. Gazelle is exciting, fun and best of all they have a positive message behind their music. If anything, they definitely sent out some good vibrations to get me in the mood to wake up early and stand in a long queue at the voting polls.

As I stood in the line to make my mark in favour of the countries future, I was quite pleasantly impressed with not only the efficient experience; but also the number of young people getting involved to vote, in comparison with the last elections. With the rise of technology, I think that the Twitters, Facebooks, MySpaces, blogs and other social networking tools have helped to create awareness amongst the younger generation and have helped stir them to take action.

Obama’s campaign management in the States apparently saw the value of these new tools and word on the street is that they did well to take advantage of this and trigger the youth vote. If I were a politician, I would take heed and dedicate some resources to campaign through online and youth channels.

I digress, today is a big day and deterministically the decisions made will ultimately affect the countries future: for better or for worse. Cause and effect, if you will; lets hope that the general population took some time to think about why, what and who they were voting for rather than just following a popular trend.

To be honest I’m not so concerned about who people vote for, but more so the reason. Confidently, after seeing so many youths involved, I feel that the traditional streak of apathy in this South Africa has been broken and I am quite optimistic that the future of our county’s fate will be more secure.

A Country Will Decide

Voting Day is only a day away, with bated breath the country waits before they can cast their decision to see who will be the next president. With so much relying on tomorrow's event, it seems almost absurd that people would take their right to vote likely. But sadly, I still witness people who are too apathetic to make an effort.

I really hope that all who have registered turn up and help the country reach an important outcome...

So Far So Good

Skyrove is a freaking lifesaver. Since discontinuing my 3G account with Vodacom, I've been playing internet hermit; which has made posting to my blog a complete logistical nightmare. Not only have I been needing to find time to write my entries, I've also had to find time to scurry around looking for an internet connection...I felt like that animated squirrel, Scrat from Ice Age, desperately running around looking for nuts.

However, I recently noticed that a new wireless connection popped up in my area, in the form of my now saviour, Skyrove. The process was very easy, I simply connected to the wireless connection, purchased some online credit and was ready to go. It worked out to be quite cost effective as well; I think I received just over 600MB for R200 and have been surfing the net with decent speeds ever since. The coolest thing about Skyrove though; is that you can connect to the internet wherever there is a Skyrove hotpsot and unlike some other providers don't have to worry about your MBs/credits being reset at the end of the month.

Things at Global Vision, like that popular 80's rock song, is "So Far So Good". The work is very interesting, and the atmosphere, amongst tight deadlines, is pretty relaxed. Ernst and I even decided that we were going to bring our guitars in to work, so that we could play in the chill room during our lunch breaks. The chill room is really sweet and is not like any other typical meeting room. It has giant bean bags littered across the floor and allows employees to take a load off and just relax.

Did I also mention that the office has organized some people to come in to give message sessions to worn out workers tomorrow...hmmm I could get used to this.

A Season for All Things

It seems like over night, winter has hit Cape Town. It’s like clockwork, as soon as all the foreigners leave to go home to their respective countries; the bad weather rolls on in. It’s been raining here for the past few days and the weather is expected to remain gloomy for the next couple going forward.

It’s certainly not a bad thing. I’m feeling a little worn out from all the summer socializing and wouldn’t mind hibernating for a little while. Summers in Cape Town are meant to be social, but the Winters are here for one to take a break and recharge. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything to do, but the things you do in winter are different, cozier, more intimate if you will. It’s the perfect time to cook curries and stews, invite some people over and chat over a cup of coffee.

I believe that there's a saying "a season for all things..." and I must admit I tend to think it's quite true. I think if I had to live summer the whole year round, I would go crazy. I’m glad its winter and can’t wait to chill out a bit, don some cool winter sweats and perhaps cuddle up in front of a roaring fire. Anyone up for a cuddle?

The Claw

I have a tendency to go a little overboard with silly things. I managed to spend 50 bucks to try win something that must have cost only a maximum of 10 bucks to produce. Yes, that’s right I went to a games center this afternoon and to pay for my sins I got addicted to the claw game.

You’ve all seen the claw game before, it’s that machine that you find at game centers and carnivals, with the claw and merchandise inside. One maneuvers the claw using a joystick and positions it over a selected item; pushes a button and watches as the claw swoops down in attempt to pull out a teddy bear or something equally useless.

My friend convinced me to give it a whirl, being incredibly astute at computer and video games I figured it wouldn’t be all that difficult. After only a few tries I realized that it was going to be a challenge, but I felt determined to beat the game and win something at least. It wasn’t about actually liking any of the items in the machine anymore - it was about my ego - it was about winning.

After some failed attempts and much frustration, the claw finally hooked onto something… Great success! I now have a pink teddy, which I didn’t really want in the first place, sitting on my bed, leering at me, reminding me of my claw addiction…

Obz

I haven't ventured into Obz in quite a long time. Obz is the more studenty area of Cape Town. Wang and I went to check out Gravity Wins Again, a mutual friend of our's band.

I've forgotten what it's like to be a student, but seems like not much has changed. Besides having to study as an extra-mural activity; watching bands and drinking copious amounts of liquor are still one of the main priorities.

Actually I don't think much has changed since entering the "real" world. The bars one goes to just become a little more expensive and the music becomes a little bit more commercial but the priorities seem to be pretty much the same...

Visitor!

Awesome my BFF Bryan arrives today and is crashing on my couch for the weekend. Apparently he is here for his cousin's wedding, but I'm going to assume that he is actually here to visit me, so that we can cause city wide mayhem and have buckets o' fun...