1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

Quite a few things, actually. Belly dancing, for one. I also employed my first full-time staff member. And participated in a podcast. Ooh, and I got published! And started playing drums. And started getting media invitations to events. And went to Bloemfontein for the first time. And saw my Spanish football heroes in the flesh. Gosh, turns out it was quite a year.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t recall making any, which is odd, because I’m sure I usually do. And then I keep exactly zero of them. So perhaps I’ve inadvertently stumbled on the secret to achievement. I will set some goals this year, however. Nice easy ones that I can reach in the first week or two. “Lose 50 grams”, “Learn one new word”, “Send an email”, “Cuddle the cats”, that sort of thing.

3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
At a house party in Oranjezicht, eating pizza and drinking French wine. I think it’s going to be absolutely lovely. And it may well be the first time Paul and I have actually had plans for NYE more than a week in advance. Either they’ve invited us there so that they can throw us in the pool and point and laugh, or we’ve actually… *gasp*… finally managed to scrub the L off our collective forehead.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. Thank goodness. I’m honestly not sure what that would have done to me.

5. What countries did you visit?
Bloemfontein is a country, right? Other than that, none… sadly. I have very bad travelbugalitis right now.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
The ability to set boundaries. And tuna steaks every weekend. And a trip to Paris. No, seriously.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
17 June. The day I saw Fernando Torres and Iker Casillas playing on a field right in front of me, for the first time.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Hearing the words “Well done!” from someone that I like and respect immensely, in response to a job that I truly enjoyed doing.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Allowing myself to get too busy to remember birthdays and stay in contact with friends and family.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Let me count the ways: My thyroid function dipped again earlier in the year, the dysplasia and arthritis in my hip made me cry frequently, I had laryngitis twice, and I ended the year with tendonitis in my foot. My body is an awesome fighting machine. Unfortunately it mostly fights with ME.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Tickets for the Spain/South Africa Confederations Cup game in Bloemfontein. I’ve never experienced an atmosphere like that in my life. 2010 will have to work hard to top it.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Into my business.

13. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Snow Patrol – Hands Open.

14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Spending time with my parents. Writing for pleasure. Reading. Belly dancing.

15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Surfing the web. Tidying the house. Getting frustrated. Coaxing William down from the roof.

16. What was your favourite TV programme?
Black Books. I think they wrote it just for me. It’s ridiculously funny. And also just ridiculous.

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nah. I’m not a hater. There are several people who’ve been removed from my Christmas card list this year, though. (It’s just a metaphorical Christmas card list, so don’t worry if you didn’t get a Christmas card from me – it doesn’t mean you’re off the list. Doesn’t mean you’re on it either, of course. You’ll never know. Mwa ha ha ha ha.)

18. What was the best book you read?
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It takes a lot for a contemporary book to make it into my Top 10, because I’m usually all about the Anna Kareninas, the Jane Eyres and the Pride and Prejudices. The Shadow of the Wind cracked the nod, though.

19. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I found a plectrum I thought I’d lost. Oh, I see, not like that. Um… Snow Patrol, oddly enough. I know, it’s nothing earth-shattering or sophisticated, but it’s beautiful and makes me feel happy/melancholy/more like me.

20. What was your favourite film of this year?
District 9. Truly. It was fresh and unconventional, and didn’t try to preach to me. In other words, it was the opposite of Avatar.

21. What did you do on your birthday?
I worked, which is very unusual for me – I always insist on taking off on my birthday. But this year I couldn’t. I did have the bestest birthday party ever with fellow July-1976-baby Elan, though, which involved crazy outfits, 80s music, lots of dancing, tequila, and Saul’s burgers at 3.30am.

22. What kept you sane?
My cats. It’s true. They’re cuddly and fluffy, and there’s (almost) nothing that cuddliness and fluffiness can’t fix.

23. Who did you miss?
My brother (I don’t suppose I’ll ever stop missing him), and my sister-in-law, niece and nephew (who all live in Sydney). I also found myself missing my grandparents more often than ever before, even though they all died more than 10 years ago.

24. Who was the best new person you met?
I met so many wonderful new people this year that picking out one just wouldn’t be fair. Or truthful. Each of them is the best in their own way.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
Have a plan in place for what you would say if you suddenly came face to face with a celebrity (or group of footballers) that you’ve always wanted to meet. Or you will end up feeling silly and disappointed. And silly. And SILLY. Oh the shame, how it burns.

The Language Report - Susie Dent

Yes, that’s right. It’s a book about words. Much like a dictionary. (See, Mrs Fanner? I wasn’t kidding back in Std 2 when I told you that I liked to read dictionaries for fun.)

And before you think, “Oh my goodness how boring why would anyone want to read a book about words”, let me remind you that you are currently on the Interwebs, reading largely insignificant snippets about someone else’s life. So let’s not throw stones, shall we?

So, back to the book. I bought it at one of those evil Exclusive Books sales a couple of years ago, and then stuck it on the shelf along with all the other Sale Orphans. (Expect a lot of book reviews in the near future, as I slowly remember how to read things on actual paper.) Because of this it’s a little out of date now.

See, it’s actually an annual publication describing neologisms and changing language usage, and this is the one for 2006. Not really a problem though, because it seems that I’m not quite as on top of linguistic developments as I had thought. I learnt many new (old) words and phrases, such as this one:

flashpacker: a more affluent type of backpacker, usually in their late 20s or 30s, who takes time out from their career to seek adventure.

and this one:

eugeroics: drugs which reduce the need to sleep. Although a term dating back to the 1990s, eugeroics (derived from Greek eus, good, possibly combined with egeirein, meaning ‘arousal’), were originally prescribed to treat sleeping disorders.

and quite delightfully, this one:

body spam: undesirable physical contact by strangers.

I was relieved to see a few words I recognised in there, like blook and geekfest and freecycling and lifehacking. Mashup was in there too, but we’re all a bit bored of that now, aren’t we? Aren’t we, Google?

So I suppose you could call this a paper-based version of Urban Dictionary – minus the idiocy, of course. It covers a lot more than just online language trends, with chapters on, amongst other things, politics, fashion, food, business, disease and crime. There’s even an entire chapter devoted to the language of the poker table.

It’s a great book, actually, and I fully intend to buy the more recent ones too… just as soon as I’ve made my way through the 50,000 other Sale Orphans threatening to collapse my bookshelf.

You can get hold of The Language Report here.

Although I’ve had plenty of good experiences and gotten to know a lot of awesome people this year, it’s been a hard year for me. I wasn’t sorry to say goodbye to 2008.

What follows is a collection of thoughts that I posted to the Business Warriors forum a few days after my brother’s death. I hope you find them thought-provoking, and take them to heart.

On Friday, just minutes after I’d posted my request for text-books on the forum, my phone rang. As I answered, I noticed that it was an Australian number – assuming it to be my big brother (who immigrated to Sydney in 2001) phoning to say hi, I answered chirpily.

I was surprised to hear my sister-in-law’s voice instead, and as soon as I asked her how she was, I realised that something was very very wrong. With disbelief and horror I heard her telling me that my 43-year-old brother had just passed away, after suffering a heart attack.

I hadn’t seen my brother since 2004, when Paul and I visited the family in Sydney. My parents and other brother hadn’t seen him since Easter 2001, just before he left for Australia with his wife and two children. My brothers and I had begun planning to save up and surprise our parents with a big family reunion this coming Christmas. It was the one thing that ALL of us wanted more than anything in the world. Much more than a fancy house, a smart car, exciting work, or bags of money – I just wanted to have my family together for an awesome Christmas to remember.

Now this will never be, and our family is devastated.

Given my sudden forced change of perspective, I have a few suggestions for you for 2008:

1. If you are not close to members of your family, make an effort to fix that – they are more precious than you can imagine. Blood IS thicker than water, and NOTHING can replace the knowledge that your family values you. The members of my family aren’t perfect – each of us has had our issues, some of them really tough ones. But we’d managed to see past those, to forgive each other for the pain we’d caused one another over the years and to grow incredibly close over the past two years. For that I am deeply grateful.

2. If you are spending your time complaining about silly mundane things, get some perspective. Put that energy into making your relationships better and spending time with the people you value, both friends and family. Those things will become very very unimportant on the day you lose someone you love. Trust me, the way I feel about the loss of my internet connection or my elecricity supply has got nothing on the way I feel about the loss of my brother. And dwelling on trivial things simply saps energy from your relationships.

3. Make the time to have your health checked, thoroughly – not for your own sake, but for the sake of those who love you. We all subconsciously think we’re invincible – you aren’t, so take care of yourself.

4. If you have family far away, call them and email them often. Your clients can wait. Your family can’t. I often thought of phoning my brother to chat, but was always too busy on other people’s urgent work – I would give anything now to have those hours and minutes back just to laugh with him and share the day-to-day trivialities of our lives.

5. Tell them you love them. I’m so glad that the last time I spoke to my brother (on Christmas Day), I told him that I loved him before I said goodbye. I’m also glad that we’d come to a place of being able to tell one another how much we valued each other as people – even though we didn’t grow up in a particularly touchy-feely household.

6. Realise that there may not be a better time than now to do whatever it is you really want to do. Working yourself to a standstill to afford a better car, a better house and better clothing does not constitute living. Spending time laughing with the people you love – ah, now that’s a life.

Please keep my family in your thoughts; this has been really hard on my parents, as well as on my brother’s children (aged 17 and 15). And as much as I’m trying to be strong, the truth is that my world has crumbled. I loved my brother so very much, and can’t bear the thought of life without him.

One of my favourite photos of my brother and I, taken back in the late 70s

I got up this morning at about 9, quite a bit later than intended, wandered through to my office, gazed lazily out the window, wondered why the pool appeared to have a cover on it when we don’t have a cover, looked a little harder and OMG WHERE HAS ALL THE WATER GONE SOMEONE’S DRAINED THE POOL THIS IS A DISASTER!!!!1!

Now imagine my horror. My first thought, not being a very practical girl, was that one of the cracks in the pool (we think there is at least one) had somehow turned nasty in the night, and all the water had seeped away… to where? Under the pool? The neighbour’s back garden? Oh the horror.

So I woke Paul abruptly, and gave him the bad tidings. I think he thought I was exaggerating (as did my Twitter friends, it seems) when I said that the pool was EMPTY, but no, it really was. Empty as my coffee cup. Empty as Bafana Bafana’s trophy cabinet. Empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Empty as Bernie Madoff’s promises. Yes, empty. Got it? Right.

Anyhow, then it struck him that he’d inadvertently left the pump on backwash overnight. Our panic eased to a resigned sort of dismay. And then our dismay slowly turned to amusement. And then our amusement turned to OH WELL IT’S HAPPENED NOW WE MIGHT AS WELL MAKE THE MOST OF IT LOL.

So we proceeded to have a luvverly afternoon of:

• Coaxing the cats into the empty pool through various devious means. Although coaxing might not be quite the right word here. Anyhow. It was fun. They still don’t like the pool, and can’t seem to understand why it wasn’t wetting them today – I think they believe it was just waiting for the right moment to turn on them.
• Tanning in the pool. And I won’t tell you what I was wearing because then this story will just get lewd.
• Advanced high-school mathematics. We lay in the empty pool working out various ways to calculate its capacity, depending on a range of variables. More fun than you think. Hey, I’ve never claimed to be a geek. But a nerd? For sure.
• Showering under the inlet-pipe-thingy. Paul dared me to stand under it, and while I was waiting for him to tell me what I’d get out of that deal, he started moving towards it – I suddenly realised that not losing a dare was prize enough, so I rushed into the water and pushed him out of the way so I could stand under it first. Exhilarating. No, seriously.
• Taking silly photos like this one:

Marooned.

The pool is now half-full and we’ll be swimming tomorrow again. Yay!

The lesson here, children, is that no matter how bleak things look, and no matter how enormous your water bill is going to be at the end of the month, and no matter how guilty you feel at having wasted all that water during the arid Cape summer, there’s still fun to be had.

Oh yes, that, and don’t leave your pool pump on backwash overnight.

First up is the epic battle between YOU’RE and YOUR. People mix these two up all the time, saying things like “Your too good for me” and “You’re place or mine?” If you can’t work out why these two sentences are wrong, best you read on attentively.

Here’s how it works:

• YOUR (pronounced “yore”) is the possessive form of “you”. This means that it indicates something belonging to “you”, as in your car, your house, or your excellent sense of humour.

• YOU’RE (pronounced “yure”) is a contraction of “you are”. That’s what the apostrophe* means – a letter has been left out. One could say that you’re adorable, you’re witty, or you’re looking for trouble.

When writing “your” or “you’re”, avoid this mistake by asking yourself, “Can I replace this word with “you are”?” If the answer is yes, then you should write “you’re”. If the answer is no, write “your”. It really is as simple as that.

* I’ll cover the abuse of apostrophes in a later post.

Having been on a bit of a weight-loss drive for the past few months, I can relate to this poor little thing. He is a bit tubby. Might want to consider a few extra turns in the wheel to work off that biscuit.

more animals

I was privileged to get to meet Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress, this weekend, after he spoke at Wordcamp SA.

He made quite an impression on those of us who heard him and interacted with him. The first thing that everyone will tell you is how incredibly humble he is. Seriously seriously humble. He’s a gentle, softly-spoken, well-mannered young man (he’s only 24) – not a hint of ego or arrogance about him.

One of the SA bloggers, who didn’t know what Matt looked like, met him on Friday evening and not realising who he was speaking to, asked, “So, what do you do?” Matt’s answer, without any irony as far as I can tell, was “I’m a blogger.”

So that’s lesson #1 – even if you’ve created what is arguably the best blogging platform in the world, you can still be an amazingly nice guy.

Lesson #2 – when Matt started his talk on Saturday, he said, “It’s so great to be here in San Fran… whoops, I mean Cape Town…” When this was mentioned on someone’s blog later, and the blogger suggested that maybe it was more than just a slip of the tongue, Matt left a comment saying, “Maybe it was…” The implication is that Cape Town is a hotbed of tech activity, like Silicon Valley, with a host of exciting start-ups in operation, and a wealth of tech knowledge and expertise. This makes me incredibly positive, and incredibly pleased to be living in this place at this time. I wouldn’t trade it for anything right now, not even Paris.

Lesson #3 – the economy is changing. And I don’t mean the petrol price and the rising cost of bread and milk. I mean the way we charge for products, and the way we exchange things of value. Matt chooses to provide WordPress free of charge, not because it’s a way to hook potential customers into buying his other products, but because he and millions of other open-source advocates hold the fundamental belief that software, information and art should be free and open-source. Business owners need to pay attention to the way that the economy is shifting – it might affect your business at some point. Just ask Microsoft about that.

Lesson #4 – be selfless and don’t approach everything in life with the attitude of “how can I monetise this?” Matt developed WordPress because he was unsatisfied with the CMS software available at the time. He didn’t start out with the intention of creating an empire. He shared what he was doing, because he figured that others might be able to use it too. The business aspect grew later.

Lesson #5 – take as many photos as you can. Matt’s Twitter username is photomatt, and there’s a really good reason for this. He takes many many many photos (he also has an awesome camera, but that’s another story). Now because Paul and I run a photoblog we take a lot of photos too, but they’re mostly of buildings and landscapes and things. Matt takes photos of everyone, so his blog is an incredible record of the places he’s been, the things he’s done, and most importantly, the people he’s connected with. I’ve resolved to take more photos of people from now on, as a reminder of the connections I’ve made.

Lesson #6 – one of the statements Matt made in his talk is that the Web is a meritocracy. The merits of your ideas will determine your success. If your ideas are good and add value to people’s lives, your legacy will be enduring. This kind of ties in with lesson #4 – go about your life adding value, and not trying to squeeze money out of every single thing. If people like what you’re doing, you’ll find a way to turn it into a lifestyle.

Lesson #7 – don’t discount anyone based on their age, gender, nationality or any other distinguishing traits. We tend to think that guys like Mark Zuckerberg are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to being successful web entrepreneurs. Think again. I can point you to a fair number of bright young things under the age of 25 and a host of them under 30 who are pioneering in the tech arena in South Africa, some even doing big deals with media companies like Vodacom and Naspers. It’s not just the VCR that they learnt to programme at a young age. They are bright, savvy, energetic and committed. For them, life is work and work is life – the two are completely intertwined.

And finally, lesson #8 – use Firefox. The highlight of Matt’s talk (for a room full of geeks) was when he told us that there actually is advertising on wordpress.com (who knew?), BUT you’ll only see these ads IF you’ve never visited wordpress.com before AND you’ve never visited a WordPress blog AND you’re not using Firefox.

I have everything I need, really. Laptop, camera, cellphone, long extension lead, wireless internet connection, fluffy office-mates, and sun. The only thing missing, as far as I can tell, is a good-looking young man to bring me drinks. Volunteers?

So, quite a bit of time has elapsed – almost a month and a half, in fact. The final of Euro2008 has come and gone (my team won, of course, at last), and I really want to blog about other things now; but I can’t very well leave the story hanging in mid-rant, can I?

So, here’s a quick run-down of what transpired after we left Tygervalley Centre on that fateful night in June: First we drove up the road to Eastwoods. Eastwoods is a sports bar and restaurant. Eastwoods was closed. It’s a sports bar. But it was closed. Are you seeing the problem yet, or should I repeat that again? Apparently the oddity of this situation was entirely lost on the manager(s), because exactly one week later, on the night of the final, they were closed too. That’s right. The biggest sports bar in the area failed to open on the night of the final of Euro2008. (And people wonder why I’m not always brimming with enthusiasm about living in the northern suburbs…)

So in a greater huff than I’d been in at Tygervalley, I persuaded Paul to go back down the road to the Willowbridge Dros.

We arrived at the Dros, pleased to see that there were still a few cars outside, and a couple of people in the restaurant. We rushed up to the big wooden doors, and found them… locked. Not to be deterred, we rushed around to the glass doors in front. These too were closed. I gestured to the barman that we’d like to come in and watch the rest of the football, but he shook his head and mouthed what I initially took to be “Weird clothes.” I thought that was a bit of an odd thing to say, since I was wearing jeans and a fairly ordinary long-sleeved top, but then Paul pointed out that it was actually even weirder that that: apparently the barman was saying, “We’re closed.” Totally bizarre, I know.

By this time I was ready to break down his flimsy-looking glass doors, but fortunately good sense prevailed. Also fortunately, there was actually a TV outside the restaurant, showing the football, with the sound turned up nice and loud. So we made ourselves sort of comfortable and watched the rest of extra time as well as the nailbiting penalty shoot-out (I do mean that literally – I chew my fingers during penalty shoot-outs and games in which the Proteas have to score 435 runs to win) outside the Dros. It was very kind of them to let us watch their TV, without expecting us to buy anything. That barman ought to have the price of my potential double-whiskey and Paul’s potential beer docked from his pay, though. I mean, would it have been such a big deal for him to come out to us and say, “Hey, we’re actually closed, but if you guys just want to have a couple of drinks and stay till the end of the football, we’re fine with that, since we’ll BE HERE ANYWAY”?

Anyway, I got to see the game, my team beat the Italians, and it all turned out okay. I watched the semi-final with a real flesh-and-blood Spaniard (at Beleza – leaving nothing to chance), and then we returned to the place of our former rejection, the Dros at Willowbridge, for the final. This time they actually let us sit inside, which was nice. We had to buy drinks though.

Paul and I grabbed our laptops (like the nerds we are) and headed down to the Keg at Glen Garry centre (the closest restaurant with TV screens). There were three other people there, not counting the waiters – so not really much of an atmosphere, but not to worry, they had the soccer playing at least (with French commentary, but that was fine). We ordered coffee and politely asked the waiter what time they were closing. “10 o’clock…” he said – somewhat sadly I thought.

Some quick kindergarten maths told me that we’d best finish our coffee and find a new spot during half-time. Which we duly did. After considering our options (all three of them), we decided to just go and grab a table at Tygervalley’s promotions court area and watch the soccer on the big-screen there. The sound isn’t usually that clear, but I thought it would be good enough. When we arrived there, we discovered that the soccer was only showing on the small TVs dotted around the area, and the big-screen was playing the IRB Junior World Championship instead. Okay, fair enough, rugby, northern suburbs, I get it.

I figured that as soon as the rugby was finished they’d switch the big-screen to the soccer too, and then we’d have commentary (because there was no sound whatsoever coming from the small TVs). Gosh. Was I ever disappointed. The rugby finished, eventually the post-match celebration and awards ceremony finished too, then a few ads played (while I was biting my nails to the quick, watching the clock ticking and thinking, “It’s going to penalties, it’s going to penalties, and they’re going to switch these TVs off at 11pm, they are, they are…”).

Then, after the ads, another programme came on. Now I didn’t actually know (and call me ignorant here, by all means) that India and Pakistan played rugby. Yes, rugby. Well, apparently they do, and to prove it, we were treated to a wonderful showcase of their skills on the big-screen. Just to give you an idea of how riveting this might have been, Wikipedia tells me that India is currently ranked 84th in the world (out of 95 teams) – they tried to qualify for a spot in the 2007 World Cup, but their 22-36 loss to Kazakhstan put paid to that dream. And this powerhouse Indian team (whose captain is none other than Nasser Hussain, apparently – talk about being an all-rounder, gosh) beat the Pakistanis 56-3 last time they met. But I digress.

The India-Pakistan festival of rugby was followed by a lengthy insert on women’s skateboarding. Seriously. I could not make this stuff up. After that (and at this point I couldn’t take it anymore, so we left, but more of that later) there was a stunning and fascinating documentary on Men Walking Across Rocks In Hiking Boots.

The problem with this (apart from the glaringly obvious fact that they were not actually showing the quarter-final of a major international sporting tournament), was that the sound from the big-screen was turned up really loud. So I was watching a teensy game of soccer, accompanied by loud Pakistani rugby players, loud women skateboarders, and loud men Walking on Rocks, in turn. If you’ve ever tried to watch something with a totally incongruous soundtrack – burly black gumboot dancers with the theme song from the Sound of Music, for example – then you’ll understand that this was somewhat messing with my concentration.

So, in a fit of pique, as soon as the game had gone to full-time, I said to Paul, “We’re going to Eastwoods,” and stormed off to the car. And in the next instalment you can find out why that didn’t work out too well either…