new home for my blog

Hi I moved my blog over to http://www.neoscribes.posterous.com/

old woman at my building

Wednesday night is fast replacing Thursday, Sunday and Monday as the day when some of the most random things happen to me in Cape Town.


This week was not different. While on my way back home from getting something to eat, I jumped out of the lift to be greeted by this old lady with no teeth. This old woman, let us call her Merriam (“emphasis on the a”) because that is her name.

She had a pan in her hand which she covered with a pillow case. The explanations was that she was looking for an African lady who had just moved in and the stuff was a gift. At this stage I am literally two doors from my place and I really want to dart for my door because it is rather dark and I do not trust an old woman with a pan in her hand after dark. Call me ageist if you like but anyway.

So this lady, Merriam, ignore the disinterested look on my face and launches into a history lesson about her. You see you can see Table Mountain from where we are sitting and this lady shows me a street near the top of the hill and says that is where she grew up to Jewish parents. At this point my knees are freezing because I am wearing a dress that barely covers anything really and yet, out of politeness or stupidity I am still listening to this old lady.

She jumps from one subject (her son in London) to another (our landlord, religion, food, war) with the kind of ease that only a demented person can muster.

And you know what, as I lose feeling in my toes and knees, I am starting to like this toothless old lady. Because I know that if I ever live past 50 without jumping off a building I might be her. Well not exactly but you know what I mean.

Eventually she lets me go and promises to bring me some soup and bake me some rock hard scones and off she goes disappearing towards the lift looking for her African woman at 9pm in the evening. Only in Cape Town?

I have just nominated myself

 
i think we have an ego issue :)

hiking in the bundus

So one day I was really itching to go on the quad bike with the research assistant at the NGO I was working at. You see part of his job was to go up the hills in the quad bike to go and map up a few plots and check up on progress. So he had a really cool job because he was clever enough to study conservation while I was wallowing away in journalism school.

Anyway, so one day when it was not that busy in the office, I offered to go help the eco warrior with his research up up on the hills. It is only not that I realise how crazy that was. But I wanted to drive a quad bike up and down the hill, so off we went.
Now, please take a moment to look at the picture I have posted with this post and you will realise how high up we were. And you know how when you are driving past the hills and they look very green and the grass looks like it is up to your knee? Well it is not. Nearly 10 minutes into the climb I was panting, exhausted and really tired of having to fight off the long grass off my face. It really did not help that eco-warrior kept telling me about the snakes that he sometimes came across.

I regretted the hike terribly. And my legs, oh my poor legs were so sore. But eco warrior was hiking like he is just taking a stroll to the corner store while I was panting like those people on “the biggest looser.” Three hours later we were done. I had climbed steep hills, jumped over streams and just generally put my body through the most excruciating exercise regime I have had in my whole entire life.

Please look at the picture again and notice my smile. It was completely fake. I was just smiling at the camera. Deep down my body was going “death is better!” given the chance I would probably do it again but this time I would stick to driving up and down on the bike while eco-warrior does all the hiking.

break...

http://tinyurl.com/2wcpn5f

I have been a bit lazy to blog these days. Not because I do not have the time. But actually because I have too much time. Too many opinions. But sadly not enough words with which to express them. So I choose not to write.

baGhana Baghandisgusting

http://tinyurl.com/3yhym5b

So my beloved South Africans are so caught up in all this world Cup madness that it seems that amnesia is turning out to be one of the side effect.

a little bit of background if I may: South Africa is hosting the 2010 Fifa soccer World Cup which is ending on July 11. So for the past three weeks we have had days of drinking, hugging, kissing and just behaving like we are a festival somewhere in the bush, even though we are in the middle of Cape Town.
The tourists are here, so we are being gracious hosts and since we do not speak much Swahili, Portuguese, Dutch, French etc drinking and screaming loudly seems to be working quite well for our international relations.

http://tinyurl.com/3axc23u

So everyone is happy and we have even brushed the xenophobia under the carpet and are calling the Ghana team, baGhana baGhana, now. You see our South African team, Bafana Bafana, bombed out in the first round so it seems we have adopted Ghana as our own, for now

This is in Stark contrast with what people have been saying in the city though. We (the media) have received reports that xenophobia violence is going to start all over again after the World Cup.

So you can see my confusion, and that of my fellow colleagues. Because on the one hand we all love each each other and on the other hand we are threatening other Africans with violence.

All the genuine and false comradie is mixed into a little cocktail glass provided by Fifa.

So now that Ghana is out of the World Cup, we love or hate them again, depending on how well your bank balance looks.

South Africa is a very Schizophrenic country. it seems.

NYT pics :oil

As you may already know, there was a disaster oil spill off the coast of Louisiana (i think) and BP has been trying to do damage control for days. The oil is still spilling out of the bowels of the sea and oiled birds and fishes are washing up all over the coast. It is an environmental disaster. makes one remember that as much as you want ot help, sometimes you cant. So i was going through the pictures section of TIME magazine. http://www.time.com/ and found a few catoons that they put up at the time of the oil spill. I keel these two sum up how i felt about the oil spill at the time...

There is a fake BP account starte by what i assume to be environmentalist. it is worth following ;) http://twitter.com/BPGlobalPR

Mr seventies80s

I was doing a story with my friend Wendyl. Since Wendyl is such a brillant writer and interviewer, I decided that I would play "annoying girl with camera" at the seventies80s store. So while Wendyl and Dawie were busy, I was snapping away.

Our piece was about urban Youth Culture and young people who are a part of it and some of the spin offs from it like fashion and hang out spots and what not.

Fifi

Fifi is a musician from Pretoria. She performed in Cape Town recently and although i was a little bit out of it (damn alcohol) I managed to get some pretty decent shots of her. I love her voice. Wish i knew more about her.

How hot is that dress. it was so cute. It had buttons on the side, multicoloured ones. Pretoria girls have style ;)

annoying girl/guy with camera

Once upon a time not long ago I was obsessed with taking pictures. I had a cheap little digicam that I got while I was on holiday in Hermanus and I just snapped away at everything. This made sense when I lived in the middle of nowhere because all the things I was seeing there were just so bizarre. There were baboons in the middle of the road, and sometimes a father and son team would get into their bakkie and chase them off the road with their AK47.

There were also endless white beaches filled with shells and sometimes, during whale season, I could spot a few whales going about their business in the deep blue sea.

So when I eventually left my precious bundus (Aniston, Bredasdorp and Gansbaai ) I was back in civilized Cape Town. But I had picked up this annoying habit of taking pictures of everything. So when I went out with friends I would take the pictures of food. Just in case they found that a little weird I would take pictures of their food as well. And if they promised not to grin at me, I snapped them as well.

This behavior carried on in the train. I would take a pictures of the sunrise, sunset, Table Mountain at dawn and just random people going about their business on the train or in areas around the train. I was like an annoying little tourist in my own country. In my defence I will say that I never used the train until I moved to Cape Town and the whole thing is just fascinating.

When the weekend rolled back into town it was off to Long street and I would still be taking pictures of everything. I could justify the performers in my pictures but never could quite understand why I had car guards and drunken people in my pictures.

But slowly I got over this habit or perhaps it was because I realised that I had no use for most of the pictures I was taking. Because there are only so many pictures of my friends and I laughing like crazy hyenas that I can load on facebook before it all got boring and monotonous.

But wait there is a point to this rant...

http://www.gooya.us/photos/2007/10/30/girl-iran-camera.jpg

 You see as much as I love to take pictures of all things bright and not-so-beautiful, I hate having my picture taken. And this week I was confronted with a group of consistent snappers. Like a hypocrite I was so annoyed and I made my annoyance felt. But deep down in my heart I knew that I was once that annoying girl with a camera. So to an extent I felt why they had a need to fill their camera up with pictures of people sitting around in the cold, drinking, smoking like they don't have work in a few hours (it was wayyy after midnight). What I really wanted to do was explain to them how stupid they are going to feel a year or so from now thinking back to a night where they were annoying people with a tiny little digicam instead of sitting down and drinking their wine like the rest of the people gathered there.

first month in the newsroom

http://www.old-picture.com/american-legacy/001/Newsroom-1920s-the-of.htm

I know that the month is not over yet. There is still another week to go but when have I ever let a small thing like fact get in the way of me having an unoriginal headline for my blog entry?
Any I will start off my saying that I have been having an awesome time. I think I love working for a weekend title (Weekend Argus in Cape Town) and I think this was the right placement for me.
Walking into the newsroom is like a big hall with journalists/editors/subeditors typing away like a human sweat shop that produces news. There are no cubicles so have people in your face all the time. So if you wake up in a bad mood or your boyfriend pisses you off on the phone, you have absolutely no privacy. So you kinda have to suck it up and get on with it or go cry in the bathroom or something. You know? This is not a place for sissy little girls or boys.
That whole paragraph was a little misleading but that was how it felt on the first day. Gradually I have gotten used to the newsroom and I quite enjoy it now.
I work with a very small team and I sit right behind the news editor. His name is Ryan and he has a really deep voice. His voice reminds me of James Earl Jones in that movie “Cry the beloved Country.” But besides that he is not that scary, he is very patient with me and helps me a lot with my stories. So my first week there I got a story that I have been working on with Wendyl and Ayanda on the front page of the Weekend Lifestyle Section. If you have been reading this blog, you would know that Wendyl, Ayanda and I formed a bad-ass group called News-Hacks while we were still in the cadet school. And towards the end of our days at the Cadet School, we spend many late night working on our story. We didn’t leave the office until 10 or sometimes 11pm. We checked and re-cheked and edited and fought over what should go where. And when all else failed we went to Mojito’s with the other cadets for happy Hour and then got back to work.
So front page of the Lifestyle section was not bad at all. I am very pround of the News-Hacks and wish my teammates were in Durban, so we could do more front page stories.
I am loving the Weekend as I get to write longer. And for someone like me who likes to talk too much, this means a lot because I can now talk less and write more.

message from Zoe to bloggers :)

http://zoeclaudia.tumblr.com/post/568508631

Front page news..

Yesterday was my first day in the newsroom and it started off with a bang. I think journalism is the only field where you get none of that "settle in and get to know the company" nonsense. While other people are busy twiddling their thumbs reading manuals that tell you not to sleep with the boss or abuse company email, I was already out on my first story. I was shadowing one of the senior journalist and she was so cool.

Then later i got a chance to do another story. but you know, it is my first day and all. What are the chances of that story landing up in the newspaper?

Well, I got to work this morning to my smiling news editor telling me that my story was ON THE FRONT PAGE.

I was so excited. And now i am looking at my name on the front page of the Cape Argus and it validates every decision I have made to get here so far.

I was born to do this ;)

here is the story: http://tinyurl.com/2vyrnuu

Why I love Cape Town

I woke up this morning to grey clouds. The sky was grey, white misty clouds over Lion's head and rain trinkling down from the sky.

 This is my favourite sight to wake up to. If I were to be honest, this weather is the reason I fell in love with this city because it is unpredictable and schitzophrenic.

I remember being here with my friends about three years ago and the weather was gloomy and grey, then sunny in the afternoon. We were frustrated and I remember saying how much I loved it and that if there ever was a reason for me to move here, the weather would be it. Three months later, I packed my stuff and have been in Cape Town for about three years now.

But besides the weather, Cape Town has a different pulse to the city I grey up in, Pretoria.

Pretoria is actually the opposite of Cape Town in a lot of ways. It is warmer and sunnier in Pretoria. I would go as far as to say that the people are warmer too.

Cape Town is full of my favourite people, the hippies. They come in all different shapes, races and sizes but they all have something in common. It seems that there are people here who have decided that life is messed up and instead of dwelling on things that they do not have, they would rather focus on things that they do.

So you have the  writers, poets,  filmakers, musicians, volunteers, nomads etc who do not know where their rent money is going to come from, but still insist on doing what they love. Even if it means that they may be broke for the rest of their lives. Because at some point in these people's lives, they realised that having a dream/talent and making it work was more important than all the riches in the world.

Besides the fact that they do not have much, they will still be the happiest people to have around you. You see, since I have been here I have been exposed to a lot of these people and at some point I find myself thinking that they are crazy. That I am crazy because I am one of those people.

It is this craziness, this energy that makes me love this city.

It also helps that we live by the sea and have a lot of gorgeous places to hang out. But I love Cape Town because of the people. The crazy ones. The hippies. The dreamers.

I miss the bundus

Sunset at Grootbos Private Game Reserve in Gansbaai

I should be chilling here :(

The tiny secluded beach in Aniston Bay

A dassie in hermanus

let there be light...

at the Waiting room. we play with light ..

Can we stop apologising for having an opinion

I just did a search on Google Images for the term "in my opinion" trying to find a picture to go with this post and I was astonished. I was not astonished by how many pictures there are (actually there were only four) but by the search revealing122,000,000 results. That's a lot of people out there who are busy apologising for having an opinion, WHY???

http://goodtimeswithmo.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/imo-logo.jpg

I mean, I am writing this whilesitting through a discussion at Cadet School during a lively discussion Mandela/Race/ Reconciliation etc. Now we are meant to be learning how to write in Shorthand but this is far more interesting for reasons that may not be obvious to everyone reading this

 I am distracted to a point of being annoyed because people are apologising for having valid points. I have the urge to stop them and ask "why the F*** are you apologising for having an opinion"? What would happen if we all made statements that were not followed by 'im just saying' or any of its other variations.

 I will tell you what would happen and it is going to shock you: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Perhaps I am arrogant. Who knows? But I really think that the one thing we are all entitled to is an opinion. If you say something I agree/disagree with, please do not add right at the end of your beautiful speech "that is only my opinion". Because you have not only made your statement redundant but you have also given me a strong urge to take off my boot and throw you with it.

Here is advice from one of my favourite writers, Siphiwe Mpye, which sums up my whole rant :

• " Never say: “In my opinion...it’s just my opinion…I am entitled to my opinion” and the like. A man (and woman) never apologises for his opinion"

**I added the stuff in brackets this was in a post addressed to his unborn son, read it here

to be [a cadet journalist] or not to be...that is the question

If your imagination is nearly as silly as mine, then you probably have the theme song to that American Comedy series, "Police Academy" playing in your head. Or perhaps, maybe even the theme song to the Disney cartoon series, "Recess" playing in your head.

Enough about music...

Because we are part of the INL Cadet School, we have to open an accompanying blog to go along with it, which you can check out here  http://www.neocadet.blogspot.com/  (I am not very inventive with names, as you can see).

www.retrojunk.com

But now, the Cadet School has got people a little confused. Besides the fact that we don't wear cadet uniforms, which is highly dissapointing, since journalists are well known for being poor dressers and an army/navy uniform might not have been a bad idea to hide our crimes against fashion. But alas, the Cadet School trust's us enough to let us pick our own clothes (bless them) as well as our own titles, it seems..

Which is where confusion on whether or not we are "cadet journalists" or simply "journalists". The logic behind the latter being that we are in a cadetship and are therefore cadets.
So my logic (which may have been taited by too much fresh air during my time in the bundus) dictates that we are all journalists and the fact that we are in a cadetship merely suggests that we are honing skills which we already possess. I mean why spend four years of your life (that you will never get back) on a journalism diploma just so you can call yourself, a "cadet journalist" a few months later?

How is anyone supposed to take us seriously if we sign off our emails with:

Regards
Neoscribes
Cadet Journalist blah blah blah??

nah, I do not think it makes any sense. And I wonder if anyone will be able to make sense of this post, which might not make any sense at all??

My new home has a fantastic view

http://www.capetownskies.com/1058/14_rainbow_devils_peakc.jpg

That is not the view from my window, but if I squint hard enough after the rain, I can convince myself that it is :)

After months of searching, I have finally found a place to rent in the middle of the Cape Town CBD and the view is fantastic. I get a view of Long Street as well as Devil's Peak (pictured) and Signal Hill on the other side.

So I get the best of both worlds but this is also because I do not have any curtains in my home, so I have no choice but to stare at my gorgeous view. All the rooms are empty, so I get a nice echo everytime I am on the phone :)

I live with my cousin and she is funny, so I am not bored living in the "Cave" as I have company and we can laugh it all off some of the things that are supposed to make us cringe.Yesturday we got a new Kettle and a Pan, it was so exciting but we realised that we do not own any cutlery so we sortalike had to measure out the coffee and sugar in our heads, which leads to interesting results.

But it is fun, we have our own place, which still needs to be fumegated but hey, one step at a time..

Back to school...seriously?

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/userfiles/typewriter.jpeg

The only phrase that comes to mind at this point is this one "sometimes you have to go back in order to go forward". If that makes any sense to you.

This means that I have now gone back to school in order to go into journalism. Instead of the pressure of the newsroom, I get to spend 8h30 to 4pm every single day in a class with 12 other aspiring journalists learning all the things "they didn't teach you in journalism school". (More on the other 12 candidates later)

I know, hardly exciting!

 All those hours spent taking notes, could be spent running up and down the CBD trying to get a first page story in one of the newspapers in the stable. But alas, I attend class after class after class and in the last two weeks I have had to create another blogspot address in which I write about my "experiences at the Cadet School" and yet another one on Vula (UCT platform) where I blog about my assignments (I kid you not).

But it is not all doom and gloom, I still get to pop in and out of the newsroom. Mingle with other journalists and hear from some of the most interesting people in the field like, Marianne Thamm, on what they think about the status of journalism and whatever else is on their minds really.

And I also get to do a grammar course, which if you have read any of my other blog post, you would agree that my spelling is terrible for a journalist.

Oh yah how can I forget, I get to call myself a journalist again, so bye bye "tree hugging"...