Hoodwinked by facebook

The social networking site has wormed its way back into my life again. I initially joined facebook to stay in contact with my best bud Miss Smarty-pants as we were to be living in different cities. Ok and maybe because I'm a bit stingy when it comes to buying airtym and actually call someone when I miss them [why call when u can sms:)]. So facebook proved an easy solution for a cheapskate of my calibre as I could access it for free on campus everyday(since I spent way too time in the lab anyway). This was towards the end of last year already and before I knew it, most of ma fellow journos-in-training were also on facebook. So now we went from being nerdy to super-nerdy because every free chance we got between classes, we darted for the lab. Then I started getting friend requests from people I didn't even know. So I guess that was cool for a while until I started reading other people's profiles and when I read something I liked, I also sent friend invites. I also sent invites to some of the people in the industry whose work I liked and finally I was able to "talk" to them. I will admit that I was deeply disappointed at times coz honestly some people write the most beautiful pieces or make awesome music but have the personality of an ironing-board. Now that I work, I go onto facebook when I'm bored (which is a regular occurance). But then there were other people who outlived my expectations. Which brings me to why I am hoodwinked.. So does this mean that I can actually refer to them as my friends and not as facebook friends or contacts. Can you actually be really friends with someone after having "met" them on facebook? Well, the sceptic in me says no because eventually there is certain sense of false security in social networking. I imagine it to be like internet dating without the sex (if u will). Like when you do eventually meet your "friends", you are likely to be disappointed. But one thing I'm hoping for is to get a weird friendor two, u know, someone who moonlights as a drug-dealing priest or something like that. I read about them but have never really facebooked (if that is an actual word) with a weirdo, all ma friends are pretty normal or maybe I am their weird friend??

Be careful what you wish for

There we all were all bright eyed and ready to take on the media bizz in a big way. (For the puposes of this blog us refers to me and my friends from tertiary) At the end of last year my fellow journalism classmates and I bid farewell to our beloved campus as we entered the working enviroment. And we didn't do too badly. Who would have thought that the loudmouths would end up working for well-established media companies like SABC, Primedia and Yfm amongst others (certainly not our academic assasssin lecturers thats for sure). Now we have all been working for about four months (give or take a few months) and we are all camplaining. If its not me complaining about being bored, its another friend complaining about being overworked.Log onto our facebook profiles and you'd swear we were a bunch of old age home residents instead of young udults. The funny thing is we all got pretty much what we asked for. I wanted to be a writer and here I am writing and some wanted to ho into broadcast (that's exactly where they are). So if there is one lesson learnt from this entire year is to be careful what I wish for because chances are that I WILL STILL MOAN WHEN I FINALLY GET IT.

service please

I have always had a strange relationship with waitrons. I am a cheapskate (student budget) with expensive taste(so to speak). When I have money I grab a bunch of my buddies and we head out on a nite on the town...thats normal right? The tip is the trickiest part of the whole exercise. I always end up being annoyed with the waitrons for either being too attentive or for ignoring us. I can never figure out which annoys me more. The waiter who comes to the table after each bite to ask "u ladies still ok" or the one who teleports himself to space and only reappears when we start straining our necks trying to get his/her attention?

we are living in interesting times

South Africa is the place to be at the moment. If you are a filmmaker or a shady underworld operative (that is). I think there are some film-makers out there who can't believe their luck. Think about it for a minute, we have a future president with a shady criminal record for starters. Can you imagine what it is going to be like once Jacob "baby oil" Zuma becomes president of the country, with Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Tony Yengeni in charge of policy? I mean hardly a month in Luthuli house and they have already disbanded the Scorpions..can it get any worse? But wait this is only the beginning. The of course we have Jackie Selebi, remember him? He is the suspended police commissioner who resigned from his job as Interpol boss after details of his "friendship" with shady people like Glenn Agliotti came to light.And then of course we have everyone's pet peeve Eskom. I am suprised that the electricity hasn't gone out while I'm writing this post. Maybe someone forgot to pull the switch for my area. All of a sudden electricity is no longer a right but a luxury. The most shocking thing of all is that no-one has been fired. In fact I'm willing to bet anything that these idiots got fat christmas bonusses last year. All this would would make a juicy script for a movie (Based unfortunately on reality) I'm thinking Oscar material here. Now if only I could find myself a Nigerian filmmaker to help me churn this movie out before someone else steals my brillant idea. I think il get cracking on 3 separate books in the meantime...one on Eskom, the next on Zuma and his cronies and one on Selebi. Maybe I'l make enough money to affort a generator and a few solar pannels for my house...Damn Eishkom!!!!!

did someone say Polokwane??

So, the buzz word around SA polictics seems to be Polokwane these days. So why should we care? Well, besides the fact that Polokwane (an obscure little city on the South African map) is finally in the news for something that hasn't got anything to do with it's close proximity to Limpopo...u know that other province where people apparently fly on teaspoons instead of Nationwide airlines. Ok but on the real though, 10 days from now we might wake up to find Jacob Zuma as our future President...that's some scary stuff. That is unless you work in the shower installation industry. But is Zuma really that bad?? I mean even Thabo Mbeki has his faults and we all know that corruption is like a badge of honour in our cabinet. So why the hell are we making such a big deal out of a possible Zuma presidency? surely he will not be running the country by himself...u know there is Shabir Shaik, Zwelinzima Vavi and Fikile Mbalula to help him right, that's not so bad?? On second thought, maybe I need to hitch a ride on one of those flying spoons and head off to Polokwane coz the conference is bound to be interesting, to say the least.

i just wanna change my username

So there I was on tghe yahoo website trying to change my username. What wrong with it u ask... Wel I have been using my email address for a couple of years now so I got the address way back in High School, which brings me to my problem with it coz while calling maself this like neobabe might have sounded cool then it certainly isnt now. So I have been getting a lot of flack for ma silly userId. I really thought it would be an easy procedure. Something like entering ma old id and then entering the new one and BAM id changed. But after spending the whole morning doing it I think I might have had better luck trying to get a new Id from the home affairs dept. What made the whole thing worse is that I was dealing with computer instructions, Ive never wished for a call-center agent to scream at like I did this morning... So sadly I still have my old address but maybe Ill open a new one on the side jyst in case someone from the Mail n Guardian e-mails me with a job offer...you never know, that username might be in the way of ma success....

my lecturer the Academic Assassin

I hardly complain about my lecturers, they are nice people, a bit senile but nice. I get along with most of them because I do my work and get really good marks every once in a while. But there is this one lecturer though, who may or may not be our HOD. That guy intimidates the hell out of me, so I avoid him like the plague. During our Cape Town trip he couldn't be avoided. I was in his group so was with him on most of our excursion. When we went to the Navy in Simon's Town he was busy correcting our tour guide (very irritating) when he was giving us background info on the ships, missions and stuff. The poor guy was so embarrassed that he went to verify his facts, only to find that the Academic Assassin, who may or may not be our HOD, was right. It also didn't help me much that I'm SUCH A LOUD MOUTH!!! So, I found myself out of my depth when I ended up in a conversation with him about journalism, BIG MISTAKE!!! I felt so small that I ended up asking him for his badge which read "when I grow up I want to be a journalist". That got him to flash a smile, which was an achievement of sorts because in the two years that I have been on campus, I've never seen him smile...ever! For those two seconds I felt really, really clever...plus he promised to get one of those badges for me (Like I believed him). I think he was just trying to get me to shut up, think my mother used that tactic on me as well when I was annoying her during an episode of the young and the restless. But now he moved our farewell ceremony to a Thursday afternoon instead of a Friday night just so we can come to campus (hangovers and all) on the Friday...damn!!! Just when I was beggining to like the guy.