Its Mother Day here in SA on Sunday and I can’t stop thinking about the poor mother of missing three-year-old Madeleine McCann. She was abducted a week ago and its her 4th birthday tomorrow - can you even begin to imagine how her family must be feeling? I can't... As time goes on I feel sadder for them.
For any mother the fear of just thinking of this kind of thing is paralyzing. I simply do not understand how anyone could do this.
So for Mothers Day I am dedicating my most positive thoughts and wishes to Madeleines mom and I am sure you all feel the same way… Eish! Not nice at all.
Ok, so I have been sitting back silently watching the storm regarding David Bullard comments in last weeks Sunday Times [I know…it took me a while to respond..it’s old news now- 5 days!.. BUT I am unveiling my new reflective unemotional side.. YA right!] I have read so many different sites on the topic and Davie is now famous! I, on the other hand, am astounded by the power of this communication tool! I am pretty sure that David underestimated the blogosphere on this one… or maybe its ‘us’ being played and its all a test!? What’s amazing is that this news has spread across the globe with comments from journalists being tagged thick and fast!
I really have just one question on this. Is freedom really freedom when there are ‘rules’? Is this not the lure of blogging….the fact that it aint elitist? Via free speech! I do, however think I understand the confused message in his article about being offensive and I actually agree BUT believe it or not some people don’t want to be journalists! Don’t stress Davie, your job is safe from me! I just like freedom… you can have your rules and your papier… the blogosphere is for me!
For the real ‘geeks’ (whoever those are these days – I think the geeks of today are now the jocks) the concept of Second Life is old news. I have to say though, that I have been fascinated since I heard about it a few months ago. What a clever concept, might not be your thing but you cannot deny its clever! To quote the site Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 6,193,781 people from around the globe.”
It’s an online game where you can be who you want to be and unlike normal games you don’t interact with ‘false/manufactured’ characters or figments of a programmers imagination BUT rather with other people who are also into ‘escapism’ and have redesigned themselves. DON’T LAUGH! It is no laughing matter, visit the site and look on the right hand side and how much revenue it has clocked up… AND big brands are clamoring to advertise in this new space, it already boasts over 25 big names like Virgin (of course!), IBM, BMW to name a few. These sites are also creating cross over platforms back into the 'real world'. Example: You walk into Pizza Hut in the ‘game’ and you order a pizza, 35 minutes later your real life doorbell rings whilst you are building you house in Second Life and WOLA! the pizza is delivered – already paid for through your credit card [as you use that to play the game]! HOW COOL! Can you believe it!!! To illustrate this a little more, I found this clip on YOUTUBE that shows this guys entrance into Second Life and how he has rejected his real life…Shame is it loneliness or boredom [I hear you say]….. Check it out!
Lets talk teeth…. Yip I said teeth. I have just had an amazingly frustrating experience and it would be interesting to see if any of you have had a similar one, because if you have we are in trouble! I really get nervous when there is a service issue like this, that feeling of helplessness is not very comfortable.
I have no dentist. Long story… but she went on sabbatical (who blames her looking at peoples mouths all day ...can’t be cool). Last week I developed an ache in my tooth that got worse and worse. Eventually, by Friday I was desperate, phoning around to find a dentist that would take me in! Found one and she referred me to a specialist (Surprise! Surprise!). I had a ‘REALLY BIG abscess’ in the bone cavity from someone that didn’t do a root canal properly! I cannot put words to the agony! (They would be X rated if I did!)
I was given antibiotics and pain killers and 2 referrals to specialists. When I called these specialists the first date I could get was end May and June!! I started to panic! I eventually went to my family doc on Sunday for a pain injection and he said he would do his best to help me on Monday. Which he did, he managed to ‘get me in’ somewhere this coming Friday….! So now I just have to wade through one week and not a whole month in total agony! I still think that is bad!
I cannot believe the whole experience not to mention how uncaring and rude the people were at the specialist rooms, they really didn’t care. You may be busy but you don’t have to be rude!! I even thought of ‘checking in’ to hospital just to get someone to help!! How ridiculous! Do we have that much of a skills shortage?? In the process (ironically) I met a cool dentist that has her Masters in Dentistry but is going to London to specialise as some health board (presume its government) only took 3 people into their specialist programme? Apparently a political thing…. I know she doesn’t want to leave, she had to go to further her career!! So much for being a country of opportunity! The last thing we need is to lose more skill because of some strange bureaucratic process! So blogging this story hasn’t really helped the pain go away, it is however a BIG WARNING…whatever you do…. Don’t lose your teeth!!!
You know one of the hardest things in life is being a parent. I mean, how do you ever know if you are doing the right thing. It kinda reminds me of one loooong pottery class. You start off with a lump of clay that you have great intentions of moulding into something grand and placing proudly on your mantle piece. You clearly do not set out with the intention of creating a mangled twisted piece of 'stretched' clay that will only ever see the inside of a dustbin!!! The risk is however there. Is parenting really that different? Not all of us get the opportunity to practice on lots of lumps of clay in real life!
We all virtually kill ourselves to create the perfect vase (not only on the outside but on the inside as well nogal!) Once it takes its rightful place on the mantle piece, we hope that people will take care of it and make sure it is not too close to the edge, incase it gets knocked off onto the floor and shatters into millions of little pieces. In effect we spend our lives trying to teach our children how to navigate through life relatively unscathed but at the same time how to shine! This kak is certainly NOT for the faint hearted! Eish! Wouldn't change it for all the tea in China!
