#NoMakeUpSelfie

In order for this article to make any sense I must first tell you three things about myself. The first is that I hardly ever wear make-up and I absolutely love taking photos. In fact, and you can ask my sister to back me up on this, I almost always take the perfect selfie. This will probably tell you that I’m a little self-absorbed and that my Facebook page is full of photos of me almost all of which are without any make-up on.

The second thing you need to know is that I am studying a BSc degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology with Genetics as one of my majors. I therefore know quite a lot about cancer and its causes and repercussions as I have read various article journals and had many lectures based on cancer. I wouldn’t call me an expert but I have a greater understanding than the average Joe.

The final thing you need to know is that today marks exactly 11 months since my step-mother died from cancer. She was an amazing woman and put up a major fight but in the end her own body turned against her. This is what cancer does and it kills even the strongest and most amazing people we know. And there is actually very little that we can do to stop it.

Which brings me to yesterday, when one of my friends nominated me to take a #NoMakeUpSelfie and post it on Facebook. Now, usually when people share cancer awareness related stuff on my Facebook page I ignore it. Invariably it is some photo trying to guilt trip people into sharing the link so that all of your friends can also be guilt tripped into doing the same. Instead of sharing these links I make a conscious effort to either spread awareness or raise money for the CANSA association.

This one, however, I could just not ignore. Of course there was a part of me who just wanted to be part of the trend of woman taking pictures of themselves and posting them online but there was a greater need. A need to remember my step-mom and her infinite wisdom and beauty, a need to tell people that cancer is a serious issue and that it can affect everyone and anyone and a need to remind myself that I too am susceptible.

And so I have taken my #NoMakeUpSelfie and I will share it with you all, but I would like you to take a minute as you look at all the pictures on your news feed and just think about the fact that most of those woman will be diagnosed by cancer at one point in their lives. 

17 Days Sober

Every year my sister gives up something for lent and impresses us all by actually making it through the forty days without eating chocolate or drinking fizzy cold drinks and every year I give up chocolate for about a week and then treat myself to about one hundred Easter eggs to make me feel better about my failure. But this year EVERYTHING has changed. Heather (the sisterling) has decided that for lent she is going to be a vegan and her commitment to the cause has inspired me to give up chocolate, for real this time.

It seems to me that, from an outsider’s perspective, giving up chocolate would be really easy but anyone who has ever lived with me or knows me really well knows that this is a nearly impossible task. You see the problem is that I am a chocoholic and usually eat chocolate once a day if not more. I eat chocolate when I’m sad, hungry, irritated, happy, grumpy, angry, or excited and then afterwards I eat more chocolate because I feel guilty for eating an entire slab of chocolate.

I absolutely love chocolate.

But, I have made the decision and I have to stick to it, not because I am religious (I’m not religious at all actually), or because I am stubborn, or because I made a promise to myself. No, I have to go through with this because it has come to my attention that I have a commitment issue. Well, I have several commitment issues actually but now that I have (finally) realized it, I fully intend to alter it.

And so, step one of the plan is to commit myself to forty days without chocolate. Step two will be to get my ass into the gym on a regular (no, I don’t mean once a month) basis. And I will figure out step three if I ever actually get there. But for the meantime I somehow have to figure out how to walk into a supermarket without wanting to drown myself in a swimming pool filled with melted chocolate because people are starting to notice me crying in the veggie isle and I think it’s freaking them out. 

Because I Can

Human beings are actually kind of strange; we want the things that we cannot have, we don’t appreciate the things that we do have and the lyrics to pop songs throughout the ages are all based on the same basic concepts.

Now evolution dictates that only the strongest possible versions of a species will survive long enough to mate and therefore have any effect on the following generation but it seems to me that the moment humans became ‘intelligent’ enough to beat evolution, we all became a driveling, pitiful mess.

We no longer need to be the best possible human in order to survive and this results in an earth over-populated by human beings who cannot for the life of them think of a single original lyric because life has become a monotonous disaster conducted by those who control the media. This means that pop songs will always feature themes such as ‘living forever,’ ‘being a better version of ourselves,’ or ‘convincing someone that we’re the right person for them.’

This is only a few of the topics and there is actually quite a broad spectrum of songs based on these very basic ideas but it comes down to this; we don’t appreciate what we have until we can no longer have it and we believe in a better version of ourselves but are too scared to make it happen.

And so, recently, after finally deciding that I was finally ready to take the first step towards becoming a better me I thought I should focus on one specific area in my life. I was going to be the ultimate SCUBA diver, or I was going to be the best student in my class or I was going to be an amazing musician.

I completely forgot that I wanted to be all of these things and that focusing on just one of these topics was pointless. I needed to make time so that I could focus on everything that I wanted to be or do and it was this very thing that altered my perspective entirely.

I realised that I wanted to be the type of person who could write lyrics that would revolutionize the way that we think, the type of person who appreciated everything that they have in their life and the type of person who realised that there is nothing in this world that I cannot have. 

Our Greatest Talents

At the end of last year, after a friend of mine started writing for Die Matie, our campus newspaper, I decided it was time to pluck up the courage and send them my CV. Now this can be really intimidating, especially seeing as I like to believe that writing is one of my greatest talents, but after several days of editing and re-editing my CV I finally sent it in.

I was so excited when I got an email saying I could join the team and thought that writing for a newspaper would be amazing. I of course didn’t realize that to write newspaper articles means that you have to keep your opinion out of the story completely and this makes it extremely difficult for me to convey the true emotion behind the story.

So a couple weeks back when I asked my editor if I could do a story about a development underwater hockey team that my dive club has organised I thought it was going to be such a special story. I thought it was really going to be my turn to shine as not just a writer but a journalist as well. It turns out that I was horribly, horribly wrong.

The first part of writing this story was getting the relevant information. I therefore asked the man in charge of the entire project, Jack van Blerk, if I could interview him. Well, what an amazing interview. By the end of the interview I wasn’t sure whether to burst into tears or song. The story about how this project came into being is really beautiful and I’d really like to share it.

Jack has been involved in the Maties Underwater Club since 2000, when he started playing and coaching underwater hockey. He has coached many teams since then and has started his own club in Strand since then. He still coaches for Maties though and in 2012, whilst coaching in the indoor pool at Coetzenberg he started noticing that a black guy was swimming lengths every Tuesday evening both before they got there and once they had left. “It looked like he was drowning more than swimming and he was struggling to stay afloat.”

Jack soon learnt that Andile was training to join the South African Navy and started giving him tips and pointers to improve his swimming and this is how he met Andile Zondi. During one particular practice Jack allowed Andile to watch videos of underwater hockey matches on his computer while the rest of the guys were training. After the session Jack asked Andile what he thought and all he said was that it looked difficult.

A week later at practice Andile approached Jack and told him he wanted to learn how to play underwater hockey. Andile has since learnt how to play underwater hockey as well as learnt how to SCUBA dive (in the hope of becoming a Navy Diver) all thanks to Jack and The Maties Underwater Club.

With the help of The National Lottery Fund the duo has also started a development underwater hockey team for eight boys which Andile selected out of Kayamandi. They have taught the boys how to swim, entered them in tournaments and given them the opportunity to travel to Johannesburg (on their first ever plane trip) to compete.

After hearing what Jack had to tell me, I was amazed. It seemed to me that he was single-handedly trying to teach the entire world how to swim and I thought the story was beautiful. Jack’s passion and commitment to these causes seemed incredible and I wanted people to know the story immediately.

The problem was that I couldn’t write it. I couldn’t possibly convey his emotions in words. I couldn’t put his passion into a news article and after hours and hours of fighting with the article I finally gave up and sent it on to my editor as it was, knowing that it wasn’t going to be my best work but that it was certainly decent enough.

This morning this article was printed and I finally got to see it on paper. I was up early and made a beeline for campus so that I could get a copy. I opened up the paper and my heart dropped. The article had basically been cut in half and shoved into a forgotten, forlorn corner. I was heart-broken. I had been so convinced that other people would feel the way I felt that I had assumed that all of my 600 odd words would have been printed.  

So to Jack and all his hard work, I know you don’t want praise for it but I hope that my short little article at least made some people see what you’re doing. To The Editor who put these cute little boys in a corner, I apologize that my story wasn’t good enough. And to all of you amazing people out there who are willing to do the things you love even when people tell you you’re no good at it, well done, because sometimes our greatest talent is knowing what we love and being able to do it regardless. 

Pros and Cons

You know, it’s funny, when you've been friends with one person for as long as you can remember you start to know what they’re going to say or do before they even do it. You know that when she’s stuck in an airport for three hours that she is going to text you about the good looking boy sitting next to her in the Mugg n’ Bean, you know that she’s going to text you whenever anything happens that even slightly reminds her of you, you know that sushi and chocolate will always be the thing you talk about most (and take the most photos of) and you know exactly what advice she’s going to give you when you’re in a mix up about a boy.

So this morning, without even having to ask, I knew that it was the kind of morning that was going to require a pros and cons list. You see, this is my besty’s number one piece of advice for every situation and believe it or not, about 90% of the time it is the perfect solution.

The problem is once you get to the end of making your list, how do you decide which half wins? You could do it numerically (one thing on the list equals one point) but this is difficult as some points seem to be more prudent or relevant than others. So what about a weighted system? The thing is it actually doesn’t matter. If you find yourself adding up the results in fifty different ways just to get the result you want then chances are you already know what you really want and you've probably just been lying to yourself.

Well, I have been lying to myself anyway.

So you text your besty and tell her the result and, just when you think you know her so well that you think you’ll be able to predict her next bit of advice, she’ll blind side you with some really deep insight that is not only perfect for the situation at hand but also makes you realize just how bloody pathetic your life would be without her in it. 

Real Life as a School Subject

It seems to me that it is so stereotypical for a chick to be stranded with a broken down car that even the movies have stopped using it and have instead resorted to some hot chick who knows a lot about cars and can fix them all herself. And wouldn’t it be easy if that was the norm. On Friday afternoon I found myself in a bit of a tight spot.

You see, I was supposed to be giving a lift to a complete stranger who was an old school buddy of my mom’s and then to my absolute horror I found out that my car wouldn’t start. Now to those of you who don’t yet know, my car is my baby. His name is Dodgy Rodger (or The Rodge-mobile for short) and he has a little dimple on his right cheek from where some idiot's surf board, that wasn’t properly strapped to his roof, came flying at him while he was (correctly) parked in Strand on a warm summer’s day.

I really love my car and he has never given me any problems until suddenly on Friday he just wouldn’t start. In fact he wasn’t even responding to the remote control. So as usual, when things go wrong I phoned mommy because she just knows everything and even if she doesn’t she’ll make a plan to help me. Well, it turned out that my battery was flat and I needed to find someone who could jump my car for me.

So I phoned Francois. He is the perfect person to phone in this kind of situation because not only does he have one of those super old cars that can only be driven by a fully qualified mechanic but he also mechanics/drives a rally car. Not only that but he lives in my block of flats and I knew he would help. So I put on my super-sweet-I-want-something voice and phoned Francois only to find out that he wasn’t home and he was busy but he assured me that his flatmate was home and was allowed to use Francois’ car and jumper cables to save me.

The problem was asking Lourie to do me a favour. You see he already laughs at me for being a complete idiot when it comes to physics, and for pretty much everything else that I do and say because he’s super intelligent and doesn’t have a habit of falling on his face. Asking Lourie to save me was going to be humiliating and lousy and I really wasn’t looking forward to it but I didn’t really have any other option. (Just the thought of Lourie being my hero makes my pride feel like it’s been kicked in the face.)

So I swallowed my pride and phoned Lourie…

Well, I don’t know whether it was luck or karma but after banging down Lourie’s door, ringing the doorbell several million times and phoning him continuously I finally gave up and my pride did a little happy dance. I went back downstairs and to my luck managed to find someone to help me. This complete stranger helped me out, and gave me loads of advice and wished me a safe trip all for nothing. What a brilliant man and I must just thank him not only for saving my Rodger but also for saving my pride.

The point is that even though it took a while, and even though I did eventually manage to sort out the situation, I really hate being stuck in a situation where I am totally and utterly lost and can’t do anything about it. I have therefore decided that I either need to figure out how to fix all manner of car issues or I need to go back to Mr McCarthy (my grade five and six mechanics teacher) and ask him why the hell he taught me about the internal workings of a combustion engine instead of showing me how to jump start a car. 

The Dreaded Debate

I like contemplating the meaning of life and death and everything in between. I find it interesting to speak to my friends about their thoughts and beliefs. The problem is of course that the open-mindedness off both parties involved in such a conversation dictates the outcome of the conversation. And to be honest, the intelligence and curiosity of the other person also greatly dictates the joy found in it. Discussing spirituality with someone who is close minded and ignorant is a recipe for disaster.

The thing is that conversations such as these often end badly. Often one side or both sides will be offended by whatever comes up and it is for reasons such as these that my mom always told me to NEVER EVER discuss religion on a first date. And thus far that advice alone has saved me from countless disasters (I’m a highly opinionated person).

Anyway, because this topic often brings out the worst in people, I find myself getting slightly uncomfortable when somebody else brings it up. I was therefore very surprised last night when I found myself in such a conversation with a friend who I haven’t seen in ages, and I was once again enjoying it. He has interesting beliefs and is obviously highly curious about the various opinions and beliefs available.

Most, if not all of his beliefs differ greatly from those of my own, and yet at no point was I offended or uncomfortable, at no point was anyone screaming or making a scene and not once did I feel that I had to restrain my opinion or talk over his. It was delightful but ever so unusual. But should it be unusual? Should it really be so unbelievably strange to me that I could have a quiet, enjoyable conversation with my friend? Does this subject really turn even good friends into a quibbling disaster?

And I suppose the answer lies in the importance that we place in our beliefs. You see, I am quite willing to change my opinion if you can tell or show me something that would convince me and I am sure that Jeff (my friend) is as well. That said I know a lot of my friends place so much faith and are so wholly absorbed in their beliefs (which I think is amazing, by the way) that contradictions to their beliefs would shatter their entire being. And that is where it begins to get personal and ugly.

But tell me this; is the meaning of life really that important if you have lost all your friends due to a little debate? Consider the outcome of any debate at various points throughout and you may find yourself more accepting of other’s opinions. 

Over Sharing Keeps Us Sane

I am not sure if this is just a girl thing, or if it is just how my girls and I are, or what it is but when it comes to boys we want to share everything. I want to know when dates are, how they go, how they ended and I want to know what they did on the date. Maybe I’m a bit over curious but I like to think that I can tell a lot about the guy from how the dates go and seeing as my two favourite girls live a billion miles away I have to make do with whatever image I can conjure up of them in my mind.

The problem is that I don’t always like the image that forms in my mind. In fact sometimes the guys that my friends date just seem awful. The type of guys who are unappreciative or using them, shallow or really insecure. And some of the boys they are interested in are just plain STUPID.

You see, I have a friend who is super easy to talk to, she’s fun to be around and she is just awesome (in my opinion anyway) the problem with this is that she always seems to end up friend zoned and it doesn't make sense to me. Does she have a sign on her forehead that says ‘un-dateable but great friend’? Is she really bad at flirting? Do guys just not realize that she is interested in them?

Anyway, last night I got a text saying; “What must I wear; sexyish nice or casual nice?”

Now in my opinion if you’re trying to get out of the friend zone you sure as hell better look drop dead gorgeous. In fact if his jaw doesn't hit the ground when he says you well then you’re probably staying right there in the dreaded friend zone. The problem is that you can only look super sexy if you’re actually going out on a date. You can’t dress up for a quick coffee or a braai, there has to be a reason to dress up. So I wasn't sure what advice to give her because she had told me before that this guy that she likes has friend zoned her so I assumed that meant that they weren't now going on a date.

Well apparently I was wrong. You see even though her prospects with him look pretty bleak they still end up going on what sounds to me like a date. Take last night for example; dinner and a movie followed by a casual stroll but no good night kiss??? That is just plain confusing. Like I-want-to-hit-this-guy-in-the-head-with-a-brick kind of confusing. Because what is he doing? What is his master plan?

Does he really intend to carry on leading my friend on or is he actually interested but too nervous to do anything about it? And here I have to be careful because once again I must stipulate that I do not know this guy. I have never met him but in my mind he seems like a real jackass. For several months they have gone on dates but with no physical context at all. And it seems to me that he is just leading her on.

And this is the problem with relationships. This is where guys and girls just don’t work. There are so many rules about dating, things that you can and can’t do, things that make you seem desperate or pathetic when actually you’re just curious. You see if this was an ideal world she could just tell him how she felt, ask him if he felt the same and if he said no she could happily move on with her life. Instead she has to play it safe and see what happens because he would probably be completely freaked out by pure honesty while her mind goes into overdrive in an attempt to figure out what every sentence and look could possibly have meant.

In my opinion this is why girls over share about guys. It’s not because we have to prove to our girlfriends that there are guys in our lives. It isn't to make us feel good about ourselves. It’s to get a different perspective on the guys in our lives because invariably by this point we’re too smitten to be able to tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy. 

Hangovers For Dummies

There comes a time in every morning’s hangover where you have to make a couple of really important decisions. The first is who to blame for your thunderous headache, after all it couldn’t possibly have been your fault. Surely no normal human being would willingly feed themselves that much alcohol knowing full-well what it would result in.

The second is, and this is assuming you make it out of bed without falling on your face, should you brush your teeth? You see your teeth are busy doing that really horrible “I’m furry” dance and your mouth tastes as if you made out with at least one ashtray last night. So in all honesty you’re dying to get some toothpaste in there but the last thing you need on an already nauseated stomach is an accidental gag reflex.

The third and final decision you need to make is whether you are going to stick to your earlier proclamation that you’re never going to drink again, or are you going to reach out and grab that beer that your mate (usually the one you've blamed for the hangover) is trying to pass you and brave the nausea in the hopes of curing your hangover.

Either way, whichever options you pick, none of this will come to mind the next time someone offers you a drink. Instead your brain will play you a short video of all the awesome drinking memories you have and you’ll get completely trashed all over again. And for some odd reason your brain WILL hate you again tomorrow morning. 

Hell's Bells and a Glass of Champagne

It was after a full day of traveling that I finally arrived in Kenya. I was starting to sober up after my plane trip booze up and the heat was like something out of a scary campfire story, but at least I was surrounded by the people I love. That said, I was now tired of travelling, I wanted a shower and I either needed a glass of wine or some pretty strong Panado. But, unbeknownst to me, getting from the airport to Michelle’s house was to be the most stressful journey of my life.

You see, in Kenya you need a drivers licence to drive on the roads but Michelle achieved hers by driving out of the traffic department, turning left, entering a roundabout, first exit out and then driving another hundred meters. That’s it! That is all that she had to do to be given a licence. So you can imagine then that, what seemed like a billion Kenyans all on the roads at once would be a nightmare.

Well, Hell's Bells!!! The word ‘nightmare’ has got to be the biggest understatement of the century. I’m pretty sure that at one stage I was wishing that I was at least 300 kilograms heavier just so that when we did come to our inevitable stop in the rear end of another 4x4 I would have some extra padding to protect me. And more than once I wished that we had just decided to walk to literally the other side of Nairobi.

It seemed to me that the roads were fairly good, and all the signs were in the correct places and they even had countdown timers for their robots but after about five minutes in Nairobi traffic I had worked out that NOBODY, and I mean nobody, bothered to pay attention to any of that and to make matters worse at one of the intersections the traffic officer was directing traffic in the complete opposite way to the robots and it occurred to me that no one listened to him anyway.

Yes, my only unhappy memories of Kenya will be those that we spent on the road with me digging holes into the arms of whoever was sitting next to me at the time in the hopes of staying upright. The good news is though, that the Kenyan traffic scared off any hangover that I might have had and by the time we got home I was ready for a much needed glass of champagne. 

I Am Officially Throwing A Tantrum

It seems to me that once again I may actually be fighting against myself. In fact my entire life seems to be a fight against myself. You see the problem is that I come up with these fantastic ideas that make perfect sense at the time, perfectly rationalized and logically thought through, and then I spend the rest of my life hating them. The problem is that while I may be a pretty rational person, there is a part of me that just wants to throw her toys out of the cot.

So what bright idea did I come up with this time?

Well, for the last year and a half I have had a rather strange relationship with a guy. It’s one of those weird ‘on again, off again’ type of scenarios and after over a year of fighting and loving, hating and playing I still have no idea whether he makes me more miserable when I’m with him or when I’m away from him. Basically it was a very complicated relationship.

Anyway, after being in Kenya for just short of a month with two of my favorite people on the planet, I came back feeling as if I was back to normal, as if I had rewound the clock two years and was suddenly back to being the carefree, happy Kat that I was before my dad died. Sure, there were still things in my life that I needed to worry about but it seemed to me as if I was once again strong enough to face nearly anything.

So when I realized that I could survive by myself I did one of the bravest (and most stupid) things I could think of. Truth be told I thought I was doing us both a favor, because as far as I could tell, we were making each other miserable. And so, with many a tear involved we decided not to talk, not to text, not to see each other. The plan was to cut him out of my life and with that all the pain that he had brought with him. And he was to do the same with me.

Sounds pretty easy right? How difficult could it be to cut someone out who I spent that much time fighting with? I would just text my girls about my day instead of texting him, I would spend my evenings with friends who I hadn't seen in ages instead of fighting with him, and the best part was that I could deal with all my stuff in whichever way pleased me.

No, if I am honest, I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I definitely thought that it would be easier than it has been. In fact it has gotten to the point where I am pretty sure that Michelle is going to hit me over the head if I mention his name one more time. So what the hell am I supposed to say to him? After all this was my lovely idea. And what if he has already cut me out of his life? What if he doesn't want me in his life anymore?

And then I have to stop my brain mid thought. My irrational, illogical brain is about to eat an entire slab of chocolate and my logical brain is going to feel guilty about it for the next week! Because what has changed since then? Are we suddenly going to get along? Are we suddenly going to make things work? And so with the two halves of my brain fighting one another furiously, I am going to ignore them both and throw my toys out of the cot!