Everyday is a good day

We all occasionally have our not so good day, our really shitty days, and then we have our good days. How our days turn out is somehow linked to the energy we give off, in some cases it may just be the world picking on us.

Every day may not be good, but there’s something good in every day. You may wake up on the wrong side of the bed, bump your toe on the way to the shower, run out of toilet paper while on the loo, make coffee but the milk is all lumpy, etc. but the good thing in that day may be being able to have all this than nothing at all.

Point is, we would say ‘that was a bad day’, but we tend to forget that at least we are fortunate enough to have a bed to sleep in, running water for a shower, a toilet to use and a kettle to make coffee. All this should be a start to everyday being a good day.

Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses

Our strengths and weaknesses can vary from person to person, I would say all depending on things in life we may have experienced. Strengths are usually things you are good at, for example ‘time management’ and weaknesses are things you are not good at like ‘resisting double chocolate-chip cookies’.

Back to the blog topic, I am a bit confused by this topic. Are our greatest strengths really our greatest weaknesses or are our greatest weaknesses our greatest strengths? If both of these questions are correct then it would actually be the same question.

I do think that our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses. Let me try and explain why I feel that this may be true, let us use a lame example to make it easy to understand my point. Say ‘being able to do crazy intense math equations on a calculator’ is your greatest strength, which would mean your greatest weakness (when it comes to a maths test) would be ‘not having a calculator’.

It should be clear already but let me sum it up for you, in the lame example, your greatest strength (being able to do crazy intense math equations on a calculator) would be your greatest weakness.

One day in my life: Monday

This blog is a part of a series of blogs to follow, where you as a reader will read up on one day in my life starting with Monday (23 May 2011). My Monday started off at 7:30 with a warm cup of coffee and a shower. I left the house by 8:30 to be early for my class at 9:00. On Mondays I have Media studies for an hour, but we did not have class because it was study week that no one told us about.

I then came home, tided up my room, had my second cup of coffee and had something to eat as I was starving by 11am. By noon, I had changed into comfortable clothes and got back into bed. I ended up watching American Dad for an hour before studying for my Research Methodology test the following day. After studying for a few hours, I felt a nap was well deserved. After the nap, I had myself a small dinner (2min noodles), and then went straight back to studying.

I started freaking out about all the content for the test and realised that I’m doing more than what I needed for the test. I then read through the Research Methodology text book, the lecture slides and journal needed for the tests which lead to the next study break. By 11pm that day I put the studying aside and watched a movie called ‘Long weekend’, followed by sleep as this was the end of my day.

Church Square

Upon strolling through Cape Town’s CBD, the statue and monument situated on Church Square came forth as striking, as I have not seen this before. On the corner of Spin and Parliament Street, both the statue and monument is found on the door-step of Iziko’s Social History Centre and across street from the Groote Kerk’s back.

The tall bronze tarnished statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyer can be found in the Church Square. The statue is a tribute to his efforts to have Dutch claimed equal to the English language in the constitution of 1910. Jan Hofmeyer died in London on the 16^th of October and his body was brought back to Cape Town where he was buried. The statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyer faces the mother church of the Dutch reformed church.

Not too far from where you would find the statue of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyer, a young performing artist stood by the side-walk as a statue. He is known as Cape Town’s ‘living statue’ and is covered in bronze coloured body paint and stands there in the same spot for hours at various locations throughout Cape Town to earn money.

Church Square is said to house history dating back to 1652, around the time of the slave period in South Africa which was only in 1838 brought to an end. Cruise/Younge’s (Designers of the Slavery Memorial) commemorated the tragedy of slavery in the form of eleven granite blocks of different heights. The blocks (each being 80 centimetres square) represent a theme of our common humanity and the different heights represent growth.

With words from the slave period in South Africa, nine plain granite blocks are engraved with words that embrace the suffering on slave ships, rebellion, punishment, resistance, slave life and religion. The words run up one side of the blocks (which range between 80 centimetres to 40 centimetres high), over the top of it, and then down the other side of the blocks.

Engraved on the sides of the two 80 centimetres high blocks on the raised plinth, are the forgotten names of the enslaved. In remembrance of our fore-fathers, the aim is to remember the slaves for what they contributed to the building of the South African nation and for what they suffered for.

Try a cliche

When trying a cliché we all need to first know what a cliché is and how to use it in the correct way. A cliché is a sentence or phrase usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea that has lost originality, ingenuity and impact by long overuse.

I did a bit of surfing . . . surfing the web that is . . . and stumbled upon a website http://cliché-a-day.bolgspot.com/ and found different clichés and its meaning, examples and the clichés rephrased.

From that website, these were the common clichés and there meaning (the following clichés are directly from the website):

·         It takes two to tango, which means conflict or other relations that requires two

·         It isn’t rocket science, which means it isn’t so advanced

·         Its no use crying over spilled milk, don’t sweat the little things you can’t change

·         In your dreams, a challenge of disbelief

·         In the nick of time, just in time

On that particular website there are many other examples but try a cliché like the blogs name suggests “cliché a day”.

One of my favourites

One of my favourite meals to date that I have prepared all by myself is a dish called “bacon-feta-noodle-bake”. This may seem very loaded with really bad things for your health but it tastes really good, trust me!! Moving on, this meal happened while I was preparing dinner and felt in the mood to experiment.

The ingredients need to create a mouth-watering meal are (the quantities may vary as to the amount of people you serving), I just go with my gut feeling:

·         Fatti’s and Moni’s noodles

·         Danish feta (cut into little cubes)

·         Chopped bacon (available chopped or you can do it yourself)

·         Grated gouda cheese

·         For the white-sauce

o   Butter

o   Cake flour

o   Milk

This is how the master-piece was created:

·         Firstly, prepare noodles according to packet instructions and place noodles in a deep baking bowl

·         Fry the bacon in a well buttered(adds flavour to the bacon) pan and add it to the deep baking bowl

·         Add the cubes of feta to the baking bowl

·         Mix contents of the bowl to evenly distribute everything in it

·         Pre-heat your oven for 15min at 180 degrees

·         To prepare the white sauce:

o   On medium heat melt butter to a pan and completely melt it

o   Add cake flour to melted butter, little by little until a saucy paste is formed

o   Add milk little by little to form a less paste-like sauce (meaning a proper sauce)

Noodle-bake

o   Add aromat or a pince of salt for flavour

o   Once the your gut tells you the sauce is ready, pour sauce over all the contents in the deep baking bowl

·         Once all your ingredients are in the deep baking bowl, distribute the grated cheese over the top of the bowl

·         Put the bowl into the oven and leave until the layer of cheese is crispy-brown (about 15min depending on your oven)

And the ladies and gentle-men is how I created the “bacon-feta-noodle-bake”.

My Graduation day

After three years of studying at Varsity College, the day finally arrived for me to graduate. The graduation date was set for the 4^th of May and to my luck my whole family was able to be in Cape Town. I was not excited for my graduation until two days before the graduation.

I had no idea what to wear and spent almost three whole days and still I could not find anything suitable for graduation that I liked. I went to different clothing stores and in three different malls and frustratingly, I could not find anything that I liked.

Until the day before, I eventually found a dress that I really liked, which in fact does not happen that often, but I really liked it. I even decided to colour my hair, which then got me excited for the graduation and seeing my old college friends again. Like any graduate would have it, all my loved ones were right there when I was handed my qualification.

Plenty of pictures were taken before and after the graduation. After the ceremony, we all went off to have dinner with their loved ones and all the old college friends then again met up to catch up and to have a couple of drinks. Unfortunately, we did not stay long as we all had class or work the next day. I really enjoyed my graduation, and although we may all have experienced our graduation differently, this was a little story written by me for you to read.

It is better to practice a little than to talk a lot

This is a topic that is rather a statement or even more like a piece of advice. I would think that, ‘it is better to practice a little than talk a lot’, would be advice for someone doing a presentation or a speech.

The result of a poor presentation!!

It is better to practice a little than talk a lot, is advice I would even take. By practicing on your presentation is better, like they say, practice makes perfect. If you do not practice your presentations or speeches, it will not go well, audience will not understand the message, or you could even end up talking a lot instead.

It is better to practice little than talk a lot, should be advice everyone should follow. To avoid talking a lot or even talk a lot of non-sense, all you would have to do is practice a little, in the extreme cases, practice a lot. I get that some are naturals at presentations or speeches, who do not need to practice but this is just a little advice from me to you for read.