Puppy

It was a sunny Sunday when my housemate Ozy had asked me if I was home, I immediately thought something may be wrong. In the meantime I was having lunch with Dawn at the Spur in the Waterfront. I then told Ozy I was on the way home and he said he has a surprise (I thought it may be his way of saying he bought booze).

Dawn said jokingly ‘what if he got a puppy’ and I replied ‘he wouldn’t do that’. As soon as I got home I went upstairs to see what the surprise was, and to my surprise it was a puppy. I could not believe my eyes. . .she was beautiful, she was snow white and she had blue eyes (almost like a blonde with blue eyes). She was a pitbull girl and only 6 weeks old.

Like any other females that come across a cute puppy Dawn and I both said awwww. . .we could not stop holding her and petting her, we even starting timing each of us holding her. She was so adorable and we spoilt her like a human baby.

After day 2 of having her in the house it was my turn of having her spend the night with me. Before bedtime that night I fed her, gave her water, played with her (to tire her out), and soon enough it was bedtime. The puppy could only stop whining and fall asleep quickly if she was able to crawl into my neck and have me stroke her to sleep. Any slight movement and she’d moan. Once she gave a big sigh it was safe to place her in her shoe box bed.

It was unfortunate however that in the same week she graced us with her presence, Dawn and I had to leave to Namibia on our holiday. It was sad when we returned though as Ozy had sold her to someone else because he had no time to take care of puppy. She was gone. . .she was the closest thing to my own puppy I ever had.

My top 200 achievements

My top 200 achievements are placed in no particular order and this is because I may not remember in what order they may have appeared.

1.       Being alive this long

2.      Being able to walk

3.      Being able to read and write

4.      Getting into primary school

5.      Not having to repeat any grades while I was in school

6.      Becoming the deputy head girl in primary school

7.      Becoming the sportswomen of the year in primary school

8.      Being the top seeded girl tennis player in grade 7

9.      Getting into high school

10.   Making new friends in high school

11.    Being the under 16 girls soccer team captain

12.   Passing all my exams

13.   Making it to the regional field hockey team

14.   Making it to the first team in hockey

15.   Buying myself a cell phone from my own pocket money

16.   Making my parents proud by passing my Matric

17.   Getting into college

18.   Testing negative in an HIV/AIDS test

19.   Getting to work in the Green point Stadium for the 2010 World Cup

20.  Buying myself a BlackBerry with my salary

21.   Falling inlove

22.  Passing 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year

23.  Graduating from a ND

These are all my achievements so far that I can think of, I have (I hope) many more years to one day say I have a list of my top 200 achievements.

A day in my life: Wednesday (22 June 2011)



The fish we tossed back



Yesterday, Wednesday (22/06/11), Dawn and I went fishing with Imogan, Ruan and Oliver. Dawn and I got our fishing licence the day before, on Tuesday. We had woken up in time for breakfast at 8, and we had our usual, omelettes, coffee and toast. Once we were done, went to my house and pack a bag with sun screen, toilet paper and cups for us. I then went to the hotel and asked the chef to prepare rolls for our trip and I got two 2ltrs of water.



Dawn's muddy feet



Oliver then picked us up around 11:30 with Imogan and Ruan already in the car. We stopped at the bottle store for a few ciders and for some fish bait. Soon enough we made our way to the first stop to fish, even though Dawn and I had never fished before, we were quite excited. We had waiting for a few hours until Oliver caught a fish, he said it was too small and through it back into the ocean.



Since he tossed that back we had no luck at catching any fish, so we made our way home after our failed attempt. On our way, we needed pull over so that the girls could go pee, instead the car got stuck in mud. We had to get out and push the car out. Our feet were ankle deep in black mud, which was not attractive. When we got home, we had a lovely shower and took my siblings out for dinner.

What motivates you?

MONEY, because there is not one person who will not be motivated by money. . .think about it, what makes the world go round? I don’t say money because that’s all I think about but because I like nice things and these days nice thing are expensive. Clothes are expensive, good quality, fashionable clothing items and shoes have become quite pricey.

Not only does money motivate me, all kinds of people that I may come across on a daily basis. Having conversations, observing, learning and interacting with people helps me learn, that is what really motivates. I am one who acknowledges that others may know tons more than I do and I learn/ gain more information from people than from textbooks.

A letter to: My mom (Cynthia)

Dear mom,

I am on holiday now, getting bored from staying home and can’t wait to visit you guys again!! I am writing you this letter to apologise and say thank you for taking me in when I had nowhere else to go. You took your niece in and made her your daughter. I’d like to say thank you because I now know what it is like to have siblings.

There is a lot I have to be thankful for, I do not know where to start but you raised me as your own. Thanks to you I have made it through primary school, high school and now I am 4 months away from the end of my tertiary education. All along I have tried my best to do you proud and I want to continue doing that until I’m all on my own.

I would also like to apologise for the times I may have done things to disappoint you. I do believe that I may have not done that intentionally but I would like to apologise if this may have occurred. Like with any other teenager you may have annoyed you, now that I see you almost twice a year for 4-5 days at a time I wish we could spend more time together.

Thank you for a second chance at life.

I love you,

Dhonaye

The 10 most unexpected consequences of being online

1.       Having an Indian invite on FB asking if they could be your “Friendship”

2.      Having a stalkers comment your blogs

3.      Only going to café’s with free Wi-Fi

4.      Always on the lookout for better and faster internet provider

5.      Being tagged in pictures from when you were in primary school (embarrassing)

6.      Having people with the same surname add you, claiming they are family

7.      Waking up half asleep and the first thing you do is see what’s new on twitter

8.      Feeling sorry for a fellow friend who is not yet online L

9.      Being addicted to being online

10.   Being completely lost without your BlackBerry internet services

A letter to: My mother (Bernice)

This letter is 1 part of a series of letters I would like to write to people I love or treasure in my life, whether it is to say thank you or even to catch up. My first letter goes to my biological mother Bernice.

Dear mom,

I’m doing great and will always remember you and with everything I do, I wonder what it would have been like if you were still here. I still remember the day you passed, whether it was the morning or the evening before.

Mom, you left way too early, I was only 9 and I remember we were wrapping my school books with you, I even remember the dinner we had the night before you passed. When you left I was confused and I only cried when they laid you to rest in your grave. A while after you left I blamed everything that ‘went wrong’ on you leaving, but as time went by I grew wiser and made peace with you not coming back.

I have grown a lot since then, told everyone about you and like any teenager had and sometimes still have a list of questions and things I would have liked you to answer for me. They’ll just have to wait until I see you again, in the meantime, I hope I have been ding you proud so far J.

There is never a day that goes by without me thinking about you wondering what we would be doing night now, probably washing your car hey? I used to enjoy helping you J. Mom, I really hope you are resting peacefully and that I’ll continue making you proud.

Hope this letter reaches you, I miss you still,

Love. . .your only daughter

Dhonaye

The elephant in the room

The elephant in the room is usually related to the obvious truth that everyone chooses to ignore. Reason for avoiding the obvious would be that risk for mentioning it could result in a bigger blow out, thus it’s easier to just ignore and avoid the subject completely.

I’m sure everyone has been subjected to various “elephant in the room” situations, from the sound of someone farting at that one silent moment in a classroom. When you find a friend walk out the bathroom at a party and she’s got vomit on her hair yet no one say’s anything. Or going to a friend’s birthday party with your current girlfriend only to find your recent “ex” sitting at the same table as you and you politely speak around them.

And these are just your usual day to day elephants, elephants situations vary. You get your political, social and corporate elephants.

And the end of the day is the silence really worth it? It could start with something small like avoiding the “ex” at a party, to political corruption being ignored for the fear of a negative outcome. Is it really worth holding back “open secrets” because you may not like the next reaction? Or does this go much deeper, does it push the obvious further away and the lies become easier to believe because you can tweak it to avoid what no one wants to say? And then allowing you to deny what is right before your eyes.

So you could rather avoid “the elephant in the room” which could possibly cause more tension, more drama, more lies and the worst of all prolonging something can be resolved immediately and then keep quiet and hope it’ll go away?

A day in my life: Tuesday (24th of May 2011)

My Tuesday started of pretty early as I was still very busy with my last assignment. I put my assignment aside at around 2am and decided to call it a night and to complete it once I wake up at around 9am. This last assignment felt like it could not end, the more I felt closer to the end the more I felt needed to be added to it.

As the end of the assignment grew closer, I could feel the relief of the first few months of Btech year of study coming to an end. I had a shower and missioned down to campus to hand the last assignment in and as I did that I felt weird. It felt weird because it has taken hard work to complete this semester and it has finally come to an end.

That evening I’m sure most classmates were out celebrating, drinking and planning on getting shit-faced but I was at home, by choice though. I decided to save the celebrations for the next day, which was also just a relaxed evening, dinner with friends and cocktails to follow as a ‘congratulations, you’ve made it this far’.