Carol's Blog

The Balance?

2007-06-19T15:08:00.000+01:00

The question is, Can extreames ever be a good thing? Here's what im thinking, its possible for a good thing to be taken to the extreame and for it then to cease to be a good thing, and i think too many times slipping out of the balance and into the extreame on any end is jus way too subtle. but the results aren't, they jus seem to be extreame.

Where does having an opinion cross over to being opinionated?
Where does disagreeing become judgmental?
Where does tolerance cross over to being permissive?
Where does correcting become condemning?
Where does being cautious become overly-cautious?
Where is the balance between licence and legalism?
Where does being open to learn cross over to being a sucker?
Where does being open become being too open?

perhaps with some of these the balance is easier to see than in the other cases. Those are the examples i could think of at the top of my head, but they are obviously more. Im struggling to see how extreames can ever be a good thing, but yet its so easy to slip into extreames without realising it. why is that I wonder, why is the balance not always easy to strike?

Roland Garros 2007

2007-06-19T13:28:00.000+01:00

Well, as i said before, I always have to have my own reporting of the Grand slams on my blog....(perhaps this is the section where I test my journalism skills!!) anyway, so Roland Garros got goin 3 weeks ago. The million $$$ question was whether Roger Federer would finally get the one Grand Slam that eluded him or if Rafael Nadal would be the 2nd man in history to win 3 French Open titles in a row.....and according to a poll on the atp tennis website, 57% of people thought that the Roger Federer dream would be the one to come true.

Play started slow as it rained the first 2 days in Paris and then on the first Tuesday, the rain cleared and many matches were played on that day which further went to go down as the worst day in history for american tennis. 13 american men entered in the draw, all played their first round matches that tuesday.....and all lost! (James Blake and Andy Roddick included)

So anyway, to cut a long story short, Both Roger Federer and Nadal were in the finals as expected and the stage was set for a repeat of the 2006 final. Coming into the finals, Nadal started off not playing so great, but he was still winning VERY convincingly in the first week. In the 2nd week he peaked and was jus playing top class tennis, it was sooo good to watch! His 4th round match against Lleyton Hewitt was in my books sheer perfection! Hewitt played an excellent match, but Nadal was still way too good for him! and he won in straight sets 6-3 6-2 7-5, the score did not reflect how well Hewitt played i must say but perhaps reflects jus how good Nadal was!! then his semi-final match against Djokovic was yet another perfect performance. Again, Djokovic played really really welll, but Nadal was jus too good and also won in straight sets! Federer on the other hand, dropped a set en-route to the finals and his semi-final match against Davydenko....not great at all!! Athough in the first week Federer was more solid than Nadal.

then the final....in the first set, both didnt play all that well. Federer had a first serve % of 28% compared to Nadal's 77%. but nadal even with that % was struggling to hold serve! Federer had 10 break points in that set which he failed to convert at all....and thats how Federer lost the first set. second set federer won, then Nadal started playing to his full potential after that and well, it as kinda over for Federer. The verdict was that Nadal would be 3 time champion at Roland Garros, and Roger would have to keep looking for that one slam he is missing!

So this time, credit to Nadal!!, personally i dont think the tennis world gives him enough! first time he ever played Roland garros 3 years ago, he won it and has continued since..he is still yet to lose a match at the french open!! Wimbeldon starts next week....and hope to see Nadal do well at that, i think the moment he wins another grand slam other than roland garross, it may silence the critics...and i think its only a matter of time. any day now!! we'll see

Its been a bit of a while

2007-06-19T12:41:00.000+01:00

Well, it has definetly been a while!! I havnt been inspired to visit blogger.com for the last much really....but here I am now, trying to make a come back. Not really sure what to blog about, i have a few things..firstly no grand slam goes by without me having my say and Roland Garros has been done for a week + now, and a lil something for whoever stereotyped black people as "not mixing with water." and perhaps a deep and meaningful something, we'll see how it goes.

Indescribeable

2007-05-04T16:19:00.000+01:00

From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea
Creation's revealing Your majesty
From the colors of fall to the fragrance of spring
Every creature unique in the song that it sings

Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go
Or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow
Who imagined the sun and gives source to its light
Yet conceals it to bring us the coolness of night
None can fathom {from the song Indescribeable by Chris Tomlin}

Did You raise the sun for me?
Or paint a million stars that I might
Know Your majesty?
Is Your voice upon the wind?
Is everything I've known marked
With my maker's fingerprints?

Can I feel You in the rain?
Abandon all I am to have You
Capture me again
Let the earth resound with praise
Can You hear as all creation lives
To glorify one name? {from the song Always by Hillsong}

Who compares to You?
Who set the stars in their place?
You who calmed the raging seas
That came crashing over me

Who compares to You?
You who bring the morning light
The hope of all the earth
Is rest assured in Your great love {from the song Magnificent by Hillsong}

Who taught the sun where to stand in the morning?
Who told the ocean you can only come this far?
Who showed the moon where to hide 'til evening?
Whose words alone can catch a falling star?

Well I know my Redeemer lives
I know my Redeemer lives
All of creation testify
This life within me cries
I know my Redeemer lives

The very same God that spins things in orbit
He runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that hold me when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me victory {from the song My Redeemer by Nicole C Mullen}

To be continued....i will elborate in my next post (which could be a while since exams are round the corner!!) exactly what im getting it..meanwhile I leave you to ponder!!

Advice

2007-04-17T13:01:00.000+01:00

Im back again for my first April post after a bit of blog neglection!

"Advice is everywhere, most of it for free ut not worth the price." Im realising more and more that as i grow older (oooo) im starting to answer questions as to where i stand on many issues. I think its important to have an opinion, know what you think about things, know what you believe. If you don't can you really then be challenged by an alternative? Or worse, if you don't does that not make you easy dumping ground for anything and everything? - just a thought.....I heard something, i cant remember where but it caught my attention and i havn't forgotten it since, "before you get a second opinion, make sure you have a first opinion." Having an opinion doesn't mean u hold onto it for dear life and don't allow yourself to be challenged on it.

There is so much out there and you can easily get swept into things and just go with the flow without really stopping to think for a moment and just asking "hang on, where am i in all this?" I remember an incident where I was part of a discussion and i said something and when asked about where my opinion came from my response was well X said so (X being a person i shall not disclose!) and right after those words came out my mouth i remember thinking what?? talk about just adopting someone else's view without ever having considered what my view was.

So anyway, this post is on advice and based around the opening quote, i kinda went on a bit of a mini detour but its all related! I find it amazing how so many people seem to think they have the answers, "you usually have a dozen or more unpaid advisors who are more than happy to give you their opinion. But since others are generally engrossed in their own problems and do not know what you should or ought or must do, you invariably get the wrong advice. Most people can't solve their own problems so how can they advise you to do what they havnt accomplished themselves?" That about sums it all up for me really.

I used to really really hate it when people would just take the liberty to tell me what to do with my life, with no idea as to where I was, what i was really all about but still felt the need to impose on me their opinions and their philosophies, and i would think, who do you think you are to tell me what to do? (back then I kinda felt obligated to listen and denied myself the choice to ignore) and thinking of it im jus like well really...if your advice means i end up where u are at or like you, no offense, thanks but no thanks. (Coz the amazing thing is that usually people who actually have it together and would probably qualify to give that advice, don't go round imposing their unasked for advice on other people)

So now that I have that out the way, im not an advice hater....infact, more and more im realising there is wisdom in getting "advice." and why that is on quotation marks is because, im about to define what i mean by that. Many times if you are heavily involved in a situation, you don't see so clearly or you have blinkers on and seeking counsel will help you see things that perhaps you weren't seeing before, its not a do this do that exercise, its more have you considered this or that, if you do this ABC will happen, have you thought about that? so basically gathering information and insight, and once you have all that, you sit down in the midst of everything and make an informed decision. Now thats useful!!

And whose advice you consider is important too...and notice i used the word consider and not take, coz jus coz someone is offering advice, it don't mean you gotta take it. (And with respect to me, by people, im not reffering to God..thats a whole different story)

and this post is not advice to anyone, its just stating where I have come to stand on this issue!!

His word

2007-03-31T21:10:00.000+01:00

We all perceive the world and life and situations differently(fact!)"we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are" - through the lens of experience and conditioning. And we act in accordance with what we believe (what we really believe, not what we think we believe). That then follows that if your beliefs are distorted (coz jus because u believe something, it does not necessarily mean that its true), it will affect your actions.....all a bit deep....i do have a point!

So we all look at life through different lenses which reflect the subjective reality of experience and conditioning. The way we see life (our beliefs) is like a map, if the map is wrong, you gonna get lost! This leaves one asking, is there an objective reality? Is there such a thing as an accurate map?

"The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes..the ordinances of the lord are sure, and altogether righteous." Psalm 19:7-9

God's word is the source of objective reality. (The way things are). So many times it is described as light. Jesus said of his words that the words i speak to you are foundational words, words to build a life on, and then went on to say, if you work these words into your life you will be like a house built on solid rock basically (Mathew 7:24-25 in the message)

When we align ourselves to the word of God we have an accurate perception which transforms the way we think and act. Jesus died so that we might have life in abundance!! It comes from faith in God (believing and trusting Him), and its a choice that you make. Its not forced, its all about freedom. It doesn't mean that you become subjected to a whole bunch of rules, its a life of freedom but as Paul points out in Romans 6:17 (message) "as you know from your own experience there are some so called acts of freedom that take away freedom." Its fact that choices have consequences. You make a choice and consequences follow. if you touch a hot plate, you gonna get burnt! God's word helps us make choices that lead to life. Its the accurate map!!

The results of living a life according to God's word: wisdom, protection,pro-longed life, prosperity, health, riches, honor, peace, sound judgment, blessing, favour, grounding, joy, security, beauty (inner), power, strength, boldness, hope.....all from the book of proverbs.

Whatever is at the centre of your life will be the source of your security, guidance, wisdom and power. Our security comes from knowing that God and his word never change. our wisdom and guidance come from objective reality (truth).

And, "the resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life, its adventurously expectant..." Romans 8:15(message) The faith life is exciting! Its an adventure, its a life of trust, boldness and courage!

This is the first time ive written such a scripture-filled post. Ive really been getting so much revelation about a life founded on God's word and accurate principles and i felt inspired to write about what I believe and why i believe what I believe.

Ive been reading The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R Covey (again!) I first read the book when i was in first yr..about this time actually, i remember i was reading it on my way home on the plane, and the man who was sitting next to me was also reading the book!! (unreal!) and it gets better..i was watching bridget jones 2 that night and there is a scene in the movie when bridget and her friend are going to thailand and they are sitting next to the drug dealer on the flight who happens to be reading the same book as Bridget's friend!!......no the man didnt turn out to be a drug dealer...lol!! but how funny is that!? anyway, the book is such a good book, hence why im reading it again, and its what actually what got me thinking about objective reality...it wasn't totally from the bright pink (or the blue if you prefer..lol!)

My birthday

2007-03-29T23:22:00.000+01:00

I realised the post i wrote on my actual birthday was mixed in with a post about a married couple, totally unconnected! I actually meant to do a longer post, then I got distracted, then i got lazy..lol! Anyway, I celebrated my birthday before my actual birthday because we on easter break since last week and so I wanted to celebrate before everyone went off for easter. So anyway, we went for dinner at Firestone, (really nice restaurant in town) and the food is good as well. It kinda reminds me of the meat and wine co actually. Anyway, it was really great, and we all had such a good time.

Then the day of my actual birthday I didnt actually end up doing anything special per se. What distiguished it as my birthday was all the phone calls, the texts and the wall posts on facebook,
the cards and the presents. That was my day and I am now officially a year older. Im excited about my life, God is teaching me and growing me and taking me to new places...this journey just gets more and more interesting and possibilities seem endless

Precious moments and added years

2007-03-25T19:51:00.001+01:00

Its been a bit of a while (well longer than usual for me) since i posted on my blog. I was taking a walk the other day, it was a gorgeous day the sun was shinning!! The exeter campus is so beautiful when the sun is out and the greenery stands out so bright. So ya i was taking a walk, enjoying the day and i walked to the duck ponds and sitting on one of the benches was this old couple, and they looked so much in love it was so cute, and at that point i was like ahh that is so beautiful to watch...i love seeing old couples who have been together for decades and seem more in love than when they first met, its such a great testimony for love and marriage.

Today another year has been added to my life...22 years!!

The Castle in Cardiff

2007-03-04T13:17:00.000Z

It took me a while to eventually write this post! it ended up coming later rather than soon. Anyway I went to Cardiff the day after I got back from the business challenge. I chose to write a post on the castle because i was jus fascinated by it. Its near to the centre of Cardiff and was home to...i cant remember whom it was home to actually, (someone of royalty i think). Anyway, the owner of the castle was really really rich and he had so many other homes that he only lived in the castle for 6 weeks in the year. This makes it even more fascinating. The way the castle was decorated is amazing, jus sheer perfection....and for 6 weeks in the year!

What really struck me was the attention to detail and the standard of excellence. Each room is decorated with a theme and a theme that represented something about his life and what he valued. The life of this guy is woven into the place and it all tells a story...wow! Anyway, i didnt really have much to say about this, jus had to point out my fascination!

Business challenge (Finale)

2007-03-04T13:16:00.002Z

Friday was d-day for the finals in London. We travelled down to London on thursday about 4:30pm. We took the train to waterloo and so it was a pretty long journey...jus over 3 and half hours. We got to london and went over to the hotel we were staying at. The Uni covered all the expenses for both the semis and the finals. For the finals, the business school was so impressed with 3 exeter teams in the finals they booked us into a 4* hotel. It was a really nice hotel, the rooms were really nice...however, the service left much to be desired!

After settling in we decided to go for dinner. Our team decided to stay at the hotel and eat there, we were all pretty tired and didnt really wanna walk and look for somewhere else to eat, I had had lectures from 10-4 with one hr break, thursdays are so hectic for me! and then the journey to london was long as well. So anyway, we stayed and the other 2 teams went elsewhere. In the hotel we could either eat in the bar or in the restuarant. the restuarant was a bit expensive and there wasn't much choice either so we went for the bar option. We ordered our food and when a few of us were paying, they messed up the receipts (which we needed to claim back expenses...and as it turned out in the end for a lil more than that)

so anyway, we ordered the food and we waited for an hour before they brought out one of our orders...and the food was cold! 40 minutes later appeared another one of orders, (bacon and cheese burger...with no bacon!) then like 15 minutes later came my order (a mixed grill which was missing the lamb!), and for the last of our orders, another mixed grill, came as another cheese burger!! So obviously we were not happy!! To cut a long story short, we ended up getting a refund for all our food and then it was also a bit of a problem coz we didnt have some of the receipts which they had claimed they would bring to us..but never actually did!!

anyway, way too much drama!! Next morning we were up and went off to the IBM headquaters in south bank...nice nice views of the thames and the london eye from IBM. The day started with a talk from the general manager of IBM, Larry Hirst and then we had a Q+A session with him. (For those who were interested in working for IBM that was their chance to shine, and i have to say, the questions that were thrown around were very impressive, Larry himself was just so impressed!!

then we got started with the whole challenge. Our company this time was a gaming company. In between we had to do several other exercises sometimes in our teams and sometimes all mixed up. All in all we had 5 trading periods and the idea was that the final score would be culmulative profit+ (share price*share capital).

To cut a long story short of how each trading period went, Our team came 2nd overall...we were so close to first it was jus unfortunate really!! We had the highest profit and the second highest share price. the team from sheffield hallam which won had the highest share price and second highest profit. It was sooo close!! we lost by like £200, 000! anyway, it was all good....we got £500 for our trouble..which was 2nd prize, 1st prize was £1000 and third prize was £250. The team from sheffield hallam were great tho, they deserved to win!!

I have to mention tho, at the end of the day, we had to invent a new game and then act out how the game would be played and what it would be all about. In our team, we were all so exhausted by then and couldnt come up with anything decent! One of the guys in my team came up with the idea of doing a spooks game...spooks is apparently this detective series on bbc which only chris has watched..the rest of us have never watched it! so we all like ok fine, chris can write the script..we all jus couldnt be bothered (which is jus really bad i know...we were tired!!) and so chris wrote the script. so im like shouldn't we at least practice it? everyone else objected to that! So im like lets at least learn our lines? and everyone is like we'll just pass the script around!! It came our turn to act out our idea and we did just that.....it was so TERRIBLE! I was just embarressed to be fair....and its all on video!! All the other 7 teams did really well and their acts were really good however...which made us look even worse! The team from sheffield hallam were also voted best act!!

anyway, that was the final...it was really good, i really enjoyed it!! And i realised all in all our school invested about £500 on each person that went to both the semis and the finals, which is quite substantial!! And the uni is so impressed with our team for being the runner's up, we've been getting personalised emails from the chancellor and the vice chacellor and they will be hosting a reception evening for us next term...and we will be making it to the school of business and economics homepage!! (Its really such a big deal to them, its great that they care so much!! well i suppose its good for the uni as well..) Ill be putting up our photo from the semis and the photo from the finals as soon as i scan them...full details of the finals on the business challenge website

Music and lyrics

2007-03-04T13:16:00.001Z

On tuesday I went to watch music and lyrics. There is a new new cinema here in exeter so we wanted to go check it out and ended up watching music and lyrics. It was ok, I wouldn't say go out of your way to go watch it. The storyline didnt quite flow smoothly for me somehow. It was a good movie just for just though. Hugh Grant as a popstar is jus hilarious...in the movie, Hugh grant is a popstar from an 80's band, the songs the band sings are so cheezy pop types but they are really fun and catchy.. i think i actually enjoyed the musical part of the movie more than the actual storyline. so if you want some cheezy pop and a laid back movie...go watch...so this was a bit of a pointless post actually...oh well, initially it sounded like a good idea!!

Manchester

2007-02-19T17:15:00.001Z

On saturday morning we set off for manchester. I had just recovered from my cold and almost never went!! Im so glad that i got to go in the end, i had a really good time in manchester. It was my first time in manchester, its 5 hrs away from here and it is the furthest north that i have now officially been! before, i heard that manchester was supposedly a really ugly city and really horrible, but thats definetly not how i experienced it! There are some areas which look really nasty and there are some really dodgy and dangerous areas, but the city is really nice and they are really doing a lot of construction work making it look better and all.

CHINATOWN

PRINTWORKS: AT NIGHT

AROUND MANCHESTER

ARCHITECTURE

The nice thing about manchester is that its big!! and so there is so much variety (compared to small lil exeter!!) and its so much cheaper!! What did we get up to? sight-seeing, eating, shopping....and it was chinese new year and so we went over to china town (see pics!!) and we also went to this museum called the urbis museum which was just a bit strange. they hype it up but to be fair we all found it a bit wierd!!

THE URBIS MUSEUM

and oh, there are trams in manchester!! i didnt know they had trams in england...it reminded me of being in melbourne..lol! Apparently they dont have tram inspectors on the trams either!!!

THE LIBRARY

En espanol, i would say, manchester me gusta mucho!!!

Recovered!

2007-02-19T17:08:00.000Z

after i got back from portsmouth i caught a cold and a cough and was down all of last week. It was quite bad, I was actually sleeping during the day on some days coz i just felt so terrible and so weak, although i would still go to lectures!! I think im hardcore!!!

Anyway, im all better now and have loads work to do coz i didnt do much last week and i got a test coming up on the 5th for Financial managaement worth 15% and the ibm business challenge finals next week... and have to organise a trip to cardiff for international society for next week end!!

Anyway, i was in manchester over saturday and sunday on a trip and i looooooved it!! thats a post on its own..

University Business Challenge (encore)

2007-02-10T20:28:00.000Z

About this time last year i was in portsmouth for the semi-finals of the universities business challenge, and came back and wrote a post about my experience here. So this year i did it again, and this time our team made it to the finals!! It was a really long and intense day. we had to travel to portsmouth on tuesday afternoon. we went by train, and it took almost 4 hrs in total, and we had to make 2 changes. We stayed the night in portsmouth and then the day began early wednesday morning. We ended up having 4 trading periods (if you really are interested in what exactly the whole business challenge is about, click on the link, i explained it all last year). so ya 4 trading periods, and after period 3, thats when it becomes clearer to tell who actually has a chance at winning and who doesn't. Before that, the scores don't really say much, its pretty much any one's game.

So at the end of period 3, going into 4, we were coming 2nd and Sheffield Hallam uni was in the lead, but only by a lil bit. So we did the final period then we had to wait for results, it was intense coz we knew we had a big chance at winning but at the same time it could also go pear shaped!! there were 8 teams in total and only the winning team goes through to the finals! They announced the results in reverse order and then when we got to 3 thats when we really started to get nervous, then they called out 2 and it was sheffield, and thats when we realised we had won!!! it was unreal, we didnt actually go there thinking we could win but we did it!!

All in all, there will be 8 teams going to the finals, they have 7 semis all around the country and the winning team in each semi goes to the finals and then out of the teams that come 2nd the one with the most profit goes through to make the 8th team! Our semi was the 6th one, another exeter team had been the day before us, and they won and then another team went the day after us and they also won! so 3/8ths of the finals in london on the 1st of march will be from exeter.....ill let you all know the outcome of that!! meanwhile, check us out on the business challenge website!!

Amnesia is getting old!!!

2007-02-01T22:07:00.000Z

I cant get over the fact that Mike (Delfino from desperate housewives!) has amnesia...convenietly too!! It seems tv writers cannot resist the urge to have amnesia in their scripts!! What is the obsession!! In my short lil lifetime it seems ive watched quite a few soapies...i didnt realise i was such a soapie junkie lol!! granted it was all over a period of time, but i watched days of our lives at one point and everyone got amnesia in that...hope, john, marlena off the top of my head!! i watched sunset beach and maria had amnesia in that, in passions, sheridan had amnesia, and then my all time favourite was generations which i am still very much interested in lol!! and off all people jack had amnesia in that. The only one i cant think of someone who had amnesia is the bold and the beautiful...but i wouldnt be surprised if someone did...seriously, in real life do people get amnesia often??

back to DH. Desperate housewives makes me laugh tho, i jus love it! Ill forgive them for giving mike amnesia, cliche as it is and of course at the end of season 3 mike will regain his memory!! All i wanna know is why did orsen run over mike and who killed monique!!! I jus wonder what twist it will be this time round, in season one we all thought that creepy paul was the bad guy and it turned out that mary-alice was actually the one who killed deidre, and then in 2 we all thought caleb killed melanie and the twist turned out to be mathew as the killer!? Only in desperate housewives!! you just can never predict what will happen next, i mean gabby and zach? supposedly dead alma not really dead. nora being shot? season 3 just brings in a twist every week!! some serious desperate story writing going on there!

to end, ill leave with what i consider the classic dialogue in DH thus far, in season 1, susan asking karl why he left her for his secretary:
Karl: I fell in love
Susan: what is that suppose to mean?
Karl: the heart wants what it wants!!!
Susan: well my heart wants to hurt you right now but i can control myself!!!!

haha, i was just like you go susan!! now aint that a snitch

The pursuit of happyness

2007-01-28T22:50:00.000Z

2 mondays ago i went to watch the pursuit of happyness. I reccomend it as a "go see." it is not your typical warm fuzzy feel good movie, its real!!! i also understand that it is based on a true story so perhaps thats why!! The plot, will smith's character is a guy who is having serious financial struggles and he has a wife (thandie Newton) and a 5 year old son, played by will smith's son. Chris Gardner (will smith) one day has a random and brief conversation witha stockbroker that completely transforms his life. at that point a dream is birthed in him...to become a stockbroker. so the story follows his pursuit of this dream which he deems will bring him happiness.

In chasing his dream, he goes through MANY challenges. Money becomes tighter and tighter and eventually his wife leaves him and she leaves her son too. in the period preceeding her departure, they would argue 24/7 about money. The thing is, when they started out they were ok and then things didnt work out. the wife got bitter and could no longer see the potential in her husband or support him in anything. infact its sad that he was better off without her in the end coz she had acquired a phd in their marriage (put him down). It was hard enough without her constantly telling him "u cant." But this is real people, the number one cause of marriage breakups is money!! for richer or for poorer should not be taken lightly!! its real!

things only get worse for Chris and he hits a serious low when he loses his acccomodation and his to spend the night in a toilet with his son. Yet through everything, his attitude is AMAZING. not once does he ever feel sorry for himself or whine or play victim, he just gets on with it.

His ability to talk to people so well, lands him an internship as a stcokbroker..ok i shouldnt spoil the plot but i had to note, how great with people chris is, if you watch the movie, take note of that!! those who know how to talk to people get far!!!

anyway, i say go watch the movie. chris gardner defines the meaning of being committed in that movie. When things get tough, or when you have a dream and have so many obstacles in your way to fulfilling that dream and it all seems so hopeless, how do you respond. your response determines where you end up. in anything, all the time!!

its a challenge to not give up, to keep pressing in, to PERSEVERE.

this part of my life is called blogging!!!!!! (that will make more sense if uve watched the movie!)

Props to Roger!!

2007-01-28T22:40:00.000Z

So aussie open is over and Roger did it again!! without even dropping a set too!!! The dude is just tight!! Like im sure he must get so bored though coz he doesnt really get challenged much by most of the people he plays, he is just too good for them and totally outplays them!! Although i have to say, this time round roger also got a good draw! In his half, out of the top 10 players he only had tommy robredo and andy roddick!! nadal had a much togher draw as even majority of the top 20 were in his half of the draw. Nadal lost out in the quarters to Gonzalez who was on fire!!!! It was so disappointing coz at that point i jus knew there and then that the level of tennis at rod laver arena was only going to reduce!! The semis were so sad!! Roger literally walked all over andy roddick and gonzalez did the same to tommy haas!! but in the finals, roger as always was too good for gonzalez. It would have been a different scenario if we had nadal/federer!! Well this one goes to Dottie then, i was betting on nadal winning aussie open and she had federer who actually did win!!!

As for the ladies, how tight is serena???? taking down maria in 2 easy sets in the finals, when she was unseeded!! she came thru haaard!! I would have liked to see kim go all the way though, it would have been nice for her last aussie open to be a win!!

anyway, next stop, roland garros in may......will nadal win his 3rd french open in a row or will roger finally get the one grand slam that eludes him......the battle continues!!!

ps, i couldnt resist putting the pics of nadal, can u scan that bod of his lol that muscle!!!

Aussie Open 2007

2007-01-22T15:45:00.000Z

Well people, the australian open once again!! Im just realising now that ive been through a whole year with the blog, some posts will keep re-occuring as you might remember this time last year, the aussie open was once again blogged about!!

This year, I havnt been watching much coz ive been busy studying for exams this week. But ive definetly been keeping up with the action! nothing too drastic has happened yet, its pretty much been a case of those who were expected to go far have gone far! Roger as usual at the top of the draw is jus sailing through taking everyone down in 3 sets....in the semis its likely he will come against roddick who should hopefully give him a bit more of a challenge, hopefully a better one than the us open final!!

bottom half of the draw we have nadal as usual and he's been doin fine, had a few scares along the way but still in the game!! Blake and Berdych who are the 2 people who can consistently beat nadal were in his half of the draw, but thanks to Tommy Haas and Nicholae Davydenko, nadal wont be playin either one of them. i didnt want blake to have to face nadal in the quarter finals coz i has to be a nadal/federer final!!!

altho, today, andy murray put up a huge fight to try to get rid of nadal. i thought well, nadal will do away with andy murray in 3 sets and didnt even bother watchin the match. then i got a text from my sister and she was like are you watching the tennis, murray is up 2 sets to 1!! so i took a bit of a break and went to watch the match!! its always great to see nadal when he is down because he pulls out all the stops. I just love his passion and never say die attitude, its so impressive!! and the "vamoses" and fist pumps with such intensity!! the dude comes thru!! and needless to say, nadal did come through, the 4th and 5th set were his for the taking! I have to hand it down to murray, he put up a fight and managed to survive the match to 5 sets, altho the score in the final set was 6-1!!

now nadal has 2 more hurdles to face before he can get to the finals...i hope its a nadal/federer final!!! I look forward to the final which will take place saturday night our time...jus some 6 or so hrs after ive written my international accounting exam which is yes on a saturday afternoon!! hw lovely!! and ill be back with the report for the finals...of which hopefully nadal will win!!

Let go and Let flow

2007-01-14T15:34:00.000Z

I was the late one in jumping onto the 'something new' bandwagon. I had heard so much about it and it had been blogged by miss muda (who now refuses to put anything else on her blog hehehe) and Ndu. The movie is really good and Simon Baker is jus sooooooooo hot!!! anyway, that is definetly besides the point!!

from the movie, ndu was inspired to post about conformity. my inspiration is along similar lines. In season one of desperate housewives, i think either the 2nd or 3rd episode, at the end when Mary Alice speaks i remember she said something along the lines of i watch my friends now from a different world and see their fears and i realise what a waste because you see 'to live in fear is not to live at all.' what makes us conform is fear. to not conform requires you to step out and leave your comfort zone.

this hits so close to home, i find myself so many times in situations where i wish afterwards i had been more true to what was in my heart instead of taking the path of least resistence and it really makes me feel terrible when i do that.

i heard something today: fear is the dark room where all your negatives are developed

you can choose low living, and you will know it will bring with it some certainty. you avoid being disappointed, you avoid being hurt coz you dont really put yourself out there. higher living will have attached to it more risk, but like they say in finance, there is no such thing as a free lunch. high risk for high returns.

someone who really inspires me is king david (in the bible) now he is one guy who lived what i describe as a passionate life. Just reading his psalms they exuberate so much life!! Im just thinking, im sure David must have had a lot of game, im sure he is one person who had maddd lyric!! i could imagine him saying something like, 'i stand before you not as a king, but as a man in love, and would feel like a king if you would be my wife!!' ya anyway, that wasnt the point, the point is that his life which was so full of life is such an inspiration.

I dont usually do new years resoloutions but at the start of 2007 i was thinking about what i wanted to do in 2007 and it came to this: let go and let flow, live life loud!! and be true to myself. baring in mind of course that to want is not enough

Want, choose, commit

2007-01-10T23:24:00.000Z

Its easy to say I want to.........(you can fill in the blanks) and actually really mean it. I realised something. To want is not enough. it wont get you very far in getting to what you say you want to. Illustration: a lot of people want to be rich, few of those are, clearly wanting is not enough.

choosing is better because at least it implies some action towards the goal, although choosing is more a mental disposition.

Commit is best. Commitment is what will eventually see results. Commitment implies i will do whatever it takes. even when things get hard and i wanna give up, i will persevere, i will keep getting up even if i stumble and fall over and over. it implies being willing to make sacrifices if need be.

100 Posts!! 1 yr anniversary

2007-01-08T21:24:00.000Z

Its been exactly a year since i started this blog and still going strong!! and in that year ive posted 100 posts!! that is quite a lot, it averages out to almost a post every 3 days. Well I look forward to yet another year of blogging and journying with those that continue to log onto this blog of mine

Back in Business

2007-01-08T21:18:00.000Z

Im back from the holiday now! I got back last night at midnight which would have been 2am zim time and i was very exhuasted!! I was on the train coming down to exeter and i just wanted to sleep so bad!! The whole way i was like to myself, resist the urge to sleep coz i knew if i fell asleep i was going to seriously KO and the train i was on was going to Plymouth!! the last thing i wanted was to end up in Plymouth at 1am in the morning!! Anyway by the time i arrived i was so tired i couldnt even find my way out the station. it looked so different!! then i realised that it was different!! they did some serious renovation in the 4 weeks that i was gone and they even put ticket barriers in the station!!!

anyway so i started lectures again this morning and have yet another term ahead of me...

Good service

2007-01-08T21:02:00.000Z

In the 4 weeks i spent in Zim, I was reminded of what bad service looks like. Ive always had a bit of a hard time understanding the concept of you want me to buy from you and yet you give me attitude for no reason at all!! I would say that doesnt give me much of an incentive to buy from you if you treat me like that but then i realise for most people, they actually dont care coz it aint their business, which is not a desireable attitude either to be fair!! its jus special coz im now so used to being here where customer service is placed way up there and giving attitude to customers will send you home faster than you can say wait!

The reality is this, changing a nation begins with a change in the individuals, and some positive change that needs to take place is a change in the whole"i dont care attitude"

something else i found interesting is that the zupco bus drivers go for lunch at lunch hr and so no buses run at lunch!!! Dottie and I found this out the hard way. we decided to have our own ZPT (Zimbabwe public transport) adventure and ended up waiting 2 hrs for the bus, only to find out, that they go for lunch!!! Im just realising now that they don't do shifts in zim hence the lunch hr, at the time i couldnt understand that, now it makes sense hahaha

Chill day at avondale

2007-01-08T20:45:00.000Z

Lunch and good company!!! Bash, muda, Futzie, Dot, Tavo, Muffy and Moi. Its the one day that we all got to spend all together....

GIRL POWER!!!!!

All I can say is "Dont eat in restaurants in January!!!!"

Intsoc Christmas Ball Pics

2007-01-08T20:39:00.000Z

Voy a Zimbabwe!!

2006-12-08T20:16:00.001Z

Today was the end of term and i have a few minutes to spare to update my blog for what could be a while..i think im finally going to have some yellow sadza on my blog as some would refer to it!! Im off home for Christmas vac tomoro night and have just finished packing after procrastinating it to the very last minute.

Ill be back on 7th January...Hope you all have a great Christmas and Happy new year!!

ps i had many posts up my sleeve to post but didnt get the chance but when i return, be prepared, especially for the ball photos...(when i figure out hw to actually post them...lol!! and as for my fellow bloggers, please update your blogs lol!! blog land is too dry these days!!

Internet Dating: The results

2006-12-07T01:17:00.000Z

I got quite a bit of feedback on how people feel about internet dating and the major result was that people said that they would not partake. the reasons varied from, its a bit dodgy coz you never know if you are being lied to. ( of which someone said that you could be lied to even if its face to face..which is true but also its also probably easier to pick up a lie face to face than over the net) another popular reason was, i quote, "it seems a bit too desperate for me."

those who saw nothing wrong with it said that, its possible to find your match on the net, its no different to meeting someone say at the supermarket and it was also stated that there is evidence of people who meet in such a way and are still happy, which i cant deny is true also.

and after all that, what do i conclude? I still maintain that its not the source i would primarily turn to to find my match, it seems all a bit too impersonal to me in some way. its not my type of market, just like you get people who would prefer not to shop on the internet for their groceries-(i being one of them). my sense of comfort about the whole thing hasnt really shifted, but i gained a lil more insight into how other people view the issue

Cardiff

2006-12-07T00:38:00.000Z

Over the week-end Bash and I went to Cardiff in Wales to visit Nombi. It seems strange to that Wales is another country all together and yet its only an hr and half on the train!! anyways, we left late friday afternoon and got on the train first to bristol and then we had to change trains in bristol to go to cardiff. The train to Cardiff was a 2 carriage train and it was so packed we could hardly breathe!! We were standing the whole way there as well!! and i just have to wonder the logic of a train from bristol to cardiff on a friday night being a 2 carriage item!! Anyway, we got to cardiff and nombi was waiting for us at the station so we went over to her res at cardiff uni and we basically chilled out and did sum catchin up and ended up dossing at 3am...and this is hw my sleep pattern got messed up and explains why im still so wide awake at this odd hr!!

then saturday we ended up wakin up a bit late coz of the late night and then went out into town. I really like cardiff its such a pretty town!! anyway we spent the whole day painting cardiff red. Then bash insisted on eating at burger king...she went to london last week-end and had a taste of burger king and then when she came back to me all she wanted was to eat there 24/7!! i am so not a take out person, especially burger king!! i like nandos and steers, which so don't exist here!! so, needless to say, she was on her own in that, so anyway, bash and nombi had their burger king and i ate from kfc!!

after spending the day painting cardiff red, we spent the night chilling out and once again went to bed at 3am!! we journeyed back to exeter on sunday. after a lil bit of drama we got to cardiff central jus as our train was about to leave, we got onto the train but then the train was goin to bristol parkway and when we were going to cardiff, we got off the train at bristol temple meads and so i was like lets get on anyway its should be alright!! if not we'll make a plan when we get to bristol!! this time round the train a 22 carriage train so it was a good journey!!

so we got to bristol parkway and sure enough it wasnt a problem coz there was a train goin to bristol temple meads and then we realised there was a train goin to exeter which was going to pass thru bristol parkway so we chilled. Train came and by now we realised we were starving!! we got onto the train only to find there was no buffet service on the train. the sunday journey to exeter from bristol was 2 and half hrs as opposed to friday night which was only an hr!!

the train went to bristol temple meads and it chilled there for 15 minutes. now we didnt click until after 10 minutes that the train was suppose to chill for 15 mintes b4 it left!! we could hav got sum food in that time!! so we ended up havin to endure the 2 and half hr journey on an empty stomach!!

anyway, im at a loss as to how one is suppose to post pictures on blogger beta, there aint no picture icon to click on!!! please feel free to enlighten me!!!

Cardiff was good, it was a nice week end break

Internet Dating

2006-11-26T16:52:00.001Z

I saw this article on bbc news about internet dating. It seems that dating on the internet is really common!! I don't understand why!!! maybe its just me but i kinda think, dodgy. The whole idea of signing up to some site and submitting a profile for people to "check me out" and then actually start building a relationship with some random person doesnt quite go down well with me and i cant even believe people actually pay to be members of these sites!!

but then again biased as i am, i cant ignore the fact that some people do meet online and get married and are happy..thoughts..?

The search is over

2006-11-23T22:32:00.000Z

It feels so good writing this post coz finally the search for a job is over!! Im so so grateful that this happened really soon as well!! After the KPMG attempt didnt go well, i moved onto to apply at Deloitte and Ernst and Young and I was like im going to put my all into those 2 coz i was not interested in filling in any more applications. Its so demanding and so time consuming and so i just really did not want to have to go through that. After filling in the forms, they both responded really quick within 3 days and so i went for my first round interview at deloitte first. they got back to me after 3 days and it was a yes so that was really encouraging!! the day after i heard back from deloitte i had my first round interview at EY, it was actually a telephone interview, so i wasnt too sure how that would work out, phone is so different from face to face! anyway that also went well and the next day i got a reply...tht was 3 weeks ago! so then i booked my assessment for the 23rd of november..which is today!! and so i went for my assessment and final interview today. we had to do a case study and report writing exeercise, then we had a group discussion and then a partner interview at the end of the day. It was quite a long day, no to mention i had to travel down to reading this morning which is an hr and 45 mins away!!

So then on my way back home while i was on the train, i got a phone call from the [artner who interviewed me! I was on the train and had like half an hr til we arrived in exeter and i was nicely listenin to my ipod and jus recovering from the long day, then my phone rings and i look at the number and it was an 020 number so im like who is calling me from london on a number i dnt know?? i didnt even realise that reading numbers were 020 as well! so i answer my phone and it turns out to be the partner who interviewed me and he was like we've offered you a job and a whole lot of stuff by this time im like oh my gosh oh my gosh!! i didnt expeect to hear back soo soon so i was like in serious shock and it slowly registered that i actually got the job!! So im really excited!!! i dont know what im gonna do yet tho, i may still go for my final assessment at deloitte..or not..they havnt yet told me when it is tho..and i think i prefer EY as well....

so catch this people! on monday, bash hurt her foot and she couldnt walk and so here i was worried about her thinkin oh no this better not be serious, good thing is on tuesday she woke up and the foot was fine. then i went to a lecture in the mornin on tuesday and i got rained on for 5 mins!! and i caught a cold!! so bash was now takin care of me...then she caught the cold as well! so on wednesday i went to my lecture from 9-11 and came home and we spent the whole day sleeping coz we both felt so terrible! So by then i was like i have to get better, aint no way im goin to the interview sick thats not gonna happen!! so i was praying so hard!!! and by the time it came bed time i was feeling so much better and when i woke up i was feeling so good!! Bash on the other hand was worse and she didnt end up comin with me to reading coz she was so ill........but the good news is we both ok now so its all good, but talk about a rollercoaster of a week hey

Bristol

2006-11-18T22:50:00.000Z

Today a few of us went down to Bristol (me, bash, candy, elsie, rob, susan, ben, hannah, ben and mady). Bristol is the capital of the south west and its about an hr and half drive from here. our agenda was to go laser questing and ice-skating. so we left here 10 am ish and got to Bristol at about 12:30 after getting lost a lil bit!! we went for lunch at a pub when we got there and then chilled for a lil bit after eating, while the food subsided, lol!

then we went window shoppin for an hr jus checkin out the city before we set off for laser questing. I had never done it before today and so it was a new experience-my something new lol! It was so much fun!! its a lot like paintballing. difference being that its indoors and its not painful!! its the whole shooting idea tho. We played 2 games and in the first game i came out last with a crazy score of -32 (yes thats a negative) no doubt i was the laughing stock of the neighborhood!! especially considering that the likes of rob had nine hundred and something! but fear not! it gets better!! next round, was much better and i ammassed a positive three hundred and something or other! Bash was a bit of an expert and she managed five hundred and something!!! anyway it was laods fun.

from the laser quest we went off to find the ice-skating rink and after some searching we eventually got there. Only to find that they had closed so that then just died!! so then we decided to head back home on yet another 2 hr journey! by the time we got back at 9, bash was so tired, shame shez travelled so many hrs this wk end and she is in lala land as i am writing this!!

Finding Bash

2006-11-18T22:21:00.000Z

Ok so i tried to bootleg "finding Nemo" in my title! I dont know why, i just liked the ring!! Bash is here at the moment she came down yesterday from zim. She got to heathrow at about 5pm yesterday and then for her to come here i gave her directions before she left about what to do. So i thought i had explained everything proper and nothing could possibly go wrong! Our plan was a bit risky tho coz i said she should take the 19:20 coach and the 19:20 coach alone so that at 22:45 when the coach would be due to arrive i would be there at the coach station to meet her..well, it didnt all go quite so smoothly.

first of all, in giving bash directions to get to the coach station, i completely forgot that she wld land in terminal 4!!! Coming from aussie i went to terminal 3 and so that was still fresh in my mind. the problem with that is that terminal 4 is isolated from all the other 3 and you have to take the train to the other terminals...well lets jus say she found that out the hard way!

then by the time she actually got to the coach it was just past 19:20! the good thing however is that the coach was running late. meanwhile back on my end, i was at the coach station with my friend akeobi, waiting for bash. Then a coach pulled in at 22:45 so im thinking great, bash's coach right on time!! then i watched everyone get off one by one and no sign of bash, so im like right.....so then i asked the driver and he was like oh its probly the next one coz we all running late today! so i breathed!! I was startin to think i had lost the child!!

then 45 later, the right coach pulled in and out popped bash safe and sound!!

The food factor

2006-11-14T21:55:00.000Z

In winter it seems that i get hungry so much quicker!! The food i eat just seems to disappear so fast. In summer i find breakfast, lunch and supper do me just fine to get through the day and bfast and lunch are usually light. Now i find i want a big lunch and big dinner and I get hungry in between meals. is it coz in winter the food gets used up to warm my body? (Bio was not really my forte) the implication of my increased food consumption is i have to do food shopping more often...and because of time i usually find this happens close to dinner time when im starving....and food shopping when you are hungry is just torture!! haha i just felt like updating my blog and didnt have anything of substance to write really ah and another thing i always get old ladies sriking up random conversations with me in supermarkets its so funny!! so yesterday i was in iceland and this old lady from the bright pink was like to me "I really love iceland, its so great, there is so much good stuff in here you just want to buy everything!!" lol!! a cheerleader for iceland right therrrrr, clearly she thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, she just had to tell someone!!! haha anyway back to work now

The early bird..

2006-11-13T22:50:00.000Z

.....catches the worm..indeed!! I have to do a 3000 word essay for international accounting and i picked one about the evoloution of financial reporting in Japan. So yesterday I took a trip to the library to get some books out of for my research, only to find that all the relevent texts were all gone!! Some eager beaver got there first lol! the early bird really does catch the worm! So then my next best bet was to go for the online journals at least those dont "run out!"

So then today i started working on the essay doing some backgroud reading and I was having a bit of a hard time with it. I realised the true test of staying power comes not when all is well and easy but when the task is difficult. And writing a difficult essay is just a minor "difficult task." So I was sitting thinking oh my, this is so complex, i cant get my head round this and i was struggling to figure out how to structure the essay and I was starting to feel a bit defeated. then i got a wake up call and was like my gosh look at yourself!! the essay does not rule over me!! In Jesus I reign in life, i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, I am more than a conquerer!!! no problem should ever be above me!! then i asked God to help me breakthrough, and took a break. I came back and picked it all up with a changed perspective and it all just started to flow. I dont need to live in defeat, God provides for my victory...and He cares about every little detail

Learning and practice

2006-11-08T22:41:00.000Z

In order to grow, you first learn, then you put what you learn into practice. And refusing either or both will result in the process beeing cut. You can either reject learning or you can accept the learning and be full of knowledge but never put what you learn into practice (take action).

Why would you reject learning? how does one reject learning? the why question: it could be that you think you know it all already(or nobody knows more than you) and therefore noone can tell you something you dont already know, or similarly you may believe that you are always right and therefore there is nothing in you to be corrected so what new thing can u possibly learn if you already right? Usually its much more subtle than that.

I would define to learn as to come into knowledge of something you did not know before....but what does the dictionary say..let me look it up lol!

To gain knowledge, comprehension, or mastery of through experience or study.
To acquire experience of or an ability or a skill in: learn tolerance; learned how to whistle.
To become aware: learned that it was best not to argue.
To become informed of; find out.

so here's the deal. To learn you have to be teacheable. opportunities to learn abound day by day.
When confronted with a truth what do you do? deny, reject, defend, ignore or accept? The one who chooses to accept grows in knowledge and awareness.

but knowledge and awareness are not enough. in order to grow you need to take that knowledge and do something. action is what will give you results. take what you learn and put into practice , you will grow and for those who are business minded, take what you learn, put it into practice and make money. And when you have had the eperience it can help someone else coz without personal experience we are impoverished and cannot help anyone.

to refuse to be teacheable serves no favours at the end of the day. in your pride you lose out and those who humble themselves and learn elevate..

Ever After

2006-11-04T18:32:00.000Z

I came down with a bit of a cold towards the end of this week, and last night, after a long day, hard week, i decided i totally needed to just chill out and relax. So I got my hot water bottle (i was actually so cold to the point of freezing!) and curled into bed and decided to watch a movie. and what did i watch? A movie which I really like-Ever after!! im not a romantic movie kind of person usually, i find them so cliche but ever after does it for me seriously!! some may think its cheezy and cliche but i happen to think its quite deep, i just love the storyline and the different themes the movie comes up with. I think its a very expressive movie, the way the characters in the movie express themselves is so moving!!

so anyway "a fish may love a bird but where would they live?"-thats a line taken from the movie. inferring that two people from different backgrounds can love each other but it would never work out in the long run. So i wonder hw far true that statement is. isnt it more a case of do the 2 people share similar basic beliefs and values?

There seems to be one every year without fail!

2006-10-31T17:03:00.000Z

3 years of studying accounting and finance and ive really enjoyed the degree. however, every year ive had one module which has just been a bit of a chore!! first year it was management concepts and practices...a whole bunch of theoritical jazz. Im more into practical or relevent or mathematical courses. so MCP was a bit of a chore and i have to confess, in my first year i bunked a total of 3hrs of lessons and they were all 3hrs of MCP, the reasons for not goin to the lectures weren't valid either, i just couldnt be bothered. and the lecturer talked so much he would go on and on about i dnt wat he would go on about lol! but at least he wasnt boring tho.

then 2nd year it was auditing, more theoritcal jazz of which we had to read 100pages a week from the text book and we would get enough lecture handouts to last a lifetime. the lecturer was not the most interesting around which didnt help either! auditing was better coz at least there were a few topics which were relevent and practical, but once again i failed to show up to like 2 auditing lectures last year....mmm

and this year its international accounting that takes the cake!! more theoritical jazz but this one is actually classic, we talk about harmonising accounting standards which is impossible and everyone agrees but we will come up with theories anyway, i mean what else can we do with our time...lol! ya this one is special, the lecturer doesnt make it any more interesting either! he doesn't give us lecture notes so we have to take notes as he speaks, he speaks so slow i can write wat he says word for word, not that im complaining! its quite useful, and after the first hr and half of extreame effort to concentrate i find i eventually go on auto-pilot and just start writing what he says whether i understand it or not and hope to eventully figure it out in the near future...well incase yalz are thinkin its only a matter of time til i bunk my first lecture for the year..it aint gonna happen, those days are over!!

anyway on a happier note, im enjoyin everything else! spanish is great, im enjoyin learning a new language, the variety is refreshing. its strange you go from discussing really serious issues to playing bingo in spanish (so we can learn numbers) and being asked to list names of famous spanish pple! (no prizes for guessing who i put huh)

anyway, good news is International acc is only for this semester!! so was auditing and so was MCP so it works out pretty well (most of my modules are 2 semester items by the way!)

$$Money££

2006-10-27T18:25:00.000+01:00

Here's an interesting stat: the top cause of marriage break-ups is money!! Ok so im gonna put aside the fact that statistics lie and then claim well there is no smoke without fire. Personally off the top of my head if someone came and asked me what do you think is the number 1 cause of marriage break ups i would probably go for infidelity!!! Now i just got to wonder why thats the first cuase that would come to mind, i conclude maybe its coz thats what you hear so much of.

anyway back to the issue at hand, money is clearly a big problem. I was just thinking today that the reason is probably because people have different philosophies about money, and money is quite an important factor...they say money makes the world go round!! ya but back to money philosophies, im just recalling a discussion which i was part of a few months ago while i was in melbourne...some reading this post will also recall being present at that particular discussion. anyway it centered around the issue of should a husband and wife have seperate or joint bank accounts and just that alone saw many opinions being brought to the table, i wont even go there!!

so imagine a scenario where 2 people have different philosophies about money, which are probably unspoken coz really how many people sit and analyse this is what i believe about money and because of that i act in certain ways which support those beliefs and then go on to communicate that to their partner.....tons im sure!!!

I was thinking about it today and asking myself what are my philosophies about money...and some are probly thinkin, u hav way too much time on yr hands girl!! no not even, im the sort of person who thinks about my life and what im doin and why i do what i do, its just who i am. so anyway in my thoughts i was just thinking about different ways people view money and i started to see why there would be conflict if 2 people weren't agreeing.

like for example, do you believe money is there to be spent and tend to the spendaholic scale or do you believe that money is there to be saved and not enjoyed and tend to the saverholic side of the scale? Do you believe in buying things cheap aka being a cheapskate! or does quality matter more to you than the price you pay? Just those 2 alone have many other implications which come with them. There are so many different angles people choose to look at money and well everything else in life i suppose but money becomes a huge factor coz u kinda need some to survive! it provides such a huge surface area for potential arguments.

What do you believe about money? why do you believe that? is it reasonable? do you ever stop to ask yourself such questions? ive never really done that but im starting to see that it could be useful

Being Zimbabwean

2006-10-21T10:09:00.000+01:00

I did that post on bloggers anon and i did the u know you are a blogger if, citing the being zimbabwean forward which had been going around a while back. well someone jst forwarded it to me again!!! and so i figured for those who havnt read it ill post it, see how much of this is true, lol!

Warning: if you arent zimbabwean and/or cant speak/read shona, u may have a hard time with this one

Your name ends with 'More' e.g Lovemore, Givemore,Talkmore, Passmore, Kissmore.
You think its fashionable to start all your sentences with the words like 'basically', 'in fact' or 'actually'..
You refer to your cousins as 'cousin brother' or 'cousin sister'.
You like to call each other by weird sounding nicknames like Bhule(Blessing), Dhiva(David),Stavho(Steven), Pure(Precious), Lenso(Leonard),Givhi(Gift), Jonso(John), Jimalo(James) etc.
You used to buy all your clothes from Edgars,Topics,Express. yes i remember a time when if you brought something from edgars u cld be guaranteed that the whole of harare had the same item
You remember buying a pair of mapata pata, maSandak, or matomi from Bata. ha! i remember mapatapata then they were replaced by the new bata flip flops and we all thought they were the best things since sliced bread...lol!
You used to think 'sport' meant soccer and netball chete.
You remember chanting "iwe, iwe. iwe iwe" or "hee-hee hee," when someone was in trouble.
You remember eating sadza with your siblings or cousins from one plate.
You only ate rice & chicken on Sundays & on Christmas Day. and i think ill add at weddings..lol!
You looked forward to Christmas because it meant a new clothes and shoes.
You thought going on holiday means going kumusha/ekhaya..
You remember getting in trouble for kukwata as a kid (but you still did it anyway)
You used to get so excited seeing your parents coming home because you knew they always bought you a something from kutownd.
You were a border at least once in your life and remember your "tuck"
The secondary/primary school you attended had a number e.g GlenView High 1, Zengeza 7 High etc.
You thought 'property' meant a bed, a kitchen unit,a 2 plate stove and a wardrobe (inegirazi pamberi...)
You thought farming means kurima Chibage...
You started kudyara Chibage the moment you saw signs of rain (whether you stayed kutonaz or kuroots). we always had chibage kugarden lol!
You have never been to Kariba,Vic Falls,Great Zimbabwe or any other tourist resorts.
You think a wedding is incomplete without masteps, and mafotos kuHarare gardens. the photos at harare gardens is a classic tho and everyone strikes mapose holding onto the flora with dear life..lol!
You bring at least 2 uninvited guests to any function that only you are specifically invited.
You had extended family members you didn't know who asked you "Unindiziva here?" responded "ehe" then regreted it when they said "Ndini ani?" ya i seem to recall this happening to me then they would proceed to tell me i last saw you when you were 2...aha and im suppose to remember that
You know at least 2 people who are staying in the UK...illegally.
You think the only way to enjoy beer is by drinking itpamashops/pagrowth point where everyone can see you.
You and all your friends & relatives can't swim. the classic!!!!!!
You can't eat sadza without nyama.
Your first question to anyone who's been to a wedding reception is'..vawana marii?' or 'baba vemurume vabvisa chii?
You think a wedding reception is nothing other than a money making venture.
You think the whole of the UK is called 'London'. LOL! miss muda always says to me kurisei kurandani! needless to say i live 3 hrs away from there!! ps she does know that jus incase yalz are thinkin chic thinks the whole of the uk is london lol!
You think any member of the opposite sex who tries to be friendly is making a pass at you.
You remember Nando's, Chicken-Liken, Wimpy, Kwamereki,...and your mouth is watering just thinking about it.
You read and laughed at everything above this because you know its true!!
Now you are busy thinking of who to forward this.............and still you are going to forward it.

A fashion statement?

2006-10-15T19:04:00.000+01:00

It seems to be purposeless, dreamless is fashionable. If you dare to have a dream or to aspire to want to be the best you can be, and if you can stand and say this is me and this is not me rather than go along with something coz everyone else is doing it and jus be a drifter, if you dare to be yourself rather than a clone of the person next to you, if you dare to be passionate and expressive rather than passionless and watered down unless under the influence of alcohol, it seems you are considered to be strange. and like there is something wrong with you.

im like what? We are all so different, no 2 people are the same so how can we promote this business of sameness?? if you dare to be different and live out your dreams people judge you and stick all sorts of labels on you. or maybe they really wish they could do as well but lack the courage to do so??

i think its so limiting for you to discriminate based on whether someone takes a different approach from you, you limit the value it could add to your life, the experience you could be better off as a result.

you have one shot at life, what are you doing with it?? Jesus died so we could have life in abundance!!! i dont think a passionless watered down existence where you are a clone of the person next to you is what He had in mind. we have a choice of freedom or bondage, to live in fear or embrace life and it seems way too many are happy to sleep walk thru life, WHY??

Potential

2006-10-14T23:03:00.000+01:00

There is that element of people of what they could be, where they could be, who they could be, its potential. you never know whats inside a person and how thats working to influence where that person is going. im always inspired by stories of people who are overlooked and underestimated , who start of down and out and surprise everyone with where they end up. Truly, its not about how u begin, its all about how u finish, thats what counts.

its also a sad thing when potential remains potential and never becomes anything more. we all have it in us to.........................................the blanks can have endless fillings. I wanna be all that i was created to be, i dont wanna be another "could have been"

wat are you doing with your potential? DREAM BIG, step out in faith and live life!! you may step out and fail, but failure to try is even more tragic. failure can be your greatest teacher if u let it. Possiblities are endless and there is so much unused potential, i dnt wanna add to the pile

Delirious encore

2006-10-13T23:34:00.000+01:00

Friday night 13 october, we went to see Delirious! And they had special guest tim hughes. on friday 15 october 2004, i also went to see delirious, 3 weeks after i had just arrived here, exactly 2 years ago! and i went with the same people i went with in 2004! It was so good!! first up was tim hughes and he did a few of his songs, i think tim has a really great voice and i really like his music as well and he has such a heart of worship.

tim hughes "beautiful one"

tim hughes "here i am to worship"delirious "rain down"

then delirious came on and they are just really great as well, it was just such a great time of praise and worship. The song of theirs i love the most is majesty, the lyrics.

now ive found, the greatest love of all is mine, since you laid down your life, the greatest sacrifice. majesty, your grace has found me just as i am, empty handed but alive in your hands. majesty, forever i am changed by your love..........

His love for me is unconditional-the greatest love of all!! it sounds too good to be true only it actually is, He sees the depths of my heart and He loves me the same.

anyway, it was great, im sure those who have been to see delirious can ditto that!

The risotto

2006-10-04T23:03:00.000+01:00

Warning: graphic food description, not for the hungry!!!!

Back in melbourne in bourke street is this little cafe named bourke cafe. I went there with dottie and we had this chicken risotto of which i now cant remember wat exactly they called it. Anyway, the risotto was coming thru!! so me, tat and dottie decided to try it out for ourselves, well it was mostly me who tried out to bootleg the risotto (haha) and it did not come thru, it didnt quite work out like the real deal....maybe they should hav had a "don't try this at home" disclaimer!

so i tried again last week and it was actually worse than the first attempt! then, today i tried again and my oh my it was COMIN THRU! first 2 times it worked out too dry but today i got the perfect moisture jus like at cafe bourke, and instead of chicken i used prawns, thick, juicy, lucious prawns, my oh my, i wish you could all have had a taste!! I was determined to get that recipe right and today it came thru!

When you look at me

2006-10-02T21:22:00.000+01:00

I sometimes wonder how people perceive me. When they are around me what do they see? How do i come accross and what leads them to draw their conclusions. Do first impressions stick? are they gradually erased as interaction becomes more frequent? I suppose it also depends on the circumstances when we first meet. Would people's perceptions vary dramatically or would they fall in a similar spectrum?

I think its only natural that perption will change from first meeting as you get to know someone, i wonder how dramatic the change is sometimes

is it possible that perhaps we just see what we want to see in people sometimes and just lack objectivity and hence how we perceive someone and how they really are differ. Do we judge a book by its cover by bringing in our own misconceptions, actually now im wonderin i wonder wat kind of cover is on my "book?"

its closely related to the tag lines people put on you, in a situ where someone asks say which carol? and the question is proceeded with an answer like the one who...................wat tag lines am i identified with? its jus fascinating not that its really important!

if you dare, tell me wat u see, when you look at me!

Back in the mix

2006-09-28T13:11:00.000+01:00

Final year student people!! Its unreal how time has gone by so fast. It seems jus the other day i was in first year. So lectures start next week and im so looking forward to getting back into it. Knowledge is power!!! Well I love my course people, I couldnt see myself doing anything else! im eager to learn coz i find it all so interesting on the whole...of course its not all rosy but like they say, one sunny day doesnt make it sumer, i can reverse that and say one cold day doesnt make it winter hehe

Anyway, this year has in store for me, financial management, company law, financial statement analysis, international accounting and im taking a module out of my school and facing spanish head on! Im a bit nervous about that i have to admit, it carries a lot of uncertainty with it, its not the usual familiar..i have no idea how i will cope with that, but im so excited about it as well and im determined to do my best and learn all that i can!!

I aim to be a better student this year than i was last year, moving to higher heights!!

BA (hons) Accounting and Finance...final year!!!

ACTION

2006-09-28T13:00:00.000+01:00

The journey of life is all so interesting. Everyday consists of a series of choices which must be made. Day in day out, whether you realise it or not you choose how you will resond to life. I'm just thinking about my final year of uni and what I would like to do differently. That brings about my topic of discussion.

TALK IS CHEAP, ACTION IS EXPENSIVE

Its so easy to speak about what you would like to do/are going to do/will do. But the doing is hardly ever that simple. Because action is expensive, words fail to materialise to action. So, I have purposed in my heart to act! If i say im gonna do something, I will do it!! It requires a whole lot more effort to act than to talk (hence why talk is cheap) But I dont want to live in a world of possiblilities, i want to live in a world of realities!

If you want to dance you must be prepared to pay the fiddler

you respond to life through the choices you make and your response is the key to your destiny. I want to see my choices sow seeds that will reap the harvest i want to see.

2006/07 the year of action!!

Why tennis is a skill

2006-09-28T12:38:00.000+01:00

After 3 months of not even touching a tennis racket and my only source of exercise being running for trams, i was back in the mix yesterday. What a disaster, not to mention that I was operating on quater tank of fitness as well and now im in pain!! my muscles are aching!! besides that, my tennis racket felt like an alien after months of abondonment!!

The thing with tennis is that if you go for too long without playing you lose the plot. its different to hockey in that even after a year of not playing hockey i can pick up a hockey stick and pretty much continue from where i left off.. with tennis its like starting from scratch! Initially, i was hitting balls all over the show, ball control was seriously lacking, i even found i was struggling to locate the centre of my racket..lol!! Moving my feet was a chore, I was a bit slow and found myself stepping into the forehand with my right foot at one point...big no no no. So i pretty much spent the hr and half struggling thru my rustiness.

So I always say, i give props to people like roger federer and rafael nadal who are so consistent in their tennis! I think its one of those sports thats hard work, it requires sooo much discipline to learn to be consistent to the extent that whenever you hit the ball it goes exactly where you want it to go. Its also a very mentally taxing game, you constantly have to think abut where you are placing your balls to draw your opponent out the game. Most importantly it requires a high level of belief that you CAN which you have to keep up even when your opponent is doing you damage and lastly 100% concentration, if you lose it, u are out!

14 years of playing tennis and loving it!!!!!!

Apology for the slave trade

2006-09-23T23:57:00.000+01:00

There is this discussion goin on at the moment as to weather or not Britain should apologose for the slave trade and if so wat exactly should be the wording.........and im thinking what good would that do anybody??

On further investigation it appears that an admission of guilt will enable the affected african countries to sue for damages. Somehow that doesnt sound like something that would work to me, i don't see why britain would willingly open the channel for them to be sued...and if we gonna open the window of guilt admission and litigation does that not include colonialism and how would the courts begin to evaluate the damage caused centuries down the line?

im not entirely sure wat my opinion is on all of this but it caught my attention and i wonder are these discussions a waste of time or are they necessary and will the end result be favourable to africa coz if its not then why are we wasting time?

£80 for a weave!!

2006-09-23T23:47:00.000+01:00

I had to blog this coz i just cant believe this! I went to get my hair done by this chic yesterday in wellingborough and i wanted a 10 inch weave so she tunes me its £80!! (200 AUS$) (960 rand) jus to put that in perspective...and here's the catch, she ws charging others £35 , half of that!! So i'm like its either i look rich or stupid or both! needless to say there was no deal for her!! if i was in full time employment maybe, but til then, aint no way im payin £80 for a weave and for that much, i sure hope her weaves are flawless lol!!

Pets, Romantic comedies and all that jazz

2006-09-18T20:59:00.000+01:00

What kind of a title that?? i wonder myself! I went to Skegness over the week end to visit a friend I hadn't seen for 9 years!!! It was quite a way away actually....just as an aside i was looking through my wallet on my way there and realised that I still had a massive collection of tram tickets!! lol! I counted them and they worked out to be 15...haha so i was on the train and the ticket inspectors came round asking for tickets (unlike aussie there is no such thing as evasion here,ticket inspectors come in without fail!) and the people sitting on the left had side of where i was sitting wanted were these 2 girls i scheme they were about 14. They wanted to buy tickets and the inspector asked "all singles?" and the one girl replied "well i don't have a boyfriend!!" i was jus like ok!! lol!!

Anyway, my friend i went to visit really loves animals, and they hav loads at their house, i on the other hand didnt grow up with pets and so i hav a bit of a complex about pets, I can't stand dogs at all, big or small, fator thin! I think they are really gross, the way they pant with all the slober coming out of them and how they just wanna jump on you and lick you, ahhh! Cats on the other hand i can kinda handle, I love kittens i think they are so adorable!! I dont like big cats tho they are jus furballs and i refuse to touch big cats, too much fur. I think that is the issue of not having grown up with pets, i didnt get to appreciate! appologies to all pet lovers

by the way for those who remember how i feel about rollercoasters, in skegness there is this really big luna park type item and there was this rollercoaster there which makes the one at st kilda look like a slide...no prizes for guessing who steered very clear from the item...

so i was watching garfield jus now(quite appropriate for all the pet talk) but this now has to do with romantic comedies they are so cliche and so predictable and so far fetched...garfield was funny enough to make the romantic cliches a bit more bearable at least! Its the same old plot, boy meets girl, they fall in love and get together with some really cheezy line... and within 10 minutes if the movie you can fill in the blanks as to exactly how that will happen...except for the classics like the lake house where they go all out and bring people from the dead all to get a happy ending!! and then of course in the end everyone lives happily ever after!! What is the point of those items anyway...jus in case y'all start thinking im a romantic comedy hater, not really but the cliches are jus too much!!

Expectation

2006-09-13T15:03:00.000+01:00

My initial question was when does expectation become unreasonable. So I was trying to come up with an answer to this question. I think its ok to have an expectation but at the end of the day if the expectation is not met u have to deal with that.

I can for example expect that as my friend you should bake me a cake every now and then and then you should come over for afternoon tea coz perhaps maybe thats what I would do. You as my friend on the other hand, its probably the last thing that enters your mind....Ok this is probly more far fetched and less obvious but it works with everything, whats obvious to me may not be so obvious to someone else...for all you know, im probly thinking, its so obvious that I would want her to bake a cake and come over for tea...and personally i jus think thats a bit ambitious..obviously not!!..ok ps this scenario didnt happen to me, im jus makin it up!! Ok so coz you dont think of baking a cake as something of importance, u fail to meet the expectation, by default.

So i conclude, its ok to have an expectation, but expectations cannot be unspoken. People are not mind readers!!!! If u expect something, communicate and negotiate it. Communication is so liberating coz it prevents you drawing your own conclusions and going off on your own little tangent. if people know where you stand they aren't second guessing and it makes life so much easier.

So I think expectation is unreasonable if you expect something from someone, don't communicate it to the person and somehow think that they are mindreaders and then get mad at them for not meeting your expectation. When you communicate, you find out whether the other other person is willing to meet your expectation or not. And if they aren't and you aren't able to reach some compromise then you have to deal with it. To demand that your expectations be met is unreasonable. Its difficult to work with people who believe that coz they think/believe something, everyone else should follow suit and think/believe like them. I just think, who do u think u r??? I dont mind finding a workable soloution but i definelty mind having my thoughts/feelings/beliefs disregarded coz they don't fall in line with yrs.

Objectivity

2006-09-13T14:21:00.000+01:00

Its amazing how you can have a particular event, or situation or wateva, 2 people and 2 compleletly different conclusions arising from these two people. Is it coz we are all just different people with different tastes and preferences....what appeals to me may not appeal to u.....??? Or does it also run deeper than that?? Do we also view life through the lens of past experience which clouds our objectivity? I think yes..

For example, if in the past every woman you have come into contact with has betrayed you and you start to believe that all woman are "the devil", chances are you may be face to face with a proverbs 31 woman and still see "the devil", whereas someone whose judgement is not so clouded by the past will see clearer.........its gets me thinking, how objective am I?? Like David I'm left saying "search me O God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting" I cannot even begin to trust that I can objectively see for myself

Disappointment

2006-09-13T09:15:00.000+01:00

The feeling that comes when hope is deferred, it just doesn't work out the way you would have hoped or wanted...So here I am feeling somewhat dissapointed. The time has come where its actually time to start looking for a JOB for when i graduate and so i started doing that, I made my first application to KPMG and it was quite hard work coz the application process is so demanding. I went for the interview on Friday and I got a response last night, and it was a "no.".....heish, rejection hurts!!! I just think well, after everything that i went through, now im just as good as someone who didn't even apply coz we are in the same boat....the reality however is not quite like that, the real deal is that the experience of going through the process will help me in the ones to come...its crazy how well i find when im in a state of disappointment, it becomes that much harder to see all angles of the story, the negative becomes that much more attractive. My motto is that failure should spurr you on to do better next time..let it be the motivating factor...don't let it be the force that takes you down with it.

So as Aaliyah said, "if at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again.." so moving onto the next.......

Bloggers Anon

2006-09-09T09:19:00.000+01:00

A question is posed, why do u have a blog? an answer is given: well firstly, i enjoy writing in my blog its like im writing a neverending story..I write about what im getting up to and its great coz i archive sme of my memories and those who are interested in what im doing can be informed...i write about what i think and i write about what i feel...and interestingly enough, it seems people connect more with the feelings, the posts ive written about how i feel hav received the most response!!

so in a nutshell thats why i blog, why did i start blogging? well actually i was inspired by a friend who had a blog, alas, he no longer blogs but im carrying on the batton!! so u the blogger, why do u blog??

I shall now move on to talk about the blog community and im trying my hand on comedy so please laugh hehehehe

while i keep a blog, i also read blog, particularly the ones highlighted on my sidebar. when i would switch on my computer, before the blog days, i would check my mail and check the news...now an extra "check" has been added to the list...i check the blogs..(Tangent, well kinda...my "studies"..with the aid of carol's blogs best friend(hehe) have shown that bloggers read blogs more often than non bloggers, in fact, non bloggers are few and far between and bloggers are participators, they are the ones who do most of the commenting!) and when they find no posts to comment on they start abusing the cboxes! lol!

I can understand, i remember being a non-blogger myself...my readings were few and far between but i actually did leave comments!!

I remember a time when there was this forward goin round about "you know you are zimbabwean if...." and if you are like me and hate forwards, you probably deleted that one before you read it....i actually happen to have made an exception on that one, it was so typical!! so im gonna try my own..."you know you are a blogger if"...

You check other people's blogs on a more than regular basis
You never hesitate to add your own 5 cents to other people's posts
When you come around your fellow bloggers chances are the word blog will come up
You start having random conversations on cboxes
you harrass other bloggers for being silent
Statements like "just passing by and thought i would let my presence be known..literally and carol's blogs best friend actually mean something to you!!

and the being zimbabwean one ended with, you will forward this to other zimbabweans, this one will simply end with, "you will have something to say about this post!!"

The tennis lover returns

2006-09-09T08:09:00.000+01:00

And this time, i have just one question (and no its not deal or deal!!) more like Mikhail Youzhny, where did you come from??? and some may even ask who is he?? well people, the us open is on and you know how i just love my tennis!! So I had high hopes for another Nadal/Federer final at the us open....alas, my hopes were dashed by the above mentioned gentleman. He has shocked the tennis community, unseeded and ranked somewhere in the forties, he has upset many this us open and has now reached the semis...im betting that he will actually win!!

The other day he played against Nadal in the quarter finals and in the end, he actually just was literally running circles around Nadal...it wasnt even coz nadal was playin badly, quite the opposite, he played really well, its jus that Youzhny played such a solid match and i hate to admit, outclassed Nadal. And so here's wat i think, he may actually be the man to challenge roger federer, i have high hopes for him.

Might i also note, im not hating on roger, i think he is such a brilliant player and continues to prove that over and over, he comes thru!! and is a class above the others, but for the sake of the game not becoming predictable, can someone else other than nadal challenge roger federer?? well i think we may have found our man, but first he must get passed Andy Roddick who is so fired up at the us open its jus deep but i think he will!!

why i think he can challenge roger is coz he plays a very similar game to nadal so if nadal can why cant he??? the verdict on sunday, vamos Youzhney

Deal or no deal

2006-09-06T20:31:00.000+01:00

While i was in Aussie, Dottie, Ndu and Lynt were invited for an interview with deal or no deal! So I actually went along with them to the interview, and so the news now is they have been asked to go on the show!!! Come through people, you gonna be on tv!! So all I can say is that whichever one of you gets the hot seat......win the $200 000!!

This may be a good time to tell my own deal or no deal story...well the closest ive got, lol! At the end of second term, last year, in financial accounting our lecturer said to us that we should go and watch deal or no deal as our homework, for those who had never watched it. I was part of that crew, not being much of a tv person i had actually never even heard of deal or no deal....and i actually even forgot to watch it.

Then in the lecture, a question was posed of which we had to guess the turnover of some company, i cant even remember which one. So i guessed right and got to play..then i had to admit that i had no idea wat deal or no deal was!! the good thing is that it was explained and i had my go!! the denominations were 1p, 10p, 50p, £1, £5, £10, £25, £40 and £50..i ended up dealing at £20 and it was a good deal and so i actually did win £20...so lets hope its a good day on deal or no deal for others!!

meanwhile, im watching the us open quarter finals at the moment while im writing this...things are not looking good for Nadal people...im scruured, im scuured, anyway, thats another blog altogether, im out

Little life lessons

2006-09-04T16:23:00.000+01:00

Have you ever said something and then wished afterwards that you hadn't? maybe you were looking for some sort of relief and there it was, you uttered the words which u lived to regret afterwards...................well if you have, welcome to my world!! All I can say right now is that emotions don't rank very highly on my fan club list at the moment. Not all emotions need to be expressed, although, I must say the relief is good, i suppose hence the temptation..that being said i also think to acknowledge is better than denial...thats jus my opinion..

Or another scenario...you take a risk and put yourself out there and the next thing you know is that you feel terribly exposed and want a cut from Adam and Eve's fig leaves coz you wanna cover yourself up too...coz u feel a bit like an idiot. Well in the past, I would have wanted to dig a hole to bury myself in when i felt embarressed about absoloutly anything. And now, life goes on and its refreshing. Things happen, mistakes are inevitable..its all about your choice to get up and keep going or your choice to "hide."

growing up and moving on....

My lost luggage

2006-09-01T15:00:00.000+01:00

On August 31 2006...ie yesterday, my season in Melaz sadly ended. I won't go into detail, don't really wanna repeat that...however when i finally did arrive in london after 23 hrs of travel, all i wanted was to get my luggage and get home and rest.....well....lets just say, it didnt quite work out that way. i waited 45 mins while the luggage went round the conveyor items in anticipation. alas, mine never came out. then eventually, no luggage was coming out, at all!!! only to be told that the luggage that had come out was allthe luggage they had: translation: your luggage has been misplaced!! there like 20 or so other people as well. so we had to go fillin some forms and we were told that when the luggage did eventually arrive it would be sent to us, so hopefully ill get it sometime this century. One of my worst nightmares about travelling has been to have my luggage lost...and now its actually happened in reality....this morning i was quite touched actually, coz i got no chnage of clothes or anything!!!! since im not in exeter all i hav is wati took to melbourne, only thing is, i kinda don't hav that right now!!

so now really the airline is gonna incur even more expenses trying to get our luggage to us and in the process, i bet im not the only one thinkin, ill think twice before flying Malaysia airlines again!! it kinda pays to get it right first time..anyway, tryna keep the post short, the next one is pretty long..

Memoirs of Melbourne

2006-09-01T13:53:00.000+01:00

The 2 month period I spent in Melbourne came to an end just yesterday. I didnt know what to expect really whenI went to Aussie but all I knew was that I wanted to make the best of theexperience. I got more from the experience than I could have imagined..and I was really starting to get accustomed to lifein Melbourne. Even the VPT (Victoria Public Transport!!). Its hard to imagine, 2 months ago I didn't even know wat a tram stop looked like or even how to validate a ticket! lol! I didnt even know there was such a term as "validating a ticket", wat can i say thats one thing you don't wanna learn the hard way...ie getting caught by the tram inspectors and being accused of evading!! lol! Now i have my very own little city circle tram, courtesy of Miss Muda as a memoir!!

Oh when i mentioned the aussie lingo, i forgot the classic "ah yeah, should be alright!!" and "coming through, coming through!" and the good old acranams...p.o.a (plan of action) I quickly learnt.

On a serious tho, the experience was amazing! the greatest part of it all being the time spent with people who madean impact on me, everything else was just an added bonus.

Firstly, my hosts, Dottie, Nyash and Tat(Miss Muda)
Dottie, a true friend whome I love and appreciate so much!!! Seeing her again after almost 3 years was just too good. I'm so grateful for the time we got to spend together. I gotto spent a lot of time with Dottie and i have to say, she gave me so much of her time..time is an expression of love, when you give someone your time you give them something you can never get back EVER!! I even went with uni with her...then all our endless lunch experiments( with majority of my meals goin pear shaped on me) and all our little escapades....and I also have to mention, dottie is a great tour guide!! lol!! whenever we went somewhere for the first time, I would get the entire low down!! e.g, first time we went to Kmart, she proceeded to tell me everything they sell in Kmart, after explaining, this is Kmart. then she went on to say, They are open for 24 hrs in the day so perhaps in the middle of the night you feel you wanna go shopping, you can partake......yeah only dottie!! Anyway, it was great to see how much she has grown and become more and more of a beautiful person....oh and did i mention how she subjected me to her music?? for those that don't know, that could border line torture!! nah jus joxing it wasnt that bad, i was even getting into sum of it in the end which is jus a bit scary....and dottie, if you reading this, i think whenever you hear pon de replay remix you will wlays think of me hey?? she hates that song by the way!!

Miss Muda, for me, the not seeing tatenda drought was cut off when i saw her in december, so this time it was after 6 months as opposed to almost 2 years before december. Initially living together wasn't so smooth for us,we are a bit different so we ended up having to work through a few of these differences. In the end, it only made the loved stronger. I think we both learnt to understand each other better and for me it also helped reveal some things about myself which could do with some revising...I love and appreciate Tats so much, she is such cutie and she is growing into such a mighty woman, watch the space people...im grateful for the time we had together, and we had so much fun in our lil escapades!! hehe

Nyash, my time in Melbourne was the first time I had really spent time with Nyash, I think i had seen her like a total of 2 times before that my whole life!! and im thinking now, thats jus a bit hard to believe!!! Getting to know Nyash was great...(we found we had more in common than we would like to admit hehehe!!) Nyash is such a lovely person, so caring and sooo loveable, she was always such great company

and while in melbourne i met so many other people as well who made an impact..

Mr Mmilidzi, it all began with the blogs....then 'EY SONNY met Carol's blog in person.....and all he could say was "passange!!!!" (pronounced pasayge) Lol!! just joxing, thats not quite how it happened but i jus had to add the whole passange thing! But seriously, spending time with him, was always a pleasure...a sharp mind clothed in a gentleman. He continuosly made me laugh and he made me smile..not to forget he was also the blogspot teacher!!!

Ndu The one who never fails to open the doors for the ladies!! yes, i remember the first time I met him, jet-lagged as can be, lol!! and 2 months down the line, i can definetly say, im glad to have met him. He is such a fun person to be around, great company and always up for an escapade...I would describe him as the explorer!!

Fungi...or Funghino as others would call themselves!! i remember the first night of victory week-end which was also the first time i met him..we did dishes together and i can still remember how he scrubbed this one really grubby pot to perfection and me, tat and keira were like yeyeyeye come thru guy!!! (by the way i only discovered like a week ago that ctg was the acronym for come thru guy!!...well u know its jus hard) anyway, 2 months down the line, its been good. Fungi is such a happy person, so full of energy!!! Fun to be around.

God's gems..the amazing ladies that welcomed me to be part of them for a season...I was encouraged and blessed, I see people of destiny and purpose, come thru!!!

Claire and Wendy we arrived in melboune on the same day and met the next day and it was all random...i don't believe it was random. My time spent with them was enriching, both truly amazing women.

and i met so many other people who each left something positive inside me and knowing them was a true pleasure...miss kuda, taps, tafa,keira............

and thats memoirs of melbourne,
with love xxxxx

The Meat and Wine Co.

2006-08-28T09:51:00.000+01:00

On Sunday we went to the meat and wine co. for lunch…the food there comes thru!! Im not big on food but I have to hand it down, the food was too good and the level of service is just excellent, so very impressive. Only thing, the food took forever to arrive..or maybe we were jus hungry lol!

Cluedo

2006-08-28T09:37:00.000+01:00

I learnt to play cluedo for the first time on Saturday. Initially it was me, dot and Nyash. Then fungi joined us. So Dorica did the honour of explaining to me how the game works…adding her own dramatics no doubt, in the words of dorica, the plot for the game is that Mr Black, who is a multimillionaire, invites a few people over to his mansion for the evening. The next morning Sisi (aka the housekeeper) finds Mr Black’s body in a bag, dumped somewhere. So we as the detectives have to figure out who the murderer is, where the murder took place and what weapon was used. And this is done through a process of elimination and speculation. So the idea is that at the beginning u are supposed to put a person, a room and a weapon in the envelope and these represent what we as detectives seek to conclude. It’s quite a cool game, we had fun playing it and dorica won all the time!! In the final game however, I set up the game and the others weren’t paying attention. I completely forgot that I had to put a card from each category in the envelope and shuffled all the cards and jus put the top 3 cards in the envelope…it turned out that the cards I put in the envelope were all rooms. So we start the game and things are looking good, by process of elimination, I start to feel that im ready to accuse. So dorica had her turn before me and she beat me to the accusation and it turned out that she was wrong…then she was like ah no way something is wrong with this game, that’s jus impossible, so she checks out the cards in the envelope, only to find 3 rooms!! Well needless to say, everyone was jus a bit weak, I had jus sent us all on a wild goose chase!! Well I see the humour in the matter!!

Playing games brings on another matter, the issue of competition. You get people who are so competitive and people who don’t even have a bone of competitveness in them. I happen to think that people who aren’t competitive have it easier than those who are, the reason I say that is coz I fall in the category of the competitive people! What fuels my competitiveness is that I always want to do well in pretty much everything that I do and sometimes for me doin well translates as being number one. Its something that has been in me my whole life. I remember growing up I was really bad, if I didn’t win I couldn’t be satisfied til I won! My sister is in the category of the non-competitive people and whenever we used to play anything, I would always have to win for the game to end, if I didn’t win, we would play again and again until I eventually won..for those who don’t know, my sister is 3 years younger than me and the norm is that the older ones usually let the younger ones win to keep the peace, with us it was so the other way round! I have to day though, I grew quite a bit from that, now we just laugh about it, my sister is always like Carol you were jus so deep it was just funny!! I think now the focus has changed, I use the competitveness in me to compete against myself to do better and so a goal through to the end. The desire to win against other people is no longer so strong, I can accept defeat, but losing just aint fun!!

Untitled

2006-08-20T15:41:00.000+01:00

I don't really know wat to title this post so i called it untitled! I'm basically jus gonna write about the events of the week-end! On Friday night Ndu invited us over for dinner(or maybe we invited ourselves, not too sure!lol!) us being me dottie and nyash and he made nachos(i hope thats spelt right...) and ya all i can say is he came thru with the cooking! we were well fed!! From eating, we moved on to Blackburn where Fungi was having a chill night...which ended up being movie night! Or maybe that was the OG plan...anyway there were many of us there, no need to mention names!!

We first watched the Gospel..started at about 11 by the way. All i can say is that subtitles are a goos thing! People felt the need to discuss quite a bit during the movie...to the point where we would stop the dvd so people could air their views....lol! So naturally the movie took longer than expected to finish. Then we watched another movie, which im afraid i jus cant remember wat it was called, not to mention that pickin the movie was that much harder coz there were jsu too many pple to try to satisfy. the movie was quite alright tho and it got thru quicker since pple were now tired and the discussions had died down!!

Then saturday went to bridge road for some shoppin with nyash and dottie, with no intentions of buying anything for obvious reasons! lol! nyash was lookin for some boots but we didn't avail anything so that was the end of that!

Then Sunday after church we decided to hit St Kilda...we being me, dottie, miss muda, ndu, fungi, radiah, chantelle and marina. The weather was a lovely 19 degrees! the hottest its been since i got here, so it was a great day for the beach!! We got to St Kilda and we partook of some food...(tangent: Its interesting how you can be around people and catch onto their lingo, since ive been here, ive picked up words like "partake" and "no deal" and "lollies"which by the way is the term used by australians to refer to sweets!! if i was to go back to england and start refering to sweets as lollies, no one would know wat im talkin about!!)

Anyway so we spent sum time out on the beach....great weather, great company, wat more?? and then we went to luna park..........................................................................
well, they were gonna close in 30 minutes when we arrived so we all decided we were gonna go on the rollercoaster. I was really scared about goin on the rollercoaster and initially i didnt wanna go, but then i sum how convinced myself that it would be fine! So we went on the rollercoaster item and initially naturally it was goin up, that was ok. But then i also knew that the time was soon comin when it would now start goin down and that jus totally freaked me out! The moment we went down I literally felt my whole stomach knot and i thought i was gonna be thrown off! Then it started goin up and down and up and down and I was screaming to the point of nearly being in tears........and some are probably thinking..it's jus a rollercoaster!! Well wat totally freaked me out is that i really felt like i was gonna be thrown off and that didnt quite gell well with me to put it mildly! So I conclude, maybe rollercoasters jus aint for me. The others did enjoy no doubt!

So after the dramatic rollercoaster event, we went and got sum ice-cream before goin back home

Attraction

2006-08-20T15:21:00.000+01:00

Such a fascinating phenomena....one i can't seem to understand. It is said to be the fuel for procreation of the human race. What makes you become attracted to a certain individual? Is it something that you can see coming or does it just spring up on you? When you get butterflies in your stomach when the person is around and the words jus don't quite come out right when speak...or for some you start to avoid the individual..well the responses are endless. So I ask again, what makes you become attracted to a certain individual? I know at the end of the day its all about your response, how u deal with wat u feel is wat is crucial. Entertaining versus not entertaining. Can you really stop yourself from being attracted to someone in the first place??

Learning the ropes

2006-08-16T05:38:00.000+01:00

I later found out after i started the blog just how complex blogspot is! It turned out that all i could do was write a post and not much else. now my blog has been modified and is lookin a bit more personalised, and i got a cbox! feel free to make use of it. I would love to say i figured it out all on my own and say i went from zero to hero over night, haha but that would be far from accurate. I got help from a spanish friend haha, (I can do that now hehehe) i know that could be a bit sad that i didnt even know how to do that, but hey, its a learning experience!! which explains why now my profile is in spanish lol

Ramsay Street

2006-08-16T05:08:00.000+01:00

On Friday Dottie and I ventured off to Ramsay street. it's really close to where Dottie lives so we decided to go check it out! The street is actually not called ramsay street its called pinoak street. So we get there and find that it's just an ordinary street, ok i suppose we knew that but it was so ordinary to the extent that we got there and were like "is this it?!" When we got there, the neighbors tour bus was there so that made it a bit more interesting, we got to see dr Karl i think is his name, but ya i don't even watch neighbors, so i don't know who he is! lol! I last watched neighbors back in the day when it used to be on tv in zim. but anyway that was ramsay street

The Zoo

2006-08-07T02:20:00.001+01:00

On Saturday I went to the zoo with wendy and claire. It was a great day out (bit cold tho haha). We spent 4 hours there which was quite deep really, at the end of the day we were sooo tired like our feet were struggling to move!!

I really enjoyed it. There were do many different animals that we saw. It was particularly exciting seeing the ozzie animals the likes of blinky bill and skippy lol (koalas and kangeroos) and the wombats and penguins. other than the native oz animals the rest were pretty much familiar...the ape family and the likes of lions, elephants, giraffes etc etc

What really struck me tho is how all the animals are so different and have all the appropriate features necessary for them to survive their environment. And I'm left thinking, God is so amazing!!! I can't even imagine in my own mind the creative mind that can create such order and such beauty!! some of the animals are just tres gorgeous!!

So that was the zoo, the pics shall go up in due time..

Yarra Trams

2006-08-07T02:20:00.000+01:00

The mode of public transport in melbourne is trams. I can safely say i had never been on one until i came here and i wonder if i had even seen one, don't think so! the yarra trams hav earned themselves a spot on my blog coz they are jus so expensive!!!! and while its expensive, the monitoring system is rather poor. it mostly relies on the fact that people are generally honest...don't know hw far true tht is. The idea is that you validate your ticket when u get on the tram but there is no one there to check that you actually do so. It seems people do get away with not paying for their trips, and hence those that do actually also pay for those that don't so wouldn't it be better for all if it was cheaper and well monitered?? anyway, thats me in a bit of a shock as to how much i hav spent on transport while being here

IMAX Theatre

2006-08-07T02:18:00.000+01:00

On Friday night we went to the IMAX theatre (we being me, dottie, miss muda, nyash, radiah, mesh and mmilidzi) the Imax being a 3D cinema where they mostly show documentries. We watched a deep sea documentry, which added to the knowledge received from the aquarium!! it was really cool coz we had to wear the glasses which made the movie 3D and it felt like the fish were swimming right next to you and the docucmentary was actually quite interesting! Initially i kinda thought it would be boring, documentaries are so not my thing!! lol

mesh, me, dot, mmilidzi, nyash, tats, radiah..radiah, nyash, dot, tats,mesh, me, mmildzi at the back!!

so anyway that was that and after the movie we went to the crown casino. I had never actually been into a casino before! we chilled there for about an hr playin the slots. I played $1 and lost the dollar! Miss Muda on the other hand actually broke even, and ended up keepin her dollar. It was cool for a one off thing, not really the place i wld like to frequent! and with reason! gambling aint my thing, i think im too risk averse for that, even if its jus for fun!

left to right: radiah, me, dot, miss muda, nyash, mesh..radiah, me, dot, mmilidzi, miss muda, mesh

Melbourne Aquarium, Geelong et al

2006-07-28T02:20:00.000+01:00

More of what ive been up to the last week or so....went to the melbourne aquarium last week on monday. it was just me and dottie, we had planned on goin to to the zoo, but then we thought miss muda would want to come with us so we decided to save the zoo for another day and then decided on the aquarium and somehow concluded miss muda would not want to go to the aquarium, we don't even know how we came up with that conclusion, and we didn't even bother to ask, it was jus one of those days. needless to say we made a mistake!!

So anyway the aquarium was exciting, we ended up sepnding 3 and half hrs there! doing wat? well it wasn't a case of "there's a fish, hi fish, bye fish"type thing. it turned out to be quite educational, we learnt quite a bit about fish and we took loads of photos! which you will eventually get to see. We also went on this ride which gives you the illusion of racing through rough land and its extreamly bumpy and the whole entire time it feels like you goin to crash into something and you just miss and u get this adrenaline rush. it was only for three minutes but it felt soooooo much longer than that! I am a bit of a scardy cat, dottie was laughing at me when we got off coz i screamed a couple of times!!

anyway, we left the aquarium and went to the rialto, which is the tallest building in the southern hemishpere. From the top you get a really gorgeous view of the city.

Then on tuesday, Hildah was here, from perth. She came in early tuesday morining and i met up with her in the city. She was staying in geelong which is a town outside melbourne about an hour on the train. I went with her to Geelong. We spent the day checking out the city and the deakin uni campus there, well actually the day refers to the 3 hrs that i was there in this instance! Then i came back to melbourne.

Wednesday was first day back at uni for dottie and she took me with her and showed me round the campus and we went to lectures together (3 two hr lectures) so a total of 6 hrs in lectures!! And no doubt i had people say to me why??? u supposed to be on holiday!!! well i got a bit of a taster of wat its like to be a deakin uni student, and it wasn't all that bad being in lectures, dottie is also doing accounting and finance and so it made sense!

On thursday i was back in the city. I met up with hildah again and she was with her friend lindy from brisbane. we spent the day together in melbourne and then they went back to geelong in the evening.

and ill end there..

How does love become so sour?

2006-07-24T03:12:00.000+01:00

Some weeks back i had on msn this question: How does love become so sour? It's hard to understand how 2 people can start off in a love relationship and end in all sorts of really sad heart-breaking states. I don't think many people (if any) go into a marriage thinking, yeah a few years from now or a couple months after saying i do i'm gonna start physically/verbally abusing her or i'm gonna have multiple affairs and contract an std of some sort in the process and then ill infect him/her and possibly our kids, or i'm gonna become absent, stop all communications, except perhaps when we have to fight about something, then we'll get divorced etc etc i could go on, im sure you get the point. How do people get there? Could it be that the problems were already there and a choice was made to ignore them (whether the choice was made conciously or by default, altho most likely by default) and could it also be that people enter into marriage unprepared and ignorant of what a real marriage entails, with a fantasy that they will live happily ever after and any issues will magically dissappear and their partner will meet all of their needs?

I came accross this and it really got my attention....

"If a woman doesn't have a solid relationship with herself, she will recklessly pursue external relationships in the hopes of achieving internal peace. She will try to love others in a desperate need to find in them what she must find within herself. This pursuit will be futile and is the cancer that kills most marriages. She will do the right things for wrong reasons and grapple with the disappointment that comes from expecting someone to give her what she must give herself. The lady will not be able to pursue healthy relationships with others because the weight of drawing from them things she should be getting from within soon becomes too much for anyone to bear. Then the man becomes guilty over his inability to satisfy what is an insatiable need. He becomes reclusive and hides in the cave of his work, his excesses, and sadly may find himself led to infidelity, since the expectations of his other woman can be controlled by the excuse of his being married!" TD Jakes

there is quite a lot in that statement and i think it sums up as if you don't have a solid relationship with yourself, you are gonna have a hard time in your relationships with other people. other people will never be able to complete you, thats something that comes from within and ultimatly from a relationship with God. when u need other people to complete you u are asking them to do wat is impossible for them to do. if you need other people to make you feel good about yourself, you are forever at their mercy.

how i got to how does love become so sour in the first place was actually coz i was getting really discouraged seeing too many people who we constantly unhappy or had suffered much at the hands of marriage and knowing that this is not how it was meant to be. the number of marriages where people are better off far outweighed the ones where people have ended up worse off in my experience and i was left questioning, what makes the distinction? and i still don't have all the answers, but i may have an idea.

Week 2 in Melbourne

2006-07-20T13:33:00.000+01:00

It's now been 2 weeks here! it seems like a whole lot more, i feel like ive been here for ages! ok so what have i been up to over the past week..been to the movies twice, watched the break up and little man, the break up is quite ok not the greatest movie ive seem in a while but its doable and then little man, well i shall reserve my comments on that one!! that by the way doesn't mean i hated the movie.

and this past week ive eaten out 3 times (and by that im refering to the likes of nandos!!) and 2 times out of the 3 i have decided to try something i havnt tried before, first it was when i went for lunch with dottie at this cafe where they do really nice pastas and risottos, so i decided to try this one seafood sauce they had coz i like seafood. i figured how bad could the sauce be? and it turned out to be quite bad so that was one try something new gone wrong, strike one. then strike 2 was at nandos, i had never had the barbeque chicken ribs before so i wanted to give them a go and well, lets jus say that was strike 2!! so i think for now, ill jus stick to wat i know for a while.

Ok so enough about the food! this past week i also toured the city by myself!! ya there was a day i took out on my own to tour the city. there is that sense of adventure i find when i don't have someone to "hold my hand" so to speak so it was quite exciting! the aim of the game was to do so withouit spending any money or spending close to nothing, (not entirely impossible by the way). There is a tram in the city called the city circle and it goes round the city to all the "places to see" and you can hop on and off when u want. kinda the equivalement of the red tour buses in england, (altho in england they are so not for free) so i got onto the city circle and stopped off to see a few places. didnt get through a lot coz i had about 4 hours. I also managed to go to the immigration museum which was also for free coz im a student! bascically it had archived all the changes in immigration in aussie, it turned out to not be the most exciting thing ever, i really tried to be enthusiastic but alas the enthusiasim could only go so far lol!! ok the whole not spending was me being a cheapskate i wanted to prove that you don't have to spend money to have a good time!!

oh and not forgetting the footie, on friday we went to watch the footie live at the mcg, well actually we ended up catching the last 15 minutes, to cut a long story short, we were late!! wat we did see was really good tho, live is so much better!!! tv does not do sport any justice. now i really wanna go watch one of the tennis grand slams live more than ever!

ill end there for now til next time

Week one in Melbourne

2006-07-12T05:27:00.000+01:00

Ive been here for a week now and it has been such a great week!! Im loving this place its jus been so great. When i arrived on wednesday i was at Tatenda's house and then in the evening i went into the city to meet up with dottie. I went into the city by myself and got onto the tram for the first time. the aim was to make it to the city and get off at the right stop without getting lost. and i didnt get lost, if i did it would have been a bit tight coz i didnt have a phone! so anyway, i met up with dottie and we went for hot beverages in this chocolate place and then she took me round the city (aka town for those of us who don't live in aussie!) after a night out in the city i went home with tats. Next day we packed our stuff and went off to camp at Riddle's creek (Every Nation church camp) it was a nice week-end away, even tho i was a bit on the tired side, (the jet lag was catching up with me) at the end of it all being there was exactly what i needed at that point in time.

we got back from camp on saturday night and i was in bed at 7:30pm!! thats how tired i was actually. on sunday afternoon went to dottie's house which is where im staying now. sunday night was the wimbeldon final and to everyone's surprise Nadal made it to the finals against Federer so yet again for the fifth time this year it was another Nadal/Federer final!! This time round it was Federer's turn and he really deserved to win he played so well it was really impressive and credit to Nadal as well who put up quite a fight, he has really improved so much on grass its so impressive!

so anyway thats been my first week in melbourne in a major nutshell. will keep updating wen i can!!

One seriously long journey

2006-07-05T01:59:00.000+01:00

How I got from exeter to melbourne..........I booked a coach to go to heathrow from exeter on monday for 3pm and so got to the coach station with plenty time to spare. Then the coach was a lil bit late and no one knew what the story was at least at that point there was still plenty of time to get the train if the coach had failed to arrive but i really didn't want it all to come to that. The coach did come at about twenty to 4 and do it was all good. So i travelled the 3 and half hours to

Arrived heathrow at 7:30pm and went straight to check in. So it came my turn to check in my luggage and had a slight lil hiccup, my first flight was to kuala lumpur-malaysia and since i don't need a visa to go through malaysia, they had to make sure that i was indeed just passing through and my aussie visa was suppose to be that clue and the problem was that their machines weren't reading my visa and so i had to wait about 15 minutes while they sorted out the problem and it turned out that on my visa they had written my initials and not my full names which were on my passport but anyway it was all sorted and was on the flight to KL at 10pm.

Arrived at KL airport at 5pm their time which was like 10 am london time. this is when i started getting a bit confused about the whole time thing. it was so hot in KL as well 33 deg! my flight to melbourne was at 21:30 so i had to chill for a bit at the airport. it was so deserted as well, i was still a bit sleepy coz i didnt really sleep well on the flight so i really didnt wanna read, i occupied myself playing hearts on my laptop then that got a bit monotomous as well. the good thing is that i only had to check in once at heathrow and my luggage went all the way to melbourne. time eventually went by and it was time to board flight number 2 (the first flight was 12 and half hrs by the way!!).

At the gates we had to have our passports checked and the person checking my passport looked at my photo and he was like thats not you ( i got my passprt in 2002 which isnt too long ago!!) the major difference is that i had my hair tied up in the passport photo and at that point it wasnt, he actually ended up insisting on seeing another form of id. jus as well i had my driving license so i showed him that then it was all good. the 2nd flight was technically a night flight but for me it was actually a day flight so i didnt sleep the whole way and arrived in melbourne at 7am melbourne time, (7 and half hr flight) and lost a whole 9 hrs in the process!! I'm not jet-lagged at all, i think ill make it thru the day if i jus take it easy then i'll be functioning in aussie time so i jus have to aim to stay awake til bed-time tonight.

So here i am in aussie!! Dottie and Tats met me at the airport and it was soo cool, I actually hadn't seen dottie since feb 2004!!! such a long time. right now i'm at tat's house, jus had a shower..after 24 hrs so not cool!!

Results day

2006-06-29T21:17:00.000+01:00

Today was the day for finding out results for my exams, well actually today they posted the pass list on the notice board ie a list of all the people who passed 2nd year. If your student number doesn't appear on the board it means that you are rewriting at least one module. So i went this morning to check the notice board. I went there thinking well Im sure I passed, i dn't think that any of the exams went so bad that i actually failed, it seemed a bit extreame to me. So i was checking the notice board but still a bit nervous actually and I couldn't find my number and then i kinda started thinking oops wat if???? for sum reason i thought my number would be near the bottom so i had only been checking the bottom, then i finally looked at the top and found it!! and was relieved no doubt.

So technically our actual results get posted on the web over the holiday but i happen to have mine already!! I was taking a walk this afternoon and went passed the business school and bumped into my management accounting lecturer and he asked me how the exams went and i was like well i passed thats all i know for now, then he was like i can show u yr results if you want and i was like cool!! so he wrote down my results for me and well.........a few shokers actually.......

I got an overall 2:1 and missed a first by 2%. I was not happy at all coz i really wanted to get a first overall, i worked towards that and i was so close yet not close enough. I know its something that I can do and so not getting the first was a bit disappointing for me, but i'll get over it. wat makes it even worse is that i got a first last year and first year doesn't even count and now when it really counts i miss.

Oh the shokers....remember financial accounting and the whole government grant drama and the financial instruments coursework which was so complicated? I actually got a first for financial accounting!! i actually couldn't believe that if i had been told i failed financial accounting i would not hav found it that hard to believe and even more shocking is that it was actually my highest mark!! i have no idea how that all worked out and i also got firsts for taxation and information systems and then my lowest mark was management accounting but for me that was actually the easiest exam and i'm left thinking huh?? i do well in financial accounting and don't do so well in management accounting how?? and then auditing well i didnt know wat to expect for that and it turned out ok so its cool, actually it was just management accounting that was the most disappointing for me and its what made me end up with a 2:1....so anyway at least that's it for 2nd year at least i know for sure that i wont be rewriting and next year is a new year, til then...

End of 2nd year...almost

2006-06-27T22:07:00.000+01:00

Its the last week of my 2nd year on friday it will be officially over. Thats means I have 1 more year of uni until I graduate and if next year goes by as quickly as this year did....thats not long at all. Looking back on the year, its been good in many ways and it has been tough in many ways too. It definetly wasn't all rosy. I have learnt a lot over the year, there were many lessons to be learnt and not always easy to take.

At the end of it all, whats left circling in my mind is that it's easy to live for nothing, to do nothing, to hope for nothing. It's easy to live average. But when u decide you will not settle for average and choose to go the extra mile, it will COST u. There will be times when it looks bleak, when giving up seems like an easier option and at the end of the day it all rests on you, wat will you choose?? difficult choice, but one which you will invariably make, whether you consciously make it or its a choice by default. That has been one of the battles I have been faced with over and over this year and have chosen to shrink back rather than to step up more often than i would have liked to, and its a battle I continue to fight.

Anyway, on a totally different note, over the holiday i'm goin to aussie and really looking forward to that!! Had a few hiccups with the visa along the way but Monday is d-day and I'll arrive in melbourne early wednesday morning. The story with the visa, well I sent in my application form and all the required documentation to the Aussie embassy it had to be all done by post. And that was like wen i finished my last exams 3 weeks ago. On the website they said it would take 10 days so i was thinking by the 17th at the vey latest I would have a response and i got my ticket for the 28th of june since flights are cheaper in june than july and the 29th and 30th were already fully booked....didn't quite turn out that way. Now i started try contact the embassy but they wouldn't answer their phones I would just get voicemail and leave messages and I sent emails and got no reply and it was getting really frustrating and the 28th was jus getting closer and closer, i tried everything to get hold of the embassy short of goin to london. But then to cut a long story short, i eventually got hold of the embassy today and by the sound of things they had actually forgotten about my application, so they processed it today and told me they had given me the visa and returned my passport so i should get it tomoro or thursday. I then postponed my flight to monday and had to pay the june/july deficit which wasnt so great, the result is that I won't get to go to perth anymore coz its too expensive and i'm sad about that.

but anyways....ill keep you all posted on adventures in oz

Some photos from the past year

2006-06-22T00:49:00.000+01:00

Entitlement

2006-06-15T00:55:00.000+01:00

Have you ever been on the giving or receiving end of this sort of scenario? (The answer is probably obviously yes, if not the giving end, definetly the receiving end) The scenario: Bernitta wants something that belongs to Michael, be it time, resources, a favour, or whatever. So Bernitta asks Michael. However, Michael doesn't want to to give Bernitta what she is asking for, but won't come right out and say, no, I don't want. Instead Michael invents what he thinks is a valid reason for not giving Bernitta what she wants, when actually no, I don't want is a perfectly valid reason enough. Bernitta knows that Michael has just invented a reason, it's so obvious anyway, so why not just come right out and say it.

If Bernitta is someone who has a hard time accepting a no from other people, she will probably then resort to manipultions and guilt trips in an attempt to get what she wants from Michael, and more often than not, Michael ends up feeling so guilty he just gives in and resents Bernitta. So inventing a "valid" reason may be an attempt to find a reason that won't open him up to manipulations.

Or Michael perceives Bernitta to be someone who can't accept no, coz he is so used to a situation where if someone doesn't get what they want from him they go away and find a person C to tell, "how unreasonable Michael is coz he won't give me what I want" (the fact that it doesn't belong to me and i'm therefore not entitled to it is conveneintly overlooked) Person C only hears Bernitta's side of the story which is probably exaggerated coz she is seeking sympathy and for person C to join her side. So Michael is now "the bad guy" and is left with one of two situ's, give in to person Bernitta when he really doesnt want to, or become the bad guy. it's a lose/lose situation once again.

All of that is just messy anyway, the real issue i think is an issue of ownership and entitlement. it always becomes a problem when people feel they are entitled to something that belongs to someone else or when they feel other people owe them and equally when someone feels they owe everyone or that everyone is entitled to wateva they want from them. the result is a lack of freedom. if it's not yours you cant demand it like its yours. you get situations when you are accused of being selfish coz you won't give up X for a person for wateva reason, but i mean its just as easy to turn around and say the person demanding is being selfish for demanding from me to give up something that belongs to me anyway, but really its more an issue of conflicting wants that need to be resolved more than selfishness, and i still maintain that if its not yours, the decision should not even rest with you. it does nothing for a relationship if you bait someone into giving you wat u want from that person when the person really would rather say no coz then they just end up resenting you, its a lose/lose situation.

i think respect is so important, if you respect people's decisons you give them freedom and you will find people will respect you back, (but not always). there is no love without freedom, there is jus a cycle of suffocation and resentment. the whole entitlement thing is so draining on everyone invloved.

The familiar

2006-06-13T21:29:00.000+01:00

Why is change so difficult? This is something which is so hard for me to understand. Even if the familiar is not necessarily best, the insistance on sticking to it. The familiar is comfortable, it's predictable, u know wats going to happen, you know the final outcome, it is therefore risk free.

To step out and change the course, the new course is unfamiliar, it is therefore unpredictable and more risky. I heard it being put this way once, "i didnt want to leave hell coz i knew the names of all the streets." comfort zones are not necessarily comfortable or safe but they always seem that way.

If u do what you did you will get wat u got. There is nothing worse than holding onto something that doesn't work without doing anything at all to change the outcome, especially when it continues to inflict pain on you. it's like volunteering the pain. why the lack of action? why the inactivity?

The final

2006-06-11T22:44:00.000+01:00

And Nadal wins yet again!!! It was an interesting match i have to say. At the beginning Nadal was so nervous and his level of play was not great at all, he was just hitting the balls all over the show and federer didnt really have to do much. Things were looking really bad in Nadal's camp, it was just not good. He lost the first set 6-1. But this is Nadal we talking about so I knew the score was not going to end like that!! and it didnt. 2nd set, nadal seemed more settled. He started getting into the match and the Nadal we all know and love resurfaced. The turning point was when he was up 1-0 and roger was serving and he was up 40-0. Nadal managed to take that game to deuce and won it! from then it was smooth sailing for Rafa. Roger was just making so many errors, esp with his backhand it just wasnt working for him and the 2nd set was dominated by Rafa with no room for roger to breath! Rafa took the second set 6-1. the first 2 sets the level of play was very one-sided with both players seriously struggling to hold serve.

then came set 3 and i was thinking whoever wins this set will get the edge! Nadal won the set 6-4 and deserved to really as his level of play had raised and remained consistent while roger was pulling out the errors left, right and centre.

then came set 4 which Nadal needed to win the match. he started off up 2-0 breaking roger once and then play continued with both players holding serve til Nadal was up 5-4 and serving for the match. it got to nadal up 30-15 then there was this really long rally where rafa made roger run from one end of the court to the next and roger was getting there! then he somehow managed a defensive dropshot which ended up with both players up at net and nadal now on the defensive. then nadal hit the ball out!!! it could easily hav been 40-15 but it was now 30-30 and rafa went on to lose that game, making it 5-5, at this point the possibility of a 5th set was there and i was like no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i didnt need another 5 hr match like they did in rome. anyway, it ended up as 6-6 and they played a tie break. Roger pulled out the errors once again, leading Rafa to victory, defending his title and denying roger a spot in history...for now. So roger is still yet to win a roland garros title. Rafa now has 2 grand slams and roger was looking for his 8th.

He will have to wait for wimbeldon in a few weeks which he most likely will win. Rafa is not a grass court player so Roger doesnt really have any challengers, unless Nadal surprises us all, he is so determined to do well at wimbeldon, we shall see how far he goes.

Meanwhile roger has now lost 4 matches this whole year and all to Nadal. Interesting!! the whole match roger was very unemotional it was hard to tell wat was goin on with him he almost seemed like he wasn’t there. Usually he will celebrate points in some way or another and when he’s losing he also gets a bit emotional, throwing rackets and as he did in monte carlo, hitting a ball to the sea, which was a bit deep really! Lol! Bit scary! but today, none of that, he just seemed so distant. Its interesting tho nadal when he is losing he doesn’t throw rackets and the like, he is very controlled, on and off court he shows more maturity than a lot of other players and he is jus 20.

The road to the finals saw no1 (roger)v no3 (david nalbandian) in the semis and Roger won that coz david had to retire if it wasn’t for that there is a high change we would not have seen roger in the finals coz he did not play very well and could have lost, they were 1 set all when david retired. The other semis saw no2 nadal and no4 ivan Ljubicic which nadal won really comfortably in 3 sets. So that concludes roland garros, next stop wimbeldon in a few weeks. World cup in the meantime, I am so not a big soccer fan really, ive tried watching it but I just don’t get the hype!! I don’t think its boring tho, just not a huge fan, here everything is about soccer its crazy! When the matches are playing u look outside and not a single person is moving around!! We all know wat everyone is up to! This week ive been watching tennis while everyone else is watching the world cup, clearly on a different page!!

Roland Garros

2006-06-07T11:18:00.000+01:00

The time had to come for more on tennis! Roland Garros (aka french open)is on! Its been an interesting run to the french open, tennis has never been more thrilling!! after aussie open, Nadal was recovered and went on to win in Dubai where he was in the finals with none other than Roger Federer himself. After Dubai was Indian Wells, Nadal got to the semis and his oponent was James Blake which saw a repeat of last year's US open for some reason James is the one person who can consistently get the better of Nadal, on hard court that is, im sure if they were to play on clay, it would be a different story. So the finals saw Federer up against Blake and Roger didnt have a hard time getting through that one. Then there was Miami which Roger won again and Nadal was out in the first round which was a bit unfortunate.

Then came the start of the clay court season when it all got so interesting! First up was Monte Carlo, that was one interesting tournament! Throughout the week it looked like Roger was all set to win, he got through all his earlier oponents with such ease, making them look like amateurs even, it was actually quite deep. The match of that tournament for me tho, had to be against Coria and paul-henri Mathieu, Coria lost the first set and was down something like 4-1 in the 2nd, paul was all set to win that match, he even had about 7 match points but actually went on to somehow lose the match, and Coria had a total of 20 double faults!! how did he do it!! As for Nadal, he got through all the way to the finals but not as easily as roger. Come the finals, initially Nadal was now the one making Federer look like the amateur, he ended up winning the match in 4 sets!

then came Barcelona. in barcelona roger wasnt playing and Nadal won that quite comfortably. After Barcelona came Rome, which saw the most thrilling final to date!! Nadal and Federer once again, they had a 5 hour 5 set showdown!! In the final set, Nadal was down 5-3, Roger had double match point and I was convinced it was all over for Nadal, there was just no way Roger would let double match point go! then he hit 2 forwhands out in a row and it was deuce!! Then Nadal caught up and it went to 6-6 so they had to play a tie-break, in the tie break again, intially it looked like Roger would win, but somehow Nadal did it!! It was just unbelieveable!! Thats tennis for you, its not ove til its ova! The final in rome was important for Nadal coz he was on the verge of making history, the win was his 53rd consecutive win on clay, which equaled the record, and now he has passed it at Roland garros.

which takes us to roland garros, we are now in the quarter/semis. Roger and David Nalbandian are thru to the semis and they will play tomoro and Nadal is playing in the quarter finals right now as im writing this its still the first set and hez up 3-2, hopefully he will win!!

Roger has won all the grand slams except for Roland Garros, the furthest he's eva been is the semis which was last year where he lost to Nadal! Nadal won last year and is looking to defend his title and continue to extend the winning streak. Both Nadal and federer would want to win this so bad, if they end up in the finals together which is highly likely, its gonna be a match and a half, possibly more thrilling than Rome!! Roger has only lost 3 matches this whole year so far and all 3 losses have been to Nadal!!

I hope Nadal wins!! If there is a player that deserves to win on the court it has to be him, I love watching his matches for a lot of reasons. He is such an impressive player, he doesnt have the greatest serve in the world, his greatest weopon is his topspin forehand, he almost always has to work for every point and he can run! He gets to the most impossibe balls which u think are clear winners and just shocks everybody including his opponents! It must be so frustrating i think, U hit wat u are convinced is a clear winner and it comes straight back at u! In Monte Carlo there was the one rally when Nadal was playing against Coria where Coria hit 3 straight would hav been winners had it been any other player and they all came straight back to him, and Coria's reaction was "shooting" Nadal with his racket!! And another thing about Nadal is that he doesn't give up! its not over til its ova, he fights right to the end. His matches are so exciting as well coz everytime he plays a great shot, he jumps up so high, does the whole fist pumping and yells vamos!! He knows how to celebrate a good point! If anyone thinks tennis is boring, i think if u watch the roland garros finals, u are most likely to change yr mind! that is if it really is nadal and roger in the finals, roger is playing David in the semis and there is a chance that David will win, in rome roger was up against david in the semis again and in the decider set it was 6-6 so they had to go for a tie-break which roger won 7-4 so it was really close!!

so anyway, more after the finals.....

Exams

2006-06-06T18:17:00.000+01:00

So I have now finally finished my exams and it is just sooo good. I think its a bit unfortunate that exam period its kinda like u want time to go so fast and you just want it to all be over, its hard to really enjoy all those moments. A run down of how the whole period went for me..

Ok had financial accounting first and it was the exam i felt the least good about, we all knew it was going to be a challenge. There was a lot to learn, a whole year's work!! And the thing with the financial accounting exam as well is that the marking is strict so you have to know everything in depth since anything could come up in the exam. the exam was divided into 3 sections, A was a compulsory question and we knew that it would be a consolidation question and that was worth 30 marks. That part was fine. then section B we had to choose one numerical question out of 2. wen i was studying for the exam i decided to do all the numerical topics and skip leases coz i didnt quite get the whole lease thing and i figured if leases came up in the exam, i would hav no choice but to opt for the alternative...and guess wat came up in the exam? leases!!! the alternative was a redemption of shares question and i found that interesting that that question was in the exam coz we did that topic just before Christmas vac and the tutorial was the 1st week of 2nd term, on the tuesday. so wen we got to the tut, it turned out that no one in the class had actually done the work!! So Kevin (our lecturer-who also set the exam) was not impressed at all! Ok i can see why he was upset but to be fair it was christmas holiday and we also had our january exams to study for!! So i just wonder if he put that question in the exam to get back at us!! so anyway i ended up having to do that question.

then came section C which was my nightmare in that exam, it was a case of pick 2 essays out of 3, each essay worth 25 marks, this is the area where in depth knowledge was like mandetory in order to do well. so i reasoned that I would leave out creative accounting and if it so happend to come up, i would hav no choice but to do the other 2...so guess wat came up in section c?? none other than creative accounting, so im like ok fine, ill jus have to do the other 2 then, the one question had to do with income measurement and i did that, then the other question was on government grants!!! The thing with gvnt grants is that we did it under tangible assets and it was literally half a page of our notes for that lecture which is like one-tenth of the lecture notes for that week. I didnt even read gvnt grants coz in my mind there was no way we could be asked to produce a 25 mark essay on that....and did i just receive the shock of my life!! I went into the exam hardly knowing wat a government grant was and i was sitting there trying to produce a 25 mark essay on something i knew close to nothing about. the idea is that we are suppose to write 5 pages for our essays. Wat saved me was the fact that we could take iGAAP into the exam which is like all the international accounting standards. I opened GAAP in the exam and started to read up on government grants so I could produce an essay, there is technically not suppose to be anytime for that, in the end i produced a 2 page essay, total disaster. walking out the exam, everyone was schocked about the gvnt grant thing and the general trend ws that everyone was frantically paging thru GAAP in the exam! so that was financial accounting with all its drama, I walked out that exam and I was just like i cant believe wats jus happened, i jus hope i didnt totally mess it all up.

then the next day was taxation and that was generally fine, no nasty surprises or anything like that. Then it was the week-end which was pretty much spent reading auditing and that was quite ok too and yesterday was management accounting and it wasnt too bad either and here I am all done now. yay!!!

To all the readers..

2006-06-06T18:13:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to say thank-you all who read my blog. Its good to know that you do read and thanx for all your comments that you leave for me!!

Quick update

2006-05-17T00:01:00.000+01:00

The very good news is i'm feeling so much better again and all healthy which is just great! Meanwhile, I have my first exam next thursday, 3hrs of financial accounting. And time just happens to be flying, a lot of it being spent in the library!! when it comes to exams I always wanna try predict wats gonna cum in the exam, just to make it more interesting!! this year it's proving difficult, but i hav this really strong feeling inventories and construction contracts are coming up as an essay question in the exam next week!! i'm so convinced!! will let you know if it does turn out that way. I have another exam the day after, taxation, yet another 3 hrs, actually they pretty much all are 3hrs. then got auditing on the 29th and management accounting on the 5th of june, then i'm done!!

And as for my option for next year, I ended up deciding on doing spanish. I figured it would be great to learn a new language and it's something I really want to do, i enjoy languages so i figured why not give it a go. only prob is ive been discouraged from doin it by quite a few people, the reasoning is that it will be difficult and it could end up pulling my overall degree grade down, i know it won't be easy but i think i can do it and i really want to at least try, if i don't ill never know for sure, so im gonna go for it. ill also take up economics of management strategy provisionally incase i feel the need to change. we'll have to see hw it all goes next year.

other than that, nothing much else in this camp, can't wait til exams are ova!!! U probly wpn't hear from me til after then i think im gonna be exceptionally busy til the 5th of june....

Coughing like crazy

2006-05-08T12:17:00.000+01:00

The fever and the sore throat eventually materialised into a cough! I felt fine on thursday and then friday the fever symptoms came back, I would feel a bit tired but I wasn't feeling so ill that I couldn't do anything. Then I started coughing a bit and it just got worse over the week-end, this morning was especially bad coz i woke up at 6 and I was coughing non-stop for like 2 hrs. Eventually I calmed down and just went back to bed coz I was so worn out! So i went to see the doctor coz now i'm thinking is this still just a cough or something more!! the doctor said it's just a flu and it will go away soon. I just hope soon is very soon coz i hav so much to do! Ive been told to get lots of rest, which hopefully I will actually do....

One down

2006-05-04T19:13:00.000+01:00

Audit assignment done and handed in! It was actually a group assignment which is good in that more is better, the work load is greatly reduced. Now just for the presentation. Had a bit of a hiccup getting there tho..my internet was down the last 2 days and we were supposed to be coodinating the final bits over msn and so i had to go to the library, only prob is yesterday morning I woke up with a fever, I was just fluctuating from hot to cold, the temperature outside was just fine and I was shivering! I was in bed with a hot water bottle and still freezing which was a bit deep actually. And I had a sore throat to go with it. So I had to spend the morning in the library shivering away trying to finish the asignment. Its so wierd, i never get sick and this year Ive been sick twice already. Anyway, I feel much better now, don't really know what yesterday was all about. Meanwhile, I got 3 weeks til my first exam, its actually unreal! No pressure tho, it will all work out just fine Im sure.

On another note, I have to choose options for next year. 3rd yr is the only year I get options and it's only one as well (or 2 one semester options) which i wont even consider coz it just means more exams in january. So im thinking about what to opt for. On the one hand I want to do Economics principles and Policies, I really enjoyed economics last year and i think I will really enjoy EPP and also the other advantage is if i do decide to do a masters it will be helpful. On the other hand i'm thinking of doing something out of the business school like either contract or tort law or even french. I refuse to do a dissertation tho, i dont know if i can pull it off all that well so i dont really wanna go there. decisions decisions.............and i have 3 weeks to decide as well....

Diary of a mad black woman

2006-04-26T12:56:00.000+01:00

I finally watched the movie! I wanted to watch if for a really long time coz it was supposedly really good, and I have to agree, it is.........

I thought the story line was really interesting and quite deep actually, if you havn't watched the movie, be warned, spoiler coming right up!! So its kinda centered around Helen, a houdewife who has been married to her husband Charles i think was his name for like 18 years or something like that. Then one day Helen comes home and she finds all her stuff is being removed from the house and and so she goes to her cupboard and finds a whole new wardrobe, so she's thinking that Charles brought all the stuff for her and so she picks out a dress and puts it on thinking maybe that they are going out for a romantic dinner or something of the sort.

Then Charles comes home with his girlfriend and basically there is this really dramatic scene where he orders Helen to leave the house and she refuses then he actually literally drags her out the house and locks her out, while his girlfriend is watching. For starters i'm thinking, girl, this may have been a good time to quit while you are still ahead, like seriously, the time was probably gonna come when he would do to her what he had just done to his wife of 18 years. But then again, she was just in for the money so thats explains why that didn't bother her.

So waiting outside is Orlando who Charles has hired to drive Helen where she wanted to go, and he is standing there watching all this taking place. So Helen gets in the truck and she is MAD and taking it all out on Orlando. She decides to go to her grandmother's house and thats where she lives while she rebuilds her life over agian.

So thats the basic plot. Anyway, Tatenda did i really interesting analysis of the themes in the movie on november 18 2005 (thats so long ago!) on her blog http://mudainc.blogspot.com it inspired me to want to watch the movie so go have a look! i have no idea how to hide the link and and be able to write something like "here" and then when you click on "here" it opens the web page....how does that work?????

I'm back!

2006-04-13T00:17:00.000+01:00

I got back from Cape Town early this morning, left last night. It seemed like such a short journey, I was so tired when I got onto the plane, the moment i finished eating supper I knocked out! It was actually quite deep, the next thing I knew we were being served breakfast and had 2 more hours to go. Usuaully I dont even sleep while im travelling but last night was definetly an exception. Atfer having breakfast, I fell asleep again and only woke up when the wheels hit the ground. i then had another 2 and half hr journey to northampton, which is where im at right now which i slept the whole way again! Now im like really wide awake, and its half past midnight but I also gained an hour so technically im still operating at half eleven, but ya handina hope!

Ok so a bit of an update as to what Ive been up to for the past 3.5 weeks.........I was staying with Muffy for the 1st week or so, then I stayed with Bash and then I went to Joburg and came back again. When I got to Cape Town it was still term time, so for the first week that I was there I actually went to lectures and all posing as a student! besides the fact that I was suppose to be on holiday and goin to lectures is not exactly holiday...it was quite cool, I got to experience life as a UCT student, quite a different system to what I'm used to!

It was cool that I got to spend some time with everyone again, I also bumped into people I hadnt seen for ages who I knew in the past and got to meet other new people as well. As far as seeing the sites, I actually didnt do much sightseeing. Tine and Farai sort of took me up table mountain, and i say sort of coz we didnt make it to the top! The day we went, it rained, it was the only day that it rained the entire time I was there!! So the weather was just a hater that day!! Other than that, got to go the beach at Camp's bay and to the waterfront.

I really enjoyed the time I was in SA, it went by quite quickly though. still got a week left of my holiday, gonna be in northampton for the next week. I actually thought that perhaps it would be warmer now, but no such luck, its still as cold as ever. I really appreciated the Cape Town weather, it as so sunny! and windy as well most of the time but the sun compensated for that!

End of term

2006-03-18T10:49:00.000Z

Yesterday was officially the last day of term, and not a moment too soon if you ask me! Had my usual 3 hrs of taxation til one o clock and then it was all over, for now at least. Yesterday afternoon was hectic though, and I had so much to get through in so little time. In the evening me and osme of my friends had dinner together then we went to watch pink panther at the cinema. All I can say is Ive definetly seen better! i wouldnt watch that movie again, but i wasnt really expecting much from it either so i suppose its ok.

the movie finished at 11 and by the way, i hadnt even started packing yet! Got back home and we were jus chillin, and the guys played xbox! then we started undoing my hair, which took just under an hour, so eventually I actually started packing at 1am this morning! I got to bed at 3 and im suppose to leave to go to the airport at 12:15, almost ready!! still got an hr and half or so! So ill be off to SA tonight!! really looking forward to it, will be gone for almost 4 weeks....may or may not update the blog....

Ice Skating in Cardiff

2006-03-14T17:28:00.000Z

On Saturday we (international society) went for a day trip to Cardiff. It takes about 2 hours on the coach, we left at about 10:30 and were back at 11:00pm, quite a long day, but twas really good! when we arrived we basically just all explored the city for a few hours before we actually went ice skating at the indoor skating rink.

I had never been ice skating before, first time! and all i can say is that me and water in any form just dont mix!!!! I can't swim and I can't skate! The whole balancing thing just seemed to elude me, the moment i started to move, i would just slip, if i didn't have people holding my hand the whole time, i probably wouldnt be able to walk right now, coz i could have potentially fallen like a hundred times over, it was just deep!

And, not being stereotypical or anything, but most of the other black people just had a bit of a hard time too! Not as bad as me to be fair, but it just didn't come so easy either! Which is just deep! But we still had a good time, i really enjoyed it and would definelty do it again, maybe just maybe i might get the whole balancing thing goin on!

Gonna be 21 soon!

2006-03-02T22:51:00.000Z

We are like so in March already, time really flies. That means its 22 days til my birthday, til i'm officially 21! It seems so hard to believe, i can still remember a time when it seemed so far away! So wat am I doing for my 21st? Don't really have solid plans yet, all I know is I don't wanna do something cliche! And if there is anyone still at a loss as to wat to get me for my birthday....centre court tickets to wimbeldon won't be a bad place to start! hahaha jus kidding, but please, by all means, don't let me stop you!

Ok so its like 11:00 at night, ive jus been reading 2 chapters on corporation tax for tomorrow's lecture, thought i'ld give the blog some air time while i take a break, dont really have anything significant to post today. I got 3 more weeks til end of term, well actually 2 since tomoro is the last day of this week! which is just so great, it's jus reached a point where at the moment everyone has so much work to do, assignments to hand in and you can really see that people are feeling the pressure, Ive had a bit of a cold this week, it hasnt really affected me that bad, i jus refuse to be sick, i like cant even afford that coz i got so much to do, so ive jus been ignoring the cold like its not there, and its working! ive had times when i even forget that i have the cold. I still havnt finished my 4000 word essay, i also have a group project to do which just seems to be taking forever and a presentation to prepare for, all assessed as well! so its jus a bit hectic!

ps, i put up some london pics and paintballing pics on the london and paintballing posts so u can check those out if u havnt already seen them!

The weather!

2006-02-28T18:23:00.000Z

Haha i'm actually writing about the weather, that could be potentially quite sad! But today was just so wierd, this morning the sun was shinning and it was actually quite warm. and then from no where, the weather jus changed. it started raining, usually if it rains in winter it will drizzle but today it was actually pouring and then the sun came back again. then this afternoon it started snowing and it wasnt just a few snow drops, it was pouring snow, i know thats not quite right but how do you refer to a lot of snow? it doesnt pour does it?? i don't know!

anyway, that was all in one day, the weather doing complete 360s for us. meanwhile, im in the process of writing a 4000 word essay on accounting treatments for financial instruments! Its actually hectic coz the essay is based on 2 international accounting standards, IAS 32 and IAS 39. now IAS 39 is so controvertial it's like so difficult to understand, any article you find on IAS 39 starts by pointing out how complicated it is and im busy thinking mmmm, not helping! then there is the terminology used in the standard, its also very complex, most of the terms are defined but the definitions mean so little im like how about a defintion of the definition?? It's quite a challenge I have to say, probably the most demanding essay ive had to write. Its worth 20% of the module so at least 20% isnt that much. I'm sitting on 2000 words at the moment, still got another 2000 to go!!

Our Advantage

2006-02-25T14:09:00.001Z

So i was in my taxation lecture yesterday and the lecture was about rates of tax with respect to income for companies. So what happened was that a few years ago, a new tax law was passed that businesses with profits less than 10 000 pounds would get tax relief. What then happened was that sole-traders and partnerships started to incorporate to take advantage of this new legislation since they got taxed on all their profits. This obviously created serious problems for the revenue coz many people were able to avoid tax. They realised it of course and have changed the law. So i was thinking I bet that's one mistake they won't be repeating in a hurry.

Then I got thinking, on a personal level you make mistakes and if you are wise you wil choose to learn from them so you don't repeat them in the future and you can also learn from other people's mistakes thus avoiding making them yourself. And i was thinking, this holds true on a National level as well, Africa has the advantage of history. More developed countries have gone through a lot to get to where they are and they had to make mistakes for themselves to realise what works and what doesn't. We can actually learn from their mistakes and we don't have to make the mistakes ourselves!!

I would love so much to see change, to see things begin to turn around and i also realise it will begin with the people, in the hearts of individuals and its gonna take a plan which people have their hearts in. But before we even go there, people have to want and believe that Africa can be restored. I know I like go on and on about this, but im starting to see posibilities more and more and the more people who can slowly start to see the possibilities the better don't you think?

Private victory preceeds public victory

To live or to exist?

2006-02-22T15:38:00.000Z

Some people live, others just merely exist. What is the point of life if you are just going to exist? What makes the difference between true living and mere existence? When I think of existence, I think, being partially present, sleep-walking through life, going through the motions. Your life is never truly your own. Your beliefs, thoughts and perhaps even feelings are all adopted, they aren't truly yours. You go through life burdened with all these things you feel that you HAVE to do but you don't really want to. You go through life fulfilling all these endless expectations from people, some whom you don't even like or who don't actually even care about you coz you feel you need to have everyone's approval or you need to please them.

You do things you hate, and you continue to complain, you do nothing to change your condition. You never really tell how you feel because you are scared of how people will respond to you or you don't want to rock the boat. You never try something new because you are afraid to fail or you are afraid that people will citicise you. At the end of the day, your life is a burden, not a priviledge. Somewhere in there you lose touch with who you really are. You are left asking, who am I? That's the consequence of living a life defined from the outside in. You accept a lifestyle that forces you to ignore who you really are. In the end it's like you are on a merry go round, spinning too fast to hold on and too fast to jump off.

There will always be people who don't approve. If you constantly need other people's approval, you never do anything worthwhile. You can't please everyone, there will always be at least one person who is unimpressed. There will always be critics and haters, you can't change that. To live in fear is not to live at all. Fear blocks you from truly experiencing life. When you are fully present to people, you give them the chance to love you completely. As Paul says, without love you are nothing.

Why settle for less when you can have more? To not be true to yourself involves less of a risk, granted, but its hardly worth it, you just basically live a lie. More often than not to be true to yourself you have to fight for it, e.g. you will find people that try to control you be it directly or indirectly through manipulations and guilt trips and its up to you decide to stand your ground and do what you feel you need to. That takes courage.

True living begins when you decide you will not play the role of a coward.

Paintballing

2006-02-19T20:10:00.000Z

I went paintballing yesterday afternoon. Intsoc organized the event and there were 30 of us who went along so we had 15 in each team. It rained the whole of yesterday by the way and so it was paintballing in the rain. very muddy and slippery so there was the issue of trying to make sure u dont slip and fall. We had our first round and intially I was actually quite scared. I had been told over and over that being hit by one of the paintballs is painful and it leaves u bruised, so my imagination went a bit wild. So first round i think i lasted about 5 minutes before I got shot, twice within a space of like a second! the first bullet hit my helmet but i actually felt the force! the second one hit me on my hip and it hit a bone, that was painful!!

Round 2 we played a different game and this time round the fear had dissolved the pain from the last bullet didnt last that long so i was like ok, i can do this. I actually managed to survive the whole game without being shot! then round 3 i survived til the last 30 seconds, the bullet that shot me hit me on my leg it wasn't even sore, but it was quite interesting coz the person who shot me, somehow managed to get quite close to me while i wasnt lookin so it was a case of i turned around and saw a gun pointing at me, and there was nothing i could do to get away. i was jus thinkin imagine that being a real life situ, that would jus be so deep.

Overall it was a really good afternoon, i really enjoyed it, definetly something different!

Sightseeing in London

2006-02-12T13:31:00.000Z

I spent the whole day yesterday in London. International society organised the trip and 48 people could go. It was an extreamly long day, we went by coach and it takes 4 hrs to get to London by coach. So we left at 6:45am and got back at 1:00am. We got to London at about 11 and went on a tour of Tower Bridge. Then we went on a cruise on the Thames from Tower Bridge to Westminister, where Big Ben is at. The cruise was so cool coz the view of London from the Thames is so gorgeous, especially of London bridge and the london eye.

We then went to Covent Garden and to Oxford Street for a bit and at the end of the day we went to the Tate Modern Art Museum. On the wholeI really enjoyed the trip, it was so cold tho but like whats new, its always cold!! I was helping coordinate the trip and it was quite a mission trying to keep tabs on 48 people in Central London on Saturday afternoon. London is so busy saturday afternoon u can hardly move, its jus deep.

Something I always notice whenever I'm in London is some of the architecture, it's jus amazing. But London is so squashed up as well, every last piece of land is built up. so i was just thinking of Zim. There is just so much idle land which has so much potential. If the infrastructure in the whole of Zimbabwe could be developed to look like some of the infrastructure in London, my goodness!!! Because there is so much land, it all wouldnt have to be so squashed up either. There is so much potential energy stored up in our land seriously, the possiblilities are just endless. Will we be around to see just some of those possibilities become reality? I hope and I pray.

University Business Challenge

2006-02-07T22:24:00.000Z

To answer the question what was i doing in Portsmouth? IBM and Learning Dynamics run the University Business Challenge. Basically Universities enter teams of 5 people into this business challenge. For 6 weeks we had to act as Management consultants for a company( a fictitious one) in our group of 5. We had several decisons we had to make each week and about the whole operation of the company. We competed against 8 other teams and then at the end of the 6 weeks, the 2 teams with the most profit go through to the semis. So our group came 2nd in our divison so we went through to the semi finals which were at the Royal Navy in Portsmouth.

We left yesterday at about 5 in the evening. Another team from exeter also made it to the semis so there were 10 of us. we hired a mini bus to go down and Ben (one of the guys in my grp) drove us down, quite a long journey (3 hrs!). At least Ben knew Portsmouth really well so getting lost wasnt an issue. We arrived at about 8:30 and we stayed at a travelodge hotel. We went out into the town for dinner which was really cool, we didnt jus eat near the hotel. Portsmouth is a port i suppose as the name suggests and there were ships all over and they are like so massive!! It was cool we got to see at least a bit of the town, although it was dark!

Then this morning we went off to the royal navy for the challenge. We had another company to act as management consultants for but this time we had less time to make decisons, we went from having a whole week in the first round to havin only an hr per decision period in the semis, so it was quite interesting, we had to digest a lot of info really quickly. the company was a mobile phone company which was selling phones which enabled users to get up to date information on sports in the UK. We also had the option on expanding into France and Germany and aslo into selling health information and diet information! In between the decision periods we did other exercises and we had to swop team members so we could get to work with other people we didn't know which was really good.

I was really impressed by the ideas that everyone as a whole was able to come up with, it was brilliant. At the end of the day we had to come up with a logo for our companies and act out an advert to sell our product, jus for fun. We called our company infone, playing on the info and the fone element haha! our logo was infone but the I was a mobile phone with a dot on it. and then our advert was jus crazy, we made up sum crazy song which rhymed by the way and the tune was sum tune we made up! it was so hilarious tho! Everyone's logos and adverts were quite OG it was really good!

so the idea is that the winners of the semis go through to the finals. we didnt win, the team from manchester won, they were all girls and they were asians. Its amazing coz the asians are the ones who always do well in the competition which is actually quite interesting. On the whole it was a really good experience tho! From the whole road trip, gettin to know everyone i was with to the actual challenge and learning from everyone else who was there as well stretching my own mind too and being able to go to Portsmouth, never been there before! I didnt really know most of the people I was with, I met 5 of them yesterday, i find that i find it less comfortable initially around people i dont know. Being an introverted sort of person, its more of challenge for me than perhaps it is for other people. Its so tempting to want to stick to the familiar, there is an illusion of safety in that I suppose but you continuosly get what u got. its predictable. new experiences are always good, i wonder why i tend to want to avoid them, its so wierd.

We finished the day at 5:30 and drove back to exeter, yet another 3 hrs. got back at about 9:30. The good news is the water situ has improved slightly, we jus cant drink it or use it for cooking so thats quite good. Bad news is, i missed 3 hrs of financial accounting and 2 hrs of management accounting today. I dont like missing lectures coz it means i hav to read the work on my own, I prefer to have the lecturer explainin it. but thankfully, coz of technology, it is actually possible to record the lectures so its not all bad!

Diesel in the resevoir

2006-02-06T12:55:00.000Z

I woke up this morning and went to the kitchen and there were signs all over saying that we shouldn't drink the water coz someone put diesel in the resevoir. So my first reaction was, who is the bright spark who put diesel in the resevoir? what were they thinking?? And then it hit me, there goes that issue of avoiding taking responsibility once again. I mean its done, the diesel is in the resevoir whether i like it or not, looking for someone to blame won't make it go away. Make a plan to solve the problem!!

So further enquiry revealed that we actually cant use the water to shower, brush your teeth, cook, drink or for anything really, although i had already showered and brushed my teeth before i saw the notice.(oops) and it should be the case for the next 5 days. What we can do in the meantime is collect water in buckets from other sources and use that instead, which i will do on Wednesday coz im off to Portsmouth today, back late tomoro night, fill u in when i get back!

The stigma surrounding standards

2006-02-04T12:54:00.000Z

We are now living in a society where it is considered "conservative" and "up-tight" to have standards of any sort. What people mostly associate with standards is "religion." I went to a debate a few weeks ago and the motion was "religion does more harm than good." the debate didnt really go very far to be fair coz what exactly is meant by religion was not defined.

But i know this much, when people think religion, they think a whole bunch of laws you have to live by and you are measured against these laws and most of the laws are "moralistic" kinda laws. And in that i would totally agree that religion does more harm than good. I think the stigma surrounding standards has a lot to do with this view.

Coz its like so, since no human being is perfect, no one is is ever going to be able to keep the law 100% . Since in such a legalistic environment, the law becomes the measure, to fall short results in guilt, and the guilt is on-going, chronic guilt. Guilt in such a way is paralysing. So if u remove all standards, there is no longer a law to break and you no longer have to constantly feel guilty.

Getting rid of standards is therefore an attempt to find freedom, but actually what it unknowingly achieves is more bondage. Lets face it, whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, the universe is ordered in such a way that actions have consequences, (while u can choose an action, u cant choose its consequences, consequences are governed by natural law), you reap what you sow, thats just the way things are.

For example, if you aren't honest it becomes difficult for people to trust you and trust is a foundation for good relationships, to take a really simple example. the point is, wat its now become is if you lie you a bad person and the person next to you who doesnt lie or perhaps tells less lies is a good person or a better person. So people measure themselves and each other against the laws. not measuring up becomes a crime on top of the already supposed crime. its not about measuring up, its aboout giving you more freedom because you realise you can avoid nasty consequences by choosing certain actions. And if you do mess up, u can get up and keep goin, granted u may have to live with the conseqences of your actions, whether the consequences are large or small,e.g. if u steal a car, you may go to jail for a while, but life still goes on. A free person loves better. 1 corinthians 13 kinda love, which is "the most excellent way."

The thing with getting rid of all standards is that the consequences of people's actions unfortunetly don't fall on them only most of the time, they tend to affect other members of society in varying degrees and for that u gotta be concerned when society starts to promote let people do wat they want, allow them to express themselves.

emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree

Impressions....gossip?????

2006-01-31T13:47:00.000Z

People want to appear better that they really are and better than the person next to them and measure up to all these unspoken rules as to what makes an acceptable human being. What is it about needing to "look good" infront of everyone? what also fuels the need to make an impression may also be the fact that people "talk", this talking is aka gossip which is in effect discussing something that isnt any of your business.

So what is it about other people's business that makes it so attractive to people? Is it a diversion so that you don't have to live your own life? Is it so that you can feel better about yourself and somehow more "superior" coz at least you didn't rob a bank to buy your house or wateva?

I used to watch studio 263 in early 2004 before i came to uni. For those who don't know what studio 263 is, its a local drama/soap in zim. What i noticed about studio is that it depicts society as it is. So there is this chic in studio, she was 16 at the time and she was having an affair with her teacher, I actually cant remember if he was still married at the time but thats irrelevent anyway so she got pregnant and also got HIV in the process. When her mom found out the first thing she said was "What are people going to say!" I remember saying to my mom no way, of all the things she could have said!! my mom said to me, u didnt grow up in a neighbourhood where everyone knows everyone. people talk, they make your business their's.

Its not just a zimbabwe society thing i mean its the same here in England, although the only difference will be what is considered "scandalous"

We are not suppose to live our lives for other people, life is not one big show. When you are controlled the external, you become an actor on a stage. An act is not real! As my friend Akeobi put it, "When you play YOUR game according to the rules of others YOU lose, my game, my rules." So what is it about making an impression? what is it about other people's business??

And the winner is.....

2006-01-29T21:32:00.000Z

Roger Federer no doubt, no surprises there. His 7th grand slam, although he still hasnt won french open yet, and as long as Nadal is around that could be a difficult accomplishment for him. Whats more surprising however is his opponent in the finals, marcos Baghdatis from cyprus. He was unseeded and is ranked no54, he upset Andy Roddick, no2 seed, David Nalbandian, no4 seed and Ivan Ljubicic no7 seed to get to the finals, imagine! quite an impressive performance. ive never watched him play a match actually, yet again he hasnt been around all that long, last yr aussie open was his first grand slam and he was out first round at wimbeldon, french open and us open and now his 2nd aussie open and he was in the finals.

Amelie Mauresmo won the women's finals, although it wasnt all that clear cut since Justine had to retire in the 3rd set and in the semi's Amelie played Kim and Kim also had to retire in the 3rd set, which is a bit deep really! I was hoping Kim would win tho.

and as for our fellow zimbabweans, kevin reached the semis for the doubles and Cara reached the quarter finals for the doubles. Still representing for our country! Kevin and Cara went out first round in the mixed doubles tho and they were the top seeds ooo.

so ya thats the aussie open done and finished so ill give you all a break from reading about tennis! i think people who like soccer are even more fanatic actually.