Vacation Begins

These CrossFit outfits can be a bit of a funny thing to the outside world. Especially the knee socks. I can’t believe I forgot in my last blog post the most amusing thing from the entire week. I was leaving the gym and I saw these two guys in a car staring at me like I had three heads. I was wondering to myself what was wrong with them and then I happened to look down at what I was wearing and I understood.

I also seem to recall a certain conversation in Los Angeles where I said I would never wear one of these CrossFit Games outfits out on the town. Well, I happened to be wearing the same outfit (complete with a huge 113 logo) on Wednesday of last week when I got home and got a message from my friend Sam to ask her if I wanted to meet her for a non-drink at &Union (a local bar). I hadn’t seen her since she was back from London so, one thing led to another and I didn’t bother to change before heading out. I did, however, put on long pants so the entire place wouldn’t stare at me.

So, never say never. Like when I titled my post ‘Summer’ and that same Wednesday it deigned not only to be cold (13 with a high of 18), but there was even HAIL. Pretty cool.

Anyway as is usual when going to &Union ran into some people I knew (note to self: do not go to &Union after training without at least fixing your hair ….). And is usual when hanging with Sam, met some interesting people, one of whom turned out to be a bit of a major local celebrity. Closest analogy I can come up with is the South African version of Ryan Seacrest: (“He’s mostly famous for being famous.” “Oh, like Paris Hilton?” “No, he actually has talent.”). I, of course, had no idea who he was. It’s always more fun that way, no? When I told the girls at work the next day, I was put right into my place.

The next evening we went to a rooftop party with Taxi Violence and an open bar. And some dangerous people. Tequila shots are always dangerous, and it’s amazing how easily one turns into four. But Taxi Violence, you might remember, is a band I was quite impressed by when I first heard them. What I apparently didn’t mention is that on the plane ride back from the United We Stand competition in Durban my teammate Grant and I were sitting next to some guys who looked for all the world like a rock band, but I didn’t recognise them. I think we even asked them if they were a rock band. Well, they didn’t really answer (probably insulted that we didn’t recognise them).

Well, turns out one of the guys from the band recognised ME, and came to talk to me after they finished playing. Now how is that for topsy-turvy world?

Friday morning we had an in-gym competition at an evil time of 8am. On a public holiday. When the entire city was going crazy partying the night before. Well, my body did not want to train on that day. I couldn’t even jump down off the box and I literally wanted to quit early into the workout. Not a good scene.

But I wanted to redeem myself the next day in the team workout except that didn’t exactly work out according to plan because for one reason or another none of my teammates was able to make it and so I spent the entire time fuming because I wished I was somewhere else on that morning, and I was in the mood for a hard workout. Obviously my competitive nature gets the better of me sometimes and even when it’s a competition that doesn’t count for anything it absolutely kills me not to be competitive to the point where I actually don’t even try very hard. I should really work on that, because that’s not the sort of attitude of a person I would want to train around, actually. Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time, right?

But Mona redeemed the day for me by coaching me at her gym on my squat clean and snatch. We did technique work of clean drops and squat snatches. It’s always good to have different coaches who know what they are doing. Case in point: I knew I was often pulling with my arms and not jumping on the clean. Turns out I was also not shrugging at all, and on the snatch when I thought the bar was coming too far out from my body it actually wasn’t. I hadn’t practiced squat snatch in literally months so it was quite nice to see how easy the positioning actually felt with light weights.

Later that afternoon I took Oriel out to a last dinner (& ice cream) in Camps Bay, and then to the airport. She’s off to Colombo next and I honestly can’t wait to hear about her next adventure. Speaking of adventures, this week was the end of the official working year for Heart in 2011. We got our new Heart Capital web site live (mine is also live but I need to write some content urgently…), and we had our official end of year party. I also took over running the Hub on a day-to-day basis because nature abhors a vacuum and a business can’t run without management. I can only hope that I can get it to profitability soon enough to find someone to take over that job because it’s not one that I particularly want. And thus my career as a turnaround specialist begins.

But things are going to be a bit different in 2012, and in a lot of really good ways. I’m excited.

I’m also thinking that I do definitely need this vacation. I even need a vacation from the start of my vacation. I was so happy on Friday we went to the beach and came home and watched a movie, then Saturday I declined several invitations to go out to this huge party that was happening and instead we went to bed at 10pm. But I was just reading this blog posthttp://whole9life.com/2011/12/the-question/ and thinking to myself well, when the going gets tough do I crumble? I will usually pretend I don’t care or will even sabotage my own performance. So I plan to drink on New Year’s and so I don’t want to start my detox until then. But must I really use this as an excuse to eat ice cream, cookies, and drink tequila?

It’s raining as I write this. I’ll take that as a metaphor for washing away the things that aren’t working. Just as soon as my toe recovers (I dropped a weight on it), I’ll be back at practicing those double-unders for 15 minutes a day. Half-assed is not good enough. At least not for me. Not for CrossFit. Not for work. Not for friendships and relationships. Don’t settle. Don’t ever settle, right? If I’m going to do something I want to do it well. End of story.

• “He was, believe it or not, which is why he is no longer.’ – Rob
• “Well you didn’t do a very good job!!” – Ellie
• “Colin said he thought you were interesting. But he was really high.” – Paul (how’s THAT for a backhanded compliment??)
• “I’m already hating tomorrow.” – Paul
• “I’m already hating tomorrow.” – Ellie
• “But you listen. That’s what I like about you.” – Mona
• “I’d like to see what my parents did with 50 cows.” – Oriel

Stress

When I absorb (i.e. actually notice such that it sinks in!) new information, I re-evaluate things. If necessary, I try and take measures to change my actions as a result.

Also when I actually commit to doing something, I generally follow through. My latest such project is related to cleaning up my lifestyle, having learned last weekend about the endocrine system. This, for the uneducated (which was me a week ago) refers to the system that controls our hormones. It’s kind of like a complementary version of the nervous system. Long story short, it can get out of whack due to stress, toxic chemicals, and poor food choices.

Most of us, including me until pretty recently, live life at high alert. High stress levels combined with chronic lack of sleep and often poor diet choices and insufficient exercise put our adrenals on high alert. The physiological reason for this is survival: when surviving a lion attack you need to be on high alert to make sure she’s not coming after you again, and to warn everyone else. But this wasn’t designed for long periods of time. You can feel it (or at least I can), when you’re under stress.  

After prolonged periods, bad things happen: our bodies cannot absorb nutrients or repair properly, and consequently we get run down, sick, pre-mature aging occurs. In combination with other stressors we pre-dispose ourselves to such wonderful things as diabetes, cancer, depression, etc. Obvious, yes, but sometimes we miss the obvious. Like you hear all the time about people with thyroid malfunction or adrenal fatigue. Why do these things occur? Stress, diet, toxic chemicals. Yes, we all know this. Yes, it’s like the sugar you know is bad for you but you put in your coffee anyway … we mostly just stick our heads under the sand like ostriches supposedly do (they don’t, by the way. At least I don’t think they do).

We take on stress from all sorts of places. Our boss. Our family. Our subordinates. Ourselves. Somehow, don’t ask me how, I’ve gotten out of that high stress state. Not sure when exactly … sometime in October or November is all I know. Not that I don’t still feel periods of stress and tension but there is a difference between periods and a continuous state.

My diet has been pretty good, but I have neglected the toxic chemicals in things like soap, shampoo, sunscreen, dish detergent (sorry but Grapple cream and New Skin are going to have to stick in my regimen … hand rips are no fun, and having them healed sooner than later is worth a few toxic chemicals). I recently started taking zeolite in high enough doses to feel and taste the results of the detox: heavy metals on my tongue. It is hectic. I can only imagine how much garbage is in my system. Some of it (car fumes) is unavoidable. Some of it (second-hand smoke) we can largely avoid through choices. Some of it (what we choose to eat and wash with, etc.) is wholly within our control most of the time.

So having learned a few things (including that progestin is not progesterone and that I need to unwind some old hormonal damage), I’ve decided to go on a strict detox from January (so timed just because it’s pretty well impossible not to drink on New Year’s). Hopefully I emerge in February lighter, cleaner, and healthier. At least that’s the idea. But the thing about a detox that’s also quite cool is that cheating is not an option.

“I won’t work with unmotivated people.” – Pierre

Imagine how your stress levels would look if everyone around you actually did what they said they would do, on time and at a high level of quality? The interesting challenge for 2012 is how to achieve that for ourselves and for the people we work with. I’ve been doing a great job of saying no, recently, as a way to make sure I don’t over-commit. My adrenals thank me.

Been busy prioritising sleep and mobility work over blog writing, hence the lack of posts. What have I kept myself busy with? All the ex post facto stalkers want to know I’m sure. Well here goes:

• Thursday made myself stupid sore with ring dips (thanks to Chris for explaining the actual ending position of the ring dip and thereby causing me to miss about 5 reps and not finish the workout in the time cap and get extremely sore. And no, I’m not being facetious – these things are important. If you’re not training proper range of motion, it won’t help you in competition).
• Braai with Nick and the Heart Capital team at Peter & Mandy’s. Definitely always sad to see Nick leave.
• Cool and fun talk on innovation (ideation!) in the last Friday Fika of 2011 at Hub Cape Town.
• Terrible form & extreme weakness on deadlifts Friday, followed by dinner & 9 hours of sleep with a very sleepy Mona.
• Open gym at which I tried to do a strength workout but my body would NOT co-operate (sad, I could barely manage 10kg less than my 1 rep max on press), so I called it a day, ate at the market and went off to my workshop.
• Shopping at Constantia Village then got back to my car, turned on the radio, and heard Jeremy Loops. Too freaking cool.
• Dinner with some American friends of Chad & Kathryn’s (tried Café Roux, but then moved to Beluga where the waiters are not allowed to bring jugs of water to the table. Next time I’m bringing my water bottle). Did not go to Trinity, but rather to sleep.
• Mobility work, Wellness Warehouse shopping trip, lunch with Mona at Sandbar, a poor attempt at paleo gingerbread cookies, some dual N-back, and sleep.
• Worked on the web site. A lot. Learning Wordpress. Weird how some things are so easy and some things that should be easy aren’t controlled by this specific theme and must be done in RSS. Weird.
• CCF added a new Fundamentals class on Monday nights where you go back to basics. Since I wanted to do this anyway and since the workout was power snatch & a barbell complex I did the class and it was awesome. Jobst made a complete correction to my starting position for the snatch (which will apply to the clean as well), and I actually finally took the time to get my hand positioning right on the bar.
• Dinner with Kerry, where she pointed me at some resources I can use in my efforts to take over the world.
• Another day, another dawn at the office. Then after a productive day my co-worker stole and hid my protein shake. Actually, I felt like a kid again. It was quite cool.
• My body is just not the same. It’ll be back but I’m fighting not to be frustrated. Not only am I weak on the press but I’ve lost major strength on the pullup (my weighted strict pullup was at least 5kgs less than my PR), and then I was really struggling to string together pullups on the workout. I guess I did do a total of 72 so it’s all relative I suppose.

A final word: ownership changes everything. You take on something, you own it, you commit to it, you make it happen. When we work on things we don’t really care for and don’t take ownership, or half-ass something, that’s when shit doesn’t go down. Sorry Ellie & Hector. I’ll have my shit together in 2012.

• “When you fish, it’s not like hunting. You are trying to catch something you can’t see.” – Taurai
• “Cheater!!” – Jon (well, I deserved this on about the 10x that I got it…)
• “When you see something you don’t like in other people, it’s usually something you really don’t like in yourself, right?” – Hollie
• “You’ve done good work.” – Debbie
• “I’m not the sort of person who could make a lot of money and be driving a Jaguar and then completely ignore the guy knocking on my window asking for money. I’m just not that sort of person.” – Anton
• “It couldn’t have gone any better.” – Peter
• “Smoking is really really really really inconsiderate.” – Robyn (yes, she really said really four times)
• “Coconut milk makes everything better.” – Mona
• “The problem with rock stars is they’re high maintenance.” – Pierre
• “When push comes to shove, most people crumble.” – Pierre
• “You do all these healthy things for your body. All I do is smoke and drink.” – Lilian
• “No alcohol for FOUR WEEKS? How are you going to survive?” – Jon
• “Is it easy?” “It’s never easy.” – Roxanne & Ellie
• “Can I ask you something? That’s not related to quantum physics??” – Kerry
• “Will it hurt?” “Yes.” “Awesome. Let’s do it.” “God, I love CrossFit.” – Andrew & Ellie

I am what I am. At least what I think I am. Am I?

I should really not be allowed to write blog posts while feverish. It should really be up there with drunk.

I forgot to mention that my ankle is healing amazingly well (really, I can now barely feel where the fascia is compressed and except for a little bit of random stiffness in the morning I can barely well it used to be injured so I’m well on the way to full recovery), that we got assigned to ‘core teams’ for the competitive season at CCF (I can’t for the life of me figure out the logic behind the specific team assignments but my teammates are cool and consistently strong athletes, so no complaints), that the best part of the Wolftown music video was making fun of the starring role of my co-worker (he played the melancholy boyfriend), and that despite my criticisms I did enjoy the deadmau5 concert and as a combination of theatrics, music, and showmanship he does deserve his popularity. Branding 101.

When you get sick, everything stops. I’ve stopped several things I just started (my daily mobility work) but then again when the body is too stiff and achy to move you have to make some accommodations, right? I even did listen to my body and indulged my sweet tooth – I had the most massive honey craving. Honey happens to be a natural anti-biotic (and anti-inflammatory I believe…).

For me the worst is that my brain also stops. I can feel that it’s mushy and I can’t string together proper thoughts or sentences. So my work week hasn’t been terribly successful although I did manage to accomplish a lot of small tasks. Working on structure and copy for the web site; it takes more time than you think. Always.

Since I was sick I moved acupuncture up in the week and for once Dr Lan didn’t go poking at my left side so hard that I wanted to punch him. I tell you what, when you have a part of your body that’s sore you do NOT want someone poking around there, especially when you know that the thing that’s going to come next is a needle being stuck into the most painful part! But you do what you must, right? I can’t think too much about how much it’s going to hurt or I would never walk back through that door. The fever relief acupuncture sessions are always actually somewhat pleasant, and I think he took the opportunity to go a bit deeper than normal on my knee and ankle, knowing that I would be laid up for a bit. It’s an hour of enforced stillness and meditation.

Speaking of self-flagellation I went to Pecha Kucha on Tuesday night, again. Oh my word. The first speaker, who I missed due to being late from acupuncture due to a massive traffic snarl in downtown Cape Town (usually there isn’t much traffic but when there is it’s snowcapolypse-like gridlock where you sit in the same place for 10 minutes), was apparently quite good. There were a couple good ones but overall I was disappointed as the speakers raised more questions than answers, and not in a good way.

A guy who I thought was going to talk about social enterprise instead talked about the U.S. national debt, and gave us an obvious insight into how we must create value for our friends. Another guy made a very poor argument for veganism. I’m sorry but when addressing a room full of meat-eaters don’t try and argue bad science. I almost feel compelled to read all the best literature across all theories (what is the healthiest anyway? Vegetarian/vegan? Asian diet? Mediterranean diet? Paleo?) just so I can counter-argue with more data than “your argument is broken, correlation doesn’t imply causation firstly and secondly try looking at the correlation of simple carbohydrate and processed food.” But that’s the subject of an entire book. The presentation on the Occupy movement confused me, frankly – what point was he trying to make? Much sound & fury signifying nothing. And if he is correct that the Occupiers are pushing for direct democracy I am horrified (silly me, I thought they were pushing to get the money out of politics and close the revolving door between government, industry, and lobbyists). Having lived in California for a few years I know what horrors are caused by direct democracy.

Oh Aristotle, our modern aristocracy is not what you had in mind.

But really, even this “We are the 99%” sloganeering to me is disingenuous. Rather than make it so “good vs evil/us against them” why not make the conversation about the bad apples spoiling the whole bunch? I wonder what’s going to become of this whole movement, firstly, and secondly, boy do we live in interesting times.

Spent the first half of Wednesday evening helping Mandy think through a couple of things (broke my self-imposed paleo challenge but back on the bandwagon now), and the second half roasting a chicken, doing dishes, and clarifying butter. Yep, my life is pretty boring when I don’t have handstand pushups and box jumps to talk about.

People will always justify their own behaviour. It’s only human. I mean, unless we specifically have malicious intent (we sometimes do, no doubt), usually we have some justification for our actions at least in our own mind. But one person’s thoughtful and dignified is another person’s shameful and disgraceful. One person’s righteous is another person’s shocking. Who are we, actually, to judge when we don’t know what’s going on in the other person’s head? There were some ladies at Mzoli’s who said some very unkind and racist things to a member of our group, who became so distraught that she was unable even to eat. Now, on the surface that’s black and white (no pun intended). But deeper down, those comments were the product of an environment plus a situation, firstly, and secondly: the only thing you can possibly do in that scenario is control how you react. The complexities of why she was upset aside, I was left thinking: shame that my friend was hurt by this, but she will have forgotten about it in a few weeks. These people will continue to be hurt by their limited thinking, and that is the fundamental problem.

Words can be the most hurtful things ever, but only if we let them. Remembering, of course, that the words that sting the worst are the ones that we feel have some element of truth to them. But hey without making mistakes and getting criticised and learning we will never grow. The worst thing you can say to someone is ‘don’t ever change.’

But you also can’t just tell someone how to be, or what is wrong. Socrates had that one right: in order to change we must first have the idea ourselves (or at least think we do). A burning platform can be a good thing. But it’s much more powerful for me to want to improve my double-unders because I know they’ll come up in competition again than for coach to tell me how much my double-unders suck. But how did I even get to that point of caring? Some mix of internal and external motivation.

Ask me, if an annoying dog nips at your heels ignore it. Yes you could kick it, but how is that actually going to help the situation? If it makes you feel better, that’s one thing. But don’t necessarily expect the situation to get better by inflaming it. I suppose I, like most people, get into the most trouble when I act without thinking. Leaving completely aside that you might need that dog (or its owner or brother or sister or friend) some day, and that wonderful poster: ‘karma’s only a bitch if you are.’                                                                                                                                 

So next time, think before you kick the dog, huh? Maybe a constructive lesson is more in order.

• “Hopefully I’ll be able to pull off a miracle.” “Good luck with that.” – Jeff & Ellie (unfortunately the humour was in my deadpan response and doesn’t really translate)
• “I’m hoping I can persuade you to come in for a glass of milk.” “Um … ???” – Mandy & Ellie (she meant wine. But milk??)

Summer

Feel it, it is here. Finally, there is some proper heat, and I still haven’t actually been to the  beach yet this season!

Most of last week went through in a blur. I can’t think of too much that was too exciting that happened work-wise. I picked up a donated telephone system including a telephone management system (ours somehow went missing when the Umbono renovations began in July). That will enable us to track how much each person uses the telephone, which can obviously be important.

A week of contrasts though: a conference call that felt like teeth being pulled followed by a lovely dinner at Olympia Café (and what turns out to have been my last glass of wine for a long while!). An intimate acoustic set and music video launch by Wolftown at Studio 7 (another living room performance) with maybe 40 or 50 people, then the next night deadmau5 in the Cape Town convention center with maybe 10,000. Even on Sunday: Camps Bay to Gugulethu to Clifton to Vredehoek (if you don’t know Cape Town, suffice to say rich & trendy to township to rich & trendy, to rich & trendy of a more chill variety).

So, deadmau5 is one of the top electronic music artists in the world. I’d never heard him before and I must say I was not impressed. Not unimpressed, mind you – it was good. The production was good, and he’s a talented artist no doubt about it. But I was expecting more. That, of course, is the problem with expectations (and why putting anyone or anything on a pedestal, or thinking ‘If only I had X I would be happy’ is a bad idea). Interesting though, I am convinced the guy must be a super nerd (he even writes some of his own software): not only did the main show start 3 minutes early and end 7 minutes late with no encore, but even the opening acts transitioned exactly on time. I’m guessing mau5 didn’t make it over to Trinity for the after party but rather got himself to bed. I wouldn’t know.

I did go back to training in the week. Wednesday did some crazy gymnastics pressing workout followed by air squats, box jumps, and burpees. I think by the fifth round or so out of seven my legs were cramping. Friday’s workout was a team one so had a good amount of rest built in. I think it was most notable in my mind because I did something like 20+ wall climbs (these are where you start facing away from the wall lying on the floor and walk up the wall backwards until you are in a handstand facing the wall, then walk back down). I was also in a really REALLY bad mood that day; having woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Happens. Everything just made me more and more mad that day, including the fact that I was in a bad mood and I was feeling weak.

So I painted my toe nails pink that night. Problem solved.

Woke up at 5:15am Saturday morning to drive out to Strand to do a beach workout with the CrossFit gym over that side. It was super fun and just what I needed: For time: 50 burpees, 100 kettlebell swings, 150m walking lunges, 2000m run & 250m bear crawls (could be done in any order with any rep scheme). Most interesting part of this was how difficult the kettlebell swings were for me. My shoulders just would not co-operate. Well, that’s what happens when you tax your shoulders like crazy beforehand.

Still feeling quite out of shape though, and was planning to do something about it when I woke up Sunday with a nasty sore throat, that progressed to a fever by sometime in the evening. After escaping the disaster that was Mzoli’s (it might have been more fun if I had been drinking) I went to Clifton to chill for a bit with my friend Keith then on to dinner at Carlyle’s with Keith & his ridiculously good looking friend (I think I was too feverish to properly appreciate).

Oh well. It’s always darkest before the dawn they say. I spent most of today in bed sleeping off the fever, and for some reason dragged myself off to Cape CrossFit for the finals of the latest challenge. Which, of course, I couldn’t do because I was sick. Solidarity, or self-flagellation? Well sooner or later I’ll be back.

The thing about being sick is that everything just seems like so much effort. But I must be on the upswing because I’m already excited for work tomorrow. It’s not such a Sisyphean mission, after all. Writing a book: now there’s a big ask, right? Even if it’s something you’re passionate about. It’s going to take more than fish oil alone to fix this, so to sleep I will go (for the fourth time today, whee!).

• “I know what you’re getting for Christmas – a block of ice THIS BIG!” – Jacques
• “Well you don’t look out of shape!” – Paddy
• “I hate to break it to you but I don’t think you injure yourself running. I think you injure yourself doing CrossFit.” – Keith
• “I’m sorry if he’s feeling bruised but he’s going to have to come to terms with reality at some point. What he’s looking for doesn’t exist. The truth hurts.” – Ellie  

Forging new neural pathways

 

 

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” – Epictetus

I usually avoid doing things I don’t like. Don’t we all? Give me a CrossFit workout over a mobility drill any day. I have had lingering tendonitis in my knee for months now because I don’t take the time to ice and relieve the tension.

Well, it also takes 21 days to form a habit. I am trying to form some new habits, around doing things every day that I need to do even when I don’t necessarily like to do them. Mobility drills for a couple problem areas is one. Another is playing around with my newly found alpha state, and yet another is an experiment to increase my fluid memory through something called dual n-back training. The interesting thing is that these latter two are both related, so I wonder if practicing them both in tandem will have a magnified effect (or perhaps a muted effect). Not really the scientific method but then again the brain is not the sort of device that’s designed for measured testing! We’re not processing machines, we’re creative machines. It may be hectic but I am loving the dual n-back training. It feels so cool when I don’t consciously remember where something was 3 moves back but my brain remembers.

‎"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman

I am not sure when to go back to training. Tomorrow is the plan. We’ll see how I feel. I need to sanity-check my plans. I always do know whether or not it’s a good idea to train, it’s just when I don’t listen to myself that I get into trouble. I don’t care if we’re doing Diane again tomorrow, if I’m not ready I won’t go. My back and side do feel better than they have in ages – I can almost forget there is something wrong with me. Almost.

I was relieved (?) to discover during my session with Kheyrne on Saturday that the reason my ankle is not 100% still is that now that it’s healed, the scar tissue is compressing the fascia. She was massaging it and it was painful, but after maybe 2 minutes you could feel the pain got less. She said, to my relief, that actually trying to do this rehab a few months ago wouldn’t have been possible because the body needed to be ready for it. Having now done some of this myself yesterday, I can feel what she means. It does NOT feel like it should. It feels like a plastic bag full of water that’s been compressed, and when you press on it you can move the water along from one side to the other. Also it’s VERY painful, which the other ankle is not. So I understand what she said – I wouldn’t be comfortable putting myself in that much pain if I wasn’t sure that the underlying tissues could take it. Yowzers.  

But I’m happy finally to be moving along a path to get this back to where it should be. That’s why I’m taking the time to do these things every day that I need to do. I’m regenerating now (or trying, my own super human aspirations will feel more real when I’m out of my cocoon and back to training). I have a busy social schedule starting this evening and I’m actually a bit dreading it. I’m happy when I go out, but sometimes I just need my downtime. Then again if you’re in a bad mood and you start to smile you feel better, so maybe what I need to start feeling more social is to BE more social. After all I had quite a cool time on Sunday when I had two braais (one was a surprise birthday party for Hollie’s boyfriend, the second was at Roland’s), and then a 27dinner. Sadly the dinner was a bit sparsely attended but I did meet some interesting people (including another SPS grad!), and got a chance to see some friends old and new.

I was thinking on the weekend of how I would really hate to be famous. It’s great to be anonymous, and can you imagine not being able to go out in public without people staring, or photographing, or hassling you? Ran into the lovely Toya De Lazy at the Biscuit Mill and she was saying how even now she has to disguise herself a bit when going out, and she’s not even that famous. Yet. But boy that must be hectic.

It is a very strange feeling. We are coming up to the end of the year but instead of things winding down, things seem to be beginning. There are a lot of very exciting things we’re busy with at work (and some that I’m doing in my obviously copious free time) but I’ll talk about these in good time.

• “If it’s important do it every day.” – Roland (quoting Dan John)
• “When you compromise yourself you become resentful, full stop.” – Kheyrne
• “I know sharing wine is weird but I’m drunk.” – Dave
• “I thought you were leaving. Oh, wait, that was me!” – Ellie
• “The people who are intelligent but don’t succeed aren’t reckless enough.” – Dave
• “You don’t know what action cricket is? What sort of wannabe South African are you?” – Jon