Digital Immigrant

This is awesome.

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OK, scrap the ‘kinda sorta’ nonsense. I love all my readers and I especially love the ones who send me emails. (Yes, I even appreciate dearest Thabo and ‘his’ unhealthy obsession with my eksent.) I love hearing from you so please don’t stop.

I’m a bit of a busybody sometimes. So I gotta know what you’re reading. Is it any good? Is it boring? And would you recommend it?

Nou sit ek om ‘n tafel

met my voorvaders se vyande

Ek knik en groet bedagsaam

maar

êrens diep binne my

weet ek waar ek staan

My hart en kop is oop

en soos goed opgevoede mense

lag en eet ons saam

maar

êrens diep binne my

weet ek waar ek staan

Ronelda S Kamfer

Dear world

I’m not into black men. Here’s the shocker — I’m into men. SoI find some black men attractive. OK, fine, I find many black men attractive. But it isn’t their skin colour that’s attractive. Can you wrap your head around the possibility that I actually find their personalities to be attractive? Their beautiful minds? Or their other features? Oh, and just to clarify things a bit more…I’m not attracted to all black men; I’m attracted to some black men just as I’m attracted to some coloured, white and Indian men.

So please stop telling me about that hot Zimbabwean dude whom you know I’ll like cause I’m ‘into black men’. Or no, wait, now that I think about it, please do introduce me to him

Love and hugs

So there I was on Friday, listening to someone asking whether there are Boerejode. He didn’t use that word but that’s what he was asking about, ie, Afrikaans speaking Jews.

He didn’t direct the question to me but I decided to be a know-it-all and answered his question in the affirmative. Yes, there are indeed Boerejode.

His response was one of incredulity; he couldn’t believe that there are Jews who speak Afrikaans — he’s never met a Boerejood. And that’s funny because I know of at least one such family.

It’s funny how our environment shapes our understanding of the world. Some of the things we consider weird or exotic are actually very much vanilla in other parts of the world. So why is it that so many of us are unwilling or unable to make that mental leap? Is it a form of hubris to want to define the world by the things we’ve experienced? Or rather, should I ask whether it’s a form of hubris to say ‘I’ve never encountered a Boerejood so ergo there can’t be any in existence’.

Is this error of thinking solely a ‘biased example’, or does it intersect with some other error of thinking that I have never heard of?

I’m one of the supposedly smallish percentage of people who talk to themselves. This won’t be news to you if you know me or if you’ve seen me walking down the road. And yes, I do sometimes talk to myself in public, though I’m quick to STFU when I realise there are people nearby.

I really enjoy talking to myself and I look forward to those sessions. This is pretty consistent with what some other people experience, though I know I’m looking at a tiny section of the self-talking population — people who admit to talking to themselves 2) in blog or forum comments on the internet. Some of these people are INTP or INTJ and they are or were only children.

So I had what started off as a debate about the advantages of self-talk last week. I couldn’t think of any off-hand but then I started to think about it on Friday.

I tend to talk to myself when I’m alone or when I think I am alone. But there are also differences — when I know that I am alone I’ll be a lot more expressive with my facial expressions and arm movements. When I’m walking somewhere for example, I’ll speak softly and I’ll try to keep hand and facial movements to a minimum.

There are definitely benefits to self-talk. I tend to plan things by talking to myself. I’ll consider what to do this month and then weigh that up to what I’ll do next month. It helps to clear up confusion, even if just by a little bit.

It also helps me to solve problems when I talk out loud like that. I remember doing this with math problems in high school. It also relieves stress but what’s strange is that I sometimes stop talking to myself when I’m under extreme stress. And then I get lonely.

At other times I’ll be commenting on an article that I’m reading, never mind that someone else is around with whom I can talk. It’s a pity that we’ve stigmatised self-talk as particular to schizophrenia. I don’t hear voices in my head so I kinda can’t be schizophrenic.

So now you know that you’re not the only one. And it’s really not such a crazy or unusual thing to do, this talking to yourself.

I want to dedicate this song to a spessal person who likes to listen to liedjies en sulke goed.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQKODc8sGXo]

Eskom wants a $3.5 billion loan from the World Bank and it looks as though their application will be denied. The US won’t vote for or against awarding Eskom the loan but the other 23 members of the World Bank’s board of executive directors will. So I have a suggestion — those 138 companies who profited from reduced electricity tariffs should sommer give Eskom $3.5 billion, which is R25 billion all in all.

Bonus prize goes to those 10 companies who had had the most profitable business deals with Eskom — they get to pay the bulk of the prize.

Cause you see, these reduced business tariffs are part of the reason for Eskom’s failure to provide the proper service they should give us. And poor people have paid far too much for the parastatal’s incompetence and fraudulent tactics. Let big business pay for a change.

Caveat: This is only possible in a world where these companies won’t pass on the cost to their consumers.