So... I fell in love

So I've finally reached that stage in my life where I fell in love. Something I've been running away from for so long.

Believe it or not but I fell in love a long time ago. I fell in love with a lady who was very promiscuous, but not in a sexual manner. This lady had relationships with men and women. She and I had an encounter but she has never looked at me as a someone she would like to stay.

I suppose her reasoning was that I was still young and ill equipped to handle a driven and passionate women that demanded the best, all the time. Every chance I’d get I would look at what she made men do to get her attention, every time I saw what women would do to be part of her life. I would ask myself 'am I good enough, will I ever be ready for her?'

So I spent as much time as I can preparing myself for our first real meeting, I spent as much money as my mother could afford to give, so that I too can associate myself with this wonderful being.

This beaut that brings smiles to the world like father christmas on the 25th of December, making people aware of things they never thought existed. This beaut has caused a lot of unfit men to grow old in the grave, and the very same beaut has made men immortal. This beaut is dangerous, seductive, and bad for you and at times she is exactly what you need.

This elusive goddess that I have trained so hard to impress throughout my college years has got me more confused about the rest of my life like a high school dropout. And when it’s all said and done I've taken a very judicious path into this odyssey that could have me lost in her bosom for the rest of my life or I could be the paramount of all homeless and degenerate perverts that lust over this beauty, that I could never summon the courage to grab her attention and woo her of her feet.

I know, you're wondering who am I talking about? This beaut I speak of is the Advertising industry that has captured my heart. This beaut that I talk about has accepted me and rejected me many times and has caused me pain like Prometheus’ eternal punishment on the Caucasus Mountain. 

But to this day, I vow that I will not rest until this beaut looks at me with an approving smile and says hello. 

I hear you got the job?

I am currently a student doing my final year studying copywriting, I love what I'm doing and so far I'm happy with my decision to pursue a career in advertising, even though some idiot in power (whom I’m not going to mention) has decided to ban alcohol advertising in South Africa which will result in 12 000 job losses, thus making it difficult for me to get a job in an advertising agency. Still, writing advertisement is something I feel I should be doing.

The other day I was recording my radio advertisement and I was happy with what I had come up with, I was also very impressed by the professionals who acted out my radio script, but what ruined my day was the other copywriters who decided for some reason to talk about our chances of getting a job in the work environment. They brought up some interesting points about how they fear it will be hard for them to get a job once they have finished their studies.

Actually they only brought up one point, which is “It will be hard for me to get a job next year because my skin is not the right colour.” Granted you are white, and being white in an African country governed by black people can be unsettling.

The one thing that we as a nation have to be wary about is where we come from. I’m not talking about apartheid, I’m talking about our financial background and our education or how we got our education. Most black people in South Africa have to learn a language that their parents are not very well at communicating with, thus the child when they learn something they have to translate it into their language in order to understand what they are being taught; this however takes time and practice to master. On the other hand some of the kids that are taught in their mother tongue understand what they are being taught immediately because they are very familiar with the language.

In studio where we recorded our radio ads, I was the only black student thus everybody assumed I was guaranteed a job next year. We as a class compete amongst each other. Two times now I've been the only black student who has recorded two radio ads, while competing with my fellow classmates (both black and white).

I hate how my classmates assume I'm going to get whatever job I want next year because of my skin colour. I put in the work that perhaps others would rather not, I know where I come from and I know where I’m going and I’m not getting there because of the colour of my skin, I'm getting there because of my determination and hard work. I have no parents to count on if I don’t succeed in what I'm doing, I've got my inheritance that has put me through school, paid for my accommodation and the food that I eat. If this runs out and I don’t have a way of supporting myself, I’m fucked!

So the next time you see me and say “I heard you got the job”  don't raise your nose at me and look down on me and assume I got the job because of my skin colour. I made no excuses, I worked hard for what I got… what did you do?

Here is a testimonial that could give you an idea what some of the black South Africans have to deal with: http://khayadlanga.com/2013/08/21/dear-south-african-education/

The dog days are over.

Now that I’m all grown up, I reminisce on the days when I was young, confused and misplaced. I look back to these days and I wish some genius out there would build a time machine and I could travel back into time to give myself pocket money when I needed it the most.

I was never poor but I remember three occasions were I really needed some pocket money, and back in the day two of my friends had birthday parties and I either couldn’t go or I always never had cash to buy them a birthday present to show how I appreciate them for being my friends, especially since I was in purgatory in terms of social standings at school, i got them a sucker. (lame right?)

One of my friends that I mentioned above was never really my friend he was more of an acquaintance then anything, the little jerk invited me to his birthday party, picked up all of my friends from the same area that I lived in and didn’t even bother to picking me up. I mean we all live in the same area; I’m right next door, DUDE!!

Anyway... because I was broke at the time and didn’t really get pocket money, I had no present for the little buga, instead I got him a small exercise book (not the kind that teaches you how to lose weight because he needed that but the book that had light blue lines and a pink/red margin on the side). I wrapped it in an old newspaper I found in the house, went outside and patiently waited for him to come pick me up. And to my surprise he didn’t show up.

My other friend I was talking about was a true friend and to this day we still keep in touch. He had a birthday once and invited me to go with him and his family to the mall to play games and have dinner. I declined at first because I had no money for such, but he insisted and him and I went to the mall played games at the arcade and had dinner. The least I could do was to give him a birthday present right? - Man I wish someone out could build a time machine right now –

My friend had another birthday the following year but fortunately for me there was no birthday party. I felt guilty for not getting him anything the year before so I bought him a fizzy and wrapped it in a newspaper I found around the house. And so I patiently waited until my mom allowed me to go outside and play. When I gave have him his present he was so happy (or at least that’s what I thought) he unwrapped the newspaper hoping to find something magical inside but all he got was a green fizzy.

If you’re out there and planning on engineering a time machine please do it fast I need to redeem my childhood, right now the dog days are over and I can afford to give myself some pocket money, but I need to do this before things change again.

How to write a love letter

Some humour for the lovers

A PRAGMATIC ROMANTIC SAYS FAREWELL TO HIS LOVER.

BY SPENCER HAM

Babe, my flight is starting to board. But this isn’t goodbye; it’s merely one small phase in our relationship because even though I won’t be here physically, I will still be around you spiritually. That’s right: My love for you is so profound that I will transcend my body and manifest myself in a myriad of ways.

Like on those sunny days when you feel the warm rays of the sun kissing your face and the wind blowing through your hair—that’s going to be me caressing your porcelain face. Or on that cold winter night when the first snowflake descends from the sky and lands on your nose—that’s going to be me giving you a gentle kiss. And during the moments when you randomly get goose bumps, you better believe that’s me tickling you.

But I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, pumpkin. I’m not going to be behind every sign. For example, if you feel aching sensations at the back of your jaw then that’s not me—that’s your wisdom teeth. It’s imperative you make a dentist appointment ASAP. If you don’t get them taken care of at the first sign then you’ll face further complications down the road, baby.

Or if you are about to unlock your car in a parking garage and you feel hot air on the back of your neck, that’s not me—that’s a mugger. Get out your mace, buttercup, and stop that man from robbing and assaulting you.

And if your stomach starts to rumble after you eat a bagel, that’s not me—that’s celiac disease. Make some dramatic dietary changes and lay off the gluten, sweetheart. Or if you are just lying around your house all day and you inexplicably feel lightheaded, that’s not me—that’s carbon monoxide poisoning. Leave your house immediately, babe, and get it inspected. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer that ravages thousands of homes a year.

Also, if you travel to Central America and subsequently discover a series of pulsating bumps on the back of your head, that’s not me—that’s a botfly. You’ve got parasites living in your flesh, baby. Get those removed before they hatch on your pillow and find another host.

Oh no. Love of my life, please don’t cry. I don’t mean to scare you. For every potential bad omen there will be a favorable one. Just remember, when you are laying in bed and you feel your left arm become numb—that’s me, holding onto you tight… or it’s a stroke. Take a couple of aspirin and go to the nearest ER. You know, just in case, baby.

- See more at: http://www.long-distance-lover.com/long-distance-love-letter/#sthash.6NiNHI1I.dpuf

Is it just me or is it everybody else?

You know what makes me laugh from time to time is how people struggle so much to pronounce my name. I try to teach them how to say the click properly but every time I get a pop and not the crucial click that's needed. I tell them where to put their tongue and how to manoeuvre it around their mouth. But as soon as they get that part right they forget how to pronounce the rest of my name which is easier to pronounce.

But of course, I’m not the only person who has this complicated name given to them by their mothers. One of my friends who has been blessed with the name Mokhalaka, has had the same struggle I have had to endure. You would pronounce the kh in his name with a gha, the same sound you hear when you are dragging your feet through a small pile of stones. It’s the same with him as it is with a lot of black people with difficult names to pronounce, he had to teach white people how to pronounce his name... and guess what? They all failed and they all gave up decided to call him Mo, full stop.

A wise lady once said to me “you truly show someone you care about them when you take the time to learn their language.”  That wise lady was actually my friend’s mother.

All I am asking for here is a little bit of understanding and a bit of practice to show that you really want to know who I am. This has to work both ways, if you are white I will ask you your name and if it proves to be a difficult name to pronounce I will ask you what is the proper way of pronouncing and I will attempt pronouncing your name until I get it right.

I will not however ask you "what do they call you?" I'm proud of my name, it's the one thing my mother loved saying whenever she gave me the most approving look you'll ever see. take the time to practice and i'll take the time to get to know you.

This is not about me, it’s about my grandchildren.

Freedom is the talk of the day, but no one knows how to deliver it.

Today the newspapers have been bombarding us with stories concerning freedom. We have new parties launching every second, telling us that they will liberate the people financially and socially and otherwise. 

Think of the born frees, these kids who were born post apartheid but does this mean they are free? I think they were born in a country that is no longer controlled by oppressors, and that's it. Some of these kids still wake up in the morning suffering as their grandparents did, some of these kids bask in luxury as did their grandparents. What I’m trying to say is that nothing has changed but the constitution and the colour of our flag. Granted it is a lot, but is it enough?

In our very own country we have people preying on the poor; they feed them lies and the perpetrators stand in front of everybody demanding money from them and if they do not comply, they use emotional blackmail to get what they want.

Our government sells us the dream of a better future and give us promises that they take forever to deliver (By the way we still waiting). We need freedom from all fronts like education, health, finance, safety and housing just to mention a few.

The born frees are not born free because they have to dream for a better future for themselves and they children, if one has to dream about a better future it means they have a shitty present right now.  What is unfortunate is that some of these kids won’t get far, they won’t fulfil their dreams.

I don’t mean to preach or annoy anyone by my redundant venting, but something needs to be done.

All this hard work we are putting in is not for me nor is it for you. It’s about our grand children, it’s about our future, and it’s about our freedom.

There is no shame in wanting more for yourself or for you country. That's how we become better, or am I wrong?

https://twitter.com/Q_Zondi

http://www.facebook.com/nqobani.zondi

Fear and Success

Someone told me fear is a lie,  fear is the one thing that holds us back from success. Everything you do is dependent on having fear or overcoming fear (that's my uncle by the way).

Right now i'm in a class with five girls and and I think one of them is really pretty, whenever she looks at me with her dark beautiful eyes my knees wobble and my tummy is filled with butterflies. I like the way her clothes wrap themselves around her body like a silk clothe hugging every inch of itself on her body. I like the way her hips move when she walks my way and I like the way her lips curl when she smiles. what i'm trying to say is that... I like how she looks at me and when she looks away when I catch her looking at me.

I don't speak to this girl, i'v never had a conversation with her asking her about herself, what she is into and what turns her on. I truly don't know her at all and every time I see her I have this burning desire to say hi and ask her name and maybe get her number (lame I know).

On the weekend I met another beauty that took my breath away. This beautiful girl knows who I am, we've had a conversation together, this beauty has me chasing after her like a Rainbow Lorikeet sitting on a fountain playing hard to get, its beautiful, and so is her existence. I have her number and I text her and she response to my messages, we see each other from time to time, and what I like about her is that we have a different relationship to everyone else because this relationship is about us and our own quirky adventures we have together.

BUT, someone in the back of my mind screaming: "Fear is a lie!"

Tomorrow is the first of May and in South Africa it is workers day, yet i'm terrified of being rejected by the true love of my life. All that I have worked for to get the opportunity to impress, and hopefully be rewarded might all slip away because I don't want to be rejected. The true love of my life will give me one shot at happiness, provided I'm good enough of course.

This is the meaning of my message, I like the first girl and I've never approached her and I've never had a real conversation with her. I adore the second girl I'm taking about in the second paragraph she makes me happy. The last girl i'm talking about is my dream, my potential career.

someone told me fear is a lie...

I wish that person could tell me what the cure for this lie is.

Take me to love.

I don’t have a TV in my house anymore, one of the reasons for that is because I moved houses. Where I live now is pretty good, student life, work and parties and a heck of a lot of fun.

I love being a student, this is the stage were one progresses from being a child to becoming a grown up. This is the stage were one is aiming to be taken seriously by his/her peers, parents, boss and eventually the rest of the world. This is the stage were we morph our dreams into reality, so therefore you would like people to see you as a grown up, a human being with substance.

I don’t have a TV because I like reading; I like it when there is peace and no unnecessary discourse between house mates. More importantly why I don’t want have a TV is the ridiculous ads they show on TV were they portray black people as unsophisticated and all we can comprehend is humour or exaggerated humour.

For some of you who don’t know, I am studying copywriting and if you know what that is, you probably thinking to yourself “huh? He should understand more than anybody why the ads look like this.” well I don’t understand… shoot me.

There is one channel in particular were they show black people in a ridiculous manner, all the characters in the ads are exaggerated and come across as humorous. Sometimes these ads don’t hold back, sometimes these ads insult the black people’s intelligence and that is very messed up.

I know what you thinking, “this guy has been quiet for so long and now that his writing he’s going to use race for inspiration… pathetic.” Bear with me and let me get my message across.

I’m not going to use that ‘our past made us like this card’ no.

Our past has got nothing to do with this blog post, but I am more concerned about our future. If there is a communication tool that is used to degrade another people's potential than that group of people have no hope in tomorrow. We need to be inspired, to always aim for the best and not for what is mediocre.

I’m an advertising student and when I see ads with black people being portrayed as idiots, I get very disappointed in the industry.

We need to be inspired as young and upcoming black students. All I ask for is inspiration from an industry I would like to work in one day and not just entertainment or insults.

I'm appreciating my love

A few things stand out in my life that I appreciate. Firstly I appreciate my family; I appreciate the opportunities I’ve been blessed with and I appreciate the country I live in. YES! I am proudly South African. With all our problems I am still proud to be a South African. Of course I’m not proud of our problems but we working on it.

Our sportsmen and sportswomen are the very reason why I gloat so much and why say I’m proudly South African. They are not given much to work with but at each and every event they do their best and they surprise the world by bringing back the gold. I’m proud of heroes and heroines like Oscar Pretorius, Caster Semenye, and Chad leclos just to name a few, even our rugby team wins when needed. It’s not much but my country and these heroes and heroines make me proud to be a South African.

There is one thing though that I don’t like that we do as South Africans. We focus (sometimes) our attention on athletes that have left the country and live in a different country and have taken up a different citizenship, we praise their abilities when we mention them on the radio and then we say he/she was born in South Africa with the most disgusting joy, man can fathom. I hate that we have to feel obliged to talk about them when they excel as if they are doing us a favour when they do well in their chosen field of play, even when they are playing against us and they do well, our loss is no longer disconcerting because we lost to a team that has players who were born in South Africa.

I say forget them as they have forgotten us, let’s focus our attention and our praises on the athletes that are making us proud, and encourage those who are trying to make us proud (including Bafana Bafana) to keep trying until they win.

I don’t think I’m asking for much. All I’m asking for is a little appreciation for what we have.

Is this real life?

The other day I went to go watch a movie and I was really inspired to express my view of what I thought of the movie. The movie was well written, the filming was good, the actors were even better and everything about the movie was well done, it was the total package... at least that's what I thought.

Most of us are looking for the silver lining in life, we always look for the positive in the negative, and a few days ago I realised I was probably one of the few people in the world who always looked for the positive in the negative.

Upon watching this AMAZING movie I slowly but surely started to realise that seeing the positive in the negative is very much overrated. The world is supposed to have negatives; the shoe is always going to drop when you have a good thing going. It’s like complimenting someone on their beauty and then when they open their mouth you are met with this overwhelming whiff of decayed fish from the fish market. Yes the shoe has to drop, this is life and life does not always have happy endings. I guess what i'm saying is that the ending of the movie SUCKED because it was a happy ending.

But lets look at things differently, let me ask you this question; what if your life did not have a happy beginning and you had a rough start to life, does this mean that you are almost going to have a happy ending? When you were born in poverty will you die rich? And if you answered yes how long will you enjoy your riches? I ask this question because the character had a rough start but ended up having a happy ending. 

I know for a lot of Africans this is not always the case, if you are born in poverty the chances of getting out are very slim, but look on the bright side there is a chance non-the less… right? 

But let’s not dwell on the negative, let’s focus on the positive for a little bit. We all have a shot at true love, we all can overcome the challenges we are faced with when we are backed up against the ropes, we all have the will and the drive to live and survive, all of us were born with the ability to be übermensch… but how do we release this potential?

But back to the movie, the ending of the movie was horrible and unrealistic; this is what I call 'romantic farce'. Its annoying because the movie touched on real issues and it delivered everything as if it was real, for the duration of the movie I was lost in this ever changing world of intrigue, I even thought this was how normal people lived their lives in other countries. But the ending reminded me that this is a movie.

This piece I’m writing is supposed to be short and concise, I don’t want to bore you, and waste your Precious time, but I do want to ask you this:  Does every cloud have a silver lining? 

The forgotten

As we grow older we all forget things, we tend to have this tendency to remember things that we interact with on a more regular basis. It’s a new year and some of us have resolutions to see through.

I know what you are thinking, “this guy is going to tell us what to do in the New Year, dam Alpheus  you are such a tired cliché”. If you are thinking that well let me enlightened on a little knowledge.

In the New Year we should remember the forgotten, or at least we should try to remember the forgotten for a day… or seven… every day.

Bear with me here. Try to think back and remember what is important and you might find that some, if not all that you have forgotten is the essence of your being, or the beginning of your being.

I’ll talk about myself to put things in perspective. When I was born (like most of us) I was born into the language of IsiZulu, this was the language my mother whispered into my ears every night and every morning when I was a little baby, she did this until I could understand the words and I could speak the words. She gave me meaning through a language and she gave me a name through this beautiful language. I say IsiZulu is beautiful because my mother was beautiful, she taught me the language and the language became beautiful because of my mother.

Before my mother’s beauty interferes with you trail of thought, let’s get back to want we are talking about.

As I grew up, I was unaware that I was slowly but surely forgetting my language, or at least I was forgetting the essence of the language. I was too preoccupied with what I thought was the future, the way forward for our country. I got distracted and I forgot… I forgot my mother’s whisper … I forgot the words.

I have realised this and I now see that the language I first came to understand is dying. There is no two way about it. I have come to understand a different language so well that I have ignored my own. Because I have ignored my language it has not progressed like the language I use every day. My language (because of me) has been stagnant and if I were to continue to ignore it, it would fade away into a distant memory. Unfortunately I’m not the only one who has forgotten their language in this wonderful and divers country of ours.

I’m appealing to everyone; don’t forget your mother’s whisper. Remember the fallen.