I feel a bit bad that I am so absorbed by what is going on in my own private little bubble while Britain has raised its terror alert to critical, but other than be vigilant, which one should always be anyway, what else can one do? I have to admit getting a but of a shock when I found out about the thwarted bomb attempt outside Tiger Tiger, simply because it's one of the places we've been, and probably would have gone to again had we not been so appalled by their security's attitude last time (extremely rude, overly aggressive and just generally creating bad vibes for people on a mission to enjoy a good night out). I guess it's a natural reaction though; the same as reading about a violent murder or horrific accident: unless you know someone affected or are directly affected yourself, it sort of bypasses you and life just goes on. It's sad that we've become that desensitized to the world, but I don't think it should be mistaken for not caring. I think it's a defense mechanism against all the horror that goes on around us every day. If we started to think on it too much, or take a walk in a victim's shoes too often to empathise with what they've been through, then it would all become a bit much to handle. Life's tough enough without having to closely examine the state of the world we live in all the time. I'm probably walking a fine line with that statement, but what I mean by it is that we should be aware of our surroundings and our social and political environment, but I don't think it is necessary to worry yourself about it all the time. Human concern and awareness make you an involved, thinking person while worry makes you strung out and paranoid for no good reason. The brutal fact remains: unless a headline event that takes place directly changes our lives, we continue to live in our bubbles in relative peace and happiness. I'm very aware of how lucky I am to have the life that I do, where I don't have to worry about much except making enough money to live comfortably and a bit extra to travel. My worries are so trivial when compared to the bigger picture, but that also doesn't make them any less real or important to me. It all seems so out of proportion when you think about it. Here I am, stressing about my credit card debt and my monumental struggle to pay it off, while the people running the country are stressing about how to keep its people safe, and elsewhere across the world a mother is stressing about how she's going to feed her child its next meal and a father is stressing about sending his son off to war. If you ask any of them, I'm sure they'd be able to put the problems in order of priority in the greater context. But personally, none of those problems could ever seem to them as important as their own. I find it ironic that we have a word like 'fair' in the dictionary, when, if you had to teach a child about fairness using the world we live in as an example, you'd find precious few situations to use as analogies.
Anyway, no matter how much I think about these things, my bubble remains my number one priority, and right now in my bubble there is palpable excitement as we usher in a new era of jobs and careers. We like to call it The Get Mine Era. It means that, hopefully, Shoes and I are finally going to get the jobs we want. As he is qualified, he now needs to look for entry level jobs in IT where he can get the basic experience he needs while studying the second part of his course. We had a brief look online last night, and tonight we're going to sit down and write a cover letter and apply for a few jobs. He will also have to join a few agencies now to maximise his chances of success, and I've tried to prepare him as best I can for the battleground that is recruitment in London. I've told him how they all make grand promises and stroke your ego until you believe you are absolutely the greatest thing since Nik-Naks, and then how once they have you on their books, they forget your name and what made you so special in the first place if you are not employed within a week. I've told him how they swear on their lives to call you back, and then make themselves unavailable so that you can't track them down, even after you've phoned 5 times a day. And I've told him how when they get really sick of you harrassing them, they try to thrust you into random positions just to get you off your backs, even though you tell them you actually don't know the first thing about Data Analysis and aren't at all interested in it. I've also expressed the hope that perhaps things in the IT industry are a little different to the general world of office admin! As for me, well, I'm remaining silent until such time as I have something to tell. Which is not yet, so we'll move on.
I thought I'd end this rather reflective post with someone else's thoughts, for a change. I came across a wonderful opinion piece by a Guardian columnist the other day about comedy in South Africa. The writer had recently travelled to SA to review the increasingly popular comedy circuit, and her column's overall theme was about how, while it is difficult for an outsider to understand South Africans' attitudes towards race, we are clearly ready to laugh at ourselves. Citing a showstopper by up-and-coming, half-Zulu and half-coloured comic Wayvinne Dawson: "Here in Cape Town you have coloured muslims - just how dangerous can one man be? - she goes on to say that in Britain, a line like that would draw gasps of horror, and the perpetator would be fed to the wolves; in South Africa, this has the audience - black, white and coloured - rolling in the aisles with mirth. She highlights how we South Africans have chosen to deal with the ugliness in our history by laughing at our stupidity and mistakes. Sending up historical South African figures is an essential ingredient in the comedic formula; so too is glorifying our differences based on skin colour. It's a brand of humour given to South Africans by South Africans, and it works. But let a foreigner try for the same effect at their own peril - as we are very protective of our country, so too are we protective of our unique identity. With the multitude of bad press that SA regularly receives overseas, this little piece stuck out like a strobe light in a cave. I had the warmest, fuzziest feeling whilst reading it, overjoyed in the knowledge that perhaps it is not only South Africans who see our country as a patched-up canvas on which to paint new rainbows.
Anyway, no matter how much I think about these things, my bubble remains my number one priority, and right now in my bubble there is palpable excitement as we usher in a new era of jobs and careers. We like to call it The Get Mine Era. It means that, hopefully, Shoes and I are finally going to get the jobs we want. As he is qualified, he now needs to look for entry level jobs in IT where he can get the basic experience he needs while studying the second part of his course. We had a brief look online last night, and tonight we're going to sit down and write a cover letter and apply for a few jobs. He will also have to join a few agencies now to maximise his chances of success, and I've tried to prepare him as best I can for the battleground that is recruitment in London. I've told him how they all make grand promises and stroke your ego until you believe you are absolutely the greatest thing since Nik-Naks, and then how once they have you on their books, they forget your name and what made you so special in the first place if you are not employed within a week. I've told him how they swear on their lives to call you back, and then make themselves unavailable so that you can't track them down, even after you've phoned 5 times a day. And I've told him how when they get really sick of you harrassing them, they try to thrust you into random positions just to get you off your backs, even though you tell them you actually don't know the first thing about Data Analysis and aren't at all interested in it. I've also expressed the hope that perhaps things in the IT industry are a little different to the general world of office admin! As for me, well, I'm remaining silent until such time as I have something to tell. Which is not yet, so we'll move on.
I thought I'd end this rather reflective post with someone else's thoughts, for a change. I came across a wonderful opinion piece by a Guardian columnist the other day about comedy in South Africa. The writer had recently travelled to SA to review the increasingly popular comedy circuit, and her column's overall theme was about how, while it is difficult for an outsider to understand South Africans' attitudes towards race, we are clearly ready to laugh at ourselves. Citing a showstopper by up-and-coming, half-Zulu and half-coloured comic Wayvinne Dawson: "Here in Cape Town you have coloured muslims - just how dangerous can one man be? - she goes on to say that in Britain, a line like that would draw gasps of horror, and the perpetator would be fed to the wolves; in South Africa, this has the audience - black, white and coloured - rolling in the aisles with mirth. She highlights how we South Africans have chosen to deal with the ugliness in our history by laughing at our stupidity and mistakes. Sending up historical South African figures is an essential ingredient in the comedic formula; so too is glorifying our differences based on skin colour. It's a brand of humour given to South Africans by South Africans, and it works. But let a foreigner try for the same effect at their own peril - as we are very protective of our country, so too are we protective of our unique identity. With the multitude of bad press that SA regularly receives overseas, this little piece stuck out like a strobe light in a cave. I had the warmest, fuzziest feeling whilst reading it, overjoyed in the knowledge that perhaps it is not only South Africans who see our country as a patched-up canvas on which to paint new rainbows.
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