Unwrapping a brand new year

Like flipping the page

We ushered in the New Year quietly, no fanfare or gatherings as we were under a curfew in South Africa. The ban on alcohol sales also meant there was no bubbly to click glasses to and without live television there was nothing to keep us prompted on the passing of time.

With an eye on our watches, we lit a candle each o reflect on a year we could never have anticipated, to remember the many who we lost to the pandemic and other causes along with the blessings and grace that has kept us, and to resolve to live, tell, and write better stories.

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Not a paradise for many

When it struck midnight, some people came out of their houses to hail in the New Year, a lady above us was beating a pan and hollering at the top of her voice. We looked out to see what was going on, acknowledged and exchanged celebratory greetings until the persistence from street level indicated something else.

The man was pleading for alms and others were already lining up to ask for something if I acceded the first request. There is grinding poverty in Cape Town, it is difficult to look into the eyes of some people and not feel your heart go out to them, but there is little you can do. Once you give to one, literally out of nowhere many appear acting completely oblivious of the fact that you had just been generous. Suffering has no nuance, survival scrapes for anything.

Not too ordinary a day

At that point, we kept away from the window until the police dispersed the people whilst we made to retire and go to bed. When we eventually woke up, we went out for brunch before making for the V&A Waterfront. Finding a quiet spot by the Mariner’s Wharf, we soaked in the sun, at a large harbour of yachts all overlooked by the natural emblems of Cape Town from left to right, Lion’s Head, Table Mountain, and Signal Hill.

On our return home, I fell asleep on the couch, it was another day, an auspicious day by the calendars we share and with it we close the chapter on a year that was yesterday and begin to plan to a different tomorrow. Most of all, I did all this with my fiancé, Brian, the love of life and amazingly wonderful man.

From 2019 into 2020

Giving thanks

As we bid 2019 goodbye passing into the annals of the eternal past, I have much to be grateful for, being alive and celebrating 10 years after a full-blown AIDS and cancer diagnosis in September. I count myself blessed and fortunate to be in few who after my kind of diagnosis continues to thrive.

I was in Cape Town at the time, and I had great cause to give thanks in church for reaching that landmark decade.

As we took on the new year, I fell in love and though there was quite a distance between us, we found a way to make each moment matter, that in the course of this year, I have been back to South Africa in February, April, September and now December. I look forward to making my relationship with Brian the most significant and most relevant I have ever had; we hope for exciting things in 2020.

Focused south

On the work front, despite the promise of much activity, things were a bit slow, I probably only found engagement for about six months of the year. The fallow periods affording me the opportunities for quality romantic time.

For someone who happens to travel a lot, my compass has only pointed to the southern tip of Africa all year. It is my desire to visit the Netherlands to thank the consultants who handled my health crisis with such professionalism and empathy, it should happen soon. Other European cities as Berlin, Paris and Barcelona need a reacquaintance, much as Scandinavia remains undiscovered apart from Sweden.

Family keynotes

In October, we celebrated the 80^th birthday of our patriarch, my siblings did a sterling job of honouring him and making him proud, it was celebrated in the manner and style he wanted and we are thankful for his long life and rude health. The matriarch clocked 77^th though there were times when I offered to swear an affidavit on her behalf if out of envy, she wanted her 80^th early.

Other things that I got to do were to begin learning to play the piano, it is something I need to put more effort into. With a sudden furlough in mid-November, I took project management and enterprise architecture classes and went on to pass the certifications for both, all within a month.

Good year

2019 could easily have been a year of little, yet, counting my blessings, it was a year of great, exiting, magnificent and wonderful things. There was a supply for where there appeared to be little, I believe 2020 is a harbinger of greater things to come.

Generally, whilst it is unfortunate that the Brexit juggernaut is in full throttle, the world will not end, we will do well despite the odds. For all the dislike one might have for Boris Johnson, his success as Prime Minister would be for the good of all. How he intends to unite our nation with acts, activities, policy, and purpose, I am yet to see, beyond rhetoric, platitudes and verbiage.

Arise 2020

For love, we live; for happiness we strive; for blessing, we pray; for success, we desire; for great stories to tell, we yearn; and for truth and justice we fight.

May 2020 be the new beginning for things we could never have imagined possible, exceeding the realisation of our wildest dreams. I look to have Brian by my side through it all. Thank you for being here, being there and being where life begins to have new meaning.

Christmas & New Year Greetings

This Christmas and beyond

Dear friends, acquaintances, well-wishers, fans, followers, people and you are many who have crossed my path and blessed me with your presence, engagement, conversation, interaction and much else.

May the joy of Christmas,
the story of happiness, wellness,
and peace be yours.

Let the New Year of 2014,
bring the fulfilment of dreams,
amazing adventure,
new experiences,
fun and laughter.

It has been a long year, and I have everything to be grateful for, old friends, new friends, new places, adventure, work plenty and work unavailable, in means and in little, being myself more and enjoying the things I do. I am blessed.

I have benefitted from such generosity that humbles me, in help, in encouragement, in kind, in love shown unconditionally, in kindness offered without reservation, you all have been the wind beneath my wings, you made me soar.

On Twitter, I gained over a third more followers and met new people, on Facebook, the banter ranged from levity to robust and serious, my blog reached a milestone, a decade of blogging.

I am five birthdays after a cancer diagnosis and my eye is not dimmed in the things I expect and hope for, there is a life to live out there and with as much strength as I have had, I have engaged in the pursuit of happiness with vigour.

I am thankful to God, yes, my beliefs do sustain me.

Thank you and here’s to a better year and future ahead of us.

Akin

New Year's Considerations

Greetings

To all my readers, friends, well-wishers and not to forget my detractors – I bear you no ill – I wish the very best of 2008 – the dawning of a new year bring the realisation of hopes, the strength to meet great challenges and a willingness to end the year well beyond what you have ever thought you could achieve.

Consideration not resolution

I was chatting to my friend who came over from England who smokes like a chimney, even Santa Claus would refuse to be blackened by the soot in this vertical tunnel – he had no resolution to stop smoking but he had consideration.

I have long opined that resolutions are too strong a stricture to apply to our weak will-power and resolve, however, maybe considerations are better.

You can break a resolution but a consideration means you are thinking about it without the self-flagellation and self-loathing that accompanies being unable to do what you "resolved" to do.

My considerations

And so, I have a few considerations, first of which is to manage the issue of my romantic failures, I have been unfortunate in relationships in 2007 – I know what I do not want in a relationship, but as usual one gets confused about what one wants in a relationship – I am learning.

I have a gym membership that has been running for years, maybe it is time to visit, you used a palm-print and pin-code which showed your picture to get through the turnstiles, hopefully, my palm has not evolved into a non-descript identity-less fossil – that would put paid to one area of forensics.

Professionally, there are a few irons in the fire including the possibility of a new role at the company where I am a consultant – we should see how that pans out by the end of the month. Meanwhile, I might get on the certification track of Microsoft again, after 9 years – just for the fun of it.

Blogging, not an English word

Blogging would continue as usual and hopefully with more vigour and enthusiasm, sometimes one is caught up in blog-think but unable to write anything down – been having too many of those lately, might have to try writing shorter blogs; that would be difficult.

I am surprised that blog, blogging & blogger have yet to make it into the standard English dictionaries of word processors – they must be lagging behind the times.

Finally, without having asked the permission of my outrageously handsome baby-face brother – Gosh! I’m jealous – He sent me a text message written in SMS-English but I would transcribe it to traditional parlance – to wish me a Merry Christmas and I cannot but share his words here.

Be it,

Climbing to Attain,

Running to Obtain,

Walking to Retain,

Or Standing to Maintain,

You shall be extraordinarily distinguished,

Amongst Millions.

A few more of those people on earth and what a wonderful place this blessed planet would be. Thank you brother, love you lots.

Happy New Year! Everyone – Hopefully, you have all recovered from the excess of the two nights before, if not, you need a resolution more than you need a consideration.

New goggles for 2006

Day 365

The year 2005 would go down in history as the year 2005; almost as if one wakes up suddenly and it is December the 31^st.

Anyway, traditionally one has always closed the year from the 21^st of December since one has the advantage and disadvantage of a birthday close to year end but the closeness to Christmas deprives one of the generosities of two presents every so often.

Clean bloods

Besides that quibble, one does have a lot to be grateful for, firstly, health and well-being after a battery of tests that included venesection (blood-letting) for analysis revealed a better picture of health than one could have expected - health matters for the purposes of doing everything else.

After 5 vials, one did wonder if some serious light-headedness would result, I hate needles apart from when one re-attaches that button that just came off.

Consulting for fools

A number of opportunities came by in which ones expertise was called to change and improve practices that were failing the organisations that had “smart” in-house architects feeling threatened.

However, ones professional slant has never been to prove a wrong implementation but to address situations with the view of renewing confidence in the architects and changing the implementations for the better.

Reactions to the deftness differ, one welcomed the opportunity and despite the huge cost of having such expertise on hand one was redeployed to mentoring and development which was quite instructive as normally nonchalant staff got up and took the job to heart with fervour.

As for the other, each suggestion was met with extreme analysis by the self-same architects who implemented a dud. It made one wonder why we were needed if it was all right in the first place.

Besides that, the shameful misrepresentation of facts by the managers to higher management was unconscionable and disagreeable; it is not surprising that after six months they are still talking about talking about talking about how to talk about getting on with it.

This time next year, one would not be surprised that another batch of consultants would have come and gone with the same situation being the same set of problems.

People who want no change would get no change no matter how much expertise, wisdom and insight they gain or hire to review what has now been conclusively proven to be completely wrong.

Online school days

I returned to school last July for a Masters programme in Information Technology with the online programme offered by the University of Liverpool.

This programme is an 8-module programme which last 8 weeks each consisting of weekly seminars of lectures, discussions, projects and assignments.

Four of those modules were completed this year, and though the intention was to finish 5, some radical changes to the specialisations and the programme itself which afforded a realignment of my selected modules.

Now, I have just two to finish in 2006 and then the dissertation with the plan to graduate in summer 2007.

Competing for relevance

What I have learnt is the quest to succeed is on two levels, the first being winning the battle to remain relevant in a mixed-ability class and then the competition with oneself in wanting to achieve the best grades.

All the results for this year came down to the last week of activity I made it away with half on excellent grade and the other half on distinction grade.

The relevance of online degrees is a growing and interesting debate; commentary indicates that business and academia are warming up to the usefulness and validity of such endeavours. [1, 2, 3].

Like the university says, it might be online and flexible but it is neither easy nor laid-back.

It is both been enlightening and instructive, a sure recommendation to anyone looking to enhance their career profile by formal educational methods without losing out on relevant working experience and income generation.

Opinions in general

Whilst one has done be too consistent with this blogging activity, a number of issues have excited commentary from my perspective.

In the light of that, we can rest assured that the preponderance of religious influence on the American presidency would continue as highlighted Terri Schiavo case and stem cell research as would the issues of abortion, gay marriage and the death penalty that exert undue influence on critical political and judicial appointments.

Every public show of acquiescing to demand unpopular with the White House should be scrutinised with greater detail, since the agreement to accept the abolition of torture by US personnel came through after the Department of Defense changed the Army Field Manual just in time to accept what would have been generally unacceptable.

The topics of ethnic minorities, immigrants, immigration and integration would be burning issues through debate and physical realities as we saw after Katrina, in France and Australia.

The fact is the closeness of Mexico to the United States has not led to the prosperity by osmosis in Mexico, many of them still think the opportunities are in the United States.

If the United States cannot bring progressive change to their neighbours in Mexico and Cuba that form does not offer promise for Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to clear highlight the blatant hypocrisy that leaves ones backyard a mess and seeks to right things in courtyards further afield.

Bad laws encroaching in civil liberties in the quest against terrorism both perceived and real would continue to be promulgated though as least the legislators in the United States are giving the Patriot Act a closer look than before.

Europe however is in need of knowledgeable parliamentarians that understand but the social and technological implications and try not to be carried away with the hysteria of child porn, terrorism and sovereignty.

Get up and do something

We all now need to get involved in a lot of things for the protection of our freedoms and liberties starting with the news.

Filter out the propaganda and extreme analysis, take the news and research the issues and how they affect you, your community, your nation, your affiliations and the globe.

Refuse to be fobbed off with officialdom, walk the red tape if you have to, engage others to weed out the inefficiencies and brick walls that stand in the way of people who are not knowledgeable of rights they have because some mandarin can exploit them better.

Start to blog, you have opinions that need to be aired, probably debated and sometimes corrected a very instructive process.

Machiavelli is alive and well in this civilised age but in a democratic process the end cannot justify the means with due process consigned the bin of expediency and changed times.

Our parliamentarians are either getting hoodwinked with falsehoods or blackmailed with accusations of being unpatriotic, we have to prod them to prevent the dereliction of duty on all sides yours and theirs.

Even if you are not an expert in a field, the expert is not the ultimate authority; your acquisition of knowledge that allows you to make good choices should be your authority. Ask questions and when you get answers review the answers to ensure that is the answer to your question.

If you had all the answers to life you will still have one other question about if that is all there is, be inquisitive, be acquisitive, be interrogative and listen carefully – life will always be the sum of what you make it in terms of how you us knowledge, apply wisdom and exercise prudence.

Become the change you want to the world to become, change yourself, change your life, change your job, change your career, change to remain relevant but keep your beliefs, keep your principles, keep your relationships and grow them productively.

Each New Year offers promise, work to fulfil those promises, then look back and count your blessing.

Happy New Year my friends – you teach me love and enemies – you teach me compassion.

Best wishes and the kindest regards.

References

[1] "[Employers] gain a certain amount of admiration for [online students]. They consider them savvy and creative enough to succeed online."

AOL Research & Learn: Online Campus - Will Your Degree Have Value?

[2] Of the 330 useful replies, 92% accepted online-only degrees (compared with 100% acceptance for traditional 4-year offline degrees)

MSN Money - Is an online degree worth anything?

[3] In addition, according to Consortium findings, three quarters of academic leaders at public colleges and universities believe that online learning quality is equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction (The Sloan Consortium: Entering the Mainstream, October 2004.)

How Do Employers View Online Degrees?