Love and Skating

Love and Skating, two things that to you may seem almost complete opposites, and yet to me they have everything in common.

I absolutely love ice skating, to me it is like breathing. So effortless and so easy. You can glide across the ice without a worry or care in the world, it just sets me free. It also leaves my mind free to think of other things, things that might be bothering me.

Love is tha reason for living, the whole point of our existence is to find true selfless love. A love where you give so much love to the other person and yet expect none in return. Love makes the world go round and is the reason why you and I are still alive today.

Love is exactly like ice skating. Trying on a new pair of skates is like having a crush on someone, and working up the courage to step on the ice or ask them out is the next step. Then you have to try to figure out how to skate and make the relationship work, by getting to know the other element better. From then on its all smooth gliding for a while, as easy and effortless as breathing. Perfect turns and glides.
Then along comes the tiny fights and the slight trips and falls. But you get up again and try again, dirty but willing. You decide to move faster then, pushing yourself to the limit, and before you know it, you are hurtling at top speed. But suddenly somebody comes in the way, an obstacle in your beautiful almost perfect pathway. An obstacle that you have to stop for because even if you try to go around it you will fall.
So you stop, take a little break, and then get going again. This time you are going even faster than before, because you are thrown in the deep end straight away. But this time the obstacle comes out of nowhere, like skating backwards, you just didn't see it coming. You crash and hurt yourself. And before you know it, your lying on the ice dizzy and confused. Maybe even crying, trying to figure out what happened and what went wrong.
You get off the ice in anyway possible and so hurt that you can't think about anything else for a while. You in fact don't ever want to try again for a very long time.
But then a reason comes along and you realise that trying again might not be so bad.

Yes love and skating seem abstract at first, but after a while you realise that they are as much the same as a knife and fork...And if you don't believe me just give them both a try...The skating and love, not the knife and fork...

Piles of presents and Birthday bests

Today the 11th of March is 1 month to my birthday. (So now you all know when my birthday is). And even though I absolutely hate the thought of getting older, I realise that it is one part of life that is absolutely inevitable.

Up to a year ago, I was so excited for my birthday that starting 2 months before I would count down the days. And every person around me would know exactly how many day were left to my birthday. Just so that they wouldn't forget ;) , which most people do because my birthday is usually near Easter so that is what they are thinking about.

This year however, I have kept the number of days very quiet and secret, until now, because I really don't want to be reminded of how old I am. I am hoping that the day will pass by without much event, and if I am lucky I might even be away. The only thing that I like about my birthday, and the only reason as to why I cannot forget about it all together is because of the oppurtunity of receving presents.

Receiving presents is wonderful. I love feeling of excitement that overcomes you as you have to get through the wrapping paper/tissue paper/cellophane. And then finally after breaking a few nails trying to get off the sellotape, there is your present in all its amazing glory. It doesn't matter what it is, you could have spent R5 on it, it wouldn't matter to me. I love each and every present for the simple joy of receiving it and being able to unwrap it.

Although there are a few things I ask people for every year because 1. it would be wierd if I bought it for myself, 2. I can't buy it myself. The only problem with doing this is that nobody usually buys said present for you, because every person thinks another person has already bought it. Last year i asked for a Me-to-you 18th birthday teddy bear. However I think the directions it was given were wrong, because it sadly never arrived. And I couldn't very well buy it myself, and now I'm nearly 19 so won't be able to ever get said teddy bear.

But I'm not fussy, this year i just decide to compose a mental list of everything I like. i.e. paint or art supplies and Twilight.
So ia sked my mom to get me a proper easel for my birthday, but I'm not really sure that she will remember even though I did kindly write it in her diary for her like she asked me to.
That and my own series of all the twilight book should be wonderful, given the fact that I don't have my own first original copy of Twilight due to reasons that only Lebz knows ;) and that fact that my sister won't let me borrow her series a second time.

I bought myself the Twilight soundtrack from the movie, and it's wonderful. Now all I need is the actual book of sheet music to accompany it, so that I can play those wonderful songs on the piano. I will however be buying my own copy of the Dvd the day it is released.

But speaking of piano I am planning on suprising my best friend by playing her favourite song to her on her Birthady, just 8 short days away, which i hope she will enjoy. Getting the music and practising the song is quite hard work.

But hey Birthdays are special days and people's lives and so they really need to be spoilt.

Political correctness

Living in South Africa means that you are constantly surrounded by politics and fighting. If it's not refugees or xenephobia then its conspiratorial attacks on the governement and political fighting.

Yesterday prime minister Morgan T had a very bad car 'accident' in which his wife Susan was killed. Almost everyone knows it and thinks it but nobody will dare to say out aloud that it was most definitely not an accident. But it will have to be proved, if such an 'accident' happens again. Especially since Morgan survived.

Back on home soil the political parties are all waging their own wars against each other. Every light pole that you drive past on the road has a placard of a sickly smiling 'future president' pronouncing their motos. And they all seem to be taking pages from America's political race book. With almost every party having a woman leader, and all of them targeting specifically the youth.

However you have to wonder if it is at all worth it. We are after all probably the only country that has only had ex-convicts for presidents. And now with JZ running as head of the ANC you have to wonder what on earth people would be thinking voting for a man who thinks you can't get AIDS if you shower after having sex. And how on earth did he manage to escape from going to prison anyway?

With the new break away party COPE formed, a new threat is posed. But instead of the other leading party joining with COPE so as to get an almost certain win, they are instead attacking them making it even more likely for both of them to lose.

Unlike Americans, South Africans seem to vote for parties and not presidents. So because the ANC brought us out of apartheid back in the day, many people will still vote blindly for them now without even thinking about who the president will be. I would gladly vote for COPE just so that JZ doesn't have to become president. (Join my facebook group of the same name if you feel the same way) Anything to save South Africa from that man and his machine guns.

I feel like telling that to the world and making the youth of South Africa see that they must vote for a president and not a party. And that they don't have to vote the way their parents/grandparents tell them to. Times have changed and so have parties. Just because I am caucasian doesn't mean I have to vote DA. I was thinking about starting a youth march protesting and making the youth aware of this. Because I really feel as though I/we are not doing enough to help with the way our country is going.

***

If you too feel strongly please join my face book group or create your own. Just do whatever is possible to help the future of our country, and spread the word. Don't just sit back and say that you will move one day.

A-U-T-U-M-N

When I was younger, the only thing that I knew about Autumn was that I couldn't spell it. At least not until my Dad taught me a rhyme to do so: AU-TU-MN Autumn.

Now that I'm older I realise that Autumn is the season with the greatest appeal to every one of the five senses.

• You can feel Autumn in the nippy wind that blows early in the morning. The one that you can't brave without a jersey or jacket on. Preferably woolen, so that you can feel the texture against your skin and the way it protects and comforts you from the outside elements.
• You can see Autumn in the multitude of colours that the wind picks up and swirls around you in a blur so colourful that it makes any rainbow jealous. While the pale blue-grey sky lays like an artists background making the colours appear even fresher and brighter.
• You can smell Autumn in the fresh clean cool air that seems to bring with it a wholeness and homeliness. You can almost taste cinnamon, freshly cut wood and spices in the wind.
• You can hear Autumn in the sounds of silence. And the tread of feet down a pathway, and over crunchy leaves just being raked away into a pile, so that you can jump in it with your scarf wound tightly around your neck.
• You can taste Autumn in the way it makes you hunger for peace and a sense of new beggining. A time when everything and anyone has a chance to start anew, and let go of the past and what belongs to it.

Now I realise that Autumn is the season that has the greatest significance in our lives, because it is the season that can be related to most easily, and be understood because of its relation to human nature.

Yes, I am trluy glad that Autumn is here now. And so with the words out of 'You've got mail' "I wish a could give you all a bunch of freshly sharpened pencils", and wish you a happy Autumn.

Not just a name

You know how it is when you meet new people?
They always point, with blank looks on their faces, at you, while they are trying to introduce you to some distant friend of theirs. And ask the dreaded question "And you are...?"

well how on earth do you even go about answering a question like that? Yes I know that they simply want my name.

But is my name really who I am?
Of course not...

Those two (or three words if you're really lucky) have almost nothing in common with you, except the fact that your parents gave them to you when you were so tiny you couldn't possibly protest. If you could you probably wouldn't have let them name you that. Especially since that name describes absolutely nothing about who you are as a person.

***

My dad and mom had bought a huge name book, solely for the purpose of having nine glorious months to read through it languidly and choose a name that they thought would fit best.

Unfortunately as everyone knows, when you have too long a period of time to accomplish something you usually put it off till the very last minute.

So there sat my dad, just a week before I was due, reading the name book. He had accomplished the feat of reaching the very far off letters of 'An' and happened upon the name 'Anastasia'. So he looks up to my mom and says, "What do you think of Stacey?" and so it was to be. I was given the name Stacey.

***

Although I am a Stacey, and one of millions I can assure you, and have the name with the greatest number of different ways to spell it, (21 different and accepted ways to be exact) that

it says almost nothing about me as a person. I could be anyone, boy or girl, old or young, any multitude of races and religions. And yet I am just me.

When I think of myself and who I am, I never think of myself as just a name. Not when the name is not quite so diverse and rich enough to tell the person who asked the question exactly who I am.

But I will still answer their question with the same reply everytime; "Stacey", and let them find out for themselves who I really am.