Programming for good, not evil.

 Value labels [ . . . ] /Phy1 Phy2 Phy3 Phy4 Phy5 Phy6 Phy7 1 "beat/kick/punch/hit" 2 "stab w weapon" 3 "choking" 4 "shooting" 5 "shaking/push/pull" 6 "slapping/smacking" 7 "biting/spitting" 8 "burnt" 9 "throw object"
 /Physymp1 Physymp2 Physymp3 Physymp4 1 "stab wound" 2 "gun wounds" 3 "broken bones" 4 "bruises/scars" 5 "health care needed"
 /Sexl1 Sexl2 Sexl3 Sexl4 Sexl5 1 "incest" 2 "forced sex/rape" 3 "forced sex w/ others" 4 "forced sex IFO children" 5 "forced oral or anal sex" 6 "sexual assault" 7 "withhold sex"
 /Rapeb1 Rapeb2 Rapeb3 1 "partner" 2 "ex-partner" 3 "friend/fam friend" 4 "tenant/neighbor" 5 "stranger" 6 "gang"  . . .

* * * * * * * * *
I am spending the day at home writing a program in SPSS and doing some simple analyses on assault data for the Unit and an area NGO.

It is interesting and I am happy to do it. I am glad that it is me doing it (and not just because my colleague handed me the cleanest data I have ever worked with in my entire career -- because she did the integrity checks before giving it to me, not because it has been falsified). 

I like the fact that the data that were recorded on the form were entered into a spreadsheet and converted into a database and will be analysed and will ultimately, be written up and go into a report that hopefully will be read and discussed among people in a position to do something about the problem.

Most of all, I like the fact that even though the assaults and the victims are reduced to numbers, I know that I am very, very much aware that each case represents a human being, usually a woman, who was hurt by someone (usually a man).  I like the fact that it is me thinking about these women as I go about the mundane tasks of typing up value labels and running frequency distributions and re-set system missing variables to zero.  I think to myself, "Sister, people you don't even know and will never know are thinking about what happened to you and make this world right, if not for you, then for another woman in the same situation."

Unplugged.

There is some stuff going on job-wise and personal life-wise that I could live without. Nothing horrible.  But things hitting me sideways and a lot of time feeling misunderstood and incapable of figuring out how I feel about everything, which gets in the way of being able to explain myself.

So after a rocky week (though one which was not without its good parts), I had a very, very low-key weekend. I spoke to exactly two people the entire weekend. No phone and no internet. I slept a lot.

It took about 48 hours before I started to feel like myself again.  I think my favorite part of the weekend was when a friend came over and read the paper on one couch while I crashed out on the other. No need to do anything other than just be.  I will work from home tomorrow.


I am not quite myself yet. But I am getting there.

Tonight, I've rented some movies.

This is one of those days.

Ever have one of those days where even a breeze blowing across your face hurts your feelings?

Begging to be.

Today, even though I had resolved to wait until I was on better financial footing (I am trying to scrape together 8500 SAR). I broke down and bought Antjie Krog's new book, Begging to Be Black. Some people pay a therapist. Some people buy  books like this one.

I am only a few pages in and have already stumbled across two things I wanted to put here:

On apartheid (p. 4): "It is not always easy to work out how to live a righteous life. That apartheid is wrong is relatively obvious, but how to live against apartheid is the harder question, because even the smallest decision has complicated consequences."

And this, on p. 5.

"So let me try again to describe this moment.  A very precise moment in which the terrible has already happened but has not yet reached you, and it's only looking back that you realize how protected, fortunate and naive you were at that moment . . . (But, as always when I start this story, I feel I am sinking - as if my brain loses its capacity to maintain a physical integrity, a coherent skin around the story, asi f my being becomes dispersed in the telling. I also know that when I reach the end of this tale, completely worn out, I will still be asking: What would have been the right thing to do?  -- and the terror, the real terror of moral bewilderment, is lost among the words.)"

Aside from the "moral" part of  "moral bewilderment" part, what she describes is very familiar to me.

MO' BOTHERED.

HEY, TO "MO RUSH" THE PERSON WHO POSTED THE PHOTO I TOOK ON A FORUM AND DIDN'T ACKNOWLEDGE THE SOURCE (I.E., ME):  I want to be flattered but mostly I'm irked.  That is definitely not cool.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=941870&page=49 


PS Mo apologised, which was good of him.

Banking on it.

I screwed up my nerve, loaded a wheelbarrow full of paperwork, walked into a bank, saw the long line and walked out, screwed up my nerve and walked into another bank, got irritated by the teller's voice and walked out, screwed up my nerve and walked into a third bank, etc. . . . then went back to the first bank and noticed that while there was still a long line of people waiting to be told they need to speak to a customer banking support counselor-advisor or whatever they're calling them nowadays, there was no longer anyone speaking to the customer banking support counselor-advisor so I introduced myself and an hour and a half later and a firm insistence that "But I don't want an account that you would give a foreign national. I want a real bank account", I am now the holder of a PlusSave savings account at Standard Bank. I wasn't even sure why I didn't want the foreign national account. I figured anything that easy to get probably came with really high fees and a catch. How did I pull off this incredible financial feat? Basically, I flooded the poor woman with paperwork.  Including, but not limited to:

1. my lease
2. my extension lease
3. an (old) letter from the Unit requesting my extension
4. an (old) letter from the US Embassy approving my extension
5. an (old) contract from the State Department saying they would pay me
6. three months of US bank statements
7. my passport
8. my treaty permit
9. some medical bills (for proof of address) and, for good measure,
10. a stick of gum.

If Standard Bank is a lousy bank, I don't want to know.

There was a funny moment toward the end when she said,
Lynn:  "Okay. And now arrangements for your death."

Me: "Pardon?"
Lynn: "Well, we need to make plans for what to do in case you die."
Me:  "Of course, of course.  I had simply hoped to postpone thinking about that until um, I was a little closer toward, er,. . . dying."
Lynn:  "I see. No problem. We'll talk in a few months, then, shall we?"

Health update.

I am in decent spirits of late.  The trip and the two days preceding it did wonders for my mood.  That, and the fact that the B6 seems to be doing the trick where the neuropathy is concerned.

The Karoo. Getting there is half the fun.

I will not do our road trip justice. Too much happened.  Basically, on Thursday Jess and I intended to set out around noon for the Karoo to a spa we'd been told was between 2 and 3 hours away. We got a late start, however, when the car I'd rented had to be returned for one that did not have one bald tire. The late start was made later by my inability to find the N2. Eventually we were underway, but we missed a key turn and got some bum directions and the map I had bought for the trip turned out to be less than useless, as it was one of those maps where half the roads were unmarked and the other half were marked ambiguously so you are never quite sure whether this is Route 318 or that is Route 318, a feature which is even more pronounced when the map is being studied at night under a dome light with eyes that have been open for 37 of the last 48 hours.

Would it come to any surprise to you that we got lost?  Not as lost as we would have been had we followed the directions we were given by somebody in some town, mind you.  But not before we drove through some really beautiful countryside. And ate really good calamari in . . . in . . . some town that had a pack of dogs roving the streets.

Would you be surprised if I told you that we made a few false starts down a stretch of Route 62?  We were told that the spa was 16 km away when it was actually 26 km away.  I had gone 20km but turned back out of concern that we were running low-ish (one-quarter tank) on gas with no signs of civilisation in the offing. 

Around midnight, we filled up with gas and prepared to set out again.  I turned the key in the ignition and there was a strange clicking sound and nothing else.  I tried again. A strange light lit up on the panel.  I let the car sit for a few minutes. I tried again. Nothing.  Was this some strange security thing?  I opened and closed the doors. I locked them.  I re-buckled my seat belt. Nothing. Lights on and off. Radio on and off. It is definitely not the battery.  At this point, I rest my forehead on the steering wheel and Jessie says, "Hey Jeanne."  Yes?  "Listen. Do you hear that?"

There is a radio playing at the gas station and whose voice is booming from it but our friend Sakhile Moleshez, who is singing the Goldfish hit, "Fort Knox."  Sakhile is known for giving us a hard time (especially Jess).  But on this occasion, I was happy for his big mouth (and he does have a beautiful voice).

We broke out laughing like crazy women.  And we basically didn't stop laughing for the next 72 or so hours.

Anyway, I called the car rental place who said they would deliver us another car in 4 hours. The gas station attendant called the police.  Two very nice constables arrived and were able to get the car to start by pushing it, then drove 30km out to the spa and upon arriving, declined the money I offered them. (I insisted. But they made me insist a lot and then only accepted half of it.)

We arrived safe and sound at the Warmwaterberg Spa around ... well, I don't know when. But we arrived safe and sound. And neither of us ever doubted that we would do so. Even at the worst moment, it only looked as bad as sleeping in the car at a 24 hour petrol station.  I've survived worse.  I've slept in cars with worst companions than Jess, too, I might add.  And there was that time in Berlin... (I had to stay up all night because the hotel messed up the reservations so I took half the students -- the oldest ones -- and we stayed up all night in a really sketchy disco.)

Karoo. Settling in.

So we arrive at some ungodly hour and after driving around the spa grounds in pitch darkness, we find our room in the old sanitorium.  It is like something out of the Shining.  The rooms we booked were supposed to include two Roman baths. And they did.  Only the baths looked like the Romans had only recently left the premises.

Even though it was two in the morning, and even though we were dog-ass tired, Jess took full advantage and went for a dip. She did not seem to mind that there was no water (just as well, for reasons I will mention later) or that she was fully clothed (perhaps because she was wearing my clothes -- including the infamous stocking cap which seems to be present for most of our encounters with the police). We called it a night about half two or three, and a glass or two of wine later.  (Did I remember my phone charger? No. Did I remember a corkscrew? Yes.)

Karoo. Kicking around.

So what did we do?

• snapped photos of the peacocks
• gave Jessi a driving lesson
• lounged in the hot mineral springs
• lolled about in the sun
• waited for our replacement rental car to arrive
• broke all but one of the pool rules (none intentionally)
• checked out a junkyard in Ladysmith
• ate Greek food in Barrydale
• paddled around the hot baths  under the stars and the nearly full moon singing Michael Jackson songs

The Karoo. Kicking around.

The Karoo. Coming home was fun too.

We had breakfast at Clarke's.  We went to a market and stopped by a butcher shop to get some biltong.  We stopped and admired some ostriches. (We love to eat them so it seemed only right to pay our respects.)  They may only have a brain the size of a pea but they seemed to mobilise every neuron to the pursuit of ripping apart the string that was holding the gate shut, which made Jessi a little nervous.

As the miles unfurled (and they really do unfurl in that part of the country), I sang along to CDs that Fury and Miki and Sof had made me, and I got misty thinking about all the things the last two years have held for me.
I thought of my friends, old and new, those who are alive and those who are not.
I thought about how lucky I am.
I thought about how healthy I am.
I thought about how happy I am.
And I thought about how grateful I am.

Thank you, everybody.  Really.

2010 World Cup Stadium

Last night, my friend RM took me and my friend Danga to check out the new football (soccer) stadium.  The moon was almost full.  The weather was nice. R was knowledgeable.  A really nice night.

(He also showed me the nearby traffic circle he designed.)