Does your career need a makeover? Are you sure you love what you do?

It did not take me long to read The Career Clinic. The book, by Maureen Anderson, is about ordinary people who took risks to achieve extraordinary things. The book, just like the title imply, is indeed -- a career clinic.

It is comforting to know that, just like you, other people have fears, regrets, disappointments and expectations in their careers. The book introduces you to those people.  You get to travel with them to the turning points in their lives and careers.

We are often advised: follow your passion; do what you love! That would also include breaking boundaries and pulling out all stops to pursue what you were born to do. But really, how many of us do that? How many of us are happy at what they do? Were you born to do what you are doing right now? I’m talking about your job. Are you enjoying it? Do you love it? If "yes", Good for you! If  "not" (Who are you fooling?) What are you doing about it? These are some of the questions that you get to ask yourself as you read this book. 

The Career Clinic gives you tips to consider:

1.      Have no regrets, it is the only way to living a guilt-free life; and making mistakes helps you to learn.

2.       Talk to yourself. It is not insanity. Let that inner voice come to life, don’t ignore your intuition.

3.       Stop. Wait. Breathe. Take a break to reflect (I think this is the level I’m at right now (February 2012). I’m glad to see that I’m on the right track. It’s not abnormal. It’ not unheard of.  It’s a step that only the brave dare to take. 

4.       Ask for free samples. If you can test-drive a car before you buy it and try on the clothes in a shop before you pay for them, why can’t you test the waters of a career you want to follow? If it does not tickle you fancy you simply get to say: thank you very much, I’ll pass.

5.       Say yes! Yes to life, yes to new opportunities.  Dare to challenge your old beliefs and systems. Who put them in place in the first place?

6.       Have fun. If you stop having fun, you stop enjoying it, it then becomes a routine. Am I hitting a nerve here?

7.       Try something new if you stop having fun. (Exactly!)

If you, like me, enjoy reading inspirational and motivational content, you are going to enjoy reading this book. Accepting that I had finished to read it and that I had to put it down felt like saying goodbye to a friend, not knowing when I’d see them again. Yes, it made that kind of an impact.

Stepping up

Lillian Dube chats to me about how she beat cancer

Talk about laugher is the best medicine

Breast cancer used to be more common among white women and women over 40, but there are increasing cases of breast cancer in black women and women younger than 30. The key is to detect breast cancer early so that you can get treatment and increase your chance of survival.

Who is at risk?

Anyone can get breast cancer, but you are more at risk if your diet is high in fat, if you don’t exercise regularly, are overweight, drink more than two glasses of alcohol per day and if you have a family history of breast cancer.

You are also at a higher risk if you are over 40, if you started your period at a young age, went through menopause at a late stage and if you had children after the age of 40 or not at all.

Symptoms include a lump in your breast, unusual swelling, puckering of the skin (like an orange peel), a sore or rash, pain, discharge from the nipple and indentation of the nipple (instead of pointing out and forward, it is pointing sideways or inwards).

Lillian Dube

All cancer patients and survivors will tell you that finding out they had cancer and then undergoing treatment, was one of the biggest challenges they had ever faced. The physical effects of the treatment are tough with a many side effects, but it is also a psychological and emotional challenge.

Popular actress, Lillian Dube, is a breast cancer survivor who didn’t let the disease dampen her positive spirit. The bubbly and outspoken actress is renowned for her role as the matriarch and matron Sister Bettina in the TV drama Soul City. She also stars in SABC 2’s Muvhango.

Lillian is a very busy lady; everyone wants a piece of her. Her phone keeps on interrupting us, but she manages to tell me how her acting career started. “I was encouraged by my son to get into TV back in the 1980s. He heard on the radio that there were auditions in Johannesburg. He even got a telephone number and address for me,” she says. “At that time I was working as a credit clerk at a retail.”

She is now working on season two of the TV series, Skwizas, which is being produced by her production company: Lillian Dube Productions.

Cancervive campaign

Diagnosed with the disease in December 2007, Lillian was operated on in January 2008 to remove the tumor. She subsequently received chemotherapy treatment every three days for four months and radiotherapy for 30 days as a safety measure to ensure that potentially remaining microscopic cancer cells were totally destroyed.

“I am an only child, I have only one child and I’m a divorcé, so I received most of the support from the community and my co-workers,” said Lillian.

“I am active in creating breast cancer awareness through talks and presentations. I’m now part of the new Cancervive campaign that educates and creates awareness about the shy-cancers. I’m also a member of Bosom Buddies, which is another breast cancer support group, and I have founded a Breast Health Foundation in Lesotho in 2008”.

Treatment

Lillian’s cancer was discovered in a routine check-up. The first mammogram didn’t detect the tumor; the radiographer only noticed it when she went again the following year. “Because early detection is key, I appeal to women over the age of 40 to go for annual mammograms,” she said.

Treatment for breast cancer depends on the stage at which the cancer is detected. It may include surgically removing the tumor and a mastectomy – removal of the affected breast.

A double mastectomy is when both breasts are removed. Radiotherapy is administered to kill cancer cells that may have remained after surgery. Chemotherapy is when powerful drugs are used intravenously and in tablet form to kill the cancer cells internally.


A print version of this article was published in Vuk'uzenzele February 2012 edition.

Who makes a fuss about a small error in a community newspaper? I do (Singular vs Plural)

Ok, I don't think I'm abnormal. I also don't think I'm crazy -- OK  maybe just a little. I'm also not a perfectionist. I'm just a little bit passionate about a few things. "Words" are one of them. They have to make sense. They have to be true and correct. I know a whole lot of people who are like that too. They are called copy- or sub-editors, proofreaders, word-smiths, word engineers, and so forth.

I had just woken up. It must have been 11.15am. I know I'm one of the most envied person right now. I sleep and wake up at whatever time I want to. I don't answer to anyone. (Damn I've always wanted to say that) Let me repeat it: I don't answer to anyone. No more crazy traffic in the morning, no more rat-race for me, and definitely no more waking up in the early morning. (Well except for Saturday mornings when I have to get up at 4am to prepare for my 6am to 9am radio show.) And this is how things are going to be for me, at least, for quite a while.

I am watching you.

So the first thing I did was grab a copy of a local newspaper. Page 1, page 2, then on page 3, I picked up my phone and called the editor/manager. He's not in. So I asked for his e-mail address:

Dear Mr Dlamini

My name is Refilwe Thobega. I was paging through the Express Northern Cape dated Wednesday 1 February when I could not help but notice a glaring subbing error.

It is on page 3, main story, headline: Shucks, there's holes in the condom.

The story is about three million freely available Choice condoms in the Free State, which have been recalled because some had holes. 

It cannot be there "is" if there are "holes".
It should have been there're (there are) because there are not one, but many holes.


Plural and not singular.

Another question: were the holes on only one condom or on a number of condoms?
Answer: there were holes on three million condoms.

"Shucks, there're holes in condoms" could have been the correct headline.

I just thought I should bring this to your attention, sir.

Please just check for errors such as these in the future. Don't underestimate your  readers. An average newspaper team should know the difference between singular and plural.

Kind Regards
Refilwe Thobega

Then I pressed the "send" button. What would I do without my Blackberry?

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

People who are true food lovers will always say that eating is an emotional experience. From that point of view, Aimee Bender tells the story of Rose Edelstein who experiences her adolescence through the emotions that she tastes in the food she eats.

When Rose turns nine her mother bakes a special lemon cake for her, and this is where Rose's food tasting journey starts. Rose is horrified with the realisation that she knows what people feel when she eats the food they prepare.

Reality, Rose discovers, is stranger than fiction.

Aimee Bender writes heartbreaking prose that makes you giggle at one point and then plunges you in deep depression the next. She writes her characters in such a way that the reader can identify with them in all circumstances. We have all felt these emotions. We just did not realise that they are evident in the food we prepare or eat.

A thoroughly enjoyable book to read with such beautiful writing, that once you start, you just continue to turn the pages until you realise that the story is done and life goes on again.

Reviewer: Antonia Vermeulen

Things are to be used and people are to be loved.

People are meant to be loved.

A co-worker just sent me a message on BBM titled: Loved vs Used.

It says:

While a man was polishing his new car, his six-year-old son picked up a stone and scratched lines on the side of the car. In anger, the man took the child’s hand and hit it many times, not realising he was using a wrench.

At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures. When the child saw his father … with painful eyes he asked “Dad when will my fingers grow back”. The man was hurt and speechless, he went back to his car and kicked it many times. Devastated by his own actions, sitting in front of that car he looked at the scratches, the child had written: “love you dad”. The next day that man committed suicide.

The message continues:

Anger and Love have no limits, choose the latter to have a beautiful and lovely life. Things are to be used and people are to be loved. But the problem in today’s world is that people are used and things are loved.

In this year let us be careful to keep this thought in mind. Things are to be used and people are to be loved. Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actins, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character it becomes your destiny.

This made me think of the situation that I had with my mom over the weekend. We got home from Resego Mogodi’s funeral (Rest in Peace nana) and we were flippin’ tired, so we both napped.

She woke up before me and realised that my car was not under the shade anymore. While trying to park it nicely, she scratched it on the side against a heap of bricks that were close by.

Ooooopss

She woke me up immediately to show me and to apologise. I was furious, but tried to contain my anger. Mistakes happen, you know. But, damn, I was mad!

But now, after reading this message from Tendai, I’m reminded that indeed things are meant to be used and people are meant to be loved.

What’s the fuss about? My mom promised to pay for its fixing? So why was I so mad?

We place so much value on material things. How would I feel if things were the other way round? How would I feel if my mom was hit by a car, instead of my mom scratching the car? Now that would be devastating.

Honestly, I rather she scratched the car and she was not harmed. A car is a car, it can be fixed, it can be sold, it can be replaced and as for my mom on the other had – she’s the only mom I have and I can never replace her and life without her would be not imaginable. 

I’m glad that a friend forwarded this message to me as a reminder that these things are just things and we should instead place more value on the people who love us, who would do anything for us, who want to see us happy and whom life without, would be hell.

Disability is not the end of the road

Musa Zulu

At the age of 23, Musa Zulu was involved in a tragic car accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. At 27, he became the director of KwaZulu-Natal Asiphephe (Let us be safe) Road Safety Project, a sub-directorate within the Department of Transport. “Our task was to reduce the number of road crashes that have led to so many deaths and cases of disability,” he says.

Zulu took time out of this busy schedule of being a motivational speaker and being involved in road safety campaigns to speak to me. The father of two daughters, Swazi (8) and Ziyanda (5) says the disability has changed his life in a sense that it’s difficult to never walk again.” Then he jokes: “The nice part is that my shoes never go old.” 

He says he remembers the night of the accident clearly. “I was young and careless. I hit a wall as a result of speeding. Now I tell people never to speed. They should only speed in their minds.”

At the time of the accident, he was working for Tongaat Mushrooms as senior personnel manager. A week before the accident, his employer informed him that he was earmarked for a promotion at head office in Johannesburg. Things were going very well for him as he was also talking to his partner about getting married.

But then his whole life changed and things were very hard after the paralysis. He lost his job (early retirement) and his girlfriend of two-and-a-half years left him. “Suddenly, all was gone and tears formed a veil through which I viewed life. I did not want to believe that it happened to me.

“After a full year of pain and wishing for a miracle, I realised that my family and close friends were beginning to lose hope that I would ever find a reason to smile again. My sorrow was affecting them as well, especially my father. I pulled myself together and vowed never to bow to failure again.”

Zulu says that listening to music gave him strength. Seeing other disabled people striving to live full lives made him want to achieve the same.

Zulu has always had great enthusiasm and energy for life. In 1989 at the age of 17, he started his university studies in social science.

“I have always been attracted to community development initiatives and issues. Social science offered me the opportunity to study my society and understand its dynamics. My wish was to make a difference, particularly to the marginalised black population whose lives have been disrupted by years of political oppression,” says Zulu.

He left the university towards the end of 1994 to join Tongaat Mushrooms. During his brief stay there, he initiated many changes that uplifted workers. “I was paralysed shortly after completing the job descriptions of all employees ­– an exercise that saw many employees receiving improved salaries because of a well-defined job grading system. Then came the accident,” he says.

In 1998, he visited the State of Victoria in Australia to see how they dealt with road crashes. “Apparently the state has one of the lowest road death/crash records in the world”, he says. While there, he met people from various disability organisations to learn from them how they assisted their government to meet the needs of the disabled.

Zulu says: “Before the end of 1998, I was part of the Department of Transport’s team that launched the first buses for the disabled – fully equipped with hydraulic lifts to provide easy access. Three of these buses are in operation in KwaZulu-Natal.”

He has since joined forces with his disabled friends and formed a support group. “Happiness revisited me. I found myself wanting to win back my sense of independence and control.” He bought himself a car and started visiting newly disabled people in hospitals.

 “While I was in hospital my father told me that everything happens for a purpose. I did not know what he meant then, but today I have found my purpose in life – to show the world that there is always a bright sky after a storm if we believe,” concludes Zulu.

Zulu says today he is happy to say that: “I have found a ‘home’ in my situation of disability. There is nothing that I cannot do. I have grown and matured as a result of the accident. I am truly blessed. I don’t live with regrets and my advice to people is to love life and be safe. 

A print version of this piece was published in Vuk'uzenzele January 2012. 

 

Some safe partying tips from DJ Zinhle

The parties and celebrations of the festive season is something of the past and most of us are back at work with a list of New Year’s resolutions. For some, the festive season was a wake-up call to be more cautious in future of things like drinking too much, driving under the influence of alcohol, unsafe sex an overspending.

Someone who has been observing people’s party behaviour and witnessed first-hand how people lose their sense of responsibility at parties, is DJ Zinhle.

Zinhle Jiyane, aka DJ Zinhle, stepped onto the South African DJ scene at a time when it was still very much a man’s world. But this talented lady quickly managed to turn some heads with her crazy skills on the turntables. She even grabbed the attention of some of Mzansi’s most respected DJs, such as DJ Oskido, and has today become one of the best female house DJs in South Africa.

I spoke to DJ Zinhle about some safe partying tips.

DJ Zinhle suggests:

The do’s:

·      Always let someone know where you are going and who you are with when you go out at night.

·      Have a party budget, so that you don't end up overspending.

·      Choose a designated driver who will not drink and drive.

·      Take a condom if you think you are going to be intimate and use it when the time comes. 

·      Keep your cellphone with you in case you need to make an emergency call.

The don'ts:

·      Don't drink anything anyone offers you, especially if it’s already open.

·      Never leave a party with a stranger, especially if you have been drinking.

·      Don't drive if you have been drinking, rather take a taxi to the venue and back if you plan to drink.

·      Don't use your cellphone while driving, except if it’s an emergency call.

·      Lock all your car doors when driving, especially at night.

·      Abstain from sex with strangers, especially if you have been drinking, as alcohol weakens your sense of responsibility

·      Don’t experiment with drugs.

·      If you are underage don’t go to places that have an age restriction

What to carry when going out:

·      Always have extra cash for emergencies.

·      I always carry pepper spray as a safety precaution.

·      Have your driver's licence with you if you are driving.

·      Have your ID with you.

What to avoid:

·      Avoid going to places you have never been to with someone you have just met.

·      Avoid travelling alone at night.

·      If you have to travel alone, make sure you have enough petrol and that your car is roadworthy.

Save for a rainy day

Ok, so there you have it folks. Remember, too much of anything is not good and that alcohol and drugs make you do irresponsible things.

Keep in mind to not spend more than you can afford; save some money for necessities to kickstart the New Year.

Make sure that you have enough saved up for school uniforms, stationery, travelling expenses and so on. 

A print version of this piece was published in Vuk'uzenzele January 2012