I hate hate HATE driving. It terrifies me.

Not only that, but I am TERRIBLE at it.

Seriously. I am the driver that you all love to loathe. The one who slams on my brakes when someone 100 kilometres ahead of me merely taps theirs.

Granted, I am not in the fast lane* when I do this, but still… from the way the faces of the drivers behind me, visible in my rear view mirror, twist and contort with rage, I reckon that my cautionary measures don’t go over very well.

See? I TOLD you it was bad.

Compared to me, the granny who nervously crawls along at about 20 kph in her sturdy, vintage car looks like the female version of Michael Schumacher.

Yes, I know. I am the one girl who is single-handedly responsible for giving female drivers the world over a bad name. (Actually, it isn’t single-handedly. It’s more like both white-knuckled hands gripping the wheel. One at two o’clock and one at ten o’clock.)

My affliction extends to everything with wheels: From bicycles (don’t think I ever progressed past the tricycle stage) to motorcycles.

Yes, of course I have stupidly tried riding a motorcycle. On my father’s insistence.

When I was ten years old, he still couldn’t accept that I, his fourth child after three daughters, turned out to BE YET ANOTHER GIRL. Even though he and my mom had changed the recipe by waiting four years instead of the usual two years between babies before having me. Therefore I harboured so much being-a-girl-instead-of-a-son-guilt that I swallowed my fear and agreed to try and ride a bike. With Wheels. And an ENGINE. By myself.

Granted, as far as motorcycles go, it was a real girlie bike, with an engine sounding no more threatening than an ailing mosquito, but still enough to trick the ears on my ten-year old self into believing that it was as powerful as a Ducati and therefore a potential coffin on two wheels.

Do I really need to tell you how that excursion went? Well, it didn’t last very long, thank goodness. And thank goodness that no living thing was in my path, but that there was a wall which came in very handy when I went faster and faster instead of stopping…

Luckily, the wall, the bike and I all survived with minimal external scars. But the emotional scarring was forever carved into my fragile soul…

Oddly enough, I am not a nervous passenger. I even love to ride on the back of a motorcycle and one of my biggest thrills ever was riding around the greater Washington D.C. metropolitan area on the back of a Harley Davidson.

So yes, all you lay (psycho)logists. Go ahead. But I know what you are itching to tell me: That I have Major Issues and am therefore unable to trust myself and that some of those very same Major Issues extend into Major Issues with my self-esteem. Which would be good news, actually, because that would imply that I at least HAVE self-esteem! Ha ha.

I think the reasons for my driving terror are actually far more boring and mundane: I am just a scaredy-cat. Plain and simple.

I am one of the only people I know who wasn’t eager to get my driver’s license. As my 18th birthday inched ever closer, I DREADED the thought.

So throughout college, I saw to it that all my boyfriends had cars. And I knew most city bus drivers in Pretoria by name.

Eventually, at the age of 20, the gong sounded ominously on my procrastination of the inevitable, marking the end of my ‘career’ as a happy, terminal passenger.

I had a job offer as a newspaper reporter. But one of the conditions of the job was that I had to have my driver’s license!

My father and I were both still too scarred by my near-fatal motorcycle driving experience, so external, professional help was recruited. One early autumn day in my 20th year, I was picked up by the Top Gears Driving School** instructor for my first lesson.

I’m sure the poor man had to undergo trauma counselling afterwards. He probably still is! It was a good thing that the Top Gears Driving School cars came equipped with brake, clutch and accelerator pedals on the passenger side as well!

But we got through it. Even though what was supposed to have been five lessons (“No, really, Mrs. Redsaid’s Mom. We assure you that all our students have the hang of it after only five lessons! In fact, we guarantee it!”) stretched into a costly fifteen.

(And I STILL can’t parallel park.)

Then the only other ordeal remained: Actually getting my license. Now, all my sisters – despite being eager to drive and possessing lead feet – failed their driver’s license tests the first time.

So I think my entire family (including myself) mentally prepared for the possibility of me becoming a regular at the testing grounds for the next few years or so.

Right around this time, my mom became increasingly nervous by the prospect of me taking too long to pass my driver’s test and then losing the newspaper job and spending the rest of my living days lazing around on the couch watching television under her roof. So she took necessary precautions.

She arranged for my driver’s test to take place at a testing ground far outside the city in a town where the female population was hovering just this side of extinction and where they probably had not seen a girl in real life in WEEKS.

Then, on the day of the test, she had me dress up, attempted to tame my hair into something remotely resembling a style and had my sister carefully apply my make-up. (“But not too much, in case it’s a female traffic cop.”)

To be continued on Monday... (Promise)

* Sure I've been in the fast lane! As a passenger.

** Not their real name. Are you kidding me? They'll probably receive death threats for allowing the likes of me to even go for my driver's license. They should have just given up on me after fifteen lessons, declaring me unfit to handle anything with wheels.

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A BOYFRIEND.

Yes, my high school sweetheart is gay.

Which either means that he couldn't bear to be with another woman ever again after me, or - and this is far more likely - he couldn't bear to be with another woman ever again BECAUSE of me...

So now that you all know what we didn't do... what DID we do? We held hands at the movies; we wrote each other frightfully artistic letters (at least his were... and I wrongly thought mine was too!) which we stealthy exchanged in class; I giggled like a nervous hyena whenever he was around; and he performed his incredible musical compositions for me. (At 16 or thereabouts, the dude won an international contest with a score he had composed for a full orchestra! Yes, I dated a modern Mozart.)

*The fact that my high school was a performing arts school where most of the boys in attendance were as straight as Lombard Street in San Fransisco, probably should have been my first clue. Not to mention the never-even-getting-to-first-base part. Still, I was melodramatically crushed when the 'relationship' was over.

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It was an almost triumphant return.

For one, by the age of 19 I had finally sprouted the curves so desired and fervently prayed for at eleven and twelve, the age when every other girl in town (and, I was convinced, the whole wide universe) seemed to already be busting out of their cotton training bras while my own was still lying in wait, the two white triangles of the useless garment mocking my desperately flat and boyish torso every time I pulled open my underwear drawer.

Of course, I finally did what every other self-respecting (albeit self-respect on a strictly conditional basis) 12-year old late bloomer a few weeks shy of her primary school graduation would do: I faked it.

When I put the training bra on for the first time, I was met with a tragic sight. With nothing to contain or support, the cotton triangles merely hung from the straps, pointless and limp. I quickly stuffed it with tissue, buttoned-up my school uniform and spent hours admiring my new womanly profile in my bedroom mirror, stubbornly looking past the uneven lumpiness. As far as I was concerned, I could’ve poked an eye out.

Ah, if only there had been an admiring eye to poke!

As I was prancing this way and that, admiring myself, I daydreamed about the object of my affection. He was the only Portuguese boy in town, and, as if that fact alone didn’t make him desirable enough, his status was heightened even further by his immigrant parents, who owned Ferreira’s, the only green-grocery in town.

His mother was a formidable, olive-skinned woman with the same jet-black hair and eyes as her husband and son. She couldn’t speak a word of English or Afrikaans, but that didn’t prevent her from shouting what sounded like the worst obscenities in the world at any child or even grown-up who dared to loiter outside their shop.

One time she lost her voice due to a cold – although I secretly suspected that it was all that screaming that had finally caught up with her. Some of the older, braver (or more stupid?) kids caught wind of the unexpected silence, and boldly went to sit on the steps of the store. Legend has it that their behinds barely had time to graze the cool concrete before she simply took up a broom and literally swept the disrespectful offenders away.

A few years earlier, her son had won my heart by bringing me sweets from that very store. It had undoubtedly been stolen goods, because I couldn’t imagine his strict mother sacrificing any of the shop’s inventory, especially not to indulge her only son’s boyhood crush.

The fact that it may have been shop-lifted made it taste that much sweeter.

It was love at first bite, but he had no idea. I only awarded him with icy-stares and feigned irritation whenever the candy offerings were stuffed into my hand. I’d overheard my mother telling my older sisters that playing “impossible-to-get” was the only way to go whenever boys showed any interest. “Pay them no attention. It’ll drive them crazy! Especially if you just immerse yourselves in your school work,” my mom knowingly advised.

I chose to skip the second bit of my mom’s advice, but I followed the first part to the letter.

And sure enough, at the time it seemed to be working very well. The chocolate deliveries were steady for a few months. I came to not only expect the chocolate, but I began to depend on those regular sugar fixes.

One day we were walking to our next class as we’d always done. We were approaching our usual “drop-off” point. I was already switching my book bag to my other arm in order to have my receiving hand free for the sweet reward. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him reach for his own bag and take out the chocolate bar. It was one of my favourites! In what I thought to be a very subtle gesture, I opened up my hand. Why was he taking so long..? Before I had even finished formulating the question in my mind, I heard a high-pitched shriek and a giggle. “For me? Really? Thank you soooo much!”

The source of the annoying twitter was the blond-haired, round-eyed, flush-cheeked Sonja. Sure, it was plain to see that her fairy-face was far prettier than my freckled one, but it was immediately even plainer to see that he wasn’t noticing her pretty and very grateful smile.

No, his eyes were firmly rooted to her bulging chest. A chest that, by the looks of it, could probably not remember what a training bra even felt like anymore.

I felt totally crushed. (Luckily I was still far too young to grasp the biggest irony of it all, that a boy had dumped me despite the fact that we had a shared preoccupation.) It was so unfair. My mom had never even mentioned this possibility! But then again, why would she have? My sisters had all been wearing real bras for ages. For that reason, I was sure, boys would wait for them until the end of days.

It was later that same day - the fateful day that marked my very first break-up and signaled the end of my freebie sugar fixes - that I resorted to the tissue. I never quite worked up the nerve to actually leave the privacy of my room with my enhancements – even after I’d figured out how to smooth out the lumps and perfect the shape with two strategically misplaced shoulder pads – so no one in town ever got to see me with my carefully constructed ‘falsies.’

Instead they had to wait for a late spring day several years later, when I rode back into town for the first time since I’d left.

Seven productive years had gone by since our family had moved away to the big city.

At 19, I had graduated from high school and was already wrapping up my freshman year at journalism school.

Yes, my years away had been fruitful indeed: After all, I was wearing underwire!

I’d always sworn that I would only return to my childhood town once I’d become wildly successful and famous. Many of my high school fantasies involved the exact moment when I’d ride past the town’s rusty “Welcome!” sign. Everyone from my past would be there, lined up on both sides of the main street, craning their necks and shoving each other out of the way to get a clearer view of me, the celebrity.

In my daydreams, all the townsfolk still looked exactly the same as they had all those years ago. (Well, everyone except Sonja. My imagination had mercilessly given her a complete breast-reduction.) I would be the only one of my peers who had grown up. In fact, not only would I have changed, but I dreamed that I’d look exactly like my favourite actress. Never mind that she was a dark and stunning brunette and I was a pale and very plain-looking redhead.

So I’d show up, miraculously transformed and beautiful – yet everyone would of course immediately know that it was me. I smiled when I thought how they would all gasp at my sudden and glorious beauty (and, especially in my earlier fantasies, at my enormous breasts) and cheer and applaud and be filled with adoration and envy as I’d make my way slowly through town, stylishly draped across the back of some sort of luxurious and shiny convertible…

Needless to say, the reality of my grand re-entrance was vastly different. For one, even though I had definitely grown taller and a little bustier, in essence I was still every inch the plain, pale, freckle-faced redhead and therefore still way too recognizable as my younger, awkward self.

Also, I wasn’t famous (or even infamous) yet!

But here I was anyway, in all my plain obscurity, visiting my best friend from childhood and her parents on their farm just outside the entrance to the town.

On that bright and hot late spring afternoon, a few hours after my arrival on their farm, the pair of us borrowed her dad’s sputtering old Mercedes for my first reunion voyage into town.

As we drove past the “Welcome!” sign, I was not feeling as brave and sophisticated as I’d always dreamed I would be. In fact, all my big-city bravado had vanished, and I suddenly felt twelve and insecure all over again.

My fluttering nerves had a brief respite as I marveled at the passing scenery of the town.

It was remarkable. This place, the stage where all of my first life dramas had been played out; the little town which had served as the setting of so many of my later fantasies… it all seemed so disconnected from my memories.

Make no mistake, I still recognized it. After all, I’d spent nearly thirteen years of my life here, and I could still anticipate all the landmarks before they came into view: the hotel on the right, the street down to the train station on the left, a stretch of open field followed by the gas station with its tiny convenience store and faded green and yellow “BP” sign.

The three steeples marking the churches of the three major Afrikaner denominations faithfully poked through the tree-lined horizon. By the looks of it, the handful of English-speaking folks in town was still taking turns to worship at each other’s homes. (I suddenly remembered that the three Portuguese had always been the only unclaimed souls, and that it had further secured our belief that the screaming foreign woman was a demon.)

But time had shrunk the entire town; had worn it all out. In the harsh and unflattering light of reality, the buildings looked shabby and neglected. Save for the opening of a video rental the year before, there had been no growth at all. In fact, it actually seemed smaller in scale, and the distances between places were much shorter than I’d remembered it to be.

And so, in no time at all, we were parking in the center of town, right outside the green grocery.

Before I could plead or protest, my friend simply said: “We both know that you want to see him.”

She was right, of course. But that didn’t make me any less nervous.

So I took a moment to try and calm myself. I sat in the car and looked at the storefront, hoping that it would provide me with a hint of what I would find inside.

I was surprised to note that the building had recently been painted. The concrete porch, which had always been unfurnished so as to discourage loafers and loiterers, now housed a few hopeful tables and chairs. The lunch hour had already expired, but a couple of school children were still out there giggling and having chips and sodas. They seemed right at home, as if things had never been any different.

The most optimistic of it all was the new sign above the door. It read: “Ferreira & Son.”

But it said so much more.

Because in that instant I knew with certainty that I wasn’t the only one who had grown up after all.

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On that particular day, the meaning of proverbs and the concept of consequences weren't even in the outer reaches of our minds.

Hunched over, we were both all-engrossed in the task at hand. The scorched grass crunched under our careful feet as we slowly circled the tree. We were on a mission to pick out a suitable weapon.

The late afternoon African sun still had enough strength left to give us a thorough lashing. Punishment before the crime.

My skin wept and the salty, watery beads fell to the thirsty earth as a peace offering. Please forgive me for what I’m about to do.

Already the guilt was starting to well up, but Guilt’s warning, nagging voice (sounding remarkably but irritatingly like my mother’s) was no match against the loud, thrill-seeking Devil, who by then had already firmly rooted himself to my shoulder.

I could almost see his black forked-tongue darting in and out of his grimacing mouth as he lisped the evil plan directly into that area of my brain in charge of operations, even for a while allowing me to believe that I had hatched a brilliant, original plan all by myself. (He must’ve known that I’m not the most logical and logistical type, and that I would need all the help I could get.) “Thith ith what you should do,” he hissed and egged me on. “And thith ith how you should do it.”

Yes, alas, if all else fails, blame Satan.

My partner in crime was most certainly not to blame, even though she participated enthusiastically.

After I had translated the Devil’s plan into spoken words, Melissa and I continued to plot and scheme like a pair of ruthless army generals. After all, we were planning a vicious attack!

Before we set out to find a suitable weapon, we had to pick a target. Shamefully, it didn’t take us very long to choose! Only after those things had been decided were we able to pick our one-sided battleground: the spot where we were to set up our boobie trap.

The ancient and indigenous pendoring boom (thorn tree) at the edge of the parched mid-drought yard (where skeletal trees and dried shrubs were the only evidence that a lush garden had once existed there) faithfully and regularly shed its long, white and wickedly sharp fang-like thorns to the ground. Those discarded thorns covering the shriveled up lawn became the arsenal for our primitive attack, and Melissa and I gingerly tip-toed through the inhospitable terrain on our bare feet as we searched for our perfect weapon.

Our arsenal was fully stocked, so it didn’t take us very long to find The One: it was about an inch long. One quick yet gentle prick to my finger immediately created a drop of blood, proving that we had picked a sharp bugger.

As fast as we were in picking the ideal thorn, we were even faster in selecting our victim: Mia.

Mia, the preacher’s daughter with her open, friendly face, her dimpled yet shy smile and her page-boy haircut. We honestly had nothing against her! In fact, she was a few years younger than us, so we didn’t even know her all that well! She merely became our ideal target because of geography.

You see, the church rectory where Mia lived with her parents was situated right across the dusty lane (I grew up in a small South African town where the majority of our streets were narrow dirt roads) from the school’s sports field. So since her first day of school, instead of walking all the way around the block to the front gate of the school yard to get to school, Mia simply crawled through an opening in the fence and took a shortcut across the sports field, down a few concrete steps and voila, she was at school. And in summer, Mia, like the rest of us, always came to school barefoot.

It was on those concrete steps that led from the sports field to the school building where we laid out our trap. It was easy enough. The school yard was deserted and no one was around to become suspicious. So we erected the thorn, securing it into its most lethal position (sharp side up) by placing a few strategic pebbles and small jagged rocks around it. We admired our handiwork and, since the voice of Guilt had by that time already been drowned out by the adrenalin rush we got from doing something that was so downright WRONG, we laughed like hyenas.

I don’t think our ten-year old selves ever stopped to consider the possible consequences of our heinous deed. We certainly never paused to imagine how the fleshy sole of her foot would be impaled by the thorn as she came darting down the steps the following morning, or the pain she would feel… To us, it was nothing but a naughty stunt, and we were already bored and ready to move on to the next game.

I’m sure Mia’s parents had never imagined their center-of-town location to be anything less than ideal! But then, even if there had been doubts, how could they possibly have envisioned all the potential dangers of having their little girl living in such close proximity to her own elementary school? I mean, until that fateful afternoon, when Melissa and I both stayed on after school for our music lessons, neither of us had ever given Mia or her unique path to our school a second thought! So as I write this, I can’t even launch the lame defense that our horrible attack on the innocent Mia stemmed from a long-festering envy of her shortcut; that our simmering jealousy finally erupted that afternoon and boiled over.

As it turned out, we thankfully never had to try and explain or defend ourselves.

After setting up the thorn, we had some more time to kill until our lessons, so we went up to the sports field to race each other and play tag. We ran and played with abandon, our earlier act of terror already fading into a distant memory.

We played until our music teacher came calling for us. Still chasing each other, we ran, Melissa in the front (she was always faster). I sprinted after her. She was already half-way down the stairs.

Desperate to catch up, I leapt.

I landed two steps down. And straight into my own forgotten trap.

The thorn impaled my fleshy sole. The pain was unbelievable.

The doctor had to cut it out.

Even at ten years old I knew that such karmic punishment served me right.

Luckily, that was the only punishment I ever received regarding that deed, because Melissa and I made a silent pact not to tell, and no one else ever had a reason to suspect that it was anything more than an unfortunate accident. Neither one of us ever spoke about it.

The closest we ever came to referring to it without actually saying anything, happened a few months later, when our teacher taught us an old proverb, the meaning of which boils down to this: If you set a trap, beware, because you’re bound to get caught in it yourself.

At which both Melissa and I just started giggling uncontrollably.

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That weekend I bought every single newspaper I could lay my hands on and, for the first time in my life, I skipped over the arts section and went straight to sports.

It was painful.

I began to ask my father questions like: "How many players are in a rugby team?"

Elated at his youngest daughter's sudden interest in rugby - and even more overjoyed (and stunned!) when he found out the reason behind my interest - he started laying out the in-depth history of rugby. In detail. 'Cause my dad's like that. If you ask him what time it is he'll start telling you how you can manufacture your own watch. From scratch.

(Yeah, now you know who's to blame for my verbosity!)

But alas, my crash course in Sports A - Z turned out to be about as productive as those elementary school attempts to discover my inner athlete. The more I tried to learn, the more I began to realize just how little I knew. That weekend would probably go down as one of the worst of my life.

I was actually relieved to wake up on Monday morning. (Another first.)

Even though it was the day of The Interview.

As promised, my friend was there to meet me at the newsroom door and to personally escort me to slaughter.

As we were walking up the stairs, he thought it would help me to relax a bit if he asked me a few questions to distract me. So he decided to test my brand new general knowledge about sports.

"So, can you tell me what Ernie Els's handicap is?"

"What? He is DISABLED? I didn't know that pro golfers could be disabled! What's wrong with him?"

He laughed, but stopped rather abruptly when he realized that I was dead serious.

Then he just gave a little sigh of resignation and said: "Well, at least you know that he is a golfer. I suppose there is some hope left after all."

Before we knocked on the door so that he could introduce me to the editor and leave me behind to humiliate myself, he gave me a bit of last second advice: "Just relax. Do your best. It might also do you a world of good to feign a bit of enthusiasm for sports. I'm sure you'll get the position because they're desperate and right now there aren't too many other candidates."

Depending on who you ask, it was probably the best or very worst advice that anyone's ever given me.

He was certainly correct about their desperation, and I must've learned SOMETHING about acting during all my years in performing arts school, because I got the job.

After about an hour in the company of the editor, a surprisingly soft-spoken Scotsman who, despite many years in South Africa, still had traces of the lilting accent of his birth country lingering in his speech, I had myself a job. The bad news? My friend wasn't joking. I was a sports reporter who knew absolutely nothing about sports.

Other than my surprise at the editor's soft-spokenness ('cause in the movies shown to us in journalism school, the editors were always boozing chain-smokers barking loud rasping orders at their underlings) and my wrecked nerves, I don't remember anything else about the interview itself. I just know that it couldn't have taken very long (I was done before lunch) and that he offered me the job while I was still sitting across from him at his desk.

I MIGHT also just vaguely (VERY vaguely) remember gushing something about my enthusiasm for all things sports related. "Yes, sir! Even though I don't actively participate in any sporting events myself - I have very flat feet, you see, but I assure you, other than that I'm healthy as an ox - I'm the most avid spectator and fan of sports that you'll ever find!"

My hell began that following Monday. He had actually wanted me to start immediately - THAT's how desperate they were - but I managed to convince him that I had to relocate first.

Good thing I did, because I really did end up moving!

Oh, dear reader... the job was bad and I was bad at the job (which is probably why it was so bad in the first place!). Luckily I was too bewildered, scared and busy to notice. I reported for duty on my first day only to discover that no one from the sports desk was there to show me the way.

A very thick file with phone numbers, names of agents, athletes and sports clubs were unceremoniously tossed onto my desk with the news that I had two days (that's FORTY-EIGHT HOURS) to come up with enough stories and photographs to fill FIVE TABLOID-SIZED PAGES.

That's when it dawned on me that no one from the sports desk was going to show up later to teach me the ropes, because I WAS the sports desk.

Now remember... most South Africans are completely sports crazy. So having me write about all those hallowed activities and the super beings who participate in it was like asking an English-speaking atheist to rewrite the entire Bible. In the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

Once again, that part of the brain which suppresses memory in order to protect one from life-long trauma, leaves me unable to recall how I made it through those first few days.

A few months after starting the job, I did page through my reporter's notebooks of that time in the hopes of reviving my memory and thus reigniting the ignorant bravery I must've possessed to do a job I knew less than nothing about; but unfortunately the process left me none the wiser.

However, in the notebook I discovered a lot of hastily sketched carricatures of some of the athletes whom I had written stories about. (Unfortunately for me the paper already had a cartoonist.)

Another page of the notebook was filled with my attempts to come up with humorous names for phantom sports teams: For a team of senior citizen cyclists, I came up with The Slow Spokes. Apparently I thought that The Blind Bats would be an ideal and hilarious name for a team of visually impaired baseball/cricket players.

And, yes, I simply have to share this last one: The Ricebergs... I thought it would be the perfect name for a team of Chinese ice hockey players.

That love I had back then for all things punny was even more evident when I went through copies of the newspapers to collect clippings of my work for my portfolio.

"SKATING ON THIN ICE!" was a headline I had dreamed up for a story about a dispute between ice hockey players and their team managers.

Oh, yes... and that was merely a TASTE of the horrors I managed to come up with week after week.

Amazingly, I wasn't fired from that job. Not to say that I didn't come dangerously close a few times, but... well, that's another story for another time.

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Your guess is as good as mine! No. But we're close!

Like I started to say in the last post, rugby in South Africa is SACRED, so I suspected that writing about it would be a monumental responsibility.

But really, I had no idea...

You see, out of a nation filled with rugby worshippers, I must've been the only non-believer. I know there must've been others like me out there, but I certainly felt like the only one who - brace yerselves - COULDN'T CARE LESS about rugby.

(Sorry, Dee!)

Sometimes, on a Saturday afternoon in autumn and winter (the height of rugby season in South Africa), while everyone was inside glued to the television to watch the game or even attending the game at the big stadium, I wandered through the near deserted streets of Pretoria and Johannesburg. During those afternoons, I often felt like the last human being on earth; the sole survivor of the Apocalypse.

Thing is, my ignorance and apathy didn't end with rugby.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, and if you've been paying attention (hey, a girl can fantasize!), you'll know that I'm not the sportiest of people.

Yeah, major understatement.

I have my reasons. Some of them might even be very good and valid. Like the medical reason of having in my possession two freakishly flat, freakishly large feet.

And both of them just so happen to be left. Which makes me about as graceful as a bull in a china shop.

When all the china and decor are red.

I've always been athletically challenged, but nobody could simply take my word for it. Oh, no, we all had to find out the hard, painful way.

So after repeated failed attempts in elementary school to get me to at least TRY and stick my hands out and not just stand there, frozen, arms hanging limply, uselessly by my side while the different balls of various sports activities flew at me from all directions only to end up bouncing against my enormous moon-round head (can you imagine how a medicine ball feels when it hits you in the forehead?), my parents and Phys. Ed. teachers concurred that it would be best for all involved (but especially for what little was left of my brain at that point) if I try other activities, especially those activities that didn't require ANY hand-eye coordination or even just basic motorskills.

Phew! That was a mother of a sentence.

And that's more or less how I ended up at a high school for the performing arts, where the only students who had to worry about balance and coordination were the dancers and the mimes.

Okay, the musicians too, probably, but still. At the age of fourteen I had finally been freed of the burden of athletics, because in my school, there was simply no time left for it after academics and rehearsals.

And thus I lived happily and sports-free throughout high school and even college.

Until that day when I found myself unemployed with only one available journalism job option: Sports reporter at a community newspaper.

I was overcome with the sudden urge to join the army instead of taking that job. Or to slowly gnaw off my own wrists rather than attending that job interview.

But I also knew that I had no choice. Times were tough, jobs were scarce, and I needed a job in journalism and I needed one right then if I still wanted any chance of graduating with the rest of my class.

So I agreed to interview for the position.

That phone call from my friend happened on a Friday afternoon, which meant that I only had until Monday morning to learn all I could possibly learn about sports.

ALL the different sports.

Even rugby.

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So he stared into my eyes and slowly put his hand...

Oh, wait! Wrong story.

Let's take it from here:

He mumbled something. It was barely audible.

My heart sank. "Oh, no... please... PLEASE don't tell me you've just said what I thought I heard you say?" I pleaded.

But my ears had not deceived me after all, because he said:

"Sports. They're looking for a sports reporter."

(So yes, YOU were correct, even though you 'cheated' to get to the answer! Ha ha. Anyway, I TOLD you your guesses were much funnier! PLEASE don't shoot? Instead, feel free to throw me with pies. Cherry would be nice, but I actually prefer apple pie with cinnamon.)

Anyway, I felt like fainting on the spot. And here's why:

You see, dear reader, South Africa is a sports-crazed nation. The weather is fantastic year-round, so jocks can indulge all of their passions - from absailing to wrestling (is there even a sport that begins with the letter 'z'?) on any given day.

And they do. For 365 days a year (unless it's a leap year), golfers golf, wrestlers wrestle, runners run, archers arch and rhythmic gymnasts... have rhythm.

The rest of the time, like, when the athletes get tired from all their athletics, they get to watch other people be sporty.

And the most Hallowed of all the spectator sports is Rugby. It is similar to your football, but actually not at all, because rugby players don't get to wear helmets and retro shoulder pads and tight pants hugging their perfectly round little buns... oh, sorry! Got a bit carried away there.

Rugby players also don't get to stop and rest every thirty seconds like the football players seem to be able to do. Once the ball is in motion, rugby players run around almost non-stop for the duration of the game.

Oh, and another slight difference between rugby and football is that rugby teams actually have to play against teams from other COUNTRIES - you know, those places you can only go to when you have a passport? - before they get to call themselves world champions. But I really like that it's all about self-esteem building here in the United States, where your teams only have to win against teams from other U.S. cities to be called world champions.

Okay, end of digression.

Like I started to say somewhere up there, rugby in South Africa is SACRED, so I suspected that writing about it would be a monumental responsibility.

But really, I had no idea...

Okay, I hate to do this to you again, but I have to go and do something else. Something OFFLINE! What a concept! So instead of saving this in draft form and only posting it after I've finished writing the whole saga, I've decided to give you this unappetizing morsel. So yes, once again, to be continued...

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To be continued.

(Sorry, my two loyal readers! I really don't want to do this to you, but the television tower lights aren't as visible now that the sun's come up, and I can finally get some sleep!)

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As an outlawed alien without dental, mental or health insurance, I have one option and that is to never EVER fall ill.

But being human (okay, who am I kidding? Partially human then?), and clumsy to boot, and despite the thick layer of fat I have under my skin for protection, I do sometimes become an ailing alien.

In the rare instance when the cure for my ailment isn't to be found within the pages of the Time/Life A - Z Medical Encyclopedia (it doubles as my personal physician), I have to resort to other means of acquiring medical help. Like... gasp!... going to a REAL doctor.

But being a wannabe unpublished author (read: unemployed) and considering my aforementioned Alien status, I sometimes have to resort to more unconventional means of getting free or inexpensive medical help.

Which is how I became a medical experiment.

No, no… you silly things you… I have NOT been cloned.

Come to think of it though, being cloned may not be such a bad idea. I mean, think of the possibilities: Sending the clone to work when you’re simply not in the mood (that way the clone can stay and work loads of overtime so that you can get that fabulous promotion), or sending the clone to perform tedious tasks such as grocery shopping or jury duty. And, by having a clone of yourself, you’ll always have an alibi!

I would also have my clone write this blog on occasion and then blame all the bad posts on her.

But, back to the harsh, cloneless reality… Perhaps it would be more accurate to call what I went through a dental experiment.

Once again, in order to bring you excellence in journalism (and once again, please don’t find that so openly amusing!), I’ve offered myself up for a dental study just so that I can tell you, dear readers, what it was like. (Although there isn’t too much to like about it.) Never mind the fact that my wisdom teeth had me climbing through the roof for months – they were especially painful, funnily enough, every time I had a glass of very cheap red wine!

So when I saw the advertisement about the study of wisdom teeth removal in the paper, I temporarily lost my mind (I must have been in pain at that moment) and so I signed myself up to lose what little wisdom I had left.

On a wintry Saturday morning, I arrived meekly, like a lamb to slaughter, at the place where the surgery was to be performed.

Here’s the gist of it: the purpose of the study was to see how (if at all) acupuncture works as treatment for pain following the extraction of wisdom teeth. Failure of acupuncture’s magic would certainly be a pleasant anticipation for masochists, but to me, that alternative seemed rather daunting.

The day started off mundanely enough though: sitting with all the other "lab rats" in the waiting room and filling out an amount of paperwork so staggering that it makes the forms forced on citizens by most government agencies world wide look positively sparse. I think they thought it would be the best distraction to calm our nerves. They would have succeeded too, had it not been for all the waivers we had to sign. The latter looked something like this:

"In the event of any complications due to this surgery, such as the loss of senses (which includes the ability to see, think, smell, taste, touch, feel, hear and speak), extended unconsciousness or death, this dental practice, its employees, their families, offspring, pets and friends will not be held liable or face any frivolous lawsuits."

Now THAT’s calming, isn’t it?

Then the forms continued to explain that you should realise that your teeth would actually be pulled from your mouth during the study, which may result in bleeding, swelling, bruising or pain. And that acupuncture involves many needles temporarily being inserted into your body.

No kidding!

At that stage, I was at the point of no return and actually caught myself wishing that I could go first just so that I could get it over and done with. But of course I wasn’t first up. Not with my luck.

I did feel a bit calmer when I didn’t hear any piercing screams of anguish coming from the general direction my fellow test subjects had disappeared into.

When, in a weak attempt at humour and idle chit-chat, I noted this to the nurse, she replied, quite seriously: "Of course you wouldn’t hear it. You didn’t REALLY think we’d be silly enough to let you sit within hearing distance from the surgery, now did you?"

No, silly me.

Finally it was my turn. I briefly experienced one of those "oh-no-this-is-not-happening-surreal-out-of-body-and-mind" moments but promptly returned to earth when I was unceremoniously plonked down into the dentist’s chair.

Actually, the dental surgeon was a very pleasant, friendly foreigner. His assistant, a dental student from Greece, was just as God's gift to women gorgeous nice.

Or so I thought, until they whipped out strange looking instruments and injections with the longest needles I had ever seen.

Their smiles, so reassuring just a moment before, suddenly turned sinister and sadistic when they picked up their tools and chorused in unison: "Open WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE!"

It all happened before I had the time to beg them to at least render me unconscious for the occasion, or to – at the very least – give me some Valium.

But my unlucky streak continued and I had to be alert and cruelly conscious to witness the entire event for the notes that I had to keep later as part of the study.

I fooled them and pinched my eyes shut, so that was quite a waste on their account, ha!

Seriously though, who EVER wrote that rule of life that states that dentists have to chat to you while they’re busy contorting your mouth, pulling your lips apart, and dislocating your jaw? Why is THAT always the time they pick to get to know you, by asking you a series of unrhetorical questions that can’t possibly be answered by merely nodding or shaking yes or no?

Well, these guys were no different. They chatted and asked away, only interrupting the (very) one-sided conversation by making comments like "Open a little WIIIIIIIIIIIDER!" and "I’m just going to push a little … yes," followed by a sickeningly loud crack and a CRUNCH! And then by an enthusiastic: "Aah, yes! You’re doing GREAT!"

Until the crunching stopped, and it was all over.

"It’s OUT!" They shouted with great glee, again in unison – they must be a double act and do this quite often.

But alas, that was only to be the first technicality of the day, because immediately after I had managed to get up from the dentist’s chair, and had regained my wobbly balance, I was whisked away to a second, more secluded secret location, again far from the waiting room, its anxious patrons and their ears.

A petite, pretty Chinese woman awaited me. She was to execute the acupuncture and the first thing on HER to do list was to blindfold me.

Needless to say, I got a little scared for the second time that day.

"Doesh thish ushually happen?" I managed nervously, despite the gauze that had been stuffed at the back corner of my mouth, where, moments before, a wayward wisdom tooth had been steadily growing towards the side of my mouth. I’m sure if I didn’t have it pulled, it would have poked through my cheek eventually.

"Oh, nooo!" She answered, laughing, after finally figuring out what I was trying to say.

"You know," she said, pulling the blindfold tight with surprising strength for such a slight frame. "You really shouldn’t speak."

"Where are you from in China?" I rebelliously ignored her. They had to realise that it would take more than oral surgery and some gauze stuffed in my mouth to shut ME up!

I went on to discuss the author Amy Tan (the only Chinese author that sprang to mind and whose work I’ve actually read) and then asked the crucial question: "Is this going to hurt?"

"Oh, nooo!" She laughed again, a bit louder this time. (Was it my imagination or did I detect a sinister undertone in her laugh? I think not though, because I was blindfolded, and your senses are supposed to sharpen a notch when you’re blind, right?)

She went on to explain that the holistic therapy of acupuncture has been around for centuries.

"What’s the death toll so far?" I asked.

She pretended not to hear me and solemnly said: "The ancient Chinese were very, very wise."

I sure hope they had imparted some of that wisdom on YOU, I wanted to say, but of course, I didn’t.

(Confucius says: "You shouldn’t be too cheeky when someone who is armed with needles, blindfolds you.")

So, helpless for the second time that day, I simply lay back hoping to start feeling very Zen-like.

It really didn’t hurt at all (in fact, the whole purpose of the blindfold was so that we, the humble dental subjects, couldn’t know for sure if we had even received acupuncture), but I’m sure I felt some tiny needle pricks. But then again, that sensation may also have been caused by my limited access to oxygen (thanks to that very same gauze in my mouth).

Anyway, I survived, and whether it was real or phantom, my acupuncture lasted twenty minutes, and I was done, but not quite free yet.

For the next five hours I was closely monitored by an army of nurses (don’t know if that’s the correct collective term for nurses, but "army" spontaneously sprang to mind) whom, every fifteen minutes and with military precision, marched in to ask: "Do you have pain?"

Whenever I said no they looked genuinely disappointed. Occupational hazard, I guess?

Finally, they gave up on me (but not before I had been sent back for a second round of blindfolded pin-pricks).

I was released with a mountain of homework to do until I had the stitches out a week later, and a throbbing reminder of what it takes to be a medical experiment.

I went through all of that, and still no further sign of the Tooth Fairy!

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... my freckles.

AND, ye dirty minded beasts, a floral flannel granny-like get-up dating from the Victorian era and graciously loaned to me by my hostess.

Anyway, so happy eight-year (and one day) anniversary to me! Even though I am a day late and a few dollars short, as per usual.

You see, I was just so overcome with emotion yesterday that I couldn't write a word or even speak... of course, on the bright side, that latter affliction had the boy believing he was right in the middle of Heaven, or wherever else peace and quiet reign supreme.

So, dear United States and Americans: Over these past eight years you’ve all been incredibly kind to me – even if you were also at times slightly puzzled by me – and for that I would like to thank you sincerely, from the bottom of my bleedin’ heart.

Now, how ‘bout that Green Card we’ve been so patiently waiting for these past four years? (Please?)

When you give it to me, I promise I’ll be a good, obedient citizen, and even stop barking at passers-by.

* You can take the girl out of Africa, but I’m afraid you can’t take the spelling – leftover from British Colonialism – out of the girl, even though I know that typing ‘color’ instead of “colour” could shave a good 10 wpm from my typing speed!

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The Musca Domestica, more widely known in plain English as your common, germ-infested, house fly.

Before you call PETA on me, allow me to blame someone else explain: It was all my one sister's fault.

One weekend, when she was home from boarding school, she told me that she had learned a magic trick, and that she was going to teach it to me too.

I was immediately suspicious. Such generosity to share something with me, especially something as powerful and valuable as knowledge of magic tricks... well, that was as unheard of and as uncharacteristic of my sister as snow in a South African December.

I mean, after all, this was the same sister who had threatened to slowly, painfully torture me in ways that hadn't even been invented yet if I had dared to come anywhere near her "Doctor's Kit," a case filled with all sorts of fascinating, irresistible treasures like a toy stethoscope, a white plastic apron with a red cross on the front, and a thermometer.

If I had been allowed near her prized Doctor's Kit, and if I had any nerve to boot, I would've used that same toy thermometer to check her fever right there.

Instead, and without launching into the usual questions ("Will I get hurt?" "Could I get into trouble?" "Will you swear not to tell Mom and Dad?"), I responded without hestitation and said: "Okay!"

She smiled. "Well, of course I'd have to show it to you first, before I can teach it to you."

I suddenly regretted that I didn't take the time to ask the check-list personal safety and security questions before agreeing to anything. Because after having a few extra moments to think about it - AND taking my sister's unusual eagerness to show me ANYTHING of value into consideration, and for believing that it would be free of charge or consequence - I suddenly remembered some of the magic shows I had seen on television. And, lurking just beneath those pleasant memories of an endless stream of colourful hankerchiefs being pulled from a sleeve and fluffy rabbits being pulled from top hats, I suddenly also remembered scary things, like vanishing maidens and smoke and fire...

Since I knew that I couldn't possibly outrun my sister, I wanted to get that all-important verbal agreement that she wasn't going to hurt me. But instead of asking her, I resigned myself to my inevitable fate and mumbled: "As long as you promise that you're not going to saw me in half or anything."

She laughed, a little too loudly: "No man. Don't be daft."

And as I was still busy breathing my sigh of relief, things took a turn for the worst when she said: "Now, I just need you to get me a few things. A glass filled with water, a saucer with salt on it. And a fly."

"Only salt on the sau..? Wait a minute. Did you just say 'a fly'?"

"Yes. A fly." I could see that her patience was wearing a bit thin. "Oh, and the fly needs to be alive, so when you swat it, do it just hard enough to temporarily disable it so that you're able to catch it."

I went over the list of things in my mind: glass of water, plate with salt on it, a fly, alive but unconscious for the most part... and it's around then that something occurred to me and I started wailing at the top of my lungs: "WHAAAAAAAA! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE ME EAT A FLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

At first she was amused, then, realising that my parents were probably going to come and investigate the commotion I was making, she hissed: "Look, now you ARE being daft, and if you don't stop screaming soon I'm not going to show you ANY tricks."

When that wasn't enough to calm me down, she added: "If you don't stop screaming with your mouth wide open like that, you might soon enough find out for yourself just what fly meat tastes like."

THAT shut me up.

After I had cooled off a bit, I ran to the kitchen to grab the salt, the saucer, the glass of water and the fly swatter.

In another unexpected benevolent act, my sister decided it would speed the operation up considerably if she took the fly hunting part of it upon herself. She was right, because I had barely poured the salt into the saucer when she was back with a dazed-looking fly trapped in a jar.

What I learned next kept me entertained for the rest of that year and made me highly respected and feared at school... Well, at least until the novelty had worn off and everyone else knew how to perform the "magic" trick themselves.

My sister dropped the dizzy fly into the glass and pushed it under the water with her fingers where she held it for a few seconds.

"You have to make sure that it has drowned and that it is dead. See? Like this," she said as she scooped the fly, indeed looking very lifeless and bedraggled with its drenched wings, from the water.

She opened my uncertain hand, dropped the fly into my palm, folded my hand shut around it and told me to shake it as vigorously as I could. I was SO afraid that she was still going to push the dead fly into my mouth and down my throat at any moment, that I decided it was in my best interest to do as she said, even though I very much wanted to know why I was doing it and whether all the shaking wouldn't be enough to wake it up. Instead, though, I remained quiet and proceeded to shake that fly around with all of my might.

"Now for the true magic," my sister said as she, with theatrical flourish, took the still motionless fly from me and dropped it into the saucer of salt.

"Watch," she said, as if I hadn't been paying close enough attention all along.

She gently rolled the fly through the salt with her finger. "Ladies and Gentleman," she said very solemnly in her pretend grown-up voice. "Earlier today you all witnessed the certain death of this fly."

She looked at me, her captive audience member, searching my face for confirmation.

I confirmed with a vigourous nod.

"Well, then, ladies and gentlemen. Now I need you all to remain very quiet because what I am about to do is going to demand the greatest concentration."

Still unsure about my own well-being and afraid to attract any more attention to myself, I was only too happy to oblige.

"You see, ladies and gents. Today, for your viewing pleasure, I'm going to..." here she gave a dramatic pause: "I'm going to REVIVE THIS FLY! Yes, indeed. I'm going to resurrect this dead fly!"

Almost right at that moment, the salt took effect and the fly got up and began to move on wobbly legs, stumbling through the salt for a few moments before taking off and flying!

"And look, ladies and gentlemen! Because my assistant shook it," (I was ecstatic about my unexpected promotion) she said, "You'll now witness that the fly is dizzy and flying a bit erratically."

And so it did! There was this fly, flying about like a regular drunk, well on its way towards freedom and, I firmly believed, the beginning of its second life...

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The result is that most kids rode the school bus to school, but only after parents, guardians, grandparents, older siblings, neighbours or even farm hands drove you to the main road via the dirt farm roads. Talk about a bumpy ride!

So it wasn’t unusual at all to get stuck in mud or deep sand a few times a year. My sisters and I always had heated debates about whose turn it was to open and close the gates (there were at least two on our farm road). A single icy glance in the rear view mirror from my parents was usually all it took to speed up a decision.

Anyway, I’m digressing.

So kids were driven down the respective dirt roads to the main road that led into town (anything with tar on it was considered to be a main road, by the way). There we would then wait for the school bus to take us to the one and only school in town.

In the afternoon after school, we would board the bus again so that the same thing could happen in reverse. The ride was long - it was a good half hour before I got to my drop-off point (which feels like an eternity when one is that young), and that was only halfway down the bus route. But most of my friends were fellow "non-townies" who also had to ride the bus to get home, so it made the journey much more bearable.

I remember one girl in particular who used to ride the school bus with me. She was a few years my junior (so of course we didn't socialize) and the cutest little thing with enormous blue eyes and a mop of unruly short, blonde, curly hair (if it had been red like mine, she would have been snatched up to play the lead in "Annie", for sure). Her hair was a source of endless hypnotic fascination for me, because the ringlets sprouted and bounced in all directions whenever the bus would hit the slightest bump.

I remember her name, but for the sake of anonymity, let’s call her "Little Lulu".

Because Lulu’s family lived close to the end of the bus route, she was dropped off much closer to home than the rest of us. In fact, she could have walked, but her rather protective parents (she was their much adored youngest child) preferred to pick her up. And that bit of information is crucial to our story.

As you can imagine, typical of such a small community, there are many versions of this story floating about. There were no eyewitnesses that day (circa 1987) to verify or substantiate any of the events, so I’m going to tell you the version I believe to be closest to the truth: my own.

Legend has it that Lulu was about 8-years old when this happened.

One afternoon after school, following another bus ride and – I’m almost certain – more hair-raising entertainment for me courtesy of Lulu’s coiffure, Lulu’s parents weren’t at the gate to meet her when the bus dropped her off.

Lulu, who before that day wasn’t really famous for her sense of bravery or adventure, dropped her books right there at the gate in a state of panic and started sprinting home. All elbows, knees, quivering lips and bouncing ringlets, she left a cloud of bushveld dust in her wake.

When she finally reached the house, she was even more alarmed to find everything to be deserted, despite the fact that the family car was parked in the driveway. Which normally meant that her parents couldn’t be very far away.

She searched the house for about sixty seconds flat (those were the good old days when no one ever locked their doors), before she made the life-altering decision that would make her a revered girl forever after that (and the subject of this blog post some 15 years later.).

Because that’s when Little Lulu took matters into her own hands and grabbed the car keys.

Lulu’s family car was a sturdy machine. An automatic Ford Grenada. To anyone who has never had the pleasure of encountering a Grenada: just picture a cargo vessel on wheels.

According to the rest of the legend, Lulu had enough foresight to bring along two pillows to sit on so that she could at least peer over the dashboard while she drove. (I’m sure that mop of hair was visible above the wheel and dashboard, even if nothing else was.)

And thus she set off on her maiden voyage as a driver to go and find her parents.

I don’t remember how far she got. Perhaps a mile or two. (It was an impressive distance to all of her young peers, though.)

I think all went relatively well until she reached an unexpected sharp corner in the dirt road. But since she’d managed to build up some momentum, Lulu couldn’t manage to slow down enough to get the Ford safely (or at least on two wheels) around the bend. I think she would have had a chance, had it not been for a pesky tree right there next to the road...

And that’s where they found her. Unfortunately she had a few nasty scratches and bruises, but luckily that was the extent of her injuries. I think the Grenada survived, but then, it will take at least a tornado to wipe out a car of that calibre!

No one ever dared to ask her about that first solo road trip. But I know that no one looked at her quite the same way ever again. And this time our curious glances had nothing to do with her hair… or very little, in any case.

She wasn’t even punished, because apparently her parents weren’t home due to a minor misunderstanding - they thought she had a play date over at a friend’s house that afternoon - and they felt incredibly guilty about the whole thing.

I don’t know what’s become of Lulu and that Grenada, but I have a feeling that both of them are still alive and well.

In fact, as we are speaking, they are probably kicking up some dust clouds on a rural road somewhere in Sunny South Africa…

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Even though I've been blessed with quite a memory (especially when it comes to minor details and utterly useless information), I can't recall much about that momentous occasion.

I'm convinced though that I remember a blurring, blinding flash and being tossed about and then caught by a couple of nuns and a Jewish doctor.

So here I am. Thirty years and one week later, still with the enormous head (now "complimented" with a matching, enormous body) and the hair is still mostly red.

My hairdresser tells me that my wish from when I was six years old and yearned to have blond hair like Goldie Locks is finally coming true though, because, in addition to my red, I now apparently have millions of grey a few blond stripes at the back of my head.

By the way, I personally always thought that Goldie Locks should be portrayed by a redhead like me. My first grade teacher disagreed, and awarded the much coveted title role in the production of Goldie Locks and the Three Bears to the pretty girl with the bouncy blond ringlets and the big and beautiful blue eyes. I was crushed, and also very hot and bothered... That bear suit was very stuffy.

Anyway, as usual I digress.

What I'm trying to say is that I always thought I'd somehow look and be different by the time I'm thirty.

Like, you know, much thinner? With cheekbones. (But really, at this stage I'd take any bones. It doesn't even have to be located in a place prominently displayed to the viewing public. Although, if I did have ribs showing, you can be sure that I'd start wearing ribcage-baring tops that would make even Britney Spears look demure. Or if I had a bony behind...)

So yes. I thought for sure I'd be bonier by now.

And brighter. I always thought I'd finally be clever by now.

But no. Even though I'm definitely old(er!), I'm afraid I'm still none the wiser, the prettier, the skinnier, or even... alas... the wealthier.

Now that I've come to all these conclusions, I've also realized that there is at least one thing I possess far more abundantly than ever before (And no... NOT my body mass index. Okay, then... not just my body mass index... grrrr...):

Depression.

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Sunday, August 1: Happy to receive divine morning coffee from the boy. I swear, if he keeps it up, he might just turn me into a morning person! (GASP!)

Monday, August 2: Happy and honoured to have the chance to giggle with the girls (and boy) in my cast.

Tuesday, August 3: Happiness is being allowed to pet a beautiful black lab seeing-eye dog.

Wednesday, August 4: Happy and grateful for a good book and the luxury of time to finish it in almost one sitting... well, more like a lounging, then.

Thursday, August 5: I'm actually not happy at all yet. Just petrified since tonight is the first time we'll be performing our play in front of an audience (and the media!). So I'll have to get back to you on that one.

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"Trust you to come up with something so difficult to answer, ha ha.

Seriously though, it IS hard to say, because South Africa possesses a little bit of everything in her landscape: She has the arid Karoo landscape - very similar to the Australian Outback, I hear - where ancient lands fade into an endless horizon; she has the ruthless Kalahari Desert where only the toughest creatures survive... but that's also where she proves that she has a sense of humour, for right there, among the scurrying scorpions and the lizards and snakes, we find her taking care of scores of perky meerkats.

But she is also proudly curvaceous, with snow-capped mountains in Kwa-Zulu Natal, the Eastern and Southwestern Cape and the surrounding valleys where the vineyards and ploughed fields unfurl like a gigantic and colourful quilt.

Deep within her reaches her golden heart kindly pulsates, fueling the economies of the bustling and first-world cities nestled in her bosom, with their bright lights drowning out the glow of the Southern Cross at night.

Her human and animal children coexist, each species conveying mostly cautious respect for each other, yet sharing the same instinctive possessiveness of their land and a yearning to survive.

She rises up from the restless Indian and Atlantic Oceans laying to her sides. She does her best to keep them separated, but to no avail, for at her feet they collide in a wild and foamy embrace. Legend has it that you can actually see a line where the two oceans meet at the southernmost tip of Africa.

See? This is the type of sap you get for asking me when I'm desperately homesick.

But I know that you are clever enough to see past (if not right through) my sentimental bias.

So when you're done gagging, go and buy yourself a plane ticket. I assure you, it's worth every hour it takes to get there.

R."

P.S. Happy birthday to my big sister!

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