Word

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by Bronwyn Swartz in General

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Baking [Beyk-ing]

20 Saturday Oct 2018

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Baking [Beyk-ing] – The use of sorcery or alchemy to transform ordinary ingredients into a totally new substance

Alive. Awake. Living.

13 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by Bronwyn Swartz in General

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So this is completely insane. My last post was barely 24hrs ago and was about how overloaded I am with work – another Mission Impossible Deadline, but something just came up and I have to blog about it.

It’s about living. About being alive and present in your life. It’s about being awake. It’s about loving your own self unconditionally – enough to fix any negative experience. It’s about picking up your shit, getting rid of any “I’m a victim” identity and going on.

I’m feeling so strong about this because two weeks ago I was stood up. Had a date with someone and he just never bothered to call to cancel or apologise. I was really excited, I had my hair done for date night and I had an outfit planned and I waited. And waited…… And waited…

He has his reasons… and in the past two weeks I made peace with it. I believe that essentially everyone is just doing what they can to be happy – just trying to love themselves. We can’t be angry at someone for your choosing their own happiness over ours – when it is in fact what we should all be doing. For some reason this was what right for him to do. I don’t believe it was personal – it wasn’t about me. It was about him. I let go. I breathed in, processed my feelings and breathed out. I shed a few tears (let’s be real – rejection always hurts – even if you didn’t want to go that party – if you don’t get an invite, then it stings). Then I continued with my stuff.

So.….. here’s the bit where I get to living – or why being alive is so wonderful and so scary. Unexpectedly someone asked me on a date today. And it’s someone who I really like (and he is someone who is a available – strange but true – at 40 years old that’s a criterion we don’t take for granted). In fact, I didn’t even realise he was asking me out. I read his message and thought he was saying it’s a lovely day for a cocktail on the beach, and I agreed. Only later when I re-read that I saw that he said he wants to take me for a cocktail on the beach. Like whaaaaat…. super super awesome cool.

Now living is scary because it’s getting close to evening time, a little voice in my heart whispered “What if he stands you up too?”. I freeze, but I am brave. I gently, lovingly tell the voice “Go lie back down. This isn’t your party. It is mine. If he does – then he does. And just like the last time, it is not a reflection on me”.

Anyone who does that just shows me that I should not be hanging out with them in any case. So I waxed my legs and painted my toenails a shade of playful baby blue with silver glitter. Tried on my denim shirt dress to see what it would look like with a pair of wedges because he is rather a tall fella.

I won’t let my past experience steal my happiness and joy. And I will deal with whatever when I need to. It’s scary to keep on living – but I owe it to myself to be brave. The destination of my journey is already determined, I have the ticket. I must just jump back on this train.

I’ve done enough work for the day and listened to enough Christmas Carols today. (Klaar ge-Boney M for the day). Tonight is date night….. Well, take two at least. Let’s see what happens.

Dala what you must

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by Bronwyn Swartz in General, My Adventures, Purely Academic

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I shouldn’t be blogging because the truth is I have the most pressing deadline ever – like seriously. But life is feeling beautiful albeit a bit stressful. Can’t explain it, I’m just feeling grateful and remarkably happy despite the stress. And so as I am working on my writing, I am listening to Boney M sing Auld Lang Syne. 😳😱🤭🤫#GuiltyPleasure. My heart is so happy, so I want to capture this moment on my blog.

Back to “Dala what you must” – It’s is colloquialism in my community and my best friends and I use it quite often. It basically means “Do whatever it is that you must do” or “Do whatever you decide you can or must do“. So the phrase can have a positive connotation or a negative one, but generally when we tell each other “Dala what you must” it’s typically when one of us needs to get out of trouble for some or other reason. For me it’s an endearing term.

See I am so over dala’ing my Puh Huh Duh (PhD) project. And I cannot wait to bow down to the universe with gratitude and respect when this is finally done and say Thank You for the lessons that this part of my journey has taught me – but then also be so glad to be done with writing chapters on Operational Excellence in the Pharmaceutical Industry in South Africa!!!! Yawn…..

I want to get on with my life now. I want to start the next phase. Besides the academic component, in personal capacity I have grown so much during the time that I have worked on this study. I have gotten to know myself really well, my weaknesses and my flaws. I’ve learnt to love myself, truly unconditionally and deeply. I have finally also learnt to stand up for myself and say an unequivocal No, when something makes me unhappy. And probably the most important is, I have learnt to forgive myself.

So in April this year when my supervisor said “send me your first draft by end of June” and I still hadn’t done my final interviews, I blerrie knew that was practically impossible but I continued working as if I was going to make it.

Then in July she told all her students who were coming to the end of three years (this is a PhD study hey…three years? #SlaveDriverMuchMaybe…. but I push my own self hard too, so I’m not complaining), to send her all our chapters by 17th August.

And then the 17th August came and I only had chapter one in a presentable format. To explain that – see when you a write a thesis, I would argue that no one in history has ever submitted what they wrote when they started. Yeah, you start writing, then you do literature review and then what you wrote changes, and then you do data analysis, and then what you wrote changes, and then it changes and then changes and then it changes yet again. But I was definitely starting to see my work come together, so I sent her an email and said I’m sorry I didn’t make her deadline. However I asked her permission to send her one chapter per week for the next eight and she said Yes, and I said “Bless you Shalini“

And then end of September came around and I still wasn’t done. Admittedly I wasn’t working completely non-stop like I did with my Masters Degree. But the thing is working non-stop on that degree is what led to me being clinically depressed in that year, and so this time I know better and therefore I strove to do better. I continued to be involved with family and friend activities – took days off to celebrate the birthdays of two of my best friends, celebrated my own children’s birthday and hosted a party at home. I engaged in some other research on educational technology and my abstract was accepted to present a paper at the RITAL conference the end of this year – and I was asked to write a chapter in a book that is being published. I even dated a really nice guy for a bit. Busy but balanced? I was learning and growing.

When we know better, we do better- Angelou Maya.

So back to now. Back to my chapters. I sent my supervisor four chapters last night that I am very proud of and I admitted to her that the others aren’t ready yet. The others are about 70% done, but truthfully I’m feeling excited about them. My voice is getting stronger in my writing because I can see what my OpEx Model looks like. And I’m feeling confident about my work and proud of my work. And so she has given me another two weeks, which I am delighted about. I can do this!

So why Auld Lang Syne?… I don’t know… It just makes me feel happy. Doesn’t it make you feel happy?

Dala what you must