Weekly digest #6

Cosmetic surgery regulated as much as your toothbrush : It turns out that in the UK, it is not that important to regulate that which is injected into your face, regardless of the horror stories that we have all heard (and possibly seen the effects of) when such procedures go wrong (or if you just have a bad reaction to the product). While I'm pretty sure that things such as Botox and wrinkle-fillers should be administered with some training and qualification (would you really trust a random person to do this for you), the British don't think it is that important to have such regulations in place. It scares me the ease with which one can get this done, so I hope that you're at least sensible if you do follow this route to beauty.
Personally, I am currently not friendly with needles, so having injections in my face would be a serious stretch. I don't know how I am going to feel when this actually becomes a problem, however. I am so scared of ageing, it is actually quite sad. What makes it worse, is the fact that there is nothing anyone anywhere is ever going to be able to do about it. Except cosmetic surgery I suppose. I'm going to have to cross that bridge when I get there, and hopefully look after myself well enough until then, so that that bridge isn't too big for my osteoporotic legs to jump across.

More bus strikes... Are they important? : Service delivery strikes, wage strikes, all these strikes seem never-ending, and just when they seem to have been resolved, it is a new year, so they get to strike again for even more! I understand that people should be given what they deserve and what they have earned, but wow, can't we just organise a sound policy that this just happens without a hitch? Whenever these strikes happen, I think it is always the innocent who suffer the most: like those commuters who need to get to work. Or when the teachers strike, it is the children who miss out on vital school time. I understand that that is almost how a strike is supposed to work, in that it implements a serious blow to the service, to make a serious statement, but I also think that it's not fair to those who are directly affected by it, when they are not involved in the processes.

Grahamstown roads: further proof that this is not my hometown... : And I mean this headline in the nicest way possible of course. The roads here are absolutely shocking. And, true to South African problem solving skills, solutions are never permanent: they try the cheapest option (filling up the pothole with sand) and then within a few days it will rain, just because it can, of course, and the hole will be back. That hole will be back with a right vengeance I tell you. My poor car knows real suffering from driving on these roads, and I am pretty sure the campus roads are maintained better than the ones mentioned in the link in the headline of this story. This makes me sad, because at the end of the day, they could have saved money by just fixing the hole properly the first time, even if it is more expensive, and then they wouldn't have had to worry about it again for a while. But no, we must save money now, and damage cars and pose dangers to drivers (and pedestrians) while we're at it.

Weekly digest #3

Fans disappointed that their mail isn't read by their heroes : Over-decorated and generic letters addressed to Taylor Swift were found in the recycling bin, to the dismay of those who sent it. Her management team were quick to claim that this disposal had been done accidentally, of course. How do fans expect every single one of their letters to be read, why would they think that theirs is so important and has something so new and interesting to say, that their celebrity sweetheart would take the time out of their busy and famous lives to give a damn for a moment? You could probably just send an envelope with the star's name on it, and they would get the idea. I do not understand the point of fan mail. If you really want to get a message to someone, make sure that it stands out, without having to resort to copious amounts of glitter glue and heart stickers. Be creative, be unusual, have something different to say. The same goes with life: if you think you're important enough that people should listen to you, put your message across in a way that conveys that! Also, well done to Taylor's management team for recycling, #savetheplanet.

Nepotism in schools: teacher fired for not adjusting principle's child's marks : A Northern Cape teacher was fired after she did not adjust one of her pupils marks so that he could pass. Said pupil was the principle's son. Pregnant mathematics and science teacher, Arlene Nel refused the request to up the grade 11 student's mark for a life sciences paper for which he received 28%. He had also only achieved 14% and 24% for maths and physical sciences respectively. The arbitration case for this situation will continue next month.
We thought we had it bad in our school, where there were relatives all throughout the staff. We had nothing on this. This is so unfair, because of the treatment and preference given to one student (who clearly doesn't deserve a chance - it's not as though he was having a little bit of trouble with one subject, he was failing others as well), and because the teacher now has a newborn child to care for, without a job to support it. Perhaps there are other underlying issues in the pupil's life that has caused him to perform badly, but if this is the case, then it needs to be dealt with openly (with discretion of course), and not through sneakily firing a staff member.

Grahamstown has no water and it really sucks:  I've attached two links for this story, but really it is my own. We have no water here in Grahamstown, and it is the second time in two weeks. Last week this inconvenience lasted about a day. Now, we have had no water for a few days. Certain areas seem to have started to get water back, now that the problem has been "fixed", but many people still have no access to water, which means no washing, no cooking water, no flushing water, in many cases.
A message from "Cllr Les Reynolds Da Caucus Leader" on the Rhodes University Community Forum Facebook group informed members of the group as to the cause of the outages, and explained that once the broken pipe that was the cause of the problems was fixed, water supply should resume.

[Note: this is a Monday post, but written on Wednesday, so the water issues timeline may be somewhat confusing. The events it describes were confusing anyway, so this shouldn't be a problem. Also, any water supply issues is an issue, regardless of how long that has been the case for]