Its Graduations Again, B.tech Public Relations Baby

Finally the day has come again. It is by far my greatest achievement. The celebrations were set to be held at the Multi-Purpose hall at the Cape Peninsular University of Technology, Cape Town Campus. The time of event was doted for exactly 10:00. All guests are required to be seated at exactly 09:30, as if that will ever happen. With excitement boiling in our systems, we found ourselves at the photographers tend outside the venue trying to get past the long line to book for our pictures to be taken. At five minutes past ten, we were all seated, waiting for the faculty to walk in.

The music played, while the faculty blessed us with their presence. A lot was being said, but I hardly remember what exactly, what I can remember is that from the second we were told that the ceremony was broadcast live, my friend and I started looking around for the camera every now and then, and yelled for our friends as they went on stage.

The moment came when I was on stage. That Oprah moment! All eyes were on me as I took the walk of success. I smiled, and right there in the crowd, my cousin yelled for me and my friends followed the suit. I think my ears where blocked from all the excitement, but I heard the sound of the flash as I took my steps towards when vice-chancellor. “Well done Siyabonga, you have done us proud, Come again” that was the first time I have ever heard this woman’s voice, and she smiled at me while she said that to me. I was now more than motivated. I went on to take my last picture on stage and moved on to backstage. The ceremony went on till its end.

Now it was time for celebration, I went to take countless pictures with classmates, family and friends. And later went on to embrace Long Street with my presence. Finally I am a post graduate, and no one can take that away from me.

One thing I learnt from being a tutor at CPUT whilst studying is that when you are given the responsibility to educate, you not only give skills and knowledge to student, you also learn new things, theories and ways to doing things. I learnt to be patient, professional and always be accommodating to other people. I also realised that working as a team is better than working alone. Therefore, if you are going to be working alone, ask for opinions and ideas from other people.

 

Dear Patrick at Heart and Stroke Foundation South Africa

Hi Lawrence

I trust you are keeping well and have been able exercise your creative ideas.

I’m am just enquiring if you have found fulltime  employment as yet, if not, please contact me .

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Warm Regards

PATRICK ADAMSON

Programme Director: HR/IR

The Heart and Stroke Foundation SA                  

_______________________________________________________

Dear Patrick

Sorry for the late reply. I only notice you e-mail now, pilled under all the junk mail that come into this mailbox. Besides the fact that I have gained a little bit of weight and my parents keep telling me that I will be fat in a year, I am doing so fantastic. I have been a very productive couch potato, I have been logging onto the internet, applying for jobs week in and week out, clean the dishes and get glued to the TV screen while I wait for a call for an interview.

I have literally tried half the job agencies and all they can provide me with is a part time Call Centre job. Here is a classic at MULTICHOICE Africa, I was fashionably rejected for a call centre job because I am {here is the word} Over Qualified. I have gotten used to being so rejected; it is as if I needed it more to survive, than to take a breath of oxygen. It is very tough to find job in Gauteng. If it’s not your “over qualified”, then it is “you don’t have enough experience”. Regardless of the ups and downs, I still have the spirit. And I know that sometime soon, someone will open the door.

On a lighter note, I graduated last month on the 19^th April 2012. I did not have much time on my hands as I arrived on a Tuesday and left on the Friday. It was a fantastic short trip.

In conclusion, Thanks for checking up on me it means a lot that I am being missed at HSFSA, I surely miss you too. I am currently unemployed and searching though websites, newspapers, and agents. But the greatest part is, I’m in no hurry, a good job will come when the time is right.

Yours Sincerely

Lawrence

Good friendships come to an end (The Cursing Addiction)

After 15 years of friendship I had to say goodbye. There is a belief that people come into our lives to serve a particular purpose and after that purpose has been served, there is no longer a need for those people.

The period came when I realised it is about time that I moved on from the heavy drinking, second hand smoking and sleeping out for days without having any worry about having to take a bath. “As long as we brush out teeth chomi, and wipe the relevant parts of our bodies, we are good to go!” In my whole existence I have never thought that a time will come when these words will come out of my mouth! Well there you go! My vomit…

The other thing about this friendship is that, it was linked to other friendships that I kept for about five years and they too were not so healthy. If we were not drinking and driving, waiting for someone to finish getting laid in the toilet in a club, we were bailing someone at a police station. It was the greatest and most fun time of my life. Shit! Those times were fucken fun hay!

Another thing, when I was friends with these guys, I cursed like crazy! And it sure damn fucken felt great after it! It all started as a joke, and gradually developed to a habit, and from a habit to an uncontrollable beast. I would wake up in the morning and call them just to take a hit. It was as if I was addicted to this cursing drug. It was as if I needed to curse more than I needed to take the last breath of oxygen to survive! “Hello bitch, you bloody slut!” “You fucked-up piece of hopeless trash” I loved saying it, it felt satisfying to my soul. Something was wrong, and the only way to end all this madness was out.

Ye  Ye Ye! I did try all that, after returning from my year trip from Cape Town I kind of tried to face the beast (cursing addiction) but I was viewed as the educated bitch who is trying to change who they really are. I wish them the best with their lives, and hope they get to be where I am standing, in order for them to see from this view, that this friendship is fucked up! and beyond repair.

So here am I, trashing 15 years of friendship, others 5 and others 3. The situation is beyond my control and personally, I believe that we no longer want the same things in life. I need to grow intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and most importantly educationally. oh damn, I needed new friends, and most importantly I needed a new book to read!

The moral of the story is that while some people grow, some don’t. No matter how long you may have known a person there will come a time where you don’t have the same views to life. And if you decide to stay in this friendship, you constantly keep clashing, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It became so clear that I had to move on. Look around you are you friendships perfect or they are Justas fucked up as mine?   

The Need or Want to Belong

Maslow has identified the human needs, and he explains that these needs are like a pyramid. The basic needs in the bottom need to be fulfilled in order to fulfil the other needs upper on the pyramid. Among these needs, he identifies that as humans we have the need to belong to a particular group or society.

We sometime find ourselves surprised in random groups. Well I found myself surprised in a group with friends who do not share the same vision in life with me. As I go through the pictures I took with these people along the years, I cannot help to ask myself as to how could I have spent six years of my life with these people and be so blind?

Was I just fulfilling this need to belong to a social group? Or fulfilling needs to be loved and be listened to by friends, regardless of what they believed in or how they lived their lives. If so, then how valid are these statements that say: “birds of the same flock fly together”, “you are who you hang out with”.

I have been a complete different bird that flew with a different flock and did not realise it until my need was satisfied. Is that what life has come up to be? To adapt, integrate, fulfil the need and move on?

My blessings- one by one

I would like to thank the lord my God for all the blessings that I have received, and all the ones coming.

1.      Thanks for Love

2.     Thanks for My parents especially my mother.

3.     Thanks for my loving brother and sister

4.    Thanks for my gran parents

5.     Thanks for all my cousins who support me and who want to see me prosper.

6.    Thanks for the rest of my family who intend good for my existence.

7.     My neighbours, whom I grew up under and they still encourage me with great words and actions.

8.    Thanks for every friend that I had, and still have in my life.

9.    The clothes that I have as well as the shoes that I walk on.

10.The roof the covers me and gives me protection.

11.   The cell phone that I have

12. The laptop that was bought by my mother to me.

13. The internet connection that costs my mother 200 monthly.

14. The fantastic private school that I attended and completed my matric

15. The blessing of attending two different universities.

16.Thanks for the diploma and the bursary that I got.

17. Thanks for feeding me throughout my diploma studying period.

18.Thanks for the B.tech Degree and all the blessings while studying.

19.Thanks for my intelligence.

20.                       Thanks to every Certificate that I have achieved throughout my studying career.

21. Thanks for my bible, for it gives me light when it is dark.

22.                        Thanks for the Methodist Church.

23.                        Thanks for the Guilders and friends I made in Cape Town.

24.                       Thanks for Wesley guild

25.                        Thanks for every penny that landed in my pocket.

26.                       Thanks for every job that I had in the past.

27.                        Thanks for every wonderful somebody that I have ever worked with.

28.                       Thanks for every material thing that I have in my room.

29.                       Thanks for the spirit that drives me and makes me to feel the way that I do.

30.                       Thanks for my existence today and for all my knowledge.

31. Thanks to all the blessings in the past and the many more that are about to come.

Thank You, Baie Dankie, Ndiyabulela, Niyakhensa, ngiyabonga, I am grateful to God for all my blessings. 

Unemployed Anonymous

Hello my name is Lawrence… and I am a 23 year old Unemployed Graduate. 

I have practically being studying all my life since kinder Garden up until last year.  In South Africa almost everybody who does not have connections is bound to land where I am, unemployed, penniless and with a room filled with Wednesday and Sunday newspapers. 

It is the first time ever in my life where I reach a moment where I do not have anything to do but look for employment.  Straight from High School I enrolled at a University of Technology with the hope that I will get both the experience and education. Well that worked quiet well if I may highlight until I got screwed by my own employer at a particular Branding solutions company where I earned as little as R1800 + commission. My salary largely depended on a commission of 12% and the very same person who will receive the remaining 88% stole my client. Therefore I packed my bags and got off the sinking titanic. 

I went back to studying so I can graduate for my diploma and make it to the B.tech Class of 2011. Fortunately with qualifying marks of 48% and 51% I managed to make it to a 60% and 63% and graduated with dignity knowing that I made it to the B.tech Class. And a year later I find myself back at home, looking for employment with an intimidating Degree.

A particular book that a friend of mine is reading Sais; “when your life falls apart, it does not all happen in one stage. It is a process” It quiet got me wondering for three months whether if that’s practically true. You first lose your clothes bit by bit, and then you lose your scholarship, leading you to be in depth with the University, and then you lose your friends one by one. You do not realise that all this is happening until you get to that moment when your phone stopped ringing as much as it used to when you were employed.

How do you react to a situation when even the people you thought that you can count on have turned their backs on you or have forgotten all about you? I suddenly felt a chill and heard that small voice saying: You are now living the life of the temporally boke, plan less and no longer so interesting somebody, until you get employed again or if you go to school and rely on the monthly allowance again! And let me say, I am far from accepting defeat.

The more I kept digging for a employment, posting my resumes to organisation, logging onto the internet and going to government department to fill in the Z83 forms and going to hopeless interviews with the hope that I will at least get an answer, the more money had to come out from my pocket. It’s true what they say, “It is a job to get a job” and that is no laughing matter.

It’s been three months and I still sit with the hope that sometime sooner or later, a door will open. And somehow God will bless me more than I expect him to.  Thank you.