Trisha Cornelius

Figuring it out as I go

Trisha Cornelius

Maverick: Extraordinary Women From South Africa’s Past

Hello Blog,

A while ago I made the decision to start blogging about the books that I have read.  This post marks the first such entry in this iteration of the blog.

Title: Maverick, Extraordinary Women From South Africa’s Past
Authors: Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie
Genre: Biography
Published by Umuzi (an imprint of RandomStruik)
ISBN: 978-1-41520-754-3
Date started:  27 July 2018
Date finished:  28 July 2018

Reason for reading: For enjoyment and to learn more about South Africa’s past. And because it is written by Lauren Beukes. (I have also ordered Nechama Brodie’s The Joburg Book based on the strength of Maverick).

Maverick, delivers on what it’s subtitle “Extraordinary women from South Africa’s Past” promises. The second edition, updated in 2015, tells the story of 23 women who in one way or another were extraordinary.  The stories are reported without strong judgement in a delightfully conversational tone.   Lauren Beukes and Nechama Brodie do a fantastic job in exploring a diverse collection of politicians, entertainers, killers and other miscellaneous women and I would love to see a sequel exploring more of South Africa’s women.

A photograph of the cement sculptures in the Helen Martins garden. This photo depicts a clock tower and two men who appear to be pulling at the church bell tower. Reading these stories, I learnt things about South Africa that I did not know.  For example that during the South African war (1898 – 1902) the British promised African soldiers land and had them set the Boer’s farms alight during the scorched earth campaign. I was delighted to read a story about Lilian Ngoyi, whose existence I was ignorant of until last December when I discovered her through her appearance on the San Francisco’s Mission District Women’s Building MaestraPeace mural. Reading Helen Martins’s story enriched my memory of the trip through the Owl House in Nieu Betheseda that we took last September when we did our first family road trip.

My favourite incident recounted in the book is how Helen Joseph, Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams ensured that the 9 August 1956 Women’s gathering was not a large public protest but 20,00o individual protests instead.

I wept when I read about Ruth First’s murder and the outrage that allowed a liar to be granted amnesty at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. (Note: I know that this is one of many such instances and I am sure at some stage I will write a rant about how appalling it is that those who did not offer the truth received amnesty instead of prosecution).

This was a holiday read, and with it’s format of each chapter telling the story of a different woman (with the exception of the Struggle Sisters which combines the stories of Helen Joseph and Lilian Ngoyi) makes it an easy to read book. I highly recommend it.

Love and South African Women’s History, T
Trisha

On James Gunn, Trevor Noah and Social Media Outrage

So over the past two weeks there have been two social media kerfuffles. One about tweets that James Gunn made over a decade ago. The other about an off-colour joke that Trevor Noah made in 2013.

We are haunted by history. Ghosts live in our heads and our streets and our social circumstances. Our present is shaped by the past, by the mistakes and triumphs of our ancestors, by the barriers they broke through or reinforced.
…
We’ve evolved. … We are more aware of the injuries we do to each other, sometimes without even thinking; we’re continuing to learn that the way we talk about things shapes the way we think about them and experience them. And it’s important to admit when we are wrong.

– Lauren Beukes in the preface to Maverick

Here are my thoughts on these two events which happen to be thematically similar. Were both of the comments made by Trevor Noah and James Gunn wrong and stupid? Yes. But let’s be real. We all make stupid comments. We all make mistakes. I believe that what matters is not how you screw up, but how you react to the screw up. James Gunn deleted those tweets years ago. Probably at the time that he realised that they were not things to joke about. Trevor Noah, was making a joke that could have been more nuanced. But in the era when the President of the United States has openly boasted about ” Grabbing woman by the pussy” and has not changed his behavior, I strongly believe that we are missing the point.

At the moment the world is a pretty screwed up place. There are plenty of things to get outraged about. Genuine, unapologetic misogyny, racism, sexism, human rights abuses all deserve our vocal commendation backed up by our actions. We have to be careful about where we use our energy and outrage (simply because we are all human and do not have an infinite supply of energy).

I suspect that the people drumming up outrage for these mistakes are taking advantage of using them as distractions from the things that we should be getting pissed off about.

I leave this post with a tweet from Tess Fowler whose sentiment I wholeheartedly endorse:

Love and social media kerfuffles,
Trisha

Life Changing News

Hello blog,

Life has been busy lately and so I just haven’t had time to blog, especially since my immune system has been misbehaving.Last week we were dealt a massive blow. Riaan has been diagnosed with young onset Parkinson’s disease. Understandably, people have some questions so here are some answers:

Q: How did this diagnosis come about?
A: Riaan has a history of repetitive strain injury, which is par for the course as a software engineer. And what we thought was his RSI was interfering with his quality of life, so I nagged him to go to our GP. She did x-rays but couldn’t see any thing obvious so she referred him to an orthopedic surgeon. The orthopedic surgeon referred Riaan to a neurosurgeon who then referred Riaan to the neurologist who made a preliminary differential diagnosis of a brain tumor or a stroke or Parkinson’s. And required an MRI and extended blood and urine tests in order to make the diagnosis of atypical young onset Parkinson’s Disease.

Q: What’s the prognosis?
A: Because of this being atypical Parkinson’s disorder the neurologist has no idea of progression and whether it will get worse.

Q: What is the next step in this process?
A: Getting in with a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders  including Parkinson’s. Two specialists have been recommended to us and we are in the process of getting appointments.

Q: Is there a family history?
A:No.

Q: How does this affect our plans for the future?
A: The most significant change is that we are unlikely to be successful in our application to move to Australia because Parkinson’s is a degenerative condition. So for now, we are not moving countries. Career wise we will take it as it comes but we are slowly going to shift to my career and income becoming more important.

***

So we are now adjusting to a new reality, taking it one step and one day at a time.

Love and life altering news,
Trisha

Untitled?

Sometimes, there is no reason for life to be difficult. But it is. And so you just keep on going. Keep breathing. Keep swimming. Keep on keeping on. Put one foot in front of the other. Acknowledge that it is difficult. That there is no apparent reason for your brain to be fighting with you. But know that you can keep fighting. And that sometimes to win the war you need to make tactical retreats from the battles. To keep doing the small things. To acknowledge that you are worthy regardless. To not engage with your brain’s willful stupidity.

Chris Hadfield, the astronaut, tweeted the link to a video clip this week about people and scientific ignorance. The people who have looked at the facts, and ignored them and decided to believe something patently false. That you don’t owe them an argument. That just because they are talking doesn’t mean that you need to listen.

This week has been interesting. The country is in an official mourning period for the loss of Winnie Madikizele Mandela, which ends tomorrow. The DA, the official opposition party, of whom I am a reluctant constituent, believing that a strong opposition is essential to a healthy democracy which we are trying to achieve, are making it really difficult to support them. They called out Patricia De Lille for speaking at a memorial in Brandfort, where Winnie spent years in exile, the DA is arguing that they are calling her out because the memorial was organized by another opposition party the EFF, but it is really difficult to see their complaints as being anything other than misogynistic and racist. Patricia De Lille, is our version of Elizabeth Warren and they should be pictured alongside in the dictionary for the definition of Nevertheless, She Persisted.

I am just going to be brave and publish this ramble, even though I don’t think that it is worthy. I am just going to be hit publish, and trust that I will not crash the space shuttle or end the world.

Love and more ramblings,
Trisha

 

Ramblings at a bar

Hello blog,

I am at Spier Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, looking forward to a gig by Amanda Palmer. A bucket list event that I am insanely privileged to tick off.  There have been lots of thoughts going through my mind and now is as good a time as any to get them out 🙂

There was a tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida, United States on Wednesday. 17 people were killed. I have been blown away by the response of the teenagers affected. I am not afraid for the next generation. We just need to not fuck things up too much and then support them in their actions and problem solving. Teenagers and young adults blow me away.

I have been thinking a lot about grief lately. How it becomes a part of you. How the nature of the pain changes to be less engulfing, and then now as I write this. I miss my dad acutely. There is a rugby match on the television in the wine bar and I miss my dad. We often watched the rugby with him. I have barely watched since he passed on. It hurts too much, it brings in some acute grief.

South Africa got a new president on Thursday. I am glad that the Democratic Alliance didn’t force a secret ballot. I am not a huge fan of the DA at the moment, it would be lovely if they stopped grandstanding and did some work. I wonder if crime is going to improve under Cyril Ramaphosa…I wonder if Jacob Zuma knows the number of people murdered on his watch.  I wonder if Cyril Ramaphosa will. I wonder if we will become less angry as a country. I wonder if our politicians can pull together to defeat DayZero in Cape Town. The people are doing well. I am impressed at the water saving efforts at Spier hotel. I do think pilots / flight attendants should make an announcement about the drought on landing in Cape Town. Reminding people to save water.

I worry about the inhumanity to one one another and am glad to see small acts of humanity and connection.

I finally saw wild dog on our trip to Kruger National Park last week. I am saddened by how inaccessible our national parks have become…they used to be much more affordable. But I was given hope (which is the thing with feathers) when I saw two black teenage girls posing for a photo in front of a statue of three old white men who founded the Kruger National Park and when I heard a young white lady speaking fluent Zulu in the shop at Skukuza.

I took two taxify’s today (A South African alternative to Uber). I love chatting to cab drivers, such interesting perspectives. I stopped using Uber because of their failure to care for their people in the US. When I chatted to my drivers today both of them felt like the company’s didn’t care about them. Only about their commissions. One of the drivers drove for both Uber and Taxify. He thinks that neither care about their drivers but Uber is safer to drive for, allowing drivers to cancel more trips and showing whether the pickup is a cash pickup or not. I did my first cash trip today when the driver was panicked about not having enough petrol to get back from dropping me at the airport. We spoke about kasi boys and kasi girls, he said he didn’t think he wanted a relationship with a kasi girl and said thank you for not judging him. I told him I don’t have enough energy to judge that type of thing. I suppose there is an advantage to having been so sick.

It’s half-time in the rugby now and I remember my dad commenting on how he preferred the much shorter interval in rugby compared to soccer.

And that’s some rambles done 🙂

 

Love and rambling,

Trisha

I breathed a camera up my nose, what did you do today?

Hello blog,

As I said yesterday living with sick is generally unpleasant. Sometimes parts of the diagnostic process can be interesting…like having an Otorhinolaryngologist play a piano tuning fork on various parts of your head to test your hearing. Other parts like them sending a camera through your nostril and down your throat are way less fun, even though they can be interesting albeit gross.

This was the second time that I had a camera through my nose. This is a completely conscious procedure and is about as pleasant as it sounds, especially without any local anaesthetic.  The first time that I had this procedure was last year before my thyroidectomy and it was less intense, I think because my body did not know what to expect.

Today when Dr Neels van Schalkwyk said that he needed to do a nasoendoscopy I responded with dread, because I remember how unpleasant it was. Last year was the first time that my curiosity did not triumph over discomfort where the doctor offered to explain what he saw through the scope. The net result of this was an interesting manifestation of an anxiety attack (made more challenging by battling to breathe through my nose. My go to trick is slow mouth breathing when I get an anxiety attack) so I needed to breathe through my nose with tears streaming from my ears.

But the good news is that it looks like I have a diagnosis for the persistent ear and throat infections. Or rather, I have two (what can I say, I am an overachiever when it comes to these things). The persistent earaches are the result of something called Costen syndrome which is strongly linked to anxiety. And the persistent throat infections are the result of asymptomatic reflux. So some extra meds to the morning cocktail and hopefully that will be under control as well.

Hopefully next week will be much less health related stuff and more fun things.

Love and diagnosis,
Trisha