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“They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.” — Nathaniel Lee
Talking bout the revolution: Welcome to Africa -
You know those National Geographic magazines with pictures of the glorious African savannah teeming with exotic wildlife? You know… the ones with cheetahs chasing down a herd of antelope or a pride of lions tearing the flesh off a fallen zebra. The pictures basically scream GO TO AFRICA! It will be the greatest single thing that has ever happened to you.
These were the pictures that I imagined in my head before I boarded my plane to Durban, South Africa. I was told many times that Durban is one of South Afirca’s biggest cities, but I still had the hunch that I would see elephants strolling down the street every once in a while. Overall, I expected Africa to be a wild, unfamiliar place.
Yet, when I stepped onto the tarmac at the airport, I was surprised to be surrounded by a brand new airport, fancy cars, and people speaking English. This was defiantly not quite what I expected. Since I arrived here in South Africa, there have been lots of surprises. The fact is, South Africa is a completely different country than the US, and these differences, large and small, take some getting used to.
I showed up for my first day of work at St. Leos Primary School with little to no teaching experience in my life. My first hurdle wasn’t figuring out what to teach the little ones, rather it was pronouncing their names. My first day, giggles erupted from the gallery as I constantly butchered one name after another… Siabonga, Sizway, and Nogisiphe. Once the whole class had a few laughs, I started my first ever lesson about the joys of nouns, adjectives, and verbs. I think I even bored myself a little bit the first time around. Lesson number one, make it fun. Lesson number two, the kids like games.
Overall, after a two weeks I can safely say that I have learned a few things. First and foremost that wow teaching is hard. Im not sure what makes these kids tick (im starting to think its Red Bull) but their energy level is through the roof. The good news is that sometimes their attention is fully devoted to what im saying and they are literally jumping out of their seats to answer my questions (usually when it’s a game). Of course, every time I turn around to write on the board, I risk the possibility of full on school mayhem. But like I said, Africa is a wild place, and the kids more than anything are proving National Geographic correct.
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” — Winston Churchill
[video]
bijan sabet: Attack of the clones -
I’m on vacation this week. Im avoiding email successfully so far but I’m still checking twitter and tumblr. I guess i don’t consider that work :)
I saw earlier various folks were tweeting that there is now a Tumblr clone out of China.
I guess I’m not surprised. And I’m not worried.
I remember shortly after we invested in Twitter there were over a hundred twitter clones around the planet. I have the page tagged on delicious but can’t easily link from my phone right now.
Clones don’t wait for things to get huge either. Shortly after Svpply was born and we subsequently backed, we saw a few clones pop up in the US and in the UK
The thing about clones is that they will always be behind since they don’t have their own inspiration or creativity to push ahead.
I’m proud that we are investors in the real thing.
(please excuse typos and lack of links. wrote this on my phone)
Power to the sheeple.
“The droids we’re googling for” by Stefan
