5 Years From Now!?

In less than a month I am turning 25… a sentence I never actually thought about saying. I don’t know why but turning 25 has got me looking back at my life and trying to figure out what in the heck I did with it. I’m not freaking out about it, cos I sure as don’t look 25. I’ve recently been told I could pass for 19, so whatevs.

You judge for yourself… me at 24!

Yeah sure there’s not much you can do for the first 18 years of your life, you know, being a dependent and below the legal drinking age (which NEVER stops anyone) and all. But after school, after you leave your teen years, after the carelessness of being dependent on parents for clothes, food, transport, and STUFF. That’s the “life” I’m talking about here. I got asked the other day, “Liezel, where do you see yourself in 5 years?” and I thought, why do you ask me these morbid questions? Why do you toy with your life insurance? Do you want to die with your fingers in your eyes and a lollipop up your nose?

The lollipop follows…

As you can well guess, my violent behavior springs from my own insecurities, that and growing up with brothers and male cousins (why, oh why, does the English language not have gender specific words for male and female cousins like Afrikaans has? Nefie: Male, Niggie: Female) and uncles. Having to defend yourself and your food in any scenario makes you violent – only a little – also having brothers who practiced amateur wrestling on you or taught you how to flick someone with a dishtowel so hard that they bled. Yes, *taking a bow* I can do that. Getting off topic again, I was saying something about insecurities… oh yes, my own insecurities about what I’ve done, or not done, with my life in the 7 years I have been out of school. Oh, I have lived, enjoyed life, been carefree, but was it worth it? Was it worth being where I am now to have a bit of fun? The crazy (and more populated) side of me screams YES!!!! The other side of me (the side with the higher IQ) screams HELL NO!! And then there is the question – where are you? Sometimes I think I have been on a 7 year long gap-year. Something Dylan Moran has strong feelings about…

Oh, Dylan!!

But, then age is just a number, and I can do so much now. I can do anything I put my mind to. I mean I am killing myself at least twice a week at bootcamp. Oh that reminds me, I did a whopping 15 regular non-girly push ups yesterday, and I TRIED doing one pull up. In my mind I was chinning the bar, in reality I just hung there looking like a piece of meat in a butchery. Why do gyms have mirrors by the way? Yes, back to what I am doing, living each day as it comes. Taking steps to better myself and I came to the realisation that in 5 years from now there are 2 scenarios that I see myself in: 1) I at least want to have bought myself a BMW like this one…

Soon my beauty… soon.

that’s a start, isn’t it? Obviously there are certain steps that would lead to the actual purchase of the beaut of a car, like earning more money. Nothing that doing some courses and classes and using some brain power (most of which are dormant at the moment) won’t fix. And 2) being a fighter pilot in the South African Air Force.

The trouble with asking the 5-years-from-now question is that you need a contingency plan. A how-to-guide to actually get to those places. that’s where I don’t know where to, with what, or how. But I do know that I am not part of a church just for nothing and I do not have supportive family and friends for nothing. Ask and ye shall receive, even if it is a klap to wake up.

Ok I’m done now!

Life without technology

Have you ever thought what life would be like without the computer that you are currently reading this post on while listening to music on your iSomething and speaking to your Samsung Smart TV to change the channel to the rugby match that just started, and then apologising to the person you are currently in deep conversation with on the bluetooth headset jammed into your ear. All while chatting on Skype AND Facebook to a friend about this awesome blog you found. *Taking a bow*… at this point I do think you realise that to be able to accomplish that whole scenario you had to be Einstein in a female’s body, but I think even Einstein would be slightly baffled with where we are with technology today. And with we I mean the rest of the world cos South Africa is about 3 years behind. I realised in this past long weekend (Youth Day public holiday in South Africa) that technology has not advanced us as far as we think. It has made us more lazy, more forgetful and less sociable whilst becoming more socially awkward – Theres a picture for ya!

Thats about right…

Think about it though, we are not obliged to remember anything anymore, apart from eating and taking care of normal bodily functions, until Apple or Japan comes up with some technologically advanced way of taking care of… well… business some other, faster, better, less human way, like taking a pill or having a chip implanted somewhere. Who knows? Anyway, getting kinda off topic, so back to not having to remember much anymore, we also don’t have to make time anymore, you know the time that we now have so little of cos its all being eaten up by technology… no no wait, its being eaten up by the lazy ass person that we became thanx to technology. We see technology taking the place of everything from exercise to Personal Assistants… Hello Siri! It’s no wonder our grandparents are constantly telling us to go outside and read a book or something. Our brains are devolving, thats what I think. Or maybe it’s just mine.

This is Siri, she does everything… except feed you and wipe your bum.

All this being said I use technology as much as the next person, well the next middle-classed South African person with limited Wi-Fi, lets face it, everything runs off of Wi-Fi. I just feel that maybe, just maybe we should change our ways, not become Mormons but maybe just be less dependent on technology. How can we have so little time anymore when all the technology around us is designed to give us more time. Who needs to drive 30 minutes to a coffee date when there is Facebook and Skype, who needs to get into a car to go monthly shopping when that can be ordered online and delivered right to your door, who needs to remember to take their stuff out of a car before the car leaves when the driver can be called on the spot and asked to turn around? **I type this on my computer while listening to music from said computer whilst chatting to a friend on my phone… hypocrite? Maybe. Concerned, definitely.

Oh and upon closing… I leave you with a little Dylan.

My Goosebumps has Goosebumps!!

A very good friend of mine has a very very big collection of worship music. I think he is addicted, he goes and buys like 5 albums at a time and he always lets me listen to the best songs, sending me snippets of them to listen. Yesterday he bought the new Passion 2013 – Let The Future Begin album and OH MY DAMN!!! He sent me a snippet of The Revelation Song sung by Kari Jobe. I decided to Youtube it… the video has haunted me ever since… she goes into a spontaneous worship type thing at the 3:40 min mark and the song just builds and builds then it crashes and starts again building and crashing like an ocean upon my soul. The perfect mix of emotions and glory!  Like a worship cocktail.

Now it can haunt you too, you are welcome. This song as well as My Delight is in You sung by Christy Knockels gives me goosebumps on my goosebumps. I love worship music, always have it playing at the office and I was just  thinking I need some new worship music and I had not heard of a new Jesus Culture or Bethel album yet soooo this came just in time. I don’t want to write for too long but listen to the whole album, it goes up and down drawing you in. It’s amazing! Baie BAIE dankie ! (Jy weet wie jy is)

No words needed.

Now on a totally different and unrelated note.. I NEVER EVER WANT TO BE SICK AGAIN!!! EVER. *Deep breath* Ok I’m fine, well I will be fine. Soon. On Tuesday at bootcamp our trainer thought it would be fun if she made a game where she has 6 different exercises each numbered from 1-6. She had a dice and whatever number you threw you had to do, then you had to do 50 skips. then the next round you would do what you threw the 1st round as well as what you threw for this round and then 50 skips again and so it went for 5 rounds. So you start with doing 1 exercise and then 50 skips, then 2 and skip, then 3 and skip etc etc. I can’t remember what exercise was on what number but I remember my 1st throw was 40 sit ups AND my 2nd throw was also 40 sit ups… so if you do the math I did 360 sit ups. Oh and somewhere in there I threw the number for 40 Randfontein Rolls also (laying on your back with hands under bum, bend one leg at the knee placing the ankle of bent leg just above knee of non-bent leg, lift the latter while chin is on chest… 20 each leg it works your core like a boss). As you can well imagine, sneezing was (is still) a painful experience, even laughing is painful. Phoenix and myself made the mistake of watching Friends, we started out laughing at Chandler… ended laughing at each other’s pain from laughing. At least we had fun.

LOVE FRIENDS!!!

My point with this is that I wouldn’t have been in such pain, or even struggle to to 60 squats yesterday or it would not have felt as if I had phantom forearms and hands  from doing kettlebell swings, if I had not missed only 1 week (ONE WEEK – SEVEN DAYS) of exercise. Damn you tonsils!!! Damn you to heck! So now I am making sure I don’t get sick again, eating oranges as if my life depends on it, it kinda does. Also drinking iron and multivitamin tablets and just for good measure flu symptom tablets if I feel even a slight scratchiness in my throat. Bitches better know I aint getting sick again!!

That’s weird!

Last week I had tonsillitis and if my memory serves me right (as it usually does), the illness is supposed to be quite a bit more, er, grueling than it was. I woke up today a week ago with swollen tonsils and the whole shebang, so I just took some anti-inflammatories and a sore throat pill that you need to suck every morning. Not the best tasting pill but it obviously helped, cos by Friday I was right as rain. *Side note: How right is rain anyway???* And we’re moving along… So yes I’m perfectly healthy now, played netball last night (and lost by 4 points) but it was great. The only thing that I don’t like right now is the feeling that I have lost my motivation to exercise. Amazing how a week without it changed my mood, BUT I shall kill the passive mood during Bootcamp tonight. I have to!

I do this sometimes…

I’m starting to dislike my all-over-the-place thinking brain a bit. Just for once I’d like it to focus on one thing and stay focused on it till the goal has been reached. You know, stick to the exercise, become ripped, better ripped than Swank and Biel put together with a dash of mean ass tiger in there, accomplish one thing I set my mind to initially. Just once I’d like to experience the feel of victory over myself. If I could clone myself (which would be awesome on sooo many levels) I would kick my own lazy ass. It would be like Double Impact, Van Damme vs Van Damme… only with me it would be Swank vs Lazy-Ass.

Say what you will, this man could fight!

So I think if you don’t keep at it, the exercise not the watching of Van Damme movies (which is totally acceptable), then your body goes back into fat-girl mode. Dylan Moran has this great piece in one of his shows…

That last part has me laughing soundlessly every time. “I would stab you to death but I can’t afford to take the 2 weeks off work”. When I am done laughing though, I have this sinking feeling in my stomach that if I don’t watch myself that could be my face thats the tiny island in the see of flab! Slight exaggeration but you know what I mean.

To sign off, I leave you with this. Drink your vitamins so you don’t get ill and can’t exercise, cos that motivational boat might pass you by and then you gotta hustle your fat ass over to it. At least it’s only been a week… but I feel that even a week is too long. HELP!!!!!