But I must ask; at what point does one decide to name their daughter Pinkie?

This has been the question that has been trending in my mind since I visited some family members back home in Kagiso (a township in the west of Johannesburg), and one of my aunts belted out a strong ‘Pinkie!’ as she was calling her sister from across the road. And the name Pinkie wasn’t a nickname; it was an actual name that my aunt received from her parents at birth. It was then that I realized that Pinkie was a very awkward and hilarious name.

I know the weirdest of all names, from Matlakala (which means rubbish and is usually an inherited name) to Sputnik (my uncle’s nickname; I guess the family wanted him to work for NASA at some point) all the way to Pinkie, which takes the cup for me. I guess the weirdness and humour comes from the character of my aunt Pinkie.

I love my dear aunt Ous’ Pinkie, as she is affectionately known in the township, but she’s quite a weird woman in the sense that she’s unconventional in her ways and her demeanor. And I put full blame on her name Pinkie.

She’s light in complexion but her face is red and droopy from excessive alcohol consumption. She’s quite passionate about beer. She always says that the taste of it is the sweetest thing she’s ever known (bear in mind that beer is quite bitter), and that beer helps her have a good time. Her favourite beer, by the way, is Carling Black Label. She loves this beer more than anything else. She considers it as her way of living ‘la vida loca’ and I’m sure that if she had to choose between saving her purse from a fire and saving her bottles of Black Label, she would dive head-first for the beer.

She has shoulder-length, jet black hair which is half afro and half relaxed, but one hardly ever sees it, except on Sundays when she goes to church, because she’s always wearing a doek; she’s is average in height and her build is quite slender.  She’s a domestic worker, who is quite above average as the family that she works pays her very well, so she can afford the better things in life, but as per Ous’ Pinkie, she opts for finer alcohol instead. She’s usually uncontrollably loud and over-extroverted, especially when she’s drunk, so no one really wants to be around her for too long. Her extroverted nature makes her super talkative, so best believe that whether she’s sober or intoxicated, secrets that you share with her will become public knowledge very soon.

She also tends to fight a lot, and when she does, she panel-beats her opponent to a pulp, and not even the strongest man can hold her down until she’s satisfied with the destruction she’s causing. One time she beat up a middle-aged female drinking buddy off hers so badly that the lady was in a wheelchair for a month with a face so bruised (for about a week) that one would think that the she was a survivor of a hectic war. Apparently, the fight was caused by a heated argument over debt. The drinking buddy owed Ous’ Pinkie R20 in alcohol debt, but she had been stalling in paying Ous’ Pinkie her money. The ‘Good Samaritan’ Ous Pinkie got frustrated that the drinking buddy was giving her a hard time with paying her back what was owed to her, and at that point, things got physical, and Ous’ Pinkie turned into a WWE wrestler.

Ous’ Pinkie has an opinion about everything, but the conclusion is the same, and that is she hates everyone and everything about life. No story has a happy ending, unless if you consider her whipping some poor soul’s behind a happy ending. She blames the government for everything that’s wrong in society and even though her job pays her well, she hates the fact that she’s stuck in domestic work just to put food on her table. She would’ve opted to own a shebeen as she feels that brings in more money, but she didn’t follow through with the business idea because she got occupied with drinking sprees instead.

She dislikes her relationships with friends, but she tolerates them because she’s succumbed to the fact that she has to live with human beings. She had a husband, but in the 80’s, he left for Rustenburg to go work on the mines, and he hasn’t been home ever since. As a result, she doesn’t have any children, so caring for her nieces and nephews nurtures that motherly instinct that I assume she has, even though she doesn’t show it at all. Maybe her outbursts of anger and misery and her excessive drinking are caused by the heartbreak of her husband walking out on her. When she recalls the year that she realized that he wasn’t coming back, a whiff of sadness and pain comes over, which makes me feel so sorry for her and makes me realize once again that, as crazy as she might be at times, she is still human.

This is the description of my Ous’ Pinkie; terribly loud, ever-complaining and swearing, overbearing at times and angry at life in totality with a distinguishable ‘pooza face’. I choose to believe that Ous’ Pinkie is a fantastic person, even though I can’t spend more than 15 minutes with her because then she starts complaining and starts cursing lividly at everything and everyone. I think that if she had another name other than Pinkie, her life would be different and she wouldn’t fit this stereotype which is synonymous with most Pinkie’s that I know in the township. Most Ous’ Pinkie’s seem to fit this very description, which is quite a scary thing to comprehend in my mind.

Therefore, at the point which a parent decides to name their daughter Pinkie is the point where I wonder what was going through their minds to make them choose such a name, and thus carve out an actual Pinkie.

*image from travelblog.portfoliocollection.com

Social networks, particularly Twitter, seem to have replaced these above mentioned individuals when it comes to blowing off steam and getting a few issues off of one’s chest. People spend characters on end ranting and raving about people, brands and situations that do them wrong, much to the delight of their followers and the rest of the Twitter community because it provides much needed entertainment on the virtual space. And needless to say, the ranter and raver becomes an instant tweleb by attracting so much attention to themselves and providing topics for hot gossip.

So while I was browsing through my Twitter timeline last night (and by the way, it seems like these outbursts happen late at night when people feel the most comfortable to reveal their innermost thoughts, but sometimes they occur during the day depending on how adventurous the tweleb in question is feeling), I noticed that a successful twitter rant has specific characteristics that enable it to grab people’s attention and get Twitterville talking and laughing out loudly on the virtual space. I guarantee you that the next time you feel like ranting on Twitter and you include these characteristics in your outburst, you will cause intense virtual tongue wagging if you’re a tweleb already, and you’ll become an instant relevant somebody on this virtual space called Twitter if you aren’t as yet bestowed with the tweleb status.

Air out your beef

Oh yes! What’s a Twitter outburst without the revelation of some sort of beef between you and the insulter in question? You need to go nuts in your rant, airing out your supposed victimization and the saucy details relating to the cause of the beef while hurling crazy insults at the one who angered you. But you can’t just send out one tweet of this beef; it has to be several tweets to get people up in arms at the scandal that you’re revealing. Forget confidentiality issues that might come to play and the fact that perhaps your rant could prove unprofessional on your side. Who needs to think twice about a rant when there’s a possibility of a successful trend on Twitter to attain? If you’re a known celeb, airing out your beef will definitely get twitter buzzing.

Anything of a sexual nature will do

Putting your sex life on the virtual space for all to see and ranting on about your sexual preferences seems to do the trick of getting virtual tongues wagging. Rant about how proud you are of your gold-digging tendencies; let the whole world now when you’ve just had sex and state what lingerie you were wearing, and off-course, name the socially popular type of guys or girls that you’re into, just like a certain South Africa female tweleb did earlier on this year by saying that she loves guys with money, and more specifically, guys that drive VW GTI cars. People will call you all sorts of names, and in retaliation, you will blame their insults on their unexciting and ailing sex life.

Man-handle your haters

Tongue-lashing at your haters is definitely one way of ensuring a successful twitter rant. I guess it reminds people of their high school days when two people who couldn’t stand each other would engage in a verbal war filled with malicious and human-defying insults before giving each other a huge beat down. The verbal war still continues on the virtual space, and because human beings have a thirst for butting into people’s business, man-handling your haters on twitter will get people talking. Make sure that you air out your opponent’s dirty laundry in the outburst, and perhaps mention that their partner enjoys your sexual presence in their lives, therefore deeming you superior over your hater. Intense dissing makes for a good man-handling twitter rant.

Be arrogant

Sometimes you don’t need to fight with someone or expose your sexual preferences and activities on Twitter. Blowing your own horn and ranting about how awesome you are usually does the trick. Talk about how you can purchase the entire world and all its people because you breathe in lots of money, and go on about how beautiful, talented or popular you are, even though in reality, your popularity is only reflected by the virtual twitter community members that enjoy seeing your rants. Make sure that you always end your rants with a tagline so that people will always remember you. #SitDown works just fine in case you were wondering.

At the end of the day, Twitter rants can either be reasonable or distasteful, depending on your view on airing out all the meanderings of your mind and your issues on a public space. But as for us followers, Twitter rants make for good entertainment, so if you’re a tweleb and you have no one else to chat to about what’s bothering you, do tweet it and we’ll kindly gasp out in amazement or laugh.

*image from weheartit.com

So it seems like this time around, the Chris Brown and Rihanna relationship is over for real and they might not get back together. But who knows if they’ll remain broken up for long before they call the separation quits and get back together?

Their relationship is nothing out of the ordinary though because it seems like in life, one has to go through a chaotic and intense relationship where emotions, love, hate and plain madness reigns supreme, throwing you overboard due to its intensity and leaving you feeling like you’ve lost control. I’ve been through two relationships of this nature, and I can safely say that I’ve paid my dues and I never want to encounter an intensely chaotic relationship like those two previous ones.

So I think before the world jumps onto the judgmental bandwagon and curses at Chrihanna while shaking their heads in high-nosed dismay, we should take time out to learn some lessons from their relationship. So here goes.

Sometimes love isn’t enough

You might love your partner with all your heart and feel like your world will collapse without them in it, but sometimes love isn’t enough to hold the relationship together. Simple but important things like value systems, individual aspirations as well as goals and aspirations for the relationship, trust and friendship come into play. If you and your partner are in two different head spaces and find it difficult to find some common ground, then the relationship will fall apart. But I think in Chris and Rihanna’s case, they loved each other too much to see reality properly, which probably led to obsessiveness over each other and a lack of breathing space. Too much love can be an unrealistic (as it clouds your judgement) and stifling thing.

Personal growth is important

If you haven’t grown into your own skin, let alone be comfortable in it, then there’s no way you can share yourself and your heart with someone else. I think as young people, finding true love and staying in a relationship gets difficult because you’re still trying to figure yourself out and there’s so many opportunities that life presents (in all spheres of life) that it’s hard to fully give your all to your partner, even though you want to because of your desire to be with someone. Chris and Rihanna are both on the self-discovery road, and they both need to grow into their own skins without each other.

Sometimes we rush into things

Emotions take over as well as the need to be in love, and you end up being with someone who you didn’t take time to get to know properly. Rushing into a relationship is an epic fail as most of the time, you realize that the person that you’re with is either an absolute monster or an immature kidult (fyi: kid-adult), which will always lead to a messy relationship and an even messier break-up. And also, both parties will be swept up in a whirlwind of love-like emotions that are enough to make anyone puke. To make things more depressing, if you and your partner were friends prior to the relationship, that friendship will be lost forever. And it seems like Chris and Rihanna were swept up in whirlwind of intense emotions that they didn’t know what to do with each other. They seem to have rushed into their relationship the second time around. I really wonder if Rihanna was sincerely over the assault and if Chris had dealt with his anger and guilt at assaulting her. I also wonder if they had allowed themselves time to trust each other again.

I’m not a relationship expert (I barely know what love is) but at times, you can judge a tree by its fruit, whether good or bad, and by looking from the outside on the Chrihanna relationship, these are some lessons that I took from their relationship and that I’ve learned from my own failed relationships. The bottom line is that love isn’t easy, and when you do find that one-of-the-kind relationship, you had better be mature enough to handle it with care.

*image from weheartit.com and Global Grind

This is the case with this poor woman who couldn’t stop texting a guy she liked, and unfortunately, the guy didn’t feel the same way about her and appears to have used her, as all players do to their prey.

So check out the crazy texts below and weep for this poor girl who became obsessed with the wrong guy:

This is just sad. I hope this poor woman has moved on with her life and met someone who will love her the way she wants to be loved, and also, I sincerely hope that she’s not throwing herself at some random guy who gives her a taste of attention.

*sourced from BuzzFeed.

It’s been two years since I got my licence and I must say that it’s been a pretty rough ride. My car bears testimony to this as it’s scratched on all four sides and a bunch of wires have been used by my father to put the bumper back together after I destroyed it when I knocked into the wall while trying to reverse out of the driveway when I was at home. My excuse for this silly K53 deficiency is that I was angry that day and I forgot to check my side mirrors, not that I needed to because all I had to do was reverse straight out of the driveway.

I’ve also witnessed intense zap signs, thundering hooters coupled with swear words that even the devil has not heard of during my first year as a driver all because my car occasionally switched off at a busy intersection due to my inadequate clutch control. Those moments will go down in my driving history books as my most dramatic, cold sweat dripping at a traffic light moments. In those times, I felt bad at making the motorists behind me a minute late for work all because I failed to balance the accelerator and clutch adequately enough to move the car forward. And my moments of panic didn’t help because they merely prolonged the mini traffic jam that I had caused.

Fast forward to two years later, and I’m the one hooting ferociously at the poor learner driver whose clutch refuses to work in unison with the accelerator. I’m the one surfing through traffic like a mad man and arriving at a 9am meeting at 8:58am on the dot.

Driving in Joburg traffic is quite an adrenaline rush because it’s so intense. Every single maneuver must be well planned in your head well in advance and you need to be ready for any piece of action at any time. Making it past an orange-coloured traffic light seconds before it turns red makes me feel like Schumacher’s right-hand man, and sliding through slow moving traffic by cruising into one lane from another (safely off-course) makes me feel like an advanced driving pro. I strongly believe that once you get a hang of Joburg traffic, you can pretty much drive anywhere in SA because you’re untouchable. You’ve hooted and you’ve conquered. And once you’ve experienced these five things that I’m about to share with you, I think you can officially stamp yourself as a Joburg driver.

The mad-man hooting

If you find yourself hooting ferociously at a motorist who has done a silly mistake on the road or flashed your lights at them, then you’ve been socialized into Joburg driving. You have learned the art of using the rude gestures of motor language to correct those with inefficient urban city driving skills. Personally, I feel like I’m granting the idiotic driver a huge courtesy by hooting at their mistakes so that perhaps next time they won’t repeat them. And when hooting or flashing lights, I’m voicing out my utter irritation, which is absolutely alright seeing as my K53 skills are top notch (well… when I want them to be).

Swerving past a taxi

So check this out; I’m driving in the left lane in peak, rush-hour traffic behind one of SA’s most beloved motorists *fine-tunes sarcastic voice* a taxi driver. All of a sudden, with no warning whatsoever, the taxi driver stops the taxi so that a passenger can get off, causing me to hit my breaks abruptly, take 2 seconds to do my 3-point check for safety before swerving past the taxi into the next lane and continuing with my journey. Aaaaaah!! It’s the most irritating thing that I encounter while driving because it happens so unexpectedly. I can’t even hoot out my irritation at the taxi driver because it will cause a messy road rage altercation, and a blue eye with an assault case is the last thing I need before going to work. The art of swerving past a taxi driver who stops out of the blue in the middle of a left lane is one you’ll be finely acquainted with as a Joburg driver.

Driving closely behind a slow driver

There’s nothing more irritating than a motorist who’s driving at 50km or less on a Joburg road, whether in peak or off-peak traffic. Joburg’s atmosphere is one of speed and being in a constant state of a rush, so being slow on the road is an absolute no, unless if it’s at midnight on a Sunday. So, to roughen slow motorists up a bit, I’ve also started this gesture of driving super closely behind the slow motorist in order to make them drive quicker. Taxi drivers and BMW drivers used to do this to me all the time when I was a learner driver, and I must say that it worked because it made me quicken up my speed after realizing that I’m holding up traffic behind me. It’s quite selfish for a motorist on a Joburg road to drive as if they were in La-La land because they’re holding up the motorists behind them, so I guess it’s my prerogative to drive closely behind these automobile tortoises on the road to wake them up and get them moving.

Overtaking with ease

I used to be terrified of overtaking vehicles a year after getting my licence. I always thought that, even if the road was clear, an 18-wheeler truck would mysteriously appear from nowhere and squash the living daylights out of me. But now that I’m used to the Joburg rush, I overtake cars with K53 (mixed with MacGyver tactics) ease and efficiency. Joburg roads are usually very busy, so if you can overtake vehicles with ease, it means you’re getting well acquainted with driving in this city.

Traffic fines

If you haven’t received a traffic fine for driving like a high-speed chase maniac on Joburg roads, it means you haven’t lived in this city long enough. All the overtaking and speeding finally caught up with and I had to apologize to the road safety regulators by parting with thousands of Rands. One thing that MacGyver forgot to tell me was that driving like ‘speed aint no thang’ would cost me thousands. I have since received this memo, and I must say that I stick to the speed limit like superglue on a shoe sole.

Driving in Joburg takes skill and guts. You’ve got to be a K53 maniac to survive on these streets. Just make sure that you stick to the road rules, and that you have enough budget for speeding fines as they will be a constant reminder of your crazy Joburg driving skills.

*image from weheartit.com

It was a regular Wednesday evening, and the family – consisting of my parents, my three teenage siblings (I’m the oldest child), my grandmother and my uncle, was chilling out together and watching TV. The lottery announcement was minutes away from airing on one of the channels, and my uncle waited anxiously for it, as he did every week. He is an avid lottery player. He never misses out on a week of the lottery, even though he hasn’t won a single cent since he started playing the lotto five years ago. We always laugh at him for being so enthusiastic and hopeful about winning the lotto because we find it ridiculous that he plays it so religiously but to no avail. But not even our jokes and laughs could dampen his enthusiasm and belief that one day he’ll win big and become a millionaire.

This dream was his escape from the mundane and average life he lived. My uncle is an average Joe with an average life. He’s in his early 40’s, unmarried and has no kids. He works as a clerk at a clothing factory. He’s been on that job for the past 15 years and only stayed that long because it offered him a comfortable average salary with good perks. He wears small, black framed spectacles, had a clean-shaven head and always wears black chinos with a white shirt and black formal shoes to work, and on weekends, he always slips into blue jeans with a plain t-shirt and takkies. All he does is work then come home to watch TV. Therefore, to escape for a while from the ordinary life he lives, my uncle plays the lotto to get some excitement in his life.

As soon as the lottery announcement came on that evening, my uncle was glued to the TV screen while beaming in anticipation. As the numbers were being announced, he got more and more excited because he realized that the numbers on the TV screen were corresponding with the ones he had selected. His adrenaline pumped more as the rest of the numbers were being revealed. And finally, the last number was revealed, and a moment of silence soon followed. Seconds later, a thundering shriek of utter joy emerged from my uncle as he realized that he had selected all seven numbers. This week was his lucky week because he had won! He won R57 million! We all jumped up and celebrated with him with shrieks of joy and pelted hugs on him. We were all over the moon with joy because he had just won buck-loads of money.

His life had finally changed. He was no longer some guy that worked an average job at some average factory; he was a millionaire, an overnight millionaire! Oh how dreams come true if you just believe and never give up.

But little did my uncle know that his millionaire status was about to collapse and be destroyed right before his eyes. While we were all jumping around and celebrating with him, I grabbed the ticket from his hand to take a proper look at the numbers. I couldn’t believe that he had won and I wanted to double-check the numbers to put my thrilled mind at ease with the fact that my uncle was a millionaire. The ticket is usually in the same form as the initial selection card, where one chooses the numbers that they want to gamble. The selection card becomes a valid lottery ticket once it is paid for, stamped and stapled with the cash slip. The stamp and the cash slip show its validity. While my uncle’s ticket was in my hand, I looked frantically for the stamp and the stapled cash slip that verifies that the ticket is valid, but they were nowhere to be found on the ticket. It was then, in the midst of all the excitement that I realized that my uncle’s ticket had not been cashed.

I looked at him, jumping up and down in utter joy like a kid in a brand new candy store, and I felt heartbroken that I had to break the news to him that his ticket was invalid. He was going to be devastated because the one time he forgot to cash his lottery ticket, he had actually won. I wonder what made him forget because he never misses a week of the lottery.

I mustered up the courage to tell him that his winning ticket was not cashed. Everyone went quiet as they were hoping that I was telling a horrible joke. He looked at me as if I was crazy before grabbing the ticket from my hand. In seconds, his face changed from a joyful smile to a look of utter horror and despair as he saw no stamp or cash slip stapled on the ticket. It dawned upon him that what was in his hands, a card containing lottery numbers that guaranteed a prize of R57 million, was merely a selection card that was worth nothing.

He started trembling, shaking his head in disbelief before screaming out a painful ‘Noooooooooo!!!’. He wept his heart out afterwards.

*sigh* Poor uncle. I’ve never felt so sorry for anyone like I did for him in that moment. He could’ve been a millionaire with R57 million in his bank account, and probably happier than he is now.

But he missed out on all of that prize money just because he forgot to cash his selection card.

*image from Pinterest

There is a phone that sits on a dilapidated, old and partly broken wooden table, saturated in dust and mould that never rings.

The table is placed is in an empty room; a room devoid of any human presence, warmth or love, a room that merely consists of a worn out wooden floor, grey, washed out walls filled with blotches of mould, and a broken window that allows in a bitterly cold breeze, even in the depths of summer. At a distance away from the table close to the broken window, there is a rocking chair. It has been retouched with sandpaper but never polished, and on it is an old, worn out, pink-turned-dirty-grey cushion with daisy prints that have faded; a cushion that reflects the life that used to be, a life whose fire was put out with drops of water at a time, slowly, tortuously and subtly, with the brutality of a silent killer.

The chair rocked backwards and forwards, providing the only sound that filled the empty, lifeless room. And there she was, rocking on the chair, staring at the plain black and semi-cracked dial telephone with plain grey buttons that never rings, hoping that at any moment it would ring, creating an array of sounds that would beckon her to emerge from the pit of wood that is her rocking chair and hear a human voice.

As she stared at the phone, she watched her life play out in slow motion on the pseudo cinema screen that was the washed out grey wall.

In her youth, she was a vibrant young lady who brightened up the world around her. Her charisma charmed all that were in her presence and her smile caused even the birds to chirp out in joy.

She was her father’s joy; the apple of his eye despite her stepmother’s disapproval at the vast amount of affection he showed her. Her mama was unknown to her as the angels fetched her as soon as she gave birth to her beloved daughter. When papa looked into her bright and big hazel eyes that shined brighter than the finest diamond, he realized that she was his purpose for living. She didn’t have a care in the world; the joy of freedom was all she knew.

Then one night, her pillar of strength and her affirmation was ripped from her life by murderous drunkards who jabbed a broken bottle into his neck was he was making his way home after a late night at work. She has never stopped weeping at the gruesomeness and unfairness of the murder, but more than that, she has never stopped mourning the loss of her hero.

From that day of the gruesome murder, she lived at the horror of a subtle terrorist; a woman who was meant to love her as a beloved daughter of her own, but instead twisted her mind and wrecked her body until she turned into mush. The woman leaked slow poison into her mind; poison consisting of isolation, rejection, hard labour out in the fields and in the kitchen, as well as occasional sexual favours of a warped and barbaric nature for the four bastards she called her brothers. The wretched wife was filled with hate for her; hate stemming from her disastrous upbringing as a young girl, and therefore, she made it her life’s goal to tear the girl’s life to pieces. She seemed to have succeeded as the young girl grew to be a mentally, physically and emotionally deranged woman; bitter to the core of her soul and devoid of anything close to love.

Many summers have passed and have failed to heal her heart, and many winters have gone by, leaving her colder than the worst snow storm.

She is now a frail, wrinkled old lady with frizzled uneven grey hair that stands up on her head as if permanently electrified by static electricity. She only wears one long, black dress and torn, foul-smelling slippers with an oversized navy blue coat filled with small holes and dirt blotches from excessive wear and tear.

She barely even thinks, except for split second moments when her papa comes to her mind. She barely utters a word. She has not known what it’s like to speak, never-mind laugh, since her papa died.

The house she lives in was the home she grew up in; the same house in which she watched the wretched wife being slaughtered with a butcher knife by one of the drunken bastards she called her brother.

She has no family; no life and only knows isolation. All she does now is rock backwards and forwards on her rocking chair while staring at the dusty and mouldy black dial telephone that never rings.

*Image from weheartit.com

And the only reason that it was dramatic was because my then boyfriend’s buddies and my gang of girls intervened in this private exchange of affection.

His name was David and he was my first boyfriend and I was his first girlfriend, so it was all puppy lovey-dovey and cosy and at the same time pretty awkward because we didn’t have a clue on what we were doing.

I remember the day I had my first kiss like it was yesterday. It was back in 2000 and both he and I were 13 years old and in our last year in primary school. It was a warm and sunny day and also our final day of school before the spring school holidays commenced, so the atmosphere at school was quite jovial. It was first break at 10:30am and I was chilling with five of my friends, and we were chatting and laughing as usual. David and his friends, a whole squadron of boys, were sitting on the benches adjacent to our spot on the lawns. They picked that spot just so that they could check us out and make sure that we see them as they try and act cool.

After a while, I noticed that David’s friends were arguing and ganging up on him loudly and jokingly about something, but I brushed it off as some kind of dare that they were pressuring him to do. David was a reserved boy who was also very friendly and somewhat afraid of girls, so I was quite shocked when he asked me to be his girlfriend earlier on in February that year. He didn’t handle social pressure very well, and hated it when his friends interfered in our relationship because they embarrassed him when they did that.

So minutes later, his extroverted and loud-mouthed best friend Micheal came up to me, asked to speak to me in private and then proceeded to tell me that David wants his first kiss and that this should happen during second break, which was at midday. I burst out laughing in an attempt to hide my embarrassment because I couldn’t believe that David’s best friend was setting up our first kiss. At that point, David knew what we were talking about because he was looking at Micheal the whole time, so he ran up to me in an attempt to pull me away from the conversation. His face was already blood-red from the embarrassment that Michael had just caused.

Micheal then blurted out the news to my friends, who then made an entire scene out of it by giggling loudly and belting out at the top of their voices that David and I were going to smooch that day. Within minutes, my friends and David’s friends had congregated around us while shrieking with laughter at our situation and giving suggestions on which side of the school building we should go to for some privacy. All of them, all at once, were shouting out advice on how to go about kissing, and they even added a couple of demonstrations to make things even funnier for them, but more awkward for us. The more we tried to calm them down and run away from the circle that they had created around us, the louder they became due of their excessive need to tease.

At this point, I wanted to dig up a huge hole to jump into and die in because my private business with my boyfriend was splashed publicly and we were teased mercilessly. By the end of first break, my face was also blood-red from embarrassment.

During second break, David and I managed to sneak away from the crowd (or so we thought) and we made it to a secluded part of the school building, which was at the corner of Mr. Westlake’s technology class. Around the corner of the class were many trees and flowers, so one could go there to take a time out from people. Once David and I got to the spot, he put on his romantic voice and apologized for his friend’s antics earlier on before proceeding to give me a hug. As we were emerging slowly out of the hug, we looked into each other’s eyes for what felt like an eternity, and then we leaned into each other and kissed. Aaaah! It was beautiful, electrifying and so romantic. I was whisked away into a sweet tongue-intertwined heaven. But it was short-lived as we heard giggling at a short distance away from us. Those paparazzi-like freaks we called friends had followed us to the spot, and they hid behind a huge tree that was adjacent to where we were standing. They had witnessed all of the action.

When they noticed that we had busted them looking at us, they began laughing uncontrollably and started singing that lame song ‘David and Impeccable sitting in a tree; k.i.s.s.i.n.g’. David and I just stood there, watching the gang as they threw themselves around in uncontrollable laughter. We were too embarrassed because we were busted in the act, but we were also quite angry because they had interrupted a very enjoyable and sensually pleasing moment.

From that day onwards until we graduated from primary school, my friends and David’s friends never let that incident go. Every time David and I would walk together, they would make irritating kissing sounds and gestures coupled while singing ‘k.i.s.s.i.n.g’, but we learned to ignore them.

So my first kiss was dramatic because it was forcibly turned into a public spectacle by nosy parkers who couldn’t mind their own business. It was an interesting experience though, and if I could go back in time, I’d do it again.

*Image from weheartit.com

Life is made sweeter in Winter with a creamy and warm cup of coffee, coupled with chocolates that have been specially designed to seduce the taste buds beyond any known human pleasure.

And how about a rich and delicately soft and creamy chocolate cake decorated with mouth-watering strawberries to put the Winter delicacy cherry on top?

If your sweet tooth hasn’t kicked in yet, surprise your stomach with a delicious and energy-filled sandwich to lift you off into food Heaven.

Winter is made more bearable with good food.

*Images from thatcoffeehouse.tumblr.com

During my horror movie fanatical days, I could tell when a scary point in the scene was coming, and I was that friend that screamed the girl in the horror flick to stop walking towards the dark and dingy room because that’s where the boogeyman is. She always never listened to me! Silly girl! And then there was the awkward black guy who was always the first man down before any horror had started. I always felt sorry for this guy.

Horror flicks are essentially all the same because it seems like they follow the same formula on how to create fear. The only horror flicks that I think don’t followed a set formula was ‘Paranormal Activity’ and ‘The Exorcist’ (all the sequels). These films were quite freaky because they seemed real, and they played a lot on themes of demons and the underworld and exaggerated these themes quite dramatically, which added to the shock and horror value. Needless to say, I stopped watching horror movies after watching these two flicks because they totally freaked me out and I hated the fact that the underworld was depicted as being this powerful monster that can’t be defeated and that has humans at its mercy.

The formula that most horror movies follow though is quite comedic because you can predict the danger from a mile away while the people in the movie walk straight into the trap. And while you’re predicting this danger, you scream and shout at the screen in an attempt to warn the dumb characters in the movie, but to no avail. So here are the six common things that are found in scary flicks that make us jump out of our seats.

An isolated house in the woods

There’s always that one family that has to move from the city to the woods for no apparent reason, and when they get to their new house in the middle of nowhere, they have no neighbours. They are merely surrounded by many trees, and for some reason, the weather is always cloudy and grey-ish. I guess that fear can’t be created in warm, sunny weather and in urban areas.

Eerie music

The music in horror flicks is always an eerie instrumental piece that actually makes you nervous. It’s that type of music that makes you bits your nails at what is going to happen next because you know that it’s going to be something that will make you jump out of your seat. Imagine if producers decided to play a Lil Wayne or Rick Ross instrumental as part of the music; no one would take the horror seriously. In fact, the ghost or the serial killer characters might start rapping and singing with autotuned voices instead of doing their job, which is to make defenseless victims run around in circles while screaming ‘help!’.

A screeching door or wind always features in the movie

At some point in the movie, usually in the beginning when the ghost or crook is making themselves known to the victim in a creepy mouse and cat chase, a screeching wooden door has to close slowly behind the victim. And the victim has to hear it close with intense fear in their eyes while being confused at what to do next. If the door doesn’t screech or close slowly, it has to bang loudly, and this is usually causing by a sudden gust of wind coming in from an open window. When it comes to horror movies, why should anyone feel the need to close windows while they’re living all alone in the woods? It’s not like a ghost will come creeping in. I like how the wind is always coupled with ghost-like laughs. It’s as if the ghosts are laughing at the victim’s stupidity of moving into an isolated house in the woods.

The ultimate question is always asked by the victim

There is always that one woman or guy, but usually woman, that walks towards the danger and asks ‘is there anyone there?’. I mean really! It’s not like the ghost in question will answer by saying ‘yes; someone is here my dear, and I just came by to have coffee with you’, although that would be a nice twist to the movie as it would show that crooks and ghosts do actually crave caffeine. What makes me laugh is the grand finale of this particular scene; where the ghost in question jumps out of nowhere, causing the victim to erupt into an ear-splitting scream while the eerie music in the background intensifies.

The victim runs around in circles

That’s if the victim runs at all. Usually, they scream while crawling on the floor because somehow, they tripped and fell and never managed to get up. Well, I guess playing pick-a-boo with a ghost or crook does that to someone; completely knocking them off their feet so that they can actually be caught by the ghost or crook in question. And also as a viewer, you feel sorry for the poor victim and all you can do is scream ‘run! Run!’ from your couch because you want them to get up and save themselves after making the silly mistake of walking into the trap and asking if anyone is there with them.

The victim is attacked from behind

What crook or ghost in its right mind would attack someone from the front? I think that these ghosts think that attacking the victim from the front is uncool and decreases the drama and horror, so they would rather appear slowly from behind the victim with the shiniest and longest knife you’ve ever seen. Or, for instant terrifying drama, they would jump out of nowhere in a split second while roaring like a lion before proceeding to slash everything with their knife or attempt to kill the victim by chasing them and trying to eat them alive. An attack from behind really surprises the victim and I guess that’s what causes them to have wobbly feet and fall to the floor while screaming and weeping. It’s quite dramatic I must say.

I’m really not a fan of horror flicks, but I think that if I were to produce one, I’d do an excellent job because I have the formula for creating a brilliant horror movie. All I need is a ghost or a crook, an isolated house in the woods, a couple of screeching wooden doors, wind and a silly victim who asks ridiculous questions while in danger, and I’m good to go.

*Image from weheartit.com