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YourProfile
Name: Laura Danielz
Birthday: 18 August
Star sign: Leo
Occupation: Self-employed
When I look into the mirror every morning I think: What’s for
breakfast!
My favourite people in the world are:
Laid back and chilled out
My favourite quote is: You only live once
Freddy and John make me laugh.
The greatest lesson life has taught me so far is:
To pay attention when making online payments
I'll do almost anything for:
Pickles
When I get stressed I am most likely to throw a cell phone out a
window.
I want my tombstone to read:
What a good time
I wouldn't mind being stuck in an elevator with:
Johnny Depp
In three words I am:
Happy, Excited and Caring
If I had a million rand to spare I would:
Put it in a money market account and live off the interest
I live in Klerksdorp because:
Joburg's traffic too bad.
The first thing I would save from a house fire is:
my handbag and Freddy.
My nickname is:
Flora
I love my job because: I love independence
LIFE AND TIMES WITH
COLLIN
Wisdom
The problem with a concise dictionary is precisely that it's
concise. All of last week I was thinking about wisdom. And the
dictionary wasn't very helpful either. It explained wisdom as:
the quality of being wise. That's like telling me the earth is
round because it's shaped like a ball. Not very helpful but true
nonetheless if you know what I mean.
Not being satisfied with the dictionary definition, I started
scratching a bit deeper applying my mind, that is. What I found
is that wisdom is not that easy a concept to get your mind
around. For starters wisdom is definitely not the opposite of
stupidity. It's also not solely about education. How many people
haven't we all met, who are very well educated but who have very
little to show for it. The elements, to my mind, that would go
toward forming wisdom would certainly include any of the
following: knowledge, understanding, experience, discretion,
discernment and intuition. The trick is to be able to harness
these elements, in the right quantities, to achieve a desired
result. You don't want to go round swatting flies with a 10
pound hammer. Or by winning minor battles, you end up losing the
war. The desired result would no doubt mean an outcome that is
acceptable and fair to the parties concerned. I use the word
fair with a degree of circumspection here. Often times you end
up with a situation that is not fair to all concerned. A
autocratic manager tells staff to do something, without telling
them why they have to do it. Or allowing the staff an
opportunity to give an input. On the other hand you cant expect
an officer in the heat of battle to entertain an information
session in which every soldier is allowed his tuppence worth. It
just wouldn't work. Part of wisdom calls for the ability to
discern between those things that are important and
not-so-important. It's this that so often separates the men from
the boys, the wheat from the chaff. Experts in the art of
argument and negotiation talk about finding the common ground.
This is a little more difficult than it first appears. Next time
you find yourself in a heated debate, possibly at a school
meeting, stop and look around at the audience, absorb what is
going on. There are those who are gesticulating madly, trying to
shout everyone down. The temperature rises. Eventually you
cannot make any sense of it. But you will notice there is always
someone who keeps his/her cool; who seems to be able to make
sense of it all. These are the people who know how to keep their
emotions in check. For its our emotions that make us smart or
stupid. What is road-rage other than the loss of control of our
emotions. A contributing factor to wisdom, to my mind, is how we
control our emotions.
Recently the American public was up in arms about the fact that
managers of the American International Group (A.I.G.) were paid
bonuses. This after public (taxpayers) money was used to bail
out A.I.G. Now in terms of the contracts of these managers, they
were fully entitled to the bonuses. However, given the current
state of the American economy and the fact that taxpayer money
was used stem the rot at A.I.G., paying bonuses was not a good
idea. And President Obama was brutal in his condemnation.
Accepting those bonuses did not show good wisdom. Any other time
when the economy was more positive, those bonuses would have
been justified. Nobody would have complained. It was the
inability to correctly read the signs that smacks of
insensitivity and poor judgment. We can all learn from this
before making quick and hasty buying decisions on big ticket
items, do your homework. Buying things we don't really need now,
usually ends up with us having to sell things that we do need
later.
One might be tempted to say that the A.I.G. executives should
have exercised common sense. Interesting phrase common sense.
Has its roots in the American Revolution. A Revolutionary
writer, Thomas Paine, published a pamphlet in January of 1776,
styled: Common Sense. Paine needed to present an argument for
independence from British rule. Most of the colonists were
unsophisticated. Most of the literature of the day was written
in a philosophical or Latin style way beyond the reach of the
common person. So Paine wrote Common Sense in a style not too
dissimilar to a Biblical sermon. This was something the average
person understood. It was to prove very popular, selling 500,000
copies in the first year. Paine did a wise thing, he donated his
royalties from Common Sense to George Washington's Continental
Army, saying: 'As my wish was to serve an oppressed people, and
assist in a good and just cause, I conceived that the honour of
it would be promoted by the declining to make even the usual
profits of an author!' You don't have to go to university to
know that Thomas Paine exercised a fair degree of wisdom in
stirring up the people. Sure there was risk involved but it was
a calculated risk. And it paid off. A rabble of an army drove
the mightiest force of the day off American soil.
After reading quite a bit on the topic and not being able to
come across a decent formal definition for wisdom, it dawned on
me that wisdom is not about a written definition. Possibly
trying to box it in might serve to destroy it. For I believe it
to be an experience, a feeling if you will. Somehow I know I am
in the company of a wise person. A person with that rare gift
which defies the normal bounds of our secular existence.
In closing I would like to mention the cameo I heard on the
radio a few days ago. It's about the very rich man who decides
to holiday on one of the Greek Islands. In his wonderings he
meets up with a Greek fisherman who has a simple boat. The rich
man asks, 'what do you do?', obviously looking for conversation.
The fisherman replies, 'every day I take my boat out, catch a
few fish for my needs, go home relax and enjoy time with my
family. I do the same each day'. 'No', says the rich man, 'You
should get a few boats and let others do the fishing for you. In
that way you can come down here everyday and enjoy yourself with
your family.' Food for thought.
Chat again next week.
INGENIEURS BROU BIER VIR PRAKTIESE OPLEIDING
Die Noordwes-Universiteit se Potchefstroomkampus fokus daarop om
praktiese en toepaslike opleiding aan studente te lewer.
Die Skool vir chemiese-en mineraal-ingenieurswese het hierdie
visie met oorgawe aangegryp deur ʼn bierbrouprojek van stapel te
stuur waar ingenieurstudente praktiese blootstelling kon kry met
die fermentasieproses.
Die praktiese toepassing het egter nie net by brouery geëindig
nie. Die studente moes saam met hul wetenskaplike verslag oor
die fermentasieproses, ook hul produk effektief bemark.
Die beoordeling van die verskillende groepe se konkoksies het
daarna in 'n feestelike luim geskied.
“Hierdie bierbrouproses fokus op die biochemiese aspekte van die
chemiese ingenieurswese-kurrikulum en bykans twintig persent van
alle chemiese ingenieurs se loopbane is gefokus binne relevante
biochemiese industrieë” sê mev. Anka Oberholzer, dosent by
chemiese ingenieurswese.
Volgens Oberholzer het die studente baie inisiatief aan die dag
gelê en het hulle ʼn akademiese projek met goeie gees aangepak.
Die dosente by die skool was al van vroegdag af oorval met
pamflette en brosjures in poging om hul produkte bekend te stel.
Daar het selfs lewensgrootte plakkate van sterre wat hul
sogenaamde voortande sal gee vir ʼn voorsmakie van die studente
se wonderbier.
Bekende restaurantbestuuurders en dosente van die fakulteit het
as beoordelaars opgetree en almal was van mening dat die
bierbrouers hierdie jaar baie hoë standaarde gehandhaaf het.
Aan die einde van die dag het Akker Lager, vervaardig deur
Corlia Jonker, Lauran Groenewald, Lauran Airdien en Janco
Bredenkamp, met die prys vir “beste bierkwaliteit” weggestap.
Die vervaardigers van Bitter Lekker Bier, Diaan Roode, Bart
Saaiman, Lindi Combrinck en Niel Bouwer, was kort op hul hakke.
Die span van Spring Bock, Marnie Meintjies, Urban Vermeulen en
Stephan Louw, het met hulle uitmuntende bemarkingstegnieke met
die louere weggestap in die kategorie vir “beste
bemarkingsveldtog”.
“Ek was regtig beïndruk met die studente se insig en
waardegedrewe professionaliteit waarmee hulle die dag benader
het. Dit laat my met alle gerustheid besef dat ons ingenieurs
oplei wat gereed is om ʼn verskil in die werksplek te maak,” sê
Oberholzer. |
