0 Caine Prize for African Writing Shortlist

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The Caine Prize for African Writing is the dream child of  Sir Michael Caine who wanted recognition for Africans who wrote in English. He did not see his dream come to fruition, but his friends and family carried it on and every year since 2000 someone has won the prize of £10,000.

Followers of African blogs and African authors know and understand the incredibly diversity of the continent and how complex the dynamics are, how vivid the pictures drawn are, how the people described are at once sophisticated, complex and civilized despite the general tendency the World has had in the past to label them otherwise.

The prized writings from people of other ethnicities describing Africa seem to sell better and tell the story from the perspective of an observer. Hollywood has made movies out of the diamond trade and the injustice to the people, they've explored a dictators rise and fall in Uganda and blithely skimmed over much of the history that has perpetuated the situation in Somalia in an effort to tell their side of the story. They have often followed the rules candidly laid down in a rant by Binyavanga Wainaina and made us cringe to hear them.

They cannot be blamed for writing what they know, because it is our duty and our right to write what we know about our ancestors, about the oral history passed down through generations, about current political situations told from the view of a protestor on the street in Gabarone, a store manager unable to open his shop in Cairo on the day of anger, a spectator at President Goodluck Jonathan's inauguration. We have to tell these stories.

In honor of the writers who were shortlisted for the Caine Prize we offer you their stories, told by them in English.

• NoViolet Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) "Hitting Budapest"
• Beatrice Lamwaka (Uganda) "Butterfly Dreams"
• Tim Keegan (South Africa) "What Molly Knew"
• Lauri Kibuitsile (Botswana) "In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata"
• David Medalie (South Africa) "The Mistress's Dog"

Look out for the winner who will be annouced on Monday July 11th.

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0 SciFi Exploration: Time Travel

How many times have you heard the word IMPOSSIBLE erupt  after a discussion of time travel is introduced? I guess in some ways you would have to allow yourself some degree of geekiness and daydreaming in class - which is NOT what good students do. I wasn't a good student.

We have been told that the reason why time travel cannot occur is because time is linear and everything that has happened has happened and the only thing to do is move forward (apparently whether you like it or not). Even in movies where this has been explored, like my favored choice Back to the Future, time is considered linear.

Marty's mother falls in love with him and he has to find a way to make her meet his father so he can be born. The now famous "Grandfather Paradox" which is the theory that you cannot travel back in time because if the situation arose that you killed your grandfather, then it would mean that you would not be born and therefore could have not been there to travel in the past to kill him in the first place. Fine, my explanation rambles. Check it out on Wikipedia.

A scientist has come out and WIPED the slate clean. By studying the way particles behave, it seems that events would orchestrate themselves in such a way that you would NEVER be able to kill your grandfather even if you tried it.

With this new information about time travel, we do not have to tremble in our boots when the members of SG-1 suddenly find themselves in ancient Egypt, or somewhere in the 1970s and have to keep absolutely mum about the 21st century in order not to affect the timeline.

Captain Janeway can relax the rules of the Prime Directive regarding time travel and do what she needs to do to get her crew home.

I'm excited to see what new theories will arise in movies and how they will tackle this new information. I hope they do!

What is your favorite Sci-Fi time travel movie or tv show?

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0 Reading Faster?

If you have ever spoken to someone who cannot read, or allowed yourself to learn a language written without the English alphabet then you understand the magic of reading. Looking at symbols that convey a message that seems like a secret message until you learn to unlock the secret.

We learnt how to read back in elementary school and although we had to practice it in school, studies are now showing that most of us never improve our reading speed or comprehension skills past the sixth grade! One comparison I read said if you played piano for 12 years but every time you played you sounded like you'd just started your lessons, it would seem very strange.

So why are we not keen on learning to read faster or increasing our comprehension of whatever we read?

Here is a speed reading test to find out what your Words Per Minute (WPM) and comprehension are.

Here is an internet website where you can practice to speed read.

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0 Creative Resumes

It seems that everywhere we look people are falling out of employment into the unemployment line. Everyone starts out very optimistic, looking online for jobs, reformatting their resumes and calling up random companies from the phone book to see if they have any job openings.

This may seem a little outlandish, but depending on the field in which you find yourself, a resume can be something different from the usual Microsoft Word templates that are familiar to us all. I recall the scene in Legally Blonde, when Elle pulled out her pink resume that had been printed on scented paper.

Is that the way you should go? Probably not if you're applying to be a Construction Manager on a major construction project, but consider it if you're taking in your application to a beauty Salon.

You may consider using colorful children's blocks and teddy bears if your resume is going to a Kindergarten, or an AutoCad drawing of a building you designed in College (or designed recently) if you're applying to work for an Architect or engineer. Whatever your field is, if you are creative with your resume, it cannot harm your chances for employment in an economy as tough as this one and makes you stand out from the crowd.

Take a look at some of the samples I've found on the Internet.

mmahgoub

....

Emilie Ogez

bananas-web

mistis

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0 Google Science Fair

I'm a certifiably GOOGLEFIED! In the past, if you asked me which company I wanted to work for I would have had to say GOOGLE! The reason why it excited me was because they accepted the most creative minds and sought creative one-of-a-kind solutions to internet based problems we've all faced. That's why they are the biggest!

Anyway, enough of my google-praise.

President Obama and various other educators have said that the only way America is going to move forward is if we wholeheartedly put ourselves behind fostering creativity in our children. I agree.

Creativity is what has created some of the most fascinating technological achievements of our time. One guy put wires into his body, connecting them to the nerves that went to his brain to see if he could control a robotic arm. What if he could send those kinds of messages wirelessly to a receiver on the other side of the globe? Could the events of the 2009 Bruce Willis Movie Surrogates be just around the corner?

Here is a chance to involve your child in a very creative endeavor for their own future and possibly the future of the World. Engage them in a discussion about science and what they could do for Google Science Fair. Check out the rules, make your submissions and see what happens!

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0 Best Teacher I Ever Had

by David Owen

Extracted from Reader's Digest (Asian Edition), April 1991, pp. 47-48.

Mr. Whitson taught sixth-grade science. On the first day of class, he gave us a lecture about a creature called the cattywampus, an ill-adapted nocturnal animal that was wiped out during the Ice Age. He passed around a skull as he talked. We all took notes and later had a quiz.
When he returned my paper, I was shocked. There was a big red X through each of my answers. I had failed. There had to be some mistake! I had written down exactly what Mr. Whitson said. Then I realized that everyone in the class had failed. What had happened?
Very simple, Mr. Whitson explained. He had made up all the stuff about the cattywampus. There had never been any such animal. The information in our notes was, therefore, incorrect. Did we expect credit for incorrect answers?
Needless to say, we were outraged. What kind of test was this? And what kind of teacher?
We should have figured it out, Mr. Whitson said. After all, at the every moment he was passing around the cattywampus skull (in truth, a cat's), hadn't he been telling us that no trace of the animal remained? He had described its amazing night vision, the color of its fur and any number of other facts he couldn't have known. He had given the animal a ridiculous name, and we still hadn't been suspicious. The zeroes on our papers would be recorded in his grade book, he said. And they were.
Mr. Whitson said he hoped we would learn something from this experience. Teachers and textbooks are not infallable. In fact, no one is. He told us not to let our minds go to sleep, and to speak up if we ever thought he or the textbook was wrong.
Every class was an adventure with Mr. Whitson. I can still remember some science periods almost from beginning to end. On day he told us that his Volkswagon was a living organism. It took us two full days to put together a refutation he would accept. He didn't let us off the hook until we had proved not only that we knew what an organism was but also that we had the fortitude to stand up for the truth.

We carried our brand-new skepticism into all our classes. This caused problems for the other teachers, who weren't used to being challenged. Our history teacher would be lecturing about something, and then there would be clearings of the throat and someone would say 'cattywampus.'
If I'm ever asked to propose a solution to the problems in our schools, it will be Mr. Whitson. I haven't made any great scientific discoveries, but Mr. Whitson's class gave me and my classmates something just as important: the courage to look people in the eye and tell them they are wrong. He also showed us that you can fun doing it.
Not everyone sees the value in this. I once told an elementary school teacher about Mr. Whitson. The teacher was appalled. "He shouldn't have tricked you like that," he said. I looked that teacher right in the eye and told him that he was wrong.

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0 Careers: Architects

Dynamic Architecture

I remember being a young high school student trying to figure out what I wanted to be for the rest of my life. I'd read a novel called Doctors that detailed the life of a group of friends going through medical school and going on to become doctors. I found myself caught up in the drama of their lives and the excitement (the kind that is usually reserved for blockbuster movies) of their future. It was decided. I was going to become a doctor.

I studied hard, lost myself along the way and didn't get the grades necessary for medical school. It took many years after that to figure out what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I dabbled in acting, music, computer science, botany and even for a while considered being a teacher! My character and personality does not support the patience required to pass on information to youngsters, so that was a major stress for me.

We spend most of our lives working towards being something and then find that in the middle of it, this is not what we really wanted, or not quite what we hoped it would be. It is important not to allow yourself to be caught up in staying stable with a job you hate and allow yourself to take the risk and explore something you always really wanted to do.

If you are searching for the next step in your life, whether you're in high school, looking for a place to belong or have already had a successful career but you're looking for a change, consider Architecture. Think you got what it takes? Click this link to find out some more.

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0 Learning a new language

I'm learning Arabic! There is something fascinating about learning a language that can take the shape of different animals and is read in the opposite direction.

Why Arabic? I've always been somewhat linguistically talented. I always thought "surely it must be harder than this" and then complicated things. But when I've had a good teacher it has been a breeze.

Arabic is the official language of 22 countries and was widely used in Africa in the large universities that existed in pre-Colonial times. Like any other language it had developed and changed and grown.

I was watching a documentary by Henry Louis Gates Jr (Wonders of the African World) and although my education had included extensive African History, it was put together by Europeans and told from their perspective. I was fascinated by the stories that were NOT told, the great University at Timbuktu, and the literature being held in private libraries written in an older form of Arabic (which contradicts the theory that Africans were largely illiterate).

What wonders and secrets are hidden in those texts? Are they medical journals? Is there a diary that would tell us what life was like? Is there some history written there that is not yet known?

See why I have to learn Arabic? Lemme go back to learning my letters!

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0 Books for young readers

One of the links in our Blogroll is The Brown Bookshelf.

Making books available to our children that has the themes and personality that are integral to the African American community is difficult. At the Brown Bookshelf, various Authors and books are featured as part of a collection of books written with characters and themes that we can recognize.

Today we bring you a link directly from The Brown Bookshelf that features Author and Inspirational Speaker Joyce Carol Thomas who has written over 30 books.

Click here for more...

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0 We Can Do ANYTHING!

Two African American women from Spelman College were the 2010 winners of the AT&T Big Mobile Challenge last October.

It is not often that African American women see positive images of themselves in popular media. More often they are engaged in street brawls with each other, half naked in some music video or pregnant in line at the Welfare Office. If one only paid attention to these kinds of images, then it would be difficult to imagine that there are those who are high achievers bent on sitting at the big desk with the boys.

Enter Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller, Computer Engineering students at Spelman College.

They created an app called HBCU Buddy that allows the user to research HBCUs and their surrounding areas. Learn more about it from the link above.

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0 Youth in Danger

Statistics have typically shown that prisons are overflowing with black men and women. Television shows have perpetuated this idea and we have all fallen victim to this media suggestion. The inevitable conclusion of studies that have produced those kinds of statistics, include "There are more black men in prison than college", "most black men are thugs" and a host of other unfair and untrue statements.

Other studies have uncovered the falsehoods in claims stemming from the statistics and have been argued on various blogs and social media.

No matter how one looks at the issue, the truth is that there are more black men in prison than any other racial group in North America.

Many of our young people get caught up in violent gangs, the sale of illegal narcotic drugs, prostitution and theft. This may be due to a lack of strong parenting, but I would like to argue that the frustration many of our young people face in finding a good job with sufficient compensation and their own race to catch the unattainable "American Dream" forces some into these activities.

What hope can we give these youth then? How can we turn a blind eye to their struggle to fit into a system that rejects them once they see the color of their skin? Is there something we can do or are we forever doomed to raise children in crisis?

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0 Dreaming

NubianGraphics.com

One of my friends is a basketball junkie. Needless to say, she dragged me down into addiction and now I'm hooked. I still call the "Point Guard" a "Center" and have a million and one questions about the rules and why the referee blows the whistle so often but have learned to enjoy every single moment of it.

Today my gym hosted a High School basketball tournament and for two hours was teeming with hordes of less-than-fresh pimply teenagers ready to show their worth to the team and to the coach. The naive hoop dreams, quite evident with occasional chants like "Who are we? MVP!" were reflected in each others faces and talent that will never see them past their High School days was flaunted abundantly.

It got me thinking about my own dreams, those realized and others I abandoned years ago. I remember the anticipation and excitement whenever I thought I had placed one foot on the path to greatness. The fervor with which I attacked those tasks that promised great returns was commendable and the earth shattering disappointment was devastating when those dreams were dashed by impossible hurdles.

An adult once told me, "Terri, you need to stop fantasizing!" and I believed them. Somewhere along the way I stopped dreaming of that greatness and started the general ho-hum I'm mired in today.

This Christmas, I wish for you, and all my brothers and sisters, the ability to dream again. I wish you find the fire that once burned in your belly for incredible dreams. I wish you all success in your endeavors as we all reach to attain our goals of the greatness our ancestors had.

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0 Dreaming

NubianGraphics.com

One of my friends is a basketball junkie. Needless to say, she dragged me down into addiction and now I'm hooked. I still call the "Point Guard" a "Center" and have a million and one questions about the rules and why the referee blows the whistle so often but have learned to enjoy every single moment of it.

Today my gym hosted a High School basketball tournament and for two hours was teeming with hordes of less-than-fresh pimply teenagers ready to show their worth to the team and to the coach. The naive hoop dreams, quite evident with occasional chants like "Who are we? MVP!" were reflected in each others faces and talent that will never see them past their High School days was flaunted abundantly.

It got me thinking about my own dreams, those realized and others I abandoned years ago. I remember the anticipation and excitement whenever I thought I had placed one foot on the path to greatness. The fervor with which I attacked those tasks that promised great returns was commendable and the earth shattering disappointment was devastating when those dreams were dashed by impossible hurdles.

An adult once told me, "Terri, you need to stop fantasizing!" and I believed them. Somewhere along the way I stopped dreaming of that greatness and started the general ho-hum I'm mired in today.

This Christmas, I wish for you, and all my brothers and sisters, the ability to dream again. I wish you find the fire that once burned in your belly for incredible dreams. I wish you all success in your endeavors as we all reach to attain our goals of the greatness our ancestors had.

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