Hectic
The mot de choix of Cape Town's under-25s also serves to describe my reaction to the thought that I'm no more than four weeks away from my first press day. The thought came to me at about half ten last night, and lasted until well after midnight.
As a result, I got a lot of work done today. What with my flat sorted and all, I'm pretty much on home stretch as far as settling in is concerned so I can finally concentrate on the paper properly.
A very good lunch meeting with a chap from the SA Humanities Sciences Research Council left me with a much clearer picture of what I want to do with the mag, and how. The focus should be on empowerment for African scientists and the nitty-gritty that researchers have to deal with every day. Boosting excellence, building a team spirit, that sort of thing. Then, there will be scoops, there will be scandals, and I will cover them. But they will come. Core at the moment is to understand what researchers in this country need to know to improve their performance and pack a stronger punch on the world stage.
Then I had an encouraging couple of emails waiting for me in my Inbox when I got back from lunch. One of them was from none other than Calestous Juma, an influential Kenyan academic working out of Harvard who wrote a report for the UN on science and developing Africa a few years back, before Live 8 and all that crap. I'd met him at a conference in Manchester just before the publication of his report, and he'd sent me an advance copy to scoop.
I'd thought of him to write an opinion piece for the first issue - a 'two years down the line - what's happened' type story, hopefully not too forgiving on the international community on whether or not it has been making good on their promises. As it turns out, he remembers me! We had a nice chat over email, and he promised to write me something next week, as he has a long flight to Japan during which he'll have time to kill (!). All of which is excellent news.
He also asked me whether my name meant the 'little Nord' (see post from a few days ago!!!) and I explained about the Afrikaans interpretation but said that in Swedish it didn't mean anything. At least not that I know, but Onkel Olle might be able to put me right on this count!
He then told me that he'd met another Nordling in Kiruna when he'd been there one some experiment that brought equatorial region reporters to the far north of the world to give them a hands-on idea of the potential effects of climate change (fancy that!) and he'd drunk himself silly on Aquavit at some restaurant called 'Dirty Dishes'. Sweden saves all her fun for the foreigners.
Hopefully, he'll mention it all in the article. But I doubt it. Either way, I'll sleep better tonight. But it may be also due to the frozen margarita I just drank with Caite while waiting for the computer guy to set up a backup schedule. Ole!
As a result, I got a lot of work done today. What with my flat sorted and all, I'm pretty much on home stretch as far as settling in is concerned so I can finally concentrate on the paper properly.
A very good lunch meeting with a chap from the SA Humanities Sciences Research Council left me with a much clearer picture of what I want to do with the mag, and how. The focus should be on empowerment for African scientists and the nitty-gritty that researchers have to deal with every day. Boosting excellence, building a team spirit, that sort of thing. Then, there will be scoops, there will be scandals, and I will cover them. But they will come. Core at the moment is to understand what researchers in this country need to know to improve their performance and pack a stronger punch on the world stage.
Then I had an encouraging couple of emails waiting for me in my Inbox when I got back from lunch. One of them was from none other than Calestous Juma, an influential Kenyan academic working out of Harvard who wrote a report for the UN on science and developing Africa a few years back, before Live 8 and all that crap. I'd met him at a conference in Manchester just before the publication of his report, and he'd sent me an advance copy to scoop.
I'd thought of him to write an opinion piece for the first issue - a 'two years down the line - what's happened' type story, hopefully not too forgiving on the international community on whether or not it has been making good on their promises. As it turns out, he remembers me! We had a nice chat over email, and he promised to write me something next week, as he has a long flight to Japan during which he'll have time to kill (!). All of which is excellent news.
He also asked me whether my name meant the 'little Nord' (see post from a few days ago!!!) and I explained about the Afrikaans interpretation but said that in Swedish it didn't mean anything. At least not that I know, but Onkel Olle might be able to put me right on this count!
He then told me that he'd met another Nordling in Kiruna when he'd been there one some experiment that brought equatorial region reporters to the far north of the world to give them a hands-on idea of the potential effects of climate change (fancy that!) and he'd drunk himself silly on Aquavit at some restaurant called 'Dirty Dishes'. Sweden saves all her fun for the foreigners.
Hopefully, he'll mention it all in the article. But I doubt it. Either way, I'll sleep better tonight. But it may be also due to the frozen margarita I just drank with Caite while waiting for the computer guy to set up a backup schedule. Ole!
posted by Linda at 17:19
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