Rowan Spazzoli

Strategist. Lecturer. Consultant

Woah-oh, we’re half way there!

WE HAVE REACHED HALF WAY!

Today is the official half way point on my #365of25 journey. It feels like the time has flown by, but also like I’ve been doing this forever. I can’t go to sleep now without spending some time reflecting on my day.

I’ve been watching the countdown to this day and making sure that it was, in fact, today. And I decided a few days ago that Bon Jovi’s classic “Living on a prayer” would be my theme song (cause I’m half way there).

And then, when I woke up this morning, Google photos brought up that today was exactly 5 years since the actual Bon Jovi concert I attended.

That’s some weird-ass serendipity stuff right there.

Anyway, to those of you who have been here from day one and to those who have recently joined, thank you <3

I’ll leave you with this spectacular pic from the night of the Bon Jovi concert:

 

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My concert buddies, Suzie and Lauren, before the concert 🙂

 

Image was taken at the Bon Jovi concert in 2013. Weird to think it was 5 years ago!

Blog: 182/365

Song of the day: Living on a prayer – Bon Jovi

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Communication station

Humans have lots of thoughts every second (I’m sure there’s an estimated number of thoughts per second but I’m feeling too lazy to google it right now, but there are a lot of thoughts). And the only person that knows about these thoughts is the person thinking them.

Until they share these thoughts. Until they communicate.

So in theory, if a person can have hundreds of different thoughts in a short space of time, they might end up at an entirely different end point having started at the same place as you.

In just a few minutes.

Now compound this over days, months or years. Across different work environments, different people, different scenarios. All while having different backgrounds.

This makes it very easy to end up on a different page to someone. You could think things are perfectly okay about a situation while your friend is having an internal meltdown.

Ideally, we could transmit the entire thought process to one another so that we know what’s going on.

Until then, we need to make an active effort to communicate.

Image was taken at my old school in May last year. I have a picture from today from the same spot but I was too lazy to get it off my phone

Blog: 179/365

Song of the day: Clocks – Coldplay

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Mazoe and Maputi

Today I went to Urbanologi where a fellow Zimbabwean and old family friend (Jack) is the head chef. We had a spectacular meal and then sat together and ended up chatteing about Zim.

I really love this reminiscing, especially because you’re able to share and reflect on things from a common past. They’re often things that none of my South African friends would understand

For example, we ended up chatting about some of our favourite foods and drink from Zims. We brought up Mazoe (a famous orange juice concentrate), Fredo (a shitty Zim chocolate) and Sadza (the Zim version of pap).

We also spoke about one of my favourite Zim snacks called ‘Maputi’, which is popcorn made out of mielies using a pressure gun (do yourself a favour and check it being made in this video).

This reminiscing isn’t really about the things themselves. Rather, it’s a chance to connect on a deeper level and see that someone else understands where you come from.

Image was taken by Steve (@thejoburgfoodie) of our lunch 🙂

Blog: 174/365

Song of the day: The Middle – Zedd

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Lorenzo is a graduate!

Dear Lorenzo. I’m so incredibly proud. You have shown so much courage, dedication and perseverance. And today was the culmination of that, with you being awarded your Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Congratulations you wonderful human!

Hard to believe you now have a degree and a job. Again, so so proud of you. Well done for all your hard work ❤️

Image was taken today at the university of Pretoria 🙂

Blog: 173/365

Song of the day: Post Malone- Congratulations

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Old School Blogging

Today we spent some time sorting through boxes that are going into storage. In one box I found one of my greatest treasures: my first diary. It’s a little Zimbabwean pocket calendar with an image of a Flame Lily on the front. Each double page has 8 blocks, one for each day of the week plus one extra for notes. And each month is separated by a beautiful picture from Zim.

It’s hard to believe that I was only 10 years old when I started trying to do daily writings, more than 15 years ago. I remember finding it incredibly challenging, despite being so brief. And the journal does run out of entries by about mid April. But it’s a stunning effort all the same.

The page I’ve taken a photo of above was a very memorable week. There were protests in Zim on the Tuesday and Wednesday, and people stayed at home (technically it was called a “Stay Away”). I also made it in to the tug of war team, which was my only major athletics achievement at the time (and is probably still the peak of my athletic career).

I’m incredibly proud of myself for keeping this journal. It provides a beautiful glimpse into the past, allowing for reminiscing and reflecting.

And in 15 years time, when I’m 40, I’ll look back at these #25of365 blog posts with the same admiration.

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A sneaky picture of a Flame Lily

Image is of my first ever diary, taken in our old garden this afternoon.

Song of the day: DJ Kent ft Dominic Neill – Love you still

Blog: 172/365

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Plodding along

Plodding along.
One foot in front of the other.
Travelling down the road
At thirty Kays an hour.

Writing one sentence.
And taking breaks aplenty .
Floating down the river.
And paddling along gently.

Grateful for the momentum
After being stuck for so long
Being happy in being able
To slowly plod along.

Image was from a Table mountain hike in 2015.

Blog: 171/365

Song of the day: Melody – Lost Frequencies ft. James Blunt 

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Rest

Resting has been difficult this weekend. Even though I’m in the perfect environment for it, I have work anxiety sitting over me. I’m also still recovering from this week. And keep having flashbacks to Monday.

I’m going to try being more patient with myself. It’ll take a while to get back into the swing of things. And that’s okay.

Image was taken on a run in Camps Bay last year

Blog post: 169/365

Song of the day: The Grease Medley

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Out of (my) control

Today I tried to tackle some of my post-robbery admin. I started with something that I thought would be an easy win with a big impact: getting a new sim card.

This turned out to be much more difficult than I anticipated. The MTN store I visited was closed. Three other stores were out of sim cards. And when I finally bought a sim card, the system wasn’t working to register it.

I then travelled to another MTN store and found out that the RICA registration system was down. Nationwide. And had been for the last two days.

So there was literally no way to get myself back online.

I found this so frustrating. My one, simple objective had not been achieved.

In reality, it was impossible to achieve it. There is no way I could get the national system back online.

Despite realising this, I’ve spent the whole evening brooding over it. And I need to be more patient with myself.

Because ultimately, it was out of my control

Image was from 2013 when my car broke down in the middle of the road

Blog: 167/365

Song of the day: Maliaka – Destiny

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