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I thought I'd regress a bit today and take a trip back a couple of months to where this all began.

Alright, I actually have to go back a few years, back to just before the year 2000 - when we were all about ready to throw our computers away and start hunting food again after Y2k took over. It was around that time that I decided to go back to studying, time for a real qualification this time, a degree. Scary though that, having being out of school for 2 years already and already been working for a couple of months. It was back to the grindstone, and parties of course.

When I arrived for my first day at the campus I picked up my timetable and sauntered around, looking for the best spot to catch some sun and start relaxing a bit. Then I looked at the little piece of paper that defined my next twelve weeks worth of work, no sun for me. My first subject was communication studies.

I had been exposed to this phenomenon, of communication without the use of a cell phone or computer, but it never really made any sense so I thought it might actually be a worthwhile subject. Now to get an idea, I hated English at school. I also hated Afrikaans but that's just because I refused to learn a language I would never need to use at work anyway - doesn't help me that this year I started working on the West Rand. Anyway, English as a subject was pointless to me, I hated reading, I hated poetry, I hated grammar and I most of all hated writing. I remember years of first terms at school, writing a two page essay on "What I did during the holidays". Puke.

So I sat down at the back of the class while the lecturer, as nervous as hell in front of 150 first year students with too much attitude. She tried to control the class and inspire us about the joys of communication and how it will be create the building blocks to our careers. I chuckled and started drawing pictures on my notepad.

I didn't listen at all that lesson. Later that week, however, was the first practical lesson. Our subjects were all split up into lectures of around 150 students, and workshops of about 20. No place to hide in those, so I decided to show a little interest and actually get some work done. The first assignment, and there would be twelve, was to write a single paragraph on a topic that escapes me now. The aim was to create the perfect paragraph describing something or other. So after an hour of writing, editing and reading out aloud the lecturer took our scraps of paper and reviewed them over the following week.

Imagine my shock when mine came back, 85%. The highest mark in the class. And I was the shy guy sitting at the back who no one noticed. The rest of the semester went really well, I did speeches, presentations and persuasion techniques. I scored second highest mark, out of 150 or so students. Only one -bleep- beat me, and I reckon he was sleeping with a number of lecturers at the time anyway. But I'm not bitter.

It was an opening to a new world. I realised that with the little bit of faith in yourself, and of course the faith that someone will care to read or listen to what you have to say - you can move mountains with words.

And things died down. For five years.

At the beginning of this year, I registered with a website that's sole purpose was to create an album of cell phone pictures with short descriptions. And for some reason, when I was writing a description one day of a photo I took in a pub, I didn't stop. I wrote about two pages wort, and it was pretty entertaining. Boring as hell to everyone else, but I laughed every time I read it. Not much has probably changed in fact.

And so it continues, now I write for two websites and have two blogs - so that's four spots on the web where I am just a little bit exposed. I have also had a short story published on an American "e-zine", but I don't like fiction that much anyway.

So why do I write? I guess it's just a hobby, and will hopefully earn me a couple of happy meals in the future, but at the moment it's just something to do. It helps me relax in fact, and gets my mouth back into sync with my brain. I have been known to speak before thinking. Sometimes three weeks before thinking in fact.

So I guess its therapeutic as well, and of course, my spelling has improved. Now I just need to work on punctuation.

On Friday, in support of casual day and charity, I dressed up in one piece of a Santa Claus suit. It wasn't anything special, I got the right glove, while the rest of the pieces were shared between the department. The saving grace was that we were at least allowed to wear other clothes as well and considering I have only been working at this company for a couple of weeks I was happy not to bare anything.

It's a strange one though, casual day, seeing as most companies I know are pretty casual in general and almost all have a standard Friday dress-down day anyway. But it's all in the name of good fun and for a good cause, and I got some free food, drinks and a couple of hours away from my computer screen.

The day was a non-event work wise though, and after about 2 hours of actual productive sit down time I left work and made my way to a local hangout near my house. I was meeting my fiance and some of her friends from work, who had a slightly different take on the dress up idea. Kitsch is definitely not cool, but it does turn heads, especially when one girl sitting at our table walked in wearing hot pants and fishnets - I was just thankful that no one made any offers.

And this is where I made my dire mistake of the day. I went out for drinks after work, without any male backup. Well some guys arrived but didn't stay long - they had to leave promptly to steal a fire hydrant, but that is a totally different story.

And there I was, sitting at a table with four girls, listening to a conversation about sex. Not just any sex I soon learnt, though. I also found out that my antics from the previous night had become topic of conversation in a female dominated office for the day and now I was sitting amongst them. Not quite the enemy, but definitely individuals who now knew some of my most sinister secrets and dirty tricks. Well, I say NOW knew, they've probably known for ages.

It's funny how the conversations between men-only and women-only groups differ so much, contrary to what Hollywood will let us believe. Not that I have even the smallest iota of information into the women conversations, I was just given a slightly tipsy sneak-preview of the whole affair. I mean generally guys will gather for the weeks first smoke break early on Monday morning, and the conversation will go something like -

"So, did you?".
"Yep".
"Was it good?.
"Yep".
"Cool".

And that's it, it's all we need to know. In fact, most of the time just the first two lines of dialogue are needed, if the topic comes up at all.

Then we get to the girls, and for the purposes of keeping bandwidth usage to a minimum and not clogging up the servers with pages of dialogue, I will skip out on the conversation. Ok, fine, I have no clue about what they talk about. But, I do know it includes a lot of detail that I would rather be kept private.

So, I sat. I listened. I heard all about vibrators, a variety of toys that will keep any girl in raptures for hours (or minutes), depending on the recharge time. At that stage, I ordered another drink and pretended to listen to the rest of the conversation while making as much noise in my head.

I still can't quite figure out though if I have to be afraid, just a little bit of another player coming into the bedroom and stealing my limelight, someone along the lines of Mr Perfect, Danny The Dolphin, The Rabbit? My mind boggles, but at least I have become the topic of coversation for just one day, I must be doing something right.

I have always been the type of person who enjoys watching people, from their interactions with each other to the way they portray themselves. In a way, it helps me understand myself and the kind of masks I wear for different people. There are not many people who know all that much about me, and this topic probably least of all.

I have always had a superstitious nature, but I have always kept it in control and never succumbed to the general mass hysteria of certain situations.

For instance, in my sport playing days - when I actually used to play basketball for a team and not once every three months socially - I used to book my shirt number way in advance. It was funny, we all did it in fact, but made up the excuse of copying our favourite, far more professional, and incidentally African American player's number.

I always felt sorry for the one chap in our team who got stuck with number fourteen, as the only famous player he could think of with that number was short, white and had a history of sniffing furniture polish out of season.

Nevertheless we each had our number. I used to go as far as always making a point of defending the player with the same number from the opposing team to make sure he didn't take my good luck away. I guess it comes down to a psychological thing which I will never understand, but I always seemed to play better when I managed to have my own number on my back.

It doesn't stop there either. Often I will get to work and be slightly disappointed when a certain number parking is taken in the morning - it sounds crazy, I know, but I'm not all that normal.

Now the reason why I started thinking about this today is the sheer number of chain letters I have been receiving. They always play on basic human emotions and needs, and almost always tell the heart wrenching story of how Sally (I haven't used her real name of course) didn't send this mail to 10 of her friends and later that day caught her husband cheating on her with her best friend and sister. They have to, of course, also add the story of Jimmy, who after sending the mail to 15 of his friends and colleagues later received a phone call from the girl he had been stalking for three years who declared her undying love there and then and offered to leave her husband for him the very next day.

I have to send some of these out, just because they are so stupid and usually have a funny story (ok, I'm just a little worried sometimes).

And I agree, I am somewhat obsessive compulsive and have to always use the right-most urinal at work (don't ask), but there are definitely limits, and believing that Bill Gates is going to personally deliver your new cell phone after you have sent out an e-mail four hundred times. You have to send it at least five hundred times, otherwise they use DHL.

Anyways, I have sent this story today out to all my friends. One of them, bless his soul, sent out the link to twenty (now thats a lot) friends, and he immediately received a raise and a promotion to Director of his company. All of my other friends either had car accidents during their lunchbreak or were fired on the spot for wasting company resources. Mail me for proof, but are you sure you want to take the risk?

She was sitting at the coffee shop, in the corner, the perfect position to watch the entrance and bask in the sun a little as well.

You could see the confidence in her posture, and the way she presented herself. She was the type of woman who took care of herself and made a point of concentrating on the details. Her hair was impeccable and well taken care of, blow dried just before she left the house, flowing just a bit longer than her shoulders, dark chocolate brown colour.

Her make-up was perfect, they say that a woman should always appear as if she was wearing none, and she was one of the few that managed to pull it off. Her lips were full, dark lipstick accentuated the curves and highlighted the light, greyish colour of her contact lenses.

Her eyes darted around the room. She appeared aloof, but only someone who knew her well would realise that she was taking note of who was around and who was looking back.

The freckles, dotted so slightly on her skin, traced a line from below her neck, down to her cleavage, visible with the low top she was wearing. They gave her a certain sense of innonence.

She was starting to get irritated, she had been waiting for a while now and he was late. Punctuality was important to her, and he had not made a good impression so far, and he was not even there. She was patient though, not often does someone catch her attention the way he had, and she was intrigued.

When he finally walked in, their eyes met immediately. They were both so nervous, that to this day they would probably not remember the first few minutes as they "met" for the first time.