dictionary navel gazing....

In the English dictionary the following words are those in which the string 'ilan' is contained; but neither begins or ends the word...

ailantery ailanthic Ailanthus
ailanthus ailanthuses ailantine
ailanto aphilanthropy assailants
Bashilange bilander bilanders
Cheilanthes chemosterilants cilantro
cilantros defailance demilance
demilancer dilaniate Dilantin
dilantin failance filander
filanders Guilandina hypervigilantly
hypervigilantness invigilance invigilancy
jubilance jubilancy jubilantly
jublilantly koilanaglyphic Maorilander
milanaise Milanese milanese
Milanion Milanov Milanville
minilanguage multilaned nonphilanthropic
nonphilanthropical nonsibilance nonsibilancy
nonsibilantly nonvigilance nonvigilantly
nonvigilantness Philander philander
philandered philanderer philanderers
philandering philanders philanthid
Philanthidae philanthrope philanthropian
philanthropic philanthropical philanthropically
philanthropies philanthropine philanthropinism
philanthropinist Philanthropinum philanthropise
philanthropised philanthropising philanthropism
philanthropist philanthropistic philanthropists
philanthropize philanthropized philanthropizing
philanthropy Philanthus philantomba
pilandite prevailance previgilance
previgilantly pseudophilanthropic pseudophilanthropical
pseudophilanthropically psilanthropic psilanthropism
psilanthropist psilanthropy semilanceolate
sibilance sibilancy sibilantly
sibilants silanes silanga
Spilanthes subsibilance subsibilancy
subsibilantly supervigilance supervigilantly
Thailander theophilanthrope theophilanthropic
theophilanthropism theophilanthropist theophilanthropy
Thilanottine unjubilantly unphilanthropic
unphilanthropically unvigilantly vigilance
vigilances vigilancy vigilante
vigilantes vigilantism vigilantist
vigilantly vigilantness Ypsilanti
zeilanite

Almost December

Grafs in Jerusalem Pillemer home
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Almost December. I am almost off the cortisone, all going well. Its almost time to go to bed. I am almost writing a long blog.

Grafs and Granny

Grafs and Granny
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

Exams are over. I am tired. Its hot in Durban. Sandra is learning violin again. Sandra has just shown me her favourite toothbrush. Its a kind that is rare to find. She tells me that if I see any - in any shop - I must buy 12 immediately. One for every month.

Well, this cheered me up a little.

As I mentioned in my post last night I was not very happy with my second Unisa exam (INF 305). Whilst I was sitting writing the exam I was very dissapointed with the format as it was not what I had expected. 55% of the exam were questions like "List the 6" and "Name the 4" etc etc etc. It was obviously expected that the exact wording was to be filled in for each point. I had not memorised all the many many lists. I had memorised a few which had seemed to be important. Of course not one of the lists I had memorised came up; and many of what had seem arbitrary lists did. I tried my best; and upon looking at the text book I would get one out of three; 2 out of 4; four out of seven; one out four; 4 out of 4 (uncommon) etc etc 0 out of x was common. I think I may have got 50% (or a little bit less) for that section. The second question also had a 8 mark bit that needed me to first know a list of four; and then discuss. I think I got two-and-a-half out of the four. And the rest, since we had never been actually marked on a case study in an assignment; was unclear to me if I had answered in the expected way or not. So all in all - very iffffffffffffy. very very. very very very.

The guy sitting to my left in the venue. I will never forget his anger. About half and hour before I ran out of space he gave up...

(Yup... We had to answer the question on the question paper itself; and there was not so much space on the paper. Once I had filled in all the space available; including writing very small on the bottom of the pages - I thought.. what can I do now... and left the venue. (Half and hour early.) )

Anyway... the guy sitting to my left. He had stopped half and hour (or maybe more) before I strolled out of the venue. I only noticed his angst about half and hour before I finished. He had stopped. Put his paper neatly in front of him. He had crossed his arms and was staring directly in the empty space in front of him. He was very angry. Very angry. I think his eyes had become two tiny hard little red vortexes. And he did nothing else. Just stared in anger. I left him like that.

Today I went to the Unisa message board to see if that there had been a reaction. And boy had people cried and thrown their toys and screamed and swore. Take a peak....

Page 1 of complaints.
Page 2 of complaints
Page 3 of complaints.

But the nicest effect of all the toy throwing were these two responses from Unisa.

Re: The irony cup runneth over.

Posted by: TvD (Moderator)

Date: October 13, 2006 08:25PM

yes I agree that written assignments is a requirenment and I did get a number of voluntary written assignments from A01 to A05.

Anyway we are not monsters and I will take the comments into consideration when marking the exams - I will first discuss, and then consider letting Q2 count more for those students that did not do well in Q1 - as far as I am concerned Q2 is a better test of the academic requirements for your final year than Q1

Quality of design notations is strongly related to choosing between them.

TvD

Re: The irony cup runneth over.

Posted by: TvD (Moderator)

Date: October 16, 2006 09:45AM

After discussions with the School's Director we have found a solution that will satisfy those who are unhappy about the omission of mcq's from the exam, as well as those students that are unhappy about the cramped answering spaces for Q1

We will use another mcq mark that is available to us for each student
individually, as a substantial addition to Q1

This is unfortunately all I can say so please do not ask me to elaborate on this any further

TvD

So... anyway... tomorrow is my next exam.
I have only prepared by reading through the text book and going through the assignments and a past paper. I would get 100% for the past paper and the assignments; so I have a chance.

Tomorrow morning I will read through the study guide grab my pens and go for it.

I am not as prepared as I am normally am for exams; but I think under the circumstances I will not feel guilty or bad about that.

oh...

And then into hospital; to have an infusion into my birthday... well so it goes

Tzoras

I have had Tzoras of late. Swaziland went well but I worked about 12 hours a day; and slept very little getting everything done. On the plane on the way home I saw the dreaded petichiae on my arms. I arrived home; and had to tell poor Sandra (who spent the whole day baking chalah and preparing for the Sabbath) that I was not going to be sleeping at home tonight - but that I had to be rushed into hospital. I stayed in hospital until after Yom Kippor. Whilst in hospital I got authorisation for the monoclonal antibody treatment that worked so well two-and-half-years ago. Its a weekly 12 hour intravenous infusion which is described in the medical aid codes as a chemotherapy infusion. I have also decided to try and write my UNISA exams that just happen to be right now. I feel confident about the first exam but very dissapointed with the second one. I was caught off guard by the format as I was expecting a different format and had studied to pass the format and not what I ended up having to confront. I have worked out that it is theoretically possible for me to scrape through it - so I have not given up hope in it yet. But it would not be a rude surprise if I end up with a supplementary for the second paper. My third paper is on the same day as my next infusion. So I will go to the exam venue and head straight from the exam venue to the hospital. The medication and the cortisone (I am still on dramatically large doses. Today I took 50mg) really effect my concentration and moods which adds more difficulty with the studying. I am no where ready for the Tuesday exam; and its Sunday night... After I finish this blog I will return to study a bit more.

I now am going to write out an extract from diary recorded in hospital on Yom Kippor 2 October.

My tooth aches. I am sitting in the hospital Oncology ward and I am smelling like some kind of sweet sweaty smell that I find a little nauseating. I want to bath and I have even set up all neatly on my new freshly made bed a shirt, shampoo and a toiletry bag. I only found the shampoo today; but it must have been there with my things since I got here. I got angry and frustrated again this morning when I discovered that the doctor had not remembered to put down the requirement that I have blood count taken for my platelets. The sister in charge did not now want to have the count taken as a result. This kind of ridiculousness, maybe because of the added emotional side-effects of the cortisone, is so frustrating it feels like physical pain. Not that I don't have enough physical pain from the toothache. Why did a filling have to have fallen out at the exact moment that I end up in this place of death? I don't want to get back into bed again until I have a bath. Again this is frustrating me. I am only connected via a drip to saline solution. It is not important and I could easily be disconnected to allow me to clean myself. But the attendant, I don't think she is a nurse; did not obviously feel the need to listen to my request and told me I could clean myself later. Some of these people have power and are too careless with it. I guess I could make a fuss again. But creating a nuisance of myself with so many suffering people all around me feels so spoilt and badly behaved that I end up feel depressed and ugly about my behaviour. I have been endlessly difficult over the last few days because the fancy computerised Baxter drip has not been working as it should; and almost definitely the saline solution would infuse instead of the immunoglobulins. Each time this happened (and it happened a number of times) at first the attendant sister would not believe me; and I would have to wait 2 hours seeing the system not working properly before calling a nurse again. Since it was not working properly the volume on the immunoglobulins would not have decreased over this period and I could then say to the sister :- "Look at the volume. Look at the time. Its meant to be half-finished. Look!" But this would still not work immediately. For at first they would be blind to reality. They would like at the computer display and not at the volume in the polygam; show me the computer display and say:- "See... its working."

At this point I would need to become slightly more forthright in explaining to the sister the problem. Trying desperately to get her to use her eyes. Eventually they would see the reality (since it was unarguably obvious that nothing had infused from the polygam and much had infused from the saline) was on my side; the problem would be recognised and then fixed. But not without me first having to make a noise and then feel ugly about it. My tooth is aching again. Its bringing back memories of 1995/6 when I was backpacking in the Sinai desert, Dahab, and got unbearable toothache. It got so bad that slept until pain woke me up; and then stayed awake until exhaustion overrode the pain. It was a weird kind of equilibrium. The clean bed before me is very inviting; but, I really want to be less smelly before I get into the hospital bed zone again. The hospital-bed-zone is a strange kind of place where time drifts... Bad toothache again. Yom Kippor. What a day to be in hospital. Day of Affliction. Well at least I am afflicted and in torment. How appropriate. The toothache is beginning to give me a headache. The doctor did not care about the toothache. Its not why I am her patient I guess. Not being able to bath is also beginning to drive me to distraction. I created a fuss yesterday getting the basic line into my vein changed to a J-loop. A J-loop can be disconnected, allowing me to bath. And naturally, once a line had been created into my vein, it is a huge effort to change to a different kind of line. And then when it was done, something went wrong, and it was leaking; and a more senior nurse had to be fetched to fix it. Eventually this was resolved making it possible for me to bath. So... Now I am sitting here, with a tooth-ache, with a J-Loop; wanting to bath and unable to because no one feels like "disconnecting" me from the Baxter.

The doctor has prescribe me oral cortisone. She also insists that the cortisone must be an ethical and not a generic due to some problem with my illness and the binding agents used in the generics. However when she passed the prescription on to ward she did not make a note of this; and then I found myself presented with the generic medication after being given specific instruction not to take the generic. It is a constant deja-vu. Just like the regular omission not to put my name on the list to test my blood for its platelet count in the morning.

I am thankful I don't have a brain tumour like the man lying in the bed next to me. He kept talking in his sleep all night. I do not know if he makes more sense awake or asleep. The other guy here does not appear to talk unless calling for more morphine due to unbearable pain. I think the man that was in his bed a few days ago died. I am not 100% sure; but they cleared him out and made his bed about 11pm Friday night. So unless he was suddenly being rushed to ICU; he died. I think he died. Three weeks ago when I was in the hospital I saw one of the patients die. He coughed and died. My platelet count was taken hours ago and must have been returned to the ward; but no-one thinks to tell me the result. The toothache is getting worse. I can feel the nerve all the way to my ear and forehead. It pulses with a pain. The pain does pause; and then suddenly goes sharp. Someone had just brought in some ice-cold water for next to my bed. It looks and feels like an instrument of torture. I know what the cold water will do the toothache; just looking at it produces pain. A nurse came in to ask if she could get me anything; I asked to be disconnected so I can go have a bath.

so it goes...

I am going into hospital again tomorrow morning for another treatment.
They give it to me over twelve hours through a drip. I will sleep over
in the hospital.

I also have two Unisa exams. One on Thursday and one on Friday. I have
not even started learning properly because of the chaos. I am still
intending to write the exams; and will be taking the material for the
exam on Friday with me to hospital; and I read through the text book
for the exam on Thursday over the weekend.

geez.

Sandra is busy packing presents she is sending out to lucky recipients and there is a beautiful Jazz being played. I think its Jazz.. it might not be; I am not very good at distinguishing genre. Maybe its Latin American. I had better ask.

"Sandra, what kind of music is this?"
"I don't know..."

Oh well.. Its nice and I am enjoying it.

I went back to work today; and one of the rituals of returning to work after an absence longer than just a few days is one has to go through a ritual at the surgery at the mill. This involves mostly sitting and waiting in the waiting room; and watching people with damaged feet or carrying packages of AIDs medicine walk past you. I must have sat there for at least two hours; but, I was wise enough to have brought my iPod. So I sat there listening to music and chilling out. I was leaning forward elbows on my knees and looking downwards... and I could not believe my eyes. I suddenly realised I was wearing two different kinds of shoes. Luckily they were both black. We went to my parents for dinner tonight and I showed everyone my silly shoes. My father told me, he once went to work (many many many years ago) wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe; after getting dressed in the dark not to disturb my sleeping mother. My mother then told me; that she at work today had an individual sitting in the room wearing his shoes the wrong way round. Yip. He was wearing his left shoe on his right foot and his right shoe on his left foot. She said this made it very difficult to concentrate every time she looked up and saw him.

Its getting close to midnight...

later....

www.ilan.pillemer.net

Its a bit boring at the moment....

But now I have my own website. I have a little bit of space on a server and apparently scripting and database usage.

Check it out... www.ilan.pillemer.net

later....

It's just passed midnight.... and Sandra is sitting working on her puzzle. I mean literally. She is sitting on the puzzle itself; well kneeling with her hands supporting her as she contemplates the puzzle and its pieces. Occasionally picking up a piece; whilst leaning on one hand and looking at it and the rest of the puzzle. And then stopping for a moment and then returning the piece; shifting a bit so she is leaning sideways a bit as she almost find a piece. The TV is on in the background but no-one is actually watching. Sandra is now lying sideways on the puzzle her knees bent a little as she examines a bluish piece of the puzzle.

Tomorrow I will decrease the cortisone by 5mg again; making tomorrow's dosage 50mg. Its a lot. It makes my head always feel little stretched and the insides taut - like as if there are strings tied to the insides of my ears; and a very small nasty goblin is sitting crosslegged in the middle of mind pulling the strings tight so that my head hurts. The drug also has the effect of making my mind jump very quickly; and getting distracted - which means I keep leaving things half finished. I discover cups of tea I was making etc all the time. My mind also spins on an idea obssessing on it but not necessarily progressing in the thought itself. This is most problematic when I want to go to sleep. If nothing is worrying me that fine I can just drift in my spinning thoughts like a leaf in the wind and fall into a cortisone sleep. But if something is worrying me I can end up not sleeping at all. Either way I don't get deep sleep. I sleep but its almost as if I don't get refreshed from the sleep. And I know from past experiece I will start developing rings under my eyes. Anyway enough self-pity.

I have been using this time off work, the Doctor has said I should only return to work on Monday; immersing myself in my computer. I have finally got Gnus set up and have made it my news and mail reader; and I also have been improving my Emacs familiarity. I have over the last year slowly been using Emacs more and more. It was recommended to me by a UNISA lecturer for a 3rd year course on Advancing Programming. But slowly I have been using it for more and more and more; and becoming more and more familiar with its use. Its reached the point when I am getting frustrated when using other tools such as Word or whatever because I can't do easily what I now have become accustomed to. It may seem strange to become accustomed to pressing shift-alt-> to move the end; or alt-; to make a comment... or alt-Q to reformat text.... but I have. I also have been working a bit at getting my latex2e skills up to scratch to make it my main text processor (from within Emacs of course). Who knows maybe I will write some poetry or prose again; I haven't done that since 2000. hmmmm....

Sandra is now curled forward on top the puzzle her feet tucked under her knees tucked under her arms with her elbows on the table closely examining an area of the puzzle.

I went to mincha and ma'ariv prayers this evening for the first time since I fell sick. I was blown away by the smiles on the faces of the people there when they saw me. I was warmed up by the kindness and good will that filled up the shul.

Sandra has stopped with the puzzle and is closing doors and windows and things....
later....

Well, there it went again, my bubble.... pop.

... and I got the flue, and it triggered my ITP and I found myself rushed into emergency and plugged into a drip and staring at a television screen. I am now back on the huge cortisone dosage of 60 mg a day and feeling it throughout my body, mood and mind. Its not a easy thing to keep up the smile and accept the things that one has to bear with equanamity and peace. But this is my challenge today and over the next few months as I fight to get this monster back under control again.

At least I am out of the hospital and in my home again.

later....

Sandra is working hard at her 5000 piece puzzle. She has been working at it for over a year now; and over the last week she has been highly determined in her puzzling. And she has now completed over half the puzzle. The weather yesterday was horrific when I drove home. The rain was pouring down cats and dogs and there had been many accidents. The roads were all jammed up. I found out today that Rabbi had been trying to get down Ridge road to shul and was caught in the traffic. He had had to drive onto the pavement to get out of the traffic; in order to get his car off the road before Shabat arrived! I had been caught in same traffic (albeit an hour earlier for an hour and half); and I could see it was getting worse and worse at that time. (I was stuck for half an hour in the middle of an intersection with cars hooting at me continuously). Once I was at home I relaxed and enjoyed the sound of the pouring rain. When you able to inside and comfortable I find the sound of rain very comforting. I saw Steven on TV this week! Stevie made it onto one of the most popular South African tv programmes. Its a candid camera type production in which the "team" plays pranks on celebrities. Stevie was part of the team playing a prank on the South Africa Springbok scrum half - Neil de Kock. I laughed out loud .

later...

I am listening to music, and somewhere in the home Sandra is studying epidemiology. The weather is slowly warming up and the days have started lengthening. I can feel the edges of summer arriving. My nose is itching and my left ear is thinking about itching. A sure sign of the beginning of Spring.

Good night.

I am writing this using writely... hmmm

later...

Pillemer Clan

Pillemer Clan
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.

A nice group shot of the Pillemer clan and their grandmother. Its a pity Sandra and Terri were elsewhere when the picture was taken. And Tracey was taking the photograph. If you click here you will find some more pictures of Pillemers and some pictures from the wedding snapped by Jonx and Tracey.

Oh.. and if you're into geneaology check out the Pillemer Family Tree website.

later...

Wedding pics and a fun game...

Yip Terri has posted some of her and Robbie's wedding pic picks! Check them out here.

And for a little but of fun....
Dave Gilbert's The Shivah

.. later

And I was not even surprised...

Last night at about 10 pm there was a lot of commotion in the house at 316 Cato Rd. Maurice was checking every drawer over and over again. Where could the friggin' keys be? Jacky was planning on taking the car to go off towards Eshowe to visit an old friend. He had the directions; and he was checking for the keys. And where were they?

Well.. Sandra asked "Don't you have a spare set of keys?"

And there were.... But no spare immobilizer. Car keys are not very useful if the car won't start with them.

Eventually through a lot of discussion it was clear that the last time the car had been used it was by Stevie.

So....

With some trepidation my father picked up the phone and called Cape Town.

"Hi Jonx..."
"Hi Dad."
"You wouldn't have the car keys for the Chico with you?
"I seriously doubt it Dad."
"Could you just check.."
"Hmmm... well if they were anywhere they would be in Stevie's bag which is in his car. And I don't have keys for the car at the moment."
"Well, can you figure that out, check and call me back."
"OK"

We keep searching and searching.

The phone rings again.

"Umm.. Dad.. Well. Umm..."

Yip. They had the keys. They took them with them to Cape Town!

My mother had smoke coming out of ears.

When I left last night, Jacky and my father were waiting for the Automobile Association (AA) to arrive to see if they could disconnect the immobilizer. If that succeeded they would still have needed to go to a locksmith this morning, before leaving, to get the petrol tank open!

I wonder if Jacky managed to get to Eshowe today?

And I was not even surprised...

Some notes from within Israel...

And for some blogging from within Israel check out these blogs....

Powerblogger
An unsealed room

A round up...
Israeli Bloggers

And others...
Not a Fish
IsreallyCool
Dry Bones Blog
On the face
Balagan
Israpundit
Jew School
At ground level
Israel Matsav
Abba Gav"
The view from here

Notes on the current Middle-East crisis from inside Lebanon and Cyprus

Here are some English blogs from Lebanon and people that are there; or, on the way out to Cyprus and futher. Very fascinating to hear about the stories that are not coming via conventional media. The Israel thoughts and feelings I know because I have lived there and I have family and friends there. But not so Lebanon; and it is interesting to hear from people out there and their opinions and thoughts. Worth a peek....

Thawrah's Den
Beirut Notes
Middle East Politics
Cold Desert
Beirut Spring
Manamania
Kerblog

later...

Evening thoughts....

Well its about quarter to eleven on Saturday night, and I am sitting in my study using my Linux system, listening to Galgalatz, an Israeli radio station. Half-understanding the regular news broadcasts in my broken Hebrew, and enjoying the music. I have spent most of the weekend in bed, hoping to throw off the flu before it gets me down. I had a sore throat and a woozy feelings on friday, so I went to bed and only got out Sunday midday. I have found that this bed rest can work magic against illness. And I was asleep most of the time so my body was not under pressure to do normal activities. My Israeli family is in South Africa at the moment. Unfortunately I have used up all my leave days, and so I cannot take any time off work to play and enjoy the company. But almost every evening I have joined them for dinner and conversation which has been wonderful. I miss living in Jerusalem. Work had been a drag lately. I am a bit worried about the situation in the middle-east. I don't like the fact that hostilities started on the 17 Tammuz. Sandra tells me not to worry that its a minor rise in temperature and won't last longer than another week. I hope she's right. I feel nervous, like Israel is being led into a trap set by Iran. It feels like she is being pulled like a puppet into this war that is being started by Iran through its proxies in Gaza and Lebanon.

I will probably go to work tomorrow as the bed rest seems to have helped. I am also very pleased with my success in getting a Linux desktop up and fully functional.

Sandra is sitting in the Living Room, puzzling at her 5000 piece puzzle. She has been working on it every night for months now; and finally it is beginning to take its proper form. I am looking forward to her finishing it so I can get the use of the coffee table back. It has been unusable for a very long time now, and I can hardly remember what it looks like.

Nights in White Satin is playing on the radio, and I feel bed calling me...

later....

Robbie married, and I spoke....

Here is a copy of the speech I made at Robbie's wedding. Well almost. There were some last minute changes. Only one story of the two about Robbie as a child were described; and a little bit was added about Robbie's sporting prowess. This is a copy of the speech the night before the wedding; and, not the morning of the wedding. But its pretty almost the same. If you want to see the real thing you will have to wait for the DVD release.

Also there are grammar mistakes etc in the speech that obviously I corrected when presenting it at the wedding.

...

"Hello.



For those of you who don't know who I am - I am Ilan, Robbie's elder brother.

This is the ninety-seventh version of this speech, the earlier versions sounded distinctly like something covered in hearts that you might find at Cardies's cards and later versions like philosophy ideas at university. Terry told me diplomatically that best man's speech is, and I quote , "humorous and not soppy. It takes a good natured dig at idiosyncrasies or past behaviour of the groom." My father said get rid of the schmaltz; and my mother use short sort sentences with words with no more that three syllables in them.

So on that note I turned to my family for help. And there was an explosion of stories of Robbie's idiosyncrasies and past behaviours that had us all laughing about moments in his childhood and youth and what a smorgasbord of flavours. My mother's favourite humorous memories revolve around two epigrammatic phrases out of Robbie's young mouth. The first one dates back to when Robbie was two and 5 sixths of a year old. My parents are great nature lovers and now they had decided that we were old enough to give us what they considered a great privilege and present. We were all taken Tendile, in the Northern berg in the amphitheatre which is a truly special place in the Royal Natal National Park. A place where all there is to is walk and talk. Well we walked for a one day; we walked for half of the second day… we were out far for everywhere when Robbie decided that this was it. This situation could not continue any more. And Robbie took control. Now everyone, take a second… Everyone look at Robbie; now I want you to imagine him almost three years old and about as high as your waist. Now little Robbie sits down…. Plonk… on the ground and says clearly and with absolute certainty – "Me too little. Me no walk"… And that was the end of the holiday. He had to be carried home and we left Tendile the next day.

This following bit was cut out of the speech as we decided it did not provide any real addition to the flow of the speech and was just a non-sequitur - but it is still amusing for anyone who is interested in the last minute changes to the speech..

{The second phrase that my mother never forgot happened when Robbie approached her and asked her to make him some sandwiches for school. My mother told him make his own sandwhiches. And then little Robbie stood firm arms akimbo and said..
"You know, the problem with this family is that there are two fathers."}

Who knew in when Robbie was a little child that he would come so far? Because he has come far, an up and coming advocate, is now married to the most beautiful, intelligent and caring young woman, have such good hair and teeth. Some people might think from these two stories that Robbie lacked ambition and did not want to do things for himself. Not true, it shows he knows how to use his mind, come to a logical conclusion and apply it effectively. Case in point: Robbie has never lost his marbles, on the contrary they are still piled up in many huge massive plastic containers in Durban still. In fact not only has Robbie never lost his marbles he in fact has everyone else's marbles. Robbie cleaned the entire middle school out of marbles. Robbie had learnt to think out of the box. He would set up a small circle of super duper fancy shmancy marbles at the bottom of the grandstands at the school field. Then you, the person who was about to lose his marbles, got to throw a marble off the top of the steps. If your marble landed in this special pile of marbles you got to keep the prize. , if you didn't, you lost your marble. Know how big a marble is? This big. Know how big a small pile of marbles is? This big. Good luck. Robbie used to stand at the bottom of the grandstands and on his signal he had the entire middle school throwing their marbles at him. As a result marbles were banned at school, not so much because he won them all but because the mothers could simply not cope with their children buying them back.

Jonx told me that he went to Durban High School a teacher came out of his way to find him. Why? He wanted to know if Jonx was going to turn into a reprobate like Robbie? However, he meant this as a mark of respect for someone who was willing to stand up against authority. He used to be nasty and downright unpleasant to the students in his class. This teacher had given the class an essay to write. The topic My First Day Back At School. Robbie described a bored and frustrated teacher giving an unoriginal topic while at the same time wandering around behind the different students; checking their hair lengths and insulting them. Robbie did it knowingly to get a message across to the teacher. The essay was held back and Robbie had to see him after school. Robbie was asked "How would you like it if I showed this essay to your father?" "I already have, said Robbie, and all he asked was whether or not it was true?" The conduct and attitude of this teacher towards Robbie and the class changed from then onward.

But if you were to ask Robbie about his school days though he will always tell you that he was done an unfair deal. Why, because he was pressurised into studying important subjects like Latin; and not allowed to study Art. And he knew he could have been a great artist; and he has undisputable proof of his artistic merit. In Standard 7 he got a B for his apple he drew which was the second highest mark for an apple in the entire school; and his art was not limited to the visual as in standard 8 he wrote a poem. In fact I have a copy of it here. It rhymes and everything.. So let me present it to you.

Fire. By Robbie Pillemer. Prometheus stole fire/ because he had a desire/ to give it to man/ and the rest of his clan/ so the human race/ could continue its pace / for survival.

After finishing his Business science degree, his LLB, his articles Robbie set off to the UK for two years to find himself. He wasn't prepared to take any old job and was waiting for the perfect job; during which time his money ran out and he had to take any job. He wrote home "Mom. I have eventually job as a stripper. The long email dealing with all of sorts ancillary matters ended by describing his job in graphic detail; he had to strip plastic sheeting off clothes at the duty free shop at Heathrow airport. He also packed smelly fish in sub zero Scotland and washed dished in the kitchen of a hotel in Sark where they wouldn't allow to serve guests because he refused, point blank, as a matter of principle to cut his hair.

After he completed his bar exam and was sitting for his oral he described a huge table with him at one end, the judge and other examiners at the other whose mouths were moving but in his nervousness he could not hear a word that was being said. Have we said that he still had his long hair? Well he did, because as a matter of principle he still refused to cut it. The words of the judge eventually came through to him "Have you found yourself? You did well in your exam. Good luck in your practise." So you may be asking yourselves, what happened to the long hair and Robbie principles? And the answer is, eventually Robbie got tired of being confused with the accused.

{Here there was a bit added about Robbie's sporting prowess, I do not have a copy of this addition.}

Now… my earliest memory of Robbie involves the two of us, as intrepid explorers, wandering around a childhood garden with paints and paintbrushes painting all the snails and frogs and rocks and things we could find the different colours of the rainbow. Well now Robbie and Terry are about to set of, as entrepid explorers in the garden of their marriage to paint their garden with rainbow colours of love. The Talmud Lomar, The Talmud teaches us Matzah Isha Matzha Tov. He who find himself a wife, has found himself that which is truly of value in this life. Mazel Tov. I ask you all to rise and drink l'chaim to the happy colour. Le Chayyim."