Things I want to do before the end of 2011

So the 21st of May 2011 came and gone and there was no rapture. No fireball hurling towards. No cracks appearing in the ground, swallowing people to the core. Now, I still believe that the people who came up with this ludicrous prophecy are a bunch of money hungry con men. But they did get me thinking. If the world really did end, what are the few things that I would regret never doing. Now I'm pretty sure the world won't end anytime soon. At least not before South Africa has internet that's fast enough that you don't have to wait for YouTube to buffer. But just in case, I thought I would make a list of stuff I want to do before 2011 comes to an end.

1. Do stand-up comedy

I've always loved performing and making people laugh. But only from last year did I actually think of trying stand-up. A famous comedian and radio personality had a competition for aspiring comics to tell a few jokes and then win a spot to be his opening act. Not thinking much about it I gave it a shot, and was one of the 4 finalists! Unfortunately I lost out to someone a lot better, but I still felt really proud. Ever since then I've had it in my head to do comedy at an open mic night. I've typed so much material I could do a 2 hour show but I guess that epic fear of failure is always there. You know, telling a joke and nobody laughs and all you hear is the sound of crickets? But before this year ends I'm going to give it a shot, no matter how hard I fail.

2. Win a Pendoring

For those of you who don't know a Pendoring looks a little something like this:

The Pendoring awards are given out for great advertising in Afrikaans. Now South Africa already have the Loerie advertising awards but I still firmly believe that winning a Pendoring is a much harder task. The reason is simple if you produce a great ad in English, it will be loved by any and all South Africans. But to create something in Afrikaans and grab the attention of Afrikaans people is a lot more difficult. Now the picture I posted is one I won as a student last year. But I'm the big bad ad industry now and would love nothing more than to win one of these for work done for my agency.

3. Rock a proper party

I've come to realise that how much stuff you start missing out on when you're life gets consumed by the pressure of work, performing at work and of course, the actual task of doing work. I can't think of the last time that I properly hung out with all my friends, have a few drinks with them and just enjoy good times, good drinks and proper conversation. But that's all about to change. I've got two parties in mind. The first one will be a proper Mad Men party. I reckoned having this on my birthday would be awesome. All the guys can rock the classic 50's suits as we sip on some whisky and light up cigars, while listening to Let's Twist Again. And the ladies can all kick it old school with the stylish stuff they used to wear in the 50's.

The second one will definitely have to be a good old Halloween party. Everybody can dress how they want, no matter how crazy. But the crazy costumes are a must.

4. Get something published

Yes I know, having a blog is some way of getting published. But I think any good writer worth his/her salt wants to get published in some sort of public media e.g. newspaper, magazine etc. I would love to see a piece of writing from myself published in either GQ, Playboy, Migrate magazine or any established newspaper. I just have so may short story ideas, and I plan to get them all on paper and then risk my hand at sending them to publications.

 
5. Take more photographs


I've always loved photos. There's something amazing about moments captured in time. Living in a great city like JHB gives me so much chance to take great photographs and before the end of the year I want to get myself either a proper digital camera like this bad boy:

or a crazy vintage Polaroid camera for those crazy moments where I just have to see the photo immediately.

So there's my list of things to do before the end of 2011. I reckon most of them are reachable. I just have to find or make time and make a proper effort to reach all of them in time. If you've got some crazy stuff you wanna do before 2012 comes along hit me with a comment.

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