A Peek At My Week! #102

ChristinaEngela

1 year ago

Hello, friends and fans!

Welcome to another “Peek At My Week”! Here’s a look at some of my latest news: May 21, 2023! Here are some things that happened this past week.

News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things

Let’s take a look at the current status quo on various ongoing issues affecting my writing or publishing:

Writing: This past week I spent some time writing new stories for the next volume of the Panic! Horror In Space series, including “Hunger” and “Memento Mori”. I’m currently busy writing one called “Nine Tenths Of The Law”.
Recently Published: Having published the three new titles in the Quantum Series: “Underground Movement“, book 7, Book 8, “Xanadu” and “The Last Hurrah” (book 9) on the 6th of May, I’m really looking forward to finding out what my readers think of the three new books – so hurry up and read them already!
What Readers Say: I’m not sure, I know I can’t please everybody (so I’m not trying to!) – drop me a line and let me know how you think I’m doing?
I thought it ran a bit slow

“But there was excitement and mystery to keep you interested. Good for a short story.” – Gwen Boseman, review for Opsaal on Audible, May 15, 2023.

Other Stuff:

Here’s a few of the other things that happened this past week:

The Sounds Of Violence

It seems there’s a new craze afoot. Back in the 90s there were these awful panpipe CD’s people used to play in their cars, you know, to torture their passengers with endless wall-to-wall covers of popular songs played on flat, monotone instruments with cheesy synth backing. They did this until they got sick of them, or the kids “lost” the CDs and everyone finally moved on.

Unfortunately a lot of restaurants found those CDs and still play them on Sundays.

20 years later, more or less, the same people – who seem to have still failed to develop a sense of musical taste – appear to have caught onto the same thing using a different instrument: bagpipes. I shit you not.

Don’t get me wrong – bagpipes have their place (preferably far, far away from my ears), but I doubt that even Algoa FM would play their Top 40 in bagpipe covers.

Good gods but the sound of bagpipes is awful. Soulless wailing, droning and screeching. It sounds like someone standing on a cat.

“The way you look tonight” by Chris de Burgh covered with bagpipes sounds truly bizarre. What’s worse is that I could actually recognize it. “My heart will go on” by Celine Dion was horrific and more torturous.

What’s next? The covers of popular songs using the xylophone? A digeridoo? Harmonica? The accordion? The possibilities are endless.

The Eastern Cape Department of Education – Fucked

In July 2015 I applied for a change of name on my matric certificate to reflect my correct name. In doing so, I had to surrender my original matric certificate to the application, which the office told me would be sent to Bisho. “Just check back with us in a few months” they told me.

I went back the next month, and the next to check, and was told they had no news for me, “just keep checking” I was told. And gradually my visits to “just keep checking” became less frequent and less regular, to the point where the last time I checked up on it was in 2020, shortly before the pandemic lockdowns hit us in South Africa.

Just last week I was thinking it’s been SEVEN FUCKING YEARS already, surely it’s been done by now – I ought to go and “just check” again – and the very same afternoon, I found a letter in my mailbox announcing that my newly updated certificate was waiting for me and I could go along to collect it. Was I ever surprised.

Today was the day – I went to the Dept. of Education offices and asked about my certificate, and the gentleman who helped me confessed: “I’m very sorry, I’m the one who sent you this letter, but the certificate you’re collecting is your old unaltered one.”

Was my application declined? I wondered. No, it wasn’t. Apparently the other day, this gentleman discovered a stack of UNSENT applications dating as far back as 2008 which WERE NEVER SENT AWAY. Where did he discover them? In a rubbish bin, while he was emptying his office waste basket.

I was handed my bundle of application forms – filled out in 2015, with my original certificate with my old name still attached. He suggested I visit their website and applied online. It’s been seven years and I’m already fifty, and at the time I was still hoping to study something – which is why I wanted a matric certificate that carried my correct name, so that I wouldn’t need to attach a dozen letters to explain my change of name, gender and ID number – so at this rate I’m unlikely to bother.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how far the rot has spread in our government service. This is how the department treats its administrative duties – too lazy to do a job? No problem – just moer it in a bin! It’s not as if we, the public, will do anything about it.

I have literally waited SEVEN YEARS for an outcome on this certificate, IN VAIN – while without my original matric certificate. This is the sort of unapologetically shit service the Department of Education unashamedly provides to the public and tax payer.

If not for the EXTRAORDINARY conscientiousness of this gentleman who took it upon himself to let me (and the other people in the pile) know to come and collect my certificate, the original would’ve been lost to me as well!

My heartfelt thanks to this gentleman – whose name I don’t know. At least I have my original certificate back, which is better than nothing. As for the Eastern Cape Dept of Education, I’d tell y’all to go and get fucked – but you clearly already are.

That’s all for this week!

As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments. And remember:

In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached 50 reader reviews yet! I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!