How cruel is....

…when I finally get a job interview with a company that I have been dying to work for, spent all night preparing for it, wake up the next day incredibly excited, do myself all up, arrive on time feeling confident and positive....

only to walk in the door and see the girl that tormented me for three years straight when I was in primary school...who has now worked her little biddy up to be the executive PA to the owners.

I spent three years from Grade 5 to Grade 7 being this girl's punching bag and she relentlessly picked on me for EVERYTHING from the shape of my body to my intelligence to my family. Looking back I realise the bullying was borderline sexual harrassment. I went into puberty very early, I started developing breasts at nine and I got my first period a week before my eleventh birthday. I went to a small private school where there was some hormonal freak show happening: not only was I developing early but the rest of the girls in my grade were late developers. Seriously, by age twelve pretty much every single one of the 22 girls in my grade still had a flat chest and that was like, soooo cool. The way they treated me you would have sworn that I was the only girl in the history of planet earth to sprout a pair of boobs. Never mind that they were all heading the same way in the boob department they were all disgusted (that is the best way I can describe it) by my boobs.

Although the boys took part in some of the teasing it was mostly the girls and it was relentless. When I was eleven I got at most two or three hours of sleep at night because I would lie awake with my stomach full of knots knowing that day after day I would have to go back into the "boxing ring" where I was called endless amounts of names, have songs made up about me, have to deal with being held down while someone would attempt to open the front part of my uniform. I would throw up before swimming lessons because I knew that my swimming costume would show up everything I was trying to hide. And then there was the dilemma of actually changing into said swimming costume. The teachers would not allow me to change in the bathroom stalls, no I had to change in front of everybody else because, "If you don't hide it, they won't tease you about it". What idiots.. That just meant that they would take my tog bag and throw it out the window so I couldn't change back into my clothes, or they would take my bra and throw it to each other in some sadistic game of piggy-in- the- middle. I would get my skirt lifted up to see if I was wearing a sanitary pad and I would get hit and punched in the chest.

If this all wasn't bad enough I had a learning disability, all my life and even now that I am at university I have had to work my butt off just to get a mediocre C aggregate. My family was poor- my parents broke their backs to put us through that school so we didn't have the Mercs or the BMW's or live in big fancy houses. I had very few clothes all cheap and crappy stationary for school.

This girl... let's call "F", she was the school's superstar. She was the class boffin, she was one of the top gymnasts in our province and was in numerous sports teams. She was from a wealthy family who owned an apple farm outside of town. Her parents had nice cars, she had a wardrobe stacked full of the best clothes and she travelled the world with her family. Her mother was also on the board of directors at the school and knew everything about my unstable, dysfunctional family and our financial troubles ( at one point my sister and I had to be given a bursary because our parents could not pay the school fees).

So F was pretty much the ring leader in that whole sordid mess. She treated me like I was a disease. She found joy in describing my body in the most disgusting ways, she mocked me when I struggled to do the same Maths sums that she flew through. And she would inform my classmates of the embarrassing details of my family- her mother was a nice well- meaning lady but a real ditz, as I can only think she let F know those details accidently.

F and I went to different high schools and I would see her occasionally. When I left South Africa in 2004 one of the things I took comfort in is that I would never have to see F again. I last heard she went to university and then became a steward for a private yacht company. Of all the bloody companies in South Africa that she had to work for, she had to choose this one. When I walked into that office and saw her all the air left my lungs and my face became like fire. It's been 15 years, I am 28 now have been through so much, have achieved so much and am a completely different person. But the minute I saw F I felt like an eleven year old little girl again. She gave me a fleeting glance took a look at my C.V/ Resume like it was chewing gum and floated to the back of the office. I stumbled my way through the interview.

Seriously, this is not supposed to happen!. What I have heard happening to everyone else- they get bullied at school by the cheerleader or football captain. They go on and turn out to be beautiful and hot, earn a tone of money and then come across their nemesis 20 years later either a broke divorced mother of three or a used car salesman who had to drop out of university. But F is still coming out tops even to this day. While I am still struggling. Her bullying me was never dealt with directly. I mean come on...her mother was on the board of directors, she was the schools poster child. My mother believed that I needed to fight my own battles and that what was happening to me was a part of growing up ( she now regrets this ) but when she did finally get involved the class was given a talking to by the teacher and told that if anyone else picked on me they would be sent to the principal. F never had to answer for what she did.

And what’s worse is that she probably doesn't remember any of this now. It is not affecting her at all. And I can't hold something against her that happened when she was still a child and didn't know any better.

If I do somehow miraculously get this job I am going to have to once again face her every single day. If I don't get this job, well she'll just continue to think that I am a looser. And right now I really do feel like one.

7/7

On July 7th, 2005 I left my flat in Southfeilds, in the south of London and took the tube to my work in Kensignton. It was a typical day, with me wishing that it was weekend because as usual I had gone to bed so late the night before. I had been living in England for just over a year and was loving it. I used to work to walk quite often, mostly because I loved being out in central London so much. But it took me two hours to get to work that way and owing to the fact that I was exhausted that morning I took the train a little late.

I can't remember much about that morning but when I look back now I remember feeling rather unsettled sitting at my desk and not knowing why. It was so quite. Too quite. An hour and a half after I arrived the phone rang and it was one of the psychotherapists at the practice where I worked asking to speak to my boss. "Have you heard whats happened?" he asked. I had no idea. "There are bombs going off on the Underground" he said casually...so casually that I actually thought he was joking. He actually starting laughing and then told me to tell my boss that they were shutting down central London and he was not able to get in so he was going to start walking home. I sat at my desk shell shocked after that call not sure what to do, still not quite believing what I had heard.

The phone rang about three minutes later, just has I had noticed I had 6 text messages on my cellphone. It was my grandmother's cousin who lived in Wimbledon, frantic wanting to know if I was alright. She told me that three bombs had exploded on three different Underground trains, one of them was on the train line where I worked. Knowing my Mom would freak out as soon as she heard the news I asked her to phone my parents in South Africa and let them know I was alright. The rest of day was spent frantically trying to contact friends around the city, which was difficult as they had shut down the cellular network in central London. All public transport was suspended and later that day there was a sight most likely never to be seen again. Millions of people walking the streets to get home. By the time my boss let me go home the streets were empty and deathly silent- there were no cars or people. I knew the way home from walking to and fro to work but was I terrified walking that night. I eventually got home at 10pm to three relieved housemates.

Terrorism to me was something that seemed to only be exclusively on T.V. It never seemed to be real, something that always happened in a country worlds away. I had watched as an 18- year old in numb disbelief as those planes had hit the Twin Towers could not comprehend how a person could actually do that.  For the first time that day, the monster that had been trapped in a television set touched my life and became very, very real. The real weapon that terrorism uses is fear, panic and confusion that normally hits in it's aftermath making the world angrier and more dangerous.

Today is the 7th anniversary of the London bombings. Seven years ago today four very misguided young men stepped onto London's public transport, which services over a million people a day, and took their lives and those of 52 other people when they detonated explosives strapped to their bodies. 700 hundred more people were injured. In the days that followed a shadow was cast over the country. It was almost like a sort of universal trust had been broken. In time everyone recovered from their shock and anger. But things were never the same again.

I have often found it odd, especially since deciding to follow God again, how people can commit the most horrible atrocities against mankind all in the name of something that in my opinion that is all about love. I personally feel that God is all about life. He speaks life onto us. His command is love. Yet somehow people use God to kill and control other people. They project their own selfish desires onto God and make it all about Him when it's actually all about them.

From what I know about Islam it has to be one of the most peaceful and honorable religions out there. Some of the greatest people I have ever known have been Muslim. We once had a Islamic landlord who let my family stay rent- free in our house for months after my Dad had his heart attack and my mother became unemployed because his way of honoring his God was to shelter us. Because of a handful of extremists shame has been cast onto millions of other peaceful Muslims.

Like I said before, terrorism's greatest weapon is fear. Fear does terrible things to people and is even more dangerous when it affects people on a mass scale. One of the characters in Starwars said that fear eventually leads to hatred. An emotional cancer. This is so true, I think most of you will agree with me that 9/11 changed the world and we are now more afraid and more angry. It has taken away a piece of our freedom. Some of us will never be able to fly without the niggling feeling of, "Will I make it?". Some of us now insist upon living behind ridiculously high wall for protection. People are afraid to go outside because of "What if?. I know plenty of people that will not completely trust someone because they are

What can we do to change this? I have no idea except for the way that I reacted after the London bombings. The day after, I got back on the tube and went to work. I was one just six people in that carriage. Normally it's packed. We had to stop in the middle of a tunnel for five minutes which got me a little unnerved and I asked a guy sitting further away if I could sit with him, eventually all six of us were sitting together. I can't exactly say it was the most pleasant journey of my life. But I made it to work that morning, one of the very few people in London that did. The second time I got on the train it was easier and the third time...

So my answer would be learn from the experience, never forget but to move on. Yes those people have got us afraid but don't give in to it or you will be doing exactly want they want you to do. Don't be prejudiced and distrustful toward someone because they are part of a religion that happens to have a few extremists. Don't listen to the "What ifs". Don't hide behind walls. You don't have to change the world but you can make a difference to your small corner. That is the only way to win this war. That way your children will not inherit a world of hatred .

RIP 07/07/2005