Archives for category: interwebs

I’ve been stewing over this for a week, with only one or two people to really talk to about it wishing I could get it off my chest over and over again. Then I remembered I have a blog. HA! I need to remember the catharsis that comes along with getting all these thoughts out onto my keyboard.

A few nights ago, a new 2nd-4th cousin match popped up on my FTDNA list. He took rank as now my 3rd closest match on there, right on the first page. This was the first time I had gotten a new first page match since 2014, so you can imagine my excitement. After some sleuthing, I figured out that this person was an 18 year old from Australia. We corresponded a little- nothing too in depth, but it was good to see that he replied when contacted. That night I had a very vivid dream about finding my father. I don’t remember meeting him in the dream, but seeing a name and then collapsing in sobs, overwhelmed with emotion (which is probably how it will go when the time comes). As I woke up, I grabbed my phone with my eyes barely open and did my usual check of my email, instagram, facebook, etc. I was greeted with a facebook message from just moments earlier. My cousin in Israel told me to not get my hopes up, but he had another potential “match” he had just ordered a kit for. He also said the wait might be longer given that the person in question lives in Australia.

!!!!

I can’t help but feel a little hopeful. My search had felt somewhat bleak after the last lead ended up to be a dead end. I knew I was back to the brain numbing waiting game yet again, and quite frankly it bummed me out a bit. I remain hopeful, but I remember how sad my mother was when she found her father only months after he passed away. Knowing that this person likely has a good decade or so on my mom, I am understandably nervous about this guy being dead by the time I find him. Hopefully he stopped living the fast life some time in the late 80’s like many did, calmed his ass down and is now living one of health conscious self preservation. One can hope.

So hopefully I’ll have good news to report in the next 8-12 weeks, maybe the end to my search, maybe just narrowing down another avenue. Either way it’s progress, either through completion or through elimination. I’ll again remain cautiously optimistic and neurotically checking my matches each day. Every day advocating for the miracle of autosomal DNA testing and what it can mean to yourself and others.  Each test, each connection being one additional fiber in an immense network of information paving the way to answers for those of us that seek them desperately.

It’s no secret that I’m a shameless online shopper and have become a fan of daily deal sites- namely Groupon and LivingSocial. Other than those two I’ve kind of snubbed my nose at all the knockoffs. I mean- c’mon… get your own idea, right?

A friend pointed out a new daily deal site that actually has an original concept. I’ll let you go read about how it’s different, but I have a feeling it’s going to really take off. It doesn’t officially launch for a week or two, so I’m excited to see what kind of deals they put up. If you sign up (don’t worry, it’s totally free) be sure to use this link below so we both get credit :)

http://www.moolala.com/r/3R9LJZU

If you haven’t heard of Die Antwoord, you probably will. Well, technically you just did. This is a rap group from South Africa that MF and I have been in to for a few months now. Their most recent video is catching some major momentum on the interwebs, and rightfully so. I remember the first thing I saw of them was MF nudging me with his laptop saying “hey, get a load of these guys” and showing me this here (NSFW) video-

My first reaction was to laugh my ass off and question if these guys were for real. They are.

Their newest video, Evil Boy, is really catching on. I was stoked to hear it when it came out, because we had pretty much exhausted our ipods with all their old stuff. The song itself is a super catchy hip hop song, but then I found out there was a lot more to it.

A comment from when boingboing.net posted this video paraphrases the story behind Evil Boy pretty well:

by Xeni Jardin:
So, the story behind this video and song (or part of the story — there’s so much going on!) is that Wanga felt that he was being coerced into a form of ritual circumcision by his community. It’s sort of taken for granted within his ethnic group that you must do this, so much so that if you are a young man and you do not participate, you are ostracized, as the band explained to me.

The thinking, and this is communicated very directly to the young men, is that if you don’t participate, you’re gay. You’re effeminate. You’re not a real man. You never mature from being a boy to being a man.

He struggled with all of this in real life: with what it meant for his personal and cultural identity. And he came to a point where he was like, you know what? Fuck you all. The fact that I won’t consent to having my penis sliced with an unsterilized knife, out in the bush, and risk infection or worse– that doesn’t mean “I’m gay,” as you say. I reject this tradition. If that’s what being a man is, fuck it, I don’t want to be a man. I’ll be an “evil boy for life,” even if it means I am ostracized from my community.

One can only wonder if now that this tradition has been brought to the light of mainstream culture, more young Xhosa men stand up for themselves if they don’t want to endure this ritual.

And there I was just thinking it was just a bunch of dudes wagging their peens around.