Infrequent musings of a meandering mind

A mishmashed perspective on freedom of speech, conservatism, and a suggestion for how to balance these contradictory philosophies. Never go full retard . A simple enough instruction to live by and one that neither begins nor ends with the headline dominating terrorist activities in France recent weeks. I haven’t extensively researched the matter; I followed the story, read a few opinion pieces and, of course, witnessed the social media explosion of opinions, feelings and rants. This post relates to the Charlie Hebdo-linked murders and the associated freedom of speech debate, along with comparisons between far right- and left-wing philosophies, which all have the same things in common: extremism, often coupled with a gross lack of tolerance. In my frequent moments of pondering, I often feel that a lack of tolerance is responsible for too many of the world’s ills. It seems that the old maxim of “everything in moderation” has given way to the prevailing sense of extremism in l...

If you’ve come to this page hoping to find information to fuel your conspiracy theories about “Big Pharma” and the “evil medical fraternity”, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. This blog is written by a pharmacist for other pharmacists and pharmacy personnel to make light of some of the issues that we have to deal with when we work in the retail pharmacy sector. But that’s not to say that a non-pharmacist would not to be able to appreciate some of the commentary below, in fact you might just learn something about the inner workings of the mind of your legal dealer and how to avoid annoying, upsetting or infuriating him or her in the future… or at least to minimise such reactions! To my friends and colleagues, I hope you’ll enjoy this posting as much as the last! Now, let’s go through a list of common occurrences which you probably experience regularly and, most likely, do not (externally) express your feelings and thoughts related to such occurrences. Schedule 4 creams ...

The sleepy town of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, is in mourning today. One of our former Miss PE winners passed on after battling injuries suffered during a head-on collision on Tuesday, 11 November 2014. Bianca wasn't just another beauty queen spewing clichés about world peace and ending poverty, she was a remarkable young woman. To use a cliché of my own, she had beauty and brains. But despite her obvious talents and intelligence, she was also humble, kind and motivated. Bianca and I both studied at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, I graduated in 2009 and she in 2010. As a student, I only knew some of the students in other years of the programme and didn't really develop a friendship with Bianca until later on. But she did make an impression on me when she was in her B. Pharm. final year. I was studying towards my M. Pharm. and was working part time for the pharmacy department, with my involvement being in their fourth year hospital programme. I acted as a coordi...

I salute retail pharmacists and pharmacist assistants. Full time pharmers. The ones who know how to bite their tongues, keep their hands occupied and suppress the urge to roll their eyes all the while moulding their facial features to an acceptable expression for the ever changing situations they deal with on a daily basis. My colleagues and friends who, as they read the following dramatization, will respond with a knowing smile, which is likely to be followed by a grimace when the realisation hits them that they’ll be due for a visit from their own “Mrs Williams” and “Mr Morris” in the next few days … A snap shot into the life of a retail pharmacist You call a medical aid for chronic medication authorisation only to be put on hold for twenty minutes. Upon finally hearing the voice of a living, breathing person after the seemingly endless replay of pre-recorded messages ( Please stay on the line, your call is important to us ) or tacky phone music, you feel indescribable relief…...

I am a control freak, I am a perfectionist and I have very strong opinions and feelings. This can make me a very difficult person to co-exist with as I’m very often quick to make judgements and can be extremely stubborn when my opinions are challenged. However, to contrast those aspects of myself, I am also very empathic, caring and often have internal struggles between the logical processes at work in my left brain and the strongly emotional responses in my right brain. As a result, although my logic would dictate that I should view something in a certain way, my empathy forces me to try to assume a different perspective so as to better reconcile the situation and create closure for all involved parties. A lack of closure disturbs me. Deeply. I recently learned that a lot of my eccentricities are due to my having the rarest personality type on the Myers Briggs Personality test (MBPI), that being the INFJ (introverted, intuitive, feeling, judging) personality. But this posting isn’t ab...

Most people would like to be able to brag about their job title. Given that many of us spend more of our waking hours slogging away at some or other form of work (in order to create revenue) than with our loved ones, it’s generally quite important to like that work. When you can’t say that you like your work, it’s at least pleasing to be able to throw a fancy sounding job title around when people enquire as to what you do, you know – to make you feel slightly less like a gear that helps to turn the wheel and more like the actual wheel. So a pizza delivery driver could say that he’s a “transportation specialist for edible resources of Italian origin”. I think that the latter sounds a bit more impressive. These extravagantly concocted titles make just about any normal job description sound, well, normal . Being a member of recognised profession is no longer sufficient for one to sound professional. In my case, I’m qualified as a pharmacist and when people ask me about my job, I say that ...