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It's Movember. Why should men have all the fun? As Health24's women watched the scratchy downy growths developing on our menfolks' top lips, we've been looking for ways to show our solidarity. And so we each grew our own mo, sort of. They were so fantastic, the men in the Health24 team thought they, too, could fake it until they make out. Check out our gallery.
If you’re not already part of our Facebook family here's a challenge: join up, moustache up, upload your picture(s), and you could win one of the rewards we've got lined up for our favourite mo-moments.
Talking of Facebook, I've kind of got myself into trouble with social networking recently. See, I have much to do, and deadlines are pressing. What better time, then, to sort my tax file, bake a cake, cull some Facebook "friends" who lurk without interacting (very un"friend"ly), eat the cake, and put a Google Alert on my name so I'll know whenever "I" appear on the Net.
Work Avoidance Behaviour (WABbing) is a time-honoured coping mechanism. As every matric student knows at this time of year, there is little as fulfilling as preparing for exams by drawing up a complex schedule of when you're going to study what. And then, when it's time to start studying, tidying your desk.
I do think there's something to be said for ordering your desk and your mind, perhaps even for baking a cake (it's therapy). But there is no argument at all for Facebooking or Google Alerting when you've got work to do. So it serves me right to find out that the world is full of unsavoury Heather Parkers. Their activities now get delivered in groups of three and four to my inbox.
One, a former prison guard in Australia, is famous for having fallen in love with a prisoner and helping him escape. She made the news again for assaulting a love rival so severely she was hospitalised for six days. There's also a 19-year-old American Heather Parker on probation after having turned state witness in a case involving the murder of a homeless man; and another American namesake, a bus-driver, awaiting trial after having forgotten one of her charges, a four-year-old, on the school bus.
But the one who offends me most isn't a jail bunny: she describes herself thus on Twitter: "I am married and have 2 children. I smoke cigs and thats about it just ask me if u want 2 kno more".
Then the semi-literate smoking mom protects her tweets, indicating she fundamentally misunderstands the point of social media. It's deeply depressing to share a name with her.
May I recommend that when you have too much to do and too little time, you resist the urge to Google Alert yourself. You'll respect yourself more in the morning if you limit your self-abuse to growing facial hair and posting the image on our page.
Looking forward to it!
(Heather Parker, Health24, November)
