What makes you tick?

I got a phone call from an anonymous reader last week. What makes you tick, she asks me. Of course I couldn't think of a single thing right then, but she got me thinking.

I eventually managed to compile quite a decent list, including milk tart, hot gossip, new places, office politics, deadlines, foreign accents, current affairs, word magicians, conversations after the second glass of wine, Karoo sunsets and hardegat men.

Top of the list, however, is simple ideas. There's just nothing that gets me as excited as an obvious solution to a big problem that can potentially make a huge difference to people's lives. Which is one of the reasons I (sometimes) love writing on technology. Every now and again a truly inspirational, proudly South African story slips through the cracks to make you feel that anything is possible.

Take Wizzit, the cellphone bank for poor people, as example. The Wizz-kids - the first cellphone bank in the world to specifically target the under- and unbanked poor market segments - don't bullshit about how bank fees can't be lowered to give more people access to banking. They're simply getting into their helicopter to reach rural people with cheap, affordable banking services. Which means in future the two girls I once gave a lift from Kroonstad to fetch money from their mother in Jozi, can simply get their monthly stipend deposited to their Wizzit account via sms.

My good news story for the week is a bit old, but still incredibly inspiring and has such great potential to make a difference that I simply have to share it. The South African Social Index (SASIX) has been going for about 7 months now, and has attracted a number of "blue chip NGOs" and "investments" of about R2,5 million.

SASIX works like a stock exchange. In stead of listing companies that complied to a whole list of requirements, they list NGOs and charities with ideas for sustainable projects that will have a measurable outcome. SASIX isn't interested in the Nelson Mandela Children's Funds of the NGO world, but get excited about rural, innovative, unknown projects where people really have no access to "social capital markets" (i.e. big corporates who spend some money to improve their reputations).

Whether animals, kids, HIV/Aids, the environment, entrepreneurship or education makes you tick, you can find a project to invest in. Shares cost R50 each. By investing in a Sasix-listed project, you know your money won't be wasted on admin, parties or politics - details on every project are available on the website and shareholders get regular feedback on progress with implementation & the eventual outcomes.

The Siyanakekele project in the Eastern Cape got me excited - check out www.sasix.co.za to see if anything turns you on.

Astronauts and deadlines

6 pm on a Thursday really isn't the time of the week for me to be playing around on the internet. For one, I have three stories to finish before I can go home. But you can't really blame me for finding the love triangle of two US astronauts and an Airforce pilot more interesting than Cell C's new target market or the politics at Sentech, can you?

Back to the astronauts. Should we really be wondering why a smart, successful woman like Lisa Nowak would want to put on adult diapers to drive halfway across the States for a "confrontation" with the other woman in her love triangle? I'd say no, but that's probably just because I've done many stupid things in the heat of the madly-in-love-moment.

In primary school, I spent hours and hours staring at a picture of T, a guy who was 3 years (!) younger than me and dated my best friend. (I thought he looked like Tom Cruise at the time; it really boosts my ego to tell you that 15 years on, he is overweight and not worth a second glance.)

I once drove 60 km in a car with hardly any breaks at 3 am to convince an ex to take me back. I spent R800 excluding VAT on a phone call from Singapore in the middle of the night. I've been to the gym at 7:30 on a Sunday morning to impress a guy I could hardly talk to. He wasn't a great kisser either, but of course when he dumped me, I went back to try and convince him otherwise. (Worrying trend, I agree.)

I've taken back boyfriends who cheated on me and broke my heart. I've taken one back twice, simply to get my heart broken twice. Of course I also broke some hearts. I've had two boyfriends at the same time. I've cheated on perfectly good guys. I've peeled potatoes and changed diapers to impress a boyfriend's mother. I've written poems, held picnics on traffic circles, climbed cellphone towers and mountains and even wore a horrible red dress in public once. And I'm blaming it all on being madly in love at the time.

Thankfully it can be justified. According to scientists at the University of Pisa, love and obsessive-compulsive disorder could have a similiar chemical profile. In a study they conducted, serotonin (a neurotransmitter that is altered by medication like Prozac) levels in lovesick couples and people with OCD were on average 40% higher than people who weren't suffering from matters of the mind or heart.

That, apparently, is supposed to explain why you'll phone someone a million times to hear someone's voice and then hang up as soon as he/she picks up the phone. And that's why anti-depressants can help you get over that powerless feeling of being madly in love, obsessing about one person for hours, analysing every word and smile and gesture.

Not that I'd like any Prozac in my anonymous Valentine's day flowers next week. I'm having a perfectly great time being powerlessly, madly in love.