Tom Brown
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I have 273 stories published in
24 collections on the site.
My stories have been read 401462 times
and 18 of my stories have been cherry picked.
442 of my 3,038 comments have been voted Great Feedback with a total of 445 votes
Born South-African, I went to a dual medium primary school and Afrikaans high school, NG Church mostly and sunday school Methodist. At school achieved top positions in science and mathematics olympiads, after as well completing two years of engineering studies with very good results but I did not graduate, I had to stop due to mental health problems.
Graduating under WK Bartoszek at Unisa, MSc (1997) and Pretoria University, Niko Sauer PhD (2006), formal interests were to be in abstract analysis and broadly in applied mathematics. All of my qualifications were with honours.
I had permanent teaching positions at Unisa and at Wits, however since not having been academically active, and as such absent from formal academic research for very long now, years. Advanced study and research was in Markov operators and stochastic processes; vector valued Laplace transforms applied to semigroups and families of evolution equations (Empathies).
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Unfortunately I have had a history of medical treatment for psychiatric illness with diagnosis of a bipolar mood disorder.
It was very fortunate in that my condition responded very well to medicine it helps if you cooperate and comply, if not, you don't have much of a chance. Also I am totally abstinent from alcohol and other mood altering substances for great many years, it did not accord with my constitution at all. As a chain smoker I also managed to kick the habit, more than a decade smoke-free now, by the Grace of God.
I have always been able to function completely normal and independently in society my isolation was not because of my own doing it was due to circumstances, and has just been getting stricter I seem to have almost no contact outside, save only for AbcTales. My saving grace.
I am totally isolated and financially barely getting by.
Although I am still studying mathematics and applications, more popular accessible kind of work, while interested and looking forward to hopefully be active in research or industry again.
God is in the details of the details. God is in the timing of the timing.
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Apart from studies in the natural sciences I am interested in languages and literature in general as well as religion. In high school I majored in German also, and Biology, in the meanwhile I have taught myself French, well enough to read (with a bit of difficulty).
Lately I have been writing more popular general interest essays and also trying for a bit of balance with mathematics and while keeping things understandable for most people.
Thus not involved at all with any social media, and having time for writing, leisure, watching movies, reading fiction, classics mostly, poetry and music. I miss my friends, and would really love getting outdoors and in nature more.
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Favourite authors are Jules Verne, HG Wells and Jack London, Shakespeare and poets William Blake and Dylan Thomas. I like adventure, science fiction and fantasy movies my all time greatest are the Narnia stories and the Lord of the Rings.
The meal best enjoyed is a breakfast of bacon eggs on toast fried chips with fresh orange juice, and for supper an ox-tail stew. I like eating out romantic. For recreation nature hikes, camping and fishing, listening to good music and reading, classics mostly, and good movies. I love dogs my best one was a Maltese poodle Freddy.
I love rain and lightning thunderstorms and rainbows. As well as writing and publishing here on AbcTales.
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These are my stories!
Keep your feet on the ground and reach for the Stars!




Sala kahle!
Posted on Sat, 10 Nov 2018
“Sala kahle” is a Zulu greeting for goodbye. It says “stay well”. For “go well” the greeting is “hamba kahle!”
I gave an attempted phonetic English spelling. I am learning isiZulu it's going slowly but steadily. I find it very difficult....
Read full commentPosted in In That Moment
Sounds good!
Posted on Thu, 15 Nov 2018
Sounds good! We don't ever get snow here in South-Africa. Never. Most of us haven't even ever seen snow. Only when it's terribly cold sometimes it snows on the mountains. The Cape mountains and the Drakensberg. There in the northern hemishere is...
Read full commentPosted in LET THE SEASONS
It sounds like a fairy tale
Posted on Tue, 13 Nov 2018
It sounds like a fairy tale. It's good to hear of a success story but there must be a lot give-and-take. Not all moonshine and roses hey!? Do you have other kids Richard?
Keep well! Tom Brown
Read full commentPosted in IT WAS A NIGHT
Two men look through
Posted on Sat, 03 Nov 2018
Two men look through the same bars, the one sees the mud, the other the stars.
Read full commentPosted in WHAT I SEE
I know how it feels-
Posted on Wed, 24 Oct 2018
I know how it feels-
Read full commentPosted in Weep Till Forever
Excellent!
Posted on Thu, 25 Oct 2018
Excellent! Enjoyed! Your poem reminds me of Narnia of the scene with Lucy with the falling leaves in Prince Caspian. A sense of wonder.
Read full commentPosted in An Autumn of Leaves
Just beautiful
Posted on Thu, 18 Oct 2018
Just beautiful. To me yellow is faithfulness, gold is noble and eternal. Your others could be, the colour blue serenity and peace perhaps, and red would be love.
Good! Tom Brown
Read full commentPosted in Colours
A beautiful little poem, sometimes I wish I had
Posted on Wed, 17 Oct 2018
A beautiful little poem, sometimes I wish I had children especially small children steal one's heart. Do you have? In the end thrown into the world they too must make their own way, fight their own fights, take their own chances. Without choice...
Read full commentPosted in Parenthood
Good!
Posted on Thu, 30 Aug 2018
Good!
Read full commentPosted in I WANT TO DANCE
Bob Dylan probably took his
Posted on Wed, 28 Feb 2018
Bob Dylan probably took his name from Dylan Thomas but that's another story. Or in other words indeed, this is the story, knocking on heaven's door.
Sorry I couldn't resist. Cheers James
Read full commentPosted in gently into the Dream
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