When boredom builds creativity

Its OK to get bored. I think it builds creativity. Most of our best ideas come when we are slightly bored. I once thought  i would learn how to swim. What i should have realized is that water and i were not  naturally compatible. now we are better acquainted... its the same boredom that led to me shaving my hair, no, that was fun! Today my time is spent wondering why it is so hard for us to transfer knowledge yet there are so many efficient methods for doing so. i mean, if you use one method for 5yrs and it gives the same results: low scores, isn't it logical to ...say, try another method. You know, get bored with it!

How to be successful

its important to follow instructions. most of the activities done successfully root from following instructions. sure you may ask why, nothing is wrong with that, but when you fail to follow a simple directive, there is more often than not a risk that the activity will not be as successful as it probably would have been had you done what you were told.

such passion...such drive...

Holidaying at the Mountain...

I had a wonderful holiday, yet for one reason or the other I have been having trouble putting it in words. There was the mountain climbing or so we called it. well what would you call going up the mountain if not climbing it? We were the only climbers who had among their objectives to see the fish. Yes, Fish! on Mt.Kenya. People travel from continents far away to climb this marvelous mountain and I can bet u a gum that they probably dont know that there is fish on the mountain....

Wait, am getting ahead of myself. This was a trip planned meticulously well by my lovely sister Mu. It was for
Cadi's birthday promised years back. We travelled the previous day to chogoria and spent the night there since we intended to use the chogoria gate to the mountain. At dawn of the next day we got into an ancient looking land rover and began our journey to the gate. What the guide had failed to mention is that, there wasnt exactly a road to the gate, it was more of a path made by many vehicles insisting on passing there. What I mean is potholes were the least of our worries..whatever there was..gulleys were more like it. So we tried to drive up, I say tried because we walked most of the way. But the road trip to the gate is a story for another day.

Once at the mountain gate,  we took fotos and saw a lone elephant. It was satisfying just to make it there. Our objective however was to visit the lake. And the trecking began, the kids seemed to be running on battery. They went ahead with the guide and we followed closely behind. After hours of walking our energies dropped and we started thinking that maybe our lake idea was say, ambitious. That's when Mu mentioned the fisheries.  So we went over our objectives and decided to make them SMART in every way, more so the achievable part! No, we couldnt achieve walking to the lake but we could very easily reach the fisheries and just like that our goal changed..hahahahhahaa..Pontential CEO's my sisters are!!

Later we took crazy fotos which I look forward to seeing on our family site soon!

Big up baba toni and ceri!!

after the long wait..

staying for so long without posting something is getting on my nerves. Believe me its not for a lack of material. I however like to sort of put things in a perspective..theme if u like and what i have now falls into different categories. My holiday was amazing i need to write about that. the visit from the american and ofcourse life as we experience it in the land of hope!

i never got the interview with daktari, but i am learning that each conversation with him should be taken as an interview unless otherwise stated. so soon..

and yes, u see i have kept my word to write nothing when i have nothing to write (really wish i had a smily face there!).

student life

How do I put this? the challenges faced by students. From the early years when a child begins their pupil life, they are faced with difficulties, raising from the change in environment, routine, language and even interaction styles. At home, the child is mostly at the centre of things however at school there are hundreds of them and just a handful of teachers. This makes the child feel invisible. Dressing in the same clothes everyday does not always sit well with these youngsters.

In high-school, all hell breaks loose, and that is putting it lightly. The increased academic workload coupled with hormonal changes may drive the students to behave irrationally. Each day is a struggle to remain sane.

 College life is just that..it means different things to different people. But one thing is for sure, its the one time you are broke and not bothered by it.

On Her Wedding Day

She walks to the altar and the priest asks what do u fear.?
She whispers, I fear not today for I am happy today. I fear though that I am marrying an animal; wounded in pain and has lost all confidence, whose paws are thorned and bleeding, shaven, broken but a beast nonetheless.
I fear that I will bath and nurse him, pull out the thorns and bandage his wounds, brush his mane of glory, feed him, sharpen his claws with my bare hands. Give him teeth where he has none, hustle and toil, pay his debts, tire my body and spirit while he regains his strength.
Then one day he will stand, shake his body and raise his paws against me and roar."I am in charge, you are lesser than me..everything you own is mine, you are mine!"
I fear I will not be surprised, I knew he was a beast after all.

Company...

I realise that earlier i had said that if I have nothing to write then I will write nothing. However for the past three weeks I have not written, not because I had nothing to write,no, the reason is that I had too much on my mind. Everything I wrote seemed to lack objectivity..it was more driven by the emotions of the day. Therefore I decided against publishing any of it. Now things seem to be gaining perspective, slowly but surely the content of my thoughts is regaining its form.

During my trials I made two observations about company. By this I mean the people you have around you. A lot has been written about the company we keep as human being, what most people do not realize is that it is not always by choice. Some people are forced upon you by unavoidable circumstances. That is one thing. The other is that these people can influence your way of thinking to the extent of altering your perception about the world. Yeah the "world" is too general, say altering your perception about life and the daily struggles.

I have found myself working very odd hours, night hours to be more specific. This limits social contact with people of my choice. I am thereby forced to interact daily with the people whom I am working with. As for them influencing me...No. I have made it my business to keep sharp my thoughts, hold on to my values and be consciously  aware of changes in my perception. This I do by regularly going home and sharing my latest* yes latest as ave been told I bubble with ideas, and evaluating their feedback.

I believe that we should at least have the luxury of choosing the company we keep.

The story of Faith

If this story had been told to me by my mother,
perhaps i would have listened... 
If it had been told to me by my fore fathers perhaps i would have heard, 
but to hear it on my own,
 from my age groups chatter.
I none but fail to believe, yet, i live by it. 
I suffer from the truths of the tale.
Have I learnt nothing yet?


To read is to learn
to learn is to live
one must believe in something
one must have faith in someone
a great being, perhaps a prophet, a god, God All mighty..
but to beleive one must learn to
learn from a teacher by whom truths of faith he liveth by
if she/he falls to the wayside, if he slides and lives in drunkardness of noise, abuse, power and disrespect
you, the subjects are sure to fall into doubt
questioning the faith that governs the teacher.
Learning nothing.


But the story of faith is not about the teacher
its about the believer
receiver of the word
 the ground upon which the seed is sowed
the soul
your faith is yours and yours alone
Have you learnt nothing yet?

Nes and Daktari....

Last week we had an interesting visit from our nephews from meru. They are a bunch and a half. Twin boys, nes and daktari and a sister, the beauty. In the evening there is always time set aside for prayers. so that time came, cucu and babu were leading the songs..in our language 'almighty' translates to big which is the direct translation of one of the twins names...nes. So you can imagine how excited the brother was...aaaahhh  nes they are singing about you! The twins later decided that there should be a song for every one... the grandparents were in quite a pickle. Time for the rosary came, and after being reminded the locations of 'The Father, Son and Holy spirit'     ( which was a sight....!) they went on to recite hail Mary in swahili, repeating after the cucu...nes declared that "Yesu mzao wa tumbo yako yote! amebarikiwa.  It was all we could do to avoid bursting into laughter, everyone replied as calmly as we possibly could. Daktari later added " amebarikiwa sana"...aha. Just when we thought the drama had ceased, Cadi who never dissappoints, recited his hail Mary in latin! yes latin. oh how i wish i had a camera....the look on our faces! ...Precious moments.

reading the Bible

It is still the most intriguing thing to do...to read the Bible. 

Happy Easter

Recently I have found myself with nothing to write, things happening around me are just not that interesting. However I want to wish everyone a lovely Easter. Let us reflect on our lives and change for the better.
God Bless.

the curse of being average...

To exist in the middle...to be average is to be invisible. Authorities the world over are concerned about those who are doing poorly, seeking ways to improve their existence and those doing exceptionally well are encourage for they are beneficial to their interests. Yet there are those who exist in the middle, stuck not too low or too high for anyone to notice. what about them...?

the sun shines in the land of hope..

         

















The short rains expected in march have failed, this has left us crossing our fingers for the April rains...we need a miracle here in the land of hope.

of studies and academic friends...

It's 3am and the lights now look yellow, you have gone through the handout 3 times, the text now look alien, you have underlined with a red pen, highlighted with a green pen, taken side notes with a blue one, and now you are searching your pouch for the black one...in search of clarity. You are stuck and you know it!.

Then you get a text from your classmate on the issue, and just like that everything plays back and it all makes sense. This is an academic friend. This are the people who sort you out when no one else can, not your family or significant other. It is with them that you keep the coffee pot boiling and pull all nighters and then some.

If you observe university students, they always seem to be happy to see each other, the sharing of minds and scholarly troubles creates a warm and close relationship between them. A platonic yet powerful bond is formed. These are the friends whom you have no trouble telling that you have no idea what the unit is about..yet its mid-semester, because you know they will help you catch up. Valuable, this people...and rare too.

I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for all my academic friends.  Those who have pushed me to do better, to toughen my arguments and achieve as much as I have. Through them I have come to appreciate the power of support!

classroom curiousity...

In class you always have a variety of characters. Students who are as different as they are many. you might find in your class a student who like to frown. Yes to frown. For no good reason they just push their brows together and stare at the board, you would be forgiven for thinking that aliens are growing from the wall. When i ask then what seems to be the problem is they just go silent for a while then an ohh I got it now is given.

however i prefer those  any day over the curious bunch. Last week while we were discussing rotation, a point on direction of rotation came up and clockwise was given as the negative direction and vise versa. There was a murmur among the curious bunch... then hand up so why is anticlockwise positive and clockwise negative ? my first instinct was to ask them why is '+' addition and '-' subtraction...but that would have been in bad taste, therefore i took a protractor and explained that the degrees increase from 0 to 180 in the anticlockwise direction hence positive direction..

Turning point...

There comes a time in every mans life..ha ha that sentence sounds so cool. Anyway, there comes a time in every woman's life when they have to make hard decisions. Decisions that will affect their life for the better part of 1 year. well because if things go bad you can always make another decision to stop or change things . Such a time has come for me. I am faced with a multifaceted problem to which i must find a multipronged strategy to solve it. This is because one solution may lead to a loss in opportunity that I may not recover from easily and deprive me of much needed socializing. While the other solves a long standing problem...this are the times i ask for divine mercy and wisdom.

ideas...

for the last 5 days my internet connection has been down, i couldnt access my  mails or anything..tough luck. however this gave me time to reflect, its almost 3 months now since i  began blogging and this needs to be celebrated. I am hoping to get a chance to interview Dactari  (Dr. Kiarie) and share the interview with you guys as a treat. so if there is a question uve been wanting to ask...now is the time. wish me luck.

Back to business..

^{Recently I have been having my ideas pounded by the most unlikely people. I happened to share the idea of sewing with a seemingly poor fellow and they told me that they wouldn’t sew even if it was the last thing on earth. it was her opinion that if you want to tie down a woman buy her a sewing machine! she will sit there like a cow; sewing, eating and going to the loo!! ( translate that to kiuk..)}

^{I enjoy teaching and anyway education is not the worst field to pursue but apparently everyone else thinks that it is. So far I haven’t met with anyone who speaks positively about teaching ( except my father ofcourse..). Not even the teachers themselves. Now am wondering is it them or are the ideas I have just so out there..}

makangas

i actually wanted to write more earlier but the only thing that came to my mind is whats up with these makangas... the touts are so beyond any human characteristic that you can think of; rude, time wasters, noisemakers and they have very little regard for their passengers. they refer to a client as a 20 or 50 or whichever amount you are going to pay them. they at times refuse to stop the vehicle at a stage to pick passengers if they suspect those passengers are only 20s or mbaos as they like to call them...this way of thinking never benefits anyone, they are living proof that such methods do not work, otherwise they would be wealthy by now!  seriously...

whats up with makangas..?

Stop working so hard...ur making us look bad.

I hate beating around the bush, but sometimes the bush needs to be beaten. There are so many lazy crooks lurking behind this bushes waiting to pounce on unsuspecting public. 

Recently there has been debate on ethnic balancing which to me is being carried out as a camouflaged plan for anything but.  A survey was done that showed that 6 major tribes dominate student population and jobs at university level…Yes, rain is falling water. Thank you for stating the obvious. They went ahead to report in the press that lecturers who are from the same region as the university should  probably be posted to far off places, to avoid ‘one community’ dominating jobs in that institution. What!?

Whoever did this study….am wondering, did they by any chance find out how difficult it is to get a job in a university as a lecturer? There are so many requirements, you must have a degree, no, wait a  masters degree and or be a PhD student. It is so difficult to get a degree in Kenya; first the cut off marks for public university are inhibitive, the cost of alternative degree programs is disabling to say the least and it takes a minimum of 4 years to graduate with a first degree, through at least 56 painful units!

This so called “dominating tribes” work themselves to the bone from the wee hours of the morning to late in the night. Just to afford their school fees and upkeep for their family. There are no handouts given to them, yet all the while they are accused of loving money and working too hard yet we all die…yeah that.!

Yes we have 50 or so tribes to them I say…”Go To School” and if you are just realizing it now ‘Education is expensive business’!

I think ave gotten that bush cleared.

Early childhood education...my take

In our Kenyan setting, Early Childhood Education is still on shaky grounds. Educators claim to be working toward making our children literate. However I feel strongly that we are going about it in the wrong way. What they end up doing is forced speech and alphabetization with no regard to the child’s background.

When a child is born, the home is the first school he/she attends. The child learns to walk and talk to themselves and others. They develop self confidence and gain curiosity about their environment. The child’s caretaker acts as their first teacher. This young learner gains confidence and becomes fluent in their mother tongue. They are able to identify in their mother tongue ‘mother’ ‘father’, ‘chair’, ‘tree’, ‘fruit’ among other things in their environment. They are taught how to read and write their names in English with their mother tongue being used as the language of instruction. This child is literate!

Then the child is taken to nursery school and is reduced to dumbness, by being addressed to and forced to speak in an alien language, in our case English. For a four year old child the move from home to school is stressful enough. You cannot begin to imagine what that child is going through when they can no longer communicate. They are reduced to ‘infants’ whose only recourse is to cry when in need. This is traumatizing for the young learner. A once bubbly and bright child becomes dull and withdrawn. They are forced to relearn ‘mother’ ’father’ ’fruit’ ’chair’ and everything they knew about  their environment in English.

Clearly there is need for a re-birth of methodology and our approach to Early Childhood Education in our country.

Under the mulberry tree...

        Some of the greatest lessons I have learnt in life have been under the mulberry tree. Yes the mulberry tree not a mulberry tree. This is because I am referring to a specific tree outside our house. It was there I learnt that eating too many berries will give you an upset stomach, how to climb a tree and how it feels to fall from one.

          Last Sunday my sister and I went home for a visit and found my dad and big brother under that tree. The afternoon was so hot; it was like being in an oven. The only cool place was under the mulberry tree. Here I got to listen to my dads thoughts on the future of education. He was particularly concerned with the trend of wastage in our secondary schools. Later we said the rosary together. It got rather interesting when kalie my nephew who is very shy was asked to say his 10 hailmary’s. His Swahili is a special one, he speaks through his nose and he has a tendency to swallow up some words. However he soldiered through them with the help of Guka (grandad). That marked the beginning of my week, quite nice if I do say so myself…under the mulberry tree.

something sweet...

Teach me how to roll
am always in the mood


Couldn't take the road
I want'd to see the moon


Won't you, won't you tell me
tell me, tell me something
something something sweet


Then teach me how to sing
ad love to hear my ring.


My ears need sound thats pleasing 
ring ring to the beat


won't you, won't you tell me
tell me, tell me something
something something sweet


Whisper in my ear
till there is nothing to fear


listening to my stories 
to all of  my ideas


raise me to the sky
so I won't be shy


Then won't you, won't you tell me
tell me, tell me something
something , something sweet.

what i write on

Ave been told that I only write on tough issues, that I can't bring in a light topic with the same vigor. I disagree. However given the difficulty this paragraph is giving me to write..haha maybe I have a tiny bit of a problem writing if am not commenting on or trying to start an argument on a sensitive issue. For example why is it that the girls only perform well in English and loose in mathematics to boys with 0.0001 mark. Statistically that difference is negligible. Yet it is put there to maintain the lie that girls are weaker in maths than boys. This has been disputed by various researchers, its all about a learner’s individual ability and then some...I'll try again next time.

Transport in the land of hope...

its been a year since i left this place, i returned in January this year only to find things just as they were if not worse. The road still has potholes the size of a wheel barrow every 5 meters. The dust is so much that it actually reduces visibility to 20 meters. Dust storms are common here after which everyone is left brown, covered in dust and coughing . Getting to mwihoko takes faith, courage and a spirited sense of adventure. Drivers here can tolerate anything. Driving speeds range from 0 to 25km/hr. Every one moves slowly bumping into mis-shapen bumbs and small ditches scattered all over the road. The vehicles used here are those rejected elsewhere. They have poorly working lights, windows are a luxury and paper bags are sometimes used in their place. Those with covered sits and a radio (albeit hand held) are called "Nganya" meaning cool and stylish vehicle.
At night drivers steer with one hand while holding a torch with the other. Their touts keep watch with another torch to show the oncoming vehicle that its not a motorbike. Those with both lights, they are not focused and they face up, sideways, anywhere but the road. They serve the purpose of letting an oncoming vehicle know you are moving too.
Doors get stuck so often we dont get shocked anymore. The touts use all techniques trying to open the doors, including kicking it with their legs. Can you imagine him taking that position to kick the door open, he leans back onto the passengers, lifts his leg and kicks the door, sometime you can hear the passengers encouraging him saying "put more effort" or ""try again". there  are instances when these methods fail and we are forced to exit through the window. I however have not yet had the pleasure.
One day, the matatu stopped halfway, the driver said its spoiled but they can fix it. spoiled is used here to mean mechanical failure. Since these matatus are few, there is never the luxury of getting off and boarding another one. So you wait. The tout came to my side and said  "madam ebu toka kidogo" he wanted me to get off. so i did. He casually pulled out the sit and put it on the side of the road, exposing a confusion of twisted wires and a battery somewhere in the mix. He meddled with them until the vehicle started up again. In case you were wondering the sit was placed back onto the vehicle and i was invited back on it. we kept driving on like nothing had happened....only in the land of hope! 

Battered Husbands

There is a debate going on about husband battering in some parts of the country. So I go home on sunday only to find the whole household discussing the issue. It turns out that my day had commented extensively on this debate on the sunday nation. Being an expert in African religious studies, his opinion mattered. It was an entertaining afternoon with everyone giving their take on the issue...including Isaak Mwak...yes him! my brother oh, he has never been one to comment on current events or other. My opinion is that, all the lies we have been feeding ourselves about who is the leader and who is the follower are finally catching up with us. Our tribe was founded by 2 parents and 9 daughters. They owned the land and the clans. They got men to marry and invited them into their land only for this men to take away their land and force out their own daughters. Such that today it is the girls who move out of their homes to the mans home. Ridiculous! This is just one of the many falsehoods that we have come to base our culture on. Back to the business of husband battering….What?1 Haha. Many say that this has been caused by an increase in power for the women. What they forget is that ‘violence is not a sign of power’ nor is ‘the absence of violence a show of inexistence of power’. Also you cannot rise into power if the power was already yours. It’s a question of becoming aware of previously ignored but existing power. Earlier I had written on ‘equality of education’ it has become relevant now more than ever. Simply because you perceive a woman to be weak does not mean that they are however this should not be a debate on who is strong or not. It should however act as a reminder that the girl child is efficiently trained to handle herself well and handle the great challenges of a home while we, the parents and teachers leave the boy to his own means. This people (men) have no idea what is expected of them, what it takes to eat, stay clean, make a living it’s a pity really when a person is not capable of keeping himself clean. Simply because women in the past (recent past because women were warriors since time immemorial…do your research!) have not been violent does not mean they had no power in the homes. But men, husbands are continuously neglecting their duties in the home, victimizing their wives while at the same time expecting to be accorded kingly treatment and obedience…think again. Women are excellent disciplinarians; they beat their children under the principle of ‘spare the rod spoil the child’. Now the men need some discipline and who better than…the woman.

You

Cut me see if i bleed All you who deal with me as if I were made of stone. Push me, see if I'll fall All you who put me under such a load. Break my neck, see if i die You, who waste my time as though I was immortal. Call me not, if u see me not And to you and yours I be blind...I'll see you not.

of tribes and who we are...

A young man told me once that he did not consider himself a Kikuyu, kamba, Luo or any tribe but a Kenyan. I got to thinking what a tragedy? What would happen to a person to deny who they are? This campaign of we are Kenyan I feel is misguided. A person cannot seize to be in order to exist in an alternative geo-politically defined state. We have our ethnic languages and culture that needs to be recognized! Parents, grandparents, ancestors..all these are people who make us who we are. Should all that history be wiped out and forgotten simply because a politician says so? We cannot be repainted to appear similar yet it is our diversity that makes us beautiful.!

That big Day!

This was perhaps the most tense day for lovers of politics in Kenya. It was the day the ICC were announcing their ruling on those accused to be responsible for post election violence in 2007. My interest was never at the ruling itself, no. I became intrigued by the people's reaction to the whole thing ...I mean, there were prayers involved and lots of church going went on.
Being placed in a rather remote area,( the land of Hope) I had the opportunity to witness some of the residents reactions.
So I go to a nearby cafe/kiosk for lunch, I found 4 people sited. All of them had sat on the sits that were facing the TV. In order to get an uninterrupted view, the man I had sat next to moved to a sit closer to the TV. U know, to hear the news first! As 'landlover' gave the ruling no one spoke, chewed or swallowed ..it was silence.

Unemployment...!

There is no god in unemployment! There is nothing ;no hope, no light or darkness, just a massive sense of 'lack'. Time grinds by, u watch urself wasting, crushing under the weight of despair! To have nothing to do, not to be needed or valued, to realize that your skills are of no use to anyone ...this is what most of the youth in our country are experiencing. And no matter how many people go through this, the impact on the individual is devastating. Open your eyes to those around you...and empathize.

My nephew..Cadi

So we r working on a document at home, my sis and I, when our nephew comes along and hovers for some time . Finally he says u know tata (Swahili for Auntie ) I can type . Ok. I say. He continues maybe u can give me a job to type for you...I tell him that a job would imply payment ... Well u see, tata, by this time he is smiling broadly, he is a clever one this one. My sis says we can't let u type but what else can u do, he lights up and says spell checking ...I can spell check, without hesitating he pulls a chair and starts to read our work. Things go on fine. Then he sees a name in Kikuyu ..not his strong point, and corrects it wrongly ...everyone around the table laughs out loud, Cadi is put on suspension on grounds of incompetence. Later that night his grandpa listens to his plea to be reinstated as the spell check officer, after alot of convincing he was allowed back. He went to on to yet again correct a Kikuyu name wrongly, this time he was so convinced ...oh u shd have heard his argument . He was fired. At this point he decided to lawyer up...and who better than his mum...yes her.! The one person in our family who never loses an argument. She said that he had work for long hours without break, note he had been at it for 1hr half of which he had been suspended! Further she went on to claim that his spell checking assignment was limited to English text only! ...at that, everyone burst out laughing... and let him have it. bow down! I love our family.

Teacher

I don’t mean to hate on anyone but teachers can be petty at times. They will carnive to get more sodas than their share with such explicit strategies u would think they were planning a corporate merger. Sports day seems to provide for them an opportunity to show the head just how active they are, all in hopes of getting some form of recognition. There are those who feel that their mastery of the queen’s language is unmatched in the school. These teachers use words like ‘indefatigable’ while introducing another teacher to the assembly. With the newly applied learner centered approach to teaching and learning, some school administrators have for some not yet clear reasons taken this to mean learners importance over teachers approach. The teachers have been reduced to puppets whose role is to recite the syllabus content but they have little authority over the class. This is more evident in private schools where teachers are fired at the snap of the owner’s fingers. Totally disregarding the disruption to learning caused by such sudden changes.

i realised today that supervision is just that...supervision!

The university.

The university has been an eye opener, I have seen raw human characteristics, attributes to people that you only read about; hypocrisy , joy, happiness, genuine concern, kindness, hatred, patience, friendship, cunningness. I have been in lectures where the same content is presented so differently by different people that it leaves u speechless!..; organized lectures, others with scattered minds, confused ones, frustrated, chauvinistic, overconfident and effective ones all under one roof. I made a conscious decision that I will take every occurrence in my life as such, I am not owed anything by anyone, life is just that, a journey I am committed to take, not by choice but by design, plans are a human way of trying to bring some structure in a complexly unstructured existence. It will be what it is.

The human center...!

I had an interesting conversation today with a colleague, he spoke of "energy " inside and around us. That we have the ability to change our destiny and heal our bodies with that energy...this reminded me of a similar talk I had a long time ago with sensei, in which he spoke of the "center ". That we should strive to find our center and we would find peace and prosperity. Later I was made to understand that prosperity isn't sorely monetary... with this thoughts at hand I came to a conclusion: I have lost my center, nothing is sure and I feel as though all is fleeting by...without my control. Of the few things that have remained is that I still enjoy having intelligent conversations, my hate for fatness, to me it's a show of indiscipline. I don't get intrigued by vulgar talk especially when the speakers intention is to be funny. I'm of the opinion that we eat to live...not the other way around. It's evident that am sure of what I don't want...the question is what do I want?

flirts on chat..!

We have all met with the annoying flirts. These are men who for some reason think very highly of themselves. There is a guy whose name I will withhold but if he has a morsel of intelligence, on reading this he shd know it's him. He once told me that with him I would see parts of a man I never knew existed ..................I too was silent. I thought with all the biology classes in high-school, and knowing our syllabus, very little is left to the imagination so, Was the statement meant to be mysterious or what ...?!
Anyway I decided to play the blonde and see just how far the tinkler would go...and far he went.! If there weren't like a thousand laws on privacy and all...u would have enjoyed a taste of the chat.

Flavours of Patriotism

Its not easy to write, now I realize and maybe I have come to appreciate those who do write a little more. You always have thousands of varying ideas running around in your head getting to put one, just one idea down is a huge challenge. Ave been reading on a few blogs and its interesting how different people are. This takes me back to the possibility of this philosophy…”we are different and for this reason we are.”
A lot has been happening here, with the cases being confirmed at the ICC, against 4 of the 6 people accused of causing post election violence and it has raised mixed reactions. Some are opting to go on hunger strike till the ruling is overturned…really? Hunger strike?! Given the recent drought and famine that hit parts of East Africa , that doesn’t seem like such a responsible thing to do. I think it’s in bad taste to choose not to eat while you are well aware of people within your country who have no other choice than to be hungry. Anyway, I don’t know how true these allegations are but being Kenya…anything is possible!

previews marathon

am watching previews of some movies and when the guy screams one of his eyes turns hollow and the other lights on fire!! and am thinking was that really necessary?! was it meant to be scary?! many times movies in an attempt to be different and unique end up being well unnecessary. i spoke too soon ave just seen another one where a human is fighting some not so human creatures and get this... they have two bodies but fused on just 2 legs...and, they are still spitting fire! whats up with that?! Finally the movie ave been waiting for "real steel".... its alive!

Highschool Drama...oops!!

There are those stories from high school that u just can’t forget. There is one in particular that will just make ur day. So a trip was organized for the form two’s to go for swimming. The usual grounds at kasarani were being renovated therefore, they were to go to ruaraka. Unfortunately the bus driver wasn’t around, he had been sent to collect some official mail. The students became impatient and agitated, they wanted to go for swimming before the sun went down. So the headteacher had no choice but to get another driver. The driver they got ..well, what can I say, on a previous trip, he couldn’t get himself to westlands and knocked on a road construction barrier…and no we had not been obstracted by any other vehicle. The teacher on duty was hesitant to allow this driver to take them, especially with all the road construction that had been going on recently. Exits had kept changing and if u weren’t carefull one could get on the wrong exit.

Anyway, it was agreed that he would take them. All went well, drama came when it was time to go back to school. They drove over a bridge and missed the exit. The students started shouting , hey driver, we are going the wrong way. The guy panicked and was starting to sweat and I mean sweat heavily. The teacher advised him that there was no reason to panic, that they would find another exit ahead. One of the student came to the teacher and said that she needed to pee. By now it was 7:30 pm, it was too dark to let the student out to relieve herself in a bush. She was told to hold on till they reach the school, and that they would get there soon. What was supposed to be a 20 minutes drive became a 1 hr nightmare for the students. By this time she was so pressed her cheeks were red! She danced around the bus holding her legs together, nearly busting…when they got to the school, she rushed to the door and pushed it open with all her might…but as she moved her legs to step out of the bus, there was water everywhere…she urinated on herself right at the bus step.! You can only imagine what happened next…!!

campus life...?!

when i hear people discussing campus life and the dangers that be, i sometimes wonder which campus? having been in campus twice, yet i still seem to be living life on the peripheral..(and no, thats not a type of a car!). There are always meetings about drug abuse on the rise among students, and i would swear every one i meet looks normal. so i wonder where are these peddlers, seriously, i sometimes go looking at people idling and ask myself could that one be one of them? and if it were how would i go about securing a buy?..."aaaahhhh hi there mister, i want to buy some drugs"....?

This reminds me of an incident probably totally unrelated that happened recently, so i go out for lunch, and this guy we went to college with passes by and says hi...am like hi to u too. He sits..mmmmmhhhh note i didnt say "you may have a sit" no no no... but, moving on. He receives a call on his cell, which i bet was a self dialed call, you know, like those fake call buttons that help you get off meetings. He says 'hi, aaam i dont have it but i can organise for u to get it.. 'hangs up and goes on to explain the call to me: That was my bro, he and his friends want me to find them a pipe thing for smoking pot. How i wish u could have seen my face! aaargh Seriously!? you are bragging about that!...he probably thought it would sound cool. A pity..really, with all the dysfunctioning side effects and failed take offs, he should know better than to advertise future weakness.....to a chick no less!!

nothing to write...

When the year started, I had prepared Myself for the time when I will have nothing to write and therefore write nothing ...!

classroom nags 2...the self appointed class rep!

Yeah i guess after watching so much TV you learn a thing or two. Whatever hits make a sequel of it and give it a cool name. this self appointed representatives are always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time..if its not collecting assignments way before the due date, its recommending make up sessions on a Saturday mid-morning, yes mid-morning,thats neither morning nor afternoon,which simply means your whole saturday will be spent in school. It doesnt stop there, these are the people who vote for a sit in cat when there is an option for a take away cat. They argue that it provides for a more balanced assessment...what? The guys who while in class go " Sir? excuse me but aren't we supposed to be doing 2 term papers this semester?" yes those ones! We have all met them and ...loved to hate them, but no matter what we wish for they simply don't stop!!!!

Mad Faith!

There is nothing worse than having objectives and the knowledge that they are not achievable by you in your current state. That just came to my head, its not at all what I meant to write. I had a thought earlier that seemed a bit anti Christian teachings…that the major reason for depression and madness is not the lack of capacity to handle stress but the over reliance in God to solve our problems. I'll explain. I believe in God, He exist, otherwise how would you explain life. But we are taught that God is our savior, that when things get tough he will come to our rescue, now when that doesn’t happen, we question our faith, then his existence and what we can’t handle is not the stress itself, but the thought that we’ve been so naïve. God didn’t come to our rescue…that’s what breaks an individuals spirit.
It shocks me that I would even consider that, me with my history. But somehow it’s a type of prayer, I mean , God sees and hears everything, and nothing happens without his knowledge and acceptance, I hope he reads this and comes to our rescue.

all abt repeated mistakes...!!

I am in search of a scientific explanation for all this….but this life keeps repeating itself over and over….. yet every time a mistake is done people get surprised “ I can't believe this happened to me” they get shocked each time, yet the error is not new, neither is it designed unique to anyone. The aspect of trust and love seem to play a significant role in creating the sense of “inexistence” of sin…if I love that person then they cannot possibly do this and when they do ‘oh my it’s a disaster!’. It is however interesting to note that even when the sinner is made aware that indeed they will sin in this way, they still attempt to do it in secret assuming themselves cleverer than those who tried and failed before. Most researchers are interested in the social political ills mainly because they do not or have not realized the power of the gender war, to them sins against people who are not men are irrelevant. yet it is this people who are solely in charge of life and rearing, there is no winning this!.

matatu

Am stuck in traffic with a wire mat, so far I can't tell a single song that has played, I mean where do they get this songs. To make matters worse the base is louder than the actual song. Am not a hater but seriously ...

Big fish ..

My mind is numb, i have no feelings whatsoever in my head. i can't allow myself to feel....you see, there is an order of things, a routine normally followed for training personnel. Three months ago i went to an institution for a what seemed to be a straight forward procedure. The MD took the training request letter and said there should be no  problem, check with us next week. Which i did, and the week after that and the ones after that. Now three months later they tell me "oh sorry but we can't allow you to do your training here..." sorry?! Sorry!?! are you mad! this shit takes place 3 times a year. you've just cost me 4 months of training worth six credits and you tell me sorry! are you high?    But of course this is not what you tell Big Fish when you are not even a Marine animal...! So i looked at him, counted backwards from 5 to 1 then said 'i understand, thanku. i guess i'l seek grounds elsewhere. Gd day sir'.   Now do you see why i can't allow any thinking, aaaargh!

Equality in education...my take!

Rousseau writes in Emile that education for women should be only to teach about her future role as a wife.. earlier this would have made me so mad that id go back in time and make noise about it. But the recent events or not so recent events of families breaking and the culture of men abandoning their families has got me thinking. Maybe such education was not so bad what they failed to realize was that they made the woman so efficient in her work and responsibilities that change was inevitable. That is she knew what was expected of her and how to do it but the man was left to join in a union to which his role was unclear and even worse he had no clue how to go about it. Since they were trained as doctors they became very good doctors but no one trained them to be husbands, this was expected to be innate, remember this was the same period that rousseau and locke argued against innate knowledge that knowledge was acquired thro the senses, now them expecting men to just somehow know without the experiences being transfer to their minds wouldn’t u call that abit hypocritical and naive. I propose educational dimension which caters for family education for all parties involved. For the term wife only exist if the husband exist, without which wife does not exist. For a woman to be a wife she must have a husband, it does not exist in solitary and therefore should not be treated as such. Men continuously fail in families for they are made  to see themselves as separate to the day to day running of the household, yet in reality the household cannot exist without the concerned parties. How stupid it is to say that women spend a lot of money on household things yet you as the man expects clean clothes and food and a carpet and all that a house should have…..at zero cost. Some husbands are good managers of companies because they see themselves as part of the organisation and needed, but the house is seen not part of what they need to apply themselves in its running…so stupid, seriously. Simply because it takes a man a minute to reproduce and a woman 9months to bring it to fruition bringing pleasure to one and pain to another..scientist say that during birth the woman feels…pain equal to 20 bones crashing simultaneously…anyone for equality haha say for each child born the father breaks atleast 10 bones..howz that for family planning.!!! Oh sorry I meant equality!

we are different and for this reason we are!!!

I am developing a strange interest in the study of sociology, is it possible that we think and perceive life so differently? Conflict, feminist, among other theories, communism, all these strike a chord, because I believe that we are different and for this reason we are! In the philosophy class I have learnt that there is teaching , guiding and then there is simply telling what u know and hoping that the learner not only being at owe of your knowledge will grasp something or other…

Issue of education and innovation, aesthetics, dimensions of education...anyone?

of education...and schools

The issue of private schools, a short story; a mother studies in a public school where the parents contribute building fund each year for the upkeep of the school. The quality of education is good, teachers are motivated, then comes free education, there is a greater enrollment, reduced funding as parents no longer contribute building fund, the number of teachers remains the same, size of school and number. of classes remain same, result ;congestion, poor teacher pupil ratio, quality of education lowers greatly, entrepreneurs see a  need in the society and try to satisfy it by building more schools and hiring teachers to provide the much needed quality education…years go by and the mother takes their child to private school, this leads to a situation where by those in public school and those in private schools receive different type of education….Who’s problem is it? The division created, really ,who is causing it?

Those trying to solve an existing problem or the governments’ obvious failure in implementing an overly ambitious project without laying proper structures in place?!

the Head and all that it appertains to be...!!!?

I will illustrate, a man is married to a woman for forty years, he looses his job ten years into the marriage with 3 major bank and sacco loans, he panics and goes upcountry leaving the wife with five children one of whom is infant, she burns under the sun literally at a jua kali workshop with the first borns, with the bulk of their money going to clear debt, get socially stigmatized, then when all dust settles , he gets back, and stills requires the title Head of the house, my argument is let him be the head but if the organism functions optimally with the head and reduces efficiency by 90% with the gadget 'head' on, then by all means, disconnect the head, it shall still remain as the head becoz its seems to be all they care abt. What is unknown is that literally the family as an organ is headed by whoever steers it in direction of growth and intergration.! So by critically analyzing the failures of the patriarchal family I will propose the above as the truth and light!

classroom hangup!!

As though being the only female in the class is not bad enough, I also happen to be the only non-religious…in the class of philosophy of education, in which we are taught everything and I mean everything else but philosophy of education, latin, theology, current events, bibliography…quotes such as "since we have all studying theology therefore we know the difference between teontology and deontology….eeehhh no we haven’t, I haven’t studied philosophy to begin with. Oh they are kind though at times rare very rare they do mention like in your field ict…don't get me wrong, this turned out to be the most informative of all my sessions.