Munene, the journey...

It is that time of the semester when all the decisions of the last 3 months come to bear on a graduate student. 4 papers are due, exams are in 3 weeks, there's internships and jobs to find. It seems as if everything decided to become due at the same time. But that's not quite the case. For me, even getting to write this blog post took a lot of, well, procrastinating. Being in graduate school requires a great deal of what I call sensible procrastination. I am not advocating for leaving only 30 minutes to complete an assignment that requires 10hours, that's stupid. In fact there are things that we cannot procrastinate for too long without seeing some negative side effects. Doctors and other personnel who deal with matters of life and death also, may not have the luxury of procrastination in saving lives. However, even in these extreme scenarios, I think that we might have more leeway on some other matters than we let on. Another thing to consider is that eventually all ...

I do not particularly like networking events. Formal ones such as those organized by schools and are termed "career networking night" or "spring prom", are particularly abhorrent to me. The reason is that the end of the night is supposed to bring us closer to gaining employment, making connections to interesting things happening in our fields and so on. If we are lucky, all we end up with is a bunch of fancy business cards that we dump at the bottom of our drawers, never to see the light of day again, and of course a bloated stomach from all those nachos and chicken wings we consumed. image courtesy of goldenkeyhq.files.wordpress.com My main problem with these events however, is the premise for the event: highly intelligent people, who know themselves to a certain degree, are going to share some close quarters with strangers, in order to knock around ideas, connect and possibly plan some future engagements. What ends up happening, however, is that highly anxio...

Life is a mystery that we must solve with our hands tied at the back, and blindfolded, without sound. We must figure out life from the moment we are born from our own eyes and the eyes of our parents. image courtesy of michaelnewnham.com There will be no good old days that we like to reminisce about. Those days, are gone, forever. They will not come back, and we need to get over them. Yes, recognize that they happened; appreciate the lessons learned from them, and then look ahead, because that's where we are headed. A life lived in order to bring back the good old days is delusional. A government that brings out policies of the good old days will fail; coal jobs are gone from America (at least the vast majority); manufacturing of cars is cheaper in Mexico than in the United States. No amount of pouting will change these things. Things will get worse until we die. We start dying the moment we are conceived. Our days are numbered, literally, and begin to count down, unti...

I was born in Kenya; I even have a birth certificate issued by the government of Kenya. I was raised in Kenya, and my passport says that I am Kenyan. My parents are Kenyan, and my family is Kenyan. Naturally, everyone thought I would become Kenyan, and I must have passed off as one. Well, I think I have managed to fool everyone, because, well I do not think I am Kenyan. What have I become? photo courtesy of kyusho.com I have spent the majority of my last 5 years outside Kenya. I have traveled to various countries on the African continent, worked and lived there. I even passed off as one of the locals, with enough local language to get through daily situations. What I have enjoyed most though, is the diversity in the tastes and sounds: food, drink and music. From amala  in Nigeria to kenkey  in Ghana and sadza  in Zimbabwe, and Carlsberg Chill in Malawi, I have tasted life. But I partook in different cultures long before my traveling days. I listened to Rhumba mus...

I have been in the US for 8 months now, and not once have I heard anyone fart. You know how you enter a lift (elevator) when someone is leaving it, and they have this embarrassed look because they know what they did? It does not seem to happen here. In my boarding school days, evening study was a time of unusually increased farting especially on days we had meals with beans and/or cabbage for supper. We considered it normal, and it was so common, we could tell by the smell, which of our classmates had farted. I know what you are thinking, "Gross". And I understand that. Farts ahead Apparently, farting is a normal biological function of the human body, just like sweating, salivating etc. In fact, "holding it in" may lead to bloating, discomfort and even abdominal pain. It could also indicate an impending problem with one's gut. Scientists also think that smelling one's fart could be good for your health! Who knew! Bottling up is an issue when it ind...

Why do we vehemently criticise other people about their imperfections? We do know that every human has weaknesses and that each of us is simply struggling through life without crashing under the weight of societal expectation. And yet even with this knowledge, we still engage in the debilitating actions of making enemies by pointing out the mistakes of others. As humans, we judge ourselves harshly. We do not, as the saying goes, cut ourselves some slack. But the burden is made heavier by our brothers and sisters who criticise and put us down. But why do we find fault with other people? Well, for starters, it is because the faults we see in others serve as a mirror to our own faults. Yes, the reason it irritates you when someone picks their nose in public is because you do it yourself. And since you already know this about yourself, it subconsciously reminds you of something you do not approve in yourself. Image courtesy of memegenerator.net The second reason, I bel...