freedom feels like lonely

So I finally got round to listening to an old Yellowcard song I've had for a while called Empty Apartment, and it's about a guy who got dumped but has never gotten over it, and so he's trynna find out if she shares the same feelings: "...How's your life, what's it like there/Is it all what you wanted it to be/Does it hurt when you think about me/And how broken my heart is...If ever you loved me you'd say it's ok/It's ok to be angry and never let go/It only gets harder the more that you know/..." And that song really touched me. I have no idea why, seeing as how I've never been through a break up tough or otherwise. I've never crashed and burned, I've never even been dissed; so I shouldn't know how all that stuff feels like, and I shouldn't care, right? And yet somehow I do. I wonder why. Could be that I read a lot, and I do BTW, thereby learning things w/o necessarily having experienced them myself. Or it could also be that all this time I've been a closet romantic and didn't know it. I think back and I notice the kinds of movies that jazzed me: Miss Congeniality, You've got mail, Bridget Jones' Diary, The Titanic, The Notebook(!), Legend of the Fall, The Wedding Planner, If Only, 10 Things I Hate About You, Coming to America. The artists I listen to: Trespassers William, Natalie Merchant, Aqualung, Dido, Five for Fighting, Gavin DeGraw, Tyler Hilton, James Blunt, Lifehouse, Michelle Featherstone, Emiliana Torrini. The TV shows I watch: The O.C., One Tree Hill, Felicity, Gilmore Girls, Dawson's Creek, Sex and the City, Desperate Housewives.

And Im thinking maybe I do have that void that I've always thought was for the wimps. Maybe all this time I've been lonely and instead of getting hitched up I've been choosing to see it on TV and read about it in books. I've always thought Im not wired for all that relationship stuff, but maybe I've just been supplementing subconciously and didn't realise it. I love the freedom that comes with being alone. Living for me and me alone. Not having to think about someone else all the time lest I be crucified for it. It's amazing, and I still don't think I want to give that up. But, if the eyes and ears really are the windows to the soul like they say, then isn't my soul full of all that mushy stuff? And what does that make me? I wonder.
END

invictus

This is the title of a poem I recently came across. Now, I've once said here that I love to read poetry, but not by authors I've never heard of before and definitely not by Shakespeare. However, I got a chance to hear this one before I read it, so I did make an exception even though Id never heard of William Henley before [he's the author]. I totally dig it. It's so deep. Here's how it goes:

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the Pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the shadow of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll;
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Ok, if that's not deep stuff then I don't know what is. Plus it was inspired - William Henley survived a TB infection and an amputation. And the title is latin for unconquered.

New on the music scene, another form of art Im in love with, and definitely going down my annals of all-time bests:

Lie in the sound - Tresspassers William
Sideways - Citizen Cope
Easier to lie - Aqualung
Boston - Augustana
Born to try - Delta Goodrem
Chasing cars - Snow Patrol
Swingset chain - Loquat
Who's to say - Vanessa Carlton

END

22 years ago today

Today is my birthday. Yes I grow a year older, and Im accustomed to having the earliest birthday wherever I go so I always wonder in the very first year what happened from first to 29th (or maybe everyone born before then was born in China - you know, so the Chinese had a head start on the rest of the world which is why they more than double the next most populous state :) )

Anyways, events like these in someone's life usually cause one to look back and see if one has accomplished everything one set out to do. In my case, I haven't reached the first of my set milestones, which is 28. I have however, gotten one year closer to it, and so I ask myself what I am doing towards achieving my millenium development goals :). I am first and foremost in uni, which in this country should go a long way in securing a future for me. I have learnt how to download music and movies from the internet in cyber cafes. I have played both the XBOX and Playstation 2, and decided to go the Microsoft way. I have read My Life by Bill Clinton, and Im about to read it a second time. I can confidently say I have an idol in the man, BTW. I have learnt the basics of graphics editing using Photoshop. Im currently spending this month teaching, so I can say Im honing my public speaking skills which a few short months ago were non-existent. I've been to two five star hotels and quite a few 5/4-star restaurants, and confirmed what I have always suspected: Im an eat-out kind of person. I have attended three classical recitals, and liked them - but my music of choice is still rock. I've learnt to drive, and actually driven long distance (400 km) and at night, several times. I've gotten bored watching satellite TV (with over 40 channels I didn't think that was possible). I've read The Alchemist, and liked it, but didn't learn that much from it, wondering what all the fuss was about. I've watched A Few Good Men - best movie ever! I've made a foray into the stock markets.

OK, so much for things I've done. Now, what haven't I done? Obviously all the major stuff, like I don't have a house in an upmarket locale, and Im not part of the upwardly mobile young executives, I haven't launched a successful online business. Also some of the little things: I've never been to a golf club. I've never driven a Beamer. I've never been to a live rock concert. I still don't have an iPod and/or a classic laptop with WiFi (but in my defense I do have branded desktop and I also have an mp3 player from Mega Star International). I'm not in a relationship currently. I haven't watched any of the Legally Blondes. I haven't learnt how to set up a network from scratch all by myself. I haven't learnt how to serve a Windows network from a Linux machine. I haven't read Direct from Dell, Living History, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Jack Welch story, Business @ The Speed of Thought. I'm not yet a subscriber to Fortune, Time, PCW and PC Zone Magazines and Reader's Digest.

Ya, and the lists go on, both of them. These are just the things I could bring to mind at short notice. However, I make these lists now strictly for recreational purposes. I am not defining my success/failure in life according to them. And my wishes will simply remain that - wishes. Until such time as they can come true. In the words of Robert Burns (18th century poet), "The best laid plans of mice and men/gang aft aglee." so I don't wanna cast any of my plans in stone.

END

it's easier to lie

So Im living on my own again. I got a job as a teacher (who knew, BTW, sometimes I shock even myself) in a college in Eldoret, and so I had to move there, probably for the remainder of the hols till March. It's not the kind of job I'd wanted, and Im not even getting paid to do it, but in keeping with the lesson I got on 1st, Im still thankful for it. The thing about living like I am now, almost always alone except during the day when Im at work, is I get a lot of time to sit and reflect on my life. And if there's a good book around I also get to catch up on my reading. Like now Im reading Rebound: The Michael Jordan Odyssey and I've gotta say it's a lot less interesting than I'd expected. Also, me being me, I listen to a lot of rock, especially from bands that aren't considered mainstream in EMEA countries (I have no idea what those are, but I know that's how Toshiba classify Ke under when dividing their laptop markets :) ) So recently I came across a new (not really new but new to me) band called Aqualung, and they have a song called Easier to lie that just went straight to the heart.

This is what Aqualung sing and say "...to bear the weight/you push me to the sky/it's easier to lie... to be the one/to be the only one/someone has to give a lot/something has to give a lot/and who am I/to give you what you need/when Im just learning how to live and to bear the weight... it's easier to lie... and do what's right/when everything is wrong/it's easier to run... and never have to look you in the eye/it's easier to lie..." and this song has got me thinking - How many people live a lie their whole lives just because they're just trying to live up to someone else's expectations of them instead of their own? How much easier is it to just play along than tell the other person the truth and possibly disappoint them? Why is it that we find it easier to disappoint ourselves when it comes to certain people in our lives? Whenever there's a conflict between our own beliefs and the expectations of people we love therefore whose opinion of us matters, something always has to give. And it usually isn't the other person, it's us. It just doesn't feel right.

The natural order of things ought to be that we satisfy ourselves first. Coz like it or not, where rubber meets the road it's we who have to live with ourselves. If it then happens that the image we see when we look at the mirror we do not like because it's been fashioned to someone else's specifications, then we really will have no one to blame but ourselves. We'll have ourselves to blame for finding it easier to lie, for finding it easier to run than to do what's right, for being afraid that living true to ourselves might have caused us to lose "cool points" with the "in crowd". Mother Teresa speaks and says: "In the final analysis, it was never between you and them anyway." How true.

END

how it all ends

Today ends yet another year, finally, I guess. It's been a long year, as to some extent they all are, and full of ups and downs, again as they all are. This being a Sunday, we went to church today and the pastor spoke about thanksgiving, and to that end I feel the need to mention that I absolutely haven't fallen sick at all this year. The ocassional headache, but never one that lasted more than three hours or even required me to swallow pills for it to go away. I guess that's Providence for you, so I want to say thank you to the Big Guy.

Im not the kind of person that makes resolutions, but I have a general ambition towards which I like to think I work everyday, even if subconciously - to be rich, filthy rich! That said, I don't really have guidlines against which I can measure how I live, but here's my take: If at the end of the year Im still alive, I haven't been kicked out by my parents, I haven't flunked any papers in school and I haven't made any enemies of previous friends then it's been a good year. This year was an extremely good year. I made a couple of new friends [and surprise some are actually guys], very good friends; I passed all my papers and Im still the apple of the parents' eyes; I took on a few contracts that cost me like two weeks worth of sleepless nights then got bailed on by the contractees meaning I didn't get paid for all that work :( and thereby learnt a few things about broken expectations and the corporate world. Like they say, the lessons we learn from pain are the ones the make us the strongest. I believe I've grown plenty stronger.

I've also learnt a thing or two about pride. There was this friend of mine, she and I were really tight - we kinda just hit it off when we met coz I've known her for just about two years, and somehow over this last year we'd lost touch of each other coz I moved to a different town and was too proud to call when I thought I was being snobbed. Anyways, long story short I ate humble pie, called and now we're speaking again. It was a very good feeling, and I'd just like to say that if the only thing standing between someone and their friend is pride they really ought to get their act together - it's not worth losing a friend over coz in the end you end up carrying all this guilt and can't stop thinking what could have been when it was still in your hands to make things right.

And so here I am looking forward to another bright year, as I do at the beginning of every year. All those bad things that happened to me over the last one, I wouldn't give them back if I could, coz I believe they got me where I am today [OK, except a few, which I dare not mention]. If this year doesn't go like clockwork, then Im sure I'll end up having learnt more valuable lessons, so I'll still be grateful for it. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ concerning you, says the Good Book.
END

all is a game

So I was recently listening to Peyton's podcasts [ya I know, its taken me this long to get with the program. But that's ok given where Im from, coz I live in a country where there are people who haven't even heard of iPods, let alone podcasts :)] and she talked about this Nada Surf album: The weight is a gift. The stuff she said I thought was pretty deep so I went looking for it. And I got it [God bless that kid who created bittorrent BTW] and I listened to it and I totally agree with her, it's a rocking album. Anyways, there's a song on there called "Always love" that talks about basically never hating anyone, no matter what they've done to you. Nada Surf say "To make a mountain of your life is just a choice... Always love, hate will get you every time... Even when you want to fight... It helps to write it down, even when you then cross it out..." and Im thinking what! Had to actually do some research to confirm that none of them had any shrink backgrounds or anything, coz I found that song pretty deep. Anyways, I've never really been one of those people who are big on grudges so I liked the song more for my friends than myself. Im your average run-of-the-mill happy guy is who I am.

But I digress - more importantly, there was another song on there that struck me. It's called All is a game, and to me it sounded like about living life to the full, you know. When you're thinking that the weight of your life is too much for you, it's all a game and the last thing anyone of us wants is when it's over to look back and realize we didn't play back when we had the chance to. So currently Im on holidays for four months and Ive been obsessing about getting an internship or a job somewhere so I can make a quick buck, but now, none of that. Im just gonna go ahead and make the most of right now, of today. And if tomorrow I get called in for a job somewhere I'll of course go with open arms, but even if I dont get one, it's still going to be fine. [Good thing I collected a few TV series on DVD to keep me busy just in case. I dont know, maybe it was foresight.] All the same, right now Im going to start doing things I enjoy doing, and keep doing them till the holidays are over if I have to. After all, it really all is just a game. And when stuff starts to go haywire, I'll just remember that the weight is really a gift. If it doesn't kill me - and it won't - it'll make me stronger.
END

pandora tomorrow

OK, you know you've been playing too much Splinter Cell when the lights suddenly go off and you nod your forehead in a bid to put on your night vision goggles. But is such a thing even possible? Can someone possibly ever have 'too much' of Splinter Cell? I think not. In all my gaming life, I don't think I've actually ever come across a game with such depth [barring of course Half Life and System Shock 2, but then those ones appealed coz they weren't all about humans, as is the Splinter Cell series]. This game is all about thinking. Much unlike the Max Paynes and Dooms and Quakes, in Splinter Cell the object is to not shoot at all. Stealth is the name of the game. And the first time I used a guard as a human shield, the moment he felt my gun on his temple views changed so that I was looking at his face and I swear you could see terror in his eyes. Of course the fear wrinkles were all over his forehead, and the AI is just so realistic. You know, you drop a grenade and they dont just stand around asking each other whether or not you want to play catch with them :) - played IGI or the original Hitman Codename 47, anyone? - they run for cover! The patrolling guards out in the gardens react to footprints, and if a guard on rounds doesnt make it back, someone comes to investigate [although this happened to me only once so I dont think it's actually been programmed into the game, musta been the fates working against me, as usual :)]. When two people are working in a room and then the lights in an adjacent room suddenly go off [one learns pretty fast playing Splinter Cell that darkness is your friend, light - not good], they actually come to check who did that. They dont just stand around scratching the backs of their heads - again I need to refer to the Hitmans, Silent Assassin and Contracts. And that part for rappling down high walls, totally killed me. And who could forget the thing where you fork two walls with your feet, and then hang down and strangle a passing guard. Simply breathtaking!

Granted I come from a third world country fast on the track to being relegated to pre-historic, I have never played any of the Metal Gear Solids coz Playstation 2's and XBox's are pretty hard to come by thisides. I hear people say they [the Metal Gear Solids] are pretty solid, no pun intended. But I still insist, before a game comes out that actually beats Splinter Cell at stealth and graphics and AI and playability, Ubisoft will have to have signed off on it and helped in development somehow [I remember the last time a game came out that was better than Half Life it was Half Life 2. Nine years in between and no one surpassed the original Half Life] Once every generation [of hardware platforms] a game comes out that just unquestionably reigns supreme. Well, for me in the 2000's this game is Splinter Cell. And I still havent played Chaos Theory or the fourth one [see third world country above :) ]. Maybe Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood will be nice, maybe TR Legend wont disappoint, maybe Battle for Middle Earth [Lord of the Rings] will go the way of the movies and rule, I hear Path of Neo is all that, and maybe even the True Crime's [Streets of LA and New York City] will leave up to expectations. But my mind is made up, until they release Resident Evil 4 for the PC or something radical like that, no game is taking Splinter Cell's place in my heart.

END

how to save a life

So yesterday was my first time to hear that song called How to save a life by The Fray. And DAMN! I was watching the third One Tree Hill and one of the episodes [the one just after Jimmy shot Peyton in the leg] had the song in it, and it was at a really apt place [the first time Pete - leadsinger for Fallout Boy - came over to Peyton's to see her, I guess to tell her he likes her. And she was limping and all and he was in this classic Escalade stretch limo and it was all so wow]. See songs like these are the reason I fell in love with rock in the first place. That song is just deep. I dont even know how to describe how I felt when I heard it. All I can say is I've felt like that like only five times in the past - first with Arms wide open-Creed, then Flying high-Jem[from The O.C], then Mixtape-Butch Walker[previous season of One Tree Hill, then Because of you-Kelly Clarkson, most recently Saving me-Nickelback. How to save a life is just one of those songs one can't ever get enough of. It's definitely going down into my all-time list. I cannot wait to get the whole song, tho I know it's gonna be a while. Me = totally overwhelmed.

I should probably keep annals of said all-time list so's I dont forget where it is Im coming from 60 years from now when Im old and withered.

Arms wide open - Creed
Because of you - Kelly Clarkson
Away from the sun - 3 Doors Down
Flying high - Jem
Mixtape - Butch Walker
My happy ending - Avril Lavigne
Hands - Jewel
Saving me - Nickelback
How you remind me - Nickelback
Zoe Jane - Staind
Collide - Howie Day
Thank you for loving me - Bon Jovi
To the ends of the earth - Hillsong
Anywhere - Evanescence
Damaged - TLC
Wherever you will go - The Calling
You're beautiful - James Blunt
Heart of the matter - India Arie
Life goes on - Tupac
The voice of truth - Casting Crowns
He's my son - Mark Schulz
Christmas shoes - New Song

...and now...
How to save a life - The Fray

END

house hopping

Here I come again with another one of those tales about parastatal inefficiencies in my country. As with the last time, this was in my uni. Since I'm doing professional exams in a month's time and I have no clue what the course is about, I decided this time that when we close for long hols I wouldn't go home and would instead stay on in school to at least keep the mood going. This way, even if I myself dont per se read anything, maybe some of what my industrious friends read will rub off on me and I won't be totally green, thought I.

The groups that are currently in session are actually fewer than the school was made to handle, so it would appear that we are actually running at below capacity. So si I thought I would just show up, say I want a room, get charged to heaven and back but get the room anyhow. Boy was I wrong! I did show up, I did say I wanted a room, I did get charged to heaven and back [this government, all incompetencies aside, has never been known to shy away from a chance to make a quick buck, which quick buck is of course never ploughed back into bettering the infrastructure - but that is another story for another day], but did I get the room? Of course not. "Why allocate people rooms that are still empty just because those people have applied and paid for the rooms?" thinks our administration. "It would be so much more fun if they were made to sweat for a week or two, so here's what we're gonna do: we're gonna tell that boy to come tomorrow, and to write an essay explaining how he thinks loud music in matatus affects the current status of greenhouse gases." [or some such other tosh, anything to make sure nothing happens on time like it's supposed to.]

And so here I am. In between residences. I have survived thus far by visiting different friends and/or relatives in a round so that none of them feels as though I am infringing, meanwhile conducting research on my upcoming essay on presentation of which I expect I shall be given a room that shall just happen to not have a door, so I can give them another week to repair it and bring it up to standards. I am well aware that this is what I shall be told when I raise a complaint, "You see kijana, this system of ours - [they recently got computerised] - once it has allocated you a room it's impossible to change that allocation for another without it appearing as though you have two rooms. So please just allow us to refurbish this one for you. We apologise for inconveniences" with a smiling face. And so I find myself in the run-up to exams, yet again, house hopping and not spending any considerable amount of time studying for them. This one looks like it'll have to be on me and God. But, He has seen me through before, and He never changes so...

END

a trip i took

So si we've now officially closed school, and this being the end of a year [also one of those holidays that last till you drop - five months no less!] we decide, some friends of mine and I, that we are going out with a bang. So what do we do, we step up some cash each, two of us get cars from their parents and off we go to Naivasha to see stuff and to hog. The drive over was pretty uneventful, we just talked and the two cars raced kidogo, we stopped over at the Rift Valley to enjoy the scenery [of course no trip is complete unless something important has been forgotten, and in our case it was film for the camera, so we couldnt take any pictures. Ok, we could, just mental ones though]. Then we got there at 5[!-we still havent had lunch by the way - chicks and their rollers and showers we ended up leaving at four rather than at twelve] so we straight away head off to the restaurant. Roast meat, nothing but roast meat. And it was survival for the fittest. Have you ever seen three kilos disappear in ten minutes? I hadnt before, now I have. And then there was more meat, roast and fried. Twas a really gr8 lunch. Between the eight of us we ate like seven kilos, and sodas on top. Then after that we decided to go see the lake, we went and found there apparently is an entrance fee, so we told we'd be right back, of course we weren't right back. So now on our way from the lake [it was about 30kms off town] mayhem kicked in. We noticed in our car that the battery light was one, the one that usually indicates that the  battery is draining but not getting recharged. At the time we dint think anythign of it. We just went right on to Lord Delamere's estate, and I think at the time we ere the only ones. By now it's 6.30 going on seven and already dark. When we were through with the estate, now thinking ati we head back to Nairobi, the radio in the car went off. Then the lights went off. Then the car itself. By now it's of course dark, really dark. What to do? New town, dont know anyone, cant see anything, obviously dint do Power Mechanics in high school. Anyways, we drove back into town following the other car in darkness and found a petrol station then parked in it. Then started the search for a mechaninc. Luckily there was one of those 911-like services in Naivasha that came to our assistance, and it turned out the problem was a missing belt that must have fallen out, hence the battery wasnt recharging. They start looking and everywhere is closed. Naivasha is I think a ghost town or somethign, it was only 7.45 on a Friday eve and even the bars were closed! So six hours later, the finally found a belt that could almost fit our car, and when I say almost I mean they had to take out AC for it to fit. At this point we really dint care, we just wanted to come back home coz no one had any plans of swatching over there. After all was said and done, were down a further 2K for all the repairs. Thank God for contingency money, Im just thinking what would have been had we all had exact on us :( Now on our way back [it's midnight by the way] it starts raining, and Limuru goes down to 2 degrees sometimes. So there is fog! Real fog, as in now you're on the road now the road has turned right and you havent so you're in the bushes. It was terror! But we made it finally, and at 1.30 in town we decided since we no longer had anything to lose [those who hadnt to ld their parents where the cars were going thinking we'd be back in time and they wouldnt have to had been forced to during the Naivasha debacle so the worst was over] we went for pizzas, then communed and reminisced the day that had been, went to some other restaurant for burgers and finally at 2.30 went back to school to sleep. Those hours between 7.00 and 11.30 when the cars were being repaired were the longest in my recent past, but they made the night all the more interesting, and like they say, what won't kill you can only make you stronger

END