God! I haven't blogged in like... forever, running on five months now. It's been a crazy four months, and a lot has happened to me and to the people around me. Actually I've gone through a whole semester of school in those four months. As we speak Im now doing the end of sem exams and the second one is beginning like immediately this one ends - it's not fun at all that we're not going to have a holiday in between. [but of course we being us are going to create one anyway Im sure :) ]

Im in a uni organization [a CBO-type thing] called SIFE for Students In Free Enterprise that carries out projects in society aimed at empowering people to make money for themselves who didn't know how. We present all our projects at a National Exposition at the end of every SIFE year in front of a panel of judges in compe with all the other unis that are also members of SIFE global. Last year we were the champions and went to rep the country at the world compe in France, so no prizes for guessing who was champs this year. And it totally rocks because the world compe this time is in NYC!! Can you feel me?!?! We were so on top of the world when numbers three and two were announced and neither was us, and we still managed to squeeze in a group prayer [there were five of us competing on behalf of the rest of our team] - right there on stage, with everyone watching and waiting. Of course there were celebrations afterwards but I don't really drink and/or rave so...

I've also done and finished the CPA exams - that nightmare I go through twice every year. This sitting it was real rollercoaster, coz I hadn't read at all until the last two weeks, then I spent one under the weather with malaria so I only had one to read. Oh, that's another thing - I caught malaria for the first time since '97! Not anyone's cup of tea :(. But I did pona and now Im back on top. And anyway, now that we won the SIFE championship it won't feel as bad if God forbid I don't pita the papers, coz I dedicated most of my time to SIFE instead of reading.

And I don't know if I've already said here that I finally got bought for that Dell I've always been dreaming about. It's so cool sometimes I just sit in my room and look at it. Now all I need is net and I never have to leave my room again. Naturally the music collection has grown in leaps and bounds, and the latest additions are Avril's The best damn thing and Linkin Park's Minutes to midnight. Also the WOW Hits collection for 07.

I've read, and finished for the second time, Bill Clinton's My Life, and I was still blown away, just like the first time [I must lead a really boring life]. I don't know a lot about that country, but I can tell there can't be more than five presidents they've had who were better than him. As a person he's one of my role models. And now I have Hilary's so that's my next project. Just today I passed by Books First and man! is there a lot of stuff to read, except the books cost house rent so can't really buy all the ones I want.

What else... Oh, I've fallen in love. Finally, and I thought I was above all that mushy stuff. Not really, just pulling your leg. Im still the same ol' me. Still alone and still loving it. :D

But if there's one thing I've learnt through this whole period, coz it was stress to stress, it's that when you emerge from the other end of that tunnel you always emerge a stronger person than you were, and in hindsight, nothing really happened to you that you couldn't handle with a little help. The old Chinese say this:
"The tree that is cut down grows again; and the moon that wanes after a time waxes again. Thus do the wise men reflect, and, though distressed, are not overwhelmed."

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the grammys, theirs and mine

So I recently got the entire Grammy 07 list, and I have to say, Im unjazzed. Not a single song I thought would win won. Not one, out of like sixty (OK, maybe one or two). What are the chances? (Gotta thank Providence Im not into betting and wagers, otherwise Id be selling my sould black market right about now - to cover my debt :) ) Anyways, Im seriously beginning to question the credibility of this so-called "Academy", because I do not see a world where James Blunt gets beaten out by the Dixie Chicks. I mean, how many people even listen to country outside Texas and Nebraska and Kentucky?!?!? Granted, the Dixie Chicks are good - even I like them, and that album of theirs is currently in the works, should have it in a week so's I can see what all the fuss is about - but when two artistes are both really good, methinks the winner should be the more mainstream one. Im guessing that's how U2 manage to win every time they put out an album, coz they always get really stiff compe. And I still can't for the life of me figure out in what universe a song by Bon Jovi would be ranked under country. How?!??!

Now Im thinking, if I was the who's who at that "Academy", what would my grammys look like? (Just the crucial categories - I discovered they have like a thousand different ones!):

Record of the Year
You're Beautiful - James Blunt - from Back to Bedlam

Album of the Year
(Here I wasnt crazy about any of their nominations, but since it's all up to me in my world...) How to save a life - The Fray

Song of the Year
(Again, none of their nominations jazzed) The hardest part - Coldplay - from X & Y

Best New Artist
James Blunt

Best Female Pop/Vocal Performance
(Here, I like their choice of artiste, but not the song) Hurt - Christina Aguilera - from Back to Basics

Best Male Pop/Vocal Performance
Bad day - Daniel Powter - from Daniel Powter

Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group
Stickwitu - Pussycat Dolls - from PCD

Best Pop Vocal Album
Back to Bedlam - James Blunt

Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group
How to save a life - The Fray

Best Rock Song
Chasing cars - Snow Patrol - from Eyes Open

Best Rock Album
How to save a life - The Fray

Best Female R&B Vocal Performace
(I like their choice) Be without you - Mary J. Blige - from The Breakthrough

Best R&B Song
(Again, good choice by them) Be without you - Mary J. Blige

Best R&B Album
Testimony vol 1, Life & Relationships - India Arie

The rest of the categs don't really matter much to me, except New Age where Amarantine won. I totally agree with them - Enya is just good. Not really big on rap, hip-hop, classical, male R&B, country, and the gospel artists I listen to aren't particularly mainstream so I can't speak with authority in that field. Clearly me and the "Academy" disagree A LOT (I have indicated in brackets where we agree), so I'll stick to good ol' Dees. At least his countdown and I seem to have closer preferences.

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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.
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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

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.

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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

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