Dear Landlady

Dear Landlady
I sent part rent
the rest will be late
but before the twenty eighth
Its a short month
you keep the faith

Dear Landlady
please bring back my pail
my towel, and mama she's veil
you did get part rent
and you know the rest will be late
before the twenty eighth
of this short month
so keep faith

Dear Landlady
cut down the broadcast
and gossip that's scripture laced
you need not justify the hate

I'm certain I sent part rent
with a late note for the rest
just not twenty eighth late
where is your faith??

Excellence;a habit

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-- Aristotle

Aristotle must have been stoned when he coined that, it’s how I trivialize every important discovery. I mean it is so obvious, and yet people still come off the blocks defending their habits. First step is admitting, I have been a serial late comer all my life. It boiled down to lack of planning for anything and everything. I always winged it and it worked. I was brought up in a strict home. My parents were sticklers for rules and they were big on repeat offenses. Whenever I did something wrong, my mother never shied away from pulling previous related mistakes. In short I was a repeat offender. Time was spent charting a chronological path I had taken that had led me to my current mistake and mother always knew how, where and when the dots connected. It was her superpower weaving actions reactions and dishing consequences. My father on the other hand believed that every mistake was a lesson. He still holds this belief to date. I was coasting through life, I never worried much and subscribed to the thought that what is past has already passed.

I took a look at my time management skills or their lack thereof and concluded Aristotle had something going. When I was in primary school I had a habit of getting ready early then slipping behind the curtains for a nap. I stood during this nap; it is possible (without meditation or medication). I always listened out for my name being called and I would appear just as my father folded his hands to pray. I succeeded in making it to school early because my parents wouldn’t have it otherwise. My siblings also helped, my younger brother always woke me up as he was going to the bathroom and would do the same when he came out. I would then proceed to the bathroom have my shower and rejoin him in the bedroom we shared as my nightmare begun. 

Each morning was a game of memory-jogging trying to remember where I may have kept my tie, my books (after doing my homework or just staring at it), I couldn’t find my sweater, I just winged it. I did not think anything was the matter. I would not admit it either it would just be admitting my parents were right. I realize now just how foolish that is, that was, that will always be. I went on to complete my primary school studies winging it. I joined high school and was away from home for the first time. I was thirteen and hell bent on maximizing my freedom. In high school if the bell rings for morning preps you had about five minutes between the bell ringing and you sitting in class. The distance from the classes to the dormitory could be a kilometer or less but people had done it, you were not an exception. 

I suddenly realized the importance of having a neat shirt on the ready, brushing my shoes at night and sleeping after showering. Those activities I could not manage to cram into five minutes in the five-minute-morning. As I advanced in classes I was chosen prefect, a privilege I abused with such delight I wonder how I stayed on for so long. As a prefect several people were willing to do me favors in exchange for a pardon for a mistake made sometimes out of a misguided belief that I owed them something. Most times you asked someone to do something for you and they did; no malice. As such I stopped brushing my shoes in form 2 someone took care of it. I had a clean shirt and trouser each day and I was up early, all taken care of. No one was bothered by the habits I was forming though. I was taking it all for granted, while my friends planned for exams and had timetables I thumbed through what I felt like, mostly novels and magazines. I wasn’t too worried with getting to class late for preps I was a prefect no one would question. I finished my high school still being woken up.

Going back home my mother castigated my sleeping hours, I started thinking maybe the problem was indeed the sleep. Fast forward to campus, I recall I only kept or followed the timetable for a semester. It was a lot of trouble because essentially I was trying to rewrite a tale. I was relearning a habit I never quite remembered grasping. I had at each stage of my life dropped consistency with every activity to the point that winging it had in fact become my habit. I repeatedly acted aloof went about life without a plan and seldom following through the many plans I set out. I have lived to see the habit tear apart more than it has built. I have seen it take center stage at the staging of my life’s orchestra and even conduct it a few times. I know what it means to go through motions of only hoping and wishing and finally lamenting. I have been honest enough to admit that my parents were right. It is better to have a plan and fail for then you may retrace your steps to the glitch. Success with no plan is short-lived. So I made a plan and this is me following it. I don’t know what comes of it, I just know it is yet another plan made, it begs so desperately to be followed. What are your habits? Are they your excellence?

#100daysofblogging #day19  

Defeated

Deep seated conflicts
Resting in the subconscious self
Hard hitting waves
Of a human mind clinging to a former shell
Worn out shock absorbers
And punctured battered skins
The strength taken to cast nets
Varies from that used to haul them

_#100daysofblogging_ _#day17_

the world at your fingertips

 On July 1st 1997 Dr. Jan Hawkins wrote an article titled "The world at your fingertips." In it she detailed how the world will be impacted by the changes in technology, with great emphasis on the benefits this change will have on education. Two years later, Dr. Hawkins passed on, but like all the great minds before her, her ideas took root. It is this ideas that have given birth to an explosion of awareness and realization, prompting experiments across the globe. Case in point it took  Albert Einstein fifteen years to prove the general theory of relativity and five years to get the theory published in a recognized journal when he first proposed it.

In the current world a scientific paper, article or essay is posted online Timbuktu on Tuesday night and when the author wakes up they find four hundred unread emails, thirty missed calls from various journalists requesting an interview with an entire brigade of paparazzi outside their homes waiting to take the first picture. It's called going viral That may not happen exactly as stated but you get the drift; the world is wired small and tight! access to information is closer than the proverbial doorstep, it is in our ears, our palms OUR FINGERTIPS! We have material to learn more, to inquire, to improve, to inspire we may have well exhausted material on what we have.


Dr. Jan Hawkins saw a future that meant it would be easier to teach and to learn, a future that included faster and more efficient ways of solving tasks. She saw better time efficiency and increased personal as well as professional development. Hawkins was right, indeed technology has enriched as well as increased us, but(there is always a but sometimes even two) to what extent have we made use of the technological gains we have? It is about time we asked each other as we do ourselves, how well do we use the world at our fingertips?

#100Daysofblogging #Day15

I intend to introduce another argument on knowledge and how its influx may not be as rosy as Hawkins highlighted, but that is another post for another day.  

The birth of this post was the possibility of avenues to read and satisfy our curiosity, expand our understanding scope or for whatever reason you read. It was this condensed list of free online course

Gratitude

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” — Albert Schweitzer

TRULY GRATEFUL TILL THE END

Into  the sunrise lake of my own sunset

I  shall wade and sink with nary a ripple.

There in the penubra of the dark skyline,

               I shall be, blissfully,

                   nothing again.

Blown  away  by  the worst  wayward winds,

Trapped, stranded in the dreariest doldroms,

I  have stayed  undaunted, kept unshaken

                 the faith in better

                   things to come.

The  heaving  halo of  the partly sunken sun

Now  sends thin shafts  of  shimmering light

That streak through my lengthening shadow.

                 Still, I shall remain

                  grateful and true.

 

-Anonymous

I am grateful today for the journey this year has been, there were times I did not think I could hold my sanity, my tongue or my existence. I am grateful for slowly I find that I can tame them all for they are just a part of me and on their own they are still nothing without me. 

#100daysofbloggin #Day14

hope for the week : standard gauge railway commence

Photo | Courtesy

 It’s just tomorrow, then one more moon after that. That is how long we have to wait for the commencement date of the Kenyan Standard gauge railway. Kenyans have peculiar calling habits we have been told and even more peculiar is our knack to forget the most important of things. Enter the search phrase “Kenyans forget fast” and be prepared to meet over a million results with the phrase embed somewhere in there. The flame was started with a flicker from the sparks of Hon. Alfred Keter who questioned the inflation of prices, the procedure followed to award the tender and the lack of an Environmental Impact Assessment report prior to applying for the tender. 

Launch of SGR project: Photo | Courtesy

Launch of SGR project: Photo | Courtesy

It raged on and on with the debate taking a political tone as is the case with all else in this nation. For all the noise made, we all lost the scope and the relevance of what the argument was. It became an ad hominem where principles of debate were thrown out. Well the signing took place, so did the launch and if all goes well 1^st October marks the beginning of better accessibility, network and possibly maintenance of the transport sector in this nation. I remain optimistic, of the numerous job opportunities that will be created, the increase in price of land, the need to setup businesses and overall the better travel our children and their children will be ushered into. If you have nothing else to be happy about this coming week then be pleased with the starting of work on the standard gauge railway. Hoping it will actually start.   

 #100daysofblogging #Day13

If anything..

Ma & Pa

If anything

It’s like getting on the lift

Just before the doors close behind

Like little puddles of warm salty water

Rushing between the toes

I won't just have enough of the beach

As you walk the stretch of the ocean floor

Like the sound of crushing waves

Hitting the continental shelf

And the silenced voices drowned

Lost in the search of self

It’s the sensation of taking off fitting shoes

Or the whiff that hits the nose at the door

That whiff that can only be mama’s cooking

It’s a cold Fanta going down the throat

On a dry windy and hot day

Or the spreading of quink

From a blot on a kasuku brand page

It’s slow

It’s captivating

It’s overwhelming

It comes like a rush

From the fingertips to the lobes

To the heel

And the toes

The nape of the neck

It’s inexplicable

If anything

It’s the knowledge that comes from knowing;

Gentleness; perching a chick in your palm

You did well

#100daysofblogging #Day12