“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask my kids in my Sunday school class the other day.
Their little hands are wiggling up in the air, the mostly six-year-olds eager to share their dreams with me.
“A doctor,” one girl says, and another and another.
“A pilot,” a boy shouts, and of course there are several more.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a start-up is “a newly established business”. Okay. But why is it that we don’t call all new businesses start-ups? Or do we? Is it even a startup or start-up? Microsoft Word 2013 thinks it’s the latter and so I agree. What I am trying to say is, the term start-up applies to more than just the tech companies by young individuals you read about every day. However, this post applies to such start-ups but in the developing world. You know you are working at a Kenyan start-up when:
You have that one browser you love to bits. Mine happens to be Google Chrome. I have tried working with Mozilla Firefox and I did not last long. And the only reason I tried it is because I thought Chrome was weighing my laptop down. At first, I thought it was the number of extensions I had on it, so I disabled all of them. However, I could not carry out my work as social media manager efficiently, so I had to bring my must-have extensions back.
These are my favourite browser extensions which you will probably love too, if you don’t already, especially if you are also in my line of work i.e. you manage blogs and social media accounts for most of your days.
I love Sundays. Sundays are the days I just chill out and enjoy the freedom. On good Sundays (most of them are good), I am lady Shiku. I don dresses. And heels. Just to remind myself how it feels like to be a real girl. And it feels good. This Sunday, I wake up later than usual. Mum does not wake me up with a phone call as usual. No, I have not moved out. Yes, she calls me every Sunday morning from the other side of the wall. When phone calls act as alarm clocks.
I am so sleepy. Why, sun? Why couldn’t you just rise a little later today?
The most traumatic transition I have gone through in the recent past is moving from campus life to working. That is folly to a normal adult who is used to working to earn a living but it is the truth. I landed a job this past holiday which was quite a task. I was supposed to work from eight to six with no real break in between. Half the time was spent on my feet attending to all kinds of people. The first day on the job I was so beat, I could not stand up for about an hour once I got home.
Sometimes, I feel really down for no apparent reason. Most times, I feel bad I am not making it in life as much as I should. Sometimes, I feel bad because I think the world is unfair. This is the time I take on as many distractions as I can to stop feeling this way. If I don’t, I will end up crying. I can be a baby. A big baby.
Guys lie,
Guys lie all the time.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am right.
Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s false.
Right and true, wrong and false,
Totally different.
I could be either, or.
You know advertising is powerful when you walk into the ladies and hope there is tissue paper and then when you see it, you think, “Tissue si tissue, tissue ni Hanan.” Epic fail. I hate that advert. Nevertheless it is engrained in my head. In fact, come to think of it, if I was responsible for buying tissue in the house, I’d actually try it out. I will try you out when I move out, Hanan. You can go ahead and thank that guy. What’s his name again? I know it’s not Otoyo. Wait. Think, Shiku, think. Colourful clothes. Luo accent. I give up.
Anyway, who goes into a public facility and makes away with an entire roll of tissue paper?
It’s been seven months since my heart was broken into a thousand little pieces. Seven months since I added too much salt to the food because my mind was somewhere else replaying conversations, trying to figure out what I did wrong. My dad did not even think about it as he went on his jokes about how he should have cooked the food himself. He always cracks this joke about me having, perhaps, gone and cooked the food in Lake Magadi.
You know how a man seems interested in you and makes conversation then he cannot keep it up when you are already getting interested too? I hate that. I really do. I don’t get why someone would get my interest running then jump off the vehicle and leave it running down the hill. It sucks. It’s unfair. If you know you are going to do that to me, you’d rather just watch me from a distance. Watch me waiting for the next driver. Don’t just jump in because I look like I am desperate enough to let any driver on.
I am back with some more Kikuyu songs/rhymes from my childhood years. I noticed lots of you loved them and keep searching. Seriously, that was the life. I made mum and dad sing them and they did, joyfully, to the amusement of my baby bro and sis who have never heard most of them before. Needless to say, I had forgotten some words. I am old, people. You should see the white hairs on my head.
Remember Lucy, that naïve girl who was always so unlucky in love? I’m talking Lucy of the WhatsApp mishap. Lucy of the wingman drama. Well, here is the sequel…
Lucy had had enough at this juncture. She quit WhatsApp and threw it in the pit of oblivion. She stopped acting out of desperation. After all, she was young and free, right? No more Drew, no more George or Sam.
Literally and figuratively. For the longest time, I have loved boy bands. Not just any boy bands but Christian boy bands. Think Plus One and Jars of Clay of the 90s to today’s Anthem Lights and Royal Tailor. It then goes without saying that my most played songs are boy band tracks alongside hip hop ones. I work with earphones on the whole time. It’s a reflex; so much so that sometimes, I plug them on and forget to play the music for hours. Yeah, I am crazy, I know.
I will list down my ten best boy band songs of 2014.
You know your Tuesday will suck when you cross from one county to another and find that this county decided to be totally wet this morning. Why is that a problem? Because some of us walk for miles to get to work once we alight from the bus stop. One reason why I should work from home.
This Tuesday morning, I was up at 7 as usual. Yeah, don’t put on that face. You are probably seated in a traffic jam at the time but yeah, some of us wake up that late. 😛 Perks of living along Waiyaki Way and its extensions (read, Upper Westlands a.k.a. Kinoo and its suburbs.) Anyway,
So you think weaves are bad? So you sat there typing up yet another article to ruffle feathers for traffic? You sat there while your ‘beautiful head’ was covered in yet another type of braid which is as synthetic as a weave but you claim to be a natural hair crusader? You know what, you are fake. Fake gets you traffic, I know. Fake gets you to put up a show and set tongues wagging.
In fact, I have been meaning to write about weaves for the longest time now. I don’t wear weaves for personal reasons. I tried one last year and regretted it.
