HELLO THERE I AM TWENTY SOMETHING

I moved to a studio apartment recently just a walk away from school. its very cosy and warm. I do miss being with people around me but now i can focus appropriately. It is said that change is as good as a rest; but this change has not made me rest. Moving away from home to a another place in a foreign land was very exciting , nonetheless, i wouldn't say it was not easy... but definately worth it.

I am turning 25 this week (YIKES!!!!) I do feel very old, year do fly past. Just a few years ago i was at 17 doing my first job, then i got to 21 which was the perfect age to be ( it even sounds good to say 'Im 21')   23 came next and this is the age of responsibility, coz your not too young and not too old either and before i even got used to saying i'm 24 ... the big 25 is here. When you get to 25 you stop counting and start using words like mid 20's and late 20's :-)

 The next thing you know you have candles  on your birthday cake like this.

To be honest i'm not looking forward to turning quarter a century!! What makes it worse, are the blogs that tell you.... 'Things you need to do before you turn 25'. Honestly!!! When i was younger i thought 25 was an irky age.. i hoped that by the time i turned 25 i would be working in a international agency, globe trotting and experiencing different cultures, at 25 i hoped to be so in love and staring at the sunset in the horizon, At 25 i thought i'd be at 60 kgs and dressed to kill. At 25 i thought i would have a house of my own holding great dinners and sipping cheap wine in the evenings.

Now that i am 25, i am still in school reading, working at a restaurant, gone to only 2 countries, definitely out of love and no sunset in the horizon because of the classic tale of the English weather!! I am not complaining....... i'm just trying to reiterate that fact that you can't plan out your life to work in a certain way. Things may actually turn out differently, but usually for the better most of the time. Its not exciting to turn 25 when i know i'm am growing closer to getting wrinkles and grey hair. I may be overreacting but.. the journey of a grey hair starts with one birthday!

My take on birthdays. I love attending birthdays may be because other people are growing old and i am not! I have never really had a birthday party ( true) just once. I love small quiet birthdays with the ones i love :-) about  2-4 people or just with my family. That is what i call quality time, big birthdays have to be organized for me coz it is too much pressure and i can over do things...... my OCD kicks in. When my birthday draws closer... the text messages keep flowing 'Where the party @??' Birthdays are when people come eat drink and make merry and  sometimes you take so much effort to prepare and people cancel, show up late and sometimes no presents!

I am spoiled  i love to be pampered. No birthday without presents ... even if it is just a card.. it is the thought that counts. Preparing for a birthday is one of the greatest social pressure i have found hard to come to terms with. However, i will still call all my friends for a birthday dinner and make merry till the sun comes up ;-0.

Turning 25, makes you feel like this when the big things in life start. In terms of thinking about career, friends,love and marriage. This is when your parents stop giving you do's and don'ts and they do listen to your opinion as a grown up.

I sure do want to hang on to my early 20's where i partied till the sun came up!! when spontaneity was the order of the day........ when i loved dangerously! There are no limits in the early 20's. Rest assured i am not changing so much, i think compromise is what has to suffice :-0 The balancing act.

I am so blessed to come this far.... i have had great highlights in my early 20's and the downs were not that bad. In this 25th year of my life i plan to grab life by the balls.... travel to many places that i have always wanted to, get that job that i want, lose that weight that i don't want. If i can't watch the sunset in the horizon then i will be dancing in the rain. This life is for me to savour its delights. A happy 25th to me!!! (Drum rolls)!

CHEWING GUM PROBLEM???

Walking to down the super market to but any candy has been a daunting experience for me lately.... i have never had such a wide variety to choose from. Daunting because first, i love food and i have a sweet tooth.. yes i said it!! At the same time i do not want to add to much weight and not fit into all this pretty little dresses i have at my disposal... this picture reminds me of ball gums that i have had in plenty in my life. When you don't know what candy to buy you can comfortably buy Ball gums.
they are colorful and so pretty!!!!

So this week i was walking down Old Christchurch Road going to town center. I saw this council worker removing chewing gum from the street... One by one. the quantity of chewing gum he had to remove was minimal as i thought the restaurant owner had probably requested for it. A day later i found the same council worker removing chewing gum from the square one by one, whereas the street looked like a carpet stuck with grey chewing gum blotches.

( this is how the street he was working on looked like!!!)

At first i thought this was like the worst form of punishment... but when i talked to him he seemed quite jolly and said that he had to use his small machine doing one chewing gum at a time.
I would have thought that littering was non-existent in england..... however they have their own share of problems in keeping the streets clean and neat.

On average, 30,000 pieces of gum are irresponsibly discarded each day on Oxford Street in London alone, contributing to 3.5 billion tossed pieces of gum each year in the UK. Some people argue that it is a way of creating jobs however ..... who wants such a hard job any way. if people can throw big papers and bottles in a can how can  aminute thing such as gum be this hard.

It costs over £1 to remove one piece of gum from the street.The British Government spends 150 million British Pounds (approx. $230 million USD) annually to remove an average of 7,000 tons of chewing gum from UK streets.According to leading American dietitians, swallowing gum can actually boost the fiber in our diets and help to prolong life, and by giving us the impression that we are full it can help tackle obesity. My message to the gum-chewers of Britain is if you chew, then swallow, too. And if you can't swallow it, then find a bin or face a fine.

THE MYSTERY LANDLORD

Moving into student halls is great but not always. First, i lived in Chesil house i rerally didnt like it much.... and i am not complaining..because i loved my studio flat in student halls. but i didn't know too many people there and with most students being undergraduates.. i felt rather older.. not meaning I'm grumpy and boring but i have better priorities for my time and social preferences vary plus it was pricey. So i moved in with some of my classmates on a shared flat. My flatmates are okay they are funny  and i get to eperience different cultures through them. Sometimes they do get on my nerves but those are woes for another day. i will not even give you a glimpse of how some of their rooms look like (hoping none of them reads my blog!!! erk!).

The most peculiar thing about where i live is that i have never met the landlord! So let us give him a random name  for security reasons  me being kicked out let us call him John*. He is the hardest person to meet and call. Since i moved in he sent someone over to make sure i settled in just fine and do a little bit of this and that in my room to make it more homely. He is so difficult to get on phone and the caretaker always says John says this or John says that. Apparently everyone else in the house has met him just me????
They speak so highly of him... he is a good person, he is very kind and understanding... and so on and so forth.

So i figured there are several ways i could picture him... in my spare time..lol.

The banker in Deal or No deal.... ( off course not the one holding the phone... the one on the other end of the phone. We have really never seen this banker but.. we could have a mental picture of him. Maybe its a guy who is in a suit behind a desk...

Or..... believe it or not i once thought he might be The Mask.. you know a random guy who puts on a mask and becomes anything....

 Maybe.. he is even like Iron man..... like Mr. Stark..








 May be just maybe.. i have just over done it.... but things you think about in your spare time can be really stupid.. well i don't want to meet him... because its better putting faces to a person....

DAMSEL GOES TO ENGLAND

This Big girl went out to conquer the big world and first stop was England !!! I know it has been four months now, seems time passes so fast, and i have had so much happen in such a short time that i can't squeeze into one blog post. It was sad at first to leave my family and friends, but it was time to look ahead.

I live South West of England in a small town called Bournemouth, which has a beautiful sandy beach on the english channel just 10 minutes from my house. This was my first time out of Africa (It always has to start from some where) and i was nervous as a june bag in henhouse. My mother thought i was going to get lost when connecting my flights in Amsterdam..... she rushed me at the airport i had to tell my friends goodbye through a glass window at JKIA. Luckily i got to my destination safe and sound.

I always had this picture of England in my head, from the movies (Pride & Prejudice), books like Jane Eyre... i wanted to come to the land of the queen, ever since i was young. When you grow  upreading cinderella and beauty and the beast... all you want to see a palace, the queen and squirells on the compound. or better yet my adult imagination made me think that it would look like Hogwarts and the underground was like hogwarts express... well to some extent it is true.. but the rest preety much is just English.

Me at westminster Abbey... see me with kate and william at Hamleys.... my fairy tale complete.

 

 

However, moving doesn't come without its own set of suprises. This are few things i have learnt and observed.

1. The bus will never wait for you... countless number of times i have been left by the bus... one day i just missed the bus by 5 seconds and i was running in my new heels that i had not yet got used  to  and the bus drove off!! Hath no fury.... i screamed and scorned at the bustop till other people just looked at me, trying to regain my sanity.. i shouted... 'In Kenya the bus waits for  me '
2. There are always two taps, one hot water and the other cold. this is not entirely new to me. Yes, we have double taps back at home.. but only the cold taps work... Rather cool to have both taps working yay!!!
3. When someone tells you ' That's funny'  what they actually mean is that it is actually not.
4. Everyone stands behind the bar..... they practically just crowd there, there no waiters passing drinks! In kenya i wonder what would happen with those who do one drink all night....
5. People in England say - Ain't it - ( meaning isn't it)...it is just wrong!! grammatically.. i can never get used to it.
6. The shops close too early over the weekends... what.. i miss nakumatt its 24 hours :-(

I have met many people made new friends and i love every chance i get a new experience . Success comes to those who embrace change and not those who resist it.

Best part of it though is the shopping experience whoop whoop!!



I AM WEIRD... BUT IN AN AWESOME WAY...

I’m not going to open this blog post by saying its been a while since I last posted….again, but that’s a fact. Things have been moving fast in my life lots of new experiences, I am completely exhilarated, meeting new people, going to new places and amazing girlfriend moments, I have laughed hard till my ribs hurt, I have cried so hard that… I was whimpering uncontrollably, I have had mind boggling conversations with great people…. A wholesome experience it is…

I do not consider my self an ordinary girl..as a matter of fact i am Extra-odinary, I do live in  world of my own… my own movie with a story line starring well … me. I sometimes amaze my self and wonder.. do the people around me get what i really say to them... sometimes my friends think im weird...

I still check under the bed every night before i sleep.... i have no idea why coz the boogey man is not real. I still have most of my dinner dresses really circular and pricessy design... to hell with fashion.. i want to look Like cinderella.

I still write a journal and have secret code names like Scrooge for mean people and Prince charming for the awesome guys.. :-) Don't get me wrong ... i don't run around kissing real frogs and collecting pumpkins to take me out, nor Pray that my fairy godmother will appear with her magic wand and give me a gorgeous print dress and 5 inch double platform heels... i actually go shopping and get me some clothes...

Sometimes people tell me to snap back to reality, but that is just me... i will not stop wanting to travel to the most amazing places in the world... machu pichu, taj mahal...leaning tower of pissa, the Holly wood sign...and many many more places. There is no harm in dreaming......big.

I love my food cold and highly sugary, i love rice and milk mixed together and choclate pancakes. I love to sleep in diffrent socks.. even though they are paired up. I love listening to music though 80% of the time i can't hear the lyrics and i have to print the lyrics. I still write songs in my diary and if the old newspaper cut outs (pop stops) were still there, i'd fix them on my journal..... i love reading old books and will read them to the end no matter how excruciatingly boring it may be.

I am a hopeless romantic, I trust too much too fast and i think its cool to take long walks and dance in the rain... who cares if you catch a flu... thats what doctors are for... and salons for the hair. I still think "Sound of Music" is the greatest movie ever.. even after Lord of the rings and Chronicles of Narnia.... I still believe that i can get a message in a bottle marked "X"....

I truly live in my own small weird world.. which may not make sense to many but me... but i still think its weird in an awesome way!!!!

I WON SOMETHING ON RADIO...

Well i won some thing on Radio today, ive been working out in the gym, but im not going to turn down that Pizza!.. freebies taste so good. I look at my pic holding that voucher and thinking... i actually won something! I am not such a true believer in the lottery, though my dad made me scratch so many of those charity sweepstake cards when i was young. We only won a thousand bob! Which i considered a rip off coz we had bought much more.. :-( Good thing is that its was for a good cause.

Yep that's me there with an all happy face and a grumbling stomach... I had to make sure I came for it completely famished. Its not that im not a true believer entirely its just that any little thing I win.. I flaunt it so much, no matter how small.. see im blogging about free pizza ( my point exactly!!). Maybe it God's way of telling me to question how I would  behave if it was bigger???

The first recorded sign of using the lottery was in China... it is even believed that the government used the lottery to build the Great Wall of China! In 1612 Virginia's economy was once revived by the intoruction of the lottery to keep the settlers with income to survive.... Its not every body's lucky day... but sure do buy a ticket once in a while it may be just-your-luck.

I have always wondered what happens to those people who win the lottery... For instance .. Tazama chappa?? We are Africans, its in our blood to take care of the other people in the family.... extended family.. your brother's wife younger cousin's step sister's adopted daughter! Do they all come rushing in at the time???How come i never know someone who has won the lottery with huge tons of cash??? People win the lottery.. just never met them....

Bottom line this is the second time i have won this month.... and i am loving it!! guess this time i may just convert to a true believer ( for now )... who knows if I might just get that trip I have long waited for... *wink wink*

ALMOST THROWN OFF BALANCE

Its been Eons since i posted last... lately i have been holding my pen to write even in my journal but i dont seem to quite get it out. Its supposed to be a sneak peak into my diary to some extent, but i wasnt sure i was ready to let it all out there. Finally some one had to write something! this past two months have been .... well something.

When my girlfriends and I meet our conversation is broken into several categories to make catching up quite easy. We talk about our academic life.. ( which is not so existent since most of us are out of school), our social life, our financial life, our professional life and most of all our love life. This is an all rounded way to keep catching up, prolly very efficient. Lately all this categories seemed to have a downward spiral in my life and some completely non existent. I really had some hard questions to ask, but no one could answer them, i am all grown up now, this are the things i ought to take care myself.

My parents always teach me to behave so I can make it in life. The usual work hard in school and get Excellent grades this will take you to high levels in society. Respect your elders and work with utmost deligence and honesty. Save, invest, get knowledge and sieze opportunities. Keep away from "some" boys .... the list is simply endless...

What i concluded was, what to expect in life was not told to me by all my mentors. They missed out telling me that it may be kind of hard to get some of those jobs no matter how well qualified you are. They always told me that i would kiss many frogs but never how ugly some of those frogs would be, they never told me that life would sometimes be so unfair and there is nothing i could do no matter how right i thought i was... They never told me thats\not all the succesful and happy people were good ( some are evil), but i cannot say who deserves what!

At one moment i thought life could never get worse... annoying and unfair. I felt life this all should shut down and leave me alone. It was more like a chain reaction something bad leading to something even worse. This are the defining moments. They always make sure to get the best of you. Is that the reason why some people look so serious as they grow older..#justwondering

I am not entirely unhappy about what i have learnt in this past few months, i have to take it positively.. it was a humbling moment. One thing that was true was the fact that in the end if you do what is right you will have the last smile ( laugh sounds evil...) This kind of experiences build character, how well you deal with any situation. The nitty gritties of how hard sometimes it can be.. are what you don't need to focus on.

If everything would be on the other hand so smooth life would have been somewhat boring i guess.... The light at the end of this tunnel......... i think i just got there...