WHEN I WAS YOUNG I WANTED TO BE A SINGER..

I have been so busy of late not able to update my blog, i had almost lost my life as a blogger for a moment there, but not to worry i have not yet reached the point 'to blog or not to blog'. I am having this Thursday infront of my computer busy trying out Karoke on YouTube. My friend encouraged my to try out for Tusker Project Fame Auditions, she reallly does believe in me, when i asked her for the audition venue and dates, she told me "See press and posters for details!"... huh really i hope next time i wont get a 'terms and conditions apply.' :-)

When i was a child i really wanted to be a singer, when everyone else wanted to be a doctor, pilot, farmer, driver (yes!). I just wanted to sing. I have grown up in a house full of music... (then) we should have had a small choir.  I thought muscians were preety, especially Tina turner and her raspy voice...Whitney (R.I.P). Sound of Music increased my ever burning desire for music. At the age of 5 i could sing in front of a 200 persons' crowd, the comments were encouraging too. (Of course i did not look llike her below... :-)

Somewhere along the way came books, education and Music was not in my school Curriculum. Naturally i was more inclined to passing my maths test than learning the F and G -clefs. Back in school and formed a trio with my friends called - Three Roses and we could actually rock a crowd pretty well. After high school of course came college and lets just say singing lost to other things. Although i would drop some few notes for my friends, that was preety much the end of me doing any singing.

Im standing infront of my laptop practicing a song - If you ask me by Omawumi, (amaizing song!) and i am astounded by how terrible i sound, what happened to my voice??? I was so sure i could pull it off quite easily....#puzzled. Now i actually believe my mother's stories when she tells me she could sing..What im preety sure of is, i will not be checking press and posters for details anytime soon. The simple joy i used to find when singing my heart out has been lost in the hustle and bustle of my daily life. I not giving up yet... im going out to get my groove again :-)

THE TECHNOLOGY CURSE ON DATING

On this lovely Sunday afternoon i decided to do some indulging on Facebook by chatting up some of my virtual friends ( ones i have not met face to face) it is after all social networking! My first conversation;
Me: Hi
Friend 1 : Hi, your pics look hawt!OMG...!!! :-o
Me : Thanks.
Friend 1: How do u know Jane* and Carol*?.... if u know them then you must be coooool.....lol.
Me: (went offline)

I must say meeting someone online has become a bit more boring nowadays. I call it 'The Technology Curse on Dating '. Imagine you only need the Facebook name of a girl/guy you like! I miss high school dating. Back then, a guy had to sum up his courage to ask me for my name, postal address and sometimes even my class. After the first encounter I would wait patiently for a week or longer to get the letter. It was every Friday, letters were called out in the dining hall after supper. Imagine how I felt when my name was called out! I clutched the letter(s) so tightly. Not all letters passed as good, but generally let me sum up the - Characteristics of a good letter:

• The envelop had to be white and the recipients name written in caligraphy.
• The back had to have a tit bit like, 'Open with a smile', 'Kiss before you open', 'Open with love' e.t.c
• The writing paper had to be colorful, the normal foolscap was a thumbs down.
• The letter had to be scented... not too much not too little to be noticed, just perfect.
• At the bottom of every letter was a place for 'Dedics' ( special song for the lady/guy)

If your letter had this, you were officially in the game.

I think of the technological revolution as more of a curse than a blessing ( to a larger extent ) in fostering the pace of relationships, truly matters of the heart should not be rushed. The I-pod, I-pad, I-tunes, I- this , I- that... but I-need-my-letters-written. Love letters have some suspense, anticipation, eagerness carried in them, you cannot simply delete or resend a letter that fast. That means the time taken to come up with the massive makes the words more meaningful, carefully chosen.

In this era i feel like technology has completely rendered love letters obsolete! I am not discrediting its emergence per se, i wouldn't also want to be stuck in stone age as the Flintstones communicating with drums, smoke and blowing of horns. When it comes to relationships, there is alot of information given out too fast and sometimes too soon. There is an overabundance of information that we may not be ready to process in such a fast pace.

In America, a study done shows that the American teenager sends out an average of 3,339 texts in a month ( that's 112 texts per day!). This my have detrimental effects on the kind of communication sent to and fro. The meaning of the words is cheapened! When you speed up communication you end up using more common expressions and cliche' phrases that are not unique and exclusive to one person. This is not a good way of expressing love. Some of the phrases are like : TTYL ( Talk to you later), Lol ( Laugh Out Loud) and many more. Since when do i make a joke and you send me a simple lol!!! Language has been completely distorted with acronyms that makes one sound charming and 'Swaggerful!'. Its like a me rolling on the floor fantasizing just because my new crush liked my photo on Facebook and tweeted me..... Wanna hang sometime. #lame.

Nowadays complete strangers can be an open book. Just Google their names or 'Facebook- Stalk them'.You can find out who has a top job and check out their profile pictures wondering who is that woman he has put his arms around! We don't keep time and we constantly lie on the phone, commonly... " I am almost there", when you are definitely not even out of the house! If only we would go back to when we were to meet at the clock at Kencom on Thursday at noon ( era of no cellphones)- then 'African time' would actually 'On time'.

May be I am being to skeptical and a bit harsh on technology, what I am simply saying is that, we need not dive into the newest form of technology head first (BBM), lets take time to know how it will affect our relationships in the long term. Its Wanja's nature to sometimes hang on to some old fashioned ways and  be conservative. Lets just keep some tangible records of the 21st  century metamorphosis of relationships to be able to look back into sometime in the future. Imagine if Paul in the Bible had written an Email to the Ephesians, and they had to delete it at some point to create more room for newer files... My point exactly!

RETRACING THE FOOTSTEPS OF MY YOUNGER SELF

I am an avid journaller. I started journaling when i was 12 years old. I hadn't quite grasped the idea of why a journal was important then.My teenage journals are filled with short erratic excerpts of my day, poems, lyrics from songs, bible verses and quotes from renowned people.Amidst all the naivety, i can conceptualize a clear metamorphosis of who i have came to be today. My writing makes more sense and is clearer as i grow older.

I do not at all dismiss the young girl's voice in my journals as 'Just a kid', i was able to express myself, my thoughts and feelings through lyrics of music, other people's poetry and great words. This way i have found my voice, my opinion and stand from what other people wrote. My personality has been greatly shaped from that kind of literature ( That is why you should screen through what your children read, watch, and listen to at a very tender age - classic case of your thoughts become your actions!)

When reading some of the entries, i am rather dissapointed in some choices i made. If i could go back in time i would not repeat some of the mistakes i made. Mistakes are lessons we learn from and if we do not make this a point of learning from them, we always put ourselves in almost similar circumstances that make us repeat these same mistakes, sort of a vicious cycle.

Sometimes i feel like reaching out to my younger self and tell her to do things more differently;

1. Don't care so much about what people think.
2. Spend more time with your siblings when you get older some will be thousands of kilometers away.
3. Do not date a bad boy... they really are!
4. Save Save Save!
5. Do not perm your hair...at least not yet.
6. Travel some more meet more people, laugh harder!
7. Don't take everything too seriously
8. Never give up on what you love doing.
9. There are some really bad and nasty people out there but there are more good people too.
10. Friends are essential keep them very close.

There are a million things i would like to tell this teenage girl as her life unfolds in the pages i hold, but, they have made her who she is today and i believe she turned out great! :-) Maybe extravagance made  me know importance of saving.Dating a bad boy made me know when a good man came along, maybe perming my hair made me realize that ' I am not my hair!' ( Yes! I stole that from India Arie)

If i was given a chance to go back and change a lot in the past, I wouldn't. I may have had a diffrent outcome, the ideal life, a complete state of Utopia, but then, i would be wondering what it would have felt like if i had done things differently and i would have never known!

THE WAVE

I am having my lunch break and as i walk past a shop, an old newspaper on the door of a new shop under construction stops me on my tracks. It is my old high school friend and her glam wedding photos are splashed all over the newspaper. Since i am with my workmates i tell them how cute they look on the photo and we all start oohhing and ahhhing at the couple. I finally decide to give her a call and catch up and she says the baby has been born. I am truly happy for her as we talk of the little bundle of joy. At the back of my head i am screaming at the top of my lungs.. "What????"

What happened to the plan back in school where we were supposed to stay single get flashy cars, pretty clothes before we let the knights in shining armor whisk us away? Reality check. My friend calls it the WAVE. The wave starts when all your girlfriends start getting married; have babies or actually settle in serious relationships. She says that if it misses you (the wave), you have to wait for 5 years to get into the wave again.

I may not be of the same school of thought, which proclaims spinsterhood and possible celibacy for the next half a decade.I believe its called growing up and taking risks that others are not willing to. Its knowing who is right for you and not the obvious heart breakers. Its putting your Knight in shinning armour before all the pretty dresses.

I may not be ready to take some of those risks right now but i am preparing to. I am preparing to be a great wife, mother and family pillar, I am letting God make me the best i can be, strong, prayerful, virtuous and loving. Just like flowers some open first and the rest come following later. In this case I may be a late bloomer but definitely a Bloomer!

REASON WHY I NEED A BLACK BERRY

I have never considered myself technologically handicapped and I know my way around several complex gadgets (if we are talking about computers)… the I-pad was really never rocket scienceJ.  After I am done with all this bragging you should see my humble handset, at least I can listen to radio!!! That is as far as the story goes.

I have had a really good phone before but it was it was never for keeps; it was a very heart breaking experience. Let’s just say I have my own set of issues with letting go. Sometimes I feel like if I get a really good phone it will be taken from me leaving me more heartbroken than before. I am slowly working on letting go of my past relationships with good phones and move away from the comfort zone of my current phone (which I would not mind if stolen over and over again). Simple it is ‘Replaceable’.

I am aware of slim touch phones that would fulfill all my dreams. Coming from a bad relationship with my last phone, this time I will take baby steps. I just want a Blackberry. I believe it is practical for a beginner who is moving on, it may be a bit difficult at first to dump my old handset but I hope slowly he will come to realize that we are really not fit for each other.

He has been holding me back form uploading all those pictures online. I cannot even respond to some of my emails, tweets and comments on time especially those days I am away from my PC! Can you believe he doesn’t even want to share the sim card slot with his own twin brother from Airtel!!!!

He has been my faithful and loyal servant but I think it’s time he loosened his grip and let me go. It’s time for me to spread my wings and soar. I need him to trust me, have faith and let me join the other side. Where emails are replied on time and tweets shared just at the right moment. That’s why I need a Blackberry.

A RELATIONSHIP.....TREAT IT LIKE A JOB

Some few years ago, one of my good friends (rather Older than me) gave me good insight for my relationship life. He told me “A relationship should be treated like a Job”.  Then I was in campus I did not have any job so I equated the same to an assignment. Let me tell you how I handled my assignments back in campus;

•         I was either too over ambitious and did all the work exhaustively and completed it weeks before the deadline. In a nutshell I rushed them.

•      I was either too lazy to work on them, then I would do them overnight the day before handing them in.

I bet you now realize why that advice was not really appropriate for a 20 year old mind. I recently go a new job and the analogy given to me earlier started to make sense. It is true that a relationship
may
work best when treated as a job. This is how…

COMMUNICATE

As in the work place learn how to reply to texts, emails and phone calls. Keep people updated on the progress of your department (read life). If a matter is to be discussed that is very important ensure that all the parties affected have some bearing to the decision made. It is unprofessional (relationship-wise) not to communicate if you will be late for a meeting and if you will not be able to make it for a date.

HAVE A PLAN

Getting into a relationship without a plan is like shooting with no aim. If a relationship is not viable kindly move on to the next viable project, do not go around in circles there will be very low or no profit in the long run. Set short term goals such as taking her out on date, making a phone call or even long term goals such as moving in together, getting married! Weigh the pros and cons of every decision then make a decision with lots of objectivity, sometimes listening to your heart clouds your mind. 

KNOW WHAT IS THERE IN THE MARKET

This can be your competitor’s profile. Who are they? Why would he/she choose them over you? What can you do to ensure that he/she does not lose interest in your products or services (Yes! services). If the lady loves poetry or fashion you better take her there over the traditional good ol’ movie theaters. Keep up with the current trends. 

MARKETING!!
The way you talk, dress and generally appearance says a lot about who are. Set a standard and stick to it. People are comfortable with consistency. Inconsistency may bring about distortion of the brand image. Good grooming and stay healthy to ensure that you have a wide base of prospective ‘suitors’. Be very careful with those that want free samples, ‘If they want constant supply of the milk, they’d better get the cow too!’

 The basic things we do in our day to day activity at work if applied with the same level of seriousness and enthusiasm in their relationships, would form very good relationships, my take. Think about it!!

THE BAD BOY CRAZE........

I am seated at my desk as usual working and humming to this song by Jaydn Maria “Good Girls like Bad Boys”, quietly I cannot help but think how true this is, as much as we may want to disagree with modesty, it is still very true! (I Included). We always literally run away from the really nice guys and chase after the one guy that you wouldn’t take to your mama.

Isn’t it unfair that the nice guys always finish last? It is always the bad guy that wins, the rogues, rascals and very spoilt brats. Sometimes I tend to think that once you get a bad guy it is like a breath of fresh air, something out of the ordinary totally exciting. When ladies are with bad boys they tend to relax and not worry so much about, etiquette and being all lady-like they are purely themselves and not uptight.

On the other hand being with a nice guy is somewhat of a big responsibility at times, since they have this picture of a perfect girlfriend or even spouse! Most of the time the lady is trying so much to be what they want them (nice guy) to be rather than what they ought to be. A bad boy will outrightly tell you what they want from you however intimidating and annoying it is to us women, deep down we like it and find it rather cute (and don’t deny) that’s why being around them is much easier since you do not see a future with them the future with them is now…

This doesn’t mean that all the nice guys should start being jerks since we love bad boys. No! you should strike a balance between being a complete manipulative person and a harmless nice guy. Be cool and charming that will win the beauties. Bad boys can be so addictive, Right!, but a proper lady should know when to snap out of it because they are not really for keeps. Trust me I have examples top of my head...