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...

MISS SMARTY MOUTH

All my life i have grown up knowing that education is the key to life and my teachers taught me that education is all about books and knowing everything there is to know, so i spent hours in books, heaps of them getting to know all i could. I am proudly nerdy and sometimes i say somethings to people that sounds Klingon  and they give me puzzled look. Being smart naturally this is supposed to be a good thing... but sometimes i think it is sort of a blessing in disguise!

I am not bellittling the fact that knowledge is vital, just that sometimes being nerdy or such a smarty mouth is kind of annoying. For instance my girlfriends once told me that always intimidate my dates coz of being a smart mouth and i thought .. Lame! Every guy wants a smart lady who knows everything (wrong!!!!) it can be intimidating sometimes.... especially if he wants to crack a joke and you sploosh him with facts and historical references... eventually turning into a historical lecture.. who really wants to talk about Charles Dickens, Hitler, Fidel Castro, acne, world peace .....??? Lesson learnt to well.

So quietly women learn to sit back and let the men shine in conversations, as much as you think they are so wrong but definately not always and laugh at the stupidiest jokes, sometimes letting someone feel smart works over taking the spot light. I used to wonder how people can stand blondes... i mean they are soo... well.. BLONDE! Facts they say the stupidiest things that make you laugh, they don't have to think they just live the moment have fun and drama... may be thats why men prefer blondes..... although there is also the darwinian theory to explain it... ( there me being nerdy again)

Bring out crazy arguments but that doesnt matter whether you are right or wrong just have a goddamn opinion.. don't be the it's okay person.. say No! sometimes. So nerdy me, has tried this and it definately works...!!! it boosts the self esteem of the people around you and only then can you see the true colours of who they are and they enjoy being around you more... Sometimes i look completly interested in stuff i am being told but have no clue they are talking about.... but somehow they will shut up along the way... and don't judge me because men completely switch off when we start talking about fashion and make up!

Im just saying....two sides of the same coin... i need the nerdy part of me to reason, come up with great ideas, run businesses, get jobs, succeed and the blonde part of me to balance it out .. have fun interact and do the whole livin la vida loca. Anyhoo its never that serious!