The Last Weekend
Hard to believe but this ia my last weekend here. After about five years living I’m this house, we are moving out. We no longer own a house, nor are we renting our own place. We will be staying with a friend untill we officially move. Weird…
I am Sleepy, Really, Really Sleepy…
I am having a really hard time staying awake… Oh! My kingdom for a bed! Well that won’t work right now so instead, my kingdom for a double espresso!
I have been staying up late each night working to get the house organized and neat. I have been staying up late working to get rid of stuff that I have accumulated over the years and do not necessarily now need or even used for years. I have been staying up late each night to do all this because I am unable to take care of more of this stuff during the day. You know, I have to work and there are only so many hours in a day so a lot of my night time sleep time is being taken up by this.
And why am I doing this now? Well I really don’t want to talk about the reasons why I am doing all this organizing, boxing stuff up and ‘spring cleaning’, that I will talk about more in the coming months. Suffice it to say, I have over the years collected a lot of stuff that for the most part I haven’t used in years and I think part of it is that it is time to stop hoarding. I have often wondered what it is, this attachment, that we as humans seem to have towards collecting and accumulating stuff, then building bigger barns because we have simply run out of space to store stuff.
Anyway I decided to get a really strong Americano. I had them make a 6 oz double American which gave me a nice strong drink and that seems to have done the trick. I am much more wide awake now and hopefully I will make it to 5…
Tired…
I am tired, really tired…. I am physically and emotionally tired exhausted.
There are times that I feel like maybe I should throw in the towel and just walk away… Walk away from this match and just keep walking… And where do I go? I don’t know… anywhere but here… I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be blessed and be aware that others around the world are suffering… rather than my current situation… wondering, what would it be like if I was in a place where I felt that I would be able to help others, daily… yet I know that this is the sort of thing that makes me afraid and anxious.
Anxious of the future if I was elsewhere but here… It is me, myself and I also known as the panic station at the drop of a pin… this probably more than any other makes me wonder how successful the coming transition is going to be… and what it will mean… this makes me wonder if I need to walk away or stay…
But… as Shakespeare would say, the die is cast!
Her breath smelled of fresh onions…
I am listening to this song by Ruxpin titled “Your Body Smells of Cinnamon” and that song brings me back to a quote I read in a book by Enid Blyton where the young boy is really struck by the beautiful young country girl whose breath smelled like fresh sweet onions. I always imaged how she must have looked and wondered if I would ever get to date a beautiful country girl whose breath smelled like fresh onions.
This song got me thinking once again about the many beautiful sunny weekend afternoons where rather than being outside enjoying the sun, I was instead holes up in my room reading. I remember reading was one of my favorite pastimes as a teenager and the fact that at that time there really wasn’t anything on TV really helped me devour books like there was no tomorrow. I remember my mom really supported my reading habit by buying us books and comics and whereas most kids wanted to go to toy shops all the time, I used to bother my mom to take us to my favorite bookstore in Westlands. I don’t remember the name but I remember exactly where it was located.
What I really liked even better was that during the school holidays that I spend in the countryside, I had access to a small library where I could get lots of new books each week, It was at this library that I happen to pick up this particular book just on a whim and also on the cover design and once I started reading it, I was instantly drawn to the whole series. The title of this book I checked-out was, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”.
Taking it back a few years before, I remember how I pester my mom to read to us every evening before bedtime. Then imagine my shock and horror when one day my mom turned around and told me that she was no longer going to read to me because I was old enough to be reading on my own. I was about 7 years old. This day I was the day that my love for reading as opposed to just books, started… well after that initial 20 minutes of shock, despair and tantrums. It was shortly after this too that I received the first gift that truly really meant something to me and I treasured for many years to come. My very own dictionary! How I loved it. I would be reading my books and if I was unable to understand a particular word I’d quickly turn to the dictionary for the meaning of the word. This dictionary was given to me by my uncle who knew that I loved to read.
It is interesting to note that a few years later, one of the other gifts that my mom gave my brother and I that I really treasured was a copy of the Gideon’s bible. I resolved to read a chapter every night before I went to bed, and I did for a while, but somewhere along the way, that resolve wore off. Certainly there are some chapters in the Old Testament that can be difficult reading for anyone… let along a 10 year old kid with no one to come along side him and explain the scriptures.
Well I don’t read for pleasure as I used to… and this something that I certainly do want to get back into. I think reading is extremely beneficial in many ways… and for anyone can bring pleasures unknown… and fond memories later in life. And is also something that one can do no matter how old…
My Imaginary Life in Isolation…
Working in consulting sometimes means that you work in isolation as you have to find various free workspaces where you can sit and complete your tasks. This may be at the client’s office, in a café, maybe at the library. After all, for any consultant worth their salt, their office is their laptop and an internet connection to at times location is really not an issue… but the isolation can be.
This kind of fluid work environment is certainly not for everyone. Some do need to have that social aspect of being around people, workmates, co-workers, all the time. For me however, I am very comfortable with that and in fact I find that working in isolation can be really beneficial since it is at these times where I can really reflect on my life and where I am really headed. And it seems like I do this reflecting more and more, the older I get. And it seems like more and more I tend to reflect on my childhood growing up in Kenya and the lessons that I learned along the way about life and what life is really all about. I find too that this also is a time that I reflect on my upbringing and wonder what, if anything, my parents could or should have done better when they raised me and my brothers.
Being now that I live in Seattle, I find that I really miss the sunny days growing up in Kenya. Seattle is a really beautiful place with lots of green and lots of water. But that is only because it rains a heck of a lot! So I find that I miss the warm lazy Saturday afternoons when my friends and I would go exploring the woods and the river near where we lived. Or just lying on the grass in the open fields thinking to ourselves how boring this was and that we wish we were grown-ups so we could do whatever we want and go wherever we wanted. One thing for sure though, my parents did not have to worry about us kids getting lost, kidnapped or anything crazy like that. We would take off in the morning to do whatever, and show up a few hours later for lunch. After lunch the same thing happened again till dinner time. I would come home really dusty and I remember quickly turning the bath water brown… how fun!
In those days, my mom never had to worry about our safety. She knew we would be safe going out on our own and that it was important for us to develop that confidence while learning to grow and explore as kids. I feel now that is almost an imaginary life that I had, compared to what we see around us today… I certainly do not envy the kids growing up today.
People I speak to here in the US always seem surprised when I tell them that if I could do it all over again, I would opt to have been raised in Kenya than the US. Clearly, looking back in hindsight, it is my experiences growing up that made me, me. But even more important, I feel that I probably lived a much richer and better well rounded life back in Kenya, than if I was to have been raised here in the US. Of course I am not a prophet or anything like that so I can’t predict with any sort of certainty what my life would have been if I had been raised here… I can’t predict whether it would have been better or worse….
I still remember my first day at school…
I still remember my first day at school. I was 6 years old…
I remember the school I went to. I remember the school uniform I wore. I remember being dropped off at school. I remember my mom buying me all my school supplies… I remember my chewing my eraser thinking it tasted kind of interesting…. I remember my first assembly. I remember the first hymn we sung at assembly. I remember my first teacher and how she pulled my ears as a form of punishment. I don’t remember what I did though. I remember my friend Oscar from Uganda. I remember my first sports day. I remember taking part in the egg and spoon race. I remember coming in first place and getting a cup. I remember that cup was one of the thing I treasured for years to come. I remember sometimes walking home from school. I remember thinking that is was a little far. I remember going to school on the weekends to watch silent movies. I remember going to Catholic mass. I remember I was not a catholic but I wanted to get confirmed. I remember how big the school cathedral was. I remember transferring schools…
I remember not really knowing why I was going to school or what was expected of me… I remember not developing good study habits. I remember not being as good a student as I could have been…
Some News…
This weekend I just received some really terrible news. I just found out that a close relative of mine was diagnosed with TB. The sad thing about this is that I was not surprised at all. In fact, I am surprised that this did not happen earlier simply because he has been abusing alcohol and drugs for many years and despite interventions from friends and family, has continued to do so.
It is amazing how alcohol and drug abuse makes someone, for lack of better words to describe them, utterly stupid. For example, Joe (not his real name) has insisted time and time again has stopped drinking and all that, yet will sneak off to go drink, come back reeking of alcohol and yet claim they haven’t touched the stuff in ages. This is one of the many reasons it’s completely pointless arguing with or even simply pointing out these behaviors to alcoholics and druggies.
And to be honest, if this is the only thing he is suffering from, then I will be very thankful.
Visiting in Victoria
This past weekend we were in Victoria BC. It was a pleasant trip for the most part. At the same time I was reminded how dismal the customer service is at the Victoria Clipper. I mean you have a number of people working for the clipper who simply cannot think outside the box and will not lift a finger beyond their stated responsibilities. Without going into specifics, what I can say is that we had a small problem and when we tried to present this problem to the people at the Seattle terminal to help resolve, they were totally helpless, they simply could not even offer any sort of suggestion towards resolving the issue. This incident alone really makes me appreciate even more, good customer service when you encounter it and especially when those helping really go out of their way to find a solution to the issue at hand.
The actual journey to Victoria was uneventful. It was also interesting to note that the TV screens were advertising Tully’s coffee when in-fact the coffee they were serving was actually Appassionato coffee. This to me was another example of the staff’s inability to take any sort of initiative outside their stated responsibilities. The seating was a little cramped but I guess that is the norm on a lot of public transport. We sailed into the Victoria harbor at about 11:00 AM. This was after a 2 and a half hour boat ride.
But I must mention the excellent customer service we experienced at the Empress Hotel. It was absolutely top notch and a big, big contrast to that of the Victoria Clipper.
Saturday was fun and relaxing, but Sunday, even though short, was really a highlight of the trip. This was a trip to the Royal BC Museum. I really liked the Royal BC Museum and even though Victoria is a relatively small city, I think the museum did a marvelous job with the exhibits and I was impressed. In fact the only regret is that I only had two hours to spend at the place rather than 5 hours or a couple of days. They had a great selection of exhibitions including the natural history and the history of the First Nations people. With so much to see and read, I had to hurry through the exhibition so there was a lot I felt that I missed.
I also feel in general that Victoria, though small, does have a lot to offer for the visitor. I don’t know when I’ll be back to visit, maybe this summer, maybe years from now, but visiting in Victoria is always a fun experience for me.
Sounders Colors on Space Needle
This is the photo I took a couple of weeks ago coming back from the Sounders party at the Seattle Space Needle the night before the inaugural game the Sounders played New York Red Bulls. Pretty impressive win for the Sounders, 3-0.
For this photo I used my Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens. I really like this lens which I got a little while ago a what I would term to be a great price. It is a pretty crisp lens and in my opinion, a lens that is sort of tending towards a prime lens. It does a pretty awesome job given the price is such a bargain. Now I could go one step up and get the Nikon 50mm f/1.4D instead but the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D is about $300 more than than this one which I bought for about $130, and spending $300+ for a new lens is simply not in my budget. But as you can see, I think the photo turned out pretty decent especially considering that I was holding the camera, no tripod, no vibration reduction (or image stabilization for you Canon folks).
And I just came back a few minutes ago from Qwest Field, the field for the Seattle Sounders. Today they played Real Salt Lake, from Salt Lake City, UT and dispatched them 2 – 0. This is the second straight win for the Sounders and I think they are certainly showing a lot of promise!
