Anything but ordinary

• internet dating- genius discovery or monstrosity

  Posted: April 30, 2008, 8:51 am

  
  
  
  
  
  
  I always wonder how social networking has changed with the internet and how accessible it now is. It’s interesting that you can now detail the kind of people you want to meet and wait for them to contact you. In some ways its interesting, because you get to meet people you never would have met otherwise because of proximity, distance and other reasons. I mean lets agree on one thing, with these site you are now totally exposed to the world and other continents, something that otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
  
  So does it mean people who never had the internet years ago were short changed. That their options were limited and they kind of settled? or does it mean, that we are chasing the wind so much these days, that we think we will somehow meet the ONE, or that person who totally gets you by joining all sorts of friend and dating networks, and meeting all sorts of people all with the desire of finding what we feel we cant get in our normal day to day lives (at work, at home etc).
  
  Its interesting, is it more possible to get your soul mate, as you join more and more sites? Do your odds get better? Or do you end up disillusioned, heartbroken, cynical, bitter and heartbroken, when you don’t seem to find what you are looking for. Do soul mates even exist?
  
  Obviously there have been a few successful stories of people who have met their life partners through the internet. And obviously this has been the exception other than the rule. For every person who has met their life partner online, there are more people who have met psychos, stalkers, Con artists, sex traders, porn industry scouts and many irritating people.
  
  So is it all just luck? Did those lucky few luck out, or was the internet their magical cupid.
  
  Are you better advantaged in terms of finding what you want, than a person who has never joined any online dating and social network? Or are you setting yourself up for disappointment and exposing yourself to discovering the evils of the internet.

• Conversations

  Posted: April 28, 2008, 9:33 am

  
  So, I have been away from my blog for months and only recently started posting. I had had to get away after I realized my life was not going as I wanted and I was posting too much negativity. Well, a lot was going on at that time. I am back now. Life is okay, not perfect, but im alive, my daughter is alive and well and God is good. So I carry on day after day making the most of everything and trying to be more positive with each day.
  
  This weekend was good. I hang out at home and watched 2 movies. They were both great. One was a Tyler Perry movie “Why did I get married”. I had watched the play version, but I now got to watch the movie. He is great. He has as usual written, directed and produced, and even starred in it! I love Tyler Perry. His movies have excellent themes and very inspirational. I would advice anyone who likes a positive, inspirational, romantic movie to watch any of his movies. I would advocate for “Diary of a mad black woman” and “why did I get married”.
  
  The other was “Elizabeth town” a 2005 romantic movie starring the hunky Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Durnst. It was a sweet movie. There are excellent conversations in this movie between the two. I love conversations. Especially those that move me, get me thinking and make me all warm inside.
  
  I value conversations, infact I hold them in high regard. I however, have noticed that I rarely meet someone I can have deep, interesting conversations with. It frustrates me. Most men I meet want to discuss which beer I drink, which raves I go too, and most try to get into all sorts of sexual conversations ,which I hate. What’s with the world today? Seems all that’s in most people’s minds is sex. The women aren’t any better and most want to get into discussions on the cute guy they met, what new things they’re into, blah blah blah. To be honest sometimes I just want to talk about life, dreams, hopes, fears, world politics, and social issues. Boring I know. I have been accused by some people of being very boring. Well, guilty as charged.
  
  Well, I recently met this guy and I will admit that for the first time in a long time I met someone with whom I had a very stimulating conversation with. We discussed art, writing, his photography, and such like things. Maybe it had a bit to do with the fact that we had a lot in common, I don’t know, but it was nice. I actually went home smiling and feeling like i'd not wasted my time. He was a real person. Simple, polite, interesting and eloquent. I do certainly hope that we get to talk more.
  
  Most people think im very quiet, but actually I love to talk. But I guess it depends on my chemistry so to speak with the person im conversing with
  
  There is a scene in “Elizabeth town” where the guy and girl talk for hours into the early morning. I always get amused when I see such scenes in movies, and I watch 2 people talk on the phone for hours and hours about everything and nothing. In my ‘romantic’ mind I always wish this would happen to me. I have always imagined meeting this person who I could talk with non stop, who would take interest in my life and whose life id take interest in and we’d talk on phone and in person for hours and hours until time stood still.
  
  Well I guess with the airtime issues in Kenya and the expense involved, it wouldn’t be very possible. Not forgetting traffic jams and security issues which make sure people are always in a rush to get home in Nairobi. I find that just when im getting into a conversation, I or the person I’m talking to, has to rush home due to one reason or the other. I think Nairobi life is bad for interpersonal connections. Well , that’s just me!

• self love

  Posted: April 26, 2008, 10:50 am

  
  After several years of thinking that other people were responsible for my happiness, and that the reasons why I was unhappy was because various people had disappointed me, and not done what I expected them to do, I finally came to realize that the key to my happiness lay not in others’ actions and duties, not in others’ met expectations, not in other peoples hands. The key to my happiness I realised lay in my own hands. In loving myself
  
  Self love, I came to realize, was a power so raw and powerful it could charge and light up even the darkest of hearts. Many people have not learnt to tap into this extraordinary power, but therein lies the key to true unwavering happiness.
  
  The beautiful thing about true self love is that it lies not in works, not in merit. It lies in the mere appreciation of self, in the simple awareness that ones life is precious because of its very existence, not because of its achievement or expectations or standards

• so?

  Posted: April 22, 2008, 9:09 am

  
  SO?
  
  It’s a beautiful thing when you finally come to realize that what people think about you doesn’t really matter. This coming year, my word for the year is"SO!"
  
  One of the hugest problems I have personally always had is wanting to please others, and be liked by everyone. Oh, it’s such an enslaving thing to live for peoples acknowledgments, because what happens is either of the following:
  

  
  
  1. You become repressed- living in this existence where you hold back what you feel, want to say, want to do, because you feel that it will violate some unwritten code of behavior of what is appropriate and acceptable in society's eyes.
  
  
  2. you become fake- you say one thing (usually what you think people want to hear, or what is "politically correct") and do another in secret or in hiding(especially when you feel no one is watching)
  
  
  3. You become miserable- because you just aren’t free. When you live to please others, to be approved of by others and be deemed acceptable, you can never be free. You will become miserable, because you want to do all these things, but you are worried about what people will think of you. You want to speak out your mind, but you don’t want to meet disapproving eyes or be ridiculed or dismissed.
  
  
  4. You judge others- because you feel that you are judged, you judge others, you sneer upon those who are "free”. You hate those who do what they want, who are not held back by inhibitions. You can’t stand those who speak their mind, swear, curse, and act "inappropriately".
  
  
  5. You become resentful- you get resentful at the world because you feel it has somehow robbed you of your dreams and desires. You see, you want to let loose but you cant so you hate, you hate your parents, your friends, your workmates, and your world! Not because they have done anything wrong to you as such, but because you cannot be yourself, because you cannot be free, because you CHOOSE not to BE!

  
  

  
  SO what? So what if your workmate decides to hate you because you have spoken your mind about how you feel? If what he is doing hurts your feelings, instead of being quiet and miserable and resentful towards him, let it go, tell him how you feel! It will not only free you, but it might make him see you aren’t the push over he thinks you are.

  
  

  
  So what? If you want don't like the service you are getting in that restaurant, let them have it. Who knows, it might actually help improve their service!

  
  

  
  If you don’t like how your husband is treating you, tell him! Tell him you aren’t a bloody doormat. No, you are not useless, no you are not ugly, no you are not damn, and no he is not better than you. Don’t let anyone label you demeaning names and just take it in and meditate upon it later and embrace it!

  
  

  
  I have come to realize slowly, with a lot of observation and keenness, that most of our fears are not real, only imagined and exaggerated by fear. In most cases, you will not get fired if you speak your mind (respectfully of course), you will not die if you dance and you are a bad dancer, no one really is watching to see how ugly you think you look in those jeans, no, the world will not end if you strike up a conversation with that man or woman. And you certainly won't make more enemies than usual if you stick up for yourself.

  
  

  
  Infact I have noted with amusement, that people who speak their minds, no matter how inappropriate always seem to have more people want to be around them. I think it frees people to have someone speak out what they are afraid to say and too chicken to admit to.

  
  

  One of my greatest challenges as I move forward will be to lose my inhibitions! It will be my most interesting and exciting journeys of all. Already I am experiencing the joy of living for me and not caring what people think, and it’s freeing, so freeing!

  
  

  A fellow human beings opinion of you, I have come to realize, can never diminish your value as a human being unless you let it! No one can make you lose your mind, only until you embrace and internalize their words and make them the "gospel” truth in your own mind.

  
  

  I have also learnt with great relief, that people who judge others, are totally deep down insecure, hateful, spiteful people who get off on making others feel bad about them! So when they start talking nowadays I smile because it’s really pathetic. I mean, why it should matter how another person lives their lives, as long as they are happy with it.

  
  

  Even Jesus said "do not judge" its one of the commandments, if one of those judging, self righteous, sanctimonious, "holier than thou" attitude people care to read! People like to hide their judgments behind religion and 'right and wrong' beliefs, but its funny how conveniently they forget that the same Jesus they so quickly quote in their judgments, also said "do not judge" And there is a reason between correction and judgment, because correction is born in LOVE while judgment is born out of MALICE!

  
  

  There is nothing a fellow human being can do to your life unless you let them. can anyone by talking about you or lying about you, or being mean to you, add a strand of hair to your head, or add or less a year off your life? Come on, no one has that power except God, LIVE!

  
  

  
  So today I say SO WHAT? To anyone who doesn’t like how I live my life, what I believe in, what I wear, what I do with my life. It’s my life and I live with the consequences of what I do or do not do!
  

• letting go

  Posted: April 22, 2008, 8:59 am

  
  The art of letting go is one of the hardest things a person ever has to learn and go through, and its one that almost physically aches to do. Everyday countless of people are holding on to things that are weighing them down like weights, things that are hindering their growth as individuals, things that are adding no value to their lives, things that deplete and take from them , other than building them up. It can be a job, a relationship, friends, or even destructive behaviors and addictions.
  
  Letting go is a part of life that is so important and therapeutic, but it’s also one of the hardest things to do, since human beings love holding on to the familiar even when its detrimental to their very existence.
  
  Recently I let go of something I had been holding on to for almost 2 years- an ex boyfriend. It was one of the hardest most difficult things to do, and it took me months of backs and forth to get to the point where I actually let go both physically, but most importantly emotionally.
  
  He had broken up with me and gone back to an ex girlfriend, but in my mind I had convinced myself that I would never find someone better than him, someone who could make me feel half as good as he did. Never mind that he wasn’t mine neither was he coming back to me. It’s funny how we can place someone on a pedestal in our hearts, especially when we are so afraid of being alone or feeling rejected.
  
  In my heart of hearts I always knew I was playing a losing game, holding on to him. Allowing him to come back and forth into my life with claims of loving me, which would bear no fruit- not only because he had a girlfriend, but also because he was not meant for me- was utter folly on my part.
  
  I was holding on to something that wasn’t meant for me because I was scared of being alone , scared of facing the truth that my self esteem was so low, that I would allow someone to play games with my heart because he knew I always was there to have him in my heart.
  
  I finally reached a point where the scales literally fell from my eyes and I realized that life would not wait for me to waste away my energies and emotions on a dead end road. It finally dawned on me, obvious as it was, that I do deserve better. I do deserve to be loved unreservedly. I am worthy of so much more than what I though I was.
  
  Love does not hurt. I finally allowed myself to realize that this man did not love me; we did not have a future together. I decided to let go. Let go from deep within me, abandon any false hopes and abnormal fears I had and realize that out there, a full , beautiful, simple life was waiting for me, a life I couldn’t have as long as I was holding on to the past.
  
  I realized that as long as my palms were holding on tight to the past, they could not be open to receive the beautiful gifts that life has to offer. Sometimes we just have to LET GO to LIVE!
  

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes