LIFE LESSONS

I have been forced to quit blogging because of reasons pertaining to my other ambition of never failing in exams again (UON ushered my first taste of academic failure). I have decided henceforth to give blogging a wide berth as I make way for a new lifestyle that will be more hectic and require a rote that I meet targets within the shortest time possible and also work with the swiftness of a gazelle in my aspirations of a debut in being a financial analyst. 

CFA is hectic. You need to be very smart to go about this course which is also very thorough. As a matter of fact, being behind schedule in terms of reading has contributed in yours truly having to give blog posting some form of discontinuity until that point in time in life when the course work will have eased till the wee stages of completion. Whether I will pass the exam or not, something remains for sure, it has taught me a lot in terms of self-discipline. Getting the knowledge is far more enriching as it makes you realize you are a rookie in the financial domain. If life was only tied to passing exams and you sure are going to live a life of merry, then that would be a reason as to why most would be passing the same. But the current world has reinvented itself. You no longer need to pass exams to make it in life like it is an eventuality. You need to find something different that will segregate you from the rest. You can be an actor, play football like the football magician Messi, sell your wares- master the skill and own a flourishing chain of businesses many would want to franchise.

With dedication and patience, everything is possible. Hope that the study timetable I have put in place will be a reason why I will be smiling at the end of a six hour exam that awaits me mid-June in the coming year. As of now, I am pursuing my course of choice. This is a study whose intent was conjured even before I went to campus more than five years ago. Only that the start was unveiled this year.

So what has life taught me up until this point in time?

The first thing has to do with discovery of the self. The greatest investment is to invest in yourself. You never will regret it. What you aim at achieving is only curtailed by the setbacks you create at your own volition. Making important and instrumental decisions earlier on ensures you have enough time to achieve that which you wanted to accomplish early. You become a master of your destiny at the end of it all. Society also, has a way of aiding in that quest. It’s up to you to take the mantle and decide to change your serendipity using all the available machinery you can surmount be it technical, mechanical or electronic. Again, it is of paramount necessity to ensure that people play a crucial role in the course of your achievement because it is they that matter. They can break or make you.

Free-rider mentality.

Who does not want freebies? It’s human nature to love free products and services, which also comes at a social cost. The price of anything that is free or cheap is that the worth you get from it is never satiating as there is always a compromise on standards and quality. Until you develop the taste and preference of finer things in life, living the normal Jane and Joe everyday life will be your eventual respite. They say, when you want something, go for it. Like the Veblen goods, it’s mostly important that life be pegged on continuous development. The most satisfying things in life are worth the penny you spend on the acquisition of the same. The more you spend, however may not be directly related to the much you expect. Life lessons will open your eyes as to what is good and what is not. But at the end of the day, it is also important to take advantage of freely available forms of development. They help save you a lot in terms of time and money. Saving means more wealth. Economics 101 in practice. Right.

Saving

The value of having a saving culture is directly related to prosperity. Though the time value for money is always the inverse of saving, there is greater value in saving some pence no matter how little. The little you save become more and sooner or later, you slowly realize you dream. Those who save really cushion themselves against the rigors of a financial turmoil that is usually unprecedented on a rainy day. There is surety in having a savings culture. From saving, you can turn the little into an investment stream or find worthy advice on what you can engage in with the little. Like the Chinese say, “The journey of a thousand miles stars with a single step.” Quit that unnecessary consumption and spenditure. Punish yourself sometimes so that you do not indulge in that which robs you of your hard earned money. A penny saved is penny earned. For in saving there is a way of evading debt.

Working

Working as opposed to staying idle is something that is very important. Each day, you see different people (as you commute or walk the streets) and observe queer tendencies that are developing gradually. You may sometimes be disinterested in you work looking for an option but the reality is that it is better to stick around for some time. You never know, just when you are on the verge of quitting, is when some godsend comes. However, also staying does not guarantee that you will change much in life. When you are experiencing periods of stagnation without much progress, it is important to review your strategy. The most important workplace in the world is the aura you create for yourself. Working for yourself is tentatively the best thing in life. You get satisfaction if the results are progressive. Soon or later, you gain ground and have the nerves to do just about anything. Life is about moving forward. When you become a stickler to the status quo, you lose a lot.

Blogging/ Writing

Hitherto, my thoughts on this was that I would make it just like that. This is hell. This though, caught my eye and really is a reflection of what I am experiencing personally,

 “I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”- Gustave Flaubert.

There are times when as a writer, doing my blog post, am forced to steal one or two phrases because I lack the diction of how to give my all when another has done it easily much to my envy. Writing is one of the best things life has bestowed upon mankind. When you write, you enter into a world of the unknown then progressively enter the world of the known. Thoughts are usually skewed and muddled before piecing up everything. The only recourse is that you are never alone. There is always that déjà vu moment. Writing is addictive, like Indian hemp, you need a rehab to stop the devastating effects of its hallucinations from making you habituated. In fact, getting an inkling is itself a retrospection about how you view where you are headed in general. Thus everything about writing has a muse in it. Like a duck you remain calm on the surface, but underneath, you paddle like hell. Obviously every writer or pen pusher has a predilection and creed.

Studying

There is no procedure on how to study effectively. One man’s poison is another man’s meat. As such, it goes without doubt that the tactics one employs may not necessarily work for another. Studying for exams is a complex affair. However the major facet of it in intensive reading. How one peruses is ideally best determined by him or her. For purposes of this writing, I also have just started to muster the hours I am productive. There is always a brighter side to gaining knowledge.  The best thing about is that you never lose it. It is the only possession that a brigand can never rob you, unless you are incapacitated. So knowledge is power. The only inhibition is that to acquire it, you sometimes need enough backs in this capitalistic world. Studying even for leisure is fair enough. So getting informed is an enriching venture after all.

Entertainment

There is no enough measure of entertainment. The definition of the same also varies. What makes one lively makes another sullen and predisposed. However, there is this thing called ale that inebriates. Boozing is not bad if it does not the body and brain devastatingly. However, when it is not done right, it fails to elicit its intended purpose. Drinking cheap liquor has devastating consequences. The downside of it is in the fact that you are not able to sometimes control your mental sanity. You end up spitting vile or acting incongruous as opposed to being sane. Those are the times you find yourself in dingy places where the average person has no better form of purpose other than drinking away all the worries and stigma away. You may end up drinking illicit concoctions, or worse find yourself under the arm of a seductress who you took advantage of or the inverse and you spend like a nouveau riche thinking you have but only leading yourself to obscurity. At best, drinking fine liquor with brand names work out fine. You never wake up with a hangover after a few tots. Over indulging in the same is comparable to taking cheap liquor.

Avoiding alcohol when you can at all costs is the surest way out of trouble.

Maybe, I should have tweaked this life lessons a little bit to give the reflection of the everyday guy. But this is the best that I can give in my current state. Like I have said earlier, I serve all the purposes in this blog. I am the number reader of the content that is available on it and also the editor, the graphic designer, web designer and all that. I am taking a brief leave to concentrate on my studies as earlier intimated maybe until next year if I will not have the push from some inner calling to write.

Na juu ya hiyo story, Buda Boss Sinakafunge juu kamenyuria.

Hasta La Vista Baby.

[Picture Source: My Own]

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CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

You are told by colleagues that you have been invited to a Diwali event. As a matter of fact, there is no official communication or card for the event which would mean you have gatecrashed. It’s a word of mouth invitation that you could not resist so that you could have something to scribe about at the end of it all. The event is happening where you work. Just five floors from the office you work as a casual labourer because the employer insists on payment per day. If you miss a single day, you never qualify for that day’s wages. Fair enough.

Kenyan Indians are still reclusive in their tendency of holding themselves apart from Africans yet they live and will be interred in Kenya. They are still beholden to the colonial mentality that they are superior to Africans because of the pecking order created by the Brits. Rarely do they mingle in their centred life and though this is unsettling and you just love observing how things revolve, you take note of this eccentricity. Because of this, you never want to awaken the sleeping dogs. The lacuna existent is really authentic. When you meet them in the lifts, the coldness in their eyes is subtle. You feel like you are intruding into their already sheltered life that is insistent on being doled up in a bubble of inhibition. Rarely do you see Indians mingling with Africans. Even in school, they segregate themselves apart from those times when it is really urgent.

That maybe a tad too callous but the reality is that, Indians will still view African Kenyans with some sought of suspicion. Let me say this, in logic, we were told not to generalize. So as a matter of consequence, there is that ‘some’ before the word Indians were applicable. Currently, I have no Indian pal to demystify the myths surrounding the tense relationship that will not be amended sooner in terms of how they view Africans. Judging by the way the Muhindis have created that Berlin Wall in terms of residences, apart from those who are rebels or the clique who are monetarily endowed and don’t mind living with Africans, there is no denial that there is hyper-sensitivity and existential disdain among the two races.

Diwali week it was. You remember those days when you were young and loved the fanfare of lighting up cheap fireworks during these period and there was no cause of alarm apart from the few incidences you only heard of how the baruti had turned homicidal. Rocket was your favourite with its deafening crescendo.  Those days when you would do anything without worry that the terror outfit Alshabab will disguise as camaraderie to take advantage of the opportunity to turn the event into a horror of deadly massacre and aptly coordinated attacks well-orchestrated in disguise.

It was Singles day. Working online has made you an aficionado of most calendar events. As a result, there is no recognizable day you will fail to take cognizance of due to the severity of such occasions whether celebrated or not. Diwali ‘the festival of lights’ is perhaps the most conspicuous event that Indians celebrate each year. Just like Idd among the Muslims, Diwali is characterized by a lot of feasting and unlike the former there is a bit aleing-sic (from ale).

As usual, the pusher was none other than Aggy, she prefers being called Michelle and works next to our office. In fact you had extended your stay in the office by an hour just waiting for the event which started later. She is the lovely to be with. An extrovert by nature, she brightens up like an iridescent gemstone. Her conversations are bubbly and intoxicating. Though chubby, she has a cute face that is electric a curvy physique though the adipose concentrated on her waist needs some little bit of gym to give her that “wow” look. Another folly is that if not careful with her diet, she might possibly develop the double chin on her face. Her penchant for makeup radiates well with her chocolate complexion that is flawless making her skin look great. Looks like her detox is working well.   

Together with Ritchie, a chap who plies his trade in Chowpaty and Aggy confessed she used to be her boyfriend way back in high school- describing him further would make me sound gay, Brayo, Denno and two beautiful Chiquita’s from Lower Kabete Campus, Maureen and her friend (a dark complexioned chic with the jawline, high cheek bones and willowy figure of a model and stunning face and piercing look like that of a luo diva. Her skin glowed such that it was her inner beauty that lit her eyes and softened her features).

We make a maiden entry into the venue that is well decorated so much so that it looks like the average Kenyan wedding setting. Those that have seats and tables covered with some clothing and at the centre of the table there is a clay pottery with some Indian paraphernalia inside. Sadly, Indians have adopted this African Timer culture mentality of not sticking to time. Earlier on, Aggy had visited the place to check on how the event was unfolding. She is the nosy type and the go between because she has more stay and experience with Indians than most of us.

Unfortunately or the antonym of the same, we arrive early. Sit next to the DJ who is as confused as we are on what to play but resorts to Indian tunes that make you feel like you are watching those Indian movies where Raj all of a sudden spots Priya (cute little thing) and they swim in illusions as they start to dance to some tune even though they barely know each other.

The unease of sitting in a place you are jittery of whether you had been invited or not was razor sharp and cutting. The sitting position was a reflection of the simmering tautness that is covert yet never acknowledges. It is until such a time that you realize you are not as well secured in terms of mental sanity and vigor as you had thought of. It’s like you are in mainland India and you are the only stool-wool haired and black faces amidst. Arriving very early is a bit relaxing as you reduce that look on the face of having an intruder.

The incantations in celebration of the occasion took too long than you had expected. The way Indians seek divine blessings on this Third day of Diwali Festival is quite an eye opener on how variegated our ways of celebrating a festival are.  

Indian yung uns exude a flair of beauty that is intoxicating (however, the same cannot be said of their nee).  Their symmetrical facial features leave a muscle definition that is perfect, beautiful pink lips stand out and obsidian hair, so smooth and silky, leave in the autumn breeze. Competition was stiff, and even the little girl in silk frocks tried as much to stand as the centre of attraction. The only folly is that figure wise, they are as flat as a pancake in the places that excite the licentiousness in you.

Then you noticed her. In white leggings and a long green dress that covered the derriere.

It was inevitable and certain that once you looked at her, you couldn't look away. She kept you still and held your beating heart with one gaze, feeding off of you. She was a succubus, beautiful and dangerous.  She was the thief or someone close to that.  She had a confident, sexy strut that tells the world, "I'm beautiful." And she knew it. She was you crush. Her Long, wavy blonde hair, looked almost as if it was tailored from gold fabric with some shades of black. You were smitten and could have spent all the meagre income you had on her just to have a chance of spending a day with my beautiful lady straight out of utopia.

Chances are she was a on the verge of settling. Judging by the way she sat between her mothers, she clearly resembled a chip of the old block, and what looked like her aunt. She was Indian and she noticed you were looking at her in lascivious manner, you had wanted to exercise the art of charm through eye contact. Which made her look away having looked eyes and looking down and she noticed your interest. You felt like you wanted to surmount enough courage to go talk to her mother and tell her that indeed if it were not for matters beyond cultural setbacks, you would have made a wife out of her though you know that is surely lust.

She was the sweetest girl ever that day though there were many who would have rivalled her in matters beauty. Talking of sweet things, the food served was sugary or sweet in a way. There was no limitation as to the amount you needed to serve yourself. The chapatti were sugar favoured, the same to most of the foods. The sugary bolls in an equally sweet syrup were too much for you to gobble as on this occasion you take advantage of free liquor and imbibe to a point you are not inebriated silly since you need to catch a mat back home and because the next day is still work day. So Johnny Walker Black Label and Famous Grouse tots with a bottle of your favourite Tusker Malt even though it was served chilled while you love it warm does it for you.

While you were serving food, you engage in a chat with an African guy who serves everything he finds on the table. He does not know the name of the foods he wants to chow but serves them in copious amounts so that he also influences you to do the same and you end up living a majority of it on the table because liquor fights some foods intensely. Looking at the table he was coming from, you see some hot ladies joining in. Trust Kenyans to invite friends even when they are not supposed to.

However, the event never comes to a climax until sparking fireworks evade the darkness of a new moon night. The neon ostentatious orange, yellow-like flaming splash and bright sparks of colours illuminated the dark night sky and bursting firecrackers releasing scorching smoke as the cool air slapped the calming fire-material which made the aura scintillating and captivating to watch. The soundtrack of the noisy fireworks bursting harmoniously exploded in an ear-splitting yet a unique flowing sound as if they were frizzling intoxicatingly. The timing of release of the fireworks was intermittent but not predictable and at times a curvy rainbow changed shape into broad and bright spiky stars that twirled erratically.

While watching the fireworks, you notice this guy who resemble Jeff Koinange on Jameni. He is dressed in all white as if he is going for a white party. He is with guys who look like his boys. The way they oscillate around him especially a walalo like bearded dude gives you the impression he is the main guy.

Before you knew it, it was time to leave. In a slightly drunken stupor, you leave the venue and head back to the digs. Sad that matatus in Parklands do not operate in frequency past 11 at night like in you hood. They are sporadic and you have to fight to gain entry into one as the early nightshift workers are also exciting just about this time.

PS: There was this guy who came to our premises to shop. He hand dyed his beard yellow and had hanged a bunch of keys on his trousers (he looked cheap, the logo of a star was in the bunch (Mercedes)). He shopped for everything with abandon and even bought one of ours a watch having seen him with a motionless timepiece. His net spenditure was slightly over 70 k while he never looked like he would even shop for more than 5 K. He exited as if to go withdraw some cash when everything had been packed and never came back.

You also went to KFC during the week and the experience left a sour taste in the mouth. You had intended to take one of the girls you work with but they never turned up for some Streetwise treatment. The offer is not worth it in my opinion guess the reason why its monikered as street an will be found on any other ad inviting guys to go taste it. So my cinq cent (French) got wasted just like that. I wish I had spent more on some quality chicken. The chicken was not well fried inside as it looked under-fried. Not like the last time you were here and this time you felt cheated because then the chicken was splitting like the bulbs of an onion and you relished the delicacy with the zeal of a newbie..

HASTA LA VISTA BABY

[Photo Source: Google Images]

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WORKING FOR THE CHINKU

Urban dictionary states that the slang for Chinese is 'Chink'. In Sheng they are referred to as Machinku.  How about the fact that these Mao Zedong descendants are taking over the Kenyan business ventures sphere in a manner never seen before using tactics that are leaning towards Machiavellian tactics and like their fellow Asian compatriots, Indians, it can be agonizing working for them. Someone once told me that working for a Mhindi leaves you in a state where when you are paid, your wages get exhausted on payday due to many liabilities (bills) and you find yourself going back to the employer (stereotype, huh!). Ni kama wanatumia kamote ya kihindi (Just kidding). Take note this chaps never employ you as they never want obligations with the Kenyan government.

Some Chinese are the real “mkono gamu” (this maybe probably limited to the one I am working for). From the way they live to the general hygiene levels, the concept of capitalism is slowly being entrenched within their tendency. They are frugal to the core with their wealth in such a manner that they scare away those who have a prodigal propensity. You are left to wonder why you are still holding on because all the available signs indicate an ominous terminal.

Anyone who is jobless usually wants a situation where he can get a reprieve of working even if it means that it will be a transitory phase as you steady yourself before looking for better prospects that will be much satiating and aptly indulging.

You are in a sedentary job, alright. Working for a firm that makes the maximum use of all the appendable vit and skills you have acquired at minimal costs; maximize revenue, minimize costs is their maxim. The job is very involving and mind enervating. You joined the role as a social media strategist but now have to take up a majority of all the graphic design as they sacked the skilled graphic designer just like that (callous). You are on this sojourn pending a real job in the financial world, maybe working for a stocks company or in a company engaging in hedge funds (need for applying school knowledge here) or perhaps an investment bank or a stock brokerage company. That is to say, you are in a frictional kind of unemployment only that your hustling has not shown any symbiotic relationship to the place you want to be in life.

Ideally, you are allergic to working in squalid conditions, but the quest for the minimal cash being offered in order not to appear as if you are idle makes you stick for a while. Just to get six months experience before you roll down your sleeves and call it a day because you are on wage employment. The condition of the office in which you work in is filthy. The ambiance is stuffy and the general outlook deplorable. You are only being a stickler because you have no other option of making some easy cash.

There is no lie that these Chinku we work for are hell stingy. They operate on the intuition that Africans have no moral authority to deserve better. Even after realizing massive profits, they still give you peanuts because they are recovering back the profits after deducting all the implicit cost that they are very vague about. You have never seen the financial statements of the company and that is the reason why you will soon be resigning from this job even if it means you have no other way of survival.

That a casual employee who had taken up the role of a cleaner was sacked unceremoniously in a callous manner because the pay she was requesting for was way above the much they could give was not only heart wrenching but owing to the fact that you were willing to top up for the little pay that she was being given and your so called boss refused, you never saw the logic that it will be some time before you get the pay commensurate to the work you do.

Now you operate in an unclean environment. It’s probably one of those places that you’re looking around your space and wondering what the heck you’re doing here with your time. One that is prone to airborne maladies. The only respite is that you are a paperless office and your files are not scattered all over, with the trashcan almost being full, or your lunch wrappers stacked up on the corner of your desk (there is this guy who sells us bhajia at KSh. 20 that is worth KSh. 250- they look like remnants- its a cost cutting measure yawa).  You feel like a wreck in that situation, don’t you?  You cannot imagine of letting your friends know about this place even though you have this very expensive computer that is touchsmart and a not so bad office table but being photo-phobic, you have never taken a snap of yourself working behind the machine. They posting pictures of their nicely furnished offices in clean environs is a complete contrast of your current predicament which won’t last long.

Again, the office has no incentive to provide employees with tea and snacks. That is never in the budget. If that is not provided, even the daily newspapers are like a far-fetched dream only seen on the streets. Engaging in pep talk while in the office is also a banned and a de facto caveat is in place regarding the same. 

The worst times are those when the director who we are forced to call boss slowly starts an argument over the phone with his wife. It usually starts like a rolling stone, slowly, then his voice starts rising above the sacred silence that is the office. When you steal a glance over at his face in his office, there is usually something smoldering underneath his stony expression. His face usually turns yellow and it gets shiny, a sign he is sweating. Those are the times he speaks continuously for more than five minutes in a harsh tone. His rage seems pointless to you, although you never say so, until it turns into the destruction of valuables. You wonder how she condones the shouting at the other end of the line.

There was this day he got really mad boiling with anger. The arguing came right through the walls as loud as any TV show and since the office is partitioned with glass you virtually thought they would break or succumb and though he is a small man his voice is unmatched. It attracted guys from two floors above and below coming to find out who was on the receiving end. Ideally there are two massage parlours above and below respectively. With tempers rising, you would think guys were going to come out nude to find out what was happening. But they could not. The sentries were scared. They could not surmount enough courage to approach him, though he is a diminutive man. They feared he could turn on them the way Jet Li or Jacky Chan does and beat the hell out of them into smithereens. There is also a showroom and that is the time when shoppers began running out helter skelter thinking they were next in line. He literally took his laptop and threw it away as he overturned his table which landed on the laptop when they could not agree.

There was this lady who kept saying that in the event Chatur heard about this drama, it was an exit for us in the building. He became relieved once he had also thrown the phone which equally crashed. 

You are used to this, if you are a lady though, you will find the easiest route outside. Reason why you are ascribing about it. Luckily, after the small fight, he returns to being sane quickly and even smiles. The best thing is that he has never channeled his anger towards you. The frustrations are usually real.

Then there was this misplaced theory that the reason why he was overturning things and almost running amok was due to the fact that his better-half had called him a "monkey". Why? Is it because monkeys are the beasts that can be savage when provoked? When my guy Poloji intimated to this, we laughed like it was a Profesa Amo hilarious anecdote delivered to break the monotony of working in hushed tones while in the office.

On the flip side, working for the chinks is self-effacing and though they exploit you to that point you feel you are being used, you take courage that everything has a reason. These guys are also humane. The only folly is that like all start-ups, which majority fail, they have high human resource turnover. Their compensation incentive is quite skewed and subpar. They make you feel like they don’t need your services while in actual sense, you are in an oxpecker zebra relationship. Since they push you to the limit and come up with unending new frontiers of duties, you have given them much in terms of what you can avail. At least when you leave whether or not you will have found a better offer, you will rest assured that the much you did was well worth it. Sometimes pay may not be the only reason why you work hard and smart even though you are a rookie with no paper qualification in what you do but the passion outweighs everything else.

When it is said and done, you need to move on. My six months of having worked hard is coming to a climax soon and I will be looking for new pastures. Man is to hunting until a woman comes in so that you can adopt a sedentary lifestyle even if you are paid what someone somewhere makes in an hour.

PS: Juggling work, classes (which I rarely attend due to work issues), writing and reading is tricky enough without a properly adhered to rota. There is always a trade off in the indifference curves skewed to one dominant force. But compromises have to be made. Everything has its time. Reason why I will be writing very short posts now.

HASTA LA VISTA BABY

[Picture Source: My Own]

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EDGE

The unplanned random rendezvous usually turnout to be enjoyable and fascinating. More so than those have with prior preparations. Like air molecules, you are free to roam around without being tied to life’s hullabaloo of being a stickler on how things should take a certain course. Because life is no rote in itself that should have a predefined channel. Even a river meanders and becomes subterranean before it reemerges to try and flow towards its source. Whatever you plan today may end up being overtaken by events since an undramatic tragedy may render a pursuit void just like that when it arises and not even intended and you may have no impetus over the end result.

Am in class writing the initial thought to this post during a short break that I have to make maximum use of in order to take advantage of time because it has become a scarce commodity in the recent past sue to pressing issues that have to be dealt with. I forgo the job in order to be in class on a typical Saturday morning because the Elnino weather that was presumed will cost the taxpayers more than KSh. 15 billion is turning out to be just another moniker for the usual short rains as its damage has not been as disastrous as the other rains witnessed before. Let this not be another conduit of making a certain calibre of people ripping the public coffers in the name that the disaster has failed to occur and their is need to spend that which has been already budgeted for.

I had to forgo the workplace just to serenade myself in a class that I find too reclusive because of my introverted nature in most formal classes. I attend in order to break the monotony of work, work and more work. Sitting behind a computer and posturing on how to be creative having not mulled over the probable while at it in order to execute breathtaking and arresting ads that need to be displayed in the social media and other different arenas owing to the demanding nature of being a graphic designer cum social media strategist.

Hitherto, I had never had the idea that I would be enclosed somewhere with a high-end touch computer surfing the net and copying rival company artistry in order to see to it that I have done my day’s job. That the machine costs a figure almost ten times my current pay is not even an antithesis. But with employers being kind of stringent with jobs and man having to have money to survive means even if it means that you are paid below your worth, you think you may tinker the damaged mentality that employability is based on the fact of having ever worked somewhere for sometime.

However, I needed a job and the remunerations then when I started were not a major issue. Now it is, because I can subjectively say I have grown in heaps and bounds ever since I changed careers which I will keep on doing until I become fully stationed in a zone of contentment. Again responsibility is cropping in and the current profession is a total antonym of what I studied in campus and my current class pursuit of making a financial analyst- however all professions have a close relationship. In fact, I only became friends with investopedia recently to add more content to my financial ken. I can honestly say that as much as my career prospects may be in a quandary, the future is brighter. The pain I go through prepares me for something bigger that my be forthcoming or not coming in the near future but the ultimatum is that at the end of the day something will happen. “Mui huwa mwema.”

Going to rave Solo man has never been my bed of roses. Succinctly, it can be a guilty indulgence for the very fact that I am phobic about where I may end in. In my wicked mind, I was planning on going to spend a few bucks in Zodiac, a popular joint on Tom Mboya Street that my workmate Tony had indulged me to sample. Apparently, he had a dramatic experience there which made me want to make it to this club and sample it out. He had taken some legend brandy after our bbq in copious amounts and went ahead to this club that has prices of beer retailing at KSh. 230 which is painful for a man like yours truly to part with owing to my current financial turmoil. What’s worse is that he invited friends who had been paid and he ended up kneeling on the floor praying to some unknown god only for the pals to mistake him for an illuminati stalwart, the inebriation having taken effect as a result of mixing Guinness and Pilsner and the earlier legend that made him blubber some nonsensical stuff until he found himself home the following day in bed with his expectant lady totally weary and confussed.

It defeats logic to engage in guilty pleasure by having fun all alone in a setting that might excite the nerves in you having taken two or three bottles and no peers being around, you can end up engaging in uncalled for acts that may make the bouncer come to your rescue in a not so palatable approach.  Sitting in a club alone can also makes you flatter than a week old glass of coke. Chances are you may not be having enough shekels then or you may as well need to visit the ATM to withdraw cash in your drunken stupor. To eschew the severity of a reclusive night out that may not have the fun filled flare, you earlier on call a pal who had promised to buy you a drink when you met a week earlier because he was nursing some schoupid malady that rescinded his partake of ale and he had stuck to the new state like a regulation because juggling a bigger master in terms of health issues was a no no for him.

Alas, Bena is the guy. He is a former high school acquaintance who perused in Moi Uni. He tells me to choose a place of my choice where we are to have a drink ever since he finalized with his medical regimen, which aint that bad. The good thing about him is that he has a larger than life personality. His extroverted nature makes him an easy guy to socialize with and easily likeable because of his hackneyed chitchat. He knows what you want to hear and says it without mincing his words. On the contrary, I am that guy who rarely divulges gen because I like to be fed with what someone thinks unless you are a perennial acquaintance.

Albeit him being kind of shagzmodoz, he has overshadowed the shortfall with his immense mastery of the city’s backstreet joints where you go for a jug when you want to be drunken at a price your pocket only knows. As that guy who loves company, I head to The Edge Lounge. Brayo, a workmate whom we share more traits in terms of being single and love for ale, grinding bodacious and bootylicious Chiquita’s and petty gibber accompanies me. We had earlier on wanted to go to some backstreet pub but found it full and since this was going to be my first time in club Edge which was also his first, I was of the opinion that why not? Essentially, this would have been the club of resort at wee hours of partying because of its expensive and urbane nature. Then you find it in a wild state.

Apparently, this club is quite decent and has this clientele who look like they are proletariats in some middle level companies working as the common staff or in private entities that are raking in just enough to party in a not so ritzy club. The waitresses are in black shorts. Those that show flesh and your loins may be a tad bit disturbed for a few seconds as you ogle at the beauty of what is rare to you because of their congenial nature. The club décor is grandeur, the blaring bass of speakers is lethal and the brawny bouncers give it a secure feel. Though they are muscled, it is the fleshy ones. One outstanding bouncer looks like Johnny Bravo. A bulging torso with toothpick like legs which gives him a funny appearance now that his skin is also craggy.

We order for our drinks, Brian goes for Guinness and as I settle for my Malt which I love served warm.

To be continued............

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