 |
Of course, you
found yourself also on social media. I was addicted to twitter as opposed to
now when am a big fan of LinkedIn. It’s called growth. Facebook and YouTube
also were too tempting. I remember watching ladies ‘twerk’ because it was a big
thing then on YouTube. And there was a day we went to our lady student friend’s
house and they did really twerk it even though we had a ‘fifty fifty’ Christian
friend who went on to receive a hot lap dance only to realize he had erred when
the process was over. You know these guys who profess Christianity like it’s a
means to an end but when they find a conduit, they never fail to exploit.
Initially, anyone
who knew ADD would enter without much scrutiny. So if you were a KEMU student
and wanted to read in the luxury of an unfinished building, ADD offered a
leeway. Overtime as security issues became fragile, it became necessary to
allow only students from UON to gain access to the building. But during the official
business hours, it was only the ADD students who were allowed to transact
business. And most of those students acted like spoiled kids from rich families
because they hosted parties on weekly basis much to the chagrin of broke Main
Campus students who were a majority.
Main campus guys were rendered to the role of being spectators.
Later on, when
mechanism had been put in place. It was a requirement to enter the building
using your student ID and if you had a laptop, you also needed to register it
because of a series of theft cases that were probably reported.
There is this day
I went and found a very thorough sentry who never entertained jokes. Unbeknown
to me, this sentry was above his game in terms of dealing with mischievous
students. Thinking it was business as usual, I went and registered a phony
serial number of my laptop then walked away. Not so fast.
“Excuse me,
hebu rudi hapa.” The sentry called me out by my name.
“Kwani
nimefanya nini?” I retorted in defense after heading back.
“Unajua ile
kosa umefanya?” he asked.
“Sijafanya kosa
yoyote,”
I replied in my equivocally poor Swahili due to Sheng Interference.
“Mbona
hujaregister serial number ya laptop yako?”
“Nimeregister
na ndio hii hapa,” pointing at serial number I had written down.
“Unajua ukora
ndio mi sipendi.” The senty said.
“Ukora gani?”
I was beginning to become irate.
“Mbona
unaregister number ya computer ile si yako alafu unatoka mbio?”
“Mimi najua
nimeregister laptop vizuri juu hio ndio number nimeshika kwa kichwa.” I
said.
Then an argument
ensued. The sentry could not let me in. I started feeling frustrated and got
irked. But he never budged. In the end, I had to give in. I could not win with
a clearly assertive sentry. My protestation was like a house of cards. It was
fast crumbling at a rate that reduced me to mollify myself. I had to remove the
laptop battery and alas, there was the correct serial number.
All along, I had
underestimated the wit of this sentry. But when you do a job for long, not even
the most knowledgeable theoretical genius of a Professor can outwit you in your
trade. I did yield. Actually, after seeing many students register their
laptops, he had got acquainted to the starting letters or numbers of most
laptop brands. In my case, because of his actual interaction with most HP
laptops, he knew the numbering and lettering.
As a matter of
fact, he did let me enter inside. Oh, they were with a certain female sentry
who really laughed when I was forced to retract my earlier words because she probably
thought that university students are ideally intelligent. Of course the sentry
knew me from that day. I would sometimes tip hip because he had unearthed my
folly when I felt like I was 'chummed'. And that meant that when he found me
inside the building while doing his random patrols, he would never miss to
greet me even if I looked busy perusing for exams.
Anyway.
Unsubstantiated
research has revealed that most people spend more than four hours a day on
social media. Either to catch up with friends, be on the know, get entertained,
read stories, upload pictures in exquisite places to let haters be jealous on
their new found fortune or just how good they are doing, and the list is
endless.
Being an online
nerd or freak was a weakness until studies became a really intensive and I had
to reduce on my online presence. Now, my laptop battery is past its sunset days
and therefore serves no purpose other than ensuring it keeps the laptop free of
lost parts. Therefore, there are times when I am busy writing and someone
removes the laptop charger and I feel like eating him whole. Or when
electricity units run out and it catches me unawares having not saved my work.
I wish there was a word editor that recovers documents like adobe programs so
that you never get worried about the probity of loss of your work.
Back to social
media. I still think MKZ (Mukuru Kwa Zuckerberg) is the biggest social media.
The pundits on this social media site have come up with metrics that cannot be
easily bypassed in terms of getting a wider reach of people. It's called
organic reach. Then there is paid reach. Those sponsored ads you see on Facebook
are really earning Zucks so much. But it is however very expensive to run an
advertisement on Facebook. My interaction with advertising on social media made
me realize that there is power in having the mechanism to reach so many people
online.
Having realized
that am aging and need to be more professional, I returned back to LinkedIn,
where I opened my account more than six years ago. LinkedIn is conservative.
It's full of bigotry. That many people pretend to be who they are not is not a
fallacious argument. Everyone seems to be working for a very good company with
a big title that can scare you off. You find HR professionals who update that
they will review your status which is actually a lie. Then there are those who
write quotes, those who have impressive CVs having worked for very big
multinational companies but nothing to show of for humanity. Those who are
influencers and have a paid account that enable them to send inmail. As for
yours truly, the economic conditions of a student cannot allow me to operate a
paid account. Am even struggling to be a worthy publisher on the site.
I also have had
about Snapchat. I probably should have read about it on Wikipedia or other
productive sides with info. All I know is that it is owned by a certain
Billionaire who is my age mate. It deletes photos once uploaded within 48 hours
and it is meant for ladies. (The last time I checked, men are photophobic
unless you are some celeb.) So I am as green as a child on her first day in
class with matters Snapchat.
There is
Instagram. I initially wanted to be the ‘it’ guy when it came to matters cars
so that many people would adore me on this site. But with the loss of my
smartphone about three years ago and never having reawakened the drive, the
account is now in its dormancy state. Not like a dodo however.
There is a dating
site by the name Badoo. Well, I have never had a successful date on that
platform. All the prospective chats hit a dead end because I lose interest when
it find it easy for a chic to give in. It also has so many restrictions like
you need to pay for credits to chat with the person who excites your
licentiousness. But hey, there are so many pretty ladies out here who are
single. Likewise men. The only good thing is that there is no poster on someone’s
forehead written, ‘Single and ready to mingle.’ If I were to rate this site, I
would give it a 2 star. It is based on monetary terms and that pisses me off
even if I were to find the apple of my eye. But I am not interested, in online
babes, because they are as unrealistic as the site itself.
I wonder if
Whatsapp is a social media platform. If it is, allow me to surmise about it. In
the near future when people will have reliable readily available internet at
subsidized rates and smartphones will have been the order of the day, most
people will resort to Whatsapp as a media of communication. Again, Zucks will
start charging fees and he will make lots of cash. I have been relegated to
seeing group chats and sending forwards received. The young guys on this site
are more versatile. The know how to effectively use emojis and don’t need urban
dictionary as an app to counter-check on the stfu, tf, lol and the tgif of this
world. They are also more open minded. Maybe, circumstances are making me
realize that it will never be the same again.
Sportpesa. Let me
take a breather.
Back to reality.
There is an investment guru I read about who is a billionaire by the name Bill
Gross. Never mind that am focusing on billionaires. He used to play black jerk.
I have never entered a Casino but my former colleague who used to be a steward
in a casino did info me about it. Bill Gross used his gambling skills to become
one of the most sort after investment managers in the world. And reading
through my investment lit, I realized that there is a high correlation between
speculation, risk, gambling and prosperity.
Which leads me
back to Sportpesa. I had vowed never to play Sportpesa. But my classmates are
playing it. My former campus mates upload screen shots on our Whatsapp group
and having investment ambitions, I think I should start betting. Investing
involves well calculated risk, and Sportpesa can be a very good platform for
starting out. Never mind that one of my cousins lost all his benefits to it,
and pretended to have been attacked by majinis since he resides in
Mombasa. He went bonkers for a few days and mum had to go check what was
happening. Don’t we have this bigoted mentality that folks from the coast can
cast a spell on you when you try behaving clever?
EdX. This ought to
be the best site for online learning when you can spare some time to join a
class with worldwide participants and who share the same ambition. Ever since I
stumbled upon this site on LinkedIn, I have never looked back. I undertook a
course by the University of California, Berkeley and got an impressive grade.
Though I must admit it looked quite simple. Again it was based on peer review.
Which should be adopted in most campuses as opposed to letting the lecturer do
all the donkey work. I have also started another course. Hopefully it will
improve on my employability.
And I learnt about
natural reader among many other insightful stuff that have helped me to be a
better blogger. Natural reader is an app. You need to pay for it to get the
full benefits. However, it can still function well if you don’t pay for it. It
helps in revision of my posts, editing and reading to check for sentence syntax
and grammatical errors in my script. So I have benefited blog wise from edX, a
lot.
Yes, our institute
also had an online webinar on Ethics. It is paramount for people to be of high
ethical standards because it is a fiduciary duty to ensure you are full of
integrity and honesty before you deal with other people’s money. So yes, even
though am this reclusive online bugger, I try to remind myself of the best
ethical practices so that I am able to act right. Above all else, a person of
good morality aids in cleansing the society or moral corruption. Right?
Obviously we have
wordpress, tumblr, pininterest, kik and so many other online platforms for
sharing. The innovators and founders of this platforms are smiling all the way
to the bank. They don’t give a shit when we post about the hard times that we
go through. In fact, they are telling us punfo miran subtly as they become more
liquid while we gripe at our predicament which we do nothing about.
And on that note,
it's another time to say.
Hasta la vista
baby.
[Picture source;
My Own]
