LIBRARY

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As a salesman, I normally go to various offices. There was one I went to and was given cake while waiting for a former colleague client and then there was this I went to this week where I had to continuously swallow saliva as I was explaining how a credit card works to a client who purposely wanted it for Easter yet she could not qualify having just been recently hired. Her adipose tissues never lied. Then I saw a lady delivering cake. The recipient asked how long it took but the delivery lady was very cagey about the time it takes to bake a cake. Well, I could have failed to notice about cakes but ever since my sister decided to pursue her love for things baked which includes cakes, I felt something pricking me to tell the buyer that it takes less than an hour for a cake to be fully baked. Yet the wiseacre in me could not blabber out because the delivery lady was also right.

When you factor in the time it takes to bake it, to let it cool down and the other logistics, the lead up time is what she said. That if you order for a cake in the morning, it will be ready by lunch time. These days, I have developed a sweet tooth for cake and when I could not be able to taste that which my prospective client was eating yet I had forgone lunch, I only remembered two songs, Juliani’s ‘Utawala: niko njaa hata siwezi karanga’ and AY’s ‘Zigo: kula kwa macho’

A former classmate who decided to immerse himself back into scholarship called me in early January about the prospects of going back to school to read as opposed to spending time in the house doing the same.  Well, last year I was contemplating doing the same. I went to Strathmore during one of my daily client meetings and inquired about the same having met the client and it appeared costly and less convenient for a guy who still hustles like yours truly, so I shelved the dream. I know the folly of reading while in the house. There is the temptation of sleeping occasionally because you are next to the bed. Not that you cannot sleep while in the library. Yes, you can. On the contrary, you cannot enjoy the slumber like you do while in a bed. The wooden table and the sitting position will literally force you to wake up. Again, the sentries who man the floors are usually hawk eyed and will pounce when they realize that you have turned the library into a bedroom. I love the library because of one thing. It is a good ground for doing that which you are supposed to do even when you are not feeling like.

I remember the decision to implement the idea of registering as an alumnus to access the library came at a time when I had been paid for the first month of the year. Hitherto, I had never thought I would be a night guy when it comes to reading. Normally, I am a morning guy. I can wake up very early and read because I am fresh and invigorated. The only problem comes in in terms of waking up. In order to wake up in time, my phone alarm has to ring more than three times. The first alarm notifies me that I am now supposed to get out of bed. The second aims at reminding me to wake up or it can act as the first when I have missed it. The third should find me doing that which I had tasked myself to do because they are normally five minutes apart.

Reading is fun and tasking. My pal and I went and paid for the alumni fee because I have not yet decided whether I will ever be a post graduate student in my alma mater or not. Plus, I don’t see the reason why I should acquire to many credentials given when none has been of much help in pursuing what I studied for proletariat-wise. As for what I am currently studying, in the event it does not secure me a job, I will be knowledgeable and probably venture into writing on the same if I finish. But I will do it on a small-scale basis. What I normally tell myself is that, if I cannot secure that position where I am currently at, then I don’t see the need of pushing myself looking for it somewhere else. You see, I am poor in securing interviews. I suck at the same. 


The only problem is that this position has got me into the meagre contentment mindset. I have myself to blame. Yet I should be having a humongous perspective about that which I should have achieved. Or it is just fate. Your circumstance is dictated by your past, naaah.

Well, initially I had thought that the process of being an alumnus was going to be a bureaucratic one like the other processes that is associated with the University of Nairobi. Apparently, being an alumnus is much easier than I anticipated. Once you have wired the necessary fees for the process, you send in your details and if you were using MPESA like we were with my pal, you also send the message from the network provider. Then you request the lady at the other end to send you an email of the letter detailing that you are now an alumnus which goes for two thousand and another two thousand for being able to access the library.

It took us less than one hour to finish the process. Or perhaps it was because the lecturers were on strike and we were lucky because the number of students who were in session then were few. Even though the dons had downed their tools, there were some lecturers who taught students irrespective of the fact that they were on strike in clandestine areas like the library where it was not easy to storm and disrupt the learning process.

Every day, I normally carry my laptop bag. This has been a signature undertaking and I must bear with it for the next two months even though it is sometimes heavy and I feel it takes a toll on my back. I love using my laptop as a reading station. I normally use eBooks because I don’t know the process of buying hard copy because of shipping but most importantly is the fact that my machine is the avenue for all the institute texts that I need to carry for the purpose perusal. I love it that way because I can also watch videos of challenging topics and kill two stones with one bird (reversed) when drained.

Yet I cannot say that all I do in the library is to thumb through the tomes. A huge chunk of the time is spent on the same but occasionally, I digress. That is the unfortunate tendency of having an extra sense that is synonymous to writers. You not only do what you intend to do but also look for that ka crazy thing that you will notice and others cannot or take for granted. Unfortunately, I never entered inside the library at Strathmore and hence cannot tell the difference between the same. Occasionally, I find myself staring at things I should not have. Like a there is a certain lady I have noticed who walks in high heels that accentuate her figure eight shape. She strides in such a manner so that even if you were immersed in something as mind boggling as derivatives, you still have to raise your head for a few minutes before embarking back when she has evanesced.

There is this lady I have never talked to who sits next to where I love positioning myself because it is really the only good place I can sit given that my laptop is now a pc and has to be on power each and every time. The other day, I saw her doing double integration and was contemplating asking her if she was a maths major or was doing statistics. However, another lady came and sat next to me and we did chat intermittently on skewed topics such as the Wi-Fi. I loved her because she is the don’t care type.

‘Excuse me, where can I find the ladies?’ she asked.

‘Just go along that corridor and you will find them.’ While pointing where the damn things were. I never had any imaginations of what she wanted to do. That is what you go through while busy trying to crack formulas and lengthy explanations while reading the CFAI eBooks. You become a zombie whose creativity is like a stillbirth.

While she was away, I peeped at the school id she had left and noticed that she was a postgraduate student. She was certainly curvaceous, the kind that does not fail to be noticeable in red fitting pants. She was chocolate in complexion and judging by what I could see on her laptop, she was probably a humanities student because she had long prose on her machine which she was researching on. 

Being seated next to two beautiful ladies can make you get those awkward thoughts (threesome huh!). You see, there are times when I normally want to remove my shoes and feel ‘haire’. Yet I could not. Not that my shoes effuse incredibly unpleasant stinking smell, it’s only right that the sweat that my socks emits after a hard day of labour is not let to odor the dusty and probably because who knows, I might be lucky. When seated next to a dude, I normally let my legs free from the scotching heat. It's like Zen.

What I however hate is the speed of the Wi-Fi. The speed is currently very slow. It is mostly limited more time than it is active. I hate this experience because there are times I am supposed to do tests online and when I have finished answering the questions, on clicking the submit button, there is no response and on careful look, the exclamation mark indicating limited internet is staring on my face. So poor is the network that you sometimes have to disconnect the Wi-Fi a couple of times just to be able to use it. In fact I got the password almost a month ago when I sat next to a certain dude and requested for the same and he willingly told me the password.

I love the seats on the ground floor. They are in good condition and as opposed to the seats in the other floors, you don’t feel like you are sitting on the wooded surface which is synonymous to most seats in other floors. They are fuller and for a flat assed bugger like me, the cushion acts like a reliable shock absorber. I guess were it not for the fact that those seats are cleaned occasionally, chances are they would have been a habitat of bedbugs because I know how the hostels in UON are like.

There are certain times when I normally feel like I have burnt out because of daily walking and then sitting in the evening to study. There are times I find myself pressing my head on the wooden desk and ask myself why am I subjecting my body to all the torture. Those are the times I find myself leaning back to the chair before gazing back to the table. Its perhaps those days that I feel weary both mentally and physically. My body needs to rest yet my mind needs it to move, to burn the anxiety right out. I have to cover as many topics as possible. There was this day I became bleary-eyed, fatigued and realized my thoughts were becoming groggy and incoherent. That was when I unplugged my pc from the socket without following the usually logging off process, pushed the chair back, grabbed all my paraphernalia and strode out of the library barely finishing three hours in the building.

Is there hope at the end of the tunnel when I finish this, albeit yes. The ultimate goal is to pass the exams after getting the knowledge. It has been and continuous to be a treacherous journey but I have never backed out. This is something I am sure is worth sacrificing for.

As I sit down writing this, I cannot rue that I have not done something tangible. I have done it and only wait for the result to demarcate mbivu na mbichi once I have done the exam.

PS: Nothing has changed much in the library I first entered more than seven years ago. It has not been upgraded to befit a postmodern library of international stature that the motto of the institution makes us believe. All in all, it provides the ambient environment that I can peruse in with minimal distraction.

Hasta la vista baby.

[Picture Source: Google Images]