Blessing Around

When it comes to the subject of education,the most obvious objective is to gain mastery over the subject that one is learning. An idiom that is often used to describe academic success, is passing with flying colours. It's a bright and vibrant picture, to say the least about the feasibility of colours actually being able to take flight. In my own experience as a  student, I find that when it comes to thinking about academic highlights, memories about getting high grades are the ones that come first to mind.  It makes me wonder if that is all there is to it. Could the point of going through the strain of school, or whatever it may be that is occupying your efforts, just be the result at the end of it. This importance that we put on results can be such a great load or one to carry. If the result is some thing favourable we tend to be jubilant and it only ever is this way when one wins.  We almost never celebrate our loses and blunders. There is a lot...

Do you remember the last time you played pretend? When was the last time you were a princess or a ninja or a spy or a pirate or a pop star in your head? I guess you could say those are silly questions to ask anyone who considers themselves not to be a child anymore. That then begs me to question why the questions seem silly. Playing pretend is one of the earliest skills we acquire growing up. The art of putting on a lens to shape one's reality to however they it seems fit to do so. A lot of it is based on the things that one has previously seen or experienced, which is how a toddler can play kitchen based on their observations of a parent cooking in the kitchen. As time goes by, and more and more information is acquired, one starts to extrapolate the information. You start to go beyond what you usually see in the kitchen, what if you were stacking pancakes all the way to the moon or how would you act if you were in a cooking show? If I am not being too presumptuous in m...

  I very fondly remember solving crossword puzzles with my mother and aunt, at about nine years of age. Even as I mention it now, it brings a warm feeling as the nostalgia takes effect. There was a sort of ritual to the way we went about doing crosswords. One could never attempt to solve the puzzle alone, the first round of answers would be written in pencil then after solving a significant amount of the puzzle ink would be used. At that time, we had very limited access to the internet, so there were no search engines to help in finding answers. This made the task incredibly stimulating, when you find yourself pondering what the answer to the clue, five words down for a city in Australia with an R in the middle.  Reflecting on who I am as a person, I would say I dearly enjoy the company of loved ones. One particular form in which I enjoy their company is when, we are both participating in a task, or chore, or project, or a game, or we are trying to overcome a chall...

Last year, at about this time, I was in a much much more excited state. I had gotten through to a second round of interviews with a company that I fancied. I had already pictured myself rocking the company branded sweatshirt and the rest of the offered merchandise. Perhaps I was too naïve and optimistic, to assume that such a reality was possible for me at the time.  After I did a technical task for the company, I didn't hear from them for a few days, then a few weeks, by the time a month went by I knew that I had been ghosted. A side note for the demographic reading this that do not understand the term ghosting. This is when someone acts in a similar manner to a phantom, in a manner that at some point you see them and are actively engaging them. In the midst of your activity they suddenly stop responding and vanish.  I'm sure many of us have a tale or too about such ghastly occurrences in our lives. There's a sour taste that remains when something s...

  Two summers ago, I had enough willpower to run about 30km a week. I had never ran that much in a week before, deliberately. It makes me wonder, what the source of inspiration was, that kept me going to the park, to run six days a week. It probably might have been a comment about my weight, or a montage video about the health benefits of running. Either way, the start was not as significant as the lessons I learnt as I went on the journey.  Perhaps the word journey is not fitting, because I was running in circles and seemed to remain in the same place. Each time I set out to run around the circuit, when I thought about completing the six thousand metres,  the task seemed herculean. Doubts about it being possible would easily come to mind, as it is not the shortest of distances for one to run. Some advice that would come in handy from a veteran runner and a friend, was to rather focus on the next step and the next one after that.  This simplif...

 I have two friends who love to have coffee. To each of them having a cup of coffee is a different experience, but the main denominator is that they love it. I hope they get to read this blog-post. I was not much of a coffee consumer until recently. This is owing to the fact that, I did not grow up in much of a coffee culture. I owe much of my consumption habits now to former housemates, who got me curious about this beverage.  Enough about me, lets get back to the two friends that I mentioned earlier. For confidentiality I shall be referring to them by their initials. So my one friend, C. is a total coffee nerd. For me having coffee using just means getting a sachet of powder and hot water in a cup. In his eyes this a vulgar way of having the sacred drink. I remember one morning, I was fortunate enough to see how he brews his coffee. C. was very meticulous about his method. He had all the gizmos that, you would usually see in coffee shops being handled by baristas...

I once came across something that said, loneliness is as bad for your health, as smoking cigarettes. It had me thinking about lonely smokers, and the state of their welfare. Living in times where it's so easy to connect thanks to the various platforms online and advancements in transportation, it may seem that as the human race connecting has never been as easy as it is now, more than ever before.  Morbidly, reality shows a different picture with the concept of community ever so fractured, and the expanse between persons increasing rapidly.  Billions of people , yet still so many of us are isolated silos, going through the motions of life. Some may blame this on capitalism, and how working forty plus hours a week leaves barely much room for a stable social life. Another factor could be the times we live in where people are not as rooted in their habitations as before. The moment one turns eighteen thoughts of moving out and spreading your wings become common occurr...

 I do not really know if I can fall under the label of being called the creative type, I don't think my artistic prowess is enough for me to be called that, and also the way I dress would never suggest that I have a creative inclination. I do enjoy coming up ideas and fleshing them out, or working with other people on theirs. It usually takes different forms, it could be cooking a meal, or doodling. or in this case blogging. As the human race, I can say it is instinctual for us to be  inventive. It could you coming up with your own idea, or following along instructions of someone else, whether it is a duplicate or something different, making stuff is in our nature.  This phenom is so natural to humans, that whenever we see creativity in other places in nature we get a sense of kinship. When a video of an elephant painting comes up, it's no wonder there are a lot of views and it gets a lot of attention. I think there's just something in us that warms up inside ...

 One thing that I would like to do for people I have relationships with, is to give them a unique compliment as a gift. A compliment that would reflect how much, I have put effort to know them, one that they can save for later and think about. There is such an impact that positive words have on us humans, and to be such an impact to those around me is one of the many missions I want to carry out on this earth.  It's a peculiar matter really, how we get elated over receiving kind words. In some cases a kind word of support can change your mood. It's almost magical. I for one, know that I have over come some insecurities, thanks to a companion expressing their appreciation of some of my attributes. I try to keep in mind those things that they say about me, in case I start to doubt myself, and I find myself in need of some convincing. When I look around, it does feel like we're living in times of, everyone getting awarded for the bare minimum. I think t...

It has been about at least five years since I last bawled my eyes out crying. It's almost like my reservoir is dry, I frequently have to cut onions to check if my tear ducts are still functional. Another option is letting water run down my cheeks in the shower just to remember the sensation. I even recall watching a melodramatic movie, and everyone in the room watching with me started to tear up, yet I did not get any of the water works started. Perhaps it's the culture that drives the ideology that, boys or rather men do not cry, has permeated it's way into my biology and now I physically can not cry. I am not a stoic, I enjoy joy and I do know that sorrow does tarry through the night, in feeling feelings we are more likely to be empathic to those who are doing poorly. Personally, I may never get to fully understand the degree to which a person is grieving or jubilance that gets one jumping all over the room. I do understand that there are cues to look for that...

There's always a rosy feeling one gets when looking at the yesteryears of infancy. We all have triggers that take us to our childhood, it could be a smell, it could be a jingle from an advert, or it could be an ice-cream flavour. There are numerous triggers for me as well, my triggers all amalgamate into a place. Maun, a tourist town in Botswana, where I spent my preschool years. Unfortunately, I can not recall everything in great detail, but that place is littered with so many core memories that I look back on fondly.  Not to say that I reminisce so much on the past, that I am discontent with my present season of life. Instead, I find that as I grow older  I am able to revisit memories from then with a much more clear perspective, and an understanding of what may have been happening, and why I took the actions that I did, and how it has had a ripple effect, that I still see in my day to day to life now.   My earliest recollection of friendshi...

 My mother always says that I am a people person, which I struggle with agreeing with because of how reserved I can be at times. Mothers are not usually wrong when it comes to their children, I can attest to this because I genuinely enjoy the company of companions and building rapport with acquaintances. So my life has not been one of me just being in a vacuum, and not having external forces being exerted on me. Some of these forces have been for good and some for evil if I can epically word it in that manner.  The thing about forces is that they bring change. You could be holding a sponge in your hand and squeeze the sponge and it'll deform accordingly. Everyday of my life especially where I am at the moment in time, I have observed that the only constant is change. This change comes from internal influences as well as external ones. I remember coming across something that said that we are made up of our five closest companions. Firstly, I was thinking how does on...

Practice makes perfect, those three words put together tend to hold water. I've learnt that it's never too late to get good at something. All you have to do is put in the time practicing. In my experience with tertiary education and, I guess, being an adult with a little bit of responsibilities to handle, I have had time to hone a skill. I have gotten pretty good at doubting myself.  I spend a lot of time in my head, and in my head things tend to get grossly exaggerated. So when I am faced with a challenge, I don't hesitate to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Perhaps it is because an engineering background has made me a firm believer in Murphy's law. The law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This principle does help one to plan thoroughly, at the same time, it leads one to concentrate on all the holes in your logic that can cause things to fall apart.  Moving away from my hometown, and going away for university, has been s...

If you've been using social media for at least five years now, do you still remember your earlier photos and posts. I can think of a time when I was sixteen years old, and everyone was into filters and using augmented reality. Each time I look back on those photos at times, I almost gag at what was once so trendy online amongst my peers. It makes me want to wince, when I think about the faces I'd make in photos back then. What makes me so embarrassed by what seemed so cool? Often, I can get triggered to cringe at very unexpected moments. I could be washing dishes, or commuting home, then all of a sudden, I remember something I did whilst I was in primary school. It makes me wonder if there are any studies about why we hold on to embarrassing memories so well. The fact that I can remember an incident from 2015 so vividly, yet I can't remember what I had for lunch last Friday, bothers me in a way that words can not truly communicate.  There are instances, where th...