I went to london for an interview. I took the bus – cheaper. I left on Sunday night and arrived Monday just before lunch. It was very tiring. But I loved London. Noisy, busy, a true multicultural city. I also met one person I recently found about (Ethiopian) and left on the same day. Now I have had my breakfast, I feel very tired, probably the longest bus journey I have had (travelled for 22 hours within 36 hours) and I keep on blogging!
Just before I leave though…the funniest thing happened. A Chinese girl sitting beside me was feeling cold and she had a small patch of cloth wrapped around her. I sleep for sometime, suddenly wake up and tell her in amharic that I can give her my jacket if she wants to. She said ok I went back to sleep She must have thought I was one troubled person. But she said she was taking English courses to be a translator. So she might just blame it on her English. Hopefully.
Two Fridays before I went to Newcastle on a cloudy day.
A river passes right through the city. So it is known for it’s bridges. I went for a small one-off job which was on Saturday on Monday so Friday was all mine. Egre eskiketin dires zorkugn. Bridge after bridge.
Then I got tired of bridges and went to the city center. I found these brilliant musicians. Flutes and guitars and some other exotic instruments. They came from South America. Free music. They were selling their CDs but I was broke enough to ignore their offer.
I roam around the city a lot, had a big pizza, couldn’t finish it, then went home. I wanted to take a picture of that but when I went in two girls were in my room…errr in our room actually. It was a Back Packers, cheap, looks like AAU’s 402 dorms except it is a mixed room, is cleaner, and there is a common hot shower. The guy sleeping above me (it was a double deck bed) had a bad cough and the whole framework was shaking. He also kept going to the bathroom. Lucky for me I was very tired and zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
In the morning I see this thing and wonder what it means …
Then I found my work place easily. It is “Center for Life”. A sort of “science museum” to attract kids to science. I meet my partner (another girl from my school and her boyfriend) and we set up the robot arm we brought from our school. It plays Connect 4. Robot arm is green and dark thing on top of the blue box). It’s “eye” is the camera in front and the brain is the laptop.
Not so many kids around so I take a tour around…
At the end of the day I find these guys performing. Their band is starting but some of the songs they played were awesome.
I then meet this guy who tells me there is a free live rock music show. And I nod my head very hard. He offers to take me to the place….
It turns out those guys are actually pentecostals and the lyric of the rock music was something I couldn’t really dance to. At first I feel deceived and on second thoughts there is nothing else I would do. The couple who work with me have fled away and I didn’t want to go to pubs alone. So I sit back and watch.
I was surprised when three girls probably in their early twenties came in. I haven’t seen people of this age interested in the Church. But soon they started giggling and being uneasy. They left after two songs. But I had I started to enjoy it. There were a lot of singers including these ones who dubbed Tony Braxton’s and Nelly Furtado’s songs into something which has Jesus in it.
Is it right or wrong? The audience enjoyed it. Maybe it is a good way of allowing kids to do what they want (singing rap songs) by still keeping them from doing bad things or acting stupid. The girls had a cool voice by the way.
I went to an Indian restaurant for dinner. I had an appetizer…then came vegetable rolls, finished all of it and got sort of full. Hmmm 15 pounds for this? I add the politeness of the waiter and waitress who frequently checkup on me and decide it is worth it. Just when I turned to ask for the bill another dish came. And this one was big. Ah! What was the second one for? Don’t know….Thats why I don’t like eating in fancy restaurants. Ten type of dishes, five type of spoons and twenty two glances from waiters to check if you need attendance to. If only the university was not funding my stay I would have gone to a causual place. But anyways I finish that up, double check that I have the receipt in my wallet and leave without any tip Yimotal ende.
Sunday was pretty similar. Only a few were winning so we decided to make the robot less smart…keeping in mind the small number of T-shirt prizes we have. We then had more and more winners …
At the end of the day packing took a long time and I rushed to the train station. Came home and looked for dinner – my frozen misir. Can someone tell me how I can defrost this thing quicker.
You see, I am getting convinced that nothing or no one is going to make me feel satisfied.Oh! This is supposed to be a poem.Sorry.
Waiting…… …………..……………………..……………………...
To be that person
To find that person
To get there
That…there…..!?
Wondering
Making friends with Alice
Waiting….. ……………………….. ………..……………………….
Ambitions to be ambitious
Wait…… before that
Waiting…………………………………………………………………..
To know what I got
Whom I got
What I don’t
To know here
Waiting……………………………………………………………..
To be proved wrong
By someone something someplace
Without discontent
Waiting ……….….…..…. ...
To learn
There is no satisfaction
Only happiness
This is it ≠ This is it
─=○=●
Waiting ……………. ……….. ………………… ….. … …..
To fly
To be grounded
Waiting …………. …... . ….. ….. ..…..…………..
For the day
I will wait no more
Waiting …………. …. … ………………………………….
For today
For now
Now haven’t I written this before?
But wait…………
Those were prose
This is not
‘tis a POEM
Ya man!
‘tis the remix
Me alongside me
So put your hands up
Like it is a robbery
Give me all you got
Then again………
Probably…………….
F$%# it!
From here
Look up
Hmmmmmmmm
No rhyme
Reason?
Look
Way higher
Only a sense of completion
One entry
One
No, not that one
The one before the one
There’s just no rhyme or reason
Only a sense of completion
A verse from Savage Garden’s song I knew I loved you. This song, truly madly deeply and Darren Hayes’ insatiable are quite the ballads. But after he came out, I can not help but wonder if he had a girl or a guy in mind when he sang those songs. No judgment.
A verse about helplessness:
Sometimes I can’t help but feel helpless
I am having daymares at daytime
(Nas in Damien Marley’s road to Zion)
Someday I may finally get what I am searching for and all my posts would be rosy like “did you see today’s sunset?” Wait, I already have posts on the sun?!Whatever!
Like I said, I very much would like to be disproved; to see if there is such a thing as achievement.But until then, you will have to put up with my weak ass rhymes.
Bright” ideas are getting hard to come by. All week and I have got only two of them. Here they go in their dual entirety. You know the saying that just before you die, past events in your life flash before your eyes. I was wondering if it was your entire life or highlights that do the parade. If one’s whole life, then fancy the compression! And if highlights, are those highlights the same as or different from the moments one would have thought of as being as highlights of one’s life? Answers from dead people or those who had out of body experiences are highly encouraged; so is insight or hindsight rather, into premonitions and the “your spirit -floating over your lifeless body” thingie-from the same people specified.
And what’s up with naming disease causing organisms after their discoverers or people who studied them? Do you think it is the right reward, if it can be called that, for the work they put in? Should not Yersinia have been named after the guy Yersin hated the most?
Medicine for shaky hands and Imahoy Tsigemariam’s CD= the things I need the most right now.
What was that for? It is the side effect of applying to a number of jobs. I’ll omit the number on the interest of space.
I watched a number of scifi movies and TV series. K-PAX was excellent. Its an alien thing but also sort of mystery. I don’t know how Tibe failed to mention it to me. I also follow 4400. Yep, 4400 people get abducted by people of the future and return with special abilities to save future disasters. Heroes is another similar series. In fact I think they stole 4400’s ideas. People with special abilities trying to save the world. Its amazing how everyone wants to save the world and don’t know they are the problem in the first place Damn it! If you want to save the world then leave your car and run to work. I think people feel powerless that they are excited by “special abilities”. Or is it the case that we think we have powers but we want more to be at the top. Maybe both.
I saw “From pole to pole”, a documentary on animals and the earth. It talks about various animals. There was a funny scene where a group of elephants were walking in wind (with sand) and they had their eyes closed. The mother elephant stopped and the child bumped into her mother’s back It was very funny. The cab had her eyes closed and were just following her mother At some point they were resting and they had to leave. One mother went to a cab, put her foot on the cab and lightly shook her. The cab woke up and journey started.
Zare sile ensisa bicha new meselegn. I saw a hyena can on youtube. It was taken away from his parents because they were hurting him. He was a sweet little thing. He was like a dog when he played with a human. Why do we hate hyenas anyway? I think my attitude towards them is changing.
Beterefe I have this sudden urges to buy a pet. Even more than pets, I want cows. They are very innocent and gentle animals.
Another thing, I watched some videos on savants. Its a long definition so look it up. But one savant had the ability of remembering what he has seen. Maybe the word “remember” does not do justice to it. It is as if he has a camera inside which takes snapshots of what he is seeing. They took him to some city, they hovered above it, he saw some part of the city, went to a studio, was given some a few meters long drawing paper and he drew what he has seen in amazing detail. He stopped drawing after two days because he was tired of drawing.
One of the most famous of savants has total recall. Writers of the movie Rain Man were inspired by him. Another one “sees” numbers. When you say “eighty four” to him, he may perceive a short person. And he does amazing calculations with his brain. Wikipedia has a list of famous savants. It comes with a price though. If you take the drawing guy, he has difficulty remembering other things, like what he wore
If you could have a “special ability” what would you want to have? Special ability as in savants is one thing but special abilities in the movies I mentioned above have a wide spectrum. There is a guy who heals wounds (he also gave life to a dead bird), a child who predicts, one who can take away abilities, freezing time, causing illusions into someone’s head, knowing what people think, etc. It is endless. You can also go to the website of the TV series and tell them what your ability is. The most interesting thing I saw though is on one of the TV series, they introduce new people every week and viewers get to vote on which character should be kept.
I just wanted to comment on Tibe’s observation on unread mails or “1 message(s) received”. I feel good when I see that too Tibe try this: On your email select all emails (you can do that by checking the checkbox at the very top of the mails), then click on “Mark”->”Unread”. You will then have many unread messages. I know its fooling yourself but try it and see.
After a frenzied as usual month of Meskerem, Tikimt has finally come. It is hoped that it will bring some calm and ……..well…… cold.The following, some of it happened this week.
There was a rainbow around the sun. None of the people I told to see it seems to have done so. Their loss! I am not sure if it is visible on the pictures but it was a sight to behold.
The day I will not be able to freely enter any of the premises of Addis Ababa University, is going to be a sad day. But even if I am banned for life, I still will haunt them: let us not forget that I have my 3×4 graduation photo buried somewhere in Acapulco.
My last memory of a circular rainbow, Senai and I were walking to 402 and he was telling me that he was going to America.On our way, we passed by students burning matchsticks for an epileptic student who had a fit in front of 407. This time I was at Sidst Kilo; sitting on the concrete steps of the playing field, watching the people mowing the field. I could see that it was taking them an awfully long time to do the job.
You know, f%^& thatbook (I read about it only recently) and whosoever wrote it. And I will not waste my time trying to refute bullshit either. I will however say that if ever there was such a thing as LQ (Laziness Quotient), then Ethiopians would be at the top of the table. There is no denying that there are honest and hard working citizens. But I am afraid they are drowned in a sea of their antithesis a.k.a people like me.
Yeah!Let’s talk about me !
I handed in a mediocre assignment paper. Instead of studying for the exam, here I am blogging.Still clueless about the project and I am starting to fear that I may have a hard and unpleasant time trying to graduate or may not be graduating at all. Sometimes I think that I have been in school for a very long time and a quick, honorary eightical would be ethical. Then again, there are times that I feel that I have been on the road too long but to nowhere.
I wake up feeling like a zombie.
I pace during my teeth brushing sessions- I call them sessions cuz they usually take 10+ minutes.
My situation is not being helped by this free music download site I came across. Given the possibility of getting/listening to ample music, I am like in a kid in a candy store. Not without cost though; and I am not talking about caries. There is that feeling I am using the school’s internet connection for the wrong purpose.The connection is elih ascherash except for sporadic bursts of speed: it is like catching waves.I spend time that could have been spent on warranted activities. I wonder if this thing is going to be the failure of me; can not stop thinking about my freshman year and if there are going to be similarities ..…..
The page just before it starts downloading is one more thing to make me screen-happy, the others being “you got 1unread message”, “1 missed call” and “1 message received’’.Nowadays, my inbox and the bulk are starting to look alike. Woe the day everyone has had enough of me that I stop getting junk mail!
I try to listen to the quiet in the storm and to believe in believing to see. But everyday it gets harder to do so.
You see; I want to be Ethiopian of this millennium. Last time, let’s face it, I did not deserve it. With only thirty days having elapsed, the race is wide open and I think I got a really good chance. I just don’t know how to accomplish it. With the rate I am going, I think publishing scientific papers is not for me.
One of the guys who won this year’s Nobel Prize for in medicine received the phone call announcing that he was a winner at 3 am. I guess the practice is to wait for the discovery to bear fruit, the fruits to ripen and be put on the shelfs of a supermarket… But after all those years, could not it have waited until the morning?
The first president from a biology background? No sir!I hate to have power over and be responsible for the lives of others unless I absolutely have to.That is why I do not want to be a prime minister.
Beyonce and Ludacris have a concert in Addis Ababa a week from tomorrow. Luda is winning Grammies but he is as hot as he used to be. But with verses like …..Yep, call me the renaissance man get up and I stay……. , he is wellsuited for this “renaissance” we are suppose d to be having . And Beyonce, wear as revealing clothes as you like; just watch your steps.
Let me take a stab at some other people real quick. It was on Kumneger magazine that I read about the book on IQ and wealth. Fashion is their sister magazine. The charges they brought against MyFashion some time back was simply ludicrous. AndMyFashion is a far superior magazine , the kind I would like to see more of.
I heard a guy talk about a specific group of people. I have heard people from the group spoken about speak about the speaker’s group the same way.For all the talk of tolerance, can we ever stop feeling that others are either fools or wicked?
I am reminded of the scene form contact where Matthew McConaghuey tells Jodie Foster that he could not let humanity be represented by someone who thought that most of them were fools.
Who is going to represent Ethiopia should there ever be such a situation? Who is gonna rep The World yeall?
Go here for Amharic e mail services: it has worked for me with limited success.
I hope to start Spanish classes this week and to enjoy it.
Feliz Eid and Hasta Luego !
That is it!
One
I forgot this ®Some coins fell off my hand and this guy picks a fifty and hands it to me.Taking him for someone who would ask for it, I offered it back to him saying it had his name written over it. He refused and put me in my place. I was so ashamed for judging him based on the way he looked and dressed. At the same time, I was proud and grateful for seeing such a person – member of a dying breed.
And this ↓
Faithless feat. Estelle – Why go. This video embodies what I would like to find. And the skirt and sneakers…. very cool!
These days, what I am having for breakfast is coffee with tea, no sugar, and brown bread.I love it; it is great! Great in the sense that nothing will be bitterer for the rest of the day and in that it will make you do some crazy shit – like texting that girl on that fateful Wednesday 26 September, the year of our Lord 2007(this date might come in handy someday.) I think it was the coffee that was doing the typing that morning because in my tea days I would have known better. After some more exchanges since l last posted, she knows who I am. And how did she take it? “I knew it !!! I knew all that ogling was not for nothing!” And I said “Baby, I do not ogle; I Google! That is how I got your your father’s and sister’s e mail addresses!”
The other day I was complimenting my sister on how she looked and she responds, “Why don’t you e mail me!”
I gather she is the last one to know– after my family and friends and her family (if those e mails have been read). It looks like I have succeeded in pulling off a perfect front around her for all that time.
Now that things have fiiiiiiiiiiiiinally got going, to wherever, it seems that I am stuck. I am questioning why I did it and what I want out of it. I do not know what my next move should be. No plans, strategy or what not. I guess that is what happens when you jump in dick-first into situations, “pumped” up by caffeine. May be I should apologize saying I was high, and slip back into obscurity, if possible .
Right now, I am in limbo – limbo of the stupid.There still is rain and cold; and the sun is not yet shining to full effect. As my mother would tell you, kiremt is supposed to end on Meskerem 26. Demarcation settled, the promise of a stationary blue above and brown motion on the ground is enticing as could be, standing three days away. All eyes get ready to feast on those brown skinned ladies, every third of whom happens to have brown somewhere in her outfit!
A certain kind of blue was the ladies’ favorite some time back. I wonder which color would be next and how many colors they will go through before I find me a girl?!
I do not wish to go into the whole “should they or should they not wear those revealing clothes?” debate:revealed are my opinions in the last paragraphs. But what I wish to beg of them is not to show us their butt cracks for, don’t nobody wanna see those, sakes. Ladies, I feel somewhere in the back of your head you think about impressing us; and impressible creatures are us guys .But not with that!
And I am not a fault finder- the fault is there for all to see.
A G thang is going down with the leaders of Ghana and Germany having converged on Addis Ababa.I was kind of surprised to see Girma Birru receive John Kufour .Even if the PM could not be there, the FM would have been a more appropriate choice. He just may be is one of the better leaders the continent has got to offer; he is the current chairperson of AU and his country is celebrating fifty years of independence-most of the other African countries boast younger years.
Ethiopia, having never been colonized by Europeans, has been suffering from autocolonization for far too long. Lest I should be misinterpreted, autocolonization = possessing wealth but not putting it to good use; which the Europeans may view as mikegenet. I long for the day when we finally win independence from ourselves.
She must have thought I was one troubled person. But she said she was taking English courses to be a translator. So she might just blame it on her English. Hopefully.
Damn it! If you want to save the world then leave your car and run to work. I think people feel powerless that they are excited by “special abilities”. Or is it the case that we think we have powers but we want more to be at the top. Maybe both.
