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Showing posts from October, 2015

Out of the Box

I spent my first 18 years immersed in an educational (and social) system that did little to encourage creativity. What subjects did I take for A levels? Economics, Chemistry, and Further Maths. That's not to say that I didn't do well in these classes, or that I didn't enjoy them, because I did. Heck, I loved Economics, and that's what I got my degree in, despite having the opportunity to change my mind (and the wisdom to know that it would be okay to). It was expected that our degrees and the careers we chose would follow certain paths that all those before us chose; thinking outside the box wasn't really encouraged. This wasn't just a problem localised at my school; indeed, it was a problem that was facing a larger community in Nairobi. Looking at my secondary school graduating class, I can't think of anyone who chose to pursue further education in something like art, creative writing, or philosophy. That's not to say that no one was interested in these

Beauty, Now

This might be the longest that I've gone (in recent times) without writing. Well, not completely without writing, because then I wouldn't be me, would I? A more accurate thing to say would be 'without writing for an audience'. A larger part of that is due to changes that have been occurring in other parts of my life, and inevitably, everything ties back to my writing. More of that in another post though; today, I really want to talk about beauty. And wonder. And the joy of novelty. Courtesy of Unsplash When (and where) my parents were growing up, pizza wasn't really a thing. Difficult to fathom for someone like me; pizza is VERY much a thing in my life. Today at tea time (it's really good to be back in Kenya...), I asked my father if he remembered the first time he'd had pizza. He shrugged noncommittally, and said that he didn't.  Of course, that led me to wonder what it would be like if he (or I) were to try pizza for the first time ever now. Suffice to