I love mornings, I absolutely love waking up before most of the world (or at least my generation) has and enjoy the world in its purest form. I love to wake up early enough to able to sip my coffee while reading the news. Problem is, I also like to stay up late. I like to read until my eyes turn blood-shot and to keep them open is physically impossible. I like to StumbleUpon and flip through Failblog while reading on the side. I enjoy it so much, as a matter of fact, that like a child anticipating a Christmas morning (well, at least British or American children for that matter, Finnish kids get their present on Christmas eve), I can’t go to sleep. I end up sleeping at 12-1am. But I want to wake up at 6-7am.

Hence my three alarm clocks:

The first one to go off is my phone, the alarm is usually fast pace dance music which should wake me up. I enjoy the music so much I actually fall asleep while it’s ringing. I’ve tried the original alarms but they don’t work, they start off too softly.

Then the ridiculously loud grey one, it gives you a mad headache, it literally sounds like an old-fashioned alarm clock inside a metal bucket, you know, the ones with the wee bells on top. But I usually reach out (no matter how far it is) and turn it off. You would think that since I’m still practically asleep I would hit the snooze button which is conveniently gigantic and positioned on the top, but no, I have learned to switch off the alarm from the back where the switch is supposed to be conveniently hidden. All this in my sleep.

My newest addition: meet Clocky. I’ve always had three different alarm clocks, but I got rid of my other phone alarm, which is simply useless. And then I heard about this one, it literally escapes from you. I’ve been messing around with it too much, kept putting the alarm time accidentally to PM, or then the actual time to PM, so I have yet to experience the chase. However, I’m hoping this will get me up in the mornings.

Back when I lived in Germany I used to have four alarm clocks, each strategically placed a little further from the previous one. Placing one alarm clock far away is not good enough, I tend to find my way back into bed and fall asleep. Occasionally I wake up (an hour after I was supposed to wake up) at the foot of the bed in a fetal position. So what I did in Germany was that I placed a bowl of water next to the last alarm clock which was next to the door. When the final alarm got me out of my bed, I had already had a ton of exercise from the other alarms, and now there was a bowl of water where I would submerge my face as a final wakeywakey.

I am a morning person, I really am. Just not one to wake up happy. I’m always grumpy when I first wake up, that is before I get my two cups of morning coffee, the elixir of my life. I wonder if there’s an alarm clock with a built-in coffee machine, or vice versa.

It’s time to choose a new book to read. One of my favorite things to do, but always just as difficult. I have an obsessive habit of collecting books. I buy my books according to themes (Africa, politics, biographies, etc), I also always check ratings of the books before I buy them. Although, sometimes a book may seem ridiculously interesting yet the ratings are low, then I will probably buy it anyway and read it. I can’t even begin to count how many books I have, I have books in Finland, Kenya (some in Mombasa, some in Nairobi), and New York. Most of my books are in Nairobi or Finland though.

These are some of my options for my next reading experience:

After careful consideration and evaluation, (and reading a few pages of almost all of the options available) I chose Che Guevara’s The African Dream. Fantastic.

Nothing brings as much joy as sitting quietly in a corner and reading a good book while sipping coffee. Especially if the book is entertaining and informative at the same time.

There are many very capable women out there, generally less vain (I’m not judging being vain; heaven knows I can be very vain), the likes of Margaret Thatcher and the others I described in my older post. These women may run portions of the world, perhaps corners, but not the world. At least not yet.

I’ve heard arguments for how lovers and mistresses play significant parts in big political decisions, can I say BS? Yes they may turn the man’s head one way or another once in a while, but come on, who truly believes that this one man makes the major decisions alone.

Beyoncé, the only thing you run is your husband and the minds of easily manipulated girls.

Back to Lady Gaga, even though I don’t agree with a lot of her lyrics, I have to say they’re written with intelligence. At least most of them. They’re not the usual bullshit, an emotional cry for a lost love or pathetic attempt to boost one’s own self-esteem, which I’m sure are very important topics to cover. Not. But there’s something more to Lady Gaga’s lyrics. You actually have to analyze them (again not all, but most). Even though I can’t say I agree with heresy in the largely understood sense of the word, but for instance her song Judas is immensely deep. Lily Allen and Jessie J are probably the only artists whose lyrics I can agree with out of the mainstream pop, although I don’t know enough about them as people, nor have I listened to their music extensively enough to know what they’re really about. I could also go on and on about the wonder that is K’naan, but I feel he is way too important to be placed into the same category as the other artists mentioned in here. I would have to dedicate an entire post to him.

Not only do I enjoy Lady Gaga’s music, I also find her style of clothing intriguing. I can’t say I agree with all of it, as was with her lyrics, but I admire her ability to be an artist in the true sense of the word. She’s like a modern day Salvador Dalí, shocking and entertaining. You can’t look away. You’re disgusted yet fascinated and you keep looking. I also like the fact that, unlike most musicians, she doesn’t sell her music with sex. Yes it’s true that there is A LOT of sex in Lady Gaga’s performances, some would say she is only about sex, but it’s more psychological rather than meant to appeal to the male audience physically.

I do not mean to say she is my idol, you have to actually matter to be my idol, and very few musicians truly matter the way for example K’naan matters.

And if I was offered a cheap ticket to go see Lady Gaga perform would I go? No. If I was given a free ticket would I go? I don’t know. It takes a lot from a musician to please me fully; as most of you know I’m extremely critical about almost everything, especially when it comes to mainstream culture. But Lady Gaga comes very close. An ideal musician for me would be one who would share similar political and worldviews with me, and would then use their music to share these views. But for now, an intelligent and creative woman like Lady Gaga will have to suffice. I like her.

But I’m talking about the long term goods, the goods that make us happy for a very long time. And even then the good thing might not happen.

And sometimes there are those lucky individuals who, through calculated possibilities, find themselves doing what they always wanted with absolutely no hard work. But the chances of that happening (again it is NOT luck, it is only a freaky coincidence through chances) are so miniscule we have to push fate a tad. I’ve made a list, so here goes:

Good things happen to those who wait

• Choose a goal that truly interests them
• Make a plan that will take them there
• Invest in the things that are required to follow the steps of the plan
• Motivate themselves by choosing someone they admire in the field and then thinking and reading about them often
• Focus truly on that one goal and anything that supports it
• Fantasize about what life will be like once the goal is achieved

So I have discovered a new obsession (which is also another characteristic of mine, obsessive) which feeds my need for fast pace entertainment which is at the same time informative.

StumbleUpon

It’s like being on speed.

With the click of a button you’re constantly entertained with information without getting bored,
*Click: Interesting

*Click: Interesting

*Click: Interesting

*Click: Awww

*Click: Ooooh, really? Interesting

Some weeks ago I had to wake up at 6am for an exam. I couldn’t sleep that night though, why? I had been Stumbling (or StumbleUponing? what’s the correct verb here? You know, like Googling, or Facebooking) and as a result after I closed my eyes my mind began stumbling on its own. It created crazy websites and images for me to rush through, I remember distinctively a page written by a Slavic woman, and this was all a result of my own mind. I kept clicking away and seeing new pages and images, this went on until 1am, when I decided I need to calm my mind somehow, so I pulled out my book and read it until 2am, after which I was calm enough to actually fall asleep.

flown with budget airlines in Europe and I get that for a budget airline you can’t expect what you would from a regular airline, but come on, you can still provide friendly service; that should be free no? Or at least cheap, considering what a cheap airline in Africa spends on personnel…

I’ve had a wonderful flight so far, if I ignore the fact that I’m flying to the land of polar bears, igloos, reindeer, and Santa Claus (note to all Americans, there are no polar bears in Finland in reality).  To be honest I’m rather dreading going back to Finland, even if it is for only a few months.

Yessir.

But nothing a little wine, coffee, and a good Samurai movie won’t make me forget. At least for a while. The best movie they provided on the plane was the The Warrior’s Way. Absolutely fantastic movie. Very different from your typical Hollywood movies, many of the people behind it seemed to have Korean names so that could be one reason why it was fantastic. Well at least for those of us who love our Spanish, French, Japanese, and Korean movies. Yes it provided a good amount of gore but in no way too much.

Can you say “Lonely Samurai teaches a white girl to fight”? Perfect.

I don’t want to go into detail but I definitely recommend it; quirky, strange, weird, a little gory, but beautiful, definitely worth watching. And a Korean main actor. Nice.

Once again, don’t hate me because of my skin color, I did not ruin Africa.

FLY540 crash

I’m back in Mombasa, I missed my little puppies too much and decided to fly back, even if it is for only a few days. Kenya Airways offered very cheap tickets which was very nice since I am seriously getting tired of FLY540‘s incompetence. I have numerous stories from FLY540, it’s said to be the matatu of the skies. For those of you who do not know what matatus are: matatus are local buses that are worn out, torn down, and break down whenever. Sound like a good airline?

Some months ago I was flying to Zanzibar from Nairobi with FLY540 only to find myself in Mombasa. When I tried to call the airline HQ to enquire they showed complete incompetence and lacked all customer service abilities by not even offering an explanation or solution. I had to beg and threaten for them to even compensate a lunch.

Last time when Khan was flying from Mombasa to Nairobi with FLY540 they sold him a ticket for a flight which had already left. They told him it will leave in 30 minutes and he can still make it, turns out it had left 45 minutes ago. At first they refused a refund until Khan had to get pissed, finally the annoyed looking lady in the office gave him another ticket for a flight leaving after an hour.

I have more, but I think this paints a pretty clear picture of their service. On top of terrible service their aircrafts are remnants from the cold war. They look like they are about to fall apart, only while living in Albania have I seen such planes. If their service is this terrible I don’t even want to know how their maintenance is.

And yet I continue to fly FLY540, why? Because it’s cheap.

The cheapest.

But this time I was lucky enough to find very cheap tickets with Kenya Airways, and it felt like luxury after all these FLY540 flights. I usually take Kenya Airways/KLM when I fly out of Africa and their service has always been superb. Within Africa I choose to fly cheaper airlines like Rwandair and Fly540.

But oh how nice it felt to be treated like a paying customer once again, and even better, not having to worry about maintenance and whether or not the plane will land in one piece.