Shiko-Msa

Guest Post from Our Kid.

Smtyms I dnt rily unstnd da msgs pple snt 2 me thru da 4ne si I thot wld b a gd idea 2 as da msg dat brevty is, in txt msgs, not da sol of wit. So hia I am str8 up, telng u dat dnt b tripn: Write the words in full, please!

Ur msg may be kul bt sup wit da abbreviations? Credo? Tym? Wat? Ur in a hurry whn txting pples? Wat is hpng is terrbl! Tis a WOMBAT! Waste of money brains n tym!

Dring my bday, I got sevl ‘H Bday’ msgs. Imagine dat! I cnt w8 4 X-mas coz t wl b sun hia n u cn bet ur ass dat pple wl txt u to ask: wea u@? Mry X-mas n hppy nu yr!

Grrrrrrr! Tll b gr8 2 ctch up. But dnt do it thru sms. Plz! Plz! Plz! I rlly wnt 2 knw hw ur festiv cson is bt not n dat manner.

Nxt al hia anna guy telng me hw he waw sm chik readn my blog n burstg out laughg. Wat am I mnt 2 do? Bottle ma blog n sell it in spmkts? Dat wnt sel 4 ril! Ppl cn say, ‘U r da bomb bt wnt buy da blog. All I cn prms is da nxt blog ll b kul.

Or my bddy who txts men sez: Mt me @ Ambsdr Hotl. Let hm thnk abt tht! Why dint I sho up? How cm? Well, I dint undstnd! So he txts me again: I snt mny msgs en no rply frm u!

So hia is da rules! If you mis me, dnt snt me dos txts dat say: Gawd! Bn mssng u. Cnt blve u dnt no tht! Spendg lotsa tyme frm u is no gd 4 mi. I lyk u so much! U mek mi proud 2 b ya frnd!

I wnt undstd! And u cn bet I wont rply wit a txt dat sez: U r not juz ma pal bt ma pearl! Cant blv u lyk me so much et am juz a 1st class guy wearng 2nd class clad in dis 3rd wld city ofNrb.

No. Dis gotta stop! Or sun, I cn picture my boss snding a txt memo to da staff: WHEN @ WAK, DNT RID A MAG! DNT CHT ONLYN!

Undst? Aaaaaah. Tis getg beta. N thn 1 of us will rply: UGTBK:—-)

You’ve got to be kidding? To da boss? Dat wld b crzy! Cm On!

L8rs.

From The Archives: When Serena Came Calling.

I have a love hate relationship with the gym. Now I go now I don’t. Soon I’ll start my regime which I’ve abandoned for some months. Maybe 1 year. Motivation? I’m unfit.  Plus there is the illusion of a lithe body that may just look 20 at 40.

I do not want sexy abs in 3 minutes. Actually my goals are rather vague; somewhere in the region of ‘eat healthy and exercise’. I work out by that one very blanket statement. No fancy programs or timelines. Lazy I know but if it will create the oh! so glorified calorific deficit and make the kilos drop, I’m good to go. I have so much to allocate time for and that statement is all that fitness gets. In addition of course to paying gym subscription, showing up, and actually working out.

I was never good at fixed timings and routines. They’re the number one killer of morale for me. Start this at 6 and end it at 7, jump on this from 7.30 to 8……. I know it helps. I’m just not good at it. I do use help from the instructors so my workouts  are not always all over the place, but a lot of times I thrive on jumbling up whatever looks fun for the day. I end up doing all that is required of me – only not in a set order or routine. And certainly no isolated movements to supertone any particular part of the body at the expense of others. Just eat healthy and exercise.

This time though, I’m thinking I may just decide to see how much better those fancy custom made programs can work. Micro-fit assessment tests. Fitness level, body fat indexes, flexibility index, body fat ratio, lean muscle… I need to see my body ratios on paper. The little numbers and graphs that are supposedly a representative of my innards. Yeah right. I want to see those. Then have a program tailored towards them.

At some motivated point I even thought of *shudder shudder* journaling. But that was the briefest of thoughts. I won’t journal because I won’t keep at it. I’ll just do away with the calories without having to meticulously keep a count of every little morsel that gets into my mouth. I’ll take mental notes. When I hit the gym, say on Monday, I’ll keep in mind that I did not exactly feed on carrot sticks over the weekend.

Finally, they lie. Those that say I should be at a certain weight at my height lie. I ain’t going down to their recommended gaunt weight. I’m an African woman. I need my curves.

And no, I will not ask you whether I look fat in this.

From the archives:

Too Fat To Fly.

Cut Kilos And Save The Planet.

I’m not leaving Safaricom in a hurry.  Not that I’m not disgruntled. I’ve not always been in agreement with their boardroom decisions. Going back to the questions Zein posed some time back in a blatant bashing ad, I remember answering all of them in favour of zein.

• Do you understand how your mobile tariff operates? Perfectly. Strange-mess-my-head-behemoth-algorithm-beast that roams the airwaves zapping charges swiftly from 80 cents to 14 bob a minute.

• Do you feel discriminated by your mobile network? Most ruthlessly yes. Said as it is, the rich call at cheaper rates while the not so rich, who need cheaper rates most, call at higher rates. Genius!

That was then. Now:

• Are you on a promotional or permanent tariff? It was a promo. Then it was a promo. Still is. Till the next promo.

• How much are you paying for SMS to other networks? More than it takes to call. So I rarely text. Plus it takes a shorter time calling than calculating cryptic masaas. Ya Ngilu, ya kubamba, Ya SMS, ya kujibambia or otherwise. In that vein unless Safcom is breaking news to me, I could also do without their texts.

• Do you pay higher prices and get congestion? Dropped calls? Network busy? Yes. But Safaricom is all I’ve known in my mobile telephony life so I’m good with the warts.

• Yes. Terms and conditions apply. Terms and conditions always apply.

If it matters at all, for some time there they had the most boring faceless timeline on twitter. You kind of felt like they have a robot on auto tweet, auto reply. In my understanding, that is not what twitter is about.

I may not be the best client either. Of the plethora of services on offer, I only use Voice and M-pesa. I’ve never okoad jahazi, never bought a modem, I rarely text, and despite this excuse of an article, I’m not an Equity Bank account holder so M-kesho did not exactly tag at my heartstrings. Apparently M-Kesho is  for people who like to procrastinate. That is twitter for you.

On a more serious note,  someone please tell me how  M-kesho is fairing. Whichever way, it looks they’re up for a beating by Orange Iko-Pesa.

So why am I still on Safaricom? Certainly not for TLC and pampering. Maybe for the same reason I still use Blue Band. And Jik. And if there was tree-top juice I would drink it. Plus my phone is a directory of sorts. The core of my business. I feel I stand to lose more by shifting.

Niko na.

Check out  some good discussion we had here some time back.