What now; School

Most of the students will think that they have life after school all figured out which is one big illusion. You will think that after spending four or five years in campus you are now ready to conquer the outside world. After taking 56+ tough units in school, you will be thinking that you can solve half of the world problems! You will be bubbling with knowledge acquired from various professors and doctors. You will be eagerly waiting to sit for your last examination paper and proclaim that you are no longer a student.
Then the time comes and you are not a student anymore. The outside world will welcome you with open arms. Your kins will top the list in telling you that you have finally made it. You will finally be considered a grown up which is not a good thing per se. This is just a polite way of saying that you are no longer a liability.
The hardest decisions as a student are centered on very minor things: whether you should attend a class or skip it; whether you should photocopy an handout or wait to get it from your friend when he/she is done; Whether you should do an assignment or just wait to copy it in the morning. Exams and CATs are your biggest worries. These can easily be solved by studying well enough and in time. Although even one night of serious cramming just before the paper makes all the difference. For the lazy ones whom the exam finds unprepared you can opt for shortcuts like seating near strategic people who have studied or just carry a mwakenya!
Just because you are living on your own in a bedsitter or one bedroom apartment, probably in Gate C or in Kahawa, doesn’t mean you know shit. If your parents sent you money to pay that rent you should calm down like the rest of your counterparts in the hostels. Some will then move into a fancy bedsitter than what your parents can afford and start bragging about how you are paying the rest of the rent on your own. But the truth is that you will always find a way to squeeze that extra rent out of your parents pockets one way or another. The there is this other lot whose rent is paid by sponsors or working boyfriends/girlfriends. You my friends should sit down at the farthest corner when people are talking about serious life issues.
If you are voluntarily taking care of another human being in the name of love don’t talk about responsibilities. Taking her to an expensive pizza date or paying for her manicure isn’t close to responsibilities. You have not had your relatives call you because they are financially stuck and borrow money which you are sure as hell isn’t gonna find its way back to you. If your parents have not called you with a list of activities (fixing the car, buying animals feeds & fertilizer, money for chama) that require money for you to chip in, then calm down. You are still young and they are giving you time to grow up.
You would think that studying smart and graduating with your first degree at 21 from a top-ranked university they are going to give you a standing ovation. Then the reality check hits you and you join the rest of the jobless graduates. The few job opportunities you will come across will require some years experience which you don’t have. And nobody will be willing to give you a chance to build this experience. You will apply for 20 or so jobs and not even one will respond to your mail because you are desperate. You will then become humble and start looking at the voluntary section of job sites. If you are lucky you will land a unpaid internship. You will openly embrace it as light at the end of the tunnel. You will start working for a company which the only benefit you are getting is free tea and office wifi.
There are those chosen few who will start off their careers in the blue chip companies. If you fall here you are either well connected or go to bed with luck herself! But still you will start at the bottom of the food chain even if they are giving you a five figure salary.
Remember the first day you reported to campus? How you didn’t know anything about the place or how the system works and the village in you was very evident. This will be you when you finally start working. You will be at the bottom of the food chain. Your good papers will not be so important after you leave the interview room. You will be working under people with lesser qualifications. You with your degree will be taking orders from diploma holders. There will be even a mere driver who is paid more than you. The gap between you and the rest will be experience which will be measured by a number of years.
However, once you start the journey sooner or later you will also start selling on experience. It will not be an easy journey but your patience and hard work will get you there.
If you are still in campus this is the time to make the most of your life. Attend classes, do assignments, study for exams and get good grades. This good grades do not guarantee you a good job or life but at least they will not be among the reasons you miss an opportunity.

I’d like to hear from you, please leave a comment :).

You

Source: You

Status Update from a Frustrated Mathematician

Math with Bad Drawings

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The Double Agent of Change

Liquid Mercury

“Guil: It was chance, then?
Player: Chance?
Guil: You found us.
Player: Oh yes.
Guil: You were looking?
Player: Oh no.
Guil: Chance, then
Player: Or fate.
Guil: Yours or ours?
Player: It could hardly be one without the other.
Guil: Fate, then.
Player: Oh yes.  We have no control. Tonight we play to the court. Or the night after. Or to the tavern. Or not.” – Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard

Thoughts on Fate, Chance, and Free Will

The Universe is made up of energy. I don’t intend to dwell on that because there is a large body of work in both the Spiritual and Scientific spaces that explains this concept far better than I can.[1] Instead, this post is simply going to start from that premise; the Universe is made up of energy.

Matter is a particular organization structure of energy. Like the previous premise…

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saint ma hajiani dargah: of red and green bangles

One-Word Math Classes

Math with Bad Drawings

You know what’s often missing from math class? Yes, candy bars, but even more important than that: coherence.

Math class shouldn’t be a mishmash pile of facts, thrown together haphazardly, like an academic version of The White Album. It should be a perfectly interlocking tower of truths, climbing upwards with singular purpose—an academic Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road.

A good class isn’t a greatest hits record. It’s a concept album.

In that spirit, I’ve been taking each topic in the secondary math curriculum—algebra, geometry, calculus, etc.—and trying to boil it down to its one-word essence. Here are the rules of the game:

1. You must choose a single word to complete the sentence, “[Branch of math] is the mathematics of _____.”

For example, you might say, “Topology is the mathematics of dinosaurs,” or “Category theory is the mathematics of abstraction,” or “Combinatorics is the mathematics of sadness.” (To be…

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‘HAKI YETU’ CHILDREN

Something happened last Friday that left me mouth open. It was a usual day in the office with my colleagues, working and helping our clients until we heard noises from outside. I was left guessing what the noise was, it sounded like protests but I did not mind because I was serving a client. After the client left I went to check what the protest was about and who had organized it. To my surprise I saw some children, school children for that matter. They were carrying leaves and shouting all over the town. This is not the first time this has happened and the trend seems to be going upwards and doesn’t seem to stop anytime soon. This should and is worrying to everybody of age and anybody who understands the diplomacy.
If you ask me, this ‘style’ was adopted from the older generation who are seen on the media more often than not protesting. The children therefore adopt this without having any knowledge what they are doing. Something else that got me worrying is, I saw a few grown-ups with them. This has to stop, what are the children learning from you? What becomes of them when they grow up? We are raising a generation which we are not sure we will like and yet we will condemn them in future. I see teachers going on the streets due to salary issues, which may be justified, but this is not justified. We have to rethink how to resolve issues in a much easy, simple and respectable manner which does not disturb the peace. There has to be another way but DO NOT put the children on the streets PLEASE.

@itscollinsk

America Will Run Out Of Good Questions By 2050

very true, students will lack the capability to read more to advance their knowledge.

Math with Bad Drawings

Or, Math Class is Too Full of Spoilers

In grad school, my wife took a class that assigned no homework. The topic was an advanced, hyper-specific area of research—the only plausible problems to give for homework had literally never been solved. Any answer to such a question would have constituted novel research, advancing the field and meriting a publication in a professional journal. The professor assigned no homework for the simple reason that there was no practical homework to assign.

This tickled me. I’d never thought of good questions like a fossil fuel. A nonrenewable resource. Built up over eons and consumed in minutes.

But the thought kept popping back up: Good questions are a resource. And in this new light, something started to make sense, an uncomfortable little fact that had nagged at me since my first year teaching.

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Relax and have some fun

Many times in life we focus too much on what we are doing or what we are supposed to be doing that we forget to live. It is important that we do what we do for our day to day living and sticking to our schedules but it is also important to live. Let me expound on what I mean by living; according to my dictionary, living means the experience of being alive; the course of human events and activities. These events and activities are what you go about in day to day life and some that you may not be undergoing through at the moment. For most of us, we work during weekdays or go to school for the five days, the weekends therefore are usually a relaxing time and most of us take that time to sleep all day. Some are lucky to have side jobs which they do on weekends but that is beside the point.

What this article is about though is letting lose, having time for yourself and your body, having a little fun and enjoying what life has to offer; that is what I mean by the word living. When I say letting go and having fun many people think of drinking and partying. Well it is not bad to do all that because it is your choice but there’s more to the word fun than all that. Fun is engaging in activities that are enjoyable and amusing, things that make you happy and those that you like doing. You have to indulge yourself in activities and events that make you happy, allow yourself to laugh, be silly sometimes, that’s what life is about, being free and being yourself. You have to find the things that you enjoy doing and also be open to learn new activities that you may be interested in.

Somebody once told me you can’t have fun alone, well that couldn’t be any false. Fun shared is fun enjoyed, so you need to find the people that enjoy doing the same activities and attending the same events as you. Sometimes you even need to meet new people that may possibly show you what you’ve been missing or new ways to do the activities you enjoy. This is important because it gives you somebody to share the memories with and adds more information to your cabinet. Get out of your comfort zone and try new things, experience new events, take an adventure and most of all conquer your fears. Fear makes most people afraid of trying new things, meeting new people and having fun. Do not fear to be yourself, don’t let what other people think of you stop you from having fun and being who you really are.

I would personally recommend that you should try outdoor activities. Outdoor activities have a wide range to choose from; they include swimming, skating, playing, visiting new places, being in a stadium watching live games etc. I recently learnt that people rarely visit simple places like museums, amusement parks, archives, historical places, animal parks and zoos, just to name but a few. These places put you in a whole different environment away from your usual day to day life. From these activities you get to meet people of different cultures and learn something from them and probably teach them something new. Have you ever gone for a picnic? Well its time you went for one, picnics are such nice activity to do with your partner or with some friends.

There are a lot of benefits to having fun and doing activities out of the formal ranging from health to social benefits. It generally broadens your view of life and the people you meet or may have met before. So let lose, have fun, enjoy what life has to offer and most important start living.

It is important to note that what you may consider as fun may not be safe for you. Please take caution as your safety is paramount, some ways of having fun are not worth the risk so find an activity that you are comfortable with and can take charge of the consequences.

I wish you happy Easter holidays and have fun.

Please feel free to leave a comment below and follow me on twitter @itscollinsk.

Introduction: welcome to my blog

Of late I have been having a lot on my mind and wondering where to get them out. That was until I found out a new way to air my “opinions” though am not such opinionated. I read about blogging online; actually from another blogger who said that blogging helps free the mind. It’s somewhat like twitter where you start a conversation by posting something and hoping that someone joins in the conversation.

At first I didn’t know what to blog about, to be honest I still don’t. The reason for this is that the world is dynamic in that what is relevant today may not be relevant tomorrow. Now, usually bloggers blog about things they are interested in or venturing into; I have a lot of interests but for now am not sure which one to blog about.

Am going to be free as air, I’ll write about anything that comes into mind at least for now. In the future things might change and I will narrow it down to one subject probably photography, adventure, fun etc. So for now please bear with my stupid (but not dump) ideology.

You can follow me on twitter @itscollinsk