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by the way,

8 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME:

1. i love green. ok, that's not so random, that's obvious.

2. i find paractising Christianity to be the coolest thing ever. wait, it's supposed to be random stuff, right?

3. i'm not so much of a random person,

4. therefore there aren't many random things about me. the floor is open to any of my friends who would like to disagree.

5. but i do have random thoughts sometimes! if Ugandan females wore heels in the more developed countries, it would be more fun experience coz there'd be no potholes, eroded murrum roads, incomplete pavements with worn out manhole covers and incomplete tarmac roads with stones and pebbles on the loose. how this last sentence fits in with what i'm writing? it was just a random thought.

6. well, actually, that last thought was not so random. i was just walking to paragon hospital last night with my sister who is visiting til she goes back to UK, and who was persisting at her futile attempts to find some support from my thin arm as she tried to dodge loose stones, as we walked on that tarmac road between the hospital and the bugolobi flats. i always thought bugolobi roads were nice until she compared them to the ones at cambridge. today, i'm wearing heels because i'm going to an office. all of a sudden, the roads are so unfavourable for my choice of footwear. i can't imagine how i managed to walk through town in them before. how unrandom.

7. what i was doing in paragon last night? if i told u, i'd be continuing the story from no.6 and then it wouldn't be random stuff anymore. not that i'm really writing random stuff about me but at least there's not much of a logical flow! is there? but just to let it out, my sister karru gave birth yesterday to a healthy baby boy. yay!

8. i may not have random thoughts but my imagination does wander about randomly sometimes! there's no water at home. my neighbours don't have water either. the whole of makindye doesn't. my brother at MUK says there's no water at campus. my aunt says there's no water at kyambogo. well, there's no water in kampala for all i know! for the third day in a row now! i wonder...maybe the suppliers had a small problem. a big one, i mean. hmm, maybe some crook wanted to poison the population and nancy drew caught him in time to warn national water guys to cut the supply. maybe some psycho national census workor got obsessed with our evergrowing, already uncontrollable population and thought of the best way to kill some of Uganda's people; poison the water that's supplied to the area with the most dense population... ok, let me not make this another long story on its own. it's just my imagination anyway. nancy drew isn't even real. but i'll still read the papers. there could be clues in any story, if imagine hard enough.

p.s.:
9. i like pop corn, african jewelry and nice non-academic books. u could wrap my gifts in green wrapping paper too.

10. maybe i'll try this post topic some other time, when i discover random stuff about me.

i know the tagging days are done, but i beleive rae and the muganda didnt get their chance. lorna and ed, get your own blogs and give us the proper blognames, i've tagged u too.

about writing,

what, exactly, makes one a good writer? some talents are obviously unique to some people and can hardly be developed enough in those who dont have it, however much they try. take art and drawing for example. after two years of patient training and prodding and encouraging and teaching and reprimanding and anything else u can think of, some people in class just never got to be good at art. as soon we got to S.3, it was the first subject most people dropped. only a handful of interested class-mates were grateful enough for the exposure to take up the subject. art isn't like;-sports. i mean, if u have the build and the agility and watever else is needed, u could be trained to do various kinds of sports. who could discern if u were either talented or just trained that well? then there are some talents like (public) speaking. some people stammer or have the lisp, and still get the crowds' attention. in this case, it could be what they say that makes even the impatient people call them good speakers. then some people never really say anything useful or funny or nice or relevant, and yet when they're done, people will talking about how useful or funny or nice or relevant their speeches were. such people have a gift for gab that captures the listeners' attention, even if all the person was talking about was, well, gab. and this is where writing comes in.

is it the style? the proper grammar and punctuation? or the story? if i had something nice to write about, wouldnt i be called a good writer even there were just a few grammatical errors? would it be fair to call me a good writer if i had the commas and fullstops in the right places but still bored you to death? if ernest bazanye did political articles, would his fans still consider him a good writer? (sorry baz, but you're the only professional writer i know of who blogs, you're example is relevant to my fellow bloggers). and thinking of art, if i went to writing school (or whichever place that teaches people to be good writers), would it be a gurantee that i'd come out with a perfect blend of all the above? or can that only happen for people who've got 'it' in them;- u know, the innate linguistic intelligence (or something like that)?

to cut the long questioning short, what does one have to do, how does one have to write, what does one have to write about, to be called a good writer? let's not go to the why, it will bring up an argument of interest Vs ability.

i hope this pot is short enough.

i guess i should say something too.

everyone is paying tribute to the friends we lost. i'm the only one acting like miss stoneheart. at least as far as blogging is concerned.

i've lost relatives, and friends of relatives, but i have never been more aware of loss through death than this. neither have i seen a bigger group all at once so deeply affected.

eddie was my friend. a close friend. the kind u sit and share your your problems and joys with. the last time we really talked, we were doing just that. he had a lot more to tell me, but time is never enough sometimes. literally. or maybe we just dont use it well. we kept setting and postponing dates for us to sit and talk again 'like good old times', but it was mostly me who was always too busy. does that sound like a familiar routine to anybody? we next met at the funeral service of brenda's dad. the last thing he said to me before we parted was, "eh! ...we still have a lot to talk about..." and the last thing i said was, ''i know! we'll talk when u get back." i think u can tell the rest of the story.

brenda is my OG from secondary school. we were in the same school for the full six years and i did not know that her home is a five minutes walk from mine. does that sound somewhat like u? (of course if u dont know your neighbours, u wouldnt know if u ever went to school with them). it was after i'd spent the whole day running around town trying and failing and trying again to hook up with other OG's and friends who i could go with to her home for the vigil, that i remembered meeting her in the area once or twice before. we would say hi and talk about school and promise to visit sometime and then move on with our lives. well, now i got to visit.

at brenda's dad's funeral service, i met a lot of my old school friends. i've been in the same university as most but it was agnes who had the courage to say it first; "crystal, howcome we only meet at funerals?" what was i supposed to say, that that's when we remember to comfort our OG's and act like the friends we haven't been the past three years at campus? note that most of us are done with campus. i hope we keep our promises of visitting those doing 4 and 5 year courses.

hellen is one of my best friends ever. abraham was one of her close friends who i always promised to meet. when he didnt make it out of the comma, i couldnt even make it to the service. i mean, i had just found out that eddie's brother had died a month before, and he was related to regina (also myOG) whose child is now orphaned.

in general, i could pass as a people person. the kind who likes her neighbourhood because of the friends and and potential friends and friendly people around. the kind who likes to share people's joys and sorrows. the kind who will most likely knock at your door and say hi first if i know i'm going to be living in the same hostel as you the whole semester. the kind who ever dreamt of doing being a world-class humanitarian, psychologist, human resource manager, doctor, and anything that seemed like it could make the world (or just that society) a better place for people. but even pursuing this anything can make one forget the most important thing;- people. u know, the homies, OG's, family, old friends, workmates, people with whom u have a relationship to protect and enjoy.

ashy liked to tell me that it's knowing the truth that sets u free. in ecclesiastes, king solomon, after taking time to explain in detail how everything is nothing, concludes by saying that all that matters is that we obey all the commands of the Lord. in Paul's words (in ephesians), it's more like i should live a life(style) worthy of my salvation. i guess they have a point. i mean, it's the Lord i'm going to meet, and my homies too, when we get there, so when Jesus to tells me to love God with all my heart and love ya'll as much as i luv myself, i'll take it seriously. and everything else that comes with those commands. you're all i'll have in the end. unless atheism ever miraculously starts to make sense. ok, so, patricia and sandra, i'm giving myself deadlines with that ice cream i promised. rukie, i'm taking u for ice cream too. hellen, i still would have come to visit u at campus during the coming lonely 4th year days of yours, even this hadnt happened to me. and hanny, if u hadnt fallen in love, i would have started demanding ice cream again. u get the point. my family, well, we have enough graduations and weddings to say what we want to say. so stick around 'till my grad. waterloo family, it's about time we set a date for the get-together. PDL family, u guys made my day on 12th august! and bloggers, no more three-month breaks. or is it four? and ritah, i'm quite proud of us.

knowing the truth sets u free. i'm not afraid of death anymore (putting aside the various means of death). i think it's more scary to live a life(style) that would leave u scared of your death. let's pull up our socks guys and get a life!(that used to be karru's favourite slogan).

great i've done another long post.

While i was away,...

i was coming up with satisfactory excuses to explain what i was doing while i was away, like-
-i was in school. (but then i always blogged even when i was in school).

-i was doing my very last semester in school, the one where u have to start your desertation. (but then that would give me much more to blog about, seeing as whining about school could have become the theme of my blog).

-i was not in kampala. (yeah right. then how would i get to whine about school?)

-i was in a land far far away. (this could be kind of true. i mean, the word 'land' can be relative, can't it?)

-i was in a remote area. (who am i fooling. everyone's village has internet these days. except the one where rae works, - girl how are u doing out there? not that u can read this in the next few working months but how are u doing anyway?!)

-i was sick. (cant use this excuse either, coz i'd have to blog about the kind of sickness that would keep me from blogging that long, and i hate sickness. cant be that creative about it.)

-i ran out of things to blog about. (now why would i want to downplay my blogging reputation and ego like that?! oh yeah, coz i'm trying to find a great excuse... nah, not worth it.)

-i got some brain damage to the part that controls my writing skills. (but then how would i explain this post?)

-i didnt have the time. (ie considering that the word 'time' can also be relative).

-i was at a campus camp. (well, that was only for 4 days).

-i got tagged by pea and was thinking about 8 random things about me. ( them good old blog-tagging days. yes my friends, i've spent that long without blogging.)

-any of the above. (except they are all untrue. unless u consider them all as one collective reason. but i'm not the kind to lie so voluntarily.)

-i saw the sons of anak page and tried to do another blog too,... (ok, i cant think of another thoughtful blog name so let me not bother continuing with this lie.)

-i spent long without blogging and couldnt pick up the courage to start telling u guys i will never do it again, coz i had said that before, if u remember the last time i spent ages without blogging. (this, my friends, could be true.)

anyways, i've lived one month and five days as a non-resident of the university, and it feels so great that i think i'm going to have to blog about it. i literally am living a new life now, it's got to manifest in this blog. just watch this space. really. no more three month breaks. or is it four?

4400

For every applied force, there is an equal and opposite one (or something like that). For every original, there is a fake. For every good, there is bad. And so on and so forth.

Sorcery: any means or power used to acquire or do something, except by the power of God.Even if you believe in God.

That was my definition until I checked it out in the Cambridge dictionary. Turns out you have to have use of some non-Godly spiritual beings or evil power. So I guess that rules out the option of science. However freaky science gets, it’s probably always going to be acceptable, coz it’s not spiritual, it’s not sorcery. It’s just science, discovery of a lot of phenomena and theories and hypotheses that God knows about Himself.

So; 4400. You know the flow; 4400 people; disappeared from all over the face of the earth at different points in time from 1946 till 2003 or so; all of them are returned together in this big ball of light from the sky at one place; none of them have any memory of what happened while they were away; none of them have aged a day; and as revealed episode by episode, each is returned with a new ‘super-natural’ ability. Maia, (born 1936, disappeared at 8 yrs of age in 1946) is able to have visions of near and further future happenings. Sean (disappeared 2001 at age 17) has the power to heal, and kill, just by touching someone. Lily (disappeared 2002) is found pregnant on her return, and falls in love with Richard (disappeared 1958), who turns out to be the father of the baby. Lily is able to understand what the baby in her womb thinks and feels. And so on.

By the end of the third season, we learn that these people were abducted by humans from the future. Humanity in the future is dying as a consequence of human actions in the previous/present ages. By returning the 4400 with these abilities, each will play a part in preserving or destroying useful or irrelevant parts of the earth and its social systems respectively, thus sustaining a suitable environment for the future humanity. These future guys implanted funny images in Tess’ head (disappeared;- don’t remember when). She draws them and hangs them all over her room in a psychiatric hospital and like a queen ant, somehow has the ability to get all the patients and employees to work non-stop to construct the machine in her pictures and complete it ‘in time’. The machine is fixed in time but it doesn’t take her back to the future like she thought it would. It does nothing actually, except make her look like the schizophrenic patient who got a 4400 ability that she is. That’s until Dr Burkhoff, another patient at the hospital, immediately regains his sanity. Why the future would get a hospital to work like an ant colony to help one person? Because Dr Burkhoff is chosen to be the father of the 4400 technology. True to their hopes, he discovers that all the 4400 were injected with a chemical promicin while they were away. He even tested it on himself and developed his own abilites. So there it is. Anybody want to be able to fly? Want to have super-academic abilities? Do you want to know what your dog is saying when it barks? Or do you want to have a real year-long vacation in the Bahamas, just for a few minutes in your mind during coffee-break at work? Want to have therapy to resolve a few past issues by bringing to you those dead relatives you never forgave, or living people you can’t travel to meet? Do you want to make your enemies run mad? Want to impersonate people identically? Name it, and do not look any further. Just take a shot of Dr Burkhoff’s promicin, and after a few days of horrifying biological changes, body scars and wounds, nails falling off, skin tearing and all, you’ll be back to normal. Super-normal. (It didn’t get to the advertising stage in season 3 though). Jordan Collier (don’t remember when he disappeared), an entrepreneur, set up the 4400 center, where any one of ‘them’ who couldn’t start a new life with all the stigma and new environment (think of those who disappeared in 1950 from Africa) could reside. With all the gathered abilities, and get-togethers, the 4400 center became a new source of faith, hope and healing for people all over the world. The police were even scared it would become another cult.

When Ed and I were glued to the TV for days trying to finish the three seasons before school started again, we couldn’t help thinking about the Bible all the way. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, gifts of the Holy Spirit. ‘…To one the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another he gives the gift of special knowledge,…special faith…power to heal the sick,…power to perform miracles,…the ability to prophesy,…the ability to know whether it is really the Spirit of God or another spirit that is speaking…the ability to speak in unknown languages…the ability to interprete what is being said.’
1 Corinthians 12:12-29, ‘…one Body (of Christ) with many parts.’ 8 year old Maia isn’t exactly spirit-filled, but can ‘prophesy’. Sean doesn’t even have to pray before he touches someone and drains the life out of them, or heals them. They all are different parts of the body of the 4400 that will save the world. Well, the future world at least. The climax was when we realized that Richard has this instinct ingrained in his head to protect his wife and child at all costs. He didn’t need angel Gabriel to appear to him first. When baby Isabella is born, she is able to do anything, even kill the guys who her parents were fleeing from. (Apparently some guys wanted to kill baby Isabella and her parents got warnings to flee. Talk about Joseph and Mary having to flee with Jesus from Herod.) When time became right, Isabella grew up in one day,(in five minutes actually), and was ready to learn all she could to do what she was supposed to do to, you know, like the 4400, save the world right? Wrong. The savior Isabella was actually implanted by the bad guys of the future to frustrate all the efforts of the 4400 and the good future-people who sent them. The next season will probably tell us if Tom the NTAC agent gets to ‘believe’ the ‘truth’ about her and go ahead to kill her. That’s if he manages to spread the gospel about her anyway and get NTAC and the 4400 leaders to believe it too and help him. And that’s if I get through to watching it all.

To cut the long story short, I believe in God, but do I have to consult the Spirit of God if I can get a promicin shot? After all, it’s not sorcery.

You were not the one.
Like a widowed woman who has just lost her loved man,
I ‘reminisce’ about the future we almost had,
wondering why God let us come this far,
if our being together was not His plan.
You could have caught the wind, the way u chased to get me.
I could have held light, the way I tried to hold on to you tightly.
Perhaps we were too hungry to seek God’s blessing,
and rushed to awaken a love that was actually forbidden.
You saw a bit of the jewel in me,
as I polished my sides to be freely seen in my totality.
For a while, we seemed to match. In fact, for a while, we truly did.
But you were not God’s gift to me;
that’s the way it now seems to me.
And I was not God’s gift to you,
or else by now you would know me as well as my best friends do.
Maybe having that close a friendship would confirm what we probably knew;
that I’d never be a part of you.
Everyday I wait for you to sms or call me,
so that we can start a new season.
I ask God that the demon of uncertainty and confusion will leave me,
so that when you ask again, I’ll say yes to you without reason.
But as everyday turns into weeks and months,
I think that a lifetime will far outlive our seasons to come.
We shall find better halves and learn to move on and grow;
It pains to know that with someone else and not me,
you will (still) become whole.
And even if God may try to promise that He has someone better in store,
It still hurts so much, to even think I may have to let you go.
I loved you so, so much, but now you’ll never know.
I hope to God that I am wrong,
though I desire that His will go on.
I pray to God that it is not the end,
that we shall still be in love tomorrow.
Or else I ask that when I get over you, if I am meant to,
God will forgive me for lusting at another woman’s future husband.
I wouldn’t have wasted emotions going round in circles,
if I’d known I’d come back to square one,

where broken hearted, I just have to surrender and wait upon the Lord,

because you my love, were not the one.