The Only Thing to Fear is Fear Itself

Pennywise from Stephen Kings IT

What scares me? I guess everyone has got some fears in their lives some that are secret and some not so secret. As for myself I do have a few fears that bother me although not so severe these few things get on my mind. I believe the first step in conquering your fears in first admitting them then facing them. There are definately a few of them I would not care to face at any time.

Here are just a few.

• Dentophobia; Fear of Dentists. I always feel sorry for dentists, they must be the ony profession where the clients are only willing to see them when the pain is too numbing for them to bear and considering the level of pain most people are willing to tolerate in order to delay that appointment is an indicator of the degree of fear. (no wonder dentists have been reputed to have among the highest suicide rates for any group of proffessionals cos they feel so unloved). I have faced this fear several times but luckily for me my Dentist belives in not prolonging the agony and he ensures that most procedures are completed in 10 minutes flat. Luckily I haven't had to face a root canal.
• Ophidiophobia; I am really afraid of snakes. I used to have these recurrent nightmare that consisted of having a snake run up my trouser and being unable to take off my pant. admittedely the fear has been made considerably worse by the fact that I live in a part of the country where coming across a snake on your front door is literally an every day occurrence. I have actually woken up to find a 2 foot serpent coiled on the window sill of my bedroom (inside) I have never left the house so fast before. Due to the frequency of encountering them I am now able to see a snake and let it slither away in peace but the though of accidentally stepping on one or having it crawl under my bedcovers still haunts me.

Someone forwarded this so I just decided to add.

• Catagelophobia; Fear of being ridiculed or loosing face; I am loath to make a spectacle of myself, I enjoy keeping a low profile should I get noticed it must be in a positive light. This may not be a bad thing but it keeps me from letting go thus avoiding overexposing myself e.g. dancing, getting drunk, singing etc
• Claustrophobia; My fear of enclosed spaces combined with my fear of crowded places has ensured that box type(7-aside) matatus which incidentally are the only matatus in these parts and crowded lifts are out of limits for me. I remember having to visit a friend at KNH and anyone who has gone there knows are the huge and during visiting hours are tightly packed immediately the doors were closed I got a massive panic attack and was literally out of there at the first stop needless to say nowadays I always take the stairs at KNH.
• Isolophobia; I fear being alone, may be not in a physically but socially, I don't understand how some people would rather stay away from people it would be very difficult for me to stay away from people and will always try and go out and mix with people even if it is just going to the club and sitting and watching rather than staying alone at home.
  

Definately there are many more but these are the few I wanted to share. It is very interesting to discover some of the things that people are afraid of there are a few interesting ones. (with a few links to help you face the fears)

• Caligynephobia - Fear of beautiful women
• Alektorophobia - Fear of Chickens (doesn't afflict Luhya's I guess)
• Cyberphobia - Fear of Computers (Don't expect any bloggers to suffer from this)
• Mageirocophobia- Fear of cooking (I might have a mild case)
• Dipsophobia-Fear of drinking (Does this exist in Kenya?)
• Gallophobia - Fear of France or french culture
• Philemaphobia - Fear of Kissing (?)
• Philophobia - Fear of falling in love
• Chrometophobia - Fear of Money (?????)
• Pentheraphobia - Fear of Mother in Law (Now you know why he/she refuses to get married)
• Peniaphobia - Fear of poverty
• Pupaphobia - Fear of puppets (How do you get scared of Kermit?)
• Tyrannophobia - Fear of tyrants
• Phallophobia - Figure it out yoursef.
  

If you suffer any of the above I hope you can face them soon, perhaps reading this post will have given you a severe case of Hellenologophobia- Fear of scientific terminology. And in case you are afraid relax there is no tagging here.

You Savvy??

I guess May 25th is Approaching faster than I had expected. The big movie season is already upon us I have already watched Spiderman 3 and it was quite good acutally despite my initial reservations but it did have one or 2 uhh? moments. The big movie for me this season is bound to be Pirates of the Caribean: At World End. I have been waiting eagerly for this one since I watched Dead Mans Chest. I know that eagerly anticipated movies often tend to disappoint but who can deny the enduring swash buckling charm of Captain Jack Sparrow and the delicate tomboyish beauty of Ms Elizabeth Swan?
I probably may not watch it opening weekend but I shall be trooping to watch it as soon as I can meanwhile I have temporarily redecorated my house for the upcoming Pirates season. I shall be I shall be returning to Middle Earth soon.

I am not saying anything about todays game

A very Strong Woman

I just an inspiring profile of this Strong Woman.
Her articles on the Saturday magazine make my day as well.
You can see the other Inductees to the Kenyan ICT Hall of Fame here.
Nice week!

Lets Dance!

Yesterday as I was crawling around KBW trying to learn a few things about my fellow bloggers after the tagging virus that was spreading from Friday I discovered that quite a number of the KBW mamas revealed that dancing is one of the things they love to do most. Akina Princess, Klara, Quintessence, Mamashady, Unyc, Betty, Chatterly, Ichiena have said it their posts, comments and profiles and I am sure several others. Ok some of them say they prefer to do it privately but it's dancing all the same.

I find this coincidence most intriuging and quite delightful as well you may wrongly assume that bloggers are not outgoing persons. Although I am an awkward dancer and often have to be dragged to the dancefloor under duress nonethless I thoroughly enjoy the experience. I would definetely hate to go out with someone who doesn't like to dance. Even just sitting and watching my Kenyan sistas getting down and shaking what their mama's gave them fills me with joy.

From what I have read these last two days I'm sure if there was ever to be a KBW get together one day there will definetely be a lot of dancing.

Now I feel like Shaky leggy!!

The Seven Hidden Habits of the Highly Effacing Mountain

I had planned to take a blog holiday this week and bask in the glory of ManU winning the premiership but it seems that I couldn't hide myself and have ended up being tagged by Egm, 3N, Unyc, and God knows who else! This cannot be easy for me since I don't ussually get too personal but I believe in being a sport and there are few dares I chicken out off. So here goes.

1. I am Allergic to big bodies of water; I dont' swim not because of lack of desire but I just don't trust that I can be able to keep my head above water.
2. I am introverted. Some people call it shy, I don't easily break the ice when meeting new people but when I get to know them and open up to them they can realize that I am actually quite easy to get along with.
3. I am anti violence; Any form of violence by one person to another turns me off I can never understand how you can get your points across by hurting people, I believe human beings are capable of reason and conscience therefore trying ot beat or shoot sense into people is a futile effort. As a result of this I oppose corporal punishment and the death penalty if people think thats too liberal thats up to them. I carry this attitude in my character and people tend to view me as a softie because I will rarely say or do anything that is deliberately hurtful to anyone.
4. I Love Sci-fi and Fantasy; These are my favorite movie genres, my original movies collections include all the Star Wars movies, Lord of the rings, Star Trek. Michael Crichton and Stephen King are my Favorite authors therefore horror doesn't turn me off. Comic Superheros also fascinate me, Superman is tops followed by Batman, Spiderman comes third (sorry spidey)
5. I could be a geek; I am a scientist by profession therefore I am comfortable in a lab isolating enzymes and disceting all forms of invertabrates, I also have an obsessive love of gadgets I must have a top range cellphone, laptop, digicam, MP3 player, PDA, Bluetooth you name it I just can't resist admiring the latest electronics in the malls. I also love comps and am quite compent in them even if it's not my field at all.
6. I love strong women; I don't like the damsel in distress type of girl or timid and insecure types, I admire mature (not old!) women who are sure of themselves are not afraid to speak their minds, go for what you want types and who are not a pushover for men. I guess this is to compensate for No. 2 above.
7. I am not that young. From my interactions in KBW I can sense that I may be a bracket above several of the peeps but as consolation I am still very young at heart.

Now if the following victims can please stand up and be counted so we can quench our curiousity: Klara, Majonzi, Ichiena, Chatterly, Archer, Farmgal, Gish, Komi

The Champions

My Hats off to these boys for making me proud!

My Heartfelt condolences for families and friends of the passangers fo flight KQ 507 May the lord give you strength through this difficult period.

Facing My Ghosts

Ouch!!! Did I do that?

Today I am in a reflective mood, Its Labour day no work and it being a Tuesday makes it totally useless since I can't do much rather than lounge in the house and reflect on my experiences over the last year. One experience that has stood up in my recent past is when I was struck by the ghost of bad luck and ended up raming my precious auto on a stuborn tree.

The Red Circle indicates where my house is.

It happened on one of those long weekends when a public holiday falls on a Monday (now thats the connection with my current thoughts!) I was coming back to Embu after having a splendid time in Nairobi which involved a drive down to Olepolos to devour some prime goat ribs. Having set of pretty early I was in Embu by 4:00 PM and was looking forward to relaxing after the hectic weekend in my house.
Around 20 Metres from my driveway I veered slightly off the middle of the murram road leading to my house and suddenly I felt the tyres near the edge of the road begin to spin on the loose surface, because of the unequal traction on the left and right wheels the car started swinging uncontrollable as I tried to correct the direction with the steering wheel. I know from prior experience that applying emergency brakes on such a loose surface or when in a skid is a recipe for disaster so I had to try and regain control. Unfortunately on both sides of the road were closely spaced rows of trees and before I knew it I had collided head first with one of those trees. I think this all happened in all of 2 seconds. Fortunately I was moving at fairly slow speed not more than 20 KPH since I was already inside the company premises and I managed to escape unscathed just slighly shaken (Thank god for Airbags). The car on the other had ended up with a thoroughly disfigured front end which actually looked much worse than it actually was.

Front end in desparate need of a 'Nose job'

As I reflect on this mishap which is the closest I have ever come to meeting my maker I made a few observations.

• You don't have to be drunk to cause accidents; It annoys me to no end when people rush to assume that when you have an accident that you must have been drunk, In this instance I was as sober as judge which is what I ussually am whenever I drive long distances.
• You don't have to drive fast to have an accident; Another assumption people make is that you have to be speeding to loose control I will have you know that a half tone saloon moving at 20 KPH will do untold damage when in comes across an immovable object such as a tree or wall if it meets you head on at that speed trust me we shall be discussing you in past tense.
• Accidents don't always happen far away; I was only 20 metres from my house I find it amusing when people tell you that they only need to wear seat belts on long journeys, Kwani it's OK to die when you are near home? Nowadays even when going for a packet of milk at the duka I belt up.
• Insurance Pays; I was always skeptical about the need to pay insurance and agreed with those who said that 'Insurance is like an umbrella on a sunny day which is taken away when it's raing' well I was forced to eat my words since I had only just paid my first premium on that car and yet they were able to finance the total repair on the car and it actually looks better than new.
• Automatic transmission is crap on offroad; I was all praise for my automatic transmission until this mishap although I have no way of proving it I'm pretty sure that if I had my trusty stick shift I would have been able to bring the beast under control.
• Murram is a whole different ball game; when you driving surface resembles small ball bearings anything you try and do with your steering will be like running on an Ice rink with high heeled shoes.
• Nose Jobs don't only refer to plastic surgery; while consulting with my mechanics on the repairs I learnt new terminologies such as Nose-cuts, Half-cuts which are not the preserve of cosmetic surgeons but refer to the art of removing the entire front of the car and replacing it leaving your car looking like new. It will now take a very meticulous fella to detect that my car had such a disfiguring accident.

I hope now after this reflection I can now look back at this incident and be able to laugh.

Now on to more pressing matters. Man U tomorrow meet up with AC Milan for Semi of the Champions league. Now that we almost have the league sawn up I a have kazaad my butt for the game cos if we do it will probably set up the momentum for the treble I can hardly wait. Good luck to the Liverpool tonight and lots of Luck to Arsenal on Sunday as you can see I am in generous spirits even though there is a glimmer of selfishness inherent (Hehehe...)