Bitterjug’s blog

Yesterday I went to graduation at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Graduands sat in the sun in the square under parasols and umbrellas. Sister Pauline blagged me in on her invitation from the Vice Chancellor so we sat on the dais in the shade, and stood every now and then when the new […]

It seems like a lifetime ago now that I tried to negotiate a learning contract with my stage II students. What a lovely idea that was, at the time: “Make it fun!”, and “Be Proud”. Hah!
This morning, those students have taken their programming exam. It was not pleasant. I’m told some were seen crying afterwards. […]

Despite it being exam time, there was drumming from the feld this afternoon again. The drumming comes from Tala Girls Primary School which, confusingly, is a mixed primary school. “Tala Girls” is just the name of the shop. Anyway, someone remarked, about the drumming:
“They are going to compete at National level, not just regional!”
“What, […]

I’m thinking of something like Road Rage but rather than when driving, it occurs when there is a rat in the kitchen at 1:30am, noisily knocking down the cooking oil and the DOOM. I tried to turn over and go back to sleep: deal with it in the morning, but it clattered over some more […]

Exams are almost upon us. Revision practise classes, last minute assignments, last minute lessons and an impending sense of panic. Last term the students went hyper at revision time — I have my own opinions about that and its relation to an education system that promotes factual exam answers writen by students in a language […]

About a week ago, I went to USAID for a meeting about the future of the College’s Internet connection. Those guys are paying for it, and its expensive: hundreds of dollars per month. There is an idea that we might be able to raise some of that by selling off some of our bandwidth with […]

My twice-weekly early-morning run is now 8km as measured by the tachometer in the College’s pickup-truck. As I ran out this morning, the mist lay heavy on the fields like lazy eiderdown. The air smelled of smoke and I heard chanting, even though it was still 6:25am.

At the junction with Komarock road (where the boda-boda […]

This morning I talked with one of the teachers of Holy Rosary’s Secretarial course. She had a book on writing essays and letters. I was curious, not sure if I’ve ever written an essay. What I read in herbook said that essay writing is different from composition because it emphasises the personal opinions and […]

Just the other day I had the urge to apply cologne.
Now I’m not generally much of a scent man. Until 2001 I only owned one bottle of Body Shop No Debate aftershave. Then a lovely Chinese friend gave me her Polo Sport when she went back to Shanghai. I started to get compliments on my […]