Beyond the year 2000, I cannot really tell what my
dream was, but my parents can help on that one. This is because I don’t have
any memory of dreams before the sixth grade. It was here that I started
fantasizing of what I wanted to be in future. My selection was purely out of
prestige for the said careers. To this point I have had not less than 7 career
choices within the course of my lower adult life (so far).
The year 2000’s boy wanted to be a surgeon or a
doctor. I don’t have a specific reason as to why I wanted that career but,
medicine it was. Within those two years to my certificate of primary education,
the medicine dream faded away as mysteriously as it had come. By the way coming
to think of it… I think Ben Carson’s Gifted
Hands and Think Big had something
to do with it.
By the end of the year 2000, our school principal
was already encouraging us to work towards our future aspirations. Then out of
the blues, aviation grew into me. Let’s say this was the initial stages of the
growth of my purpose. I wanted to be a pilot so bad. Back in the day, when you
used to fail mathematics for instance, it would mean that you are not going to
be a pilot and I would act all manly and when I got home, I would cry my heart
out. I am not rewriting a Ben Carson
story, but the pressure of the desire to be a pilot shifted my performance rankings
a great deal. I started working towards that goal. I never knew much about goal
setting back then as I know right now, but all I was required by my dream was
to achieve straight A’s & go to a good national school. At the time the
only national school that I desired was Mang’u High School. It was the only
school offering aviation that I locked my sights on. For those two years to
2002, my mind was driven by the desire to join this great school & as
destiny would have it, I got those A’s & got into an aviation school.
I got introduced to computers around the year 2000
at my former primary school. We studied it until the 8th grade. Fast
forward to 2003 and my parents acquired one and it became an instant interest
& addiction. I was so attracted to computers that I even reduced my
enthusiasm for books for a while. Curiosity got me doing all sorts of things on
the machine – like every curious boy and equipment around the house. I even disassembled
it completely at one time. The first time I just unscrewed it and peeped
inside. Second time the same thing but spent more time, then the third time I
tried pushing and pulling parts here and there as I had seen on the motherboard’s
manual. My dad was keen on getting us in line with technological advancements
and I am grateful for that. I started hanging out in cyber cafes & peeping
over shoulders of the technicians in those places. My love for that 40GB 96mb Ram PC fuelled my passion for
IT. A software engineer visited us in high school later that year and from the
way he talked, Software engineering got to the top of my list & I chose it
among my degree options later in high school life.
By now I had totally eliminated any biological
links & it was software engineering and aeronautical engineering. I was
still pursuing my course in Aviation Technology. It became aeronautical
engineering immediately I joined form 1. I mean; this is why I worked so hard
to get here in the first place. All the students who had been selected
countrywide had chosen this school purposely to pursue aviation & the
competition was so so high! As much as biology was part of the syllabus, I wasn’t
paying much attention to its “Examinable bits” (Read here the non examinable bits that I loved). I put my all in aviation my technical subject.
In the course of choosing my careers for the Joint
Admissions board, International Relations & Diplomacy cropped up as well as
psychology. I still have a thing for psychology & I have various books on
the subject which I read once in a while. For IR, it just faded. I was thinking
of international travel on this one.
The love of Engineering and Flying alternated in
my heart and I decided to pursue both. I started realizing my circumstances in
relation to my aspirations were quite tricky and I came up with a rough plan
for their accomplishment. There were 3 ways to do it. The first one was to work
hard enough to join the Kenya Airways
AB Initio pilot program, the second one was to get sponsored by my parents for
the courses (which was & still is very expensive) and the third option
which was just an incase, light moment
was to enlist in the Kenya Airforce. The
first two did not work out and so I had to reconfigure my path. I decided to
try out & enlist & serve the country as I pursued my passion.
So A & B backfired and in a moment of
confusion or too much waiting for plan C, Law came into the picture. After my high school education, I managed to
secure a job as a clerk for a surveyor in Kerugoya. In the course of my job, I
encountered many law reliant transactions & documents. That time John Grisham’s books as well were
fuelling this. My passion for law started growing. A neighbor who was in second
year came into the picture, a lady I met in the same office who coincidentally
attended our sister school (back in high school) was an intern at the law firm
next door & we used to talk about various things law and beyond… I started
reading law, thinking law and experiencing law (Too many documents, too many
lawyers, too many court clerks – I established a typesetting venture within my
bosses office – never heard off I know) This particular lady, now working at
the High court was among my top three
reasons why I even started reading law reports… The worst reason why I wanted
to do law was the pressure from that neighbor’s dad. “Oh my son loves it; oh it
has money…” etc. I learnt that I was just frustrated & desperate of being
at home when everybody else was in campus and I grew out of it to face the fact
that law was not my thing.
Due to my love for computers, my typing speed and
how I was handling the machines in the surveyor’s office, most thought I was an
IT graduate, or a diploma holder for that matter. Most weird was the fact that
I was employed without any papers. Not even a computer packages certificate. I
convinced the surveyor I could do the job & I did not disappoint. I later
enrolled into a local college & I scooped distinctions in every subject after
a part time crash course on the same. My certificate looks fake actually.
Aeronautical engineering was still at the back of
my mind & when I missed an aviation sponsorship – twinning program for Western
Michigan University & Egerton University – Nakuru Campus, my Plan C started
being considered. Coincidentally around that time the Kenya Defense Forces the
then Armed Forces announced their recruitment & I decided to try out my
luck.
To be continued …
Hi. Same Old Drama, Different Day. This blog is about me and others, nature, life, blah blah and why everything I like is great even the hurting - still great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, Well. . . You are probably right..
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