On Blind Dates

So, I have been on three so far, and after two of these the men were proposing marriage!! Does that mean men will start agreeing to meeting strange women only when they feel ready to settle down? Come to think of it, perhaps women normally go on blind dates looking for husbands – maybe the men think this... Whatever the case, this seems to be true two thirds of the time in my experience!

Is it men who are normally too shy to approach women? WHAT is it?

So anyway, last Friday, my cousin sets me up on a blind date – incidentally she is the author of all three dates – this last one to take place during lunch at the Grand Imperial hotel terrace.

He is a commercial farmer in Gulu, and also consults with various firms in Kampala in the area of marketing, thus splitting his time into 2 days in Kampala and the rest in Gulu each week.

On the day of the lunch it decides to rain cats and dogs so he offers to pick me up from the post office to cover the short distance to the Terrace, but on getting to the post office, he decided we go to Kembabazi’s instead – saying we were more likely to find better food there since it was already coming to 3pm.

The rain intensified upon reaching Kembabazi’s, so we stayed there most of the afternoon. Trying to apply Surrendered Single principles, I decided to really give him a chance though on first inspection he didn’t appear to be my type - for one thing he wasn’t terribly intellectual, and hasn’t seriously read a whole book in his life (those who know me are gasping at this point). On the other hand he spoke politics well enough, and spoke well on general matters, the economy, business, education, our foreign links, etc. Also, was good looking enough and was very well behaved, opening doors and all that sort of thing, and oh, taller than me (amen!)

I told him it was my birthday the following week and my sisters had tried to get me a pass to Jonathan Butler but that it had proved too expensive so he offered to buy me a ticket, which like any good surrendered single I received.. J There after he said we should move venue so that he could buy me a birthday drink seeing as I would be in TZ on the actual day, so we relocated to Dolphin suites (with a brief stop at Katch the Sun which we threw out as too cold) – that was also pleasant enough, we continued to talk about the lessons we’ve learnt in our long lives (he’s one year older than me) he told me he’d come very close to getting married 18 months ago, etc., etc.

(to be continued)

On growing older

I have to admit to a certain amount of superstition – somehow I feel that 33 will be my lucky year! I relate this to the day I opened a journal to document a certain high growth period in my life, and I remember starting it on the 3^rd of March 2003, a date that had numerologists all over the world salivating – I for one did not see anything out of the ordinary happen except the opening of my little journal..

Anyway, here we are at age 33! I feel that somehow I have gotten over whole idea of being in my mid thirties – I always thought one had to be really confident and successful to claim such an age, but on reflection, and based on recent events, I have to say I am at the top of my game (or I wish I were but ok, details!!) :-)

Speaking of recent events, just got back from a week of meetings in quality assurance of higher education in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar and I have to say, they were the best I ever attended as far as conferences and workshops go!! At the moment I feel a little overwhelmed with the other pressures on my time after I got back to the office but I am determined to start delegating more!! At any rate, the time spent at these events increased my belief that I really have great potential, that there are a myriad of opportunities out there, and that I have a special ability to influence people because I naturally assumed positions of leadership and hobnobbed effortlessly with people of varied international expereince (including TWO former ministers - Senegal and Burundi, both of whom gave me their cards and asked me to get in touch - like seriously!)

In short, life continues to look up!

On ACTION

I have come to realise, through both my own and other people's experience that there are many, many easy and painless ways to do things (painless at that very moment anyway), but that anything that will bring you lasting peace, happiness and fulfilment requires hard work and sacrifice.. I have read about how people have turned their lives around as soon as they decided to quit taking short cuts or depending on other people to make their decisions or being overly concerned about how society will view their actions, blah, blah, blah.. I believe this deeply, infact this is practically a personal mantra, but I have often fallen short of acting on them - especially the working hard and sticking it! I lack commitment in alot of things that I do!!

Which leads me to wonder over and over again - what is the root of my problem - is it lack of belief?? Or is lack of commitment a separate issue? A book that I read once - emotional intelligence - said that we generally have to motivate ourselves by an act of will to act on anything. So maybe the question is do I lack the will to do what I have to do?

I can only think of one time that I acted on something that I believed needed to be done and the results were great - why can't I learn from that?? Ah well, I guess I am a work in progress - just gotta stick this out.. Can't give up!!