The 'bystander effect' is quite deeply embedded in Kenyans. I dare say mostly among millennials & Gen X's.

You can see it everywhere. Even at work. You can be going thru a difficult work situation & people will support you, but privately. In public, you'll be on your own.

1/4 Don't get me wrong. We do support each other, evident from the past protest months, but most of us would rather do it without showing our faces.

Anonymous support is fine, but sometimes, especially in injustice, support means doing it with your chest & full face.

2/4

I'd like to say something about what could be decent 'digital skills & jobs' driven by a govt.

Here are my back-of-the-envelope low-hanging fruit ideas.

So here goes a 🧵 Let's start with digital skills.

Like any good class should, we begin with a definition.

'Skills' is something you're taught as new or a refresh of competencies & shall (mandatory) be transferable to other areas of your work/life, that you may (optional) pursue now or later.

Let's see if I get this.

I make 100 shillings from the hard work of my hands, then you say you need 20/- from me to buy books because our village doesn't have enough books.

I complain since you'll be taking the 20/- from my food budget. But you insist.

🧵

https://twitter.com/MakauWaMuli/status/1810268483818488118

So I cut back on my food budget when you bring a lawyer to take the 20/- from me.

Then you "buy books" with 5/- and take 15/- to an interest-earning account in a bank that you own.

That 15/- becomes 16/- then 17/- and maybe more.

The discourse here over the past day has shown, once again, how we get emotionally blackmailed into poor relationships, bad marriages, & retaining harmful relations.

These 'curses' and 'lack of blessings' that we are so much afraid of seem to be curiously one sided. This is how people can disappear from their families for 20+ years then show up one day & you're expected to receive them b/c they are now "elders".

How you have to "vumilia tu" when your emotional, mental & sometimes physical life is at stake b/c "you were blessed by wazees".

This is actually the best part, for me.
Here's why:
- You are onto something if you find that someone else has thought/is thinking about the same thing. Don't quit, instead:
- Read the related papers, chances are that their angle isn't yours. And if it is, go through >

https://twitter.com/alwasega/status/1409811097281077252

<their recommendation for future work. Good researchers would have this as a section in their paper. It provides insight into some of the potential research areas that you can explore.

In short, there's LOTs of research ideas to go around, infinitely. You just need to look.

I have just completed running a seminar with 145 participants, 78% students and the rest staff. While we had some slight technical issues at the start, we had an excellent 2.5 hours and I'd like to share some pointers for large virtual seminars. - Choose a platform that doesn't require you to admit each participant one by one. E.g. Google meet usually asks for one by one admission.
- Automatically mute all participants and only the host should unmute those who speak. Zoom and others have this feature.

Dear post-grad students,

It's possible to write your thesis/papers to be interesting & fun. It's a myth that academic writing has to be bland & boring.

It's possible if you treat (& do) your work with passion & then learn how to communicate your science as you would a story. Definitely not possible if someone else does (all) the work for you. 😊

The first class debate has shown what a lot of people think of high academic achievers, & it's sad.

"those uptight folks", "they think they are the best", "entitled", "lack life skills", etc.

What do you want people to do with their good grades? Hang them on an alphabet board? It's almost as if people go to school to deliberately get low(er) grades so that they are not deemed as all of the above.

It's almost as if people send their kids to school but with a disclaimer: "don't come here with high grades."

As if.

Over time I have learned a number of lessons about rejection, whether professional or personal. Over time, I realise that rejection has gotten easier to deal with and in fact, an impetus for many of my wins.

Let me share a few of these lessons.

A thread. 1. A 'no' is a good answer. It is better to receive a no than no answer at all. What with many applicants never hearing back or socially, loved ones who don't say they are leaving.

When you receive or hear a no, that's a good start.

Now, to work on dealing with it.

If countries were computer hardware.

A thread. 😀 Kenya would not be plug and play. It would require 47 different types of drivers to be installed for it to function - but only 3 of them would work as described on the package. The rest would often make the hardware unusable, forcing the users to find alternative manufacturers.

Dear followers who are currently seeking opportunities and funding for Masters/PhD studies. This makes me really happy so I would like to give you some tips in this thread that would hopefully assist you. 1. Do your homework on which universities you want to go to. For postgrad courses, you want to see that they have a research lab/group that works in the area you are interested in. Also, check that they have the expertise. Browse their websites with a fine tooth comb.

If countries were computer malware.

A thread. Kenya would be a Virus.
Stealthily attaches itself to its humans and uses them to propagate corruption and scandal.
Spreads widely because of widespread sharing of similar USB sticks, known to be manufactured by brands such as tribe and sometimes even religion.