now the Ortho CAT

wow...
how time flies, (and how lazy i've become).
The surg CAT went ok.. to put it mildly. My essay had lots of cancer questions, esophageal, colorectal, breast... some of which i'd not prepared for, but my 3rd yr pathology kicked in to save me quite a few blushes.

The clinical was worrisome though. Took a good history and made a not too bad examination. Question time was however a bit rocky, especially when i couldn't recall they called an incision made during an appendectomy (appendicectomy)! Not very impressed, the good doctor asked me to read harder! That's not something you want 2 hear just after your exam, u know. Thankfully, i seem to have made a good enough impression for him to award me 59% (--applause--) remembering that not too many of my classmates got 60's let alone 70's, i think i was doin ok.


Anyhow, it's been so long since then, mpaka, i'm now just about to do my ortho exam (we have 6 weeks of each(surg and ortho) promptly followed by an essay and clinical assessment). So right now, i've hit the books again. I should actually be in theatre right now, but the reading doesn't allow me such pleasures.(unless some irate consultant summons us!). And as i read on Weber's classification of Ankle fractures, i thot i should post one more time, seeing that i haven't for such a long while.


Otherwise,
Keep it blogged.

My Surg CAT..

Here i am, writin this post, when i know all too well that i should be hitting the books like no one's business. I have this surg(that's surgery BTW..) exam next week and i just can't seem to get myself to read!! It's totally frustrating! And when i say exam i mean the full maneno's. A long-case, where we get to take history from a patient, take a full physical exam, and come up with a management plan for the same. And that's the day after we do our essay paper. Five essay questions and 3 hrs to knock ourselves out answering them.

Anyhow, looks like i really should be reading... ama? Things could go awry come Wednesday. I'll definitely tell how the clinical went.

I almost forgot. Jana, while i was 'not in the mood for reading' - again - i went to shoot a TV ad! Yep! One of those. It should be hitting Kenyan tv in a month or so. I'll keep this wire live, 4 sure.

Baadayez,
The WebDoc.

Revenge by any other name..

More than one year ago, i designed this website for a local band musician right here in Nairobi. I never actually got to meet him, in fact, the plan was that i'd probably never need to. What happened was this.

I had this 'friend' in college who's doin dental surg. and we are both into comps and stuff. So one day he approaches me and tells me about an entertainment portal that some band musician that he knew wanted designed. He had all my attention at this point. We talked about it at length (at least i thot' we did) and it was agreed that i would do the job for a paltry 10k, but i would then get 10k every month for updating the site. Now that sounded almost like a small salary to me! And i was in, hook, line and sinker.

A few weeks later, after being called, hustled and rushed, the site was finally done. Looked good, better than work i had b4, and i couldn't wait for the cash to start flowing in. I had been given 4k before starting with promises of more to come.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. The remainin 6k for the site was not 'currently' available, and the site owner had decided to go slow on the project and so there would be no further updating for a long while to come. The whole story was soundin all so Kenyan! You work, someone sits on your dues and the effort you put in doesn't seem to be appreciated that much. And as fate would have it, the months turned into years; almost 2 years to be precise. I had only 4,000 shillings to show for my efforts. My college-mate contact told me that the idea had been abandoned and i had to wait to get the remaining 6,000 shillings.

I figured, this was just one of those bad things that happen to u as you live and learn, in this classroom that is life. I just forgot about it. So, u can only imagine my surprise when one cold sunday afternoon i pass by Kenya cinema and spot a huge, triumphant banner announcing the greatest 'Entertainment portal in East africa'!! Yes, the very site that i had worked my ass off dzn'ing. A visit to the site and an email exchange later, i was in touch with the elusive local band musician whom i'd only heard about.

According to him, he'd never heard about some 3rd party that had dzn'd the site and only knew of my cunning college-mate as the "greatly skilled" webdesigner that had come up with his website. Back in college a heated exchange was 2 follow, during which, my hitherto trusted contact was slingin mud in the direction of the said local artist.

"He knew about u designing the site! He gave someone else the job of updating it! Do you think i would lie to you?? How long have i known you??"

The spirited defense was soundin very convincing. Someone was screwing me proper. The site was littered with ads, and @ the rates he was renting this virtual real estate, i'd say i was being screwed over. My efforts at recovering some money from the whole deal started floundering. Non-replied text messages, "u will get your money.." reponses, and for sure i was fed up.

That was when i remembered that i had been given the password to the site's FTP logon just after i finished the site design! That was just 2 days ago now. I thought of just deleting everything, maybe leaving a horrible message on the home page...

Now it was my turn to have them by the balls! i won't even tell them what i just did. I'll just wait for 'em to come crawling back, when advertisers on the site realise that it is no longer running!

As i write this post, they haven't yet, but it'll be soon!

www.showbizeastafrica.com

The initial site: http://www.showbizeastafrica.com/index_old.php

Aah, the wrath of God. It spares none.

Any tips from you guyz out there? Maybe i should never pick their calls and texts like they did mine? The look on their faces will be priceless. Just priceless.

The WebDoc.

Wired!

Yep, finally! I'm wired, right here in my room in the med school hostels. That might sound rather mundane 4 yo' all in the states and stuff, lakini, over here, we are over the moon.

What makes it even sweeter is that it was all the efforts of a group of us web savvy med students, who put in the extra effort... against all odds. And quite some odds they were. We had tried to get the sch admin to do it, but it sounded like..

"we've not even wired offices in the deans office, nani nyinyi?"

"we haven't thought about the hostels you live in yet, but maybe in the next few years!"

Ha! I've only a few months in this joint and this was the crap they were telling me? Any how, we already had all our comps connected to a local area network and i had got a wireless router when i was in the states, so then we thot' how do we do this? hmm?

Easy, there are internet points in the lib, and the lib's just across the fence, across the road, across another fence...

So a few connections here and a bit of reading there, and b4 we knew it, we were off into cyberspace!

So akina Clemo, Gacheru 'n everyone out there that checks out me blog, i'll do my best to keep the posts coming..

Baadayez,

A hero’s dossier…

Kenya is one amazing country and in the last few weeks it has not disappointed, not one bit. Those who’ve got their hands on John Githongo’s dossier are not doubt amazed by how rotten the corridors of power are. If you believe all that John tells us (and I haven’t any reason not to), then you’ll know that, like a fish, the rot starts at the head. Apparently, on several occasions, the president was told about the fishy goings on in some of his ministers’ dockets. He didn’t do a thing, despite clear evidence that his Ethics PS insisted he had on the matter.

Personally, I don’t believe this was just part of Kibaki’s laid back style of leadership, but in fact a personal effort at defrauding the country he swore to protect. Many times in the dossier, Kiraitu Murungi talks about the funds being needed to fund Narc activities. Dr. Murungaru is on record saying that the President himself personally sanctioned the 4.1Billion shilling (57M dollars) deal to buy naval ships from Spain. A deal that was part of the many struck with the non-existent entity, Anglo-Leasing. All those Githongo’s dossier points at are what the press refer to as Kibaki’s political pillars.


It was his Vice President that made a statement in parliament claiming that Anglo-Leasing was a clean and reputable company. Only to later claim that he read was a statement written by technocrats in his ministry. It had been revealed that the cost of the project had been inflated almost 3 and a half times, and awarded to a company that did not in fact exist. Just showing how little respect politicians have for Kenyans’ intellect. The same man, according to John’s dossier, who set up a meeting at his residence to ask John, why he was investigating the issue yet the monies paid out had been returned to the Treasury.

That said, perhaps the understatement of the century must have been from one Minister for Justice, Kiraitu Murungi. At the height of the revelations about the dubious companies making deals with the govt., he chose to refer to the whole saga as a ‘scandal that never was !’ questioning the reasons for the press giving the issue such extensive coverage. It is the same ‘scandal that never was’ that led to his dismissal from the cabinet, albeit belated.

Another crack head must be one David Mwiraria. Questioned on why he signed a document that would have seen Kenya lose billions of shillings to the ghost company, he proceeded to blame it on his Permanent Secretary, who had handed the said document to him to sign and he went ahead and did just that, without reading it! Yeah, he expects us to swallow that pile of utter garbage. And since he’d explained away the problem so eloquently, he didn’t see any reason to resign !! He must think we are a mob of illiterate, naïve idiots, if we are to believe a word he said. He’s no longer the Minister for Finance, but I’ll not smile until I see his short, thieving self behind bars.


Back to the Head of State. Now that things have come full circle, I don’t believe there is an ounce of sincerity in anything he does. It was only after lots of sustained pressure that he got rid of 3 ministers, although his VP is still in place, probably hoping to read another statement in parliament whose accuracy he’d careless about.

I can’t wait for 2007. Certainly a red card for this govt.

Next time, more on the tapes that John Githongo made of Cabinet ministers behaving badly.

Peace,
The WebDoc.