YOU ARE HIRED!!!!!!

This fall, 30 year old Liza Mucheru-Wisner is a contestant on NBC’s “The Apprentice” Season 10 with Donald Trump.  

Liza is a graduate of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christ with a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Educational Technology.

Watch Liza on The Apprentice on NBC every Thursday at 10/9C 

Best wishes Liza. We are proud of you.

IF YOU MISSED HALLOWEEN..

I must confess I am an ardent theatre enthusiast so the prospect of a nice, entertaining Friday evening at the University of La Verne's Dailey Theatre was ... just what I needed to escape from the realities of the week.The play being staged was Ann Jellicoe's The Sport of my Mad Mother and I was hoping against hope that it would be one of those escapist bedroom farces that tickle one throughout a performance. (who needs a tragedy to begin their weekend?) So I went with my $ 3, the charge was actually $5 but I negotiated like a true "son of the soil" to gain admission. I sat next to a bored gentleman who looked like he needed a serious dose of humour so I made a mental note to check back with him  to see if his face would have lit up a bit after the play. Halfway through the first act, I noticed that the man was restless in his chair and was letting out suppressed grunts. It was evident that he hated the play. In fact, it wasn't just him. Nearly half of the entire audience looked lost and bewildered by the performance. As for me, I tried to make out some meaning from it but was well worn out by the beginning of the third act.It was like watching the movie Inception playing backwards! Anyhow, there was the other half of the audience who seemed genuinely thrilled and absorbed in the performance, occasionally laughing at a joke. Which can only mean one thing: No matter how absurd your "thing" is, you will always have some fans.
As for the bored man who had sat next to me at the beginning of the play, he couldn't endure it any more and left during the first interval.. or who knows whether he did not mistakenly think the play was over? 

 P.S The Sport of my Mad Mother runs tonight Sat 20 from 7.30 p.m at the ULV Dailey Theatre. The final performance will be tomorrow Sun beginning 2 p.m. And be sure to carry the full ticket charge with you unless you possess extraordinary negotiation skills.

A RANDOM ENCOUNTER IN THE CONVENIENCE STORE

It's early morning and I am pacing up and down the aisles of the convenience store in the neighborhood trying to locate the stationery section. A middle aged African American lady hobbles towards me. "You act like you feelin' cold" says she.
"It's quite chilly in here, madam" I reply
"You mus' be from Sahara or some other planet coz it ain't chilly yet- where d'you come from anyways?"
"Kenya, it's a country in..." I try to explain but peering she interrupts,
"I know Kenya, at least I dated a man fom Kenya back in the day" she says still with that suspicious look- "In fact, you look just like him, only a little thinner." I frown at that unflattering description and ask her what happened with him. She chuckles and placing one hand on my arm she says "He ran away." I try to make light of the situation by reminding her that "running" is what Kenyans are famous for. We are constanly running away from spouses, girlfriends, school, lions and I even seem to remember a certain Kenyan who ran for presidency in the US.. and won!

SO YOU WANNA BE A MARINE BIOLOGIST

One FAQ we encounter earlier in life is what we would like to be when we grow up (if we ever grow up). Needless to say,  the dream job market has changed considerably since you were asked that question. The best clues of how attitudes about some jobs have changed over the years can be seen in the young who no longer seem too interested in becoming teachers, scientists, researchers and such jobs as we regarded highly some years back.Talking to kids today, they know exactly what they want and are  making bold utterances  like "I wanna be a millionaire" or rock stars and NBA players. You also have to admire the conviction of this generation in their future vocation.

Which takes me to us, the older generation us. We dreamed of becoming pilots, doctors, lawyers and engineers- so how did we do? Are we actually doing what we planned or did we settle for less than our aspirations? As for me, I kind of fall in the group of those that did not become what they wanted. I remember my father taking me to see a doctor when I was 9 years and from then the job of treating people made quite an impression on me. I gave up being a doctor after Biology classes proved a total disaster for me. I toyed with the idea of engineering but I couldn't understand a word  my physics teacher spoke thus my passion for engineering fizzled as my grade dropped. When I was bored with class, I  passed the time drawing caricatures of teachers ( a habit I no longer practice). The doodling turned out to be quite remarkable and one teacher, upon catching me in the very act, encouraged me to be an artist in the future.But not before warning me that all artists he knew became rich after they died, a luxury I was not particularly keen on pursuing. I then thought of becoming a jazz musician- not because I loved jazz music, but because I couldn't sing properly. I figure you don't have to be a good singer to be a great jazz musician. Even Louis Armstrong got away with that defect! That too I gave up. So what did I eventually settle for? Well, being of the old-school persuasion, I am neither a rock star or basketball player, I  decided to go back to school in the hopes I may become a teacher (they call me The Swift Teacher for a reason, you know). I am probably three and a half  years away from that dream but you never know.. if my track record of shifting goals is anything to go by, I wouldn't quote me if I were you.



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NO KIDDING!!!

If you think advertising is business as usual you've got a think coming! It certainly won't take you long to realize how unusual the schemes of the advertiser are if you have young kids around the house. One minute your young kid will be laughing through the antics of Ed, Edd n Eddy the next minute the advertiser intrudes the TV screen  with his new chocolatey drink called BOBO. The advertisement features a greasy haired kid all dressed up like a reincarnation of Elvis Presley and with a raised eyebrow reveals that SUPER COOL KIDS DRINK BOBO! After that piece of incitement, your kid, who until then couldn't utter any other word apart from "dada" instantly acquires a new vocabulary and starts screaming BOBO! BOBO! BOBO! This wailing does not stop and it occurs to you that the only way to stop the aural assault is to run to the shopping mall and buy the drink.
In fact from that day on, Bobo becomes your I.D. to getting access to the house every night from work- and you dare not show up with some nondescript drink unless you want to spend the night with your head buried in pillows. Let's face it, when it comes to the noise department, we are no matches for our kids who could all at once clinch a Nobel, Oscar and blackbelt in noisemaking.

 As if those are not woes enough for one lifetime, the advertiser has a few more surprises for you. In a few months he appears again with a margarine called BIBI and you zoom off like a wasp to the nearest supermarket knowing that your kid will go into a hunger strike if you don't. A week later, the advertiser hits the screen once again now with a cereal dubbed CHOKO. Fail to deliver that too and the kid will stage a demonstration that can teach those university students a thing or two about demonstrations. And so it goes on through out the year with new products rolled out  like NINA, FIDO, DIDO when it finally dawns on you that the clever advertising bloke has coined these easy-to-pronounce words into brands for your kid who cannot pronounce harder words like, say, PROACTIOXY ULTRA...  Well, what can you do apart from concede defeat to the insurmountable collusion between your kid and the advertiser who relies on your kids "pester- power" to sell his bobo's and goodies? If you think you can outsmart the advertiser, write me a line telling me how. I could use some advice myself.