The difference between Personality and Character

 Many times when someone mentions character and personality in one sentence, we tend to do a double-check within our minds, well maybe just me. But the two words have incessantly been used interchangeably that we even no longer care which is which. 

In my personal development class the other day, we discussed the two terms and it is shocking, okay not a lot, how different they are. 

So, what differentiates character from personality? 

I scavenged the internet for a definition of character and Macmillan dictionary defines it as "Qualities making up someone's personality". Now leaves you wondering what personality, which is made up of the character is, right?

To better understand or differentiate the two, use the analogy of a tree. The stem and the leaves (what we see above the ground) is the personality and the roots (what we even don't think about) is the character. 

Character vs personality tree analogy

The personality of a person is depicted by their visible features. The first noticeable, visible attributes you point out about someone you have just met. The old sneakers they are wearing, when they talk your ear off even when you are not on a name basis yet, their non-stop smiling...

These then lead you to make conclusions about their character, the roots that we can't dig up the ground to see. You conclude that because they talk too much then the person is talkative, a character, them wearing old sneakers maybe they are into vintage fashion. It is what we see, personality, that reveals to us what we don't see, character. 

Although, the two go hand in hand, you can not have poor roots and expect to have healthy leaves. Your root system should be strong enough to support your stem system, personality. Many times we focus a lot on our personality and forget what truly matters because, without deep roots, your personality won't stand the winds. 

Someone said that character is like pregnancy, you can hide it but not for long, it will always come to light. 

Ooh, by the way, we are discussing Stephen R. Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" in my class, you should definitely check it out if you haven't. 

How to Thrive in Tech.

 

The Technology (Tech) Field is one that has tremendously grown in the past decades following numerous technologies and tech start-ups. with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an extensive shift in the tech field and how it has influenced most operations in other different fields. The need to thrive in this field and not just be mediocre or lose your mind is highly necessitated. 

In our class orientation today, did l mention am a student at Refactory? Okay, not necessary, we were elated to hear from Ronald K Sebuhinja, Chief Technical Officer at Yo Uganda, and as someone who has been in the tech field for a while now, his presentation was mind-boggling!

So how can you ace your way through this tech field? 

Have a passion for the field. 

Not just passion for coding but passion for the ever-changing technologies. Take it upon yourself to find out what the latest tech invention is, what programming language is selling like hot cakes. The tech field and late nights go hand in hand and if your passion can't see you through the late nights, you might never succeed. 

Acquire Knowledge. 

Learn as much as you can, don't fall back on that one programming language you were first introduced to. Learn how to achieve the same tasks in a different language. Have it on a virtual machine so you don't dismantle your perfect setup. 

Familiarize yourself with the whole pipeline of production, from the idealization, planning, development to deployment. The tech field is constantly changing don't limit yourself to just coding but be flexible and move with the changes. 

Identify what you're good at. 

Scale down what you like and what you are actually good at and strengthen the area you're already excelling at. If you are strong at back-end development, explore more in that. Forcing yourself in a field you are not genuinely good at could end up stalling your overall development progress. 

Practice, practice, practice. 

You will never know what is missing in your code if you don't write it down. Practice as often as you can, code a complete website and deploy it on any of the free hosting platforms. Share your work on platforms like GitHub and get feedback. Write documentation for your programs, make it look like a real gig, and do it to the "customer's" satisfaction. 

While you're at the practice, check out other services in the field and see how they run, could you manipulate a certain platform that you just came across?  Practice both as a tech user as well as a tech developer. 

Network. 

Most of the opportunities will always come easily through the networks you have cultivated. Get out of your introverted programmer mode and join tech communities, locally and internationally. Interact with your idols in the tech field, attend tech seminars or in the modern-day, webinars. These will even introduce you to new tech findings that you would have never known about or maybe have taken longer to know about. 

Take care of your health. 

Having established that the tech field and late nights go hand in hand, very many developers have traded their health, sleep, relationships for perfect code. Take breaks before your body demands them, move upcountry for 5 days without your computer, love and accept to be loved, get married, raise a dog with someone you love. Generally have a life outside your code and computers. 

Consistently be on the lookout for opportunities. 

Programming opportunities are literally available in everything, whatever field. It could be the commerce sector, there's now the association with tech, which is e-commerce. Look out for what you can transform to technology, and that is almost everything. Seek remote freelance opportunities, when you are sure of what you can provide. This will, in turn, keep you growing in the tech field.

May the force of tech be with you as you thrive in this field.

What every girl should experience in their 20s before marriage.

 The other day, l came across a tweet that beguiled me on a one Twitter account @DonCorleANN. It said, "Because l don't want girls giving up their careers and lives for men. Please share what you think girls in their early 20s should experience even before they consider marriage." 

I am one person who advocates for woman emancipation, well on the low, and not tying your life to the needs of a man. Going through the replies was an awakening, like this gospel needed to be preached! And if you are a common Twitter user, you know that aside from the banter, the Twitter community really has a way of dishing out all the helpful and life-saving stuff. 

Okayy let me relay some of the stuff here;

"Date yourself: Get to know what you like/dislike, what recharges/drains you, buy yourself books/games/flowers or anything you like, level up your skills. Remember marriage is an optional quest altogether it does not affect the main progress."  _I can not emphasize how crucial dating yourself is! Once you appreciate and enjoy your own company, you will find it very easy to enjoy someone else's company too. Many times we rely on men to get us the things that make us happy, but have you ever tried getting those things yourself and realized how refreshing it can be? 

Lately, l have fallen into the habit of buying myself alcohol, something l didn't think l would ever do but l must say it has been one of the things that changed my perspective about enjoying a drink at the comfort of your home without the thought that maybe your owe the guy the bought the beer sex. 

"Learn who you are and unlearn your conditioning. Choose friends who are not man-obsessed. Experience being single without the suffocating desire to commit and that way you learn to date for the pleasure of the company and not because you want to be in a relationship."  _Have you ever had a group of friends that were all in happy relationships and bluntly made you feel like you have failed at life for not finding a man? Ditch them, get new ones. If you ever feel like you really have to be in a relationship to be happy,  you are not dating for the right reasons. 

"Learn to give yourself an orgasm. Be able to teach that to someone else. Don't accept that the goal for sex with a man is when a man has an orgasm."  _I think this is my favorite! Very many women have made their brains believe that once a man climaxes, that's it, that's all! Heyy you are entitled to the pleasure too, it's supposed to be a two-way street. And for you to come to this realization you must have figured out what works for you, what gets you off and be able to convey your wants and desires to the other person. 

"Being financially stable. When you are able to support yourself, you no longer fantasize about being "saved" by rich guys."  _I always tell people that why am not in a relationship is because I'm not financially ready for one. Many actually laugh at me saying that if the man has the money why do you have to stress yourself. There is a fulfillment that comes with financial freedom. Once you can give yourself the things you wish a man could give you, you are not even blinded when it comes to loving someone. Money most times masquerade as love, the small and cheap things you glorified someone for, turn out insignificant when you can give them to yourself. 

"Don't make career and life decisions based on a hypothetical husband arriving. Live based on the context that you're in, cross that bridge later and find a man who will help you cross the bridges in life rather than be the obstacle you need to get around." _If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to choose between a career path and a boyfriend, don't even think twice. How do you even allow yourself to get to that point? Worst of all is when the boyfriend is even not sure that you are the one.

"Have your own life before becoming someone else's wife. Have your own home where you choose your own furniture and make your own rules. Have your own friends. Have your own long-term dreams. Just be your own whole person who has a full life."   _There are girls who move right from their parent's house to their husband's or boyfriend that later turns into a husband. How will you know how to live on your own? If anything happened to our husband, God forbid, would you move back to your parents' house again? Learning to live on your own and having your own friends and support system is one thing everyone should experience before they commit to a lifetime partner. That is how housewives fall into depression when their husbands get back to work because their husband is their entire life! They have no personal goals, passions, other friends. 

Ask yourself, would my life still be full if l never get to find a man? If the answer is no, then start on the self-discovery journey already. A man should be just the icing to the cake, the cake being your life. You should be able to get that beach house you want to live in with your husband and 3 kids even if the husband and the kids never come. 

But we will not neglect the fact that love is a beautiful thing and you deserve that beautiful thing too. 

Literal peace out!

Evolution of slang.

The internet defines slang as a type of language consisting of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people. 

Well, recently l was interacting with a seemingly young person say sixteen or something, and, as we talked she kept throwing in these words that l had to think twice about what the word actually means. She was me telling how she cribs in Nansana that she's a Nansanie, trust me I'm facepalming as l write Nansanie. 

This got me thinking about how and when l started evolving my English to slang. You probably might not have gone through it but learning these words like crib for living, gwa for a place, it was like learning how to read and write in Kindergarten! 

I remember in my F1, we were three F1s in a room of four and the other roommate of ours was in F2, the mighty to F1s because they had suffered for a year and it was time for them to shake their ass on a yacht.  Anyways, she would have her friends over and they would be jazzing with all these slang words and we would pretend not to listen to their conversations. 

In one of the first conversations they had, they talked about money in Ks and bobs and when they left the room we were asking ourselves what currency they were talking in. Trust me it was like an eye-opener, we were all in awe, like wow are these girls even Ugandan! With time we got to interact a lot with our roommate and she would tell us the meanings of the slang and before we knew it we were pros at it. 

But with slang, once you're out of a community that understands your words you realize it really doesn't have that much meaning and is embarrassing in some way. There are some words l used to use that l hear and wonder how l was comfortable using them in the first place. Plus hearing some people use some slang words and even write them in a text makes me cringe, don't nail me. 

Here are some of the slang words we were using in my school. 

Gwa - place

On che` (read as chic without the ic but e) - On point 

Kiro mo- the last night of school when you eat all your remaining grab

Goof (past tense gwaf, facepalm!) - to beat

Pheewww, l don't even remember many of them but what a time to have lived! I feel sixty whenever l hear people use such words. 

Here's a picture of Maryhill girls l found online (not that am
on it) but just imagine me in that loyal blue uniform. 

Is age really just a number?

 You probably have heard the saying that "Age is just a number" when people are trying to justify their decisions. But is it really just a number?? 

Turned 26 today, better send in your gifts, and it left me wondering whether l feel older or have I just added a number to my birth certificate. Well, there's no switch that clicks in you when you make a year, it is like any other normal day. I literary pried myself out of bed to get some work done and still don't have a penny in my purse or in my bank account! 

Looking back at the years, l could have not grown taller or bigger, am still 5'3 and struggling to get to 50 kgs since l can remember, but there are pretty much more decisions l made about 3-5 years ago that l think back to, and cringe. How was it me that made those decisions? What was wrong with me? How could l believe that was love? There are some decisions l would still make though. 

I'm not the oldest nor the wisest, but l  have come to believe that maybe age is not just a number, we need to live through these years to decern better. It may be the resilience that comes with surviving the storm of the early '20s but there's definitely a feeling you get when it clicks that you're now at the helm of the '20s. 

Forget the cultural pressure of expectations, the pressure from your more-achieving agemates, self-doubt, and everything around it. It's like watching your own life movie, you fight to be better, define your career path, see yourself open a new life chapter, for many to start a family. There's a realization you get that you sort of owe the world something, a better you, a responsible you, gosh l can't even wrap my finger around it!

Adulting is a fun, exciting, and really tough experience. 

To forging a way through these late '20s. 

Here's my official birthday picture, overgrown eyebrows are now part of me.  

Lessons from a two year old.

If you are a new mother you will learn a lot of things on this journey. The things you didn't even realize from your much younger siblings that you saw grow.  I think memory does us a disservice when we can't remember most of such things from a young age. Like how you grew up and later on your siblings. 

This is when parenthood or in my case babysitting, comes in handy. There's a whole new dimension of growth you experience in the care of a child. Watching a child grow is most definitely one of the things everyone ought to experience in their lifetime. 

My baby made two years recently and not only has he been a pain in the butt, but an educator, an uplifter, a comforter! 

Here are some of the lessons you will most likely learn from babies;

• Being your own cheerleader. 

We adopted this thing of telling our baby "good boy" to encourage him to do things. So every time he did even the obvious things like eating his food, we showered him with praises of "good boyyy". We have subsequently slowed down on the cheering because trust me, it gets exhausting but this has not stopped him from cheering himself on! 

You will hear him in the kitchen shouting " a goodu boyy" after stacking the plates together, finally wearing his pants right and not in one leg. 

This goes on to say that even when no one is in your corner, cheer yourself on to keep you back on track. Most at times, we crave people's support but the most meaningful support will always come from within us. 

• Relentlessness. 

If you have taken care of a baby you know their relentlessness is on a whole other level! If he wants your attention, you will have to give it to him or else you will never do anything else. 

So this baby has this thing where when he wants to talk to you, he will call your name and if you don't respond he will not stop calling. Even if you are looking right at him, he wants verbal consent. 

This has taught me that we can always get what we want if we become relentless, cry if you have to (but please do not cry ugly). If they can't see the weight of our grievances, they might see the need in our persistence. 

• Accepting that you need help. 

When this baby can't afford to reach something he wants, he will drag you by the clothes to where he sees the thing.  He still can't open the fridge so whenever he wants something from there he drags you right to it and says like one word of what he wants. 

Yes, we don't want to look vulnerable but where will your strength lead you when you can't get the things you want, and yet someone could help you if you asked? 

Accepting that you need help is one of the great things you will ever do for yourself, your mental health, general well-being. 

• Always being alert. 

You know when babies ask for something and when you deny them, they cry right away? Yeah, every baby does that. What this one does though, is that even if he can't breathe from the crying, he will always respond whenever you call him. He always leaves room for "what if they change their decision". 

Whenever life knocks you down, don't completely shut down and fail to realize when another opportunity opens up because you're sulking. Grieve but do with attentively. 

• Appreciating personal space. 

I don't know whether we should be worried but this baby will go out and play for 30 minutes then come inside and rest for three hours. Just seated alone on the couch relaxing and possibly watching TV. This goes so much far as to depict how he appreciates personal space and maybe rest, we are still figuring that out. 

Spare some time to yourself once in a while, just you and your thoughts. You will appreciate how great this can affect your life with time. 

Well, being around kids will teach you lots of small things that you will never have expected to learn. 

The Ugandan medical interns strike

Medical Interns on strike

If you're in Uganda l probably don't have to go through the details of the medical interns strike and the outcomes of them being fired. But well about 3 days or so ago the ministry of health sent out a decree that all the medical interns, who have been on strike for an increase in their pay, have been fired and are supposed to get out of the hospitals within a week. 

This doesn't come as a shock though we pretended to be shocked. Workers striking in Uganda for increased pay, better system organization is not a new thing, just recently, the doctors themselves were on strike, the nurses, and we don't even need to talk about the teachers because we've sung that song and we are now very sure of the beats and the lyrics. 

Anyways, let's look at how the internship system works in Uganda and this is information you will not find online so you better pay me for it. 

So if you are doing any university course, be it a certificate, diploma, bachelors, am not sure about the masters l think let's leave the generals' issues but well, for any education course you are subjected to a mandatory internship training that has to contribute to your general score (CGPA). This internship is managed and regulated by the university, you could do three internships for a three-year course or two or even one according to the teaching guidelines of the university. 

It is to be noted that all these internships are free, the student is not entitled to any pay or allowance, it is only up to the goodness of the hiring company to give you a small stipend but we can not cry or demand it. Some courses are only required to do research and not the practical internship but you could end up spending large sums of money doing that required research, the money you will never get back in any form. 

This brings me to the medical interns and their cause for the strike. After talking to someone in the medical field, (l will never write about something l know nothing about) l was told that medical students after graduation are employed by the government for a year on an internship basis but with like a small pay assigned to them. You know those lines your parents used to lure you into doing medicine "doctors get employed right out of school" but you still didn't fall for it? Well, this is it, so every graduate doctor, after the 5 years of university is mandated to do a one-year internship training to fine-tune their skills, even if it were me l wouldn't trust a doctor who has just got out of school to open me up. Not when l know, from first principles, the state of our education system. 

It should be noted that every graduate doctor is employed, more like placed in a government hospital to do this "paid" internship. Keep in mind that it is not easy to get an internship placement for every course, some companies even ask for a payment before they train you, but well that's not today's topic. 

During their medical course of study, they do most of their practical work from the school hospitals. That's why most medical schools usually have a hospital too and this works like their laboratory though with real specimens. So this post-graduate internship is to equip them with hands-on skills to make them well prepared to handle people's lives better.  Yes, they end up doing a lot of work because they already had some skills, and the professional doctors come in to collect the wins but should we forget that this is still on an internship basis? That you are in some type of way still under the education system?

This reminds me of the lawyers who after their specified course have to do a 2-year course, what we the non-lawyers know as LDC, that you still have to pay for before you can get hired as a lawyer. So why do the medical interns have a payment structure allocated to them? This all stems from how the country values the specific education courses, placing science education high and mighty superior to arts education. The students in the different fields come out with the belief that they are entitled to better pay, better working conditions, better lifestyles! This is what has corrupted the young minds and so bred entitlement in their careers.

 Don't get me wrong am not against medical interns being paid because they do the work and should be compensated for it but so does a graduate trainee working in coca-cola company (or any other company) in the manufacturing sector, in the human resources department but because they don't work for the government and are not entitled to that pay, we never hear their cries. 

The other day l saw a tweet that someone who did a Bsc. in Stapling and Office Management wondering why the medical interns need to be paid and yet he wasn't for her internship. It carried a lot of sarcasm implying that the Management intern doesn't need to be paid because their course is easy (well to my interpretation of the tweet). My point is, as a country we should look further than depriving medical interns of their allowance to improve the education system and creating a smooth transition to the employment world after education, where we have terribly failed as a country. Also, the fact that because the medical interns fill in for the already inadequate doctors should be addressed from the grassroots of why the doctors are inadequate, to begin with. 

Pose these questions to yourself, how many doctors have you produced in your family, later on in your clan, village? What stopped you from doing medicine? Why would you talk your little siblings out of doing medicine? I know answers like, medicine is hard, it's expensive, the schools don't even teach the science subjects well, they have no laboratories will come up and it all takes us back to our education system. The moment we as a country start investing in our education is when we will get answers to our grievances. 

But well, firing the medical interns is low for us as a country but were the interns themselves dramatic with their strike demands? I would say a little!