#93: The plane ticket.

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Happy Friday 🎉  The often dormant but non-zero probability of a man pursuing a career as a rapper is equal to that of a woman pursuing a career in interior design. Prove me wrong.

LIFE.
The plane ticket.

Background Airplane GIF by GIPHY Studios 2021

Gif by giphystudios2021 on Giphy

It was the fall of 2015.

A one-eyed—now incarcerated on drug charges—rapper named Fetty Wap folded the music industry on itself and lit it up with a banger about making drugs with his Trap Queen. It was also the golden age of EDM, with Justin BIeber’s What Do You Mean and DJ Snake’s Lean On, causing cramped arms from incessant fist pumping.

I’d had ~5 shots of tequila.

The house party transitioned from communal drinking games to sporadic coupling in corners. The walls oscillated, but I relied on them to reach the bathroom.

On my way to the bathroom, Steven, a tall, handsome, bald black man, intercepted me and introduced himself. I don’t remember what we talked about, mostly because I potty-danced the entire time, but I remember he asked for my number, saying he’d reach out if he visited Uganda in the future.

Mind you, I was tipsy, and this was the first semester of my master’s. There was no Uganda in my foreseeable future. There was only a toilet.

A little puzzled by his forwardness, I gave him my number, and he texted me on WhatsApp to ensure I wasn’t playing hard to get.

Two and a half years later, I was in Uganda, failing miserably at building a nation that doesn’t want to be built, when Steven WhatsApp-ed me. He didn’t just say “Hi,” and wait for me to respond like some of you sociopaths. No, like a decent human, he greeted me and stated his business in a short message that didn’t require me to click “Read more.”

Steven was in Uganda doing research and asked if we could meet. We had lunch. He wanted plantain; I wanted chapati. I always want chapati. He made fun of how recklessly I moved the first night we met, and I paid for his lunch to buy his silence.

We didn’t speak again for 2 years.

Around 2021, he replied to one of the trailers for my YouTube videos I posted on WhatsApp. He complimented me on a job well done, and compliments are the way to my heart, so we conversed. I was still with Duke, and he was still researching God knows what, God knows where.

A year later, we had one of those conversations that flicker like a lit matchstick:

“Hey man, how are you doing?”

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Pretty good, how are you?”

We hibernated again.

A year later, during one of our flickering catchups, I mentioned I was applying to doctorate programs. He probed, and I shared my top choices, one of which was George Washington University, where he’s an assistant professor.

“Keep me posted,” he said as gleefully as I could glean from his texts.

I got into George Washington University in 2023, told him, and we planned to meet in D.C.—on his tab this time, of course.

We developed a good friendship and held standing meetings in D.C.

During our last meeting, we exchanged banter, personal challenges, and solutions.

One of the challenges I shared was I really wanted to go home in December, but the financial maths was reminiscent of A’ Level Pure Mathematics—more F-bombs than a Tarantino action movie.

He empathized, and I ordered another drink on his tab.

A week after our meeting, he mentioned, vaguely, that there might be a research opportunity that could cover my trip home in December.

I told him not to play with me and asked him who I needed to sleep with to lock this in.

He laughed. I chuckled nervously—half-seriously.

He asked for my details and said he’d keep me posted.

It went from shorts-and-shades weather to light jacket, thirst-trap-y weather, so I nudged him and asked him how strong the password for the OnlyFans account needed to be.

He laughed. I chuckled nervously—half-seriously.

“I’ll let you know in two weeks.”

A week later, he sent a screenshot of my roundtrip flight itinerary to Uganda this December. Confirmation numbers and all.

This story is about the power of speaking up, buying people lunch, and pausing to talk to strangers at house parties while potty-dancing.

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THINGS.
A quote.

You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky.

This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone.

This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.

James Baldwin

A tweet.

A picture.

I attended a football exhibiton game between D.C. United and Asanta Kotoko from Ghana last weekend. Such a good time! The little ornament on my jacket, which people have named “Fifi” used to be attached to the bottom of one of Zion’s onesies.

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WORK.
Finding things in Google Drive quickly.

Google’s search algorithm is so powerful that you could leave your emails and files as disorganized as a teenage boy’s room, and you’d still find whatever you’re looking for easily.

If you know a keyword in the file name or even in the body of the file, you can type that keyword in the search bar and you’ll find the file.

However, the search will return lots of files for you to sift through.

Next time, if you know type of file you want (Excel, PDF, Slies, Word, etc), add this in the search bar in addition to the keyword:

type: spreadsheet [type keyword here]

But wait, there’s more: Your search can return spreadsheets created by other people that you have access to. More clutter. If you know the owner of the file you want, you can edit your search query as follows:

owner: [the gmail address] type: spreadhseet [keyword here]

For example: owner: yourname69@gmail.com type: spreadsheet budget tempate

That should trim your search time significantly.

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FUN.
The Friday Fix Playlist

Shem’s picks

✅ No excuses: generate a workout based on your experience, goals, and available equipment.

✅ The more things change, the more they stay the same: did these events happen in 2004 or 2024?

✅ Listen to Jon Batiste cover Beethoven with a blues twist.

✅ Seven lessons on love.

✅ Find your kindred spirit: an extensive list of active internet forums on several topics

Have a great weekend,

— Shem

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