Saturday, April 25, 2009

ThE BiTtEr SweEt ExPeRiEnCe cAlLeD cAmP

I havent updated my blog in way too long and i know that's kinda bad. First, i had no opportunity to write and when the opportunity came, procrastination joined in.

So much has happened in my life since the last time i blogged. So much like:
I am now a youth corper! Corper shun! What's worse is I was posted to Kano state!!! After all the money i spent trying to influence my posting! I didnt want to leave Lagos for anything but i had no choice. And so i packed my bags and Kano i went in March.

I had heard so much about Kano, the heat, the flies, sharia...i was so scared. Everyone in my house was scared that I was going alone to Kano. they were so scared of Sharia that they made me sew a very long ankara/Nigerian wax gown, they wanted me to look northern, so i would blend with the northern crowd when i got there. I really didnt want to wear the gown but my brothers insisted. And being the good girl that i wanna believe i am, i obeyed. I even had a shawl. I looked more northern than the noortherners. When i got to the airport, i met a lot of people going to camp and they were dressed in regular jeans. i wished i could change clothes, but you know they say about wishers and beggers. i was stuck! I hated the way i was dressed. the dress was badly sewn.Cant blame the taylor much cos she made the dress in two days.

I expected so much from camp cos a lot of people had put it in my head that camp was soooo much fun and all i wanted to go there to do was have a lot of fun. Everyone i met in camp had that same expectation and boy were we dulled!

The fun for me didnt start until i made a lot of friends. My first friends were a group of girls i met at the airport. we had been on the same flight from lagos. They were fun people. Then in camp, i met the boysss!


In my camp there werent so many goodlooking boys and i simply wasnt interested in the goodlooking few. Before i got to camp, i was told about the high rate of promiscuity in camp. A friend and i even had a bet, he said he didnt believe that i would stay in camp for three weeks without having a camp boyfriend and "doing the do" or even making out. I was so positive i would prove him wrong.
Proudly, I really did prove him wrong.

i dont really like to do the whole girl groupie/click thingy. so even though i had a group of female friends, i prefered hanging out with guys. No offense to other ladies..for me its just way easier being friends with guys, they have less dramaa and they do take care of me.

I took loads of pictures in camp...all my female friends accused me of taking pictures with only guys. that made me feel bad. i wanted to take pictures with them but we were hardly ever together and they said i chose boys over them. I didnt do that, at least not intentionally, i just always go with who is rocking my boat.

I really wanted to make the most out of my camp experience and so i took part in a lot of activities. i joined the match parade. that wasnt easy o cos we had our rehearsals under the very hoooot sun daily for hours unend. u cannot imagine how hot the northern part of Nigeria is until u have been there. I joined a dance group.....even though my platoon members were uncordinated. and i took part in the Miss NYSC pageant.
I won.

I was crowned Miss NYSC Kano......talk about the highlight of my camp experience!

There was the endurance trek....that was a bitter sweet experince..... we walked for miles under the scorching sun. i got blisters on my feet afterwards.

The things i hated about camp;
the weather in the north is confused. In the wee hours of the morning, the cold is unimaginable and just when one is adjusting to the cold comes the heat in the afternoon. That was horrible. the dust was also terrible. everywhere was always dusty. the weather often made my nose bleed.
There was supposed to be lights out from ten pm until dawn but NEPA or Power Holding-bla bla bla always held the power so there was perpetual lights out in camp. I paid daily to change my phone. Another annoying thing was i didnt have access to the internet, so for three weeks, there was no facebook for me...sad... The nights in camp were always so short and i hated the sound of the biegel cos it meant wake up and go to the parade ground.

I learnt a lot of songs and slangs in camp. the singing was fun, hanging out in the mami market was fun but the general punishments we got when a few people misbehaved wasnt. once all the girls were asked to lie on the dusty field. i almost cried cos the white vest i was wearing was new. i ended up falling alseep on the floor and was upset when the punishment ended. i really needed to sleep. Once i pretended to be sick just so i wouldnt get punished for going to parade late. while all the other late commers were punished, i faked tears and i walked with a limp.....the camp commandent had mercy on my poor legs and he let me go. i limped all the way back to my room in smiles...some people who were really sick got punished cos they didnt act sick enough.

Even though camp didnt start on a very high note, it ended well. I am glad i was a part of it. Camp was a bitter sweet experience. But that doesnt mean i dont think the Nigerian government should scrap NYSC or if they dont want to, they should make the whole NYSC programme consist of only three weeks orientation camp, rather than the one year punishment they give to all university graduates. One year is a long time to be stuck in a strange village or town.

I have to go back to Kano next week and i am not really looking forward to it. cos Camp which was the bitter-sweet experience is over and now is time for the real service, would resume work as a banker in Kano next week. I wonder why they wouldnt let me serve Nigeria from my father's house!

Friday, February 13, 2009

I do not like the woman that i have been for the past six months. (I say six months because before six months ago, i was still a student and i achieved all the targets i set for myself while in school...except having a successful relationship....i am not in the mood to talk about my relationship or the absence of one.)

This woman that i am now is a graduate waiting for NYSC. She is lazy, procrastinates, sleeps too much, engages in self pity, doesnt rationalize things before reacting, she reacts based on emotions rather than on knowledge. she is led by her heart and feelings rather than her mind and thinking. She is not the best of friends to have, she easily puts herself before others and once offended, she does not consider a makeup, instead she thinks of ending friendships..no matter how important they were to her.

I am afraid for this woman. I am afraid that she would wake up one day to find out that because she said "i will do it tomorrow, let me rest a bit today" one too many times, she achieved non of her dreams. And the whole world has moved forward without her.

She wants to die empty. She wants to die after she has exhausted if not all, most of her potential but this woman wakes up and sleeps each day with her potentials untapped. She is so afraid of leading the unfamiliar path that she easily settles for what everyone else is doing with their lives...even though she is aware that she isnt everyone. not everyone possesses the raw writing talent that she has. not everyone goes to a book store and feels sad because her books are not on the shelf but still in her head where they were birthed. Not everyone is faced with a feeling of near death and prays to be alive not because of the husband they havent met or the children they havent had or the money they havent made and spent, but because of the novels they havent yet written. Yes, this woman fell seriously ill and thought she would die one night and the only reason she prayed to be alive was so that she could complete the novel she had been writing for so long.

This woman wants to be a prolific writer, yet she has been battling lazily with her first novel for three years. This woman dreams of being a script writer and a filmaker(the change nollywood needs) yet she does absolutely nothing about it. instead she is considering an MBA or a Masters in Communication and Media because that seems like an easier path to follow, a path that would guaruantee her a job when she is done (she is good at reading and passing...she is camouflage, would fit into any environment...afterall wasnt she studying medicine, then accounting and finally english? didnt she do well in all three?) .she is considering this path as opposed to a masters in creative writing and a degree in script writing which would take her where she believes strongly that she was born to be.

This woman loves to make excuses for why she hasnt written the article on Talib Kweli for Hip Hop World Magagzine and why she hasnt interviewed the actress for Zest International and why she hasnt finished her novel after three years.....Excuses that she knows boils down to one thing....laziness.

Every time she goes to Church and the Pastor or Priest preaches on the parable by Jesus about the unequal talents given to 3 servants, she feels a strong sense of guilt because like the last servant, she often says to herself and everyone else, that her talent "WRITING" is not enough. she wants more!!! (coincidentally for the past two months, Priests and Pastors have been preaching about purpose and talent in church...she is catholic but loves to flirt with pentecostal churches, She isnt defined by the church she attends but by her faith in Christ, afterall, Jesus was a Jew, wasnt He?)

Thinking about this woman, which turns out to be me hurts and annoys me. I am ashamed of her because i know that there is so much that she should be and so little that she is right now.


I want to change this woman that i am and become the writer, friend and spouse that i should be...but each time i take one step forward, i take ten more steps backwards.

As I write this i feel so much disgust at myself because like many past days, i have spent my whole day sleeping.

I hope to do better. i have set a target for myself that i would finish the first draft of my novel by the 31st of March. I know if i work really hard at it, that can be done even though i am only on the fourth chapter(i had gotten to the fifteenth chapter but had to start all over..long story).

i hope that by writing about this and letting everyone who cares enough to read this blog know about this woman that i no longer want to be, i would be gingered to becoming the woman i know i am destined to be at a qiucker rate. so help me God.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR COMMENTS ON MY PREVIOUS POSTS!!! YOU GUYS ROCK!!!

Friday, January 16, 2009

AM I WIRED TO SELF-DESTRUCT?

I wonder why my heart always finds a way to love those who do not have the capability to love me back. My heart always runs from those (i mean men) who love me most. All the men i have loved are those too self absorbed to truly love someone else. All the men i havent loved, are those who love me irrespective of all my flaws.

And right now, i feel as if i am reliving that cycle again. There are three men in my life that i know love me. I know i cannot truly vouch for anyone, but there is one man that i say i know so well and i know he loves me pieces. He has been there for me for so long, a friend, a confidant and at some point a lover. But my heart would just not open up to him. He says he is waiting for me, but as hard as i tried in the past, i couldnt get myself to love him. Attraction means so much to me and i wasnt attracted to him. I am not attracted to the three of them.

I woke up at 6am this morning, hurting and i decided to go back to bed because i wanted to forget that i was hurting, even if only for a few more hours or minutes. But i couldnt stay in bed forever, I woke up again at exactly 9am, with the same pain in my chest.

I dont easily let people get to me. I am very emotional. I bruise easily, so i always try to guard my heart. I see men as a comic relief, something to make you laugh and occupy your time and space just for a period of time, until he gets tired of making a fool of himself and decides to step or until the next good looking dude comes along. Living that way paid off for me. There were the ups and the lows of living like that...i mean there were times when it hurt that i had so many toasters but no true friend, but i always looked on the bright side. Why risk being hurt by a man when i can have the attension of so many men?

Anyway, i got tired of all my toasters, even though i enjoyed their sleazy and cheap lines and the frequent dates that came while i gave them the "I am thinking about it" line and i begun to yearn for something deeper and true. i stopped giving them attension mostly when i could already predict from the start that they had nothing tangible to offer.

I am not the best of Christains but i pray from time to time. And i prayed for someone new. I prayed that God would give me one of His faithful sons. And i thought my prayer was answered at the end of last year.
I met this dude, who i bonded with and i gave him a chance.

I am hurting already because a part of me feels that he might not be true, he might just be up for a good time. He says he is for real. But i am scared and hence i am hurting. He tells me to be optimistic but i usually prefer pessimism. He says i am not piloting the affairs of our relationship well, but i am not used to being in a relationship. He hasnt hurt me yet, yet i am hurting. My heart has chosen to love him, though i cannot vouch for the state of his feelings.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

I need to CLIMAX

There is so much that i have to say, so much that is bottled up inside of me. When i shut my eyes, all i think of is how much i need a release, an orgasm. I need to speak/write and watch myself climax with my words. There are too many words that i have left unspoken for too long. There is too much built up energy inside of me.

I need to climax.

But i understand the rules of climaxing. I have to start slowly and gradually until i reach my peak, my heaven.

And so my First step to climaxing is
to lose my virginity which i have already done.
And my Second step is
to thank everyone who watched me lose my virginity welcomed me to this wonderful world of bloggers. I feel so honoured that so many people read my blog and left wonderful comments. Its so encouraging. Ex-school nerd, you are the bomb. thanks for all ur love and support. without you, you know, there would be no journal of a lil woman. thank you.

And my Third step is
to just shut my eyes and release the energy and words inside of me.

I am hurting for a number of reasons. I am only going to concentrate on two of those reasons today because i know i can only achieve an orgasm if i take it slowly and gradually.
The first and most pressing reason is that growing up, i used to wish i had a sister my age or one slightly younger than I was. so that we could share secrets and laughs and she would understand and know me like no one else in the world. well i let go of that dream or fantasy because instead of a lil sister, i had a lil brother. my lil bro and i are close, but i always wished he were a girl.
Well God answered my prayer in a different way. He didnt give me a biological sister but He gave me a friend, one that i have known for almost six years.Iw ould refer to her as Tiz. We met in our first university and parted a year after because we both hated the school and we wanted somewhere better. we both desired different universities but as fate would have it, we met again in our second university.
i am not one who believes so much in friendship. i always had it in my head that friends would fail and friends were only for a season. so i never got too attached to anyone, neither did i ever go out of my way to make friends out of anyone. i just always told myself that no one was irreplacable. And so i took no one seriously. Tiz and i grew from being just friends to being bestfriends and then sisters. she was always there for me and i tried my best to be there for her. (Dont worry, i am not gay. i love me some hot looking dude. I love men, lots of men!) we had our fights but they were never anything major. we had so much fun together in school. We talked about any and everything ranging from our first kiss to our last sex and even our secret fantasies. my point is, she was my friend.
To cut the long story short, i messed up. i was upset with her becasue of things i now realize were flimpsy and i said some things to her that i can never take back. its been four months since i was mean to her, five months since we saw each other, one day since she told me she has forgiven me but we just might never be friends again. I miss her so much but i feel i have lost a friend forever. when i hear a song that i know she likes, i pick up my phone but put it back down because i know i no longer have the right to call her. there is so much i want to say to her, but she isnt there. i wnat to tell her about the new movies i have seen, the new songs i have heard, the new guy i like, the crazy thing i did lastnight, the craaazzzzy thing i intend to do tomorrow(wink wink). Gosh, there is so much to say but she is isnt there any more.

i am wondering if anyone undertstands what i am talking about. our friendship was rare. Many lovers do not even have it like we did. i always used to say to her that if we werent both girls, we would be thinking of getting married by now.

i miss my bestfriend and even though she is most likely never going to hear about my blog, i want everyone who reads this to know that.

i have written so much now. the next time i blog, i would write about the second reason why i feel sad. and hopefully, the more i write and let go of all the words in my head, the closer, i would get to my promiseland, the closer i would get to climaxing.