Let's be honest

There are so many issues I think the youth of nowadays don't talk honestly about. But they are things that always bother me every now and again; issues concerning 'cheating on tests and exams', 'stealing from parents' and 'engaging in premarital sex'

On the issue of cheating on exams and tests; it's so rampant and sometimes people use euphemisms such as 'helping' to describe it (when two people are exchanging answers in the exam hall). Cheating as far as I'm concerned has become a scourge and is one of the things eating deep into the Nigerian educational system. People cheat at all stages-from primary school to undergrad and even masters level!! (I remember passing through a masters class while an exam was going on. The invigilator had his back turned to the class, while the two students in front were exchanging answers). Some parents encourage their children. We hear stories of parents buying 'expo' for their children for JAMB and SSCE exams. I remember in secondary school, a girl that was gisting with her mother who came to visit during visiting day. She was telling her mother how she was able to successfully cheat on a test and her mother was actually happy and they 'hi5ed'.

It's annoying that most people don't see anything wrong with it. Someone once said to justify his cheating that "Heaven helps those who helps themselves. God can't come down and help you pass your exams, so he gave you brain to think up ways to cheat"...SMH

In the university it's really bad and when one would have expected that most people in university should be grown up and confident in their abilities, what we see is sheer corruption going on and people cheating their way through school. The annoying part is when people actively cheat their way through school and end up with 2.1 and first class. It happens. There are people I know presently who are very good academically (at least that's what the results say), but every one knows part of their success lies in cheating. And then we wonder what kind of graduates we produce.

For me if something is wrong, it is wrong. No mincing words. I remember someone telling me I was a wicked person and I would never have friends in my class because I refuse to cheat during exam. And I was like duh! Since when did it matter to me what you felt or anyone else in this world for that matter. Abeg I have someone I would be accountable to one day. And besides I'm not looking to be a friend of the world.



Stealing from parents is another thing I find disturbing. I remember in secondary school when we were going on an excursion and we were asked to pay 20,000, one girl told her father it was 25,000. I was sad for her father and asked why she would ask for that amount. Her excuse was, her father has the money now, what's there if she lies about the real amount.

I remember one of our lecturers, who during one of his lectures digressed and told us we must really think our parents are stupid. He said he knows of students telling their parents they need money to buy funny things which they might term 'Osmosis' or 'pH'. It was hilarious and we all laughed but I knew in my mind he was not lying. Just recently when we started our different final year projects, I've overhead people talking about how they'd 'scope' and 'format' their parents and tell them they need 50k or 100k for their project, when they don't even need up to that. My own question is what is all this extra money used for. My conscience won't allow me do something like that and have these people never heard about the law of karma? The origin of everything is just greed.




Speaking out about how one feels about issues concerning premarital is most times greeted with insults from people and what not.

I remember some time ago when one of my friend's status on Facebook read:

        "Don't do it until you say 'I Do' "

and one of the comments under it read:

        "baba park well jor........lack of opportunity......lmao"

To say I was disgusted by that comment is an understatement.

My own opinion and based on my christian belief is premarital sex is wrong. No mincing words.

Even if a person does not believe it is wrong and decides to engage in premarital sex, the emotional, physical, medical and psychological effects of engaging in premarital sex, especially with multiple partners will not be nice on the person. It is always better to wait. I used to live in a world where I naively imagined in my mind that people of my age group, same faith tradition etc were not engaging in it. But when I went on IT in 400 level in a community pharmacy my eyes opened. The rate at which people were asking for 'Postinor 2' (emergency contraceptive) was higher than the rate at which they were asking for common paracetamol or vitamin C.

I'll never forget one lady, that came in complaining of vaginal itch and smell. In my mind I didn't want to judge her and imagine it was an STD, and as is proper in my profession, I told her to go for a lab test first so a vaginal swab could be taken etc, before anything can be done. She came back an hour later and told me she had gone to the lab and they asked her to come back in 2 days time for the result, but in the meantime she needed 2 Gold circle condoms and Postinor 2. My jaw dropped and I looked at her disbelievingly. I'm sure in her mind she suspected she was suffering from STD, but she still came back to ask for 'tools' so she could go get some more. I woulda expected her to go into a sober mode and wait for the test results.
Anyways who am I to judge..

This life is just the way it is.

Depressed again!!

Image credit: www.topnews.in

 Have you ever met anyone who gets depressed often and who has thought of committing suicide before, sometimes over stupid things?

No?

Well you're welcome to my world.

Don't worry my suicidal thoughts are way way in the past, but that depression thing keeps coming up again and again and I sink really deep. I know it's kind of normal for people to get depressed every once in a while. But for me it's like it happens most of the time and mehn you don't want to be around me when I'm like that. I like to blame it on my primary melancholic temperament but I think I've given enough excuse. I need to grow up.

The question is why was I depressed today again.Today has just been one kind.

First I woke up late, around 7:30am, when I was supposed to have a lecture by 8:00am. But thank God the class did not hold. I was not depressed over that one o. Well, we were supposed to have a lecture by 2:00pm, so I went back to my room to get a little work done at 11:00am. Then I get a message by 1:00pm that the lecturer is in class. I'm like okay, he probably just entered I'm not too late. I get to class and everyone is so attentive to the lecturer and it looks like I'm the only one who came late. I get into the class, lucky that the lecturer didn't ask why I was late. But after some minutes I ask the person beside me when the lecturer came into class and she says 12:00pm, didn't I hear the news. And at that moment yours truly sunk into 'depression mode'. Kai, I felt so friendless. I didn't even know when I clapped my hands together like a market woman and sunk in my seat. At that my seatmate asked "what's wrong?" and I answered that I was unhappy because no one even called me to inform me about the time change (So I thought. One person called when I was in my room to tell me about the class, but I thought the person just wanted to confirm that it was holding. I didn't hear the person say 12) . She answered "Oh, I forgot you're not on bbm, they sent a BC". I just hissed in my head at that. As if I'm supposed to buy BB, so people will be in communication with me..Mschteww..Anyways that's by the way.

I couldn't concentrate in the class. I just kept thinking about all kinds of things; betrayal (I had called someone in the morning to let them know about a lecturer being in the class then and the person was sitting now, in the class, oblivious to my pain), lack of love...as in really deep stuff. I know it's not good for my health. I mean it was just a class, and besides someone did send me the message, when they noticed I was absent. What's my own sef.
The whole depressive thing became even worse when the lecturer left in about 30 minutes (after almost 2 hours of the lecture). I didn't know when tears started to form at the back of my eyes. Ah, but I made sure the tears didn't come out o (do you know how painful it is on the eyes to suppress tears....that's by the way). When everyone was dispersing, some people actually walked up to where I was sitting and asked why I looked sad and why I was late for the class. It was then I realised I was taking things far too emotionally. Ahn, ahn, people are not that bad na.

But depression would not leave me o. It was determined to face me everywhere. I left class and dropped by at the hospital ward to do my assignment; check a patient's drug treatment chart and note drug-drug interactions. I found out the patient was on an anti-depressant drug (I looked at the patient and thought to myself "this one is clinical depression o; my own will not reach this one by God's grace). I got to my room, switched on my previously hibernated laptop and staring at me were the words: DEPRESSION and ANTIDEPRESSANT.  I had been researching on the topics in preparation for a laboratory report I was to write.

I was determined to get rid of every thoughts of depression. I quickly changed my facebook status to : "The joy of the Lord is my strength", because I know what depression could do to people.

There's a movie I watched, " To save a life", where one guy committed suicide as a result of feelings of depression. Something that just started as him being rejected by his best-friend and everyone else at school.

Image credit: www.wikipedia.com

 I just realized my own case is small. People have real issues- unlike almost missing a lecture, and go through depression as a result of loss of loved ones or something much more major and here I am sulking

Please if you know anyone who has a tendency to get depressed please talk to them o, before they carry out some drastic action. During my last depressive bout, a month ago, one of my friends advised me to read my Bible. Another thing that helps me is, when I'm depressed and I just call someone on the phone. It always makes me feel a little better. That's what I did today.

I'm better now. If anything I'm glad my sad mood gave me something to blog about :)

A wonderful first year

A year ago on this same day, i.e, the 24th of June 2011, I made my first post. Now, I'm not really sure but I'm quite certain I created this blog before that date, also in June, but I can't remember the exact date.

So today I'm celebrating one year since my first blog post.

For me there is a reason to celebrate because I'm so glad I was able to make it through my first blogging year, especially since along the line I sometimes thought of deleting the blog. I wasn't getting as much views as I wanted, not as many comments as I wanted or not as many followers as I wanted too. But then I realized it wasn't about just that.

I follow other blogs and the range of blogs I read everyday keep me entertained, some inspire me and some educate me. And I'm so happy to be a member of blogs ville because of the kind of blogs I've encountered, the kind of stuff I've learnt and the kind of growth I've been able to achieve as a person. Normally, I'd write something and hardly show anyone, but blogging has helped me be more open than I normally am (though there are sometimes I struggle with that and have even drafted some of my blog posts).

So here's saying 'Thank you'.

Thank you God, for seeing me through.

'Thank you' to my first ever follower and commenter, Myne. That your very first comment encouraged me.

'Thank you' also to Tomi, Daughter of Her King, LDP, secretlilies, Strong Self, The Relentless builder, Toin, Seyefunmie, sugarspring, Re-birth of a DramaqueeN. Thanks for following and leaving your comments.

Thank you B, Tp and JJ. Also thank you to Phoster and Sparkle2k3(followers without blogs I'm aware of), and other readers, stalkers (i wish) and so on.

Hopefully, this time next year I'll be celebrating something much more significant. Hopefully I'll be publishing a book..lol...Buh seriously it's my prayer o. I've reached a hundred pages, in MSWord of the book I'm working on (36, 563 words). But the major thing that might scare and does scare me a bit is that I've not really given anyone to read it (except for one person that read the first chapter and liked it) so I don't even know if what I'm writing is pure rubbish. The only thing that keeps me going is when I remember how my dad always told me when I was younger that he was impressed by my writing skills and hoped I get published someday (he still encourages me to write). I'm also pretty much scared because while I hope to get published by some really good publishing house, I keep thinking about rejections. I've heard enough stories about writers getting rejection letters from agents. Even writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie experienced such surprisingly enough. Now that's what scares me for real. And it seems like it's when writers get rejected over and over again they switch to self-publishing (though not in all cases). But I really don't know about that. As in I don't really like the idea, though I know people like Myne have made a great success by self-publishing their work.

So I'm willing to explore my options. I went through an article some time ago describing the pros and cons of traditional and self-publishing respectively. But I can't really go into the details (check the link above). That's not my worry now anyways. Let me first finish the most important things in my life now, then finish the first draft of my book and then I can start talking about how to publish..

Anyways, that's all for now.

Thanks for visiting. Ciao 

Child Prodigy

Little Einstein...lol!!

Hiya, how are you guys?
Well, me I'm fine, except the weather is a bit annoying.

Anyways, I'm so glad to be back here writing.

 I remember when I was creating my own 11 questions when I took part in the Elevens tag and one of my questions was "At what age did you start school?" I was curious to know because I started school kinda early (just about two weeks before I turned two) and I'm always thinking what was the fuss sef..ahn ahn. It's not as if I've finished up till now sef!!.

I Was gisting with my family and just for laughs my dad mentioned that he spoke to one of my cousins who has two children, one of which just turned 3 and started school a while back. My dad asked after the little 3-year old and said casually "he should be back from school now", since it was a weekday and the time was about 3:00pm. But his mother answered "No, he's at lesson. They close by 4:00pm". OMG!! My dad said he burst into laughter and joked about the 3-year preparing for GCE and being a child prodigy.

When he shared it with us, I was so cracked up though it wasn't the first time I was hearing something like that. I know the 3-year old is very playful and stubborn, but seriously I'd rather he sat down in front of the TV watching Tweenies, BEN 10 or Phineas and Ferb, than learn A, B, C... from 8:00am to 2:00pm and then have another round from like 2:30pm to 4:00pm. I mean he's just a baby!!!

I now started remembering the little things I could about when I started school. I remember painting leaf patterns, singing nursery rhymes and also missing home. I don't really think I loved school like that like that (not as much as I do now anyways). As far as I was concerned then, when I was in school, I felt my parents just wanted to find a way to keep me away from them so they could have themselves to whatever they wanted to do. My dad can even attest to that, because he always likes to re-tell stories of him coming to pick me up from my Grandma's place and how I would kick and fuss and refuse to go home with them.

And then I got thinking. What's the reason for putting these children through all this stress sef. They probably wake up as early as 6:00am. Their parents force them to eat while they try to sneak back into their bed, then they get sent off to school amidst traffic and all the organic fumes in the atmosphere. They finally get to school, have to endure 8-2 and 2-4, for what? Is it a way of getting rid of them. Now, I don't like to judge and apparently, by God's grace I'll be a parent someday and will probably be a culprit, but I've ascertained that the reasons for this are either of the following possibilities;

-parents really have got to be at work and keeping the child away for as long as possible is very sensible

-the schools just want to make extra money and coerce parents to send their wards for 'lesson' no matter how young

-parents are really conscious of the fact that they want to raise a child prodigy, hence the earlier the child starts school the better.

It's somehow sha..Childhood should be a time of fun. I know it's hard especially with modern life. But children I think should ideally start school at 4 or 5 and at that age they don't need extra lessons yet too. I remember one of my other cousins who started school at 2 years old. I can tell you she was a very unhappy child. She cried a lot and was always at the bottom of the class..as in, in a class of 49 she always took the 49th position (I wonder what kind of exams they were doing sef). Anyways her father, my uncle finally, fully migrated to the UK and took her along when she was 3 and a half years old. When she got there they (her parents), thought they'll enroll her in a proper school immediately, so she'll continue with her 'studies'. But to her parents' surprise she wasn't allowed to enroll in school because they said she wasn't old enough!! She finally started school at 5 years old sha. And let me add that she started to do really better at school and I'm quite proud of her. Wow!..now that makes me wonder if the whole starting school early thingy is just a Nigerian thing and is maybe just another one of the problems we have, because if I remember clearly my parents told me stories (and I've read stories) about how they didn't start school until age 6. If your right hand didn't reach your left ear, you were not eligible for school. And quite honestly we know that back then education was education in Nigeria not what it is now even with children starting school as babies.

So what's the fuss?..

There are child prodigies sha, which I quite envy, so maybe it's not such a bad thing. Some children are just geniuses. I was awed to find out that Mozart started composing at age 5. Tiger woods even started playing golf at 2 years old. And also there's Akrit Jaswal, the seven-year old surgeon. And a host of others and others too

So what do you think? Are children starting school too early nowadays and at what age do you think is the ideal age for children to start school?

Thank you so much for visiting

God Bless You :)



btw, who's Sparkle2k3..the person is a new follower. Just wanted to say thank you for following my blog
image credit: http://valeriatittarelli.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/einstein.jpg

Death is painful

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."- Eskimo Proverb

The elderly woman next to me picked her phone call and in no less than a minute she was bellowing into it all too dramatically. Being quite irritated at it I thought to myself, "all these our Yoruba mamas sef that can't speak quietly on phone". In a short time she hung up and was hurriedly gathering up the people she had come with, an anxious look on her face, and they all walked out of the shop. My heart quaked a bit. It was none of my business, but I couldn't help being troubled by the woman's behaviour, I felt something grave must have happened.

It was later on I would find out that a Dana Aircraft had crashed somewhere in Iju-Ishaga. My mind trailed back to that woman's conversation, I was now so sure I heard her scream "Dana ke". I really hoped she had lost nobody.

I got home, after the outing with my family and we were disappointed the news was not on the local TV stations. If not for the social media we won't have been receiving any news. CNN was quite unsurprisingly reporting on the plane crash and interviewed a few people. My Dad's phone rang every minute. Everyone wanted to know that he was okay. You see my dad travels by Dana at least twice a week. He just got back from a trip on Thursday and we could bet that he must have flown in that plane not more than once. We shivered. Everyone that called was happy to hear my dad's voice. We thanked God, but what about those people that lost their families to the crash. I mean, it could have been us, because daddy usually traveled on Sundays like that too. And the buildings the plane crashed on, the people affected, they could have been us too.

I was very disturbed and my legs kept shaking all night. I was scared, I'm still scared. But death sha :( It just comes like that. Finally CHANNELS TV caught on and they had more pictures that on CNN and a live discussion was going on .We continued to hear all kinds of stories from everywhere; DANA had only four planes, that particular plane had a mechanical fault, the plane was over 20 years old. Whether the stories were true or not, I was angry at the neglect by the people in charge and wondered what if. What if that mechanical fault had been looked into, what if they had more planes, what if those people never went on that plane.

Matters were made worse when the Manifest was published on the social media. I didn't know any of those people. Relief would describe the emotion I should have initially felt at knowing no one I knew was involved. But I thought, those people have people that knew them, that loved them, that were probably at the airport waiting to pick them up. Those people would be traumatized. I wanted to try and feel the pain those people would be going through. I went to bed quite unhappy and scared. Scared of death and the way it just comes suddenly and a person is gone. My mum raised a good point; we all pray for journey mercies, pray against accidents and thank God for his protection. But those people that died, was it because they didn't know God. They must have been people who prayed too. Well over 50% of them must have known God. But they are dead. This life is a mystery and we can only pray to God for protection, thank Him for his protection and pray for the dead and their loved ones who are dealing with the loss.

May the Souls of all Those Who Died in the Dana Plane Crash and the Souls of all the Faithful Departed Rest In Peace. Amen.