Debate: Birth control promotes promiscuity. Agree or Disagree

Hiya!!

Pharmacy school's quite fun at the moment. I'm feeling so happy about the coming future. By God's grace everything will be good :)

Today we had a Clinical Pharmacy class on family planning, etc, today and the lecturer decided she wanted us to have a sort of debate in the class. So she threw the topic to the class;

Birth control promotes promiscuity. Agree or disagree.

For some reason I sharply identified with the 'Agree' side. The reason being that I have always been of the opinion that if birth control didn't exist people will be less likely to engage in premarital/extra-marital affairs.
But by the end of the class I left with a different opinion.

Okay lemme give you part of the gist.

Two people spoke on the 'Agree' side. The first person argued that birth control is and should be for the well-being of the family and to help in planning a family, and not for any use outside that. The second person complained that the media didn't help matters. That most advertisements on contraceptives made sex look good and hence promote promiscuity instead of focusing the message on 'Abstinence is best'

After they spoke I knew we 'Agree' people didn't have a strong argument because I was suddenly not convinced again.

Two people on the 'Disagree' side also spoke. The first person said birth control in fact helps us, that it does not promote promiscuity. He said the media is polluted, that there is nothing that is not sold with sex as the underlying message. He jokingly added that he doesn't see any reason why a normal advertisement for a car or something like that should make use of bikini models as props. Everyone laughed and nodded and I remembered my post. So, he argued that if this is what the media does to us, then please let's propagate the use of birth control since we know that a lot of people have sex (sometimes due to a lot of pressure from media, peers etc), and hence prevent unwanted births.

We were still laughing at the thought of selling stuff with sex when the lecturer cited an example of an almost naked girl being used to advertise petrol at a filling station. In her words, "there is nothing sexy about petrol, in fact petrol smells horrible and filling stations are not nice places to hang out, so I don't see why anyone would sell petrol using a half naked woman"

I could not hold my laughter

The second 'Disagree' person made sense. She said, "birth control or no birth control, people will still be promiscuous. In the olden days they didn't have birth control and they were still promiscuous"...lol

A third person supported their motion and made even more sense, warranting an applause from the class.

At the end of the debate I was on both sides

'Agree', because, I still feel in some measure birth control aids promiscuous behaviour in some people. 'Disagree', because, when used in the right setting, it is of value to a family looking to plan their lives and should not be blamed for people being promiscuous.

The only issue for me was the fact that our lecturer kept hammering on the fact that we as Pharmacists have a role to provide birth control information and service to the community. Someone mentioned, "what about our personal beliefs on the topic?" and the lecturer said, "beliefs or no beliefs it is your responsibility to provide the service".

Now that's a tricky one for me especially since I battled with this a lot during my student-work experience in a community pharmacy.
But, the lecturer made it clearer. She said she wasn't saying we shouldn't have our personal beliefs, but that as Pharmacists we shouldn't be judgmental or condemn people (mostly unmarried people) that ask for any sort of birth control, but we should provide birth control tools for people if we find ourselves in a community pharmacy setting, because the whole idea is to help reduce the population and reduce mortality rates due to inability of the healthcare system to cater for increasing population needs. She said it is only when you finally develop a relationship with the person and you guys have a good rapport that you can start trying to make the person see things from your own point of view/ preach, if contrary to their own.

For me it made sense and I was kinda relieved, because that's one issue that bugs me ehn.. Still bugs me.
Just too complicated

Anyways let me throw it to you too;

Birth control promotes promiscuity. Agree or disagree.

Thanks for stopping by :)

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

All Because of BOUNTY???

Hiya, how was your weekend?

I’m happy ‘cos now I have two new followers. Ehn, I know there’s no reason to be so happy but two more followers is something joor. At least to me. My growth as a blogger is a slow process, I know, but I’m being patient enough to wait for that period when I will have my growth spurt.

Thanks LDP and JO for following my blog.

Now to the tori of the day. I know you’re looking at the title and wondering "what about BOUNTY?" But I’ll talk about that later in the post, because actually it’s divided into two. First I’ll be pondering on what makes people find it so easy to lie, then I’ll be talking about the Bounty story.

One of my watchwords ever since I’ve known myself is ‘Honesty is the best policy’ and seriously I’ve tried with the help of God to remain honest in all I do. I’m not claiming to be any saint o, but I’ve always been of the opinion that in everything we do, we should be honest even when it looks like we might get killed for trying to be or even if being dishonest will fetch us something supposedly ‘good’ without us getting caught.

Early this semester in school, I was late for one of my laboratory classes. It was my first time late for that class and I was distraught because I knew it meant I wouldn’t catch the introduction to the work for the day, which always comes early before we start the real practicals and because I knew I stood the risk of being sent out of the lab for that day. Well I wasn’t the only one who was late. The lecturer sha said he was not going to let us in, then people started begging, "Excuse me sir, this will be the last time", "I came to the class earlier, but I went out to buy something", "I ‘m coming from a lecture..." Basically all kind of excuses. The lecturer decided to let us off, but on one condition, that we wrote an "affidavit" promising not to ever come late for the class. Obviously we were supposed to include our name in it. Me, I thought to myself, ‘well what’s the big deal’, I tore out a sheet of paper and started creating the perfect piece of writing like I love to...lol.. I had begun to write when I noticed that the almost 30 others I was late with were writing fake names on their affidavit. I was worried o, because I wondered what prompted them to, because personally I didn’t even feel the lecturer was going to take the whole thing serious and the loose sheets of paper will probably get lost in his office. I wrote my real name, submitted my paper and proceeded to start the work for the day. But, I still had the whole thing on my mind, because seriously I really don’t understand how the human mind works and why people do the stuff they do.

Lying has become such a fad, that if you don’t know how to lie, or better still cheat, you’re either described as ‘holy holy’ or as a ‘mumu’. Because I’m very sure that day gan some people were looking at me like, "see this mumu writing her real name". But to me if I get into trouble, I get into trouble, because after all I always try my possible best to stay out of trouble.

The above is just one of the many examples of cases where I try my best to understand why lying is so easy to do. People cheat on exams like it’s no big deal. The annoying part is that they would have read o, but they just feel they must cheat sha, if not they will not pass. At least that’s what I think. Because, remember I don’t understand people o.

Last year on boxing day, I was having a discussion, or rather listening to a discussion among my dad, my uncles, my cousins and brother and my brother was talking about the utter disrespect he had for people who cheated on exams when he was in the university. He said if he saw such people in the future and he was asked to vote them into a place of power he would rather not. "Cos na from small e dey start".

We complain our leaders are bad, they are dishonest, they are this, they are that. But you, look at yourself in the mirror. If you can find it so easy to cheat on tests, cheat the market woman selling indomie to you or vice versa, how much more when you get into power. If you can’t be trusted in little things, how about when you are given much more. Look at Luke 16:10

That was a digression, just a bit. Nyways my uncle spoke and told my brother that, funny it’s those kind of people that end up getting into power when they grow up. And he was very right!!!!

To my second story of the day which actually gave me the zeal to write this post.

Okay, this evening o I went to one provisions store on my campus to get something. When I got there, there was a small crowd. Finally it got to my turn, but there was this guy who had been there since complaining that he had paid for ‘pure water’, but the only lady selling had not answered his request. Just then another guy came into the store. The ‘manager’.  The manager gave the guy the pure water. The guy was still standing there sha. Then he started asking how much Bounty Chocolate is. The lady didn’t answer. They were too many people to attend to. The manager came to the rescue and gave the guy the Bounty and then went into the inner room of the store, while the guy remained waiting for his change. The girl selling finally paid him attention and asked tiredly, ‘has the manager given you the bounty’ and guess what, the boy said ‘No’ innocently. I was shocked and watched as the lady opened the fridge and gave him another Bounty as she fished out his change. Seriously I thought the guy had forgotten he had been given Bounty already or maybe I was the one that thought he had been given Bounty. Just then I looked into his carrier bag and lo and behold was a Bounty already sitting there comfortably, while he added the second one to it. Oh, I felt like telling, really I did; that might sound babyish. I mean he had lied, he had stolen. What a mess!!!!! Even when he went I still felt like telling, but I kept it to myself.

Now back in my room, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Should I just have blurted out that he had one already or was it best what I did, minding my own business’. I feel kinda bad for the lady, ‘cos she didn’t know.

Anyhows, I hope I get over it. But that’s what prompted me to write this new post before I sleep.

So what do you think?

**********

That was pretty long.

Thanks for stopping by....... Oh and I better say, "R.I.P Whitney Houston" :(

Practice makes perfect

When I was in secondary school, there was this head girl I admired for a while and that was because of an article I read about her that was cut out from a newspaper and posted on our notice board in school. The newspaper featured her because she had won another competition (she was always winning them). This particular competition was in mathematics and once sentence that struck me in her interview was when she stated that 'practice makes perfect'. She said she practised mathematics everyday, and that was what made her so good in mathematics. I was interested in the article and after I went back to my class, I thought to myself, "one does not necessarily have to be a genius or child prodigy, one justs has to learn how to practise frequently, because practice makes perfect".

The more you work at something, the more you become familiar with it and the more you excel at it.

This principle has become more important to me since recently I started working on my final year project. If I hadn't tried to master all those principles I had come across since my first year down to my fifth year I wouldn't be finding it so easy to carry out the work I am carrying out presently. I practised, practised, practised all over again and now I look back and I'm happy with how far I have come. I have no regrets whatsoever for being such a 'good' student (people tend to label one the 'good' student more or less in a sarcastic fashion, but at the end of the day one is still better off than them and they will be frequently amazed at how one is able to do some things as if those things are rocket science).

And of course when I'm done I'll scream!!!....in joy!!!!......

And might I add, practice doesn't just make perfect, it also builds confidence.

My confidence in my abilities has definitely increased over the years.


Anyways that's it for now. Just wanted to bare my thoughts.

Thanks for stopping by.

School and Inspiration

I had a very inspiring lecture in school December last year. No..actually two consecutive inspiring lectures by the same lecturer. 

The lectures were for a Course we dread so much in Pharmacy school- Pharmacognosy. A complex term for the study of crude drugs of natural origin. The lectures were about research into medicinal plants and harnessing our plant resources in Nigeria to produce useful drugs and hence improve the economy.

I learnt a lot from those two lectures and left the class those two times feeling empowered, feeling like I could make a change. Our lecturer talked about useful plants which we had in Nigeria that are actually precursors of very important drugs. Some of these drugs we still import from countries like the USA beecause we’ve failed to tap into our own resources.

Nigeria has a great diversity of plants whose healing properties have been verified scientifically, though some of their effects are unexplainable. However we still don’t acknowledge our own plant drugs and instead prefer  western medicine.

Now, I’m not against orthodox medicine. Afterall we are taught extensively on it in school and also carry out practicals on the synthesis of drugs. But really, a lot of our solution lies in nature.

Now it’s seem like I’m boring you..buh what I was just trying to bring out is how importantly the lectures I had impacted on me so much that lately have been thinking of going into postgraduate research in medicinal plants once I’m through with my undergrad.  But I’m not still sure yet sha, still thinking.To think I hated Pharmacognosy so much before. Plants are boring.......buh i need to be part of the change we need especially in these perilous times!!!!  And funny I’m not the only one that ‘felt’ the lecture. Someone actually told me his view was beginning to change and he was considering research too. Some of my other coursemates even said the lectures were interesting. No one has ever said that about that course. ‘Tis good to know a lot of them were inspired too!!

Anyways, I really feel like God is trying to tell me something o ‘cos just 2 weeks ago I found out who my final year project supervisor is. It’s a lecturer in Pharmacognosy!!!. I was hoping for anything else but Pharmacognosy, was thinking maybe Pharmaceutical Chemistry..Oh, well...so i’m going to be doing research in plants for the remaining part of the session and trust me it’s going to be very tedious. I’m ready to face the challenge God-willing.

Well that’s it for now. 

Oh, by the way, I’ve become more enlightened on the principles of the fuel subsidy and the reason for its removal. But I’m still not sure if I’m for or against it.

Till when next I fink of something to post.

Bye.