I'll be Missing in Action

Hello everyone I hope we all had a great weekend. How do I start this. Okay, I have felt really welcome to blogville and I've been really enjoying myself. However I do have more pressing things I need to attend to right now. I have just 4 weeks to complete my degree and in the middle of writing my dissertation so my plate is full at the moment. It will really be tight making time to write and read blogs within this period so I have decided to suspend all blogging activities until the 18th of May.

Obviously I cant rule out the occassional peeking through my favorite blogs cos I think I am addicted already but that will be it. I am really gonna miss you all and I hope by the time am back there will be some juicy readings to catch up on. Good luck with everything and see you guys soon.
Tara!

...And the Earth Moved

I saw you first
I was waiting on the platform
You were alighting from the train
Our eyes met
My heart froze

It was a daily occurrence from then on
I purposely stay on the same platform
Just to catch a glimpse of you  
And a glimpse of you I did catch

My heart does a skip
Every time my gaze behold yours
I wonder if you feel the same
Oblivious of the multitude of people around us
I could feel the warm fuzzy feeling coursing through my body

My courage fails me
But I long for you to say hi
Wondering if you notice me at all
Wondering if you feel what I feel

Today I got my chance
Suddenly all was gone
There was just me and you
Within inches of each other
My heart jumped in joy

I opened my mouth
But nothing came out
All I felt was the lump in my throat
The music on my iPod had suddenly stopped

Then I saw your lips move
Did he say hello?
My innocent brown eyes looked at you
Inquiring and willing you to say something 

Nothing came
You passed me by
My shoulders slumped in dejection
I looked back at you
With eyes welled in tears

Our eyes locked again
I thought I saw your lips coil in a smile
And a faint sparkle in your eyes
Or did I not?

Guys I wrote this a while ago for a bloke that used to make my heart flutter at the train station but whom I never had the courage to walk up to. My normal self would have walked up to him to have a chat, but at 8 o'clock in the morning while everyone is trying to find their way to work, that is hardly an ideal time to exchange chit chat with a stranger who may even knock you back. Has anybody ever found themselves in this perplexing situation? How did you deal with?

My Friends in Nigeria and Western Guys

Okay, some of us have probably had an encounter with the yankee or jand boy who comes to Nija throwing money around, driving a big car and wanting to sleep with all the beautiful girls around. I've never been personally involved with any of the sort but I have rolled with friends who have them as boyfriends and I must say it can be real fun. We eat in choice restaurants as well as gaining entry into clubs that ordinarily cost a fortune for girls like us. Another glamour of dating yankee or jand guy is the fact that you can flaunt them around your friends who salivate over their smooth skin and fluid accent.

Perhaps under this allurement is the major heartbreak that lurks around for these girls. Its all well and good when a girl decides to date a Yankee/Jand guy for money, but when such a girl pins her hopes on him for marriage then she's asking for trouble. For most of my friends who have married guys from abroad, their husbands acted swiftly ensuring that they ask for their hands in marriage within no time and bring them to live for them in their respective states. But for the majority of guys who just go to Nija to have a nice time, they make false promises of marriage, visit Nigeria about 3 times a year but never make any concrete arrangements to seal their liaisons with the girls they've made promises of love to. In turn, under the razzle-dazzle of money, the girls forget to use their God-given brains to smell the coffee before its too late.

Within the last few months I've had calls from three of my friends who called me all crying about their broken heart. The guys who broke their hearts all fit the prototype of the typical Yankee/Jand guy who already has a wife and kid(s) and furnishes them with empty promises of love and marriage. Even for someone who lives in London, I've been deceived by these same kind of guy and quickly had to learn the hard way. Perhaps what surprises me most is that all of them have fallen victim of the sorts of guys not once, not twice. Accepted, most of them run after these guys cos they have suddenly seen a free ticket to London or Yankee but are they so stupid to fall in love? Maybe its poverty that has not only eaten deep into their pockets but also into brains.

Please girls smarten up, if you're gonna date a western guy at all let it be just for his money and accept any other things that comes with it as a bonus. Stop blowing up my phones cos I ain't agony aunt.

Who's your happiness dependent on?

I was having a messenger conversation last night with a friend of mine who's just left his wife of 4 years and has a 3 year old daughter. He was trying to give me advice on marriage and some important things popped out of our conversation. It makes a long read but the points made are quite important and relevant and I will like to know what your point of view is. There are no right or wrong ideas.

Below is excerpts from our conversation.

Friend: na wife go determine if the man go live happily or not. once una marry, u let urself go, all those things weh u do to catch am, u stop. all the lace bra, push ups, go turn to cottons later, all the low rise jeans go turn to wrapper rise
Ollay: its not as simple as that
Friend: even a pastor friend weh i get deh complain too
hin wife no deh give am do anymore, shes always tired
for six months now no sex
Ollay: you men fail to appreciate the psychological and physiological changes women go through when they grow older and have kids
Friend: hmm u never go thru am now so how u wan take know
Ollay: as a woman i can identify with other women who have gone thru it
Friend: yea some men are bad, we all know that,but suprisingly, na the good ones deh suffer
Ollay: u guys need to start changing your thinking and attitude. While it is not acceptable for a woman to let herself go it is unfair for a man to ask a woman to be like she was when she was 24 after she's had one or more kids, grown older with slower metabolism and has more responsibility both in the house and at work
Friend: ok, u know what, lets have this conversation in ur second year of marriage
just remember everything weh we discuss today
cause me i no deh forget stuff
Ollay: listen am not saying you're not mentioning what the poblems are but you men just fail to see the sheer scale of it
and that in itself is a problem you expect too much and think too much about your dicks. where is the compassion
how many men are still their trendy self as when they first got married. were you not the one saying you want to loose weight too, that's the same way it is for women. men get away with murder yet crucify women. have you forgotten they have feelings too?
Friend: at least i realised i need to loose weight, u guys don’t. after na don born, dem don deh call u mama risi,e don finish everything go just deh sloppy
Ollay: trust me they do. am undertaking a research for my dissertaion. I sampled 102 women and 96% of them have tried to loose weight but its difficult.
Friend: dem wan lose weight aftr men don dissapoint them. tell me about women weh deh husband house
Ollay: nah, a sizable number of them are married
Friend: really
Ollay: sometimes I really do wonder what planet men come from,your arguments are so one-sided. while I agree with you that some women do sit on their butts and do nothing abt their look you fail to see that men have unrealistic demands
Friend: i am not saying we do not have faults men have faults, we cheat,but most times its because our women lose the sex urge, stop looking attractive and stop caring about themselves. i am talking from experience,so will many men
Ollay: na lie what abt the men who cheat on perfectly stunning women, you will say its cos they have one comma. abegi
Friend: women dont know what it takes to make thir man happy anymore.
Ollay: why shud men depend on women to be happy? why cant they seek their happiness for themselves, everything is a woman's fault. am sick and tired of men trying to pull the wool over women's eyes due to their own inadequacies
Friend: thats what u think, u still thinking like a single person
Ollay: you never waka so? you think she wont be happy anymore or you wont be happy anymore? abeg leave story
Friend: ok, u go soon enter. i have been there, u have not, if u marry and leave because u are not happy,whats the probabilty that the next one will be better. thats why our grandmothers teh for husband house cause deh work it out
Ollay: who needs a man to be happy I dont depend on a man to be happy he's coming into my life to share in my happiness and to give me more happiness not to make me happy. Am gonna try my best to live in harmony just like I would do if i was at work or church or anywhere else. And if after I’ve done my best, he’s not happy then the door is there for him. if he compromises my happiness and I’ve tried to make things work to no avail, the door is there for me. Let no man come and tell me am the architect of his own misfortune. life is what we individually make of it not what someone else makes of it for you. chikena
Friend: ok o, u win, ur mentality never change at all. when u marry ,u no know say when one is not happy,the other is not
Ollay: am not saying that each other's happiness dont impact on one anothers. what am saying is that when you are both unhappy and have tried to work it out without success you move on and get ur happiness back.
Friend: u think its that easy abi, stop thinking like this o
Ollay: marriage shud be abt two happy pple who want to share their love and hapiness together but when it becomes difficult to share such love and happiness then they shud find an amicable way to resolve things.
Friend: talk as an educated person but not as an experienced person. let me ask u, are u happy
Ollay: of cos am happy
Friend: with urself?
Ollay: yes
Friend: when u dont have a man
Ollay: absolutely
Friend: ok, good for u
Ollay: happiness have categories, you could be happy being single then have a different sort of happiness when you’re with someone. but it doesnt mean that when you were single you were unhappy. you could also be with someone and be happy but you could break up and find that you're happier. also happiness does not mean you dont compromise or compromise does not mean you cant be happy. bending your rules may not make you completely happy but I doubt you will bend your rules at all if it was going to cost you too much unhappiness. breaking off your marriage may not making you instantly happy but in the long run you may become happier. it all depends on the where, when, why, who, how
Friend: u see ,thats selfishness right there,when u married,its not bout u alone again, u have to stop been self centered. its about ur family
Ollay: selfishness is subjective. what;s the point of rowing 24 7 with ur wifey and the children can hear. how happy do you think they will be?
Friend: u know me, i go rub am to ur face when u change this way of reasoning
Ollay: forget it. life unravels and as it unravels one's points of view changes. so i wait for it to unravel.
Friend: u need loose small of this fire o, u are still young sha, u never see life
Ollay: if u say so

Have You Noticed?

This yeye British government...they are such two-faced cowards. Haven't you noticed that when they want to do something bad they start with something good first. Anyway let me break it down for you. First it was global warming. Do you remember how they started? They started by encouraging people to go green cos it's ethical to be kind to the environment. They tried to convince people that they are doing it to safe-guard the environment for the future generation and bladibla...Then the rhetoric changed to green tax? Green tax? What da heck does that mean? They added £10 to short haul flights and £20 to long hauls. They increased road tax on gaz guzzlers and home information pack was introduced for 4-bedroom homes, then now to 3 bedrooms and its gonna spread to all homes before the end of the year. People are now penalised for not being 'mindful' of the environment. All of these measures generating millions if not billions of pounds in revenue for the government. And what do they use it for? To house single mothers who deliberately fall out of school to get pregnant (issue for another day).

What is the object of my rants today...immigration. You guys will be like I've come again but yes I will talk...the headlines on British newspapers today is IMMIGRATION DOES NOT BRING ANY BENEFIT TO BRITAIN. I am sure I dont need to start dissecting how wrong that headline is. My issue is not whether immigration has been beneficial to Britain or not, my issue is that the British government is the most spineless, lip-service govt that I know. What will be so wrong in them admitting that immigration has been beneficial to our country but we were too stupid to know when to stop. I am in immigrant in Britain but even I look around me and see how immigration is crippling the same economy it helped build because the British government were either too stupid or too greedy to do something about it. Now that they're ready to do something about it they feel smearing the hardworking immigrants who have worked to put this country on the financial power map is the right way to go about it. For the shallow minded people that make up a third of the indigenous British people, what they'll do now is regard immigrants with a scornful and contemptuous look on their faces without knowing the full facts. People who don't live in this country don't have a good idea how unenlightened indigenous British people are. A large chunk of the them dont have minds of their own and its the Sun newspaper who makes up their mind for them (chei...have you seen those page 3 girls?).

Anyways back to business. I guess the only good things about this recent development is that the Nigerians who felt this was home before can now start to return home to do something better. Hopefully we can fix Nija's problems together and live a better life out there cos trust me this place is turning very wack! And those who are outside the gate peeking in, spending all their hard earned money all in the name of coming to the UK may have a re-think. British economy is sinking and they want to blame it on the immigrants who built their country for them...I siddon look.