On Being a Christian

I've been inspired to do a blog on my faith for a while now, but i think i got the much needed push a couple of days back...

It all started with the Bus 25 again! After i solemnly vowed not to go on that bus again, see it was all Scribbles fault o! Anyways i got on the bus again headed home and this time it was a ...for lack of a better word..religious fanatic. He had this huge ghana-must-go bag with all his paraphernalia in it, placards and stuff. Now Oxford Circus to Mile End is roughly 30-45 mins and this man did not shut it for the entire journey. He was going on and on about free masons, dogs and the queen.He said they had killed some guy named Mark Quinsey feel free to google. Mark Quinsey was a soldier shot dead by IRA gunmen outside the army barracks in North Ireland, he was due to return to the Afghan war the next day. His family descibed it as an irony that he was killed on UK soil, I agree. Anyways i didnt know anything about Mark Quinsey till i heard the "prophet" on the bus.

He was quite hilarious frankly, he said the queen was a witch, a serial killer, that she killed 100 people in a year. I nearly fainted when he said people who didnt wear coats in this weather were practicing spiritual wickedness cos they wanted to control the minds of others so that they wouldnt dress warmly. He had a lot against the Free masons ( i no no wetin dem do am o!) called them dogs that would burn in hell. He also talked about Madoff who "made of with people's money" and Adam Levine who was "living with people's money" The pun is entirely his, by the way. My friend's and I had a laugh after we got of the bus, but long after that it still had me thinking.

They say that there is some truth in the ramblings of a mad or drunken man. There was a lot of truth in what that guy had to say but much of it had been buried under a burning hatred, misguided passion and i dare say mild lunacy! He was what some would call a "fire and brimstone preacher" Change, repent or go to hell.

I was born and raised a Christian but my beginnings were not so clearcut. My Dad was a staunch Anglican, we went to church at 8am and stayed till 12noon cos he sat through the English service and one in my native language. He donated generously towards the harvest and building fund, so much so that they used to beat my brother and I in the junior church cos they were so certain Chief had given us more than 5 naira for offering (they were right though!)My Mum was a Catholic who later went pentecostal, actually so did my Dad a couple of years later when he suffered a stroke and often woke up at night to find out that the group of people praying around his bed were from my mother's church and not his.

As a child, in church i was at the forefront, in the choir, choreography, drama and all, but mostly it was because i loved the spotlight. I have been a person of faith for so long now, what i am not so sure about was whether it was myself i believed in or if it was God. I always had this calm confidence that i would get those things that were important to me, especially as far as my education was concerned. I didnt fret about exams or other things that should have made me anxious. I do not know exactly when i made the transition to a person that has so much faith in God on the other hand i think, maybe i have always been that person.

Dont get me wrong, i am far from perfect in my walk with God, i'm not the girl that sits in the front row of church or falls under the spirit every Sunday but my relationship with God is clear. He loves me, completely in this way that amazes me, that makes me wonder if i'm worthy, that breaks my heart every time i fail HIm, because i know that He is the only one that sees all of me, not just the side i want to show and yet He still loves me. I constantly crave a complete connection with God cos thats the only time i feel truly secure. How do i know this? I'm alive, in good health, food on my table, clothes on my back, studying under a scholarship at one of UK's top 15 law schools.

How do i know that its God, not just some coincidence to have been blessed this way? I just do, there's a strong conviction inside of me, something that is so hard to explain, something that i wish i could share with the rest of the world and this brings me back to my point, the man on the bus. He believes in what he was saying with all of his heart, so much that he risks questions to his sanity to shout it out in a bus full of about 200 people (or more!) So then i think maybe he's not crazy, maybe we are all looking at the same thing from different angles and seeing it differently. I think we all just need something to believe in, and for most of us its a struggle to explain the basis for our beliefs. In all this what scares me the most is that there are people out there that dont believe in anything, how do they get by???

MY GAYMOMETER, THE BOBBIT AND A MILD CASE OF OCD

This is going to be a very organised random post about mainly three things, anything else wouldn't fit into the title and would totally mess up my zen!

First, the gaymometer. I invented this device like 2 or 3 weeks ago, precisely when it dawned on me that i would be living in this freezer for the next year (or more)Anyways sitting on the tube or the bus can be so boring at times (at least in Nigeria you could buy anything ranging from gala to an LCD TV in traffic)so i decided to invent the gaymometer. What the gaymometer does is to measure any random guy on a scale of 1 to 10 on his gayness level. It started this one day when i saw a guy on the bus in tights (manty hose) a knit dress, knee-high lace up boots and the cherry on the cake, a patent bag. Instead of thinking about the tax class i was running late for, i started analysing what category he fell into, was he gay, tranny, psycho or what. I mean gay men are usually meticulous (the ones i want to be my best friend, in the style of Will & Grace at least) and that knit dress was way too shabby, so i just concluded he was either a tranny, a psycho or a psycho tranny. Since then the gaymometer was born! It's actually fun using it, i give a point for anything patent leather, shoes or bags, 2 points for a man-bag! Ultra-skinny jeans get 2 points, 1 point for slick, nicely put together hair, another for eyeliner and recently eyelash extensions! I hear that is all the rage now. Oooh and my personal favourite, a crisp shirt with an argyle sweater tied loosely around the neck. I mean that is gayer than Carson from the Fab Five.

Second random, you know those thingies people put up on the dashboard in their cars, maybe like baseball stars, with a skinny body and a huge head that just keeps bobbing up and down? Anyways i call them bobbits and i've seen a life size one. It was my Commercial law class and i sat next to this babe that kept nodding at every sentence the teacher made. I mean, i get it that sometimes you totally agree with or can identify with something your teacher says and then you nod your assent. Well this babe nodded at every thing and i mean EVERYTHING. Even when the teacher said we might need to change venues, she kept nodding till i started to feel sorry for her, i mean those were some vigorous nods. Now anytime i see her the word "bobbit" just pops in my head. Hope i dont call her that one day!

Last but definitely not least. Hi, my name is Neo and i have an obsessive compulsive disorder, albeit a mild one. I'm not as bad as people who count steps or turn on and off lights a certain number of times. I dont carry plastic cutlery in my bag cos i cant use the ones at the takeout place. I dont scrub my bathroom floor with lysol everytime i have to take a bath. My OCD is a very mild one, some of the things it makes me do include the following:
1. I like the front of everything facing out, like my cereal box, how the hell am i supposed to know its Frosties, if its turned the other way, right?
2. I cant stand cancelling a word or sentence in my notebook, if i do it just stares at me and picks at me, till i've torn out that page and done it all over again. Sometimes it may be my writing that picks at me.
3. I fold my clothes in a particular way and put them away blunt side facing me, no layers (which is why i knew that the cleaning lady had looked through my african print clothes!)
4. I cant stand using a toothbrush without a hygeine cap, sometimes i buy really crappy toothbrushes just for the hygeine caps and then use them on my good brushes.
5, This is probably the strongest of them all, I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT SHARE THE SAME SPOON FOR CEREAL OR GARRI WITH ANYONE! Not my boyfriend (whom i constantly excahnge oral fluids with btw) or my closest friends or my 11 month old newphew who slobbers baby spit all over my face! I can share a spoon for rice and anything else that doesnt consist of 80% of water. It just seems like the person would be rinsing their...arrrgh! You get the point. This was such an issue for my ex, who thot maybe i didnt love him enough to get over my "little phobia"

The list is much longer but i'll stop here before i start to realise maybe its not so mild afterall. I do have this friend though that will fold all her clothes all over again if you so much as touch them! See i'm not so bad after all!

The Evil that is Bus 25!

Ever heard the saying “be careful what you wish for”? Well someone could say that to me now, but I still wouldn’t mind cos even tho this isnt exactly what I wished for, I’m still loving it. I love whining about money, and complaining about how expensive everything is, I love trying to plan a budget and then absolutely ignoring it when those lovely shoes seem to be screaming my name. I love being able to eat what I want anytime I want.

It’s week three in London and I’m still going strong, I mean the last time I was here 10 days couldn’t end sooner, but this phase of my life marks the beginning of my independent life and I’d sooner choke than say I preferred my old life (at least for now) I’m all settled in, past the phase of buying silver pots that turn black when hot (I have since convinced myself that it is some sort of technology that tells you when the pot is really hot but I still pray a long prayer before I eat anything cooked in it, I’ve seen way too many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy) and irons that you could leave on your shirt, take a shower and come back to finish your ironing. What can I say, it’s the student life. I put up a notice on my pin board to remind me NO MORE CHEAP STUFF. Isn’t it ironic how I’m willing to skint on the basics but when it comes to clothes and shoes, no holds barred. Even considering the fact that I’m supposed to use the 3 pound iron to iron a 35 pound shirt…geez okay that’s a question for my therapist.

I have also been well acquainted with the evil (on is it 8 wheels now) that is called the Bus 25, this bus runs down my road and can get me to my classes and my favourite place in London, Oxford Circus! However, it is a rolling advertisement for every freakshow in London, see now the last thing I can be labeled as is rascist (I mean I am willing to marry a whitie for the sake of my future half caste babies) but that bus seems to draw out everything that should stay underground. This particular day my friends and I decided to go to Stratford Shopping Centre cos there’s this store that sells Nigerian foodstuff (I mean right down to our breakable bottled Fanta!) Immedaitely we got on the bus we were assailed by this stench that would make even the strongest cologne flee from the body of its wearer. I mean it was undescribeable, think of every bad smell you can think of, mix them up and it still wouldn’t smell that bad. It was awful and I noticed half of the people in the bus had their heads hidden in their clothes. I was tempted to get off at the next stop but decided to hold out cos our stop was just up ahead. As usual the bus was so full that there was no need to hold on to the bars, each person’s body was a support system for the next person, it was like some kind of garage band dance, grunging, I think they call it. Anyways as soon as someone got off his seat, feeling like a sharp Naija babe I jumped on it. I noticed my friend was giving me some weird look but I couldn’t figure out why, till I heard him. Oh Lawd! I was sitting next to the harbinger of the smell, he was a BUM!!! Drunk as hell and as stinky as Satan’s curse! I jumped off the chair and tried to make my way to the front of the bus but there was no safe place from that smell. A couple of people fell victim and sat next to him but none lasted a full minute, the guy could have taken a nap across two seats if he wanted. When we got off it was like swimming under water and then surfacing for air, I thought my lungs would burst. We bitched about it for a while, my friend said no way that could happen in Naija, a bum wanting to enter a bus or even molue? Even if the conductor let him on, the passengers would throw him right out. Here, I’m sure they even have one law like The Protection of Bums, Destitute People and Bag Ladies from all forms of Discrimination 1809 and if you so much as turned up your nose at him, na that time the sepe go clear from the guy eye and next thing you’re before Lord Mansfield trying to explain why legal proceedings should not be commenced against you.

On all other fronts, I’m doing well. Will soon commence OPERATION MARRY ONYIBO MAN FOR THE SAKE OF MY FUTURE HALF CASTE BABIES. (me sef no say i no well)

Resurfacing

I was going to apologise for being MIA but then i realised i wasnt the only one and that i wasn't missed so i've decided to save my apology for my next big screw up. Wow, i cant blive its been only 2 weeks, it feels like years since i was last year and i have really really really missed blogging. Well a lot has changed and apparently studying for a masters in law is not beans o! I have had a hectic month from preparations to travel, settling down and all. In fact my story long well well. I will have to sit down and dedicate one weekend to a 2page blog.

So look forward to it.

Ciao!!!

21 random Things.....

1. I actually typed the heading first so lets see if i can make it to 21!

2. My bestie (B-girl) got engaged today and it was sooooooooo romantic and i actually cried (well aside form the smoke from the barbeque getting in my eyes, i was pretty emotional) She was just bawling her eyes out and she held her man like she would never let go. it was satisfying watching them seeing as her fiance(oooooh fiance!) and I have been planning the perfect proposal for months. We had 4 tshirts made with the words WILL YOU MARRY ME? He wore the ME? of course, and when we popped out she just lost it! So raise a glass to B-girl and S!

3. I kissed my ex at the party.

4. I leave for London at 8:05pm tomorrow and i still have a ton of stuff to do

5. its 1:20am and i'm fagged out but cant sleep.

6. I'm worrying that my suitcases weigh far more than the measly 40kg i'm entitled to.

7. Now i'm thinking maybe 21 was too ambitious.

8. I think what i'll miss most is Nigerian food and i'm bummed i didnt get to eat starch and banga soup before i leave.

9. I wonder if my new FB friend is gay and likes me.

10. I wonder what my flatmates are like and pray none is psycho enough to slit my throat in the middle of the night.

11. Just read Ms Dufa's last post and the picture of Chucky (the evil doll in Childs Play) is still freakin me out, like any minute ill hear ade-doo-dee-demdeleba- give-me-the-power-i-beg-of-you!"

12. I should take a shower.

13. The LAN connection on my laptop is messed up so i'm hoping i can get wireless in my room.

14. I wonder if i'm all talk or whether i can actually date a white guy (i can do it for my kids o, fine half caste babies)

15. I already miss the crazy half of my family in Ptown.

16. Wow, i still have 5 to go?

17. I expected the "new guy"to call but he didnt. No points for that.

18. My ex still loves me. how do i know? well he said it like 10 thousand times today, me? how do i put this...in simplest terms ï dont know"and that cant be a good sign.

19. I need a bath and sleep, maybe i should kill two birds with one stone and sleep in the tub.

20. Not looking forward to the looooooooong flight, on the bright side after tomorrow i can always say i've been to Dubai (the airport definitely counts)

21. I've missed Blogger!

SEE ME SEE WAHALA O!

Okay brace yourself for an early morning rant (its no longer morning, those demon pipo in PHCN have been holding the light all day). Before I start I must apologise for my last post, that semi-comprehensible mumbo jumbo that I posted yesterday. I was definitely under the influence…of what now? That, I am yet to discover.

It’s Saturday and my day started at 7am, you see I am not fortunate enough to belong to one of those households that permit the luxury of a Saturday morning lie-in. No way hose, as my niece would say. I wake up at 7am on a Saturday morning and everybody is staring at me like they would like to meet the Prince Charming that woke Sleeping Grumpy from her 8-hour slumber. It’s no joke o! My nephews and niece wake up between 4am and 5am mostly but on weekdays now that is a different story. I think they just enjoy wasting time and making me late for work (well that no longer matters seeing as I am currently “taking some down time” haha I dubbed that from the last Marian Keyes I read. It’s code for I got canned, I don’t have a job. In my case I canned the job though for another kind of work…school) Plus, this Saturday I know that I will not enjoy the luxury of resting the day away. The new house-help we got received news yesterday that her Dad had died. Permit me to digress at this point, some people can be so insensitive, the dude that called to tell her ended up speaking to me, he was more concerned about his credit and was like “just tell her the father has died and tomorrow is the burial” and before I could say “hold on and talk to her” he was gone. I was now left with the unsavoury task of breaking the news to the girl who unfortunately wasn’t feeling well that morning. The guy was so insensitive, I mean I get it’s not your father but that is potentially upsetting news that you DO NOT drop like that. Reminds me of this time in Uni, I had this roommate called Phil (Philomena, not a man roomie o!) she was this perky girl (had a boyfriend called Moses and used to sing this funny song about doing everything without complaining) Anyway one morning she got a call on her really bad Chinese handset that was really loud so almost everyone could hear the caller on the other end. The person just went “Oya, Phil start to dey come house, your mama don die” Phil just lost it, she ran out of the room in her underwear screaming and it took several hours to calm her down. I mean what did the caller expect? That she’d say “oh ok I’m on my way” Things are just not done that way, he could have asked her to come home and then told her when she was at home. So in this case I just asked the girl if she had heard about her dad and she was like, “no what happened?” Then I asked her if she had the number for the guy that brought her, she did so I asked her to call him. I just couldn’t be the one to tell her and I didn’t have any details. Anyways she had to leave for Cotonou this morning for the burial at 4pm. I’m not sure she has eaten since yesterday, she said she can’t eat pepper till he is buried. I didn’t know that.

On the flip side I have assumed her duties as nanny/cook/cleaner and barely 3 hours in, I wish this was one time I could tell the “boss” to shove it. Okay please analyze this, my sister went to New Jersey for her vacation and checked her cholesterol level and apparently the result is that we all have to suffer. She says no adult should eat more than one egg in a week! Imagine, so I had to make a healthy breakfast for her husband. So I did, I fried one egg minus the yolk (so like a Ferrari without wheels) some baked beans, one hotdog sausage and two slices of wheat bread. The man took one look at it and said lailai he was not going down that road and conscripted me to make him a proper sandwich with one egg, yolk and all in it. In the process my sis came into the kitchen and asked me who it was for, I told her and she was like “I told you no egg with yolk” I told her he said that was what he wanted and that he wasn’t going on any watch your cholesterol diet. She was now like “Ehn if he gets sick, whether you’re married with kids or not you will come and look after him.” I was so pissed at that statement. Which one come consine me, ehn? Did they come and consult me when they wanted to marry, so which one una come put me inside matter? If you want your husband on some special diet then please do it yourself. Am I supposed to be dictating to a 40 something year old man what he can and cant eat, abeg o! I never marry. I want to fight with my own husband not another person’s own. So that’s it, I’ve been in a bad mood since then and I hate it when people upset you and then try to stylishly get back in your good graces without actually apologizing. (well she is now back in my good graces sha though she still didnt apologise, if a member of my family apologised for something i think i'd have a cardiac)

So that’s how I started the morning, plus I’m disappointed bcos I was supposed to be leave Lag for PH to see my folks before I travel in two weeks and I cant go bcos I have some business at the bank that I couldn’t conclude on Friday.

Plus, I’ve just told my ex that right now the chances of us getting back together are zero to nil. I told him I saw the stalker at his bday bbq and that I wasn’t okay with that. He said all the things he was supposed to say, how they aren’t really friends, how she just stopped by, he didn’t know, how she even came with her boyfriend. It didn’t make a difference cos like I told him she isn’t the issue. He is, how can you be trusted to make the big changes if you can’t make the little ones? Why is it so hard to ostracize someone that stalked the woman you claim to love, or quit smoking or at least try to or heck even pretend to. It hurts right now cos maybe this is it, just like that my The One has just become One of Them.

Plus i jus met this nice guy with huge potential, so it sucks that i'm leaving in 2 weeks for school when he just got back like 2 weeks ago (talk about bad timing) Hmn since i have mentioned him here he is never getting this link!

Check out Vee’s blog on www.moarsblog.blogspot.com. I have vowed that if it doesnt have 30 followers by the end of next month, i'm pulling the plug o! Call it blackmail, if you like it tell a friend muhahaha *evil laugh*

Status : Unemployed

Yep u read it right.

Neo is currently unemployed and i wish i had a more interesting reason for being currently unemployed. Like maybe i had just had enough and told The Man to shove it where the sun dont shine. Sadly no, i actually resigned my job at a law firm about 2 weeks ago and stopped last month. No, i dont have a better job (read better paying)

I'm actually going back to school, (gee i say back like i'm repeating a class or like i left yonks ago) Well i'm actually going for my masters and looking forward to it. Not so much the prospect of living alone in a different country (that has got its perks seeing as i had started a movement to decolonize my life) but truly because i love school! the irony of this fact can only be appreciated by my mother who had to drag me out of bed every morning for the 8 years of my rudimentary education. When i was in Law school i was in my element, is it weird that i totally love to read. Okay well at the time i dont love love it o, but i miss it when its gone. I'm a dork abi? i know

Okay its getting really annoying typing this on the PC at home (no router so i cant use my lappie) the keyboard is acting up, so please forgive any prior shelling, i have not been visited by the spirit of Rita, its the damn keyboard that is doing demon!

Does this count as an update? very jumbled i know plus i'm chatting with Aki (my latest bestie!) who is now in Dundee (yes now we planned it) Gosh i'm ruining my writing chops with this horrible post. Please any first timers, if you managed to get to this point i'm not usually like this. if u need proof check out my fictional blog www.moarsblog.blogspot.com.

It took me 3 hours to type this so anyhoos i'm posting. Chai! maybe i'm drunk afterall it is Friday night! Woo hoo!