I've Got a Disease

I’ve got a disease, deep inside me makes me, feel uneasy within tell me what am I supposed to do about it?
-Disease by Matchbox 20

For years now I know that there’s been something wrong chemically with my brain. The inability to concentrate, short attention span, procrastination syndrome, lack of commitment, self esteem issues, finding it hard to complete things. Most importantly, I cannot study; it means that when I need to sit down and focus on a menial or mundane task like studying, writing, or even working out, I cannot. My mind wanders I get fidgety and I am unable to fulfil the task adequately or effectively. My family thinks I have no clue what I am talking about, that I am essentially lazy and all I need is to pull myself up by the bootstraps and get my ass in gear. If only it were so easy. Unfortunately I have neither the access to a health care system that may offer me some sort of diagnosis, nor the dough to get myself properly diagnosed even if I were to get that access.

So here I sit in limbo. I know I'm smart. Not genius (though I wish I were because then at least my vast intelligence would at least compensate a bit for all of this) but smart people accomplish stuff. I have accomplished nothing. I want and need to go back to graduate school but I'm so paralyzed by the fear that so many things could go wrong (a side-effect of being a slave to tangential thinking) that decision making is almost nil for me. Instead I drift along allowing fate to make decisions for me and then wail and gnash my teeth when the results come about (hence the job situation i find myself in). And I tend to use too many parentheses and semi colons; they allow me to explain myself easier, I guess

It feels like my mind is trapped in this fog where I can barely think most of the time. It is such a struggle to concentrate. I crave the rare moments of lucidity that I sometimes experience, only to fall back into the mist. I get overwhelmed easily with too much going on and I am always forgetting. ALWAYS. I feel like an utter loser most of the time and I end up settling for less than I know I deserve. I should be at the very least a moderately successful individual climbing her way to the top. Instead I am a sloppy individual barely skating by.

I don't know what to do, or how to get help. I really don't.

The Great Chicken Hunt: Part Deux!

So, way back when I was a dilligent blogger (ha!) I posted about the great chicken hunt and the fight to find a good joint that serves some great chicken. In the mean time I've:

Stormed out of a Chicken republic because they could not be bothered to serve ice-cream that did not have a hollow in the middle. That would be the one at the end of Ligali Ayorinde close to my my (now ex) NYSC local government.


I'm done with NYSC!

Gone on holiday to the best city on the West African coast. I was kinda disappointed 'cos they took like but 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon is not too bad, and really the inverter was working so all I had to do was walk down and plug myself in.

I'm eating less. I realise the more stressed I am, the more I eat. I need to break the cycle.

I still procrastinate so that means my that the above point is probably moot. I will get to it. Eventually...


Back to the point. Papaye still has the best chicken, hands down. Tasty, succulent and has tasted the same since 1995. There is a reason quality control exists and why people stick to it. Because it works. And it keeps you coming back for more. Like I plan to do over, and over, and over again...

btw The Chicken republic on Awolowo road has the best icecream so far.

In the GH

Hey, so it has been like four months since I last posted anything on this page. Woswa! In between the internet going all FUBAR (urban dictionary is your friend) on me and just getting so busy, I really haven't had the time. But now that I have been royally screwed over by my boss, it is time to be your typical Nigerian worker and spend most of her time doing nothing.

I am currently on holiday in the GH my home away from home, and my trip here has taught me a few things.

1. Nigerian Airlines suck. The Arik flight I was on left an hour later than it should with no announcements as to why it happened prior to us boarding. On the plane we were given the lame ass excuse that the plane had been "delayed" from its previous journey.

2. I (heart) Ghana Mucho. There's light, I can brush my teeth with water that comes straight out the tap, and while the internet might be slow, at least it is consistent and doesn't just cut off for no apparent reason, leading to near suicidal thoughts.

3.I really get along well with kids. They seem to gravitate towards me. Probably 'cos I'm so awesome ;)

4. There's ALWAYS electricity...

More on me less than scintilating

Something Positive

I think I have had a string of negative posts so I need to write something positive so I am not a negative nelly. So here I go...

Something Positive

The End

The Great Chicken Hunt

So I went to Chicken Republic the other day to get some great food. Turns out that undercooked fries, greasy, soggy, lackluster chicken doesn't cut it. So I am embarking on The Great Chicken Hunt. Where can I find some good, crisp crispy fried, southern fried, chicken covered in some type of fattening batter, reminiscent of Dixies in Lagos? All suggestions welcome. Family member (singular) that means you, as the only official reader of this blog.

Some Seoul Music: Clazziquai 'Tell Yourself (Japanese Version)' one of my all-time favorite K Artists. From their new album. Cannot Wait!

My head hurts. The constant pain descends through my cheekbones and radiates through my entire top jawline in agony that has refused to subside in the last three days. I am meant to be working right now, furiously racing to hit that deadline and make sure that IT gets out on time and correct. I am tired, numbed and therefore uncaring.

That spot right between my shoulder blades feels like a giant has is fingers pressed non-too-gently to the nape of my neck and just Digging. Right. In. Repeatedly. I feel the sleep of a thousand nights would never be enough to resuscitate the energy that has given its last gasp.

I need a holiday

Some (not-so-)서울 (Seoul) Music: Imma Be by the Black Eyed Peas. Most of the tune is banging. That last bit though? Almost kills it for me. Definitely for the clubs

'Wot's the prahblem wit me Accent?'

Nigerians can be insecure people, I noticed. While we have much to be proud of as a Nation (and on the flip side, much to be ashamed of) on an individual level we sometimes confront people needlessly due to insecurities projected unto another.

Consider someone I met recently: well dressed, great job, obviously in a far better position than I, the grubbily dressed (stain on my trousers I did not care to change) writer-slash-gopher (I was actually mistaken for my boss's Personal Assistant). She, in a word, was unpleasant. A person who got upset at me for having a pleasant conversation with a couple of Scotsmen in her establishment. Later my boss tried to explain her attitude away with "you returnees who come back with accents". Is THAT it? A half pseudo-American, half pseudo-british accent?

Here's how I got my accent: when I was in secondary school, books of a certain kind, namely sweet valley's and M&B's were banned because it gave us girls "dangerous ideas". I'm all for the notion when it comes to romance novels and impressionable 13 to 16 year olds, but sweet valley was a tad far. As a last resort i read the dictionary. Not just the words but the pronunciation keys as well. I taught myself diction, candence, and pretty much how to learn to read new words. Throw in my love of television and by the time I was in my final year of high school, most people could not place my accent, though I had been born, raised and fully educated on the African continent. I headed to college in the States, which allowed me to polish off my Americanese and did a couple of years in the UK which brought out a little more British in my accent. Catch me on a good day and my accent vacilates wildly between American twang and British tweed, but it is all sexy ;).

Other than the voice, I ain't nothin' special. No appreciable amounts of money, no fame, no wealth, no particular skills to speak of. Now why would anyone be threatened by me? If I were given to bouts of jealousy--I'm not as it is such a waste of time better spent doing things I like--it should be vice versa. Instead she felt she had to be rude and dominating and awful. Let's be sure of one thing though; she might certainly get much farther than I in this world, but not in the hospitality business where true humility and genuine sense of obligation to those you work with temper any sense of overblown ego and hubris.

She needs to be secure in herself and what she has, it is great. I am certainly no threat. My mother (my own sainted mother, I tell you!) told me I lack ambition, as cold as that statement is, it is for all intents and purposes, true. I hate competition, unless it is to acheive personal goals I've set myself, and that has not happened nearly often enough lately, hence the languishing in Lagos. All in all, people need to grow up and get over themselves.

Some Seoul (서울) Music: 전화하지마/'Do Not Call' by Namolla Family, a fantastic trio of guys with featuring Tae In who's feminine lilt adds a sense of longing. Great voice blending, great pop music.

Mosh!

Lil’ Wayne is busy on screen screaming into his vocoder about his revenge on the prom queen who jilted him when he was an overly tattooed disaffected teenager. If only she could have seen past all that ink, to the sweet lollipop goodness that lay beyond. I’m pretty sure that the confection was referring to his soul. Who wouldn’t want to lick lil’ Wayne’s soul?

The vid, kind of like the song, had a rock concert vibe to it, which had me reminiscing about my Nickelback concert days. Way back when I was a spring chicken—a.k.a. my salad days—I loved me my concerts and used to go to one pretty much every summer. It was usually Nickelback as they were my favourite band until some moron, I have no idea whom, went and told them that drenching their songs with lurid lyrics and crappy feel good lines which have no place being together on the same album, was a good idea.

These concerts were an absolute ton of fun. I remember going to the opening of some club (I forget the name it’s been so long, waaaaaaaaaaaah) with my real good friend Jaynee while I was job hunting in the Twin Cities the summer after I graduated from college. The two tickets cost about $120 bucks and we went there, dressed like it was summer out, but it was cold as shit.

Default was the opening band, and after running through some rather forgettable songs, they played their greatest hit ‘Wasting My Time’. By this time, I was half way to planet ‘plastered-beyond-all-recognition’ and had had several inappropriate conversations with absolute strangers who also felt totally comfortable poking my decently covered but ginormous ‘jubblies’ for fun.

Then the main act came on stage. By this time the air-conditioning had totally given up the ghost and the air was like a thick sludge. The club, which was filming the crowd, had huge screens showing the crowd through a fog-like haze of sweat coming off all the bodies in there. They had to bring out tons of water to cool the crowd down. All I remember was shoving my way to the front, to get as close to Chad ‘really hot’ Kroeger, pressing ever forward and moshing like there was no tomorrow. I drooled over the drummer, got soaking wet and had a fabulous time. All in all it was bloody fantastic.

This year, in NYC, Cali, and a whole bunch of other cities I am nowhere near, my fave hip hop group Epik High flew all the way from Korea to host a series of concerts. Totally missed them and now I am very sad :’(. I wish to mosh once more, to sweat in tandem with a thousand other people while screaming out the lyrics to tracks that are oldies-but-goodies, and listen when they try out new tracks on ya.

Some Seoul Music: Ibadi is just an all-around fabulous band, the side venture of Clazziquai's female lead. Akin to Nora Jones in musical style, her voice just blows me out the water, not with power, but with depth. Here's Morning Call a pretty, lilting tune, great for the car...

Ugly Talent

By now you must have heard of the internet phenomenon Susan Boyle. A woman in her late forties, she appeared on the reality TV show "Britain's got Talent" and floored everyone. Why? The woman was as homely as homely gets. No style, grey hair that looked like it was about to pounce on the nearest small rodent, and an admission that she had never been kissed allowing us to form the impression that another delusional nutcase was about to get immediately booed off the stage. The audience seemed poised to be racked with laughter, and the judges had their laughter at the ready. It was not to be, she knocked everyone off their high-horse. She sang like a slightly-out-of-tune angel. In fact I honestly prefer her rendition of the song "Cry me a River" (originally composed for Ella Fitzgerald), which currently resides on my computer and is on constant replay (next to all sorts of Korean shizz I'll cover sometime later).
As an overweight, downright homely (I hate to use the word ugly, it seems so harsh, LOL) person living in such an image conscious society, it must have been sincerely difficult to have such talent, and have it constantly overlooked because your outward appearance instantly puts to mind that you have nothing to offer. I get it. While beauty might not equal talent, not pretty is almost immediately equated with a lack of talent. Especially with women.
If you are intelligent, you often get the "ohhhhh, alright, I get it now" look, as if somehow intelligence and beauty are two separate sets in a Venn diagram that rarely, if ever overlap. Which to be honest is quite a stupid assumption.
It was a proverbial smack to the back of the head to the British (and the Americans who created this internet snowball); a reminder that in days of yore talent was supposed to be a good thing and shared with the world irrespective of the owner's looks. A lot of people connected with her story, felt a kinship with a woman who is representative of a good chunk of a global population.
I guess after years of "you'd be prettier if you did this, or that, wear contacts, get your teeth fixed, dress properly, lost weight, did you hair, wear makeup, wear high heels, skirts, tighter trousers, stop using big words, yadah, yadah, yadah" the list goes on and me saying "no, I wouldn't cos I'm not pretty", it is nice to identify with someone. Then again that someone is alone and lives with her cat.

Driving Ms Seoul Sista

So, I was driving (no, that isn't the punchline) in the Palms the other day turned a corner to get into a parking behind a mercedes SUV--you know, the ones that look like old school range rovers but cost a heck of a lot more money. He looked like he was trying to get into a space about 3 cars out and so I came to a full stop, giving him more than enough room to manouever and get his fancy car into the space. He starts backing up because, he is kind of a crap driver apparently and he could not swing out and swing in. He started getting too close, so I lean on the horn to give him a warning toot, and lo and behold, the dude backs into me. Might I remind you again, my car was at a complete stop.

Mr I-drive-a-fancy-car-so-I'm-right gets out the car and starts yelping, "look what you've done to my car! You are going to pay for it" in probably the fakest accent I've heard in a long while. In my head I was like "shoot, don't think you can scare me with your fake Jand accent, I can put on an American one with the best of them" and I get out yelling "You just backed into me! What the hell were you doing!" After a brief shouting match he parked his car, and I parked mine. For some odd reason I decided to check the hood (bonnet to you non-Americanese speakers) and saw that it was warped.

So I decide to chase after the dude to get him to pay for the damage, I am one broke-ass chick, in case you didn't know. I chased him into the palms and tell him "'scuse me, you warped my hood, you need to pay for it". That, apparently was too much 'grammar' for him because he looked absolutely baffled by the word 'warped'. The gentleman (term used extremely loosely) went on the offensive with, "you are gonna pay for ma caaa". The conversation then devolved into a full out shouting match in the refined aircondtitioned hallways, that continued as we argued our way outside. I accosted police men, the general public and anyone who would listen, and all looked very amused and not in the least bit concerned. After him throwing out some very sexist comments "go call your brother, your husband to come talk to me because you don't know the right grammar", "how long have you been driving" things finally come to a head. I am literally screaming myself hoarse at this point in time. All the foreigners were slack-jawed, with bemused look on their faces, probably wondering what this raving lunatic with the American (by this time I was at the "this ain't ma faul' you can't drive yo' shit" stage) accent is doing, bellowing at this guy.

A couple more accusations followed; (a 5'7" 180 pound (you know that's a lie) woman was 'bullying' a 5'10" 210 pound dude, I was unhinged, in shock, blah, blah, blah) and I was pretty close to tears, when he suddenly caves asks for my number and said he'll fix it. Give him my number, he calls me that night and says his 'panel beater' (the guy who does his body work for you non-Naijanese speakers) will fix it, which is supposed to be this saturday. We'll see how it turns out folks, so stay tuned.

Some Seoul Music: Could not find a more appropriate tune that one of my current favourites Spazz by N.E.R.D because I really spazzed out that day. Craziness is not a lifestyle; it is a way of being.

Let's Try Again: Of Music And Piracy

My previous post was actually supposed to go a little more like what will follow, but I got seriously side-tracked by my work drama, and needed to get it off my chest. Now I guess I can write this:

I have to say, I am an unabashed pirate (arrr!), especially for music. I pretty much just google the song name plus a couple of familiar hosting sites and I can find almost whatever music I want, with several caveats to that. My more recent musical tastes also contribute to that fact, seeing that I can't really just pop round to the record store and pick up the hottest Korean album.
Most of the time I refuse to feel guilty, but for Epik High's Map the Soul, I really do. Sort of.
A bit of back story first: Epik High is probably South Korea's premier hip-hop group. Featuring the talents of Mithra Jin, Tablo and DJ Tukutz, they have managed to successfully straddle maintaining mainstream popularity without becoming empty, overexposed and irrelevant. With K-music's every expanding pool of up-and-coming talent, they remain at the forefront, continuously experimenting with their sound. I was especially impressed my Remapping the Human Soul, a two-disk album which had some of the best production I have ever heard.

Due to creative conflict with their label, in 2009 Epik High went independent, creating their own label. With acts like Keroone and MYK helping them with their new mini album Map The Soul, they are taking a stand, trying to make their work directly accessible to their fans, both in Korea and overseas. They also embarked on a world tour, with stops in Japan, the US and of course, Korea. Tablo is the frontman of the group, a Stanford graduate, which his sometimes too-cerebral nature showcases. DJ Tukutz is their brilliant DJ. Mithra Jin is probably the least well known to me; he is the other rapper in the group and since he's all Korean all the time, there's absolutely no way for me to judge. I love them all anyway, they are brilliant.

Their first post-label release, as I mentioned before, is Map The Soul, which they decided to sell independently through their website www.mapthesoul.com. I can't buy it. Reason being that you need:

1) A credit card
2) A reliable postal system,

neither of which Nigeria has provisions for.

The fact is, there is no way for me to their music or any other K pop without scouring the internet for it. It is a sort of cop out, I know because If I was overseas I would say the cost would be too expensive to purchase all the music I have downloaded (TONS!). I hope one day, I can actually buy the book album. In reality I probably never can.

So this is my mea culpa of sorts. 정말 죄송합니다 (I'm really sorry) but I had no choice.

Some Seoul Music: Probably my fave track of Epik High's next to Fan, Music featuring K.Will (who continually frustrates me because he ALWAYS sings weepy, crappy ballads meant to show off his voice, but really just put people to sleep because they are boring and do nothing for his voice. Really.)

On Downloading errr Never Mind

No doubt about it folks. I'm home. I have been here for over six months (going on 9 actually) and let me tell you, I could not be less pleased. I am truly paying my dues, working as a--let's take a look at the progression here--youth corp service member-slash-writer, then youth corper-slash-intern, and finally 'koppa'-slash-editorial assistant. All in all, i am moving up the ladder slowly albeit without choice as pretty much I'm the only person in the office that could do it. Everybody either quit or skipped out.

I would like to say I am indispensable, but to be honest, my boss would find someone in a heartbeat and pretty much would go on as before.
I do need somewhere however to gripe about work. Okay, I do admit that I am somewhat intelligent. Not brilliant, mind you, but enough to read a newspaper with fairly big words and not go cross-eyed from the words on the page. Not so smart that I could join in in an intellectual debate and actually make any coherent sense. There are lines to be drawn here. As an aside, my grammar sucks, I have a propensity for profanity (and seriously cannot control it), as reliable as a the weather during the first few weeks of spring, and lazy as all get out. I am not perfect.

But (yes I know, never start a sentence with 'but') Lord save me from people with not a lick of sense. I do my job, with a lot of direction, but I only need to be told once or twice, before learning. In fact, I didn't have to be told I just assessed the gorram situation and came to a conclusion. Like let's say if ALL the words in the margins that don't finish for some odd reason, it might simply be because THE TEXT IS OUTSIDE THE PRINT MARGIN. Or maybe someone reminds you of something that is vital to the magazine being printed, and you don't just sit on your ass and wait to be asked if you've done your work. Don't lie that you didn't know or you weren't told. Don't fucking well show up one-and-a-half hours late for work, then have breakfast. Don't ask me what the definition of a word is; use the fucking dictionary. Don't do other work on the work computers. Go get improve your gorram skills by trolling the internets. Read the material that you work with, it's good to know what you print. Have some bloody sense! Use your brain, we all have to multitask here. LEARN. Is that too much to ask that you grow on the job? I guess so.

Could it be my bosses fault for hiring people that she would like to give a chance to? Yes and no. No in the sense that it is noble to try and foster talent (I would not be there unless she did), but you gotta have the guts to cut them loose if they ain't makin' the grade. Which, sad to say, some aren't.

BTW I will eventually learn to post music (ha! been saying that since my first blog) but go check out

Some Seoul Music: Epik High Feat MYK Scenario my love/hate relationship with Map the Soul is firmly in the love box for this track MYK's voice is cool. Plus it features my movie love

Why Am I a Seoul Sista?

I hate to use the word obsessed, but that is exactly what I am. Obsessed with Asian cinema, with Korean culture, just all around obsessed. Now, I am back in Naija (or with the more atrocious acronym 9ja) and my obsession is on the wane with nothing to replace it, so i decided to write a little blog about my triumphs and travails here in this fab city.

Another exercise in English, grammar and general literature