Learning to love God some more (and again).

In my last post, I briefly commented on the lack of spiritual ginger ( 'presence' for my Non-Nigerians) in my life and this has been bothering me lately.

This year has been on a downward slope, in terms of my religious awareness and I'm not proud of that. I've always been a only-sunday church goer but I was more spiritually conscious. Before, I didn't have to go to church before I prayed and showed thanks to God for my life and all the good things/people that I've been blessed with. Sadly, I can't remember the last time I thanked God for my meals, opportunities, mother, journey mercies et all in my life. I can go on and on about these things but I won't. I was going through my google reader and I read something on FarahMcQueen's photoblog on her love for God. It was like an awakening. 

As silly as this may seem, I've setting a daily alarm on my phone to alert me of a 10am God appreciation period. I'm going to leave the agenda this time window open ended but I must praise God and communicate with him in some way, during that period. 

Sigh.

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On a random note, I saw some black men chanting some persuasive comments by the roadside in Brooklyn, yesterday evening. They were dressed strangely and had a sign that read ' Tribes of Israel' beside them. That was bothersome. It was also my first time in Brooklyn. I decided to visit that borough. because I usually stay in Manhattan or Bronx. I'm in NY. I should visit Queens next time.

I still wonder about what the Tribes of Israel men were on about. Weird stuff.

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Peace, love and hope for spiritual ginger. 

Kay, another addition.

This summer, I was opportuned to work in a youth-led Nigerian NGO, Education as a Vaccine (EVA). EVA focuses on issues that affect the sexual and reproductive health of Nigerian youth. I was the Advocacy Intern, in the Headquarters/FCT office. This post is not about my experience at EVA, which was great, but about my relationship with someone that I met there.

For the purpose of this post, I will call the someone 'Kay'.  At my first day at work, I was assigned to work with Kay under a designated supervisor. Kay is 24 and I'm 19. The 5-year age difference did not affect the way we related with one another. Kay is one of the most passionate young Nigerians that I've ever met till date. We worked, talked, prayed, ate together, did random stuff and talked some more. Kay is a church worker, a wonderful sister to her siblings, a dedicated volunteer at EVA and a part-time 300Level Sociology student. This may not seem like a lot of responsibilities but she is as busy as it gets for a Nigerian student. Nonetheless , she is not perfect but I'll focus on her positives. We all have our faults.

During work hours, we will talk about my weekend escapades, from my clubbing rendezvous to pool chilling at Chelsea. She doesn't approve of my nighttime activities and tries her best to get me to attend her church programs at House on the Rock (HOTR). The first and only time that I went to her church program, a young Honorable was hitting on me. Kay was surprised that I already got a man in just one attendance. We often joked about what will happen if I attended a Sunday service - if I could get a Honorable at first attendance, I may get a Minister with constant attendance. Need less to say, I didn't attend any more programs at her church and it wasn't because of the Honorable. I have always been a Christian but my religious mojo faded in college. After 12 years of education at an Anglican missionary primary and secondary school, I unintentionally took a break in college. I need to step up my spiritual/religious game. I've never talked to a peer about God as much as I did with her. I didn't even realize when I learnt the HOTR youth theme song, thanks to Kay's constant humming. It was refreshing to be around someone that was religious and conscious of her morals. Let me remind you that Kay is not perfect.

Kay also made me more aware of the fact that wealth isn't everything. She is not from a very wealthy family but she holds such a high esteem of herself. There was an episode at the galleria, when we bumped into one of her friends and she talked to the friend in a manner that surprised me. I could tell that the friend was from a wealthy family and was one of the those people with an egoistic atttitude. I forgot to mention that Kay is also very opinionated and intelligent at that.

I miss her commentary on how fast I type, criticism for the amount of skin that my friends show in photos, displeasure with my club outings, admiration for my "don't dull" attitude, never-ending discussion about the type of friends that I hang out with, reminder about the importance of marriage, joint breaks to eat Aunty Ajobi moi-moi and so many other precious memories.

I can go on and on about Kay. She was one of my favorite additions to my life, from this summer.

<3

*****
Unedited, like always.
All gramm. errors are mine, do not claim.


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New video from Tuface for 'Outside'. Tubaba!

I am alive

I'm going to be one of those bloggers that dusts the cobweb off her blog and go on and on about how she missed blogging et al. I really do. I can't believe that I've not published a post in 4 months. I spent the past 10 minutes reading my 2010 posts and I can't help but laugh at the unedited pieces of my poorly-written thoughts and excerpts of my experience on here. Blogger has even changed the dashboard template, that's how long that I've been gone.

Mid-June, I left London, in too much of a hurry even though I knew the date that I was to leave months before. I am just the queen of procrastination. I had too many last minute errands to run, from buying a strapless bra for my party dress to giving out my bag of garri to my London acquaintances. Then, I went to Nigeria to start my summer internship, which was great, but I didn't blog about it. I don't know how Nigeria-based  bloggers do it but I lose my blogging mojo whenever I'm in Nigeria. The slow internet connection and non-stop social activities do not help either.

Mid-August, I came back early to my host university in the US to start my senior year because I had a 2 week training for my Residential Assistant (RA) position. Since then, I've been in many situations where I compose a blogspot in my head but lack the time to sit down and type it out. This semester is my busiest so far. I'm taking 7 classes, a TA for a class, an RA, the President of my school African Students' Association, in addition to my active participation in two other student groups. The problem  is that I don't have enough hours in the day, yet I add more items to my box of  commitments. It somehow works because the busier that I am, the more productive I get. Nevertheless, all these activities can not take the place of blogging because I actually love blogging and the lack of any set frequency or topic in mind that comes with it.

On another note, I can't cope with all these e-technological advancements. In a bid to catch up, I decided to switch up my blog template, after 2 years. Let me know if it is unpleasant or confusing. Earlier this night, it took me more than 5 minutes to figure out how to deactivate my Facebook account. I almost gave up on deactivating my FB account but the amount of time that I spend on FB is unhealthy. The maximum that I've spent lately is 1 hr/day but I can't afford such this semester. I have already deactivated my twitter and will only reactivate during my breaks or trips off-campus. I really need to concentrate on my academic pursuit, this semester. Why do I sound like a nerd? Am I one? Nah.

As you can tell at this point, this post has no specific direction. I just want to type away my thoughts as they come to me and revive this blog. I am surprised at how I can whip out a blogpost in 20 minutes but it takes me a whole day to write a 2-page paper. Talking about writing, I need to improve on that. I can only avoid taking paper-writing classes in college but I need to be able to come up with logical statements and well-written proposals, when I get a job.

Enough with the rambling. The girl who lives above me is at it again because I can hear her bed creaking. I've talked to her and emailed her about it but she hasn't called Physical Plant to fix her bed yet. I guess she wants me to decode her chexing melody from her creaking bed, by the end of the semester. Not interested.

It's 2:30am, I should go to bed.

If you're still reading this post to this point, I salute you.


'Night!