1st Position

One thing i love about Nigerians is the fact that we are ambitious. We always want the best in life. Naturally who wouldn't ....but it gets to the stage whereby the best professions are Law, Medicine and Engineering,.. Everything else just doesn't count and we have parents that push those things into our heads they will say stuff like "See Aunty Betty's daughter, she is a medical doctor or Uncle Tunde's son is a pharmacist do you know where he works, he is making a lot of money." Another common 1st position categroy for ambitious nigerians is driving top class cars like Mercedes Benz or BMW. I have also taken note that many Nigerians love Japanese cars, Infiniti, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Lexus, Acura and the likes, those are relatively top of the class sort, Hummers, Escalades are even more impressive so gentlemen dont be surprised when that girl who has been shunning you at work decides to go on a date with you so she could ride in your car and impress people.
To the one thing about first position, i read this on twitter and i have never laughed so hard "Nigerian parents always come first position in the class". That's so true, i remember when i was growing up and my parents would tell me how they always came first in class, I always believed them but i also found out that my other friends' parents told them the very same thing, so what position do other people come in class? I believe that this is a positive form of motivation to always see the best in ourselves and strive for the top. This might be a popular nigerian norm but i think this is the best form of positive self motivation.

TELEPHONE

I am not a Lady Gaga fan like seriously, once a singer is just not like "normal" i don't care much for whatever you decide to sing, i am not listening. But i happened to be at work and took a sudden glance at the Tv and Beyonce was on the screen, she was said to be doing a music video with Lady Gaga and first thing that came to my mind."Oh my goodness, are you kidding me, the world is about to come to an end". Beyonce sold me with a line"This is going to be epic" so I went home and decided to check it out and alas, it was much better than i expected, i like the video for some reason with all the weirdness it had a story to it. Smh. What do you think? I just read that MTV banned the video and i agree some of the scenes were rather too...............

FOR ALL OF YOU THAT LOVE TO TEXT AND DRIVE

This is one habit that people have. Texting. Its better than talking, instead of picking up the phone and having that two minute discussion, they would rather text and sometimes a great conversation can also contiune while driving.Anyway after watching so many Scare tactic videos and all, I saw a picture on a friend's wall on facebook. That gave me the creeps, i still have the creeps seeing that man's body divided into half, he is not here to tell the story, i don't know who hit who or who was wrong but right now it makes absolutely no difference. Please don't text and drive and it also applies to me too.

LEFT HANDEDNESS

I remember when i was much younger and being scolded for giving older people things with my left hand. It is said that it is rude and totally wrong to give elderly people or rather just anyone things with your left hand. What????????????

I don't know where that rule came from or who brought that whole should i call it an urban legend or some silly tradition up but if one of those ancient traditions have to be deleted i think that has to be included on the delete and definitely not recycle bin list. Are you kidding me??????

A co worker once explained to me that the left hand is used to do dirty work and that's why it is wrong to give people things with the left hand, dirty work such as wiping the behindafter one has put down a big fat number two in the bathroom. Okay so what does that have to do with giving someone something with your left hand especially after you are supposed to have washed it ( some people don't and i mean really don't).

In places like India and some Islamic countries i also found out that it is wrong to hand people things with the left hand and also for the very same reason.

In primary school children who wrote with their left hands were called "lefties" in the United States, they are called "South paws"

Left handedness has been attributed to very negatively, it is associated with being the improper side,the wrong side and also associated with awkwardness. Apart from just being attributed to negatively by humans. The Bible also talks about the coming of Jesus christ and how Jesus will divide the people with the good people who are like sheep to the right hand side and the disobedient goats on the left hand side (Matt 25:31-34).

Some famous left handed people

Bill Gates,Bill Clinton,Albert Einstein,George W Bush,Barack Obama.
In actual fact the 41st to the 44th president were all left handed and that includes George Bush Snr
I think being left handed is not a bad thing, i think being left handed is being different. In my own opinion whatever hand suits you, you can use it to the best of your ability, sometimes all those myths and urban legends about left handedness would reduce one to being a true left hand which as people say "useless"

Image from:www.radioinsidescoop.com

THE QC GIRL- A MEMOIR

I remember this statue was one of the main Queens college landmarks. She was between the senior block and the junior block and she was right between the lecture theatres and behind "love garden". Goodness gracious. She is the famous "Queens College Girl". She has been in that school for decades and still counting, through the rain, sunshine and worse weather. She has seen other girls come in wearing pinafores and left wearing skirts. She has seen parents come and go, everyone has walked past her at some time or the other. Even nine years after graduating from QC her statue is still there intact. I think she was just touched up a little with paint, the statue still looks good.

I remember the time a tale went around saying that she moved, others said she went to the principal's house one night and asked to wear a skirt and blosue as she was tired of wearing her pinafore. Come to think of it, she needs to wear a skirt and blouse. Her junior days are seriously over.

AGEGE BREAD

In this part of the world where i live, one would wake up to the sound of those hungry crows that inhabit the area or the leaves of the trees beating against the window or the blazing sunshine coming through the blinds. Nothing and i repeat nothing can be replaced with the sound of the bread seller and her shrill voice that would wake you up at 7am after the Imam at the local mosque near your would have woken you up to subconscious level with his prayers over the public announcement system hooked up to the point where one can hear it three streets away at 5am. The bread seller would scream "Agege Bread". I miss that wake up call or "Bread re, butter re"( There is bread and butter here).

I am going to lament, i have not eaten Agege bread in almost 7 years, What??????????? True. I miss that hot, soft, pillow like bread. Fresh and hot straight from the bakery has been replaced with Kirkland bread from Costco or Great Value bread from Walmart or Orowheat bread from Safeway. Where can i get some Agege Bread? Someone help me...........................This is a real call for help especially when i am blogging about it (wink).

THE BLACK COLOR THING

This is racist against one's race and just thinking about the terms "light skinned black people" and "dark skinned black people" make me cringe. There is a color segregation between the individuals of one race with one thinking that they are superior to the other. Total nonsense. There has been this notion over the years that the light skinned black people are superior to the dark skinned black people. My own two cents on that is that it is not just absolute nnsense, it is also sheer ignorance.

I think this whole thing started back in the slave days. I think and that is my own personal opinion that everyone is black, we all started out black until we started interbreeding. Africans back in the day were genetically pure with a dominant black gene, so where did this light gene come from?My theory is that there were probably some families who had a tinge gene of being a shade lighter than others and the biggest possibilty was inter racial breeding which actually brings out an obvious light complexion. So a white man has sex with a black slave and their baby is mixed which makes the baby light skinned!!!!!!!!!!!! Hmm. So whats so superior about being light skinned?

In the early 1900's the Paper Bag test was used and it was a big form of color discrimination back in the day. It was used as a litmus test for black people so that they could be accepted into one social field or another, if you were not lighter than a brown paper bag, you were just not light enough. Some churches, Greek systems such as Phi Alpha Phi and even schools practiced it. Some men used it as a criteria to take women out on a date, if the woman was darker than a paper bag, she just wasn't good enough. Period. Suprisingly, this practice was also carried out in historically black universities a very good example is Howard University. At parties, it was also used as a form of admission, if the paper bag is lighter, you would be denied admission, it was important back then as being 21 to drink is important today. In New Orleans, a paper bag party always had a paperbag hanging at the door, you know what that means.

In the slave times,it was used to determine what kind of slave work the slaves would do, the lighter skinned ones did the domestic chores in the house while the darker skinned ones worked on the plantations.

So what happend to Black is beautiful and where did that statement come from or is it just a consolation of being rejected by the lighter skinned black people or rather is it that the whole population of black people are just plain beautiful. Wondering? Smh. It is said that this notion is responsible for the afro hairstyle since it is said that black people have ugly facial features and our hair could be at it's worst for being thick and unmanageble without a perm.

In the media, lighter skinned black people are portrayed better than the dark skinned black people because they are seen as looking better and are highly accpeted nationally. I have seen a lot of posters with models who are lighter than a paperbag and they are said to be black women, most of the real dark skinned models always have their head shaven like its some kind of art work to look that way. Beyonce is one of the light skinned black people who is not just a celebrity but she is good enough to feature as the ad person for Loreal and Tommy Girl for Tommy Hilfiger.Lighter skinned black people are said to also be more socially desirable, the lighter skinned women would be preferably taken on a date than a real black woman. In the entertainment industry, all the light skinned dark people are prominent, Out of Eden,Ashanti,Beyonce, Alicia Keys,Chris Brown, Halle Berry, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett, Janet Jackson, Mary Mary.The last time i looked on the red carpet, a dark skinned black person was very hard to find. Even in sitcoms a replacement of a character ends up with a lighter one like in Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the Janet Whitten was replaced with Daphne Reid. (the wife of Wil's uncle) .

In the movie "Precious" from the book PUSH. All the negative characters are dark skinned such as her Precious, her mom and dad while the positive characters are the social worker and her teacher who happen to be light skinned.

School Daze and the book which is now a movie The Color Purple were written with the notion of the effects of skin color. The Barbie doll started out as a white doll with blonde hair and blue eyes, in the late twentieth century and early twenty first century the notion of a black Barbie came out but the white one is still preferable.

It is a common notion among other races that black people are not intelligent which is wrong and also what is really wrong is that lighter skinned black people are said to be more intelligent than dark skinned black people,well the only advantage i think they had in the slave time is that because they worked in the house, they had a better chance of learning to read and write from the children of the plantation owners or their wives or even the owners themselves.Intelligence has no correlation with skin color. If you are smart you are smart, if you are dumb you are dumb. Some blondes are not that dumb.i have met really smart blondes. Book smart blondes and also intelligent in everyday life.But there exists a term"Dumb blonde"

In the image of the black American woman, the light skinned one is the more preferresd one. She is said to be more attractive and is more likely to get up there in the society. This prefered image has reduced a lot of dark skinned black woman to being self conscious and also a lack of self confidence. This is one of the reasons there are so many relaxers sold on the shelves of beauty supplies and grocery stores as well as bleaching creams. The effort to look like the light skinned ones has become paramount among dark skinned black people.

I think today the light skinned , dark skinned color thing still exists espceially among our own black people which i call total ignorance. This is the second decade in the 21st century, we need to wake up. I leave on this note it's a comment made by comedian Paul Mooney on color. "If you are brown, hang around,if you are yellow, mellow,if you are white,you are alright, if you are black, get back."

I don't think i am getting back to nowhere. What do you think?

OFFENSIVE OR NOT? CLASS OF 2011

When i graduated in 2008, the class of 2008 had the slogan that went with the year "08,don't hate" it rhymed and we thought it was cool other graduating classes didn't have their rhyme that good but looking at the class of 2011 in a different school the story is different. Two young arab Americans decided to show pride in their graduating class of 2011 by making sweatshirts with the number 11 which looked like twin towers and a thunderbird flying nearby with the slogan"You can't bring us down". It was perceived negatively by some staff and students as the school as it referred to the September 11 attack on the Twin towers in 2001. The staff of Dearborn Edsel Ford High School had a meeting in which the matter was discussed but the boys were not punished because they didn't see it in that light as being wrong, they were only trying to show pride in their graduating class. Their sweatshirts were confiscated though. It is pretty sad that shirts were seen as offensive. I don't see it that way though, they were just showing some pride but to sensitive United States citizens especially those who lost family and loved ones, sincere apologies. I think somehow that the situation may have been perceived differently if these young boys were not Arab. What do you think?

Picture: 1Up.com

TOP 50 SUCCESSFUL BLACK PEOPLE: 1. HALLE BERRY

Halle Maria Berry was born in Cleveland Ohio on August 14th 1966. She was born to a black father and a white mother. Her father abused her mother and her sister. After he worked out on them, her mother raised Halle and her sister.
As a child she dealt with racism from her peers.

She attended Bedford High school and had a lot of acheivements by being on the school editorial board. She was also a cheerleader and was the captain of the team and was president of her class.

She was voted as Prom Queen of her graduating class in 1984. She became Miss Ohio in 1985.

In in 1989 she was diagnosed with Type I diabetes.
In 1991, she made her first breakthrough by landing a movie role in Jungle Fever, a Spike Lee movie.

She got married to David Justice in 1992 and finalised the divorce in 1997. She was married to him until 1996. She was at one of her best in "Losing Isiah", a movie in which she played the role of a drug addict fighting a white woman in court to get back her son.She played the role of Dorothy Dandridge in the movie "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge" and earned herself an Emmy anda Golden globe Award. She played the role of Storm in the X Men movie in the year 2000. In 2001, she got married to a singer Eric Benet and that same year she landed a role in the movie Monster's Ball.It landed her an Oscar Award making her the first African American to win an Oscar Award.In 2004, she filed for a divorce from Eric Benet. At 41, she had her first baby with boyfriend gabrile Aubury, she welcomed Nahla into the world on March 16, 2008.

Halle is one of my choices for a successful black woman, she is also a good example of a "good sistah that cannot be held down" She has faced a lot of issues such as racism. It is not the best feeling in life to be regarded as either white or black in terms of color. I can imagine all the teasing and taunting of the little kids who were her age.I believe people like that have self esteem problems. She also witnessd domestic violence in her childhood and ended up with bad relationships as an adult. In that case she chose the relationships she wanted to be in and made decisions to either stay or leave. She also made name for herself in the moves she made and made history for being the first black woman to earn an Oscar Award. She opened doors for other black women showing them that anything could be achieved, you had to put your mind to it. She is black and successful and that it that.


SOURCES
People Magazine
www.people.com/people/halle_berry/biography/0,,20004436_20,00.html

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halle_Berry#cite_note-80

MRS RIGHT

I believe that the word "Mr Right" by young ladies who want a perfect gentleman is highly over rated.
Every female has this dream to find a perfect man. Some girls have this need to have a financially stable and secure husband.This is a physical need. Not every handsome man is a perfect man,every less than average handsome man is not supposd to be the perfect man either. In terms of being financially stable, money comes and money goes hut either way money is very important in a relationship.Instead of calling it money, i would call it financial stability. If the man is not financially stable, a wedding is not ready to take place and definitely the marriage that comes after having a wedding ceremony.
Marriage and wedding are two different things, one is permanent and the other isn't, Marriage is supposed to be the permanent one and the wedding is temporary. The wedding ceremony, the fun at the reception lasts but one day but what happens after the wedding? Marriage. Marriage is an instituition by itself and it is supposed to last for a lifetime and this happens to those who are fortunate.
Some are compelled to get married because their peers are getting married, this is most especially of so many ladies,they have been bridesmaids in five or six different weddings and now their mothers are asking them, "when are other people coming for your wedding?" Others will keep picking from a selction of men especially to find the perfect one. I will tell you, No man will ever be perfect before you marry them, it will probably take you a lifetime to make a man perfect which is almost impossible, its just like telling a leopard to change its spots but i believe in the power of prayer.
I once dated this dude who just wanted to get married, thats all he could think of was get married.
"Oh babe lets get married tomorrow, oh babe i wish we could get married tonight." All that was wishful thinking because it never happened.
Stability in both mental and physical areas of life need to be established. I would not date anyone who is not spiritually stable or financially stable. It might not sound fair but if the guy's intentions are to take me to the altar, he had better have a job and a real good one for that matter.
Some of my mates want a handsome man, with a dashing car especially a new model and he also has to be on a six figure salray (in their wildest dreams) and so many fantasies. These are lovely thoughts but what will happen if the man is disabled,will he still be attractive to you, what if one of your jealous ex girlfriend pours acid on him, would you still find him attractive, what if he crashed his car on the freeway and he had no insurance and he buys a bucket would you still ride ith him?If he got laid off from his six figure paying job and he started living on Social security or living off you, would you still bear him, these are very uncomfortable questions> it is very tempting to say yes, but it is really hard.
SOmetimes you would wake up one morning and ask yourself why you are stuck with someone who looks like the character of the beast from "The Beauty and The Beast", has a legedesbesnz (on foot) and seems to share similarities with the life of a beggar and your frends will tell you "Why are you still with that man?, He has nothing to offer you". Beware of such freinds, people like that like to give advice that they cannot act on. When you go to his house, you look in the fridge he has no food, just water, you get tempted to cuss him out but how? Will you be in the relationship out of self pity, because he did you one favor in the past? Or you have made vows and you are scared of the consequences of breaking those vows. Hmm, Food for thought.
Have you ever thought of being Mrs Right?
Mrs Right is the right lady. Enough said.
Not too many women have this perspective in mind, they just want to be a lucky bride, who then is Mrs Right.
Have you ever wondered why men don't search for ladies anymore? Because women are too busy searching for men up to the point where they settle for anything and anyone just to be with someone. Out of pressure, they think to themselves,"He is the one".
Females, have you gotten your degree, a damn good job, do you have a spiritual life, do you have harmony and balance in your life? Can you balance your check book at the end of the month and still go on vacation? Can you spend a whole month without borrowing money from your friends, family and savings? Have you ever thought of working at becoming a person for yourself without relying on the prescence of another person. Why do you think men don't want "gold diggers" and "limited liabilites" for themselves. Have you ever thought of why men chase women who have got it covered physically and end up marrying a "good girl" (morals, money,beauty),because what was given to them was offered on a platter of gold. "Who will buy the cow when the milk is free?" Really why buy the cow when the dairy milk comes free everyday. That same guy will dump you and get the girl behind you. When you can fulfil all the requirements of a perfrect person only then will you become someone's Mrs Righr. Trust me,Men will come in their flock.