Tuesday, February 8, 2011

We all have bats in our belfry; some more than others

Racing to Union Square to exchange a dress I bought for a smaller size (yes I've lost weight and I'm not happy, my old ikebe was so nice), I was suddenly assaulted by Valentine's Day. Not like I'd forgotten that Singles Awareness Day was next Monday, it had just.....I don't know, skipped my mind. Looking around the High Street it was like everywhere had been soaked in rouge.....red window displays, cutouts of huge hearts, red confetti, f%*$ing red dresses everywhere, I was so irritated.

I'm usually an advocate of V-Day, I like it as much as the next loved up person but when you know the day is going to be spent either studying or eating noodles in front of How I Met Your Mother, it kinda puts a damper on things. Now if only there were some way to alleviate my mood, maybe prevent me from being so depressed next Monday.....

Anyhoo, away from all that romance bullshizz.

Would have blogged earlier but my laptop decided to show me who was the madam in our relationship and crashed this weekend, I swear I didn't do anything to it. One minute I'm reading my course handout, next minute....black screen with a single white arrow on it, not moving, nada. My heart nearly stopped. Little things reeaallyy upset me and I spent the whole of Sunday alternating between sleeping and crying, until my absolute darling genius of a brother called from Nigeria after I had sent him dozens of SOS messages and walked me through how to fix it, like step by step. I felt like such a computer person that day, doing things like system restore and filedisc something and soo many other complicated techy type words that I will never remember. I have to say a special thank you to him here on TWP. Mwah! Love you lots you gorgeous man you.


Mon frère

Ooooohhh, before I forget, last week I found out my flatmate Azhanty is an absolute mentaller! I'm actually very used to being surround by crazy people, all my close friends are nuts. Its like every school I attended and all the friends I made there, were more often than not, lunatics.

Case in point;

Pampers Nursery School - I don't remember too much about nursery school but I'm sure I had a crazy friend there because there was once an incident involving I and another girl, 2 boiled eggs, a miniature My Little Pony, a copy of English Primer and lots of puke. I'm a little hazy on the details but I remember both of us being nearly expelled...and seriously who gets expelled from nursery school?

Corona School - Amaka, Uju, Isowei , Michelle U, Onyinye. We were terrors in our little red and white school uniforms and as far as I know, they're all still crazy.

Grange School - Jennifer, Linda. Very dangerous combination.

Queens College - Henrietta, Nneka, Nwabugo, Yoko, Hilda. There's really no need to expantiate on these people, fact is they're all still very, very nuts.

University of Nigeria - Uju, Adaora. It was Eastern madness all up in there.

Nigerian Law School - Ediri, Adanna, Erenma, Anwuli and by extension Amaka and Iroghama. These were the Holy Grail of mad people I'd accumulated over the years.

Listing the above was just to buttress my point that no matter how far I went, wherever I went, mad people found me. Truly I've tried to stay away from insanity, tried to be as normal as possible but still my Chi keeps digging up all these aiders and abetters, so that whatever happened I stayed entertained.

Where was I....yes Azhanty. Now a little while ago this child made a bet with some people a couple of continents away. Bear that in mind, these people were all the way in Mexico, so if she lost the bet they couldn't get to her, didn't stop her still. The bet was over some Mexican football team and sadly Azhanty lost. Ask me the condition of this preposterously stupid bet; the loser will have to shave her head, her whole head, like gorimaps and tings. I was in the kitchen jejely when this girl burst in, asking if I'd witness something. First thing that came to my mind was she was talking about a legal document, babe was like no, she wanted me to watch her shave her head and film it too so she could prove she really did it. I was like "say what now? You wanna shave your head?" And she was like "si" and I was like "Dios mio!"

*Truly I said "Dios mio", I think I thought I was in an episode of one of those dreadful Mexican telenovellas like Catalina and Sebastian*

The guy that was going to do the shaving arrived and I watched horror struck while 18 inches of Mexican hair, colour 4 was peeled off this girls head. I go into debt to buy human hair and someone just shaves it off casually because she lost a bet, I still haven't recovered.




There are no words, none at all

In the video of The Great Mexican Scalping, you can see me jumping in and out of the frame in my Mickey Mouse nightie screaming "STOP!" I'll put it up here once she's done editing it, very traumatic.

In happier news, I decided to sample Aberdeen's nightlife with my friend Amerie last weekend and I still don't know how to describe it. Its a student town, Uni of Aberdeen, Robert Gordon University and Aberdeen College are all here so there are loads of bars, pubs, clubs..whatever catches your fancy really, lots of places to hang out in.....and loads of guys.

Now I don't know whether they were specially bussed in from around the UK to welcome me or something but I swear Friday night, there were like 7 guys to 1 girl, it was a total sausage fest. I was just like, shuuuuu. And they were all so predatory, like practically standing in line to talk to a girl. Let me try and describe this, a guy is talking to you and while he's still doing his spiel, pulling out all his best moves another one just cuts in and starts talking, if that one goes to get you a drink another one cuts in. I was just like WOAH. These guys are starved. Complimentary cards and numbers were flying around like confetti, one of the funniest nights out I've been on in a long while.


Amerie


TWP at Espionage just before the levees broke and the manstorm came in.

That was my week so far, school proper started this week and I had my first lecture today Marine and Coastal Law, tomorrow i have Oil and Gas Regulation.....*sigh* kill me now.

p.s. I don't know if anyone knows this, well I just found out myself, forgive my ignorance but the Scottish 10 pound note has the map of Calabar on its back (or I think its Calabar, maybe its Akwa Ibom). Anyhow sha, its there and a picture of Mary Slessor on the front. I knew she was a big deal in Nigeria and all that but I had no idea her whole stopping twins from being murked made waves over here too.



I tried to rotate and all, ish didn't work. Forgive me, I'll get my brother on it asap. Anyhoo thats Maaaary *in an Igbo accent*


The map. I was paying for something when I saw "Arochuku" on the back of the note (which is actually spelled wrong, proper spelling is "ArochukWu"), I actually screamed.

I'm very dramatic.

C'est finis, love and light xxx

p.s. Go watch Love and Other Drugs! I love Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal in this movie, I wanna marry the both of them! Awesome, awesome movie. I totally endorse!
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Monday, January 31, 2011

Escape from The Grampians

As a result of my beutamagorgeous *in the voice of Winterbottom* height, I couldn't find coats to fit me for love or money. All the major high street stores are here in Aberdeen but the pickings are not as bountiful as London so a lot of them don't stock "tall" clothes in store. The fitting is never a problem, seeing as I'm blessed, but the damn sleeves are always too damn short, as in my coat sleeves go dey fear ground. Because of this glaring deficiency and also becuase I just thought worrahell, I decided to go to London for the weekend.

I and Miss Jayla Peperempe boarded a Caledonian Sleeper Wednesday night, which was pretty comfortable, I had earlier tried to get a berth but I booked late so all I got was a sleeper seat. When I saw the berths I gave thanks to my mother Mary because these things were minisicule. I had envisioned some Orient Express kind of luxury suites and instead they were a claustrophobic nightmare. So yeah, every dissappointment is a blessing because if I'd had to fold my body into those bunks for 7 hours I'll def have been asphyxiated.


Jayla in the berth, even looking at this photo I can feel my throat closing up.


In my sleeper seat, breathing beautifully

Arrived Londres bright and early Thursday morning and met up with my boo Erenma who was housing me for the duration


TWP and Remz I thought I looked like a hobo here, this photo is even flattering small, you shoulda seen me that day, like a homeless person.

Woke up the next day, ready to mezz myself with shopping, babes were definitely not smiling. It was either I went back to Aberdeen with coats that fit properly or I just go back to Gidi from there. How I for do am before? Is it that I'd be wrapping myself in a blanket everyday to class? Nah men


Remz, me...full of caffeine, ready to do damage

Shopping successfully completed, the next day was just for chilling and hanging out with friends


My friend, Uju of Meena saw this outfit and asked if I was wearing Hermes top to toe, I nearly cracked a rib laughing. If I can afford an all over Hermes outfit, best believe I'll not be in school.


Chichi. One of my oldest...if not even my oldest friend. We were at each others 1st birthday parties, how freaky is that.

Headed to Hix later for champers with my friend Hilda, as usual I got a little merry after just two glasses, smh at myself


Hilda

Later that night after the necessary party had been informed and the requisite acquiesance obtained, I headed out to a house party with Remz


Remz


Shay, Theresa, Remz, Stephanie


Kay, Chichi

I remember tweeting that night "aint no party like a Lagos party". I missed entering a party and acting like your shit don't stink and air-kissing and fronting and bb'ing all night like you'd rather be anywhere else than at that party and wearing the weirdest clothes or anything made out of ankara and it officially been deemd cool because people don't understand it and are too afraid of being thought of as "uncool" if they said they didn't like it and girls eyeing each other......kai, I miss my superficial Lagos sha.

LL.M LL.M LL.M LL.M LL.M....focus!

Anyhoo, the next day after the most STRESSFUL day ever, so stressful I can't even go into the details here, I finally managed to get a train leaving London that night, got into Aberdeen at 7am this morning, showered and headed straight into school for my first day. Even if I was in bloody undergrad sef, couldn't believe I was so disorganized, anyway lesson learned, never again. Had a pretty easy day at school today, I don't envision any wahala ahead, abi I should just bite my tongue before I speak too soon.

After all the hoopla of the whole day, headed to Bobbins, the unofficial school watering hole to unwind with my new flatmate, Arun over wine, beer, curly fries and garlic bread.


Respected myself and stuck to one glass of white wine. No need shaming my Arondizuogu self all the way in obodo oyibo


Arun from India has the most amazing life story ever, I wish I could tell it here i swear but i can't. This child has LIVED. Even Himself was flabberwhelmed when I was telling Him (with her permission of course) and nothing fazes Him.

So yeah, that was my weekend.

Before I forget, i was featured on this blog fg2bh.wordpress.com in a style faceoff with Genevieve Nnaji. We were both wearing the same Meena jumpsuit, me in purple, her in blue, it was like a 'who wore it best thing". Julia Roberts of Africa or no Julia Roberts of Africa, I wore it best sha, you can't tell me nothing *in Kanye voice*
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Monday, January 24, 2011

Stylish and Versatile Blogger Award

I was recently awarded the trending stylish and versatile blogger award by Looking Glass Of An Immigrant and Mimi B. As part of the fun, I'm required to:

1) Thank the blogger that gave you the award.

2) Then list 7 things about yourself.

3) Give out the same awards to 15 other bloggers.

4) Then contact them.

So.......



A. thanks to looking Glass of an Immigrant and Mimi B for taking the time out to read my crap and respond to it in the way that they have. You guys give me life, bloggers rock!


B. SEVEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT MYSELF

1) I have mild OCD, if I touch an object with one hand I have to touch the same thing with the other hand or i feel unbalanced. Like the side of my body where the hand I used to touch the object, kinda feels heavier than the other side. I’ve been doing it all my life and I never even noticed until my mum pointed it out to me when I was 17. Now I have to make a conscious effort not to do it and when I don’t I feel….kind of empty on the side that hasn’t touched that thing, I don’t really know how to explain it. Even when I shake people with one hand I have to find a way to touch them somewhere with my other hand so I don’t feel incomplete.

2) I take a small tube of vaseline with me everywhere I go. Y'all should get your minds outta the gutter, its nothing sexual, I just really, really hate dry skin and chapped lips. If I can't find vaseline and my lips or hands feel dry I can go as far as using lotion or something, its really bad.

3) I'm a total lightweight, one glass of anything and I'm flying. It's sooo embarrassing so I hardly ever drink.

4) I hate being imitated. I think I'm the only person in the world that doesn't look at that as a sign of flattery. If i do or say something or dress in a certain way and someone starts to copy me, I literally feel like physically hurting the person. I kinda feel like they're stealing my identity. Yes I'm petty, but that's me. Like in all those movies where some evil girl is trying to steal another girl's life and starts dressing like her and stealing her friends. That's a proper horror movie right there.

5)I cannot STAND abbreviations. pls, wiv, yhu, sumfin....YUCK. pardon me if you do it but I can't take anyone that abbreviates like that seriously. All my text language has properly written out sentences, punctuation...the works. If a guy ever wrote that way to me, he's getting dismissed in an instant, no matter how fabulous he is. It just makes the person writing it look so unintelligent, in my opinion anyway.

6) I'm fascinated by Jews and the Holocaust. I watch every movie, read every book, go through any pictures based on the holocaust or Russian pogroms. The Diary of Anne Frank is one of my favourite movies and I love all the Jewish stories about kibbutz's and The Six Days War and Golda Meir and the Rothschilds. If I weren't Catholic, I'd love to be a Jew. I love the ceremonies, sitting shiva, Bar Mitzvahs the languages Yiddish or Hebrew. Even the phrases, schmuck, oy gevalt, mazel tov, shiksa......in my next life I wanna be Jewish.

7) I secretly wish I were 5"4 and a size 12. Don't get me wrong I love being 5"11 and a size 8 but it can get so tiring somethings. Always having to shop in the tall section, enlisting the help of chicken fillets once in a while, always being noticed. Some people might think its a great thing to walk into a room and everybody turns around but I'll give good money to just for once enter a room and nobody notices I'm there.

* had to tweak the rules and throw this in as an extra. I have an obsessive personality when it comes to things that I like. If I like a song, food, a person, drink, dress....whatever it is, I'll totally OD on it and then one day...BOOM it just goes away and I can't stand said thing. I call it my Danish Butter Cookies Mentality. When I was very young I loved Danish Butter Cookies, but my mum would only give I and my brothers like a few cookies out of the tin, I would now be salivating and dreaming about demolishing the entire tin. Being a youngin obviously I couldn't afford one of my own and my mother would rather move to Mbaise than give a child a whole tin of cookies. At my Grade 5 Christmas party in Grange, we all had to bring supplies and I made my mum buy 4 tins of Danish Cookies, as a proper barawo I didn't submit nada to the class instead I went off somewhere and polised off the ENTIRE thing. Four fat tins of cookies. That was the last time I ever ate Danish Butter Cookies, if I even see one now, I'll throw up in my mouth.


C) HANDING OUT THE AWARD TO FIFTEEN BLOGGERS

1)Jadore-fashion.com. My blogger bestie, El Fabulouso from Maryland.

2)Bombchell.com. One of my oldest friends, 19 years and counting

3)Onenigerianboy.blogspot.com. Nigeria's most authoritative men's fashion repository.

4) Wailacaan.wordpress.com. I stay rolling with her stories from the motherland.

5) Anyaposh.blogspot.com. One of the realest bloggers I know, tells it like it is.

6)Lohiscreations.blogspot.com. She has a great food section, uzeba-kitchen.blogspot.com. I've picked up a lot of tips from there.

7)Stellasaddiction.blogspot.com. Make-up artist toh gbaski

8)Patpend.blogspot.com. My nwanne from another nne.

9)madphury.blogspot.com. The matchmaking genius behind Himself and Herself and one of my favourite relatives.

10)Tariere.com. Very, very wise woman. can't say enough about Tari.

11)Originalmgbeke.blogspot.com. My Igbo blogging sister, hilarious girl.

12) Missjayla.wordpress.com. Fellow admirer of Uche Ogbuagu.

13)Beforsheimplodes.blogspot.com. My baby OyeT

14)Grumpyoldyoungwoman.blogspot.com. I hope she sees this because she hasn't upfated in a while but she's hella funny.

15)Nigeriandramaqueen.blogspot.com. The best writing on blogger, fluid language, dexterity. I bow befor the altar of her prowess.

So yeah, thats it. Love and light people xxx
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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ceud mìle fàilte


And that my gorgeous profashionals is "welcome" in Scottish.

Got into Aberdeen on Wednesday and would have blogged since but between fixing up my flat and trying to build back my wardrobe I've barely had any time, I get home and I'm so exhausted from walking around all day I just go straight to bed. Me that was always complaining about Lagos traffic, I'll take sitting in a car anyday over standing at freezing bus stops.

I'm actually very pleasantly surprised by Aberdeen, I thought it would be a small grimy town but its gorgeous, "an extraordinary array of fairytale turrets, Gothic baronial piles, spires and green copper domes pop up unexpectedly from behind grand
civic buildings and modern shopping arcades" via Lonely Planet. But seriously though, the whole city is just like Hogwarts but with high street shops and restaurants, even a TGI Fridays. For months leading up to this I'd been so depressed because I thought Aberdeen would be so dull, honestly the only reason I came here was because its the best school for Oil and Gas Law in the UK, if I was doing something regular like International Law or an MBA, I would so have gone somewhere else. Now I'm just like yay! I made the right choice, I'm loving it so far.

Anyhoo I'd spent the past two days shopping and today I had my first visitor, Ugo aka Miss Jayla Peperempe dropped by after her exams.


Jayla in my little "Cupboard under the Stairs"

We went to Union Square, which is like Aberdeen's 'Westfield", not as fabulous but pretty good and I did more home and grocery shopping, had to stock the kitchen by force as The Awesome Himself is gracing us with his presence tomorrow, doubt he'll survive on the Ijebu garri with groundnuts and Indomie that I've been lemming for the past two days. We stopped by a restaurant called Apache's which does pretty good steak and ribs.


This reminds me of the last time I had ribs, at Bungalows in lagos. I'm a total carnivore, like I love meat but sometimes when its too much and in gargantuan quantities it can be a bit nauseating. That day at Bungalows they piled my plate high with steaming spare ribs slathered with barbecue sauce, in writing this sounds like a meat-eaters dream come true but it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen, it looked almost alive, there was so much of it that I kept dry heaving just looking at it. Even if I'm a lion sef, that was just too much.


TWP aka Daks aka Omalicha aka Apunanwu aka She (who remembers that movie/book "She"?)
*forgive my randomness

Later that night i went out with a few people also doing Oil and Gas Law but who started in September, to a pub called The Bobbin thats apparently the 'hot spot" for all the Uni of Aberdeen students.
*sidebar Aberdeen is crawling with pubs, there's like two at every block, my favorite pub names so far are "The Illicit Still" and "The Tilted Wig", the latter is right opposite the court so I guess thats where the legal humour is coming from but I crack up everytime I pass it.


The Bobbin


Talissa from Brazil and my flatmate Azhanty from Mexico


Fadil from Sudan and Atanas from Bulgaria


Melissa from South Africa

It was a fun night but ended for me at about 10.30, tiredness toh bad. I still have at about a week to play sef, school doesn't start for me till the 31st and I only came this early to familiarize myself with my surroundings and the weather before school wahala starts. Imagine landing one day and the next you have to register for courses or whatnot in a completely new city, I'd just go mental but at least by the time orientation and stuff begins I'll be an old hand here.

Thank you to all of you who wished me well and who wished me good luck in my previous post and on twitter. A few years ago I would never have believed that people I'd never met or heard their voices could have this much impact in my life, thanks muchos guys.

Love and light xxx
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Deuces Gidi


Henrietta, Uju, Yoko, Bisola, Adanna

Its my last night at home because as a professional ajayi and Commander-in-Chief of the Efiko Armed Forces, I'm not content with an undergraduate degree in Law that took me 5 years to get, another strenuous 1 year at that venerable citadel of learning, the Nigerian Law School and a membership of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators......

*tooting my own horn* toot, toot.

Nope, I decided to top it all off with a Masters in Oil and Gas Law, so from tomorrow, or rather today sef, seeing as its 1am here, my bedroom becomes the official guest room.

Y'all can drop by anytime.

According to my great-aunt however, I should have stopped after getting my West African School Leaving Certificate, shouldn't even have gone to university. Why you ask? Apparently my village, Arondizuogu in Imo State has one of the highest bride prices in the East, 80 cowries for a girl, born without deformities (I swear to you). If the girl finishes secondary school, her bride price increases by 20 cowries, so the more education she gets the more expensive she is. If an Arondizuogu village belle (such as myself) decides that she must read book by force and has the audacity to get a professional degree e.g. law, medicine, accountancy, engineering.....her family is just asking for trouble, because that adds another 30 cowries to this already insane figure.

*cowries were the legal tender as of the early 1900's, the amount in 2011 naira is too embarrassing for me to put down, I'm ashamed at how expensive I am.

In the words of my great-aunt, going to get a masters will render me unmarriageable. However, seeing as she neglected to yarn me all this opata when I was a relatively cheap and affordable SS2 girl, there's nothing I can do about it now is there?

Anyhoo, on a lighter note, The Awesome Himself and my friends Bisola, Henrietta, Uju, Yoko, Adanna, Bukky and my brother Jnr had a surprise leaving do for me at my favourite restaurant, Pattaya. I'd been hinting heavily for months that I wanted a surprise party and everybody, especially Henrietta just laughed at me or told me to park well, so I honestly had no idea anything was going down.


The Plotters


Bisola


Henrietta


Uju of Meena


Yoko


Bukky


Adanna


TWP in Meena

Thank you again to you wonderful people above, I'm going to miss you guys HUGELY, and to my friends who couldn't make it but were there in spirit, Jennifer, Oyidiya, Ediri, Iro, Nwabugo, Nneka, Hilda...I love you guys, big kisses.

So next post, expect loads of snow, witty snow commentary, pictures of snow in different elements from powdery to icy to melting, stories of being snowbound.......Christ I'm gonna hurl from boredom. Why couldn't I have done the damn masters in Unilag????

Then again I can't keep up with Unilag kpanshing prices, what d'you get for an iPad these days....a peep-show? quick tumble after class? Lol

Love and light faboosh people xxx
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Monday, January 10, 2011

TWP'S WARDROBE SALES!!!

On Sunday the 9th I turned my parents living room into Le Petit Marche and basically emptied my clost. I honestly thought very few people would turn up and would probably be made up of my friends but an overwhelming number of people came to support me. Followers on twitter, readers of my blog, friends, neighbours and even people who had just heard somehow.

I was truly, truly overwhelmed.

For the sake of decency and all I can't say exactly how much I made but be rest assured that it covered about 3 months rent at my new digs while still leaving me with change to stock my depleted Mac makeup bag.

Jehovah is faithful.

In all the excitement at the amount of people that showed up and the stacks I was making, I forgot that as well as being editor-in-chief, editor-at-large, fashion editor, makeup editor, features editor, events editor of this here fantabulous blog....I was also photo editor and I neglected to take proper photos, sha have a gander at the few I remembered to capture. The pictures of the items were taken with my phone and the flash isn't the bunzest so they're a bit dark.













PEOPLE
Bukky, Yoko, Adanna

Henrietta

Ijeoma, Pamela

Torera

Zitera(right)

Kike, Amaka, Ani, Seyi

Onyinye

Ifeoma, Fola

TWP looking tres exhausted

Loads of other people came that i didn't get photos of: Iro (my first customer, whom I had to break the rules for because she lives in Port-Harcourt), Tife, Oyidiya (who shopped via bbm from her sickbed in vi), Onyinye, Chichi, Ogundu, Tolu, Oyetola, Biola, Ify, Chika, Funmi, Eli, The Awesome Himself....and others that I din't know and stupidly didnt take down their names.

Thank you all you fabulous people, love and light xxx
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