not for the faint hearted

It wouldn’t be me if I did not talk about this and indeed I shall. Maybe it would help me, be me, or get over it.

I have these cousins that bear the same last name as I do. Growing up, her family right from her grandfathers didn’t like their name so they adopted mine, so they are not really my cousins per se, but they have the last name as I do, so indeed we are. When I was younger, as in Kindergarten young, I used to be very smart; some even thought I was some kind of child prodigy. So her mum proud of me, and wondering if something was wrong with her two children, a boy and a girl a few years younger than I, she asked me to coach them teach them over the summer. So every morning they would drop them off and I would teach them English, math, etc. I don’t know if they liked it, I really didn’t but when you’re smart you share your brain especially with your cousins.

When I went to college to study Law, her mother told me her daughter wanted to study Law as well. She wants to be just like you, just like her mum wanted to be just like mine, but that’s a while other story. Then, I was in school for donkeys of years. In between that, I can’t remember when exactly, I know I did see her briefly when I studying for the Bar exam and I think that was the very last time I saw her. She decided to go to college in America, despite the fact that she had gotten admission into one of the best schools in Nigeria, to study Law, her mum felt her education would be more worthwhile if she studied it here. So she did, and then, I did mine, and moved here in 2000.

The other day as a joke I put my name through a search engine and there it is. Her name pulls up. She is an attorney with one of the best law firms in the country. She must have been so good that they gave her the job without her having even passed the Bar for the state she worked in. In a little while she did, so they put up all her data online. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from her college in Economics, and went onto to Harvard Law School (how she paid, beats me unless it was a scholarship) and she works as an Energy and International relations lawyer. This is the same field I would die to work in, I am trying to work in, and I am so far from even getting close to working in. She achieved my dream by pretending to be me, she did it and she did it better than me.

Yes, stories like this illustrate my sadness and bitterness. They explain where I am from and what I am up against. Most times I say to myself n consolation, “girl you are not in competition with anyone, you have your achievements and she has hers, and she achieved being you, only better version of you, with your last name and everything.” My question is, and I have achieved what exactly?

Ever since I have known myself I have wanted something to take me away from my boredom, to offer me a world of excitement, an escape, from humdrum routine of life, a meaning to my existence. I would sit in between my studying and hope for a sliver of excitement, maybe it was that hope and the daydreams that stopped me from becoming magna cum laude, maybe it was that dream that led me to come to America, and it is that dream that made me fail in becoming the better version of me. I need to wake up from that daydream because it is not going to happen, I am 30 years old and it has not happened, it probably never will happen and I should just concentrate on the reality of my existence and forget whatever there could possibly be.

I just feel like I robbed myself of a better life. I had a plan for myself and that plan was badly executed and without a good execution I can only be what I am now. A rough estimate of what anyone in their right mind would have imagined I would turn out to be. A tool. A stupid old tool, who is as brain dead and devoid of any sense of worth whatsoever.

I wish there was some formidable way of ending this deep heartfelt rant. This is as deep an insight into me and my frustration as anyone of you are ever gonna get.
But there isn’t a chance of hope. Sometimes I pray I can be content with my mediocrity. At moments I wish I didn’t feel I owed myself a smidgen of success in my dreams, but there are times when I wonder why did I ever feel like there was something special about me, why? Why didn’t I just wish for other things young girls like me hoped for, a good husband, dozens of kids, money, and a comfortable life. Why did that seem so mediocre, and why did I want something exciting to happen in its stead, and why did that pursuit ruin everything else in between?

as the sky opened up

Random mumblings and then some...

What is there to say on this thing? I have lost all feeling whatsoever for communicating my feelings, or thoughts, or just random ideas that pop into my head.
Some of them are...
1) Whoever made National Treasure a PG movie needs to be rebuked. It is a good movie, but I do not really enjoy struggling for a good seat with a bunch of kids.
2) I had no idea Josh Duhamel was that hot. He is hot in a "the kind of guy I like hot" way, and I just never really noticed him.
3) At what point in between sleeping with someone and driving four hours every weekend to go visit them do you realize that, he is your boyfriend and mayeb you guys need to accept that it is what it is, and maybe decide on who stays and who goes, and where do you take this "thing"
4) The Bridget Jones sequel was such a waste of time and effort and a letdown to all Bridget readers worldwide. I wonder how Helen Fielding felt watching her wonderful delicately crafty script being played out like some kind of rompy comedy. It would break my heart, no matter how much I get paid for it, it would still break my heart.
5) I saw the movie Amelie for the first time on Friday and what a rare Friday treat it was. Most people go out clubbing on Friday nights, I stay in and curl up on my couch and watch TV while I wish that the seconds would go by slower over the weekend than they do during the week. Yes, I do that. But Amelie, rare treat. I love subtitled critically acclaimed movies. I hate PG movies but I love subtitled movies. The Barbarian Invasions was a good one too. Sometimes I wish I could rent them all and have a subtitled movie marathon.
6) I think Gavin DeGraw is one of the best new artists of this year. He is not recognized enough or given enough kudos, he is just brilliant and his CD I can't get enough of.

Now, to the serious things:
1) work is still the same. It's the 22nd of November and I am still here. Somehow I am glad I am still here, somehow I wish I had progressively moved to something else. But it cannot be helped, I am still here and bloody well might be until the 1st of January the way things are looking.
2) I framed a few of my black and whites and hung them in my little hallway. Something about that just made me so proud, so proud. It was expensive and hard to decide on those pictures, since custom framing is such a luxiry but I did it. Every time I walk in from work and look at those pictures, it reminds me of a different side of myself, the creative side, the fun side, the side I want to be with all the time.
3) And everything else in between, it's stil just me.

work issues and then some

"Sorry about the interruption. I had a long talk with Anita that she should call me with these types of issues. I have been on the road and continue to insist that we talk at least twice a day. She is hesitant to call for some reason. She began today giving me lecture about how things are going to be done. I not too gently let her know how I expected things to be done and if she needed me, I would to answer any questions she has. I think that we got through it alright, but I am concerned that she just does not like her job as a litigation paralegal/secretary. She has let me know that she does not work past 5 pm and that she leaves early on Friday. I suggested that she might be in the wrong carrier. (sic) "

This is what my new boss had to say about me after having worked with me for barely a month, and I would say in that whole month, about 6 days in total. He does not show up for work as a good leader should and then, he makes assumptions based on my rejection of his request to base my skill on how fast I can type up his dictation or handwritten notes. I don't understand why the attorneys I have worked with come off as egotistical maniacs, who cannot take correction and exude the whole God-complex. When you see notes like these, no matter how much I try to read his reasons for his assumptions from the badly composed email, I just cannot accept that it is totally wrong, and misinformed, and a strong determinant that it's time to get back to school, get back in the game and aspire for greater things.

I am rambling. Hopefully, this would not read as badly as that note when I read it when my head has cooled.

what do you know?

At times, it seems almost tiresome that one would ask for some kind of help, some kind of insight into things, some kind of relief on some issues, and yet the same issues would still befall you. For example, my life, my work. The one thing that I hold dear is my life and my work, yet those don't seem to be working out. I feel like taking a vacation from myself, being someone else for a change, someone who has less responsiblity, more fun, loves her job, is respected at her job, and is noticed even if it's once in a while.

I do that in my dream sometimes. In my dream last night, I was in Europe. I was shooting a documentary and my crew just happened upon the crew of Oceans 12, and the very delectable but obnoxious George Clooney. I had a brushing with him of some kind and he walked off, and who was the surprise 12th member, Keanu. Yes, but it was a dream nonetheless. The rest of the crew, Brad, and Matt Damon took a liking to me and inquired about my documentary which was on foreign living and how simple it is, but George was too proud to beg, so to speak so he ran off, giving me the cold shoulder.

No one understands why I detest the company I work for, just me. or maybe all companies are this way, I havent worked for enough companies to know not to compare, but this one takes the cake, in treating us like inconsequentials and maybe I like to be noticed A LOT and I dont want to be the inconsequential person of the bunch.

But in my dream, I met George Clooney and he was an asshole, and Keanu was shy and Matt Damon was actually a friendly guy. I guess I can be consoled by my vivid playful imagination. If only that were enough.

Help me, save me from this career! That would be the heading of my Dear Abbie letter.

And Dear Abbie would say, it is all your fault, somewhat.

I'm sorry

I feel really bad that I didn't attend church today. I am going through this withdrawal thing, maybe it's from God or the state of situation I cannot change, and I would like to change, that I feel like going to church I am just mainly saying the same things over and over, and I might not be saying it right. On Friday, I sat in front of the TV and watched the VH1 marathon on 100 Greatest Red Carpert Moments for 3 hours straight. Then, yesterday I spent, $280 shopping, absolutely shopping for shoes, clothes, winter clothes even though I have so much of that, and pants, I noticed that I don't fit into most of mine. And then, this morning I woke up with a feeling that said, I may not go to church and I want to go one a diet, an extreme one.

You can see a pattern there. Some kind of manic obsessive dysfunctional behaviour, that is dictating my life right now. I don't know. And worse off the holidays are around the corner, a bad time to be manic obsessive about anything. I am just not right, happily right, fulfilled. Afraid of the future.

However, for that God I apologize, I don't know what this is about.

Thank you God for everything, for my life, for the peace that I occasionally enjoy and for the love around me. I don't want my avoidance of church sermon as my turning my back from you. I just still want something great to happen to me, and I want to stop being afraid, and to live my own life. I am just unsure of what to do, how to do it, and if I can do it right, and if what I am doing will get me to where you want me to be. I pray that this is a good week, at work and at play, bless me and protect me from all evil and grant me the peace that I seek. Amen.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired

I had no doubt in my mind that Bush would win the re-election.

I didn't vote and if I did I wouldn't have voted for him. 

Everyone knows I am not exactly happy with the state of things, but since I always happen to support the party that loses in everything, I just knew that this would be one of the many losses. I also supported Gore in 2000 and see how that turned out. It is just so disappointing. In GA, Bush won. The secretary in my office voted for him, and yet she complains about her job every day. WTF! why not chose another option, if option A isn't working why in fuck's sweet name are you sticking with it? 

I am just so tired of it being an employer's market, that's my main aggravation. I had a different view of America before I moved here and since I moved it's been on a decline, and that has everything to do with Bush, because since then he's been (and annoying still will be) the president. It's like what gives? 

How many more stories of beheadings, and torment, and the elusive Bin Laden threatening home videos, etc can we take. It's just too depressing, and angst-ridden and deplorable, illustrating the statement that says how have the mighty fallen. All we can do now is pray. I know that sounds lame, but it's true. 

I once lived in a country with a dictator and we all sat down and prayed and prayed really hard and one day he just died. And my country was set free. Till today, we really do not know what killed him, some say he died from complications from Viagra, some say a heart attack, or AIDS, but we were set free by God's hands, and some how, something will save us from this. I am not saying Bush's death, (God Forbid) but something somewhere has got to give way to some sense of redemption in this whole thing. Like I said I am tired of it being an employer's market. 

I feel so sorry for people like Michael Moore who tried to open people's eyes to to the truth but they still chose to stay in darkness. Somewhat like the Bible that is trying to educate some of us about God's light and we still chose sin, hmmm...I won't talk about this again. You know politics is not my thing. I am just sick and tired of the whole employer's market thing. I have said that already and I cannot say it enough.