H8ing Crazy Writing

I know that English is not my native tongue and I cannot claim to speak it well. Nevertheless, I love the language and it is the only one I can articulate myself properly in. I believe that all languages should be spoken correctly, so the sentiment I’m about to share here is not exclusive to English. In fact, I get really annoyed when I watch the NTA (Nigeria Television Authority) news and hear newscasters, in an attempt to do fone*, anglicizing Nigerian words. Absolute tomfoolery it is!

I read yesterday that the Collins’ scrabble dictionary had been updated to include words like “innit”, “aloo”, etc. I’m all for the acknowledgement of slang but when words like these are validated for use in the scrabble dictionary, it spells the beginning of the end. I think that English as it is meant to be spoken, Received Pronunciation/the Queen’s English, is beautiful. I remember listening to an episode of Spooks because I was too lazy to look at the screen and falling in love with the actor who was playing the head of MI6. He spoke with a cut glass accent. I looked at the screen eventually because I needed a face for my crush and sadly he turned out to be an old, bald gentleman. If I were blind though, I would have happily married him on account of his beautiful diction. Conversely, I have totally lost interest in men once they revealed a less than adequate grasp of the language**.

I am a massive fan of mobile phones, particularly smart ones, and cannot remember how life used to be without one. My one issue with them though is the corrosive influence of text-speak. These days I am at a loss to explain whether the messages I receive are from people with a limited command of English, people who think they are too cool for school or, worse still, just too damn lazy to type. I receive messages that practically require a cryptographer to decipher because of numerous grammatical and spelling liberties having been taken.

I had a recent interaction with a teenage cousin of mine using Facebook chat. Despite my near uncontrollable urge to highlight the lack of punctuation, capitalisation and pointless abbreviations, I carried on chatting with him without making any corrections until I saw the word “yhu”. The following conversation ensued:

Me: J, there is something I’ve just seen that is threatening to kill or, at the very least, blind me. Why are you writing “yhu”?

J: It’s supposed to be “you”

Me: So what purpose does writing it “yhu” serve? It is neither shortening the word nor reducing the energy/time required to type out “you”

J: Well doesn’t it just annoy you when you try to write “you” and it comes up “yuo” instead? I just make less mistakes writing “yhu”

Me: Last time I checked, you weren’t a typist paid by how many words you type per minute so I can’t understand how much of a rush you could be in to demand such a travesty.

Some of the irritating examples are:

• Confusion of plurals with possessives – even my iPhone autocorrect function causes me unending grief by substituting “friend’s” for “friends” or “friends’” EVERY SINGLE TIME. How anyone can confuse this is beyond me yet it’s in every single document I have read at work so far this week!
• Deliberate omission of the apostrophe e.g. “Ive” which I think has led to use of “Am” in place of “I’m” and “your” instead of “you’re”
• Senseless abbreviation e.g. “srzly” instead of “seriously” (I mean I just about force myself to ignore "U” and “gr8” because I can understand the time saving use of them but these other things drive me up the wall)
• Senseless spelling e.g. “mi” instead of “me” or “tlk” instead of “talk” – come on, how difficult can it be to type that one extra letter?

If it were up to me, mobile providers would charge more for meaningless messages and Facebook (as well as all other forms of social media) would prevent people from posting nonsensical words but then we don’t live in my dictatorship. LOL

In more positive news, I learnt a bunch of stuff this week that I didn’t even know I wanted to learn. I now know that a piece of wood/metal that separate panes of a sash window is called “muntin” and the white semi-circular marking at the base of your finger nail is called a “lunule”. One I always wanted to know was what the tips of a shoelace might be called – turns out it’s an “aglet”.

*A way of speaking that eliminates the typical influences of Nigerian dialects and thus perceived to be posh

** Limited to Nigerians and other Anglophone people

Club du Chim

So I was imagining the scenario that’s been playing out in my stomach/digestive system over the last month. It’s week 5 of the low G.I diet that I am piggybacking off my friend on and probably the most radical thing I have done food-wise since I left my mama’s house at 17. The scene is played out in Club du Chim, a members-only establishment, and the actors are all the different foods that I’ve been eating.

February 21st 2011: There is a new notice outside the club doors following a massive refurbishment.

Under new management: Previous memberships have been revoked and everyone will need to be re-evaluated for membership under the new regime

Messrs Potato, Rice, Noodles and Pasta walk with the swagger born of being lifetime members of the club. They smirk at the crowd queued up neatly outside the nondescript door that is the entrance. Rice being the most charismatic of the lot smiles as he recognises one or two people in the queue – Carrot is standing in a lovely trench coat looking uber trendy and clearly trying to impress, Aubergine’s wearing a nice green hat to complement her wonderful colour. “She must just have come back from a holiday or something” he mutters to Noodles. “She’s looking pretty dashing”.

Potato smirks and says loudly “I don’t know why you come here week after week, you are never going to make it in. You just don’t meet the cool factor” to the simpering Cauliflower, Broccoli and Mushroom. They barge their way through to the front of the queues flashing their platinum cards at the bouncers.

Bouncer: Hi sirs, you’re going to have to join the queue for me. Have you seen the notices on the door?

Noodles: Yeah we did but we’ve been VIP members of the club for 10 years now. Surely it’s only academic for us four. You couldn’t possibly survive without our patronage.

Bouncer: Hey, I don’t make the rules, OK? I just apply them and right now everyone is equal. There are no VIPs until registration is complete

All four move reluctantly to the back of the queue with Broccoli saying just under her breath “grace to grass for some, eh?” The bouncers check ID and let the guests through two at a time. Some of the clientele get turfed at the door – Peas just didn’t meet the dress code and was told not to bother to show up again, Potato shouted out “Don’t know why you even bother matey, this is just not your scene!”. Noodles was feeling a bit embarrassed now hanging with Potato and hung back from the group a little. He catches the eye of Aubergine and they start chatting while the queue steadily declines.

“I can’t believe how difficult it is under the new rules! I heard something about low G.I required for membership” Cauliflower is saying anxiously to Mushroom. “I mean this is the hottest place in town and I have been dying to get in for years but the last time I made it in must have been a decade ago and my membership was revoked with no explanation when Chim took over running the club from her mother”. Mushroom nodded, grimly adding that he only managed to sneak in sometimes when he was with Chicken or Lamb.

Lamb, Chicken, Pork, Sausage, even Bacon all made it in but they were told that they had to get their act together under this regime as only lean meats were allowed. Lamb bragged to the others “ha! I bet if I’ve got some old spice on, they’re going to let me in whether or not I’m lean”. Chicken was a bit nervous since she had been rather hit and miss over the last couple of years especially when she turned up with cleavage revealing clothes. She had a miniskirt on today as she’d noticed she was far more successful with some leg on show and it seemed to have paid off.

The line continued to move and Carrot noted with happiness that some people that he hadn’t thought would get in hadn’t been thrown out – Rocket, Watercress and Spinach to name a few. Carrot suddenly noticed the short person hidden by the massive frame of Cucumber was Hummus. “Hey Hum, it’s been ages since we met up. How are things these days?” Hummus turned round and they did the man hug thing and exchanged details of the latest in their lives. Turns out that Hummus was well known to bouncer lady and seeing that they appeared very close, Carrot was waved in and registered easily.

Pasta looked nervously at his watch. It was strange for him to be in a queue at this club. Many years ago he always got dumped in favour of Rice or Noodles when spaces were limited but since he ditched his Nigerian dressing for an Italian makeover, he’d become a massive favourite. He watched Cauliflower, Broccoli and Mushroom arguing furiously that they met the low G.I requirement plus had very desirable high fibre content. The bouncers adamantly maintained that they’d filled up the quota already for their category. “I can’t believe I got a nice afro done this week. Look how big my head looks. It was supposed to make me more desirable” Cauliflower cried out in despair. Broccoli just wondered why he’d been suckered into coming with his wife again – ever since Chim took over, he knew that the pair of them were blacklisted and just because Cauliflower snuck in a few months ago covered in Indian attire didn’t mean that they were going to bypass the new rules.

Potato: About time we got to this point. I should complain to management you know. I’ve never been treated this way before

Bouncer: Hey, we told you that everyone has to go through this today.

Noodles: Well here’s my platinum card, I’m obviously loaded and my friends and I have always been favourites round here. In fact, I think I recall Chim saying that she couldn’t imagine life without any of us.

Bouncer: Oh my days, I’ve just looked at the blacklisted folks. It looks like under the new rules none of you four is allowed.

Rice: There must be some mistake. I mean how can we be banned? Is it for life?

Bouncer: It says here on the list. Look. Plantain, Yam and the four of you are among the Carbs group that we cannot allow in under any circumstance. You’re supposed to re-apply in May, there might be a limited membership option available then.

Noodles: Absolutely not! I’d like to go in with the lovely Aubergine here. Can’t you see how nice a couple we are? I was hoping to spoil her with some Cristal or Ace of Spades in there.

Bouncer: Oh no, no, no. Aubergine is listed as an undesirable here. In fact she’s got a lifetime ban since last night when she was invited to the preview opening with Courgette, Beetroot and Tuna. Courgette was very surprised to finally be let in after many years on the blacklist.

Noodles: OMG, you let that heffer Courgette in? I am suddenly uninterested in going in even if you begged me to. The standards of Club du Chim must have gone down!

Bouncer: Sorry about that but rules are rules. As I said, come back in May. There are limited membership options. Lentils and Yoghurt got those today. They can only show up two or three times a week. You guys were such party animals. Club du Chim is tired of you turning up every single day with all your demands.

Potato: I think I’m going to sue. This is ludicrous and massively discriminating. I saw Cheese, Mayonnaise and Butter (Butter!!!!!) sauntering in like they owned the place. They only had limited memberships before. How come they are now lifetime members?

Bouncer: You didn’t think that when you were sitting cosily while Courgette was turned away week after week. Rules changed. They are low G.I and that’s the key requirement these days.

Noodles turned away in a huff and ordered the valet to bring his limited edition Bugatti. He let Aubergine in and went round to the driver’s side. “I am off to find somewhere else that’s more welcoming. Pasta went to this really trendy place called LNK on Monday. It’s definitely the place to be now”

Help, I'm a cat!

I woke up Friday morning and signed in immediately into my work laptop only to be greeted with messages from my friend that she’d called a couple of people up in Japan as well as her friend in Italy. Of course the significance of these calls was lost on me as I enquired if it was her “long distance calls” day. It took only a few minutes, as I signed in to see what was going on in the land of Facebook, to realise that something had occurred in Japan (from the very astute status message “2011, stop trying to be 2012. First it was New Zealand, now it’s Japan”) and I read in horror about the earthquake and consequent tsunami on the BBC website.

Five days on I’m still reeling at how much of a disaster there has been out there. I’ve also found myself thinking about New Zealand, Australia, China and other countries where there have been so many natural disasters and countless deaths as well as displacements. I think about the orphans and the homeless people. I was even quite upset when I heard about the heart wrenching news of dogs waiting patiently outside houses for their humans.

This morning there was an email thanking us for expressing interest as a company in helping colleagues out in Japan. Yesterday I got an email asking for donation of my Hilton Honours points to help families in Japan. All the news channels are trying to outdo themselves in painting the grimmest picture of the situation out there. Thus I was quite amused when in the middle of all this information about real human disaster, an appeal to save “big cats” came onto my TV screen.

I love dogs, am indifferent to cats, like other pets from a distance, am not crazy about the zoo, don't wear fur and certainly don't go hunting. I eat meat and usually look upon vegetarians with disdain. I went into a mild panic when I was out in India and didn’t eat any meat for nearly three days. Let’s just say that while I am not a fan of torturing animals or treating them badly, I think that this is really not a great time to save a tiger or jaguar.

Io sono Nigeriana

I find accents and languages fascinating. I l have often thought that most people speak faster in other languages – my Spanish and Italian friends seem to speak at rapid fire pace. My friend E is probably the only person I know who speaks English as rapidly although my sister speaks pretty quickly too if she’s not deliberately slowing herself down. You’d think that I would be fluent in 2 or 3 languages at least given my fascination with words, having learnt 3 languages in primary and secondary school and coming from a family with bi and multi lingual members. Sadly this isn’t the case.

I think my English is fluent, almost native, and I could speak Igbo (well the Ohafia dialect) pretty fluently before I turned 7. What happened then, you might ask. We moved from Aba in South East Nigeria, part of the Igbo stronghold to Lagos in the South West, former capital and very much dominated by the Yoruba tongue even though it’s technically the most diverse and tribe neutral city in Nigeria. While vernacular was forbidden in school, the Yoruba kids spoke sometimes.

We had to learn Yoruba in school as well as French but from my young and very prejudiced perspective it seemed that the language was for the seriously uncouth, involving opening the mouth to incredible widths and much yelling. If you know me, you’ll know I have a small mouth and tend to mumble. Thus Yoruba was the only lesson in which I performed consistently below par as I wanted nothing to do with it. The differences in the two languages also meant that my siblings and I often got laughed at for the way that we said particular words – owing to our Igbo influenced accents. Things like oya, favourite, said, and ate come to mind. Gradually I went from speaking Igbo very well to, twenty years later, being barely able to scrape together a coherent sentence.

I am often sad when I’m in the company of my Nigerian friends or family and want to say something in public that I would prefer that no one else could understand and I can’t. I am often sad when I think about the possibility of having kids and having no hope of raising them with Igbo and/or Yoruba at the heart of their cultural heritage. I am often sad when attempts to converse with my siblings in Ohafia result in our dissolution into fits of laughter. The two people who forced me to speak these languages are now dead – my next-door-neighbour and great grandmother who were both unable to speak any English.

I bet you’re wondering why I am suddenly nostalgic about a skill lost and opportunity missed. I saw a video today that put me to shame.

Titi does a fabulous job of speaking Yoruba there. I mean I didn’t even know ferese was window. She’s right that many people mix in a lot of oyinbo these days and we probably need a body of academicians and elders to help us retain the richness of the local tongues.

Anyway, I am in love with Italian, Spanish and French – and their accompanying accents. I studied French for 9 years in school but lost hope when we started conjugating intransitive verbs. The R is also a massive problem so I’m leaving the tackling of that till I get a chance to do an intensive and resident course for 6 months in Paris. Spanish seems easy enough – like what you see is what you say - but so is Italian and that’s the clincher for me. It also turns out that I have a great Italian accent (according to a lovely Milanese family I know) so I’m currently on a mission to make a video in a similar vein as the one above by the end of the year. I’ll also squeeze in getting fluent again in Ohafia but alas, I fear that might be one plan too many.

Three to Thirty

I hear that us Librans tend to procrastinate. I don’t know whether that is also to blame for my love of plans, lists, resolutions, etc that never translate into action. When I thought up this plan, it was supposed to coincide with the start of a new month. Since I’ve missed that boat, the next best thing is to kick things off on a lovely (not sure if it is yet but it sure feels like) Spring Monday morning.

I’d love to blame my current proclivity towards doing nothing on my genes. Several members of my large extended family are famous for their laziness. Alas, I know that isn’t the case because when I was younger I played every sport that was available in my school: I ran 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m (albeit it just once because I came last but one – only because the girl who came last was about 4 years younger - was denied by my younger brother and thus never repeated the humiliating experience); I did field athletics including high jump, long jump, the javelin, shot put and discus events and I also played football, basketball, volleyball, netball and table tennis. In fact, I got to about 15 and my mother declared that I could only do one sport because she felt the sports were interfering with my academics. So no, I am not naturally lazy.

However, I did the solo events as a representative of my house in the inter-house sports for school and the team events for fun. I love sports – they are competitive and social. The gym is just a bore and feels more like a chore - ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I have never been a fan of doing things that I feel mandated to do. Since I moved to England, I’ve only had solid spells playing Badminton, for 15 months, and football for 2 years. The rest of the time I have made repeated attempts to fall in love with the gym or at the very least make it a part of my routine and I have failed miserably!

This time though, I intend to appeal to the competitor in me on two levels. One, I am stupidly incapable of refusing a dare. Two, I hate to fail. I realised earlier in the year that I tend to set myself grand and completely unachievable goals because I'm trying to do things like everyone else. I set myself a small challenge of doing a low G.I diet for as long as I could. So far I'm on week 3 now and have already exceeded my expectations for how long I would last without rice and noodles so I'm giving myself another small challenge. I’m going to turn my three minutes of running to thirty minutes at a stretch by April 1^st and keep track of my progress weekly.

On a related note, I now understand why healthy people look smug when they eat their healthy granola bars or while doing their daily 5 mile run. I’m typing this with a smug look on my face because I’m having a healthy breakfast – natural Greek yoghurt with one braeburn apple. I don’t know if this is the healthiest thing out there but it is way healthier than my regular breakfasts of the full English fry-up variety. I am doubly smug because I went for a run this morning. OK, so  I did about six minutes of running in total and walked the rest of the time but hey, I’m out there and moving OK? I can shake my head at the thousands of couch potatoes who didn’t get any exercise this morning.

You've got a friend in me

Most people want to be liked. Most people want friends. I am certainly not different from most people in that respect. I watched Remember Me on Saturday night and was a little upset at the portrayal of bullying towards a really gifted young girl because she was different. I guess while I was pretty different at school, the last time there was any attempt at bullying towards me was when I was 9 – and even then I wasn’t having any of it. I remember the girl in question being very much bigger than me as I was quite the runt in my early days and while I was certainly beaten up in the fight, I made sure she knew there was a fight. Needless to say, after I became the second tallest girl in addition to the rough tomboy I have always been, there was never going to be a question of anyone bullying me.

This is not to say that I did not have my fair share of the popular girls throwing out insults because I was different but it pretty much meant that I evolved quickly into the person that I am now – someone who doesn’t care about people that have no positive impact in my life. As one of introverted disposition, I went through secondary school with the same 4 friends that I made at 9/10 and pretty much kept them as my closest mates – with 2 permanent additions as well as 3 or 4 temporary additions over the course of the subsequent 16 years until the last year or so. I suddenly find myself in the position of having made 5 or 6 proper friends in the last couple of years – a pretty amazing number in my book because after I read somewhere that most people make their friends up until university, I was convinced that my circle would remain 6 strong.

It got me wondering about the rules of friendship, how do some people get to be keepers while others don’t? After much musing, here’s what I think:

1.       It’s a chemistry thing: I accept that there are people that will like me and there are people that won’t. I pretty much know within 15 minutes of meeting someone whether we will get along or not and so far I’ve only been wrong once – who could have predicted that the girl I grudgingly allowed to share an office with me and who I thought could not possibly have anything in common with me would turn out to be one of the most awesome people in my life?

2.       There has to be reciprocity: A really good friend of mine had to write an essay when she was 8 or so about her best friend(s). She wrote a really nice composition about her two best friends only to be devastated when it turned out that they had both written about each other. Till this day she refuses to declare anyone as her best friend. Anyway, if I make all the effort to keep up the friendship, then it’s not really a friendship from my POV. If the other person’s making all the effort it just means I don’t really care.

3.       Even if you haven’t seen each other for years, when you do see each other you pick up from where you last left off: This is indeed true with my friend JT. I could go for months without speaking to her (or indeed communicating with her in any way) yet when we meet up it’s just as though we were still living together in Mauldeth Road.

4.       If you’re not sharing it’s not real: Back when I was in Benin, I went to visit one of the original four and she shocked me by saying “well you never tell us anything” when I asked why I was always the last to know the really private stuff in our group. I’m a little weird in this sense because I often think that if people want to know something about me they should ask me yet I think that if my friends want to share something with me they’ll tell me. I was also raised to believe that dirty laundry should not be aired in public so there’s a naturally secretive element to my personality. However, since she said that to me I made a conscious decision to share even the minutiae of my life with friends and ask them about theirs.

5.       Do unto others as you would be done by: Ok I have twisted this a little bit because as a rule I am more chilled out than most people. If a friend stands me up, that’s Ok as long as it isn’t a regular occurrence. If a friend turns up late, provided they tell me in advance or have a good reason, I’m good too. I’m so laid back I’m horizontal but I realise that some people have higher expectations/different values than I do. I am Nigerian so I have an elastic view of time. While I always aim to be on time, I’m invariably 5 to 10 minutes late. However when a friend mentioned to me that she takes lateness personally, I started making the effort to turn up on time for her.

6.       Don’t do things because you expect your friends to do them back: This might seem contrary to the reciprocity thing but I think it’s slightly different. I think that if my friend asks me to turn up at theirs because they have a crisis of any kind, I would do it in a heartbeat – as long as I was not physically unable to do so – but I don’t expect the same of my friends. I would love to say I was being selfless in this scenario but the truth is I get a high off of making the people I love happy and I accept that it is not necessarily the case with other people.

7.       Call it as you see it: I am not tactful or subtle and neither am I a sensitive soul but I am either honest or I keep quiet. I remember a friend of mine once bought a coat with a fur collar and asked me if I liked it and while I was trying to think of a nice way to say no, my face was scrunched into a “don’t think so” look so she got the message and I burst out laughing. It was early days in the friendship hence the hesitation but I pretty much aim to be the friend that tells you the truth so you don’t have to find out from someone who wouldn’t be telling you with good intentions. Needless to say I love my friends to tell me the truth...even if it is bitter – I’d rather I heard I had kicking breath from them than find out when my date made a swift exit after leaning in for a kiss.

8.       Accept your friend just the way they are: I think some people like their friends to be their clones. While it is lovely to meet people that are really similar, I think the differences make people interesting. Obviously if your ‘friend’ is throwing out snide comments behind your back or trying to engineer your downfall, hotfoot it out of that relationship ASAP! Like someone once told me, they knew they were in love with their (now) husband when they realised that didn’t mind the things that would normally annoy them. Friendship is love without the sex

I wonder if there are any more thoughts........ and I wonder if any of my friends think I’m chatting out of the wrong end of my body because I don’t follow these rules.

*DISCLAIMER: I consider all the people I am friendly with and hang out with who don't tick these boxes "acquaintances" for the purpose of this post. Don't be offended - I'm just telling calling a spade a spade.  

Oops!! I did it again

I like to think of myself as absent minded or eccentric or sometimes even a borderline genius – no I’m not egoistic, it’s so I can understand how the things that happen to me happen to me. This morning I spent 20 minutes trying to find my house keys. Normal people get locked out of their homes. This is the second time that I had managed to lock myself in. I’ve been setting my alarm for half 6 so that I can get the bus to work at 7.30 thus arriving well in time for my 9.00 start. So far, I’ve never actually woken up at that time, I tend to snooze till 7.30 and leave about 45 minutes to get ready.

Invariably at 8.15 I am in a rush to leave as there’s a fine line between arriving at 9.00 or 9.15 and invariably I spend 5 minutes or so looking for something. Yesterday morning it was my travel card, Monday it was my ID card. I usually try to circumvent my natural carelessness by putting things in specific locations. For example, my travel card goes in my left coat pocket with my keys, my phone in the right pocket, my ID card on my neck or in the side pocket of my handbag. Obviously I haven’t been following this ethos recently hence the morning searches.

To cut the story short, I eventually found the damn thing under my newspaper because I had dropped the newspaper and bags by the sofa once I got home. I was in a rush to eat because I was starving. The funniest thing was that I saw the paper as I was getting ready to leave and thought “I am too much in a rush to put that in the recycling bag”. If only I’d known that I would get to work half an hour late, I would have picked the damn thing up!

Klutz-like things I’ve done recently:

·         Forgot my laptops in a taxi – fortunately got them back because the receptionist had seen the company number on the taxi

·         Forgot my suitcase on a train – after much worry that they would destroy it I eventually tracked it down at the station the train terminated at.

·         Left my mobile phone on a train – fortunately I remembered right after the train left and advised the station manager about my seat number and phone details

·         Walked to the station with my dress in my tights – the horror! Fortunately I had on a long coat that day so my blushes were spared

·         Forgot what my colleague looked like and introduced myself to the new woman standing by my desk. In my defence I had only met her a few times and she changed her hair.

·         A family friend/general acquaintance introduces herself to me. I launch into a long spiel about how I know her and had seen her mother and sister recently. She replies “Nope, that’s not me. You’re confusing me with Ada”

·         Called my friend excitedly to wish her happy birthday – I was excited because I am notoriously bad at remembering birthdays. She was delighted I’d called but reminded me that her birthday had actually been 5 days prior.

·         Went shopping with my friend. We happened to walk past a display of pills that were advertised as helping to flatten the stomach. I turn to my friend and say “what sort of idiot would believe this nonsense?” to which she responded “erm...that’s what I came to purchase”. Talk about foot-in-mouth disease.

·         Missed my flight home from the US – I had a departure time in my head and despite walking around with my ticket in my bag for 5 weeks and even being told by my brother that he couldn’t check me in for a flight at the time I specified (I responded there must be something wrong with the website and I’d check in when I got there, I turned up 2 hours after my flight had left.

·         Turned up 12 hours early for my flight to India – I read the arrival time as the departure time

·         Spent 15 minutes searching for my glasses until my friend asked me what I was looking for and pointed out that it was on my face – I still can’t explain this one

It’s always funny after the fact and now I’ve written them down I think I’m a pretty lucky girl.

I am afraid of...

Rats, mice, rodents: I recently went to India and was privileged to be invited to the University of Punjab – India’s top research university. As part of the tour I was taken to the “animal home” where all the animals used for testing are kept. I saw a few cute monkeys and suddenly we were in a room with a million albino mice. I felt physically ill. I was absolutely horrified when I was asked to touch one. So yeah, I’m the girl who jumps on a chair screaming at the first sight of a rat/mouse. I once watched an episode of I’m a celebrity, get me out of here where one of the contestants had to be lowered into a box or something and thousands of rats were let into the confined space. I almost died. I totally had to switch channels.

Failure:  This is a big one for me. I do not like failing. I know that people say that you cannot win if you do not try and that it is better to fail than to fail to try. I don’t buy any of that! I feel wretched when I know that I made an effort at something and then failed to achieve it.

Height: This has got worse as I’ve grown older. I remember climbing everything as a kid but I don’t do as much anymore. I’m fine inside tall buildings or with heights where I’m protected. I think that my fear of heights is only linked to a fear of death. So if I feel like there is no way I can fall off, I’m fine. If the railings/guard is not up to half my height then I believe I could fall off, I don’t stand on unprotected ledges and I was very much against climbing the near vertical steps in Wat Arun on a recent visit to Bangkok.

Death: This is probably my top fear because it directly affects all my other fears except failure. I didn’t learn to do a back flip because I was convinced I’d die from a broken neck. I started being afraid of rats because my primary school teacher told me they cause cancer. I don’t go to hospitals if I can help it because I don’t want to hear “terminal”. I lost interest in sky-diving because there was one week in 2003/2004 when 4 people died doing it. I know I shouldn’t be so silly but I really can’t help it.

Financial dependence: I cannot bear the thought of not being financially self-sufficient. I got my first job at about 16 - almost unheard of at the time for Nigeria (only people who need to work at that age typically) - because I always hated asking for an allowance. I am not rich and I am very simple. I live in a decent area of London, I go out a few times a week, I travel a few times a year and I’m happy that way. The thought of being unable (for any reason) to maintain the status quo by myself frightens the heck out of me. I think perhaps it's a way of ceding control but I can't say I fear a lack of control because I'm fine with that IF AND ONLY IF it's on my own terms.

Snakes: This is part fear, part intense disgust. Snakes can kill you, so of course that makes me afraid of them but I also can’t stand the way they slither (same goes for worms, centipedes and other creepy crawlies) I remember once I found skin that had been shed by a python in the backyard of my late grandmother’s house. I refused to go to outside unaccompanied for the rest of that trip. I’m always baffled that people that want to hold snakes or even visit them at the zoo. Crazy! As for my ill-advised viewing of Snakes on a Plane, let’s just say that I saw about 25% of the movie. I had my head in my hands for most of it.

What are you afraid of?

Audit: 2010

I meant to do this on the 31st to see out 2010 and ring in 2011 but I guess it actually works now since 2010 is well and truly over. So here goes, my official review of 2010:

1.       What did you do in 2010 that you had never done before? Even though it feels like there were a million things, the one that stands out has to be I travelled by myself. I spent 4 days in Agra and Delhi totally by myself. I don’t think I like solo travel.

2.       Did you keep your New Year resolutions and will you make more for this year? Well I made some that I promptly forgot so I guess I didn’t keep them. I’m making some for this year and I hope that at this time next year I’ll be feeling smug because I kept them all

3.       Did anyone close to you give birth? I guess the interpretation of close is fairly loose here but there were a lot of births. My cousin Amara had a baby, my friends Ada and Kpoms had babies too.

4.       Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully not!

5.       What countries did you visit? Italy, US, Thailand, and India

6.       What would you like to have in 2011 that you didn’t have in 2010? Savings – like proper long term savings

7.       What dates from 2010 will be etched upon your memory, and why? I’m not terribly good with dates. I remember key events from last year but it would take an awful lot of digging to reconcile them with the dates

8.       What was your biggest achievement of this year? Getting promoted in March

9.       What was your biggest failure? Not getting a transfer that I applied for. It might be sour grapes now that I think I didn’t really want it but at the time I felt like a massive failure.

10.   Did you suffer illness or injury? From a seriously wimpy perspective, yes. I had crazy stomach issues, chronic lower back pain and a recurring injury to my medial ligament

11.   What was the best thing you bought? Ahhh, there’s some serious competition between my Blackberry and my iPhone 4. However, I have to say the BB. It literally saved some of my closest friendships from dying.

12.   Whose behaviour merited celebration? My parents were absolutely awesome and amazing. I finally understand unconditional love.

13.   Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? I don’t know anyone whose behaviour could depress me and I guess no one (other than politicians and public figures) appalled me last year.

14.   Where did most of your money go? Other than bills, I guess it was travel

15.   What did you get really excited about? Lots and lots of stuff - visiting Asia for the first time, Miami, my friend’s wedding, the most awesome work party ever are just a few

16.   What song will always remind you of 2010? This is so easy since I already covered it here. Tie My Hands by Lil Wayne.

17.   Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Fatter and richer. The happiness thing is a little trickier. If I think about January 1st 2010 alone then I’d have to say that I’m definitely happier today because I flew back to London from Nigeria on that day. Having thought about it a bit more now I think it’s safe to say that I’m happier now. I spent the last day of 2010 with one of my favourite people in the world and my forecast for 2011 is sunny and bright.

18.   What do you wish you’d done more of? Followed through with my plans

19.   What do you wish you’d done less of? Sat on my arse and procrastinated

20.   How did you spend Christmas? With two of my siblings at home.

21.   Did you fall in love in 2010? Nope

22.   What was your favorite TV program? Mad Men

23.   What was the best book you read? Oh, this is really tough. There are a few books that stand out and I’ve never been able to pick out a favourite thing – like ever. I know I’ll probably revisit this when I’ve had a chance to check the deep recesses of my brain for the awesome books I read last year but right now I’ll go with Brooklyn by Colm Toibin.

24.   What was your greatest musical discovery? Florence and the machine. “Lungs” is so amazing!

25.   What did you want and get? A promotion

26.   What did you want and not get? A transfer

27.   What was your favorite film of 2010? Oh boy! Another tough one. I really liked Inception. Kick Ass was seriously memorable. I’ll go with The Kids Are All Right though. I saw it in cinema three times!

28.   What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 27 and I went out with 3 of the coolest girls on the planet. It was a great birthday.

29.   What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Probably loving a guy who loved me back.

30.   How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2010? Evolving. I’m neither stylish nor fashionable but I made some effort in 2010.

31.   What kept you sane? Music

32.   What political issue stirred you the most? I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it was the healthcare reforms issue in the US. Is that political? I don’t even know.

33.   Who did you miss? A lot of my friends are far away from me and I miss them all the time.

34.   Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. That much as I love to live in the now, it’s probably best to think about the future a little more.

35.   Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. This is super tough because I’m not really a lyrics girl and it will probably take hours into days into weeks and maybe months for me to figure out a lyric to sum up my year. I’ll update the post once I figure it out though.

So that’s it for 2010. It wasn’t the best year of my life so far but it was a pretty good one.