PAST LIVES, DREAMS & SOUL TRAVEL

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO AN OPEN DISCUSSION ON PAST LIVES, DREAMS AND SOUL TRAVEL

EXPLORE TECHNIQUES TO BRING HAPPINESS AND HARMONY INTO YOUR LIFE.

VENUE: HOWARD UNIVERSITY ARMOUR J BLACKBURN CENTER
TIME: 7.00- 8.30 PM
DATE: WEDNESDAY, OCT 10TH 2007

COME FIND ANSWERS TO SUCH QUESTIONS AS:

* WHAT DO MY DREAMS MEAN TO MY PHYSICAL LIFE?

* ARE OUR STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES EVIDENCE THAT WE HAVE LIVED BEFORE?

* HOW CAN I CREATE A BALANCE IN MY SPIRITUAL LIFE AND MY PHYSICAL LIFE?

FOR MORE INFO VISIT www.eckankar.org

OCTOBER 4TH 1984

The best day ever...
I was born....

Today, I am 23. yeah.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Happy Independence Day
Nigeria is 47.
Na wah
That is such an exhausting thought.
Either way I am spending it studying for my constructions documents class.
Congrats to all Naija people out there.

VISITATION....This is a rant

What happens if your grades are not so good, your finances are shaky, you are 23 and attend my school?
Ans: You end up in the dorm I am in with juveniles.

I am 23 and we just got visitation in our building. It is so embarassing, I am cringing as I write this blog. How can I, a whole aunty like me be needing permission to have visitors in the building of which I can only have a maximum of two between the hours of 12.00 noon and 12.00 midnight on weekdays and 12.00 and 2.00 am on weekends?

Okay, so I do not have any orgies planned or anything but I am too old for this shit. God, please make things happen so I can have my own apartment, all to myself. I am tired, tired, tired and tired.

And you can bet some dumb negro might do something extremely stupid like the fool last year that set fire to his room (ok he claimed it was his bipolar friend and who knows he might be telling the truth).

Being me, at this age and in this school is extremely exhausting.

Maybe my real bone of contention is that unlike all the juvenile, chewing-gum-smacking females and pants-sagging males in the building, I have no "special someone" to join the sign-in queue for. Like I would have a romantic rendezvous in a place where the walls are made from cardboard.
I know what my problem is....I need sleep

Oya u pple have to help me

Who can help me get pictures and/or the master plan of any one of the following UNIs?
I need pics of the senate house (where the VC stays/ main admin), the front gate and student union....

1. UNILAG
2. UNIBEN
3. OAU
4. UI


Please.......!!!!!!

My Private Sancuatry

I finally went ahead and loaned a camera from my suitemate to take pictures of my room.
I will start with a disclaimer saying that my photographic skills are definitely in need of improvement but I think I did my best to capture the essence of what I had said before.
And also, the pictures are not as rich or as warm as the room feels...to me. Many people have said they like it and I love it.

1. I had two yards of ankara fabric that I tacked to my walls. This served as a back drop for all the colours in my room. Over the years I had amassed alot in shades of blue. I was ecstatic to discover that my comforter was reversible (as the most used side had faded and dulled) and the reverse was a rich and deep blue that matched my curtain (which by the way is half of an incomplete pair...my aunt could not find the other one...it worked out though; got the smaller room)



I took apart a calendar with some lovely pics of the island of greece and framed them using painter's tape. Funny enough, the tape is blue in colour. Took me an evening alternating between the wall and an indian movie
The way it looks from the door. God, why can't I take better pics


I always wear socks indoors. My feet are always cold. And my nose and hands.


I raised the bed (u can't see how) and store my suitcases underneath. I pulled the covers all the way to the ground and the bed anchors one side of the wall.
The carpet is an area rug from Ikea that actually, because of the size of the room covers most of the center and softens the blues.

I need a job

What kind of job can I do off campus that is legal in the US on an F1 visa?
What do I have to have to start my own business cos I am so sick and tired of being broke.....

One week in...

And already have assignments so many, I am exhausted just from the though of doing them
And it has not helped that I have been bed ridden for the past two days.
Who knows anything about Tilt Up concrete? And Response Housing for natural disasters?

I am so in love with my suite.
*sigh* this school year is going to be interesting.

CREATING SPACES

I love watch Nigerian films. Not just because they provide a connection for me to my people but because I am fascinated with the art of storytelling and I also love to have a look into the lives of others. I especially love the sets and locations used. Most have very little effort put into their use. It will be someone else's house ( the tell tale pictures are sometimes still on the wall) or someone else's office. I pay close attention to the decor, I guess, because I am in a career field where that is vital. You can always tell the home of a poor man from that of a rich man. The rich man's house is spacious, airy and lavishly furnished with matching and in most instances gaudy furniture. The walls are clean. The floors are clean. Everything is clean. The poor man's house is always dark and dinghy. Not enough space and thus very little air circulation. the wall has streaks of hand marks and the furniture does not match the rest of the house. I find it interesting that people only associate wealth with the ability to create a space. If you consider your body a temple because it houses you as soul, a manifestation of God's love and you keep it clean in honour of Him, don't you think that doing the same of your house will also serve the same purpose? You don't have to spend too much money to have a lovely home. You start by being clean. Then you pick colours that express your tatses. Yes, income challenged people have alot to worry about but hence your creativity. Do you know that instead of paying alot for ugly mismatched, curtains that imitate European concepts, you can use ankara wrappers, not just for those but also for your throw pillows? Do you know that you can arrange your pictures against cardboard and line the edges with colored tape that matches the colors of your choice, thereby eliminating the need for a frame? Do you know that instead of a head board, you can drape fabric across the wall to create a vertical element, either directly behind the bed or on either side of it Old buckets can be used for potted greens that line your balcony? Instead of a full carpet, why not use just an area rug? A polished piece of wood placed on a seperate or sturdy base ( e.g concrete blocks) can be the coffee table. I can see all those who care about what others think hising at that. alotof wealthy people are buying such things that you can pick up around your neighbourhood for thousands of dollars To give your bed more deifinition and to create space, raise it off the floor using evenly cut wood blocks. Underneath, you can store belongings and behind it, you can drape fabric for a canopy effect. For a duvet, you can use old ankara wrappers and decorate the hem with fabric from "outdated lace" (which for the Yoruba person is lace from last year) Be creative. Surf the internet. Go to the market and instead of shopping for exactly what is in the catalogue, walk around to the sections where they sell art work, you will be shocked what you will find and how you will use it. Create your own spaces as your outer temples. Take a good look, you will see that the spaces you inhabit mirror the state of your personal affairs. http://banibaraje.blogspot.com/ http://giamarrospeaks.blogspot.com/

Internships rolling to a close.
Am going to miss it really bad.
Made me feel very important, getting up in the morning and heading to work to go rub shoulders with the design geniuses....
Buaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

COS I WAS BUSY

JUST THOUGHT TO LEAVE SOME OF MY DESIGN WORK FOR YOU TO SEE....

DESIGN OF A MUSUEM TO BE BUILT IN CAIRO EGYPT...If only.

The Inc

An architecture firm is an interesting place to work into. If you have ever been inside a design studio at school, then you have some idea what a firm looks like. The difference is, everyone has showered that day, their desks are clean and they leave between 5.30 and 6.00 in the evening.

Almost everything else is much like every other office. You have the I-too-knows, the efficient people, the lazy people that complain more than they work, the bosses who cannot quite socialize with everyone but try to be pleasant (at least at the Inc there are), the diet freaks, the women who really should just have stayed at home to raise their kids with the way they channel every conversation into what their toddler did that morning, the office feuds (the turk and the spaniard) and above all the office romances.

This woman should just watch herself. Haba!
So, Man1 (which is what I will call him) put me on his project. I did not do as if anything has been amiss and neither did he. He sometimes has to come to my desk and sit with me as he explains what he wants. Nothing wrong or special there. He sits with everyone. So, that's why I don't know why She2( that's what I'll her) is now trying to stress my life.

She knows very well that I have deadlines and she will keep trying to bounce me from one project to another. They had another run-in because of that and I heard her telling another designer, "I mean, Catwalq is quite green. She is just going into her fourth year. her skills hardly qualify her as indispensable to any project..."
Fire burn her yansh. Useless woman. My skills are not indispensible?!!!
Na me talk say make the man no wan marry, na im you come vex go marry and born pikin ( that's what someone told me)? I no send you message.

Man1 maintains that it is important I follow through on each project and I only be invloved with a maximun of three at any given time so I can keep track of what I am doing and learning (after all, he realises that I am an intern and even though they want to turn me to Jackie, I am still learning). He makes sense. She is just a trouble maker with her whiny nasal voice.

I have started blogging from home before she cracks my password. She is good with computers. And I have deleted all the web history on my computer.

THE THING IS...

I thought she was married. She wears a ring and everything and there are pics of her baby all over her desk...
Then they will both be bitching about all day while we the junior designers play a game of duck and hide when they r together.
She is being too nice to me. I am freaked out completely. I think she knows I have a blog. She said,
"So, Catwalq, I see that you like to write..."
I have to stop reading and updating my blogs at work....
And he has not said a word to me since.

here goes

I thought I was imagining things. I forgot my cell phone at my desk so I went back upstairs. I had left HER and HIM in there; they typically are the last two to leave. That is one of the sacrifices that being head designer and senior interior design coordinator means.
I did not want to be there if they blew up again at each other like they had been doing ever since I came to work at the Inc. I mean, the last time, we all thought she was going to raie her manicured hand and slap him across his middle eastern face. I don't even know why they worked together. They never got along. They are like the coed version of the turk and the spaniard; only that their run-ins have a much greater effect on work in the office. When they r fighting, u don't want to be a designer or an intern caught up in the mix having to deliver some work from either to the other.
I guess that is why I almost passed out when I rounded the corner in time to see him pull away his hand from her face. I came to a stop and they looked up. To their credit, they did not act like anything was amiss. They simply stepped away from each other slightly so that the closeness in their forms could easily be interpreted as necessary for their conversation.
I know what I saw. He touched her face and her eyes were closed. She was loving it and so was he.

Oh my God

I think they are having an affair!!!!!!!

DESIGN INC

It has been three weeks, and the Inc has become most of my life. i get there at 8.30 in the morning and plow my way through layers and layers of design work. the best part is that the CAD programme that I was not familiar with, I am now quite conversant with. I love my desk, which I just recently cleaned; so now, I have the neatest work space in the office.

That aside, what makes me love the Inc are the people who work there. First and foremost, at any given time of the day, there are about five different languages being spoken. Number one is Spanish, then we have Czech, Armenian, Turk and Chinese. English is used when we have to communicate across projects and it quite an entertainment watching the architects and designers translate what they are thinking in heavily accented and halting English. Such a rare treat.

There are these two guys whom I am afraid may come to blows soon. One is Spanish and the other Turkish. For some reason, as I have deduced, they are always put on projects together because it seems that as a pair, they produce amazing work. The problem is that they and bitch and moan at each other throughout the process with the Turk being a perfectionist and not much of a people person while the spaniard is into practical jokes and youtube type antics. One day, i nearly deleted an entire floor plan cos I was laughing so hard watching the spaniard trying to deliver a joke to the Turk. The Spaniard told this winding hilarious tale about how he messed with this girl on the metro and that he was sure the girl was stalking him. Even those of us that were not in on the conversation were laughing quietly to ourselves but it was the Turks blank expression from the story's beginning to the end that killed me. Most especially when the Spaniard kept asking "do you get it?...so now do you get it?"

I especially love noon when almost everybody disappears for lunch to all the surrounding restaurants and I am left with no one looking over my shoulder so I can have a jolly time surfing blogs and leaving comments for my favourite bloggers. This is when the office sepearates into cliques. The restaurant-goers move off in twos and threes for their daily salad rendezvous-ing; the sandwhich and subs cliques move off en mass, the fitnesss people go off to the nearby gym for a forty five minute long work out and the chinese and I remain in the office as we unleash whatever homecooked meals we have. I usually know it is time to eat mine when the familiar smell of chinese cooked rice and vegetables reaches my nostrils. It is quite interesting that they eat the same thing and it smells the same way.

I am loving it

So, I have just completed my second week with the architecture firm and I am so loving it. I am the only other black employee (the other being the receptionist) in a firm of about fifty five people. But that is good because the whites are in the minority. Most of us are foreign nationals including the two firm principals.

So loving it. have started working out religiously because i am the only one in the office with a waistline that is over 25 inches wide. at lunch they all unleash their snacks of green salads, fruit salads, nuts and wheat bread sandwhiches. I unleash home cooked jollof rice with chicken and plaintain and very recently boiled yam and fried fish in palm oil stew washed down with chilled malt. U should see my arse right about no.

i am loving the projects that I working on. am loving my window desk. am not loving the fact that I do not have an ipod and have to log my laptop to work everyday just so I can listen to my music which by the way means that i have listened to my entire playlist back to back... but I am loving it

am loving the dress code...

am loving the distance the office is away from my aunt's house. am loving that the office is just three blocks from potbelly sandwhich place where they make the most amazing chicken salad sandwhiches.

am just greatful for the internship and I am loving it...yeah

Dang It!!!!

DESIGN :C
ENVIROMENTAL SYSTEMS: B
WOMEN IN ARCH :A
URBAN DESIGN :A
STRUCTURES II :D

There goes my G.P.A down the toilet. And all my hopes of a scholarship. I didn't think I did that bad in structures but a D is like, double S*#t!!!!. My mother is going to kill me. It does not even matter what else I got; I mean a C in a six credit class and a D in a three credit class.

I am so depressed!!!!

At least I have one more year to fix my grade. Bye bye, extra curricular activities. No more friends. At this point, I am kind of glad I do not have a boyfriend, cos I already know what kind of conversation I am going to be having on Sunday. Chei, catwalq, how did u allow urself to fail. And as God will have it, u no fit lie say teacher no like you, abi fap your grade. this is obodo, things don't work that way.

People, I am afraid that my mom will make me shave my head as punishment.
*sob* I am so tired. I need to find my sheik and fast.

RATING POSTS UP AND DOWN

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AND THERE I THOUGHT I REALLY HAD AN ATTENTION GRABBING BLOG HERE, I AM GOING TO THINK OF SOMETHING SCANDALOUS TO WRITE AND UPGRADE TO A RATED R BLOG.
BAH!!!!