Left: brakes; right: accelerator

I am finally learning to drive. I will be 23 in October and I refuse to greet that day without knowing how to move a car about. I mean, do u know how many incidents could have been avoided if I had known how to drive?:

1. I would have been able to attend that party where SHE stole HIS attention! stupid heiffer
2. Spring break would have been so much fun. Walking is good but it was hot and I was not in the mood for a forced weight loss. My arse shrunk a full pant size. Skinny butts should be illegal.
3. My dramatic exits would have been perfect. there is nothing as stupid as storming out and having to wait in the parking lot for him to come drive you home. Then the idiot will now use that time to waste yours. Dang! I have suffered sha.
4. That day with the tummy upset...our presentation at the emergency room would not have been as memorable for the clinic staff.
5. I will not need Omo Ibo to go to the market. Him giving me a ride means I have to include him in my cooking and he does not eat pepper and I cannot be seperating food.
6. The weather man can kiss my arse. I am tired of being the indicator of what is happening outside the studio. I have arrived wet from sweat, rain and snow. Not good for preserving my segzy.
7. I could have enjoyed wearing my skirt that day. Billowing skirts and the sewer were only good on one woman... Marilyn Monroe.
8. I think I would be on time for events... I said I think!!!

Please ladies and gentlemen of blogville, wish me luck. So far, it has been great driving around a parking lot. Otherwise, my aunt would be facing lawsuits and I would be facing deportation. As it is, after every session, we head for the brakes specialist (in obodo, there are no mechanics only automobile engineers and spare part specialists and technicians. I mean, what do u expect when the janitor is a sanitation engineer and the maiguard is security detail?).

What I have learned so far?
1. Give way to traffic on your right.
2. Bicycles have as much right of way as I do.
3. I cannot park anywhere without paying.
4. My feet cannot reach the pedals unless i am practically resting on the steering wheels.
5. I will be using the slow lane for a while.
6. God has to provide for me to get a car that is raised above the road.
7. At this point, I cannot talk and drive.
8. R means "reverse" and not REST.

FOR $9.50

For $9.50, I took myself to see Mira Nair's latest release "The Namesake" starring Tabu, Irfan Khan, Kal Penn, Zuleikha Robinson and Jacinda Barrette. I decided that I was going to use my last bit of money and give myself an experience and so after service, I went to the cinema for foreign films and bought my ticket; giving myself up to the god of film fate that Mira Nair would deliver a presentation that will fill my thoughts for days to come.

I went for the late matinee cos I had missed the early one. I had over an hour to kill so I went to get something to eat. I found very interesting the reactions I got as I sat down- a single woman seated in the midst of simpering couples and families. I am not a very physical person and so, I watched with some degree of fascination as some individuals felt it necessary to assure themselves of their companions presence by constantly toucching or leaning into the person. Some women I felt were trying to communicate their ownership and territory with the way they touched their man's arm, ran fingers through their hair, stole prolonged kisses and ate out of their bowls of ice cream when one sat in front of them ( I was at Haagen Daas...)

I watched from behind my shades the patronising smiles and avoided conversation from people that thought it was their duty to include me because I was seated alone. I did not feel alone. I have learnt not to. Most times, I take myself out; I am single and I refuse to be one of those females that requires either a man or an armor of fellow female colleagues to go out on an adventure. When I go to restaurants. I have to sit at the bar because no one makes seating for one.... ( a story for another day)

The Namesake was poignantly fufilling. Just when I thought it was about to drag on and kill the story, it ended on a sweet and sharp note.

The story I understood, the characters I connected with and the message I recognised. In Irfhan Khan's character "Ashoke" I saw a father trying to communicate to his son why he should be proud of his name; in Tabu's character "Urmisha" I saw a woman trying to weather the feeling of loneliness and disconnect attributed with the migration to a foreign land and in Kal Penn's portrayal of "Gogol" I felt I knew the man unsure of his true identity having been brought up with a name so odd and unique and yet at the same time tied to a history that was foreign to him. Jacinda Barrett was perfectly shallow in her portrayal of a white American woman coming to terms that her boyfriend was not as American as she was and Zuleikha's character was a rebelling against the roles and identities her heritage had cast for her as a woman.

I was very much moved by the way Ashoke's character and that of his wife Urmisha was protrayed. Theirs was of a love so modest and yet one of the most powerful interpretations of the communication between a man and a woman. They barely touched through out the film but you knew they cared deeply for one another. It was evident in the way he spoke to her: with tenderness and great affection and he listened with attentiveness and respect to what she had to say. Their eyes always met with a smile. Their words, poetic in speaking. She did all he asked of her without him having to say it. They looked like a couple that had deep and meaningful conversations with each other and I found myself longing for such a companion to share my life with. I wondered if such an innocent love still existed for my generation. The most endearing part was that it was an arranged marriage and yet the bond that was built between both was so strong that I believed its existence.

Gogol's attempt to hide his heritage and culture was saddening to me because in him, I saw all those who either by choice or by birth were navigating life in another man's land but were still weighted down by the obligations associated with your "people". Knowing and living another language besides English usually sets one up for alot of confusion and Gogol was a very confused individual. I travelled with him without leaving my seat back to his father's homeland in India and felt like I could reach out and touch the rickshaw drivers. I longed for a hand woven fan and an open courtyrad house where the family would gather in the shade of a balmy evening. I walked with him through the grounds of the Taj Mahal and felt my heart sing when he, like me, declared upon the sight of such a beautiful masterpiece that he was going to be an architect.

For $9.50, Mira Nair gave me a look into my life by giving me a look into someone else's.

PS: See also Deepa Mehta's "Water" and "Earth". Also Mira Nair's "Kama Sutra". Indian films that have shaped my understanding ,appreciation of and love for storytelling.

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OPRAH-FIED

Ok, so Oprah is coming to give the commencement speech at my school.

PRECEDENTS

1. Oprah always donates at events like that. She has given $4 million on ever occasion she has gone to Townsend university

2. She loves to send people to school

3. She just built a school in South Africa.

PROJECT

How can you get Oprah to give you ( I mean me) money for school?

SOLUTION

1. Crash commencement, dodge security and find a way to get at least to her best friend Gail who apparently goes everywhere with her and hand her your application for sponsorship and resume.

2. Make sure she knows you are African. She seems to be in love with the place right now. Market the idea that she can replicate for a West African what she has so beautifully done for the South Africans

3. Make a T-Shirt that airs your request. (How much does it cost to make a t-shirt online and have it shipped here in time?)

I am in need of money for school and I am about to get Oprah-fied to do it. I have resumed my daily dosage of the Oprah show, been looking for a used copy of the books on her book club selections....

Macdonalds is back on campus

Macdonalds is back on campus and has brought with it:

1. Dollar sweet tea so I can upgrade on my attempts to be diabetic

2. The uneducated rif raffs that hang out in it

3. Actually a brand new decor

4. 24 hr long service and so I can get my 4 am fix while working on my project

5. The rif raffs...

6. Snack wrap and cheap fries and thus an increase in cholesterol and obesity levels

7. The rif raffs

8. Competition for other restaurants on the strip

9. Did I mention the rif raffs. You do not know how much these guys get on my last nerves thinking that because my campus is an open one, they have the audacity to come polluting our visual environment with the sight of them. Eugh.

what are some of the things i have learned since my arrival in the states?
1. Americans have food but do not know what to do with it. If it has salt, it is spicy.
2. they eat everything with cheese: picture chicken and cheese; it is nasty looking, nasty smelling, nasty tasting and Americans love it.
3. Americans do not know where Africa is or that it is not a country
4. They are very "PATRIOTIC". That is why i write this blog under a different name so I do not get deported
5. Race is always an issue.
6. As a people they must have made God angry because he rewarded them with about four months of snow
7. You cannot get anything without credit and you cannot get credit without anything
8. They have loans for everything that you cannot get for anything
9. You can sue the clock manufacturing company if you slept through the alarm
10. you can sue the brewery for your DUI
11. They loose weight on their on their diets because the food is even more tasteless than before...thus, they do not eat.
12. Anything with zero calories tastes like feet
13. Raising a child in this country is left to the internet, Nickolodeon and Disney
14. Don't offer to hold someone's child for them. You will be arrested for pedophillia. And if you are an African man, don't even dare to buy treats for a crying child (like you would at home to get them to stop crying): it interprets that YOU are the CAUSE for the "tears" and that you are trying to lure the child away for more "crying"
15. Only African Americans spank their children, beyond the view of security cameras
16. there is therapy for everything and support groups of every kind. Even blogging
17. I am in love with whoever created HBO
18. Desperate Housewives is a reality show. i have seen the people they play
19. Sex is not an issue. It is the only issue
20. Fourteen year olds know much more about sex than I do but nothing about its repercussions which I seem to have a lexicon of information of.
21. Race determines neighbourhood and in turn what amenities are available to you. Par example: DC buses stink, VA buses don't. DC buses stop for you where you ask, VA buses.....would you even dare to ask?
22. There is nothing on the news
23. There is really nothing on the local news
24. The "hungry" look is considered sexy.
25. White women do not have butts. they buy it from the plastic surgeon
26. Black people are usually late...like me. I am supposed to be researching something for my boss and I am here blogging.
Have to go...the man is coming: to hold me down (27. That's a common thought among lazy black people)

getting to the Hill

On the 13th of august last year, I made my way from the Dulles airport to Howard university where I was to begin my new adventure as a communications major. I was coming in to the United States for the first time and after enduring a flight that took almost two days and passing through the paranoid scrutiny of the US airport officials, I arrived on U.S soil, hungry (I refused to eat the nonsense I was served on my KLM flight), dirty (it had been two days and a girl does tend to feel sticky) and pissed( how dare they rummage through my things like that).
The drive to DC from what I later found out was Virginia was uneventful. Shared the 'super shuttle' with six other people; three whites and three blacks and was introduced to my first sign of colour seperation. the whites sat at the back and launched into some conversation that revolved around the heat and SPF of sunscreen. The blacks were talking about 'family reunions'. I was tired and a bit nauseous. Our driver was from Ethiopia.
"Your first time here in the United States?" He asked me in heavily accented English. I jerked out of my misery. I was missing my family and making such a long trip into unknown lands by myself and arriving hungry did not do much for my countenance.
'Sir?" I answered in what I hoped was my best immitation of american English. Not that many syllables to make a difference but I was willing to try.
"I asked if this was your first time in the states?" he repeated.
"Yes, Sir."
The convesations around me seized.
"Where're you from?" The huge african american lady who was taking up two seats with her bulk asked me.
"Nigeria." I replied.
"I know a man from Nigeria. He is a doctor." The man who appeared to be her husband, told me.
I smiled my 'oh' but said nothing.
"Isn't Lafonda's man from Nigeria too?" the big woman asked again.
'That's right." The man replied with a look of utmost surprise like he had just discovered quantum mechanics.
I realised that a conversation was about to ensue and I immediately began to rack my brain for the most polite way to ask them to shut up and leave me alone.