08/09/10

It's 5.30 and the taxi has finally shown up. I have to go get my younger sister from the airport and take her shopping before dropping her on the coach that takes her back to school.

After watching tv till about 2, I decided in my infinite wisdom there was no longer any point going to sleep I will instead stay awake and man it out so I can finally correct my body clock. There are only 2 times I have decided to pull an all-nighter with something important the next day. The first was the night before GCSE French reading. I was confident enough of my revision and that the exam would be piss easy that I decided to get stoned instead. I was sober by the morning and I did alright but it will not be repeated. The next time was in Togo, when I snuck out of my house and went out the day before a basketball game. I was kak in the game, threw a hissy fit and accidentally hit the coach in the face with my jersey. I never played for the school again.

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It seems my plan to sort out my body clock was an abject failure. I got home after the longest day ever and after settling into the couch, promptly fell asleep. I'm now awake at 2 am, and I don't think I'm gonna sleep any time soon. It's my birthday tomorrow and as usual its that blend of bittersweet excitement and dread that almost always ends in anticlimax.

My parents in a bout of apparent guilt for having ignored my birthday for 21 years clearly feel that its never too late to learn. In previous years the highlights have included the pair of leather gloves I received for my 21st that turned out to be too small. There was also the phone call I received from my dad on my 19th, he shouted at me about something I had done or not done, I forget but he called back 2 days later to say happy birthday.

But this year, both parents seem to care. My mother even got me a present, a very cool watch that's actually a phone. I mean I got it some 3 days before my birthday, but by luck or design, its one of the few times any one has got me something that excites me. I'm not particularly hard to please I like shiny things that have a usb connection and an instruction manual that I generally don't read (why doesn't anybody get this?) So my mum's gift ticks all the boxes. I get the feeling my parents are arguing or something, and they are using me as some sort of proxy war. Tbh I don't mind, if being the Vietnam in their cold war serves my purpose then so be it. When I told my dad about the watch he not only offered to reimburse the expenses of my day with my little sister, but also promised me money for my birthday. My other favourite kind of gift: cold hard cash.

Anyway like a week ago I decided that I was gonna have people over kinda like I did in first year. Then I didn't have an empty house and the main problem was that I knew too many girls and not enough guys. Now I have a free yard the problem seems to be I don't know any females with whom I maintain cordial platonic relations. My plan for a chilled night of fun and games is running the risk of becoming a cockfest.

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A new blog: 07/09/10

I thought I would start writing a new blog, I kinda liked my old blog but I didn't feel like it was going anywhere and when James died it seemed a little insignificant. My exciting career in legitimate journalism canker-blossomed so I'm back on blogspot. This time though I'm not really going to write posts. Each day I'm just going to post entries from the diary I keep on my phone which I think are suitable for public consumption. I'm not going to name them or put in links or even try and be funny. I'm just going to deliver streams of my consciousness, if you think that's vein then maybe it is...

In the future, I will be writing a more politically orientated blog in addition to this and maybe who knows a podcast...

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The story of Africa is filled with many tragedies and fuck ups. Nothing encapsulates this more than the story of Rwanda. People know that this was the most well organized genocide in history, 800,000 people in 100 days. I say this bearing in mind the Nazi holocaust. The final solution was that a final solution (at least arguably) whereas in Rwanda the Hutu elite had planned and organized it for years in full view of the world. Yet no one did anything.

The UN sent less than 3000 troops and ignored calls for reinforcements, ignored intelligence coming from diplomats, ignored a 100% annual increase in machete imports. I haven't cried in a long while. I am fully sober, sat on a crowded public train, yet I wept while I read the story again. What makes me sad is that despite all the talk of reconciliation. I find it hard to believe people just forgive and forget

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Got home in the pouring rain. I was determined to have a bath, I even turned on the hot water. I didn't. I smoked in front of the tv and forgot all about it.

After watching a bunch of prerecorded programs I stumbled unto channel four's how the other half live: nine months on. I had watched one of the original episodes and remember thinking what a pretencious load of tosh. The rich people gave the poor people some money and some stuff and let them visit their house. The poor children feel bad about being poor, the rich children feel bad about being rich. The poor parents get some material rewards and the rich parents get moral rewards. We got an hour a tv and everyone walks away.

But watching the 9 months on episode was very interesting. Not because the patronizing tone had disappeared. It hadn't in fact It was worse because this time the poor family was black and inner city. The original show had raised such emotions in the watching public that the headmasters of 2 private school decided to sponsor the 3 black girls' education till they turned 18.

What amazed me was not the grand act of generosity, nor the gulf between private and state education. Rather it was the rate at which the two girls who had just started at the private school changed. With the younger one who was maybe 8 or 9 you could see and hear her mannerisms and accent change over the course of the filming (maybe a term). She became more confident and more well spoken with a public school accent. The older one who was maybe 11 or 12 the change for the older one was instantaneous. From the first shot at the school she spoke almost deliberately posher and by the second or third day it was natural.

This made me remember when I was 12 and first went to private school in England. I felt the immediate need to assimilate. I was going through puberty still trying to form my identity, processes I had started in Nigeria, so what resulted was in this definite split into two cojoined and overlapping identities that while eventually I felt confident in both I felt comfortable in neither. I contrasted this with my younger sister who was maybe 6 or 7 when she joined the fold. By being a full time boarder in that environment from such a young age she never developed the nigerian identity. the English public school girl is her primary identity in which she is both confident and comfortable and when she is forced to take on the African personna she is ill at ease and (perhaps deliberately) not all that convincing.

I don't know which is better

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PS. I am still trying to find the right android app to do this with minimum stress. At the moment I am using diaro which I have used for a while, but its a bit shit at synching with the blog and so i cant put times and dates yet. If anyone knows a good app even if its paid let me know.

Thanks your humble blogger