ktravula – a travelogue!

reflections on the world

Browsing the archives for the Uncategorized category.

Pollution

I have just return from Alton, a little town twenty minutes away from my current location. The most dominant news item on the radio was the record heat waves that has got the whole country talking for the last ten days and will continue for the rest of the week. One other prominent feature of that trip was the enduring image of the Alton refineries purring “loud” smokes and fumes into the atmosphere.

I could only ponder the irony of it – on the one hand a deadly record heat all around the country occasioned by gas emissions and other environmental ills, and on the other the sad reality that things won’t change at once just because we wish it to. We can at least still take pictures from inside of air-conditioned vehicles.

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Pollution was published on July 25th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Burning Up!

These two statements are very true: America is a very hot place. America is a very cold place. There is one reason however why one of the statements will raise an eyebrow anywhere else across the Atlantic. The most enduring image of this country is that of white flurry snow falling down on lighted trees at Christmas. Somehow, for some strange reason, none of the images of sweating pedestrians, smelly cowboys and dusty roads of Nevada and California survived childhood memories and a transatlantic flight.

The temperature in Edwardsville yesterday was over 100 degrees F (about 37 degrees C). In Minnesota just two days ago, the recorded temperature was 115 degrees F. (That is 46 degrees C for heaven’s sake!!!) Thirteen people have already died from heatwaves. It is very telling that this happened in Minnesota, a usually cold place that still had snow until April when everyone else had already started having sunlight. If there was ever need for anyone to see that climate change is a harrowing reality, this is it. The question is, how do/would people survive the summer here, especially people already used to cold weather for half the year?

This statement is also very true: although coming from sub-saharan Africa, I’ve never been in a hotter or colder weather anywhere else.

 

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Burning Up! was published on July 21st, 2011, with the tags , , , under the Observations, Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Secondary School Days

It was always cold and dry in November towards the end of the school year, and the season always came with a certain bubbling feeling and restless feet. School was at Agodi, a stone throw from the governor’s office, and the state prisons. It was bordered by a military housing project/barrack which had some of the best eating shacks we had ever encountered. It was also the only place where we could go have burukutu in the after hours with the little money we could save. Fufu at Barracks was the best, for some reason. It was rock solid, and filling. It was just as well since the majority of the customers of the eating joints were military people expected to be tough, filled, and healthy.

The broadcasting corporation was about two miles away. It had a very large fenced compound where at this time of the year an exhibition was held. It was called an exhibition because it was conceived as a carnival for the Christmas season. In time, it became a spot for gaming, alcohol and peppersoup and not much else. It was the ultimate taboo spot of escape from school, and we took the liberties many times daring the always looming risk of being apprehended by state law enforcements sent out to find school children loitering the streets during school hours. The best way to get to the broadcasting corporation from the school without getting caught was to walk through a winding short-cut road that went through the Officer’s Mess of the Second Mechanized Division located just across the road. I see it now, a quiet living estate with fancy houses and barking dogs. Three, and sometimes four, young school boys in blue checkered shirts trekking across the land under a sometimes scorching sun. In their pockets are a few coins each, and some roasted groundnuts tied in transparent nylons.

The excitement at the exhibition grounds never always justified its anticipation, but it almost always compensated for gloom of confinement that the walls of our school represented. Dry harmattan Novembers on the streets of Bashorun as pesky loose cannon truants from a faraway place looking for a lost piece of their precocious childhoods… were good times. They also featured really dusty feet in rubber sandals.

 

 

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Secondary School Days was published on July 18th, 2011, with the tags , , , under the Observations, Soliloquy, Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Me Plus

Here is a riddle: what is the best way to take over the world? Need a minute? The answer is this: make something that everybody uses. This was my first thought on encountering the now almost inevitable internet destination that is Google Plus. What it is is an aggregation of Google’s top services and much of what we use on the internet, in one place.

It has got everyone talking. Even my grammar professor want to know how it can be used to teach an online class (hint: it can’t without the glitches of privacy and copyright concerns). It can, however be used to manage a social existence without worries to privacy the kind that Facebook brought. What exactly is Google Plus? I’d say it’s Facebook, Twitter, Blogger combined with some of other services we use everyday. Who would have thought that a day will come when everything we search for on Google can now be indexed publicly for our friends to see if we want. Who needs twitter? Who needs Facebook? Who needs a blog even? With Google Plus, everything comes together, and you still get to keep your gmail address.

Here’s how someone put it in a recent shared post:

Instead of saying, “I’m going to write a blog post now,” or “I’m going to send an e-mail” or “I think I’ll tweet something” you simply say what you have to say, then decide who you’re going to say it to.

If you address it to “Public,” it’s a blog post.

If you address it to “Your Circles” it’s a tweet.

If you address it to your “My Customers” Circle it’s a business newsletter.

If you address it to a single person, it can be a letter to your mother.

Why would you pay to keep a blog online when you can have everything a blog gives you for free on such a cool platform? Oh, I know the answer: that little issue of copyright and ownership. Besides that however, Google Plus is a nice new addition. I’ve already begun considering leaving Facebook though I know it might never really happen. It’s already a while since I last logged on to twitter. I think there is something relaxing about not having to open so many windows on my (wait for it: Google) Chrome browser.

I hope to use G+ to share some of my online curiosities and discoveries, particularly those not worth writing a whole blog post about. Join my Google Plus circle here.

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Me Plus was published on July 17th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Back on the Road

Driving for long hours requires more than just a strong will. Stamina also helps. And when the driver has spent previous days in the comfort of a good house and long hours of rest, it might be a lot easier than a sleep-deprived grad student taking three courses in one semester. The last time I drove for such a long distance, it took the alertness of the fellow passenger in the front seat to prevent the car from going off the road in a brief second of a careless shut eye. We were heading to Kansas City, five hours away. This time, there was no such instance, or even a minor risk. A strong body, a strong mind, a good healthy conversation, and a wide open road with pleasant breeze kept us all alert, and at ease.

The only other observation about this journey other than the presence of a large noticeable number of signposts advertising porn and “pleasure stops”, and smiling co-commuters racing with us in different cars at over 70 miles an hour, is the incredibly long and winding nature of the one road that took us on over 280 miles of the whole trip. Ah, and large trucks transporting whoknowswhat. It’s hard not to make comparisons with the roads on the way from the south of Nigeria to the north. The only difference will be the quality of the tar – not cars.

 

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Back on the Road was published on June 18th, 2011, with the tags , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Terror in Nigeria

“I’m Nigerian, not a terrorist. I don’t kill people that’re not from another part of my country” from old post.

It’s getting old – the idea that government is now somehow able to provide adequate security for the citizens without being able to sufficiently understand the extent of the problem itself. Now, one day at a time, the country is disintegrating into the abyss and the citizenry is left at the mercy of a better equipped, better funded and certainly more resolute gang of zealots. In the south is MEND – the group that started ostensibly to protest the environmental pollution of the Niger Delta whose tactics now include setting up explosives in public places. In the north is Boko Haram – an equally psychopathic distant cousin of Al-Qaeda, opposed to civilization and westernization (but still use cars and bombs, go figure). Yesterday, Nigeria’s first suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at the national police headquarters in Abuja killing himself and a traffic warden, and wounding a bunch of others. Crazy times we live in.

It’s hard to analyze this any other way other than as a failure of government that made proliferation of explosives something of a possibility (because of poor security systems) in a place where some people still can’t afford to feed a family. But then, these days violence seems to always find an outlet. Ethnic clashes seem to have lost their allure, we’re back to making bombs and blowing each other up. Crazy times we live in.

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Terror in Nigeria was published on June 17th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Research

I want to be able to talk about the field of Second Language Acquisition, my encounter with it last semester, and how much the questions it raises are more than the answers it provides. I am back into reading extensive materials in the field many of which didn’t make as much of a dent as they should have during that first encounter. I won’t now, not just because my knowledge is not yet as comprehensive as it should, and that a carry-over from a daunting first encounter is unhelpful in allowing me open up more to its possibilities, but also because I’m afraid of misrepresenting the extent and influence of what I already know. My MA thesis will have very much to do with SLA and I need all the concentration I can get.

But talking about what I’m doing always helps, as I have found out. Having less time to travel around the country discovering places now like I did before, all I have now is my research and the hard work of creating relevance in a field that gives me the freedom to think, and the tools to make a difference.  This time, I’m looking at tonal acquisition. The fact that not much has been done in the area so far is also as positive as it is challenging. So while the research process begins to take shape, let’s see what Krashen and Chomsky have to say again.

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Research was published on June 12th, 2011, with the tags , , , , , , under the Academic, Observations, Soliloquy, Uncategorized category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

Oh Fulbright.

I received a spirited email yesterday from someone who had found this blog through search for resources and tips about the Fulbright programme. Here’s an excerpt:

I came across your blog a few days ago when searching for fellow Fulbrighters who were willing to share their experiences on the Web. Either my research sucked big time or there were hardly any note-worthy ones except yours. I loved your posts especially your ’10 Reasons Not To Speak Your Native Language’. Haha..that was hilarious. I can totally relate to that. You see, I’m from Malaysia and our national language is Malay. Obviously it’s an unusual language but it has been quite useful during my stay abroad when we don’t want people to understand us. One day, my friends and I were caught red-handed by a Nigerian who spoke Malay!! Thankfully, we were just commenting on how cute he was. Yes, how about that. Turns out he has lived in Malaysia for quite a bit and he was used to the language. Taught me not to be so obnoxious and use Malay like there was no tomorrow =)

Mails like this make me happy to have – in some way, if only through random observations/rants of daily blog posts – provided resources or stimulus to those who might need them to apply for the Fulbright which I believe is a life-changing experience. It also reminds of why blogging is not such a waste of time after all.  For those that may still stumble on this page looking for resources, let me recommend the following links that might help.

What a Day (June 3, 2010)
A Short History of My Face (January 22, 2010)
Why Fulbright (December 16, 2009)
The Conference (December 11, 2009)
I Was Very Close (December 9, 2009)
The Beginning (August 10, 2009)

and a few others…

Like I said in response to the email, the only other most important criteria needed for applying for the program, along with the required knowledge of language, is curiosity and a sense of adventure, and an open mind.

 

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Oh Fulbright. was published on June 7th, 2011, with the tags , , , , under the Uncategorized category. There are currently 7 comments on this article so far.

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