ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Fun category.

Mardi Gras, St. Louis

I’ll save an article on this first-in-a-lifetime experience for later, but here are a few pictures from over two hundred that I took at the Mardi Gras celebration in St. Louis Missouri yesterday 13th February 2010.

The Mardi Gras, meaning “Fat Tuesday” in French refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, beginning on or after the Epiphany and ending on the day before Ash Wednesday, and was initially a celebration of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season.

Viewer discretion advised. Why this is necessary itself is still beyond me. Alright, enjoy.

Mardi Gras, St. Louis was published on February 14th, 2010, with the tags , , , under the adventures, Art, Fun, Travelling category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

Ten Weird/Unexplainable Stuff

10. The reason for waking up at 3am every day for more than a week, without reason.

9. The tenacity of over a dozen bees that ran after me on the first day I wore cologne out of my room.

8. The absence of rats/rodents in Edwardsville.

7. The unpredictability of the Midwestern weather.

6. The concept of infinity.

5. My reason for writing poems.

4. The incredibly delicious taste of anything I cook.

3. The power of names. *

2. Laws of attraction.

1. The workings of a computer, or any other electronic gadget.

* The Vice-President of Nigeria (now the acting president in the absence of the sick Mr. Yar’adua), aptly named Goodluck had always been lucky in every second-best position he had ever occupied, prompting a now common joke now that if the best man at your wedding is named Goodluck, you would be better off just cancelling the wedding.

Ten Weird/Unexplainable Stuff was published on February 13th, 2010, with the tags , , under the Art, Fun, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Before/After

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

PS: I’ve spent the last two hours deleting old pictures from my laptop since I discovered how much space occupied without need. It was an agonizing effort, I tell you. And for all the effort, I have only managed to free up to 14GB. I can’t say that I won’t do some more deleting later today. The photo above was taken at the Lake Michigan in Chicago. The combination of colours in the shot makes it one of my favourites, and it looks even better on paper. I think I’ll present it to Papa Rudy as a gift.

PPS: The guy in the picture is a paid model.

Before/After was published on February 12th, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Art, Fun category. There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

The Year of the Tiger

I’m beginning to consider the possibility that I might have been Chinese in my former life. The more I think about it, the more I remember instances in which the Chinese people, or the Chinese language has revolved around me. One of my favourite FLTAs at our orientation in Providence, Rhode Island was Chinese, and she taught me to write my name and my country in Chinese, and I’d given up of ever having such a chance again.

But today, I had another chance or reunion with my adopted spiritual home in the continuation of the events marking the “Discover Languages Month”. Last week was Yoruba. this week is the celebration of the Chinese new year, called The Year of the Tiger, and the student of Chinese had come out to exhibit their skills and knowledge of the language. Supervising the event was none other than Professor Lavalle, the teacher of Chinese language and literature whom I’d blogged about a few days ago. As special attraction, there were marshmallows and chopsticks, and interested competitors can win one of several Chinese toys and artifacts if they could only hold the chopsticks right and move the marshmallows from one bowl into another.

"My name is Chinese Kola"

I had never had marshmallows before, so it was nice that I showed up. Afterwards, after devouring them all, with my hands – of course, I began to wonder why it was sooo sweet in the mouth. I also had dates, which were nice, and then a fortune cookie which predicted that I was about to become $8 poorer. Tell me what kind of a “fortune” cookie is that? Later, I walked up to the stand where calligraphy was being exhibited, and I had my name written, again, in Chinese. I can’t read it now, but I believe the Chinese guy who wrote it. And Prof Lavalle was there. I believe that he would have told me if it was wrong. More than that, I also confirmed that I had not forgotten the few words of Chinese that I know: Ni hau for “hello” and Shi-shi for “thank you. When next I get free time, I think I will be making a trip to Beijing.

If it helps, Chinese is a tonal language, just like Yoruba. Professor Lavalle had also told me on our first meeting that what he read of my poems reminded him of Chinese poetry, as opposed to the prosy and “confessive” nature of American poems. It is supposed to make me feel better, I guess, that my peripatetic spirit has now has more links to the Orients than I like to acknowledge?

Maybe this is why I like Jackie Chan so much. Blood is so thicker than water. 🙂

The Year of the Tiger was published on February 10th, 2010, with the tags , , , , , under the Academic, adventures, Art, Fun, Observations category. There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

Guest Bloggers Welcome

Over the coming weeks, and perhaps for a longer while to come, I will be featuring Guest-Bloggers on this blog. I’ve had the idea for a while now of inviting my favourite bloggers, commenters, or just plain readers to make blog posts here about what concerns them. I like the idea of such interaction of ideas and opinions, and I hope that it will also open up new audiences both for ktravula.com and those bloggers and writers whose writing gets featured. If you are interested in being a guest-blogger on ktravula.com, let me know, send me a mail at kt@ktravula.com and surprise me with your subject of choice. There are no boundaries, I think. 🙂

On the flip side, I am guest-writing for a few blogs I like as well, so all invitations are in order. I would like to write one blogpost for any blogger who asks me to, and the topic would be any of my choice, but mostly along the ideas that I believe the readers of that blog would likely appreciate or respond to. Yesterday was my first guest-writing post, and it is was published on Clarissa’s Blog, entitled “Barking in a Foreign Language”.

Guest Bloggers Welcome was published on February 10th, 2010, with the tags , , under the adventures, Fun category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.