Browsing the archives for the Fun category.
Man: I’ve been thinking…
I’m the man of this house, so starting tomorrow I want to have a hot, delicious meal ready for me the second I walk through that door…
Afterwards, while watching ESPN and relaxing in my chair, you’ll bring me slippers and then run my bath…
And when I’m done with my bath, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?
Woman: The funeral director!
A joke seen on one of the office doors in my department.
Here are photos from the Fall season, or Autumn, as it’s called in Europe. In Nigeria, it’s simply called the Harmattan season, even though it doesn’t start in many parts of Nigeria until later in November.
They were taken from around the university campus yesterday.
The first thing you need to know is that I can never spell this word right the first time without looking at the dictionary. I’ve always wondered why something so gender-specific, personal, and so ubiquitous could be so difficult to spell. I have never had any problems spelling ubiquitous, nor pronouncing it. In short, I’ve never had the same problem I have had with the word testosterone with any other problematic long words in the interminable lexicon of the English language ;).
Now, today was a very good day in a way that actually has little to do with the word testosterone, (a word that I have now copied so that I can paste it anywhere in this article where necessary without going back to the dictionary) but with a series of mild coincidences that have again visited me. The day began the exact same way I begin every day: wake up late after getting very little sleep (which comes from staying awake longer than necessary, chatting online, reading, or watching American television), go to my teaching class (where I had the honour today of having a Yoruba professor in the Education Department come over on a courtesy visit), attend my linguistics classes where I never seem to be able to stay through without at least five minutes of struggle with sleep (in a way not related at all to the teacher’s style of teaching but my own sleep deprivation), and grab two boxes of pizza and a medium-sized lemonade at Pizzahut with Chris from class before riding back home.
However, a few minutes before the teaching class, my attention was drawn to one more response to the poll on this blog which had asked readers what they most wanted to read when they come here. I looked up the result of this poll and found an interesting response. A previous user who voted “other” had responded that they wanted to know what my “hopes and dreams from my Edwardsville experience were” while another said s/he wanted “a fusion of the three above,” which I believe referred to the three previous options already given. The last comment today explained what the reader seemed to have always wanted to read on the blog, written in two simple words thus: “his sexcapades.” – and I am sure by “his” s/he meant mine. In case, you’re wondering just like I am, the word sexcapade is not yet a real word in the English dictionary. But, I digress. In most usages, I believe the word means “a report of escapades of sex” (my definition), where escapade itself means “something exciting or adventurous that somebody does or is involved in, especially something showing recklessness or disregard for authority.” (Microsoft Encarta). I have now re-framed the two distinct and interesting requests for, yes, possible future blog topics: “What do I want/wish to do with the experiences I gain from Edwardsville when I return home next year”, and “What are the details of my (I’m sure s/he meant American) sexcapades?” Very interesting indeed. If this were a reality television, this is when the ratings will begin to progressively rise, and in the next few days, this post would be on the top of the Popular Posts List. Let’s wait and see.
My response to the question is the truth in one of the following sentences:
Take your pick.
Meanwhile, I will attempt to answer the other questions I’ve received from the poll in a different post. Hopefully, there would be less new questions about sexcapades. Those are already asked and answered, thank goodness. I can say this however, one of the perils of being both a student and Professor in the same institution at once (as I am here, being a Fulbright Scholar) is the impossibility of, the near impossibility of, or the utter danger in being able to change the title and duty caps at will without crossing a delicate line of propriety.
But here is the second coincidence of today: a short faction fragment, a piece that I wrote a few weeks ago on this blog as part of a longer unpublished prose fiction is being featured on the Bookaholic literary blog. Check it out.
I am also falling in love with the new autumn colours on the many campus trees.
As excerpted from the list of Yoruba proverbs researched, translated and submitted by students of my foreign language class in their first homework assignments back in August.
Blog Question: Can you tell what the original Yoruba version of these proverbs are, and what they mean in simple, non-proverbial 21st century English?
(Picture source: the cover of a greeting card I received during my birthday last September)
A few minutes ago, I concluded a chat with a French student in this University (on a different but similar international programme) who told me that I had done the abominable by putting my red wine in the refrigerator. “If you were in France,” she said, “you’d be thrown out of the country by now!” Oh, the French!
Checking my post mailbox this morning, I found an envelope postmarked from Pennsylvania. Since I wasn’t expecting anything so soon, I was surprised to discover in it Wole Soyinka’s Collected Plays 2. I had indeed ordered it a few days earlier from Amazon alongside books by George Carlin and William Shatner. That was fast delivery! The book wasn’t new, but it was in very good condition. Back in Nigeria, Amazon was never my friend since I didn’t have a credit card, and they won’t ship goods to Nigeria anyway. The book contained The Lion and the Jewel, Kongi’s Harvest, The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero’s Metamorphosis and Madmen and Specialists, that last one being an all-time favourite.
Today we saw the Chimamanda Adichie TED video talk in class for the first time. As I remarked to a Nigerian friend afterwards, the video was lovely, but in the end it wasn’t spectacular. I think I must have expected too much a response from the students, although in the end, I’m sure they were able to understand and appreciate Ms Adichie’s valid points in a way that they found interesting, and in a way to which they could relate. My own initial response to the talk, which was pride and exhilaration the first time I saw it, was – as I realize it now – because I’m Nigerian and, seeing her speak to such an international audience filled me with such pride. Why it did so, I can’t explain now. She hasn’t said anything new, but she has used many new ways to illustrate it. And that’s always a good thing.
Later in class, as I was about to receive a usb flash disk from a student who wanted to submit her Yoruba audio recording assignment, I felt an electric spark when I collected the disk. I was alarmed, until the other students told me it’s normal, calling it a “static” current. (Wikipedia calls it “the buildup of electric charge on the surface of objects” which is either bled “off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge”). A few minutes later when I gave the flash disk back to her, it happened again just as our hands made contact, and I “freaked out”, to use American colloquial expression of shock and disbelief. That was one thing I have never experienced before, but I have no doubt that it exists, perhaps even in Nigeria, and all over the world, but I’ve never heard any personal stories. According to a few more people that I’ve asked, this is a rather common phenomenon in America which comes into play when one of the contact persons has spent much time making bodily friction with the floor with their feet or body, they are indeed capable of conducting electricity. I find that strange. I’m surely not touching anyone again soon. Time to go back to receiving assignments through email.
I miss home!