ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Observations category.

All About Valentine

I’m sure that if I as much as asked around, I’d find that I am not the first or the last young man with embarrassing stories about Valentine’s day or first loves. The first Valentine’s day in my childhood memory occurred while I was in JSS3 or so just as I was just becoming a teenager. I had bought a well-designed card with lovely words and taken it to the extra-mural classes we had during evenings hoping to present it to the object of my attention who attended the same evening class. I however made the mistake of first showing it to a friend, who laughed at me, so I figured that the girl to whom it was addressed would hate it even more. Without reason, I tore it off, and sat the whole day wondering what would have happened it I had given it to her. I liked her very much after all. It was one of those moments that never come back, except in adult reminiscences of childhood playfulness.

An earlier moment of embarrassment in childhood love has however occurred a few years before this time. This was way back in primary school when a cute girl in my class suddenly became an object of my intense interest. The problem was, she shared a class bench and desk with some other guy who was not me. Not a good thing, I reckoned, and began to scheme how to take over the spot that I felt rightly belonged to me. So one day while everyone was on break, I moved my books and bag from my designated sitting space and transferred, without the teacher’s permission, into the spot where Tunde – my love’s authentic class partner – always sat, and waited for him to show up so as to show him his new sitting space far away; and for her to show up to be my new class queen. The succeeding events when class eventually reconvened a few minutes later – I must confess – were matters of great laughter to the class, and to me not just embarrassment but an attack, a conspiracy. For I could never fully understood the teacher’s sense of amazement that I had decided to finally move closer to “the love of my life.” I am convinced that variations of this event would have played out within laughters in my mind of my school mates whenever they thought back on those times of our childhood.

There was another one from childhood which I believe some folks might remember. Or not. A few quasi-risqué-romantic-ish prose poems from an eight year old boy have suddenly been discovered within his school books by his siblings. The boy was me, of course, and the girl was the same object from class. The punishment, according to them, was having to read the said “poems” aloud to a giggling audience of siblings within the house, or risk having them reported to parents. Why that threat of showing them to parents was such a big deal then is still not clear to me, but I will bet that it had roots in self-consciousness. I took the first choice, with all requisite boldness for such endeavour, and read my most private pondering on a desired love in public to a group of jesting folks who most likely just wanted to have fun at my expense. Luckily, it did not end up as the last of such expressions of emotions contemplated in solitude. As an undergrad in the University in 2002, I wrote another one and titled it “My Valentine Fantasy.”

St. Valentine’s day is coming again next week, and since the love fairy has already delivered my gift since a while ago, I don’t think that I have much of a request. It is likely that I spend the weekend at the annual Festival of the Mardi Gras in St. Louis anyway – my first time experience of the uniquely American festival of life, fun, colour and fanfare. For Chris’s sake – my American classmate and co-conspirator to the event, I hope it is more than just a day of staring at flashing boobs of random strangers. You bet I’d let you now what I think. Meanwhile, head over to LaurensOnline for those of you in Lagos who may want to impress friends and lovers with Valentine gifts of shoes and bags. You get up to 20% discount if you show proof of donation of any kind to the Red Cross for Jos Relief. It’s a season of giving, after all.

And yes, please tell me about your own childhood crush experiences. I’d love to listen to them, you know.

Non-Pretty Telecom Ramblings

It wasn’t always likely that I would have spent half a year in one of the world’s biggest telecommunication’s markets – the United States of America – without a mobile phone. Surely, six months ago, I couldn’t have envisioned my current position. Two feet away from my left hand at this moment is a telephone that could only remind me of Nigeria. Not even the current day Nigeria, but the Nigeria of 1990. The telephone is hooked into the wall via a transparent cable. It has a dialing pad attached to the receiver, and it doesn’t have an answering machine, and it has a coiling cord that always used to give me nightmares. The last time I came across a phone with this kind of winding cable connecting the receiver to the box was in my grandfather’s house in the early to mid-nineties when we made the best of times by making prank calls to local Fire and Police Stations telling them of a raging fire. I therefore could not immediately believe when I walked into my designated apartment back in August that I was indeed in the United States of America. It was a kind of culture shock to come in contact with a land line phone of this ancient kind. There is usually a three-lettered abbreviation to respond to this kind of encounter. I went with OMG!

Cut to six months later, I am surprised to have survived it. My little nephews and nieces who are used to Nigeria’s now ubiquitous mobile phone services might be shocked now to see that phones exist in this kind of form. The only reason I can think of why I backed down from my promise to buy myself one of either the Samsung Omnia, the Nokia Maemo, the Apple iPhone, the Palm Pre, the Google HTC or the Blackberry among so many others new inventions competing for attention then was the contract system that made it a prerequisite that one had a payment plan with a major telecommunications network before getting a good smart phone. No can do, I said to Apple, which was my very first choice, and effectively walked away from the rest of them. There was no way I could sign up for a two year plan when my programme was going to end in eleven months. For phone calls home therefore, I depended on Skype, and Rebtel. For text messages, there was Skype, and my good old smart Nokia that followed me from across the ocean. For calls within campus, there remained my good old ancient line now hooked to the wall. It works just fine except I manage to step out of the room when the incoming call rings.

Needless to say, the non-possession of an American-network-powered mobile phone has never failed to generate very long conversations within friends and acquaintances whenever I bring it up. “Why don’t you just buy one of those little mobiles that you can recharge and use at will without a contact? Walmart has them,” I’ve been told. “I just can’t care less,” I respond, “In Nigeria, you can just walk up to any shop and buy a sim card without a contract, then buy the kind of smart mobile phone you want and still get all the services you require; a service you can walk away from at any time without loss. In America, it’s well almost an impossibility without a certain discomfort. Even the new iPad comes with the prerequisite of an AT&T contract. I mean what kind of exclusivity is that? Thankfully, I have been able to do without them all. Not like my friend Vera however. Read what she has to say about a phone contract with T-mobile. It is not just the figures, but the whole thing about a contract that just ticks me off.

It is just the sorry sight of this land line on my bed that reminds me of why Nigerians quickly got rid of the military government, and welcomed a civilian one. Today, even for “third world” Nigeria, I would never buy a phone like this. Not when I can buy the new contract-free Google Nexus combine it with an MTN simcard that costs less than a dollar. This sight reminds me of why I am a true ghoul in the forest!

PS: Amount so far raised via KTravulaid for Jos, for Haiti = $230, out of which $100 has already been sent to Jos. Thanks to Dee, Clarissa and Tee.

Blank Head Rants

“No one can ever know for sure what a deserted area looks like.” – George Carlin

I honestly, honestly have nothing to blog about today. Ask me, I can’t wait for January to be over with. It’s the longest month of the year, especially because it follows an already long festive one of December. February however is the shortest month, which is nice, except you are a compulsive blogger who has to write up to fourty-six interesting articles in a month.

What I intend to do in this short post then is to tell you the response to my so called “Charity Work”. It is interesting to see the responses so far, which is to me quite encouraging. We already have $100 pledged to Jos, Nigeria; I think. And today, Thursday, I will be making out the said photograph to send to the said donor who lives in Dolton, Illinois but wants to remain anonymous as soon as I receive the proof of said donation. There are two other pledges from contributors to this blog, and I thank them, Yemi and Tayo. Needless to say, it’s not sufficient. It is not the best we can do.

In a similar vein, I wrote a letter to the Fulbright Organization yesterday informing them of the project, and to the coordinator of the Haiti relief effort at my University. I haven’t received a response from either of them. What I hope to do in the next week is to hold an exhibition, if possible, of some of these photographs on campus. What I’m afraid of is that students may not have that much money to spare, adults who can spare may have already donated to Haiti. So for all its worth, if that ever happens, it will be more of my opportunity to showcase my work rather than to raise money. In any case, I’d be glad to explore the opportunity. Day by day, the pictures look better and better to me. I didn’t know that I’d taken so many shots in this little period of time.

If you’re interested in buying the works in this effort to raise money for Jos, Nigeria; and the country of Haiti, please head here for more information. I will try to keep the offer open until the end of my Fulbright Programme in May, if I can. From then on, you will have to pay heavily to buy them, by which time they would have become a collector’s item, even if I say so myself 🙂

SOMETHING ELSE: I heard that Apple has finally come out with it’s new tablet, and they have chosen no other name to call it than the iPad. The obviously flawed marketing strategy has now spurned so many spoofs and parodies on twitter since yesterday. The product was actually called the iTampon by pranksters in the extreme of it. What worried me the most why Mr Jobs hadn’t considered the fact that the iPad uses the very same sound patterns as the iPod, at least in Americans English. How will listeners be able to tell them apart? This may as well be a failure of language sensitivity as it is a failure of marketing. My two cents.

On January and the Friggin’ Weather

I was almost surprised to discover that it is already the 26th of January 2010. Oh how time flies. It was just a few days ago that this new decade began with fireworks and an almost panty bomb. And just like that, we’re already one month up the new dozen ladders of this new year. Impressive indeed. At ktravula.com, you know what that means, don’t you? It means that we’re getting close to another season of 10 Reasons. I still have no idea what we’ll be debating this time. But the blog always surprises. In a related info, by the end of this month I’d have blogged for six straight months on ktravula.com. What would that make me? A blogaholic? I think so. All I need is a dose of Nigeria to cure me of this malady. Today I heard that another opposition politician in the country was assassinated in Ogun State. Very classy indeed. What a good thing to spend the quality time of state doing – assassinating opposition. My country is never short of deep depressing distractions.

In other news, the Winter season here has proven not to be Winter at all, but a winker one. I just don’t understand the darned weather at all. One day it’s freezing cold, and the other day, it’s hot. In the evening, it rains. I brought it to the attention of my students in class today and they gave me this wonderful nugget peculiar to Illinois, particularly Edwardsville: “You don’t like the weather? Just wait a few minutes!” I mean seriously, I’m depressed by its inconsistency. It just never stays too long to be defined. The ktravulake has refused to stay frozen long enough for me to play on it. It started de-freezing on the very first day of my planned play, and it has not frozen again since then, thanks to the weather. Well, it snowed today, but only for a little while. Let’s see for how long it stays cold before it warms up again.

I heard there was Harmattan in Nigeria. It was funny because I first heard it from a friend on gmail chat who had just gone to heat water for a shower. I was curious about how cold it could have been to necessitate boiling water, so I went to weather.com to see for myself. It was 28 degrees Celcious (82.4 degrees F). What? If we get that kind of temperature here, it will be called summer! I guess that explains why the first time I got off the plane, I was wearing three thick shirts and an overcoat. And that was in August. 28 degrees Celcius looks more like a very hot day to me right now, and Lagos and Ibadan people have absolutely no reason to take showers with hot water. Trust me 😀 If you doubt me, just take a look at the blog temperature on the upper right hand corner.

PS: I’m still waiting for the first bid on my KTravulartworks, seen on the wall of my apartment – without a frame – in that photo. The offer is still good to donate all profits to victims of disaster in Jos and in Haiti, so send me an email at ktravulart@ktravula.com to make an offer. It is your chance to get a beautiful artwork in your living room while donating money to a worthy cause. There’s nothing as fulfilling as killing two beasts with one shot. Is there?

For All You Pandorans

What impressed me most about the blockbuster movie Avatar is, surprisingly, not the amazing 3D animation, which nevertheless blew my mind as it did everyone else. After a while though, my eyes got used to the 3D effect; the novelty didn’t last long. It was not even the utterly patronizing storyline featuring a White Messiah coming from an advanced civilization to save a tribe of nature-oriented locals by undergoing a change and becoming one of them. How could that have impressed anyone? The storyline was predictable after a while as just another typical action movie with love thrown in, except with the twist of a White Messiah which we have seen in a few other movies like “A Man Called Horse,” (which is said to have started the pattern), and “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.” What about “Dances With Wolves” or “The Last Samurai”, “Pocahontas” and “FernGully.”?

No, what I was most impressed with was the Na’vi language of the movie, which I’ve now discovered was totally made up. Now that’s creativity. Of course, from the time I saw the movie last week, I knew that I was watching a totally made up language, and this is not a slight on the movie but common sense. It would be foolhardy to expect a White director to put a real world language in the mouth of a made up tribe of “primitive” aliens, especially in the age of political correctness. But I wasn’t reallysure until I confirmed today on Wikipedia. Here’s what it had to say:

From January to April 2006, Cameron worked on the script and developed a culture for the Na’vi. Their language was created by Dr. Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC. The Na’vi language has a vocabulary of about 1000 words, with some 30 added by Cameron. The tongue’s phonemes include ejective consonants (such as the “kx” in “skxawng”) that are found in the Amharic language of Ethiopia, and the initial “ng” that Cameron may have taken from New Zealand Māori.

As a linguist, this fact tickled me to no end, and it should tickle you too. Click on the Na’vi language link on Wikipedia to see the form and phonology of the Na’vi language, developed solely for a movie. This is how to make a movie. This is one of the qualities of great artworks – the attention to detail, and the lengths to which artists go to make their work authentic. All the actors in the movie had to spend quality time learning to speak this totally made-up language, and master its nuances of speech – at least, its accepted speech patterns. The last time I was this impressed with movie language was after seeing Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ in which the actors spoke old Aramaic and Latin, two altogether dead languages that are no longer spoken by any group of living people (except the Catholic church, and scientists, for Latin, and a very small group of people, for Aramaic). So this is what makes Avatar great, and not the patronizing earth-saving story of the renegade crippled-White-Marine-who-falls-in-love-with-native sentimental crap. And the movie is darn too long!

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