'09 Year's End

I love New Years. I know, shocked right? But I love New Year's. It's celebrated all around the world. I think the Solomon islands are first to see the new year. I love most of all watching as BBC 24 goes around the world, showing how each country makes the last few seconds special. The fireworks (hanabi) displays, the countdowns, the new year. And with the new year comes New Year's resolutions (made to be broken), new hopes, new aspirations, new dreams, new desires and in some few cases conclusions. Yes, New Year's is one of the best, it's quick, if you blink you'll miss it. It's always exciting.

Happy New Year everyone xx

Side Story: Boxing Day

It was Boxing Day, the day after Christmas Day which makes it the 26th. I woke up around 10 am then spent the next 10 minutes trying to regain consciousness. I have freaky low blood pressure so I tend to have blackouts and sleep a lot (at least that's the excuse I'm using for that one). I trudged down the stairs with my heavy ass Toshiba, soon to be Apple, laptop. My older sister was getting ready for an outing I still haven't asked her about. My other sister and mum were gloating about a successful attempt at the "world famous" Banana cake. I sat down and plugged the energy-sucker (my laptop) in. Apparently, it can't go an hour and a half without charging. I stared as the energy-sucker slowly, very slowly reanimated. Then it hit me, it was so tremendous, so powerful, like a flood washing all over me. The New Year was imminent and I was waiting to go to school not waiting to go to Japan. I had set my life back a year. A year in exile. I felt helpless, like I was gasping for air in that flood. I couldn't breathe. My eyes started to well up, and I felt embarrassed most of all. I didn't want to show that emotion to the rest of my family. I didn't want anyone to see me like that.

I'm used to sorting those things out on my own. And that's exactly what I did. I locked myself in my room, cried a bit but slept mostly for the rest of the day.

I'm a bit better now. It's the 27th. I think I'll be okay, eventually.

This Christmas: Day

Trading Places circa 1983, to the left Louis Winthorpe III. Masterfully played by Dan Aykroyd, the ultimate privileged, yuppie idiot who gets turned on by his "own kind".

The film doesn't have that much to do with this post, I just think it's a classic. I'm always filled with disgust and the wonder and then disgust again when I watch this scene. Wonder because I'm surprised that anyone would wear such a filthy Santa suit. Disgust because that's salmon that he's eating, eww. Personally, I'm not that into Christmas. I think it's kinda boring.

We don't behave any differently than we would any other time of year, no, that's wrong; my family irritate me more than they would any other time of the year, lol. The day's schedule is as follows: wake up (at some point), dress up (most of them don't want to), drink some cocktails, eat some Walker's Sensations and eventually have the Christmas meal including the dessert. I could do that any other day of the year with less fuss and get a nap in between.

The most annoying thing about Christmas for me is the insistence that I wait till Christmas Day to open my present. I'm 2 months shy of my 21st B-day, do I really have to wait to open my presents, apparently yes. Why? I suspect my family gets some sort of sadistic joy from making me wait.

The Christmas tree's a whole other kettle of fish. Every year I have to get it out, I have to decorate it and I have to pack it back up around New Year. It's even more irritating because I'm not the one who insists on putting it up. It's definitely not for the children's benefit because I'm the youngest in the house and I outgrew Christmas like 10 years ago. Bah Humbug. The icing on the cake is that this year my mother had to buy a new one because the black whole known as her bedroom swallowed up our beloved 15 year old Christmas tree. We've searched high and low but it's nowhere to be found. Can you believe it a whole Christmas tree has disappeared from my small English terraced house.

For those who love it, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year xXx ^_^ and if you haven't watched Trading Places you should. It's a great film.

This Christmas: Eve

This meal is important to me, not because it's Christmas Eve but because I haven't had it in a while. A Ghanaian classic of Waatse (pronounced Waatche), which is similar to the West Indian Rice and Peas, but we use black eyed beans instead. In Ghana it's eaten mid-morning because no one wants to be farting late into the night, lol. It's an unusual breakfast item but that's what happens when you live in a hot country. There's always and excess of chilli and salt, just the way I like it.

I remember my older sister used to buy it for breakfast when we lived in Ghana. It came packaged in a Banana leaf with extra Shito (not sure if I spelt that correctly ;0), because she loved the stuff. To her Shito is like Ketchup, lol.

Shito is made out of prawns generally, but Sprats today because that's what my mother could get her hands on. Any seafood would do basically. dried chilli peppers, oil (lots), onions, some salt or a Magi cube (I think it's made out of prawns compressed into a small concentrated bar). It is stewed until it turns black et voila, you have Shito, it's a peppery hot condiment. I can't eat too much of it personally, because I'm a light weight when it comes to peppery hot stuff. I'd rather have chilli in my food than not though. I always find myself nauseous when its not there.

My mum also fried some Sprats (those tiny fish that you can eat whole) and prawns. Apparently, in Ghana they eat shell and all. My memories of the motherland aren't as clear as the used to be. It has something to do with the benefits of the calcium… OK, that’s a lie. But it could be true.

Along with that you get some tomato sauce, and Gari which is Cassava I think. It's shredded then dry fried, I think my mum mixed it with some of the oil from the Shito. The thing about Gari is that it's rock hard, so whatever your going to eat it with you need to dampen it a bit. All that's left is the egg, which I don't quite understand the reason for, but who cares. It's delicious. Well, that was my Christmas Eve feast.

P.S. I hate Blogger's picture uploading system.

New Moon and Roger Federer!!!

So I went to the O2 arena, formerly the disaster known as the Millennium dome, with my friend Steph. I dragged her along, willingly, to watch the second installment of the Twilight Saga: New Moon at the Vue cinema. I like to watch a new film the week after its release, and preferably on a weekday if it's a child friendly film (they tend to ruin it for me).

The film was OK. I mean Robert Pattinson was great as Edward, it was like reading the book. Taylor Lautner was better than I thought he'd be, but I worry about his longevity in the movie business. He seems pretty one dimensional to me, that's okay for life in general but not for Hollywood. Personally I like Kristen Stewart, I'm not one of the stupid, hormone-ridden fans who hate her purely because she gets to play Edward's love interest and may be the real life love interest of Robert Pattinson. Most of these kids won't or can't make the distinction between the character and the actor. I appreciate her because I hardly know anything about her. That's the type of relationship I want with, specifically, the up 'n' coming celebrities. The problem is I don't think she plays Bella effectively, she just doesn't do sad that well. She does awkward, teen angst great but that's about it.

We were discussing the film as we left the cinema, when Steph dealt me a huge blow by telling me that she would've picked Jacob. After the initial nausea I thought, who am I to try to convert or judge her icky tastes. I won't hold it against her... much. We decided to explore the O2, the great thing about that place is that you never have to worry about getting lost. It's a circle so you always end up where you started.

The O2 was also hosting the ATP Master's end of year tournament with the world's top 8 players. They battle it out through 2 rounds: first is the Round Robin; were the play against every member of that group, the two best out of the group proceed to the next stage. Second is the Knock-out stage; they play to the death (not really), they play the best of 3 sets, only if you lose this time you're out for good. We stumbled upon a tennis court and we (I) decided to hang around for a bit. First I saw Roger Federer's father, then his mother. I knew they wouldn't be out there for any old reason, so we lingered around a bit longer. Steph was getting restless but around 3 o'clock he finally came out. It was great, it made my day. I wish he'd been practising with Rafael Nadal. That would've made my year.

Neighbours from Hell... or in that direction

So yesterday the neighbours decided to make themselves known. My relationship with the neighbours is a lot like my relationship with the strangers I encounter on the London underground; they're invisible. I mind my own business and they mind theirs. These neighbours are African but I'm not sure which part they're from; I know that they're not Ghanaian but that's all I know.

I don't know what type of music the were playing, nor do I particularly care, but when I could hear it in my bedroom that's when I got irritated. At 6pm, or there abouts, they started with that crappy music. Normally I wouldn't be dismissive of other people's varying tastes in music, but these pricks just pissed me off. A couple of hours later when the music got louder my oldest sister and I decided to ask them to keep it down. When the neighbour opened the door he told us that they were having a baby shower or some shit like that. Who has a baby shower with obscenely loud, crappy music. It was bloody cold in England that night so we quickly retreated to our house and waited 10 mins. No change. I walked 7 whole feet, in the bloody cold, to they're door for nothing. That was it. I got on the phone to the police who redirect me to the noise division of my local council, meanwhile my sisters went back to knock and ask the neighbour for the SECOND time to take it down a notch. No Change.

I got a hold of the council, which did me absolutely no good. The noise division arrived around 11pm only to tell us that they'll send a letter to the neighbours. A letter, that's it, what a waste of time. So my Saturday night was filled with mostly expletives aimed at the neighbours.

What will I do? Well, they rent so as soon as my mother locates the landlady's phone number I'm going to let her have a piece of my mind. My anger has been redirected at her because in the past 2 years that she's owned that house every single one of her tenants (and there have been at least 6 different ones) have been either illegal, dirty or both. She's either lazy or stupid, I'm going to find out. My mother suggested that I should go along the lines of "...I want to be a good neighbour..." blah, blah. No. That's not going to happen, I prefer to subtly threaten her with informing the council about the type of tenants she places in the house. But, with the amount of time my mother is taking to find the phone number, (I suspect deliberately) I'm running out of steam. Bah Humbug!!!

Dawn Porter, Geisha Girl!

I watched a documentary a while ago on Channel 4 about the search for love, normally I'm not into flighty stuff but it's first stop was none other than Japan - Kyoto to be exact - which is nowadays the only way to peak my interests. Dawn Porter the narrator wanted to experience the life of a modern day geisha, I think we got on the wrong foot when she revealed that her understanding of a geisha was akin to the high class prostitutes of the west. At first I thought 'how rude' then I thought 'what a fucking idiot'. I thought it was good practice to research a subject before you spoke about it. Maybe she wanted to view it with fresh eyes, but that still didn't mean she could approach the topic with such a negative impression. Granted, her position did change, eventually, but it very much irritated me. Maybe it's because I recently re-read Arthur Golden's Memoir's of a Geisha, that I felt so outraged by her assumptions.

After arriving at the Kyoto okiya to meet Mother and the other maiko and geisha living in the house, Dawn was set to work. First she had to learn the correct sitting position of a geisha; sitting on her shins gracefully (which is the key word here) making sure that the kimono is not ruffled in any way, making sure it looks smooth and beautiful, making sure it's effortless. This doesn't seem that hard on paper so I could understand why Dawn was taken aback by the pain. After getting used to sitting, she had to learn how to stand gracefully, effortlessly etc. Maybe it's too simplistic to say effortlessly, it actually involves a lot of muscle control due to the fact that you have to put all of your body weight on one leg while maintaining your balance to ensure that you glide up instead of wobble up. Not to mention having to not do the thing that comes most naturally to you when you're in that position, 'DON'T STICK OUT YOUR BUTT'. Dawn received many smacks on the arse, it was a steep learning curve. The hardest thing about this initially for a western girl who is used to showing what she feels, when she feels is maintaining a perfect, pleasant mask. As if the squats, from sitting down and standing up, hasn't left her with seemingly permanent pain whenever in a crouched position - if you can't tell, by the way, I hate squats. She did a days worth of work which completely wore her out, I can sympathise because I'm unbelievably weak and not afraid to admit it.

Later on that day Dawn got to chat with a fellow (using the word loosely) geisha. She wasn't just curious, or at least that's not the impression I got. I could happily accept genuine curiosity. She seemed like she was trying to get the girls to say that 'yes' their lives were hard, 'yes' it's not always the happiest place to be and 'yes' this wasn't really what they wanted of their lives. Well, 'NO' Dawn, sometimes women make unusual choices and it's not your job to show them the supposed error of their ways.

The next day Dawn was allowed to dress in full maiko regalia, a $100,000 kimono, white make-up, red lips and the hair. It was wonderfully grand, wonderfully dramatic and wonderfully heavy. Maybe that's not so wonderful. Upon seeing her reflection in the mirror Dawn was displeased, not because the clothes weren't to her liking but because of the discomfort resulting from the kimono. All the padding around her waste to prevent the kimono from riding up restricted her breathing and hid her waist line. The make-up didn't look as good on her, I somewhat agreed with her on that point. Her lips were painted white except for the very centre of her lips which were painted a vibrant red to give the illusion of a much smaller - in length - plumper lip than her own. On her eyelids was the same vibrant red, following her eyelids. It seemed that red was very much the theme because there was yet more red on her eyebrows. I think on a more delicate looking western girl it would have looked just as good as it did on the Japanese girls. When they finally changed her name she was ready to be presented to the world, Dawn was now Kikutari. All this time Dawn felt that little by little everything that made her Dawn Porter was being stripped away to be lost forever. Yes, she was that dramatic, I think she lost perspective. The more I watched, the more ridiculous I thought she was, you're doing a job for Channel 4, from which you're getting paid a hefty sum to go talk to a few Japanese people. It's only temporary.

I fully admit that I'm a bit biased. OK. A LOT biased. But, I would've felt the same about anywhere Dawn Porter went, I think my issue is mainly with her method of journalism. I think with cultural differences it's imperative to observe and discuss without bringing your culture into it.

She's gone and she's never coming back

My supervisor's gone, she left the country and headed back to Germany. I'm sad, she was lovely, always patient, always answering our stupid questions and always with a never ending source of flies for us to use.

She left about 2 weeks ago, I'm not good with dates but I know it was around the end of October. Eleanor and I decided to get her a little going away present in the form of anything we could find in the local Mile End shops. We snuck out while we were trying to clean our fly tubules; one thing about my project that always grosses me out. The problem with incubating flies for 2 weeks is that you end up with fly stew; often a mixture of dead fly, mould, fly feed and paraffin. It's quite a tedious job because of the need to remove the paraffined (yes, I know that's not a real word) end of the tubule using piping hot water. Then, placing the tubules in the death contraption that is the Autoclave; it relies on the production of steam to clean and therefore reaches great, explosive pressures. We tentatively, always tentatively use the autoclave.

We told her that we were going out for lunch; something we rarely do because we often get too engrossed in analysing our data. We walked along the Mile End road stopping in shops to check out their card and chocolate collections. We settled, after several minutes of debate, on a card adorned with black cats against a yellow background, on the interior was a night-time landscape; midnight blue with swirls of various lighter shades of blue to highlight the clouds. And yes more cats, but not the whole cat just the eyes. Across the A5 piece of card there were at least 15 sets of eyes staring back at us, Eleanor loved it, I was a bit dubious but not bothered enough to argue. We went on, to another shop, to buy her some chocolates, one standard Cadbury's chocolates in a box shaped a bit like a Christmas cracker and some Smarties, not just any smarties though. These were like easter egg smarties except instead of an easter egg it was a penguin which sound like maracas when shaken, now that I liked.

We skillfully hid our presents in Eleanor's big coat when we got back to the office, unfortunately she was knee-deep in a conversation with one of the Phd students in the lab. We had to wait. So, we thought it would be best to start analysing our data. I'm not going to go too far into it but my data was faulty so I couldn't analyse. With the intention of correcting the problem I walked - in total - 12,255 steps that day, trekking all the way from the office to the fly lab was a bitch. I'm not fit and I've never tried to be but the always broken lift (I think I've mentioned this before) left me with 5 floors to walk up at least 4 times that day. I was not pleased.

When she'd finished with her colleague and we were finished with cleaning the fly tubules we handed our card and presents to her. She was genuinely shocked and grateful. She opened her card, which she loved because apparently she was a big fan of cats. Unfortunately, her husband was allergic so she couldn't have any. So, she had resigned herself to collecting cat statues from all over the world. She gave us a hug and a Ferrero Roche as a thank you. We said our goodbyes and that was the last time we spoke.

I'm gonna miss her.

I'm back....................

..........and I'm sure all three of you who read my blog are happy about that. I've had a life altering summer mainly due to the fact that I failed my exams; I'll have to sit out a year as a result. I'm not gonna postpone my trip, for me its not an option.

In the mean time, I have a year a spare on my list of 'what to do's': to prevent my brain from rotting any further I'm gonna get a job; any job for that matter, in this current economy everyone's a beggar and can't be a chooser. I also have to do some internships to bulk up my CV, which is seriously barren of any work experience.

On a positive note Stan was surprisingly nice about the situation, he asked which one of us was sitting out a year of school and then said he was more than happy for me to continue with my project. I suspect he was pleased with the fact that I actually wanted to finish of my work but, he's pretty hard to read. Eleanor and I noticed that the only person he was ever really happy to see was one of his Phd students. Comparing the two men I can see many similarities: they're both tall, both lean, wiry men and both have cherub-like curls. Which brings me to my main point, I recently cut my hair (courtesy of my sister) because the afro roots of my hair couldn't cohabit with the straight relaxed ends. In my attempts to render my new hairstyle as acceptable I ended up with some-what cherub like hair. I think Stanewsky greatly appreciated this as I reminded him of his favourite student.

Unfortunately, my supervisor is leaving in about 2 weeks, we'll be very sad to see her go. This is gonna be a short post but it's nice to be writing again.

Things we lost in the fire

1. the shed
2. the contents of the shed
3. the downstairs toilet
4. the downstairs toilet window
5. the green tub we were gonna have to bathe in
6. the gas
7. the electricity
8. the water
9. the bathroom
10. the bathroom window
11. my naivety

We really did have a fire and I really was scared shitless. There were hysterics (on my part) and lots and lots of men to help put it out, for now all I can think about is Ganbatte; there are too many useless relatives roaming about.

Stan Strikes!!!

It's like any other Friday, this summer, I wake up then have a bath and brush my teeth........make myself pretty (don't know if it works). I try to make the cheapest journey I can to station, cos I'm a student......cheapskate's my middle name. I leave the house around 9.10 am - I got side tracked watching E! news (guilty pleasure) - and top my oyster card off with 4 pounds. In England, no in London we pay extortionate travels fares. Before 9.30 am a 1-day travel card costs almost 10 pounds, for the rest of the day with my student discount I pay 5.80 pounds, it's a huge difference amidst the Credit Crisis. I get on the bus around 9.20 am, get to Stratford at 9.45ish. When I get to the station there's a problem.

As I try to exit, the barriers make that off-key beep.....the 'you don't have enough money' beep so I go over to the assitance counter, no one's there. I knock on the window but it's made out of that triple thick plastic so my knock is barely audible to me let alone the tickets operator. I conclude that my voice would be far more appropriate in this situation so I say 'Excuse me' - using my grown up voice - no answer, I wait 23 seconds (not that I was counting or anything) then I shout 'EXCUSE ME!'........it works. I yield and part with 2 pounds to top-up my oyster card, I don't need to ask the operator 'why the beep?'; the barriers gave me the 'you don't have enough money' beep because I was cutting corners. I storm out of the station onto Mile End road and head for the Lab, I'm running a tiny bit late.

The week prior the lift was broken, so as I enter the building I pray to the gods that it has been fixed. It hasn't, after cursing son of a bitch and the like I decide to make the herculean journey to the 5th floor. After the first two flights of stairs I'm already worn out, I admit it I'm very, very unfit.......but do I really deserve to be tortured for it. Note to self: make offering to gods so that the damn lift can be fixed. I get to the 4th floor gasping for air while resting all my weight on the railing, I proceed down the corridor towards another flight of stairs and then Fly Lab, Valhalla for the unfit. Eleanor calls wondering where I am at 10.02 am, she's looking for any reason not to be in the lab with him, Stanewsky, I tell her I'm on the 4th floor and we curse the school for not fixing the lift.

As I approach the lab doors, which we finally have access to after 4weeks of phone calls (on my supervisor's part) and waiting, Eleanor opens the door and tells me that Stan's there and he's grumpy. What the hell is he doing here, he's not supposed to be in on Fridays I say, she agrees. We decide it a safer bet to sit on the couch (the brown, old but surprisingly comfortable couch) than to sit in the lab all alone with him unable to speak. We have a chinwag about tennis and Wii, blah, blah....one of the scientists who makes the Drosophila feed (haven't learned her name yet) tells us that she'll stop our experiment for us so we go with her to do all that - pretty boring stuff really. She is really helpful so I kinda feel bad for not knowing her name. We go back to the couch because he's still there, then my supervisor comes up (always late) this time she has a smokers cough so we hear her before we see her - doesn't sound good. We do some more Biology stuff and she tells us to wait so we go back to the couch, this is all around the time he (that's how Stan will be referred to from here on out) decides to go back to the office. As he walks past I see a special glint in his eye, he can't resist: 'nice to see someone making good use of the couch' he says, he smiles so I smile (it's a bad habit, I smile stupidly like that all the time). I turn to look at Eleanor and we look out the window then back at each other, no words are necessary. He just made a 'sarcy' (sarcastic) comment!!! Was there any need? NO. He just couldn't help himself, from that we can tell that we are in his bad books and there's nothing we can do about it. We resign ourselves to not making eye contact with him to 'provoke' him.

After putting our flies into the fridge to make them sleep we head over to the office to analyze our data, get out as early as possible and stay out of his way - that's the plan. It works for a little while. The office is small and there are at least 6 people coming or going at a given time. We find ourselves a little corner and begin the analyses, all is going well when he walks in....we're on alert. He heads over to the corner they have set up as the canteen, which happens to be exactly where I'm set up and wastes no time in seizing the opportunity to remark. I don't mind what he says, it's how he says it; he tells us to move up so as not to obscure the canteen, that's fine. And then he shoos us away, the way you shoo a pet away from your food, as though we are beneath him and need to be shooed as opposed to being told. If you could see the way the professor scoffs up his food you would understand that the canteen means a lot to him (it's kind of surprising considering he's a thin, wiry specimen of a man). We move, what else are we supposed to do? A while later the office fills up, people are eating and talking, I might add, and he is oblivious......when it suits him; he doesn't tell them that this is a place of work and not chatting. Eleanor realises that we are not gonna leave before 3pm so it would be best to go get lunch, we tell our supervisor, take our money and we are on our way.

Eleanor takes me to this secluded restaurant called The Jasmine Kitchen, the place is great because it's like a secret - only known to a select few. The staff are friendly and the food is good, I forget the name of what I ordered but I know it's chicken with rice and broccoli (I love broccoli because they look like little trees) and carrots and crispy fried golden shallots and Coke. After we lick the bowls clean (not really) we head back with heavy feet. When we get back to the office everyone's back to work, thank god, and so we get back to our work.

The hours drag on, Eleanor goes to pee and I carry on creating PDF's of my analyses. He walks in again and he's getting something at the canteen, again, and I try to honour the promise I made with Eleanor when he shooed us away: 'don't make any eye contact whatsoever'. I try to keep my eyes on the computer whilst I am urging, willing the Adobe to get it over and done with. I can feel his eyes borrowing a hole into my head, he's wondering why I'm not typing....ehh 'because I'm waiting for Adobe to make the PDF file!!!!!' I resist the urge to shout, no bark that at him, instead I avert my eyes trying to look interested at anything else in the room. It works and he leaves when his food/drink is ready......phew. We work until 7 pm doing little bits and pieces.

As we walk to the station it feels like we're 7 year olds, just let out of school for home-time. We talk about the day and how funny our supervisor can be consciously and unconsciously, how much worse he's gotten. We head home not to think about the professor ever again.............until Monday that is.

Girls do the funniest things

I went to an all-girl Catholic school for 5 years of my life, within that situation I met I range of girls. Some were ghetto in a dangerous way; a classmate once actually set fire to the school toilet, which promptly resulted in her exclusion from the school; some couldn't be further from the word ghetto and some were ghetto only in humour. This was the majority because St. Angela's was a school sustained by African and Carribean students; in Newham, London you wouldn't expect anything else. There was a small minority composed of the remnants of Cockney East-End London, those girls were what you would envisage when you think of England. I probably didn't fit into any category because my first 6 years of life were spent in Ghana with Ghanaian peers and the Ghanaian school system (basically you get caned if you disobey a teacher, caned if you don't learn quickly enough, caned just because.......cane, cane, cane). I wasn't an outcast but I wasn't in the in-group either.

Out of all the girls I encountered in secondary school one person explicitly stands out, purely because she was a contrast..........she was ghetto (at times), she was an atheist (all of the time), she was a theologian, she was well read and she knew it. Some would call her a snob because of it. For me intimidating springs to mind, I imagine that her name was synonymous with bitch because she did have a chip on her shoulder. If I hadn't been in the same class as her for 5 years I would have been indifferent in regards to Chontel, and that would mean that I would quickly put her out of my mind - she would be negligible. When you actually got beneath her veneer she was really easy to talk to, she could take a joke, she could be sweet....but she marched to the beat of her own drum; mainly because she was, I suspect, just as unfit as I was.......still am.

In university there are more people and less confined spaces, you don't have to talk to people you don't want to or simply make nice anymore. For the first time however, I've met snobs.......they're annoying, pretentious and mostly girls. In the university subculture you find most people diverge according to their race: the South Asians (Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani) who are given the option of Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer while they were in the womb by their parents. Followed on by the Asians mostly Chinese and finally you have the English country girls, by country I mean there's lots of greenery.

Of the South Asian girls there are those who are insanely loud and chatty and often given the evil eye as a result.......but what do they care, they sit in the back of the lecture theater (like me), ignore the lecturer (like me) but they like school (unlike me) - it's like a playground for them. They are okay to talk to, for a short time, because they are actually willing hold a conversation; you'll quickly get bored and they'll quickly get distracted. When you see them you acknowledge them then go about your business. The studious, sensible subgroup of them know you only when convenient, case in point Meera: I met her at the beginning of my university life, I don't think we hit it off but I made sure to acknowledge her when I saw her because I still remembered those early days when we walked around like headless chickens grabbing onto any and every friendly face we saw (it was a lawless time). I'm not worth recognition anymore, according to her.........but when she needs a slide of drosophila embryo she suddenly knows me again. They're interesting like that...........they are opportunists to the core....ugh, nothing disgusts me more. These subgroups are distinguished by their make-up, the chatty girls with the attention span of fruit flies wear bucket-loads of eye make-up, Kajal, Kohl etc. They don't seem to mix, the chatty and the studious.

I mentioned earlier about the Asians, we have (as far as I can tell) Chinese and Japanese students in our university. They have their own distinctive wardrobes and love of the peroxide, the Chinese girls favour kitten heels and bejewelled denim. The Japanese girls are a rarity, I don't know why and of the few I have seen, Keds are a big hit........girls after my own heart.

Finally, we have the English country girls, unfortunately the girl in question shares my name....yes, she's an Annabelle (don't know how she spells it though, I'm fussy abut stuff like that). I've gone through most of my life being the only Annabelle so I was curious when I found out there were 2 of us. She's autistic, not really, but isn't that what you call a person who lacks 'theory of mind'. A person who speaks sooo (extra o's) loudly you know - even if you don't want to - that over the holidays at, get this, MUMMY and DADDY's she drank a whole bottle of wine to herself, I'll let you take that in...........a) who gives a shit!!!, b) she's an alcoholic - who drinks a whole bottle of anything by themselves and c) who gives a shit!!!!!!!!! I soon awarded her the title of 'the Real Uggs'; over in England there has been this phenomenon over some thick Australian Farmer looking boots called Uggs. I've never donned on a pair because I think boots are the devil (I like them on other people but not on me). They're pretty expensive to buy over here but they're damn cheap in Australia, and because of that most students buy the cheap equivalents here, she wears the real ones so to me she's a 'Real Uggs'. Along with the Uggs they (the Real Uggs, there are more than one) dress like they're ready for action, I don't mean for sex, I mean action........like they could climb up Mt. Snowdon at a drop of a hat.

SayJapanese goes Loco

I took a personality test on Facebook a while back, which told me what I already knew...I'm very, very agreeable. The problem I find with the agreeable label is that people think that your a meek or dull because of it (at least that's my impression), and that is something I am not. I think I scored so highly on agreeableness because I view it as bad manners and often offensive to scoff or disagree with another's cultural point of view. This is limited however to new people, people whose boundaries have yet to be tested. I'm not one of those extroverted people who tells anybody and everybody about my whole life story over a cup of tea/coffee (I hate both so you would probably be doing the drinking). But I'm mostly okay with that, I think it's one facet of my personality but not something you could pin me down as.

Recently I started reading the works of another blogger by the name of LOCO (not his real name apparently but I like it), a New Yorker; I had previously been particularly loyal to Wandering in Miyazaki (another New Yorker) who's situation was similar to what mine would be in Japan and had a killa 'fro I could only aspire to. He's pretty interesting, having lived in Japan for about 6 years and being a man, he gives me a completely different and sometimes not so nice perspective. His actions are interpreted with acute eyes, he is far more aggressive and 'dangerous' when he walks, when he talks, when he gestures emphatically all because he represents the unknown to a very homogeneous, insular population. Loco often gets the 'I'm scared shitless of you' stares (on public transport), which I would guess gets very boring very fast. I think it's mostly to do with the fact that he's a man, in general humans are more afraid of the unknown man than the unknown woman. How dangerous can a 5'3'' girl be compared to a 6' plus, broad shouldered man.........I'll have you know that within my armoury are some very sharp teeth, which could cause unspeakable damage.

I assume that anyone who lives or has lived in New York is very ballsy and not one to mince words, so the contrasting environment in Japan makes for a sometimes explosive meeting in LocoWorld. My suspicion, no, my belief is that New Yorkers and the Japanese are like chalk and cheese; one practices Honne and Tatamae while the other says what they think or feel in whatever situation; no New Yorker worries about how a sudden efflux of emotions would affect others. I'm not saying New Yorkers are impetuous, capricious loud-mouths or anything like that, they just don't use the same restraint over their emotions that the Japanese do, like most people in the western world. Mainly, because in their culture it's perfectly normal to express their distaste, joy, apathy, glee over life in general.

My thoughts about Loco......he's an articulate, smart, middle-aged man with a quick wit and a general love a ladies, ladies, ladies. I highly recommend. As I read through Loco's posts I realised that though I could sympathise with his trials I could not, at this point in time, empathise; it is because of that that I can say his reactions are the polar opposites of mine. I have this ability to be completely fine with whatever another person's perception is because I can accept that is just the way it is. I don't attempt to understand why, often because I feel it would be disrespectful to them to question. Having said that I do realise that you can genuinely ask questions and debate out of curiosity and not the desire to prove someone else's practices wrong. I think I come across as uncaring, don't get me wrong there are times when I couldn't careless but that is restricted snobs - I've met a lot of them. I don't think Loco is wrong for the way he handles some situations because everyone has their limits. It just made me realise that not every Gaijin in Japan instantaneously embarks on a love affair with it, most have a love/hate relationship. My only hesitation is that my agreeableness doesn't render me Japan's doormat lover, who nods accordingly and loses the ability to have independent thought.

I want Japan to be my means of metamorphosis, I don't need to be a butterfly.....I'm happy being a moth as long as I'm better than I was before. As long as I have grown.

Any comments are welcomed........

The problem with Ghana

I am Ghanaian who doesn't want to live in Ghana, ever. It's not due to any deep trauma I experienced during my childhood living there, it's due to the culture itself. Don't get me wrong I greatly appreciate the fact that there are no civil wars like most other African countries, but there's this mentality of 'I'll get to it when I get to it'. People do things in their own time when they want and when it benefits them, there's no sense of urgency.

There has always been this myth perpetuated about 'coloured people time', which is supposedly the clock that black people run on; it's generally 2-3 hours behind normal time. I'm black and I run on normal time, it's not that hard and nothing irritates me more than arriving late using that as an excuse. I don't mind when you arrive as long as it's the time that you told me you would arrive. A general piece of advice I'd give to anyone dealing with a chronically late person is to tell them to arrive before the actual gathering begins, tell them the party starts at 1pm when it starts at 3pm. I remember attending the reception for one of my many cousins' wedding ceremony, it started officially at 5pm but people only arrived at 7pm apparently they got lost during their 10 minute journey from the church to the reception venue. It's as if they want to make an entrance by arriving late like supermodels and celebrities do, but after you've seen these people on a dance floor you realize that they are anything but models or celebrities.

The wedding ceremony itself is drawn out as long as possible, why???...I have no idea but it's a waste of time. Church in Ghana generally is long, laborious and many a time involves receiving the spirits/Holy Ghost. I haven't been to church in a long time so I'm not too clear on the mechanics of it but I do know that they often fall down and speak in tongues when they receive the spirit. It's quite a sight.

Heaven forbid you don't have enough food at the reception, Ghanaians riot over things like that. The most well-known tribe in Ghana is the Akan which has several subdivisions within it, the one thing that holds them together is meat. Yes, I said MEAT.....beef, goat, chicken you name it they eat it; I think they associate it with wealth and good health so they gorge themselves on food in general but especially MEAT. At big Ghanaian events not a spot of green can be seen at the buffet table, who needs vegetables when you have: chicken wings, KFC style chicken, chicken kebabs - do you see a trend? - , beef kebabs, goat kebabs, fried fish, Jollof (a traditional rice dish), Waatche (rice and beans) etc. I should give credit to the side dishes that very faintly resemble salads but have had all vestiges associated with the healthy benefits of vegetables removed. The Neo-Ghanaian salad includes potato salad and coleslaw; containing extravagant amounts of mayonnaise and salad cream and as little vegetable as possible. You end up with this heap of cream coloured food, and there isn't a speck of green in sight unless you count the green pepper which is one of three vegetables. Don't get me wrong it is tasty but needs to be eaten in moderation, a word that is not utilized in Ghana.

The other problem with Ghana is the constant pay-offs, haggling and double talk. I'm used to saying what I mean and meaning what I say, anything else is annoying and futile. You can't get through customs without having to pay a little more attention to the customs officer; that means switching on your charm gene, smiling and batting your eye lashes all the while thinking what a f**kin' idiot the customs officer is. This is all in aid of getting them to process you quickly and thoroughly like they should already be doing as part of their sad little job in sad little Kotoka airport. In some cases the customs officer may even take some of the food your carrying; I know what your thinking 'that's not unreasonable, countries need to protect their environment', but do they need to protect it from canned food. My cousin experienced the hunger of a customs officer (a stupid, power saturated customs officer at that) who confiscated some of his food. Well he didn't even give a legitimate excuse so it wasn't a confiscation, it just happened that a can of kidney beans took his fancy for no other reason than it being exotic and free. I remember a couple of years ago when we missed our flight back from Accra, in any normal situation we would have waited for the next flight with free seats. In Ghana however, we paid someone off (a hefty sum I might add) and that was it we were on the next flight home.

My sister recently revealed to me that in her old age she would like to retire to Ghana, I was shocked because she felt the same way as I did about Ghana and was very vocal about it. I don't know were I'm gonna live in the future but Ghana definitely is not an option.

Settling with Stan

So, as you can see I have re-vamped my background theme and I know what your thinking 'this isn't like a fireworks display seen through the eyes of a short-sighted person'. It's what I settled on after my cousin stopped answering my e-mails. I don't want to make a habit of writing such short posts but I thought it would be best to explain the differences in my background descriptions.

Back to the joys of Drosophila, Stan's my third year project person (haven't quite figured out the best way to address him), as friendly and laid back as he tries to come off he's pretty rigid. My project partner Eleanor and I were sitting idly in the lab office waiting for a data analysis program to be uploaded onto our laptops, so we did what most 20 year old students would do in that situation...we talked about Robert Pattinson. We were not loud and there were 2 other adults, who if they needed to could have told us we were being too loud, present. In walks Stanewsky, who recognizes us for the first time in 3 meetings, he comes over to us and tells us that this is a place of work; a place of work with countless bottles of alcohol, full ones, empty ones, the place was full of them. He goes on to tell us that if we wanted to talk we should do so in the lab, huh... the LAB of all places. He says all of this with a smile on his face and adds that we can still talk if we want.....would you talk after your professor basically tells you that your being too loud according to him.........I don't think so. Even our supervisor thought he was being ridiculous. My aim know is to steer clear of him.

Blogging out!!!

So, I tried to update my blog page.....I liked the black but I also wanted bursts of colour. I thought it would be easy, I mean in my family I'm the go-to-gal for computer problems. Comparatively speaking I'm a computer genius in my family, I've grown up using Microsoft because that's what we generally use in England. Realistically speaking I'm not amazing but I'm solid, so when I found the perfect blog theme on the Wordpress site I was unbelievably excited. I would describe it as seeing a fireworks display through short-sighted eyes, if your optically challenged like me you would understand. I thought it would be easy; click download here, click run there and ta-da, a wonderfully colourful blog theme. Wouldn't it be great if life worked that way a click here and there and your done. Well it didn't, instead I saw words like: html, php, Xml. What are these things, and why can't they be found in my Collins English dictionary????SPEAK ENGLISH!!!!

After a solid 24hrs of clicking anything and everything I settled on e-mailing everyone. Replies from my cousin in England included phrases like "I uninstalled my local server stuff so I can't even try trace steps"......aaaaaagghh!!! she was doing it too, I mean what the hell does that mean????At that point I seriously began to think that there was a conspiracy. My cousin in Ghana offered an escape from the world of html and notepad. Apparently there's some Xml rubbish stuck in there.

That was a week and a half ago and I have been waiting, waiting, waiting (sound familiar). My computer genius cousin apparently doesn't know how to open e-mails. I am giving up hope, I even tried to install Wordpress for like the third time. I can tell I'm getting pretty whiny, but it's hard to not be when you have your heart set on something. I went as far as asking my sister her opinion on a alternative theme and she chose something with sunflowers and some other pinkish flower...DO I SOUND LIKE THE FLOWERY TYPE!!! I give up, I'm gonna leave it black to represent my despair...I just filled in my yearly quota of overreactions and histrionics.

Waiting

It's my last free Sunday, from now on I must study earnestly. I must prepare for my resits (I'm not quite ready to talk about that situation yet), I must increase my kanji vocab......KYAAA :) and extra reading necessary for my third year project on Circadian clocks of Drosophila melanogaster....yay (can you feel the joy). Obviously learning learning Japanese is the best part of my summer plans, the only problem with learning a language by yourself when your a Ghanaian with no Japanese friends is that you don't have anyone to practise with........wnd we all know "Practise makes perfect". I guess you would be thinking why doesn't she just make a Japanese friend....but for a shy, modest lass like myself it's not an option, I'm not that extroverted. Maybe it's my Catholic School upbringing but that would be a lie because I barely believe in God, maybe it's due to my unbalanced rearing; somewhere, somehow I got really withdrawn and lost my spark........alas that is the biggest tragedy of my life........so far??????

There are so many things Japan represents for me; I get to be independant by living alone and all that jazz, learning a new language because speaking as a Biologist that hates Biology or any science for that matter, I am not planning on having a career in it. Why did I commit myself to this degree.....that's another story for another time. I get to meet with people and a culture completely different to anything I have ever known. This is my first ever blog so if only 1 person reads it I would say thank you and sorry for being so scattered.