You Can’t Stop Now!…

November 10, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha8 Comments

Starting a new project is akin to venturing on an unknown expedition which is fraught with excitement, uncertainties, trepidation, breakthroughs and a basketful of other emotions of unknown origins.

Most times, we are hesitant to approach a project that looms in our minds, overthinking the process of that new beginning with all the should I, would I, could I and what if’s under the sun.

Once that overthinking, over-preparing process begins, our zeal starts to wane and that little nay-saying imp hanging around the corridors of progress waiting to say nay at the slightest opportunity, will validate our excuses with all the best laid out reasons and will nip at our heels with glee.

A simple approach which I have found that works before I jump into the fray with two feet, is to ask just two questions with a chart to tick my answers:

– What is the purpose of this project and what do I stand to gain with its success?

weighed against:

– What do I stand to lose if it doesn’t pan out the way I thought it would?

Once these two bits have been sorted out in my head, I dive in wholeheartedly and give it my best shot. Some days along the way might be arduous but I limp along and keep telling myself “hang in there, this too shall pass”.

By the time I know it, time is flying past, I am enjoying the process and recording success to the point that when the end looms in sight I start feeling withdrawal pangs, wondering why I didn’t do this before.

Over the years, with little things that I done here and there, I found that the greatest fault is not failing to succeed in that which one sets off to achieve, rather, it is the failure to attempt in the first place that is the biggest problem.

“To my fellow NaBloPoMoer’s and The NaNoWrimoer’s, just hang in there, this too shall pass!“

In response to NaBloPoMo, Tuesday, November 10

What is the hardest part of a big project: getting the energy to begin, finding the time to work on it, or feeling down that it’s over?

Humor - Bellyful of laughter · The Daily Post · Travel · Writing

Hop On! It’s a Rambling Voyage…

November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha34 Comments

Asides from desert nomads who even own 4 wheel drives these days, we no longer have to travel for days on end in the dusty trail of a pony.

I love traveling and have explored as much as I can through different modes of what I refer to as reasonable transportation.

I haven’t tried the hot air balloon yet and my over zealous imagination goes into overdrive at the thought of such an experience. I doubt very much if I will.

I love cycling on my stationary bike and the huffing and puffing is enough for me. I am not sure that I will manage to get far on a bicycle. I probably won’t get to see much as I huff all the way and then have to worry about a sore butt at the end of it all.

A plane is quite expedient to nip about in, because it gets you there faster especially for long distance travel, but asides from the airport excitement of removing your belts and buckles and shoes and what not, the only view that you have for endless miles in the air (held up only by gravity) are clouds in different shapes and sizes and the view of the geographical terrain below from 30,000ft and that is if you are lucky enough to sit by the window because I doubt if your neighbour would appreciate your leaning over their pot belly every few seconds to peek out of the window.

I must admit that I am not particularly fond of take offs, turbulence and landings and these days that planes have taken to falling out of the sky at cruising altitude, that is something additional to worry about.

My guess is that we will get on board, grit our teeth, hold our breath and the seat of our pants and recite our prayer beads for those inclined to do so.

I am a very visual person because this stokes my imagination so I truly don’t mind traveling by road on a bus or a private car. However, that was less tedious when I didn’t have children tagging along.

For a trip that takes more than 3 hours to arrive at your destination, prepare your mind for a thousand times of asking “are we there yet”, keeping them engaged, countless pit stops for coffee, donuts and restroom runs and some possibility of getting lost too.

Our best trip so far was a six weeks tour of Europe via Euro-star TGV. I felt like Agatha Christie on an expedition. It was simply awesome and I met lots of interesting characters on the train.

The sights taken in from London to Paris, Madrid, Geneva, Zurich, Belgium, Amsterdam and environs were absolutely wonderful and I wanted to share my love for Europe with my family. It is an experience that I am looking forward to repeating.

Well now, I had an experience with a camel on a desert safari and I daresay that a short ride is all well and good. I respect those who sit on it for days on end. I simply don’t look forward to having legs bowed from hours of straddling such wide girth and the camel experience is worth a post in itself.

In response to The Daily Prompt Trains, Planes and Automobiles

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, or car? (Or something else entirely — bike? Hot air balloon?)

Blogging · The Daily Post · writing ideas

To Quieten These Voices…

November 3, 2015November 3, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha48 Comments

Is it not yet obvious why I blog? Well, grab a cup of coffee and let me tell you some things:

I blog because I love talking and connecting with other humans with like interests; hoping the people I am meeting online are not all aliens 😉

I blog so that I can develop my writing muscles and focus. It is like thinking through my fingers.

I blog because I can attempt to paint my pictures in words.

I blog because the crazy voices and characters in my head won’t let me keep quiet.

I blog because it gives voice to my thoughts and clarity to my deliberations.

I feel a deep satisfaction when I have finally said it, until the very next second, when another idea pops up.

I blog because I have heaps and heaps of stories to twist and tell and dear husbands ears are getting hot and tired.

I blog because the riotous emotions that thrum in my blood only quieten down when they have been let loose.

I blog so that I can keep my sanity. It calms my restless heart.

I blog because it would be a shame to have something to say but choke to death with everything buried inside.

I blog so that I may empty myself a piece at a time and by the time I am old and checking out, every single part of me would have oozed out.

I blog for posterity sake. I want my progeny to find bits of me somewhere in this space when I am long gone. No one can tell my story better than myself.

I blog because blogging and writing a novel are not precisely the same. Writing a book is a tailored, more time consuming venture while blogging is like a chat between friends over a nice cup of coffee/tea and a decadent slice of sweetness.

I blog so that I can be a part of the inner caucus of such an elite society with a sophisticated name. Blogger! How nice 😉

If not for blogging, I wouldn’t have been exposed to this huge fascinating World of bloggers and I would not have met you, you, you, you……….

Is this answer sufficient or should I refresh your cup and continue?

In response to The Daily Post prompt Million-Dollar-Question

Why do you blog?

Creative Writing · Devotions · Hope · Inspiration - Motivation · Life · Writing

DeTerMinAtioN is our Motto….let us sing!

November 3, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha11 Comments

As school kids, we matched in tandem to our classes from assembly singing or should I say yelling a song:

Determination is our motto, Determination, Determination!

Repetitively and in staccato voices too!

No doubt we had no idea what exactly we were singing about. We just SANG happily 🙂

Now as I sit here, in an attempt to drum reluctant and difficult words into a story that does not want to be told, the word Determination echoes in my mind and then…it becomes crystal clear beyond literal levels that:

Someone’s Determination

Is that mental animation

that pushes their bands of resistance

From mundane levels of coexistence

With consistent persistence

To livelier edges of existence

And better culmination

Of one’s life’s narration

There you have it. My very own new definition of determination.

Let me now sing in a hush tone: determination, is my motto, determination, determination 😉

Have a blessed day.

Humor - Bellyful of laughter · Little rants · The Daily Post · Writing

At your own risk ‘cos I kick scary butts!….

November 1, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha24 Comments

There is no one in the room with me, except my lazy feeling self, the quarreling voices in my head telling me to ignore you, WordPress and the television which I have put on mute to dispel all the bad news floating in and disrupting my creative juices; though I like the flickering bursts of colour so I leave it on.

It’s fun at times to look at the yammering lips on TV, not hearing what they are saying, using your imagination to figure it out and laughing at nothing – please don’t think I am crazy, just the creative juice in overload today.

I am home alone and I can tell you I am tougher than Macaulay Culkin, so don’t get any ideas of sneaking in!!

The children and their Papa should be stepping back in pretty soon and they can terrorize with well aimed bites, kicks, ladles, pots and pans; you have been forewarned!

So, I will have well fortified backup even though I trust my screeching techniques well enough.

Any attempt for any fear or scary stuff to sneak in, is at it’s own peril!

I am amply armed with my heavy wielding bible, my certified holy water that will turn you into mush in a sprinkle of an eye, my gleaming prayer beads and a nice weighty crucifix for beating sound sense into the scare source for attempting to give me nervous breakdown.

Maybe, I should quickly place an order for chainsaw – the Chinese are known to deliver rapidly, what do you think? Getting more gory right?

Well, I have advertised my ammunition at no price.

Should you, FEAR, venture to come in, a crucifix bludgeon, a screech with bible quotes, a hasty recital of the beads and a sprinkle in the eye and you will be transformed magically, finding yourself pressed willy-nilly into the church choir!

Well now, this is the silliest prompt response I have given so far, to a repetitive prompting.

This prompt about fear was addressed in a roundabout way just a few days ago and this was my response.

Now let me go and bring my casserole out for dinner.

Goodnight and don’t let the bed bugs bite 😉

In response to The Daily Post prompt 1984

You’re locked in a room with your greatest fear. Describe what’s in the room.

Humor - Bellyful of laughter · The Daily Post · Writing

Nothing to be Tricked about…

October 31, 2015November 1, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha36 Comments

This prompt is a bit difficult to sink my teeth into, but I am going to try to teleport back to the States for the trick a treating.

Halloween is still novelty and at infantile stage here in the United Arab Emirates, even though I saw some costumes and scary masks displayed in the shops, I observed that it is mainly people of Western culture that ventured to those aisles.

With the insularity of inhabitants in this place, my presumption is that the parents will be filling their children’s candy bags themselves. I am doubtful that there will be much knocking on doors going on.

On the other hand, let me let you in on a secret, if the truth be told, we African Nations are not particularly fond of celebrating Halloween.

Ha! It almost seems as if we are inviting the trouble of the dead and buried by doing so 😉

Hei! Biko kwa! (I speak in my vernacular to help you understand the seriousness of the affair), why would we want to go invoking the spirit of the dead who should be resting very well in peace?

Mbanu!

May All the Saints please remain nicely hallowed in their allotted portions at the cemetery.

Nonetheless, since I like the kids in the neighbourhood, if I were in the States, I shall spare them some candies the following day when all the saints have gone back quietly to their various abodes 😉

Enjoy the short skit below.

Quick Glossary:

Ha! An exclamation in this case meaning ‘What!’

Hei! Another exclamation like ‘Oh dear’

Biko kwa: Please/I beg your pardon.

Mbanu. NO, indeed!

In response to The Daily Post prompt Trick or Trick

Let’s imagine it’s Halloween, and you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?

Hope · Life · The Daily Post · Writing

Friends of my heart…

October 30, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha20 Comments

Growing up in a small university community like I did, had lots of plus sides and that included having lots of childhood friends with whom I played and carried out our escapades until the ever present flow of life’s change caused us to drift apart.

I was lucky to have such childhood friends of my heart who occupy such special place in my memory bank and between these friends and large family, you had no need for an imaginary friend.

Thankfully, I am able to reconnect with a lot of them with the help of social media, while, unfortunately some of them have crossed over to the other side of the divide where the links of social media cannot traverse.

There are some of them I am yet to trace and a number of them come to my mind ever so often.

Dear Chinyelu Okonkwo,

Now and again I think about you and wonder if life is treating you well and where you are.

I haven’t seen you since we were ten and in my minds eye, you have stayed the same ten year old, precocious, vibrant friend of mine.

Naturally you would have aged like everyone else but for some reason, I can’t seem to visualize you beyond this age.

Whenever you come to my mind, I remember our child’s play of running round the school block of University Primary School, Nsukka, during break time and singing silly song’s.

I have searched now and again on social media, to see if I can find you but it hasn’t yet yielded any result.

Who knows maybe one day in this lifetime, if we still walk this side of the divide, we may yet reconnect.

Another childhood friend whom I wonder how she has fared with life is from Bangladesh and I had no idea that the name ‘Anu Misra’ was quite common until I attempted to trace her.

I found so many Anu’s, I have searched so many faces, but I couldn’t recognize any.

Maybe, this splendid exercise might yet yield some positive results. We never know these things.

In response to The Daily Post prompt Imaginary Friend

Many of us had imaginary friends as young children. If your imaginary friend grew up alongside you, what would his/her/its life be like today? (Didn’t have one? write about a non-imaginary friend you haven’t seen since childhood.)

The Daily Post · Travel · Writing

Those Heebie-Jeebies…

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha56 Comments

Don’t bother about trying to convince me with any pep talk. It simply won’t work! There are some experiences that I can live without henceforth.

There are some things that mere thoughts of them gives me sufficient heebie-jeebies and for all the curry in India or tea from China I will be glad not to encounter or repeat such experience.

I literally break out in hives at the sight of a snake and would gladly walk barefoot over hot coals than come close to one. I have been known to go to zoos and completely by-pass the reptile zone.

My kids even make fun of that fact. You will hear them whisper conspiratorially, ”if mummy sees that sign, she will start screaming” and my youngest champion will get all protective of me. He would say, ”mummy don’t look!” ”You will get frightened like a little girl.”

”Well son, I shall not look, but if truth be told mummy is a little girl in a big body.” With a stiff upper lip, I go and settle myself on a bench while they go off to look at the vile creatures. Urrgh!

I am not a cat with nine lives and even if I have twenty lives as well as a parachute bigger than a house, I am never going to jump off a plane in the sky. There is no point killing myself with palpitations.

The adrenaline jolt that I get inside the pages of my books or watching National Geographic is sufficient, besides, my ifly simulated experience was all well and good. Several days after, I was cross-eyed and walked with a squint like a drunk sailor.

Those dare-devil roller coaster rides are experiences called ”ONCE is enough.” My last experience at Abu Dhabi Theme park, made me realize that one could have a cardiac arrest in one of those contraptions. I went on a crazy roller coaster ride and spoke in tongues all through the ride. I think my heart stopped beating and restarted after we came down. I had to go and recuperate quietly with a large cup of ice-cream to soothe my frayed nerves.

The kind of horror movies that is peddled these days are not designed for the squeamish and they would frighten the whiskers off a cat’s face.

I find the amount of gore and unbelievable diabolical acts perpetrated so revolting, that sometimes it makes me ponder at the deranged state of some human mind. I won’t spend my time or money just to feel sick.

In response to The Daily Post prompt Fright Night

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

The Daily Post · Writing

Those Careless Whispering…

October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha17 Comments

Pulitzer winning or not, journalists like to delve into every part of your anatomy and dig out dirty secrets when given the room to do so.

Sometimes, when I read articles or listen to tittle-tattle and junk news that smacks of downright breach of privacy as well as meanness with a good measure of desperate desires to hurt the other person, the quote ”that the heart of man is desperately wicked” comes to my mind.

The great urge to pull down and annihilate the other person takes primal position in their minds and in as much as I like honesty, being upfront and read as an open book, there are certain areas that I would be unwilling to discuss beyond the peripheral aspects.

Putting my family members under undue glare of the limelight is not something that I would be willing to entertain. I guess I will be suspicious about the reporters motive for asking prying questions about family, even if they are nicely and positively coined. I would rather their privacy is maintained, except where they were to choose otherwise.

Issues bordering on sexuality are not topics that I am likely to dabble into either. Oh yes! such hot topics sells the news, but, no thank you! I won’t be your next meal ticket!

I think that the excessive push of sexual boundaries and Mores in today’s world is part of the dysfunction that we are experiencing. Nothing seems to be private anymore! Individual sexual proclivities should be kept personal and not for public consumption. Sometimes, in the bid to say so much and show our fierceness, we hurt ourselves and others.

I am also not sure that I would be willing to discuss my future plans in any details. I like to hold some of my thoughts to my chest, knowing the fact that my tomorrow’s don’t lie in my hands. It leaves me feeling strange, as if I am putting the cart before the horse.

I guess I can pretty much talk about everything else including some dirty secrets in my garden! Who doesn’t have any secrets?

Sometimes, some secrets are even better kept open. That way, they loose their sting and the power to hurt the secret holder.

In response to The Daily Post prompt Trick Questions.

A Pulitzer-winning reporter is writing an in-depth piece — about you. What are the three questions you really hope she doesn’t ask you?

Family · Hope · Life · Love · Personal story · Writing

It was always enough…. a personal story

October 23, 2015October 24, 2015 jacquelineobyikocha28 Comments

Back in my parents home, we always had what we needed and the most important thing was that they were enough.

My dad was no Adnan Khashoggi and I am not going to paint a picture of any silver spoon.

Our home was a respectable middle class Nigerian Lecturer’s home where the basic things were provided and on special occasions, such as birthdays a communal party was organized for the celebrant with other children within the neighbourhood.

In my family back in those days, we had no idea that we could ask for presents or the likes. We just did not have the mentality of such entitlement or expectation that exists today.

So, as a result, the presents you received on your birthday tended to be something more practical that you had need for and during Christmas your presents were based on what was currently in vogue for children: a doll, books, football, a mouth organ, an accordion, a flute etc.

We were contented. Like my mother always said, ”you don’t miss what you never had.”

I missed nothing because I had everything that mattered.

In response to The Daily Post prompt Out of your reach

Was there a toy or thing you always wanted as a child, during the holidays or on your birthday, but never received? Tell us about it.