Personal · The Daily Post

My learning curves…personal

Spanish_2[1]

At each point in my life, I have found myself spending it on the acquisition of knowledge or a certain skill.

Some were reluctantly assimilated when my parents threw me inside pre-school in my diapers and then primary school for formal education when I would probably have preferred to stay home and play in the red-coloured sandy area of my childhood haunts.

Now I thank them for gritting their teeth as painful as it might have been and not paying heed to my wheedling cry to escape learning my alphabets.

Imbibing knowledge is second nature to man. Learning is both formal and informally through social interactions and in my opinion, learning for me is ad infinitum.

You are never too old to learn new stuff and yours truly here has a lengthy quest to pursue, but now I’m doing my pursuits with some pragmatic sense and not running after every learning fad that catches my fancy like my younger days.

Ruling out the different fancy classes my mother enrolled me in, in a bid to make a lady out of her formerly gangly daughter; piano classes, dressmaking, crocheting, knitting, music lessons – not that I could carry a good tune or play the violin but I managed to play the flute decently – to baking, cooking and whatever was in vogue, thankfully we didn’t have ballet back in my town otherwise I probably would have been made to stand on my toes and possibly break them in the process, I’ve pursued quite some learning routes myself.

Some of them turned out successful and some were almost a disaster for me and the tutor.

I’m bilingual. After spending close to five years learning French, I fancied myself becoming a Polyglot so I embarked on learning German and Spanish.

I doubt if I ever crossed the threshold of ‘Guten Morgen‘ to the German teacher’s dismay and the dismay of my pocket. I think my tongue was not thick enough for the language and it didn’t quite sound as romantic as the nasal French which seemed to suit my tongue far better.

My Spanish has been sporadic in learning but I managed to progress beyond ‘Cómo estás to ‘me llamo Jacqueline‘ and at least I had the good sense not to spend too much just in case the desire died a quick death.

I fancied finding myself becoming a Taekwondo Maestro or is it Maestra, and I can’t tell you it ended well.

I nearly succeeded in killing the instructor and myself and that put paid to such ambition. I nursed my painful thighs for weeks and I guess he nursed some part of his bruised parts that was inadvertently caught in my not too stellar attempts.

I’m sure he was glad when I didn’t renew the fees for another session.

Not that I’ve given up hope on being nimble and flipping in the air in a chopstick, but I’m thinking that yoga is safer for now – at least I can get to sneak in a snooze on the mat and at least use a DVD and not have to spend scarce funds for now.

However, I still have some learning ideas that I’m toying with…

After all, learning is a continuous process. It’s ad infinitum

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha

Learning, Discovery Challenge


Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Guest Posts

Meet the one and only beautiful Michelle Malone.

I count it a blessing to meet so many awesome and inspiring people in this space and Michelle stands tall as one of them.

She’s full of motivating drive and inspiration. I never come away from her blog empty. It always impacts me and gives me hope.

We’ve been interacting for several months in this space and I am absolutely glad that we connected.

She’s not only a supportive friend, but she’s equally my strategic partner. Need I say more? When the opportunity presents itself in this lifetime, she’s one of those I would love to meet one-on-one.

The questions I asked her are: To tell us a bit more about herself, her working life, her blog and future outlook for blog and writing.

Thank you for letting us into your World Michelle. We wish you well in your endeavours.

Rose[1]

I’m Michelle Malone – a school leader, a blogger, and Christ follower. I have a great husband, two cool kids, and an awesome Golden Retriever.
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In my spare time, I love reading and writing. I also enjoy getting away to places off the beaten path to just reflect, relax, and recharge. My outlook on life is a positive one.

After all, anytime I wake up on this side of the dirt, it’s a good day. There are so many things to complain about, but the one thing I can be glad about is being given one more day to get it right.

The name of my blog is Two Are Better Than One. I had the name before I had the blog. It came to me as I was spending time in scripture one morning and writing a piece for my devotional.20160228_103901

The blog is my marketplace for ministering. I’m not a pastor – nor do I aspire to be, but I have plenty to share about the goodness of God if only we choose to trust him.

Blogging is really a big deal! Who knew? I still consider myself to be a novice since I’ve only been doing this since November 2015, but I’ve learned a great deal from people like Jacqueline who is so generous with her space, her feedback, and her lovely parties.

The blogging community as a whole is so warm and inviting. I never want to leave. A few of the posts that I’ve written that have really resonated with readers are Myopia and a 15-part series about faith which begins with a piece I called Train Up A Child. I actually had fun writing this one because it shows how we sometimes get off track, but God gently steers us back on course.20160210_212837

My day starts at 3:00 AM each day. Some days I lie around until 3:30. I head downstairs to make coffee and pray. I spend a little time in God’s word every morning before eating breakfast and heading out the door around 6:00 AM.

I work in a large middle school with nearly 1500 students, so I take advantage of the 30 – 45 of time without kids to respond to e-mails and check my calendar. Once they arrive, the fun begins – hall duty, classroom visits, cafeteria duty, courageous conversations, lunch for me, more courageous conversations, parent calls and meetings, and then I head home between 5:00 and 5:30 PM each day.Partnerships

Most nights I pick up something for dinner, but I cook once or twice a week. There’s just so little time to do it all. Thankfully my husband is understanding, and we appreciate our time together – whether we’re eating pizza and wings on paper plates or a home-cooked meal on the good plates.

I’m so glad you asked this question. Right now I’m just trying to grow my readership. I have three manuscripts in the works. One will be published by the end of the year, and it’s about ministry.

The second is a devotional for teachers. The third will prayerfully be a series about Daddies and Daughters. Wish me well!


Are you interested in guest posting, interview or being my strategic partner? You can contact me through my contact page above.

Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Uncategorized

It’s happening this way…join the party fun🙌😙👔👡🎶🎤🎡🍦🍰🍜

Hello great folks, come and join the bubbling party. Lots of fabulous friends to meet and greet, music, lots of good food, no calories too 😉 and so much more. Just follow this link to smashing Su…

Source: It’s happening this way…join the party fun🙌😙👔👡🎶🎤🎡🍦🍰🍜

The Great Book Of Lists · This Is My Life

Elements of my day and so far so good…The great book of lists.

 

La Duchesse has given us a double prompting and I’ll just race through me as quick as breeze:

Veggie sauce bubbling on the gas :-)
Veggie sauce bubbling on the gas 🙂

Her idea for this prompt ‘elements of my day and so far so good,’ comes from Brandon Burchard’s day planner.

So, the instructions are to build your list :

  • quickly jot your to-do list
  • what are the 3 things you are excited about today
  • what are the 3 things you are truly thankful for today

My quick to do list

  • Revise for the end of year exams with the children. I have to quiz them and go through their subjects before shooing them confidently out of the door to go and get those grades.
  • Conclude my monthly bulk cooking of stews, soups, and stuff: I always prepare at least two batches of our native soup amongst other stews to ease life a bit. These could serve as quick dinner or lunch on busy days. It earns me some hours of putting up my feet 😉
  • Continue partying on my blog and mixing with fab folks. Come on in 🙂
  • Place some calls to family in Nigeria.
  • Writing quick drafts of some of my blog posts for the coming week so that I can face my other writing works.
  • Tweak my second self-hosted site a little bit. Not yet ready to run.
  • Do some research work for work on Mastermind Learning and Development strategy.

    Native vegetable 'Edikan-ikong' soup.
    Native vegetable ‘Edikan-ikong’ soup.

I am excited

  • That school Summer break will commence over here in a couple of weeks. Don’t have a holiday plan yet but looking forward to working out something.
  • I have been nominated for The Annual Blogger’s Service to Bloggers Award. Have you voted yet? Please do cast your votes. Who would have thought that lil‘ me will be nominated for such 🙂
  • Some new ideas are cooking in my head and it makes me feel all warm at the thought.
  • Getting my teeth into my second book. It’s been a bit slow.
  • A 3-day self-improvement workshop that I’ll be attending. Okay, I’ve overshot the 3 things.

I am thankful:

  • For my husband and children. They are kind and supportive.
  • The blog World and the great supportive people I meet here. I’ve learnt so much in this space.
  • For life in general. Each day is a splendid opportunity.

So far so good and so not good.  I had to slip that in there 😉

  • I feel naughty and guilty for not having stuck to the ‘treat your body better rule’ that I set for myself. My weight loss has been sitting put like the Sitting Bull, but it’s my fault 😉 Okay, I’ve got that off my chest. Now to the good part.
  • My published poetry book makes me very happy.
  • The decent growth of my blog in just a year of blogging always amazes me. It’s just wonderful.
  • The endless burst of inspiration keeps me bubbling. I wish my fingers could work half as fast as the ideas that are streaming through my head.

Thank you, Duchesse. I enjoy your promptings.

P.S. You can join our Summer blog party by clicking the link. It’s taking place right now and really bubbling. It’s fun and you get to meet fantastic folks. Looking forward to seeing you:-)


Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Uncategorized

It’s happening this way…join the party fun🙌😙👔👡🎶🎤🎡🍦🍰🍜

Party2

Hello great folks, come and join the bubbling party. Lots of fabulous friends to meet and greet, music, lots of good food, no calories too 😉 and so much more.

Just follow this link to smashing Summer blog party.

See you there.

Jacqueline


Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

A deep sense of satisfaction

of peace, I sense within

as the Sun peeks to say hello

I am happy to embrace me.

Uncategorized

 

I would like to invite you to my blog party which is going on right now. It goes on through the weekend. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with other awesome bloggers like you. I hope to see you. The party link is titled Summery blog party live link. Regards, Jacqueline

Uncategorized

Summery Blog Party Live Link…Come on in!😊🙌🎡🎶🎼🍭🍕🍡

Come right in, the party’s going strong 😊

jacquelineobyikocha's avatara cooking pot and twisted tales

Merry

Come on in, let’s get this party started. You are most welcome.

Do make yourself comfortable.

Refreshments are nicely arranged down the page: Drinks, Chocolates, Cakes, Donuts, freshly squeezed juice, Coffee, Tea and so much more. :-)

We even have an Intercontinental Chef in the house, just place your orders😉The little rules of play:

  1. You must mix and mingle with others. Don’t be a wallflower. Go say hello to someone and you can participate in the Tag a poem/story below, spot the difference, riddle and do tell us where you are partying from 🙂
  2.  Please leave your blog link or post link in the comment box below along with an introduction.
  3. It’s one link per comment, but come back as often as you’d like, that way it’s easier to focus on a link at a time for others.
  4. Please reblog, spread the word of the party like butter, or like…

View original post 329 more words

Life · Stream of Consciousness Saturday.

Express on WordPress…Streams of consciousness Saturday.

Pressure cooker on the gas. I’m cooking up a storm this weekend. Both in my house and on my blog.

I’m doing my month end large pots of sauces and our traditional soups. It saves my life by several inches to do so.

There are days that get hectic that those earlier prepared and saved bowls of stew and soup saves this lady from expiring.

I’m also stirring some broth in my cooking pot of a blog right now. A lovely Summery blog mingle is bubbling as I write and you are hereby invited to join the mix.

What a lovely thing and way to express ourselves on WordPress. I’ve met lovely people from different locations, Malaysia, London, NY, South US, Nigeria….and the list keeps growing.

Isn’t that impressive that we have this opportunity? I don’t know what your opinions are but for me, it’s fabulous. Let’s keep the wonderful expressions flowing. You rock WordPress 🙂

 

P.S. You can join our Summer blog party taking place right now. It’s fun and you get to meet fantastic folks. Looking forward to seeing you.


Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

The Daily Post

All the spares…

The Daily post photo challenge is ‘spare’ and a number of spare thoughts and photos come to my mind.

Spare change

Spare Change!

I went shopping at an old souk recently and the amiable shopkeeper of a gift store had a huge frame filled with currency from different parts of the World that he had been to over his 78 years of living.

While admiring his spare changes, I noticed the space with a missing currency and asked him about it, and surprisingly he knew the money that had been in there.

He said it was rare currency ‘Pa’anga’ from the less travelled country of Republic of Tonga, which is a Polynesian kingdom situated in the middle of the pacific.

He had no idea how the money disappeared from his framed collection and that set off all sorts of vibrant imaginative juices in my mind.

I must visit him again, ‘cos I have some conspiracy theories 🙂

  • My second spare is the kind fella I caught sometime last week feeding the birdies. He obviously had lot’s of spare food for them and the birds flocked gladly.

Spare food

Feeding the flock.

My last spare is about interesting art.Beautiful art can be made from all sorts of stuff, even rubbish. This creative piece below is made out of spare tyres and was part of an art exhibition.

The creative mind is a wonderful thing 🙂

Spare tyre

Spare tyre art

P.S. You can join our Summer blog party taking place right now. It’s fun and you get to meet fantastic folks. Looking forward to seeing you 🙂


Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.

When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.

Out of the silent breath

Networking · Online Blog Party

Summery Blog Party Live Link…Come on in!😊🙌🎡🎶🎼🍭🍕🍡

Merry

Come on in, let’s get this party started. You are most welcome.

Do make yourself comfortable.

Refreshments are nicely arranged down the page: Drinks, Chocolates, Cakes, Donuts, freshly squeezed juice, Coffee, Tea and so much more. :-)

We even have an Intercontinental Chef in the house, just place your orders😉

The little rules of play:

  1. You must mix and mingle with others. Don’t be a wallflower. Go say hello to someone and you can participate in the Tag a poem/story below, spot the difference, riddle and do tell us where you are partying from 🙂
  2.  Please leave your blog link or post link in the comment box below along with an introduction.
  3. It’s one link per comment, but come back as often as you’d like, that way it’s easier to focus on a link at a time for others.
  4. Please reblog, spread the word of the party like butter, or like, share on Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, etc. Tell your family, friends,  blogging neighbours, even your blogging pets.
  5. Have fun, it’s a great way to find bloggers and have them find you.
  6. Please show some love. Reblog this post. It helps all of us! The more people that see and participate in it, the more potential new follows! So, share and share voraciously!

There we have it. Since all the rules have been clearly explained, have fun and make the most of it :-)

Thank you for coming to my party and supporting my blog. You rock.

  • Let’s get to know you better. Where are you partying from?

I’m currently in Dubai – acronym DXB. A fabulous desert city in United Arab Emirates.

A little Summer tale…

We wore Summer dresses

spun like flower coloured cotton

that sat on each stalk

…….Feel free to add yours in the comment. I collate everyone’s contribution and publish it with their links attached.

Can you spot the difference?

Can you help the poor farmer below?

A poor farmer went to the market to sell some peas and lentils. However, as he had only one sack and didn’t want to mix peas and lentils, he poured in the peas first, tied the sack in the middle, and then filled the top portion of the sack with the lentils.

At the market, a rich innkeeper happened by with his own sack. He wanted to buy the peas, but he did not want the lentils.
Pouring the seed anywhere else but the sack is considered soiling.

To trade in sacks is not allowed. The farmer can’t cut a hole in his sack.
How would you transfer the peas to the innkeeper’s sack, which he wants to keep, without soiling the produce?

Please have some fun, mingle and make friends. Thank you 🙂

P.S. You can send in your music request and I’ll try to find it. The Michael Jackson is on Nedoux request. Thank you, girl.