Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Back From the Brink

And indeed that's how I feel. These last few weeks have been extremely busy for me and the last week was an absolute killer. Lots of jam-packed days and late nights at work. At work we have been organising a career awareness day for secondary school students. That happened yesterday and went really, really well. The students seemed to enjoy all the talks and the film shows, and their teachers and guidance counsellors LOVED us for organising something like this. There were times that my boss didn’t think anyone would turn up, but I knew they would. I mean, it would be a rewarding experience and it was also FREE!!!! I always had a feeling that my work would somehow involve children or youths, and it certainly seems to be turning out that way.

This was the first event that I have ever really organised and it’s a weird feeling. For weeks, you are steadily and sometimes frenetically preparing for this one event. And then, it’s all over. The great thing is that now I have contact info for lots of souvenir makers, caterers, drinks suppliers and decorators. I know quite a few of the venues used in Lagos for hosting large crowds, their pros, cons and prices. I believe that I can whip-up another event within days if need be (wow, supremely confident me).

Over the weekend, I had a really bad cold. It's funny. I never fall ill. I only suffer from dire colds (okay, colds are an illness too, I realise). My colds totally knock me out and so I was literally in bed blowing my nose (and feeling very sorry for myself) all weekend long until my stomach ached from too much blowing. I had no desire or energy to do anything.

I did finish the book, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, that I was reading. I really enjoyed it. It was the first book I read by him and the narrative style was interesting. One incident just flowed into another in a very chatty style, like when you’re talking to a friend and your conversation just dances all over the place, but you still find your way back to the original topic or point you were trying to make. The seriousness of the subject matter (cloning) was belied by the very casual tone of the narrator. Maybe I’ll write more about it later.

11 comments:

Quest said...

Yay, you're back!

Must be great to feel like you've really accomplised something. It sounds like it was a lot of fun.

Quest said...

now you have to make up for all those lost posts!

Vixen said...

Pele o omo daadaa. Hope you are feeling better.

TEMITAYO OMOLOLA said...

Welcome back!!!!!!!! i've missed you. Your job sounds like so much fun and it must be a good feeling knowing that you're contributing something meaningful to socirty and imparting something in the lives of those kids.
My CD group is trying to organize anti-corruption seminars in secondary schools across kaduna with the aim of introducing an anti-corruption club in the schools. I just hope we can pull it off.
I hope your cold is all gone though. I know how bad it can get (i get them as well)I'm hardly ever ill but i get them terrible colds too.
Any ways keep up the good work.And keep blogging.

Ore said...

Everchange, I'll do my best. LOL!!!!

Thank you, Vixen and Adunni, for your kind wishes. My cold is almost gone.

Adunni, I am also in the anti-corruption group of my LGA and we are also trying to organise anti-corruption clubs in some secondary schools. But we are doing ours within our local government and not the entire state. that would, I fear, be too ambitious given our time left.

What sorts of activities do you do in your clubs? And what aspects of corruption have you talked about in your seminars?

TEMITAYO OMOLOLA said...

what we've done is to divide ourselves into groups based on where we live (for example i live in ungwar rimi so im in ungwar rimi zone )we're supposed to hold the seminars in at least three schools in our respective zones. We've picked two schools and we're on the look out for a third. One of the schools is an all girls school(my idea wink!wink!).
In kaduna (the capital)all club meetings hold together irrespective of LGA (i guess thats because we're not so many compared to somewhere like lagos)For the corpers outside town the only clubs available are the FRSC and HIV clubs.
To be truthful i've only attended my cd meetings only three times( corrupt!! i know i know) thats 'cos i really don't get cd days off from work so i don't really know what activities they've been doing .
They recently had an inuguration of sorts for batch A corpers and they're trying to organize a photo album of sorts and of course our farewell party!!!!!!!!!!!!.
The second time i attended i got conned into organizing the seminars for my zone.Thats why im sort of like involved now.
They're also trying to organize a million man march (although if you asked me they might not get up to five hundred people LOL!!!) at the stadium complete with speeches(i have a dream!!!!!!)and all. They've even made t-shirts for it(you drop your shirt and they print the slogan on it for a token fee of one hundred naira ).
Basically we don't do much the meetings are more like for socializing, seeing peeps you haven't seen in a while and that sort of stuff.
We did sweep the local government office the other day albeit with plenty plenty grumbling from us moi included. if we're not careful they'll have us sweeping Ahmadu Bello way next.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ore,

Really happy for you..girl you will do great things ..i can just tell by reading your posts on the regular:)

Anonymous said...

did you cry? i cried buckeloads when i reached the last page. the best thing about the book is just how casual the prose is. it really makes the theme hit home harder and brutally.

Ore said...

Adunni, I think I need to post something about what my group has been doing so far. In real terms, not a lot but we've been doing a lot of prep work so hopefully by the end of my service year, we will have achieved a bit and, more importantly, laid a foundation for future groups.

Yaye, thanks, girl! :-) I really hope so!

Ngozi, it's so strange that you say that, because I almost cried. I felt so sad for Katie and all the other students. What a horrible life! To exist for the sole purpose of helping others (to your own utter detriment).

I actually watched an episode of CSI (the Las Vegas one) where a young girl was conceived primarily to serve as a (bone marrow - I think -) donor for her older brother who, I think, suffered from leukemia. All through her short life, she had undergone frequent, painful operations. That episode was so sad. I felt her pain as she demanded to live a normal life. I wondered whether the book was based on that episode. But, I'm sure this is not a new idea.

Pilgrimage to Self said...

Welcome back! I must say, you seem to work for a very forward looking organisation. Well done!

Just Thinking Out Loud! said...

Hope you're feeling great now. The career fair idea for secondary school students is excellent in Nyja. Hope it went great. Many time in life, people stumble on money making ventures; you never know, you could be a great even planner from that one experience - if you enjoyed it. Enjoy!