In The Cyber Cafe

Have you ever felt angry with yourself? I think this type is very painful. It just appears to me that some people might be deliberately taking undue advantage of my quiet nature. In the cyber cafe today there was no small trouble, for some boys who I call touts have finally got under my skin. In trying to earn a living for themselves they are now trying to deny us our own income. Its like the host and saprophyte in biology; and I decide to really deal with them once and for all even if it means the cyber cafe closing down for one day. I have blocked the site they normally browse and they are threatening me but I tell them that the sand under their feet bears witness that am a "son of the soil" so they might as well migrate to another cyber cafe.

A friend of mine and fellow chorister came to encourage me to resume my church activities but really am not in the mood. My fathers pastor's wife has just released a "brand new car" and some people are already talking; indeed its like pastors are being hated more than politicians. The funniest part is when she comes to the cyber cafe she still wants to oppress but I will have none of it. If she can't buy time like other people then she better go somewhere else or better still install a home internet solution and employ a secretary to do it for her.

Have you ever felt that life was moving so fast? You wake up in the morning and  before you know it you are back in bed for a good night sleep; looking back you can't remember one good thing you have achieved yet no one calls you to say you left somethings undone. I decided to really slow things down drastically by spending the minimum required time at each task that I really have to do and because of that my visits to nairaland was quite erratic. I did not even go to the cyber cafe on saturday; this decision was helped by the fact that we did not have light at home and in any case I was not feeling very well. The weekend was spent relaxing, drove around quite a lot in the evening and ended up watching a movie - "kingdom of heaven". The weather has been quite fair.

There is always 2 sides to a coin and in every situation one can choose to look at the good side even if it is not proportionate. I have been forced to spend most of my time either lying on the bed in the room or on the long chair in the sitting room due to the war on malaria fever going on in my body. The previous night was literally spent "awake" in front of the TV. I was watching a certain preacher whose only goal it seemed was to inspire his audience to raise money for the christian satellite tv - daystar. It was so nauseating to say the very least, he kept talking about $58 a week as the starting point and I kept trying to multiply it by 140 to get the nigerian equivalent in naira but it appeared i always fell asleep just before the figure showed up. In a space of 4 hours, I had heard $58 over a 1000 times, interspaced with "stories" of people who gave and got back 10000 fold, KAI, chineke!!! see wetin some people they do. They have learnt the technique of manipulation - as He even said if your not led to give don't bother but men after staying in front of the TV and listening to that guy speak for over 3 hours, you begin to get a picture of the effect of brainwashing laced with some "spiritual gingering". The bible says we should "test" every spirit, this one is not even qualified to be "tested" as it appears to have only 1 credit; i think JAMB still requires 5.

What an unleashment? MTN has just released some new tarrifs and believe you me, they are very rewarding. Be careful though so that you don't choose the wrong one which i think i did but oh well let me go to bed and this time I will thank God when I wake up 

Am very anti - emotional, i don't believe one should be overly excited. I woke up (glory be to God) in an extremely good mood and decided to go for a church service. I called a certain colleague who was going with a car and she said 45 minutes maximum so I calculated it to be leaving at 8am. I took my time to browse for about 30 minutes then got ready and left for her house.

It was a sunny sunday and strolling to her house some 5 minutes away was "fun", when I got there I understood that she had already gone and infact was in church (the devil is a liar). This is the type of thing that I like, on a normal day, I would have just gone back home and chilled the whole sunday but well - i was in an extremely good mood today so I boarded a taxi from there and then entered a bus to church.

The roads in this town are simply "horrible", everywhere is water logged and the pot - holes have become rivers. This our politicians are just stealing all the money and nobody is saying anything. There is nothing golden about the roads in Port Harcourt and then a lorry carrying cement blocks fell. The resulting traffic jam was chaotic and because of the flooding, I could not come down and enter bike immediately.

Got to church late (no apologies) and it was surprisingly very interesting. The sun gave way to the rains and its time to go back home. The bus I entered was not in a hurry and kept stopping every 5 minutes to pick or drop passengers. Finally got home, very surprised at the effect of a good mood on your attitude which affects how you respond to different situations in this our great country. I have made up my mind to continually be in a "good mood" as its a good thing.

I don't know what is inside woman that make men go "gaga" especially when nothing is happening. The saying that "boys will always be boys" is generally observable in many situations.  There has been an increase in the number of staff that entertain the presence of some "girls" during working hours especially in the evenings that the management had to send a general sms to everyone. I had to open my eyes again and it was so obvious that 2 of my colleagues had been allowing their "girls" to visit them during their evening shift and even have access to their staff systems.  Its quite funny because that has been the most singular reason for sack of staff at the cyber cafe, infact to sack the boys is to certainly make sure that you will not be seeing those "particulars" around. Anyway after a pep talk, they did see the logic in the whole matter as it bothers on ethics. I don't expect not to see the "girls" altogether but the frequency will be drastically reduced amongst others. Having said all these, I wonder what the girls "give up" or into for the boys sake abi is it a man's world?

Happy independence Nigeria and indeed I am black and proud. Church service was a carnival of some sort as we thanked God for being the "happiest people on earth. The pastor prophesied that indeed in our own time not many years from now a great change will occur. We must however like Cornelius do our own part starting with our households and indeed the individuals. We should seek to do things the right way and not wait for "one politician" to come and do some magic. Our leaders have failed up, none of them has any good thing in store for us. He went on to say that the political leader must be backed by the power of God and not the power of America or any other thing. It was fun all the way. Enough dancing and singing. The choir was in their elements and the city of Port Harcourt was indeed glad. A couple in church who got married on October 1, 1960 cut the anniversary cake with some children below the ages of 10 which represent our great future. We went to eat out at "best bite" one of the cool eatery joints at the Government Reserved Area. The atmosphere was very good but the food was not so excellent. Happy independence once again

I have never been a strong advocate of praying without ceasing but with the deterioration of some things in this our country, I find it better praying than complaining or criticizing because those in authority seem to be so alienated from the rest of us to see whats happening. Look at the university community for example. In the past regime, we used to take water and light for granted but now things have changed and the rapidity which with things took a u - turn is very inspiring. If indeed the next president has different ideas economically from this one then bank failures are not going to be ruled out. No water in the female hostels and they are carrying buckets and jerry cans everywhere, a puppet student union representatives have been installed and they just can't be bothered. Examinations are going on full blast in the midst of epileptic light supply and constant no water and no body is saying anything. The only good state road in Port Harcourt is the Ikwerre Road, infact the only other good road after that is the Federal Port Harcourt - Aba Express road. All the rest are death traps and please don't bother moving on them in the night unless you intend to see your creator and yet the governor says he is going for president. This people have taking us for a ride too long a time but I pray without ceasing. Oh yes, in everything give thanks.

I went to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital for a routine medical check up and bros me it was a terrible ordeal. Nothwithstanding the fact that I know a lot of the staff there, doctors and nurses it was still a come today, come tomorrow experience. To start with, everybody there is an oga from the cleaner to the student nurse, security man, nurse, technologist, you name it.  If you go there sick, don't expect too much cause but for our father in heaven you will die and no one will even look in your direction. To get your folder, you will queue for like 1 hour, another 30 mins to pay the consultation fee of N200, 3 hours before you see doctor now tell me why "no be God". This is what i encountered in the eye section and a lot of people were shouting and cursing but the staff did not seem to care.

There are some things that happens that unknowingly reveals the backwardness of a people. For a town like Port Harcourt that has so many cars in millions and good roads in single digit figures,  a major section of an important road - east/west is shut down because our dear president is coming to commission a "university teaching mortuary" that is not even complete. Are we still in the third world or is it the fourth now? The entire stretch from eleme junction up to the university junction was closed down moving traffic to the newly uncompleted airport rd, ph - aba express road, ikwerre road and the nta - uniport road. There was this military helicopter that kept encycling the skies above making unnecessary noise. I have not heard of any president in Nigeria that was killed while commissioning a mortuary so why the stress? in case you are wondering it is the university of port harcourt teaching hospital that I am referring to as a mortuary. You can read my earlier posts to find out why I call it so. From as early as 7am to 5pm that important transportation link was shut down and of course I doubt if any patients made it to the hospital that day and when I say "patients" you might also want to include the dead because its a mortuary.

I have 2 sony ericsson handsets - T610 and T300 which had my GLO and MTN lines respectively. One day I decided to swop my MTN sim with my CELTEL sim on the T300 and then I saw "insert sim card" after I switched the handset on. I then switched it off then on again and CELTEL signals were received so I did what I wanted to do and decided to put the MTN back; alas it was not to be as the best I could get was "SOS calls only" or better still "select net". I thought it was a joke and then repeated same on my T610 and again it was the same result. O dear, I have to make do with my nokia 3310 which means I won't be able to use the free MMS giving to me by MTN. Funny enough GLO sim can work with the sony ericsson handsets but once u put the MTN one, nothing will happen. Today is the 10th day since our internet service providers went off and no one is saying anything tangible except "we are working on it" and since there is no other alternative we have to wait. Thank God we have reltel wireless installed at home, right now in the university there is no operational cybercafe as even the school one seems to be having a problem in any case there are very few regular students around.

Even before the holiday began, it seems to have already ended, the public power supply to the university seems to have gone on holiday too so we are in darkness and its just not funny. Took the car to the mechanic today and then later to a car wash; in trying to dodge some hold up 2 weeks back on my way to rehersals I got into some real red mud. In trying to make more female friends, I have got my hands really burnt so have to make a quick retreat to the status quo. The truth is I am not the outgoing type and so I better do what I am used to - keeping to myself and minding my own business.

Another plane crash again, only this time the sultan of sokoto, his son and grandson are inside – three generations.  With the resignation of the white men from arik air; it is no more news that our aviation industry don finish.  The minister is still there talking rubbish instead of resigning.  Please forget the “IT IS WELL”, don’t enter plane even if they give you free ticket use road.

When people talk of having "stress" with their parents, i used to wonder what they meant? Lately though I have been having some brushes with my mom and am not happy because it is unnecessary. Sunday was wonderful, the concert was great and my guests were happy. The road to church was flooded though, ahd I was lucky that the peugeot 505 had high ground clearance. I expected that by now the harmattan should be here but its like the rains won't stop. Took a lot of pictures today and it seems am getting fatter on the face which is making me very unhappy.

What is going on? what a gwan? Its going to be 4 weeks today that our Internet service provider aka supernet300 went off in the cyber cafe. The university environment is now very dry as students are all on holidays with exception of those medical students who are doing their clinicals. Access to the Internet is becoming more and more challenging and its really affecting my visits to nairaland and my email address (not that there is anything there). The access point in my house has been colonized by my younger sisters and I have to wake up by 4am when they all are asleep if I am to use it.  I had a fatal break down of my body system over the weekend and I was not surprised; some times I wonder if I really should have joined the choir in my church - very demanding and most times it appears everything happens at the same time. As in the week preceding our concert, I got a new assignment in the office to another location, at the same time I had choir rehearsals almost on a daily basis even during the public holidays and I still have to meet up with some academic deadlines. It was not funny at all.

When it appeared that all was lost, the lord remembered us. Our service providers a.k.a supernet 300 finally sorted out their problem in Port Harcourt and the cyber cafe is now open; we have to start getting back all our clients and that won't be very easy. The fact that school is not in session will make the challenge very exciting. The harmattan is slowly awakening and Trendtv has also been restored after being down for a year with 10 channels of which only 4 are worth anything; just check out the line up - BBC, Trace, Euronews, Ini, Music box, God Tv, Day star, Al jazeera, Fashion TV and Bloomberg. We spent quite some time trying to repoint the dishes and in the end I wondered if was really worth it. Have I told you that this is my month of shakara?