₦airaland Forum

Chxta:
The only true friends one can have IMO are those you grew up with.

I really don't believe the only true friends you can have are those you grew up with. I have seen a couple of childhood friends change so much that I wonder if they were the ones I knew in childhood. I guess its true inj a lot of cases, but in my experience, the truest friends I have had are those I knew from my university days, and those i got to know in a yearlong training program I attended.

At that age, they have exited their formative years and the personality you see and come to appreciate is "the real deal". I mean people can't fake for say 5 years. If you are fooled about the kind of person, it probably means you weren't paying attention.

Hmm, Dylan,

You are a very bad guy oh. Those were very good scores. Meanwhile, about Pet eng texas, TAMU is one of the most highly rated schools in the world for Pet Eng, so I guess it won't be a piece of case, but University of Houston is more liberal in my opinion. I applied to both schools, and while TAMU rejected me parially on the basis of my non-pet eng background, I got an admission from Houston.

It's always safer to apply to a variety of schools sha (the good, the bad and the ugly). At least if you don't get the goods and the bad, the ugly will jell

I believe that what doesn't break you will make you stronger.

nana:
I guess the girls here are hard nuts to crack. But not too worry, I've got the lines for them. Baby, I love you more than fanta and coke, will u b my sprite? Baby talk your own.

Original Igbo boy.Not all girls will fall into such traps.Sprite ko,7UP ni [/color][color=#990000][/color][color=#990000]

Don't b cruel. No guy used that line!!!!

Yeah there's lots of nostalgia when i think about my time at Ife. Felt a bit cheated though cos we were in spiderhouse (zone for mech, met/mat and civil engers) which was sorta secluded from the other depts. Yeah, lots of peeps in that zone were scarred in their quest for the golden fleece....

Lots f other nice memories though. The serene and beautiful staff quarters never failed to thrill me.

Cheers to all the Ife peeps in the house!!!!

Seems like u know your [stuff], Sesal. What platform do you use?

I guess the nigerian university is a brutal system but sincerely the quality of grads are a function of their background even BEFORE they get into university.

The first case I'ld present is the one of people with weak backgrounds coming to study particular courses. With a poor understanding of elementary physics, people cannot expect to cope with the advanced physics youi get to do in school. As the years go by, it becomes progressively more difficult to cope with and they somehow just struggle through school, and are technically incompetent.

A 2nd scenario is the case of the whizzkid who can't string a correct sentence. I finished from Ife and I came across a number of cases like this while still in school. There are folks who are very sharp. They have solved all the calculus and understood all the fluid mechanics but they probably had bad English teachers. This usually affects a number of them who pass all the stages of aptitude tests but are not able to express themselves effectively at final interviews.

For those that strike a balance, there is still the effect of a half-hearted attempt at teaching by a lot of lecturers, but I still maintain that the graduates who really give a bad impression 9whether technically or in terms of expression) are those who had poor backgrounds.

On a final note, ife particularly scarred a lot of people for life cos in most departments, getting good grades were made so difficult even despite genuine efforts. There were lots of people with unconventional approaches which were not appreciated by lecturers, and also a number of others who were affected in their early years but could not recover from clutches of a cumulative GPA system. The result.......lots of geniuses with 2.2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its just an exam you have to take to gain admission into most American Grad Schools and grad schools in a couple of other countries.

I had enough pink while in boarding house (secondary school). Was subjected to 5 years of wearing pink shirts for our "house wear". I hate it, hate it, hate it!!!

Life has taught me to take risks (calculated of course), instead of staying in a comfort zone.

I think our generation will be much more romantic.it seems that culture demanded that older generations be more conservative in showing their affection.

I think Ra said it all by pointing out that when a couple is in love,professions doesn't matter.such mundane things pales into insignificance.

I hope by these words we have managed to convince and not confuse our female nairalanders that naija men are still romantic.(how i miss d days of primary skool debates)

I was also able to get to nairaland thru my mobile but sometimes i cant access some topics.guess u have to go d old way for smilies!

I'ld invite her to dinner at my apartment, and I'ld have rigged all the lighting fixtures with those tubes that dim. During dinner, as the the lights gradually dim to a point when she can see only my eyes, I'ld ask her to marry me. Her heart has to be made of stone to say no!

Yeah and I guess it would be for mostly children of the horrifically rich!!

This seems like a story straight out of superstory. On an a more serious note, if this is real, then you have to consider the fact that besides morality issues, how do you think your dad would feel if he finds out? If telling you dad this might prompt him to disown you (though I strongly feel your dads should have more confidence in your words else there is a problem somewhere...rephrase...there is a very big problem somewhere), I expect he would kill you if he knows you slept with her.

Again its unfortunate that your stepmom could influence your dad's decision wrt your future. My advice is to steer clear of her diplomatically or otherwise.

All d best.

I had 720 in quantitative, 650 in verbal and 5.5/6 in the analytic writing section.

Another thing you should realize is that GRE is "adaptive". The first set of questions are easy and as you progressively get them right, they get more and more difficult, but you get more highly rated. However, if you get a question wrong, you get an easier question, BUT your rating drops. If for example you get the first qn right, you may be rated 500/800.. If you get the next qn, your rating may rise to say 600. The third qn becomes substantially more difficult, but the leap is smaller and if you also get that right, your rating may increase to say 640. If you fail the next question, your rating may now drop to 620.  The figures are not accurate but I guess you get the picture.

By the time you are halfway into the exam, your score has more or less been determined and even if you fail the remaining questions but you get most of the earlier questions, you can still end up with a considerably high score (A colleague of mine made 800/800 in the quantitative though he did not finish).
In fact I read somewhere that it is more important to get the first 4 questions right and fail the rest than to get the first 4 questions wrong and get all the rest correctly.

Stick with Barrons and try to make flash cards. Guys thought I had gone gaga when I made smart cards for groups of words (grouped alphabetically) with their own pouches.I would advise that you give yourself enough time however to get familiar with the words before your next GRE trial (say three months or more if you can afford it), but if you need to make admission soon, you could pull off 1 month with a grueling schedule.

All the best man.

Flint

I don't know if the format has reverted, but what I took (December 2002) included the usual verbal and quantitative but it was an analytic writing section instead of the conventional analytic.

As per the verbal, you can't prepare for it in 1 month. You must have been preparing for it all your life. Barrons is a very good GRE book (I used it and I aced my verbal, analytic and quantitative). The trick is for you to know the context in which words are used. E.g. you may not know the meaning of perdition, but you may have seen the movie "road to perdition". However, another very good book is "GRE for dummies". Yeah the title's degrading but it helps u really get to know words, and gives hints on elimination of options.

Also it would be good if you know about the etymology of words. E.g. collosal coming from collosus etc. If you go through Barrons and pay more attention to etymology, I'm sure you'ld retain more words. Finally subscribe to word of the day at http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/ Gives you a word per day and uses that word in various contexts.

Do a lot of preparations and try to also get the Kaplan practice CD. It is very good.

As per your plans, I think Austinn and TAMU are the leading schools now. Houston used to give scholarships for all their pet eng students,. I got admission to Houston for Pet Eng, but they didn't dole out scholarships that year.

All the best and pm me for more info. Pity though that I have given out all my GRE material, but I can really identify with what you went thru. The verbal for GRE no easy at all!!!

I'ld wish I told the 1st girl I ever had a crush on how I felt about her. Kept it to myself cos I was very shy then, and told her much l8r but she was already engaged to be married!!!

Chxta:
O baby, I don taya. Dey go ya own make I dey go my own.

"Oh, girl I'm tired. Why don't you go your way and let me go my own way?"

I second Chxta. If that doesn't work, then try Mamba's AIDS line.

hmm, this is all very........revealing

I thot I indicated my interest in being a volunteer staff earlier, but if didn't, I'm in.

I don vex. I dey go marry now now now!!!
See all the cute babies being posted. First of all it was Vieira, then Jogego.

Viera and Jogego, I'm proud of you guys. I really cant imagine a happier day than being with your kids.

Playing tennis from a.m. till noon, swimming from noon till dusk and hanging out with my peeps from dusk till dawn(not forgetting eating in between). Yeah that will be fun for me!!!

Yeah I hear London is socially cold. My cuz got so homesick and lonely once that she locked herself up and wept in her room couple of months after arriving.
Well you discover true friends and hard as it may be, you have to be strong for the periods when you have not really met people who you can hang out with and GENUINELY enjoy their company.

Well, I think there are "right people". While I was serving, I met a girl whom I was convinced was "the one" (yeah like Neo ). I am very choosy about any girl I want to date cos I feel it has to be a longterm relationship to be worthwhile. From the very first time I met her, I admired her intelligence, her natural altruism and her youth. She was engaged then and I tried to "disengage" her cos I truly believed we were made for one other. didn't work out though and now she is happily married with a kid.

Now if there is a right person, that would mean I'm doomed for good, but I honestly believe that there is that special person that would be as crazy about you as you are about him/her.

Well Kenya dearie, its a statement of fact that while girls grow faster than boys, women age faster than men.

Well I present a challenge to you. For every "playa" you post, i will post a committed guy. We have to be honest here. You can use pseudonyms if you want.

Well Kenya, on behalf of the guys (I hope I am speaking our minds here), most of these qualities are what really matter years down the line when our women are not as fly as when we first met 'em.