I'm every woman -it's all in me...........

Whao, how time flies. We have been in the new crib for a whole week, and it is now officially home; cable and internet all running. All things unpacked except for the books. I feel like "I'm every woman. Been there done that.

God has been good to me. He is faithfully and wonderful.
I have my MBA - just like yesterday; my first journal entry in July of 2001 has come to pass. It has been fulfilled by God's grace. It reads - I want to have an MBA from an Ivy League school in the US. Although I ended up attending Fordham University, in Manhattan; it all turned out perfectly well. Since there were no blogs in 2001 or more like I did not know about it then, I opened a journal for myself. I used to write my thoughts, my goals, my fears, my worries and sometimes those things I could not talk to anybody about concerning my relationships. As a result, my journal was very private, I never gave anyone to read.
On a faithfully day in July of 2001, I entered my desire to have a "yankee MBA"; I took the first step by writing some ivy leaugue schools. Lo and behold, the prospectus started coming and guess who saw them first? my mum. O yes, something fresh to worry about, HBS sent their prospectus with financial estimates of about 120,000dollars. She waited until I visited for the weekend from my job in Lagos....... I could still see us on her bed and the worried look on her face. She has done the conversion on her little calculator and concluded that if I pawned her in a famous market in Abeokuta, I still would not be able to make the fees and living expenses.
Left for Lagos the next day, with no doubt in my mind I am still going to have a yankee MBA.
I gave myself a 5-yr target and went on with life. I scheduled GMAT for sometime the following year, but got distracted by men and money. In July of 2003, I met a guy that was preparing to visit the US embassy for his student visa, I went back to my journal and picked up my dreams. I did the GMAT and TOEFL the same year.
Once again , men and money came calling............left Naija for the UK instead of US. A year into my living in London, I realized it was a wrong move and a bad idea. So I picked up my two year old GMAT result, retried TOEFL and went for the World MBA tour in London. I met Frank Fletcher, the admission director at Fordham and we discussed my plans over coffee at a nearby starbucks. A few months later, I was on the flight to NY from London. My head ached all through the flight, yes.. I was scared, anxious, worried and excited at the same time. I was running on sixteen gallons of adrenalin. All in a blur, touched down, arrived at the old apartment, met one of the famous housemates, got some Jamaican food and I still could not relax enough to sleep.
Roll it forward two years later, a few scholarships, lorry loads of networking events, loads of mentors, two internships and some fantastic friends. I am ere, a new job, a new apartment and ofcourse LB still by my side. Thank God for the groom's party at Unilag in Dec 2001.

New Crib and Starbucks

My love for starbucks seem to take various dimensions from time to time. I used to be a once-a-week customer for Caramel Macchiato back in London, then advanced to a four-times-a-week grande-coffee-smoker when I started business school.
The new crib spelt another dimension to my relationship with Starbucks. With my starbucks card in hand, laptop in my knapsack, I proceed to the starbucks in the neighbourhood. The first time I had to do this, I just went to my former office in the city. A starbucks that attracted the tourists trying to shop in Century 21. After that, I just stayed close to home. Free Wi-Fi on the house, why not? Not a bad place to hang out all day, you see all sorts of people trying to get their daily starbucks fix.
I only have to do this for a week until the cableman comes on Saturday, but in a very weird way- I love it.

Twenty-Three Months; the time to leave!

Whao, it feels absolutely nice to be moving out of the old house. I have lived there since the very first day in the US. Not particularly sure I will miss living in Canarsie, the things I did not like about it outnumbered the ones I liked anyway.
I hated the commute to Lincoln centre when I was in Business school, it took at least 2 hours to get there sometimes. I hated the L train with a passion, it never used to come.
Winter was almost unbearable, I am not sure if it's me or the vent in my room. It kind of freezes up in December and starts to melt in April.
I will definitely miss the memories.......my old room-with index cards all over the walls; my reading table - where the tears of CFA level 1 was shed; the dunkin donuts around the corner, the very quiet neigbourhood and The Arch diner. After twenty three months, I am so ready to leave.
Goodbye Canarsie, - This is the last stop on this train. Everybody please leave the train. Thank you for riding with MTA New York City transit.
Oh yes! the very last stop on the L train.

A guest from Hell

After this visit, I am sure the devil is a woman. Does she wear Prada?? I am not sure, I know she definitely wears a DKNY- skinny jeans.
I love my friends. Once I pitch my tent with you as a friend, I am in for the long run. I make friends with their friends and try to make it a good experience for all. Friends with various characters and attitudes obviously come with the territory. With some you never have a fight, but others you fight and make up every now and then. So I ended up meeting the devil through a fantastic friend. Needless to say, I got a visit from hell.
Gosh, it was still a rude shock. But the beauty of it all, I realized how patient I have become, just like my Mum. I just know the devil will never be back to my new pad.

Yippie, we found one!!

Whao!!! After six weeks of phone-dating agents and running around Brooklyn, we finally found a pad. The first time we saw this pad was about three weeks ago and we loved it. We put in an application and bam............... let the game begin!!!! It took two full weeks to get an interview with the landlord and his wife. We finally met them, his wife is so hot and she came with one of her grandchildren. I almost could not believe my eyes, I could not help to stare. I still dont know how some people pull it off, they just freeze at twenty five and even when they are forty five, they still look twenty five. I wish I could do that; at twenty five, I was soo hot I could date me. Ok, enough of that.
The pad is a 2 bedroom, standard New York new development. It is really cute, a walk in closet in the master bedroom, a cute bathroom, kitchen and living room together, loads of closets all over the apartment. I am so excited, I can't wait to start decorating and putting things in place. So, I have about ten days to get everything in place and proceed to start my post-MBA job. I love being an MBA in the US. It is soo cool - like the best thing after sliced bread.
So, I came out of the house hunt experience with loads of lessons for the folks that will be looking.
1. Don't schedule two different agents with listings in the same neighbourhood half an hour apart. You really don't want to have a discussion about the apartment her competition just showed you.
I happened to shedule Beta to meet me at the same point I was meeting Pi about half an hour apart. Lo and behold, Beta pulled up in her car as Pi was approaching the crossroad and yelled my name. So I went to her and whispered, "you're so early". I ran across the road and walked away with Pi. Needless to say, I had to carry-on a conversation about the apartment when I finally made it back to the crossroad where she was waiting patiently.
2. Phone calls don't move brokers, you need to show up in the office a few times for them to know you're serious. Yes, even after putting in an application and putting down a deposit. Those people are different.
3. If the broker is impatient or rude on the phone, don't waste your time chasing that apartment. You won't get it.
4. Landlords are either from Pluto or Mercury: remember Pluto has been de-planeted. They either want you to heamorrhage the dough a few minutes after seeing the apartment or they take forever. It is simply ridiculous!!
5. Forget about your dream apartment; it is yet to be built.
6. Some people's only access to their bedroom is by a wooden ladder. Believe it. It only happens in NY near Fort Greene Park.

"Draw a blank"

OK, I must confess!! I am not exactly drawing a blank. I just couldn't get around to my notebook these days to put down the stuff. Can you believe it?
Well, I blame the house -hunt; it is still on; I thought we found the apartment and then bam!! bad news............ so I am back in the market. Like a real estate fling-y thing-y, kept calling and scheduling. So for convenience, I scheduled to meet two of my agents at the same cross road about thirty minutes apart. Ofcourse they met because one decided to show up at the meeting point about thirty minutes early, I am not sure if it will discourage them or just make them work harder at finding what I'll like. At this point, I really don't care which one.
So we decided to check out the coolest, newest, hang-out mall in Brooklyn last saturday after driving all the way to Red Hook terminal. It was totally impressive, it was just a window-shopping kinda thingy since we definitely can't be buying any other junk until we move.
After that we decided to go see my girl in her lastest movie "Wanted". Action packed, fun with all the Jolie naughtiness that comes with it. It was good, you definitely need to see it.
Monday night was for Sex and the City. Don't think about it, I did not go to the movies. Watched it in my living room. If you live in NY, you will definitely understand that it happens. Maybe not all of it, but the chinese take-out, the lonely nights you just need to talk, the lunches and the never-ending drinks; are all part of living in the city. I could not believe Mr. Big still chicken-ed out after ten years, and Miranda is definitely evil.
But I have to agree, Brooklyn is the new Manhattan. Ofcourse I live in Brooklyn.