It's hightime

Ok, the real deal is here and I am trying my utmost best to pretend it is not that close.
I am scared to bits about all the little things, but my latest worry is just the weirdest. I am practically having a meltdown regarding the fact that I have to change my name. Can you believe that? It actually started in my subconscious, I ordered the personalized items as "Tade & Badmos".. don't ask me. I did not even see the error when the favors arrived. Pretty sad!!
The good news however is that I got my dress, one whole month earlier. It is unbelieveable!! and the registry and mini -website is beginning to take shape. I uploaded one of our official pictures on there, just waiting for the invitations to come. It is actually fifty two days to the wedding.. ah ah ah, o ti de tan oo.
Father, help us.

Out in Vancouver alone

It is 1.13am EST Monday/10.13pm Sunday. I have been in Vancouver for five days????? Whao. The last time I checked; I promised I would not go away by myself anymore. But this is different. I miss my baby sha.

I arrived in Vancouver on Wednesday, right on schedule. I am totally surprised how much I have changed since I started work. I sat on a six hour flight totally at ease. My restlessness seem to have reduced by 50 percent. Awesome!! So I jumped in a cab and told the cabbie my destination, then decided I needed to go to the bank as well. Meanwhile, it was after I finished at the bank that I realized that cabbies charge u 10 cents per second in Vancouver. The Ijebu/accountant in me sprang into action, once I got to the hotel started looking for subway maps. By the time I settled in, it was about 3.30pm EST, I was starving. I found an african/indian restaurant and ordered something to eat. I ordered spring rolls for appetizers , they were yummy.

I got back to the hotel, took a nap and when looking for the skytrain station in my neighbourhood. It turned out to be a short walk. Not bad at all. The next morning, I dressed for my appointment and hopped on the train. Twenty minutes of nice, smooth uncrowded train ride, I was in the west end of the city. I joined the queue to go into the embassy and I realized my brain was zoned out due to zero caffeine, I definitely can't talk to a consular officer in that state. I ran into the starbucks on the same block, ordered a caramel macchiato and took a sip. That was good!! Back at the embassy queue, holding unto my lil life saver.

After visiting the embassy in Nigeria three times, and the one in London once; Vancouver was easy-peasy. I was out under two hours, the actually interview was about 1.5 mins or less. Thank God for favor. Although I almost could not sleep, the last time I had an embassy interview that was 5 mins long, the guy changed his mind after I left. Thank God it did not happen this time. Lunch on Thursday was sushi, I was beginning to feel the excitment. I wandered around the west end for some time and went to see the look-out at the habour center. Scary and Nice.

Picked up my visa the next day and decided to go the famous chinese garden in Chinatown. It was definitely easy to get around the city, finding lunch that I could deal with was a challenge. I finally settled for a Japanese take-out somewhere in the heart of chinatown, little did I know it was recipe for trouble. After lunch, I took the long bus ride to Stanley park hoping to see the aquarium. Ofcourse, it was closed, can u imagine??? It was barely 4.10pm and they claim Vancouver is a city. So I took the same loop back since it is passing through my hotel to get to Metrotown. About 30mins into the ride, I started feeling very weird. It really felt like the on-set of a migraine, but I noticed my lunch was sitting in my tummy for the past 2 hours undigested. Long story short, had to hop-off the bus to puke all of it. I am sure the street cleaner on duty would have cursed endlessly while trying to get it off the side-walk. Eew!

It was just Friday evening, still have about 5 more days to go. I got back to the hotel and went to look for good old Papa John's pizza, my tummy deserved something familiar. Saturday was much fun, took the West side sightseeing tour around Vancouver. So I got to know what I saw all round town the previous day. I forgot to mention I made it to Gastown on Friday before heading to Stanley Park. The Gassy Jack guy, who founded Gas town was a charter box. There was an ugly statue of him right in the middle of Gas town. The famous steam clock was broken, although it still makes a lot of noise and steam. We made it to Granville, an island in the middle of the city by midday. I took a boatride around the false creek, and found some really decent restaurant for lunch. After the tour, I decided to go to the Capilano suspension bridge!! men, what was I thinking. Found a couple of ppl that were interested too so we shared a cab. I still don't know what I was thinking, because I was 110 percent afraid of height. Kept my eyes closed all thro. It is a beautiful bridge anyway. I heard it has not failed in 120 years. 

I went to Whistler on Sunday, stopped over in Britannia beach (it's a ghost town with no sand, i still wonder why they called it britannia beach). Shannon Falls was beautiful, the only thing I can say about Squamish is eew!! We stopped at the 2010 Ski Jump location as well. The snow was picture perfect. Whistler was not as exciting as the road trip to Whistler cos I don't ski. I probably need to start that soon.

By Monday, I was sick and tired of Vancouver. It did not help that the food has not agreed with me. I finally discovered the famous British "Nandos'. Whao, what a relief. On my way back on Wednesday, yippee!! did I mention they make you pay two taxes on most things??? That sucked.

Down 2008 memory lane..........

I was watching the famous Time Square Ball drop on TV while trying to shake LB out of his sleep. I can't believe it is just a few seconds away and he was asleep, he kept murmuring I am not sleeping. After about 18 hours trying to make it back for the new year in New York city, LB finally arrived from naija 20.00 hours on the thirty first of December 2007. Thank God for journey mercies.

2008 was the year I finally hit my scary age. It did not help that my birthday was on valentine's day - the whole valentine thingy started right after the new year's day. By first of February, I was close to letting it all out. Two friends of my friends BSchool were having a birthday bash for themselves on the second of February, one of them a few light years younger than thirty. I was trying to convince LB to come out with us - still the most difficult duty ever - and right there and then I realized how far I was from the entries in my first journal. Through some sort of hormonal tinted glasses, I concluded my life was over - thirty and not married, not exactly a size that can fit into my dream wedding dress anymore. For the next week, I could not care less if everything else fell apart. You can guess who was getting the brunt of my frustration. With the benefit of hindsight -which is fast becoming 50/50 - I realized my body was probably over-producing those hormones that magnifies PMS.

By the time val's day finally arrived, I had managed to drag my PMSed body out of its nastiness. Even had a super-awesome birthday lunch with my girlfriends at an up-scaly French restuarant, went to see a movie in the evening, Cuban lunch the next day and finally my first broadway show for my thirtieth birthday. A few days later, found an extra extra old friend through Nigeria friends.com and continued as if we never lost touch for twenty years.

At this time, the legal representative of my future employers were on my case. God bless the paralegal assigned to my case, he bugged me to death. I was supposed to leave for Naija in a few days and I was schooled as to the risks. I totally can't complain. I had fun in Naija anyway, spent a little time with everyone. I even saw a dumb movie although I can't remember what it was anymore.

It is April 1, my petitioned has been filed and my body was still working on Naija time. Spewing out e-mails and deliverables at 4am in the morning...it was super fun while it lasted. One faithfully Thursday, like a sleeping beauty, I went to bed at 7 pm and woke up on sunday. Yippee, Sexy is finally back.

BSchool was done by 17th of April, and it suddenly hit me like lighting, I signed up for one weird exam that required at least 250hours of my time. It was six weeks a way. Still managed to enjoy being done with school for a few weeks by sitting on the house phone for 12 hours each day (the best days of 2008). Then it was my graduation, it was fun although Fordham still managed to upset me. After graduation, I started a 14 hour day reading session for the CFA exam. A few days to the exam, I reached the limit. Cried for a few days and made peace with the worse that could happen. So, I showed up for the exam anyway.

From this point, a few of what I was upto got documented cos I started my blog. In a few words, I can recount the past months. I walked the Brooklyn bridge and Manhattan Bridge, failed a driving test, went to Ikea, had a guest from hell, moved apartments, started a new job, went to D.C, learnt a few new phrases, my boy became the first black president of the US -"Yes, we can", got engaged, started my wedding dress search and lost my engagement ring. I am still hurting from loosing my ring, so I would not be blogging about the lessons yet.

Drawing the close for the year, I worked earlier in the day, and went for the watch night service.
I pray His light will be my guide in the new year. Thank you Jesus for a wondeful 2008.

The Perfect Wedding Dress

When I fell in love with dresses as few months ago, i never envisaged the ultimate dress challenge was around the corner. Like a regular girl, I totally love shopping, but shopping for a wedding dress is definitely an experience.
I started early and learnt from the best, still I have only found a dress I really liked. You don't say.... it was way over my budget. Maybe I have tested a hundred dresses or a little more, I can't say for sure, I just know that I need to take a break. The first bridal place I visited was a joke; the stay does not come with the dress. So they made me wear the stay and attempt to step into the dresses. About fifteen dresses later and four bridal assistants, I was ready to give up on the search. I gave myself a few weeks break and bounced into Klienfeld on a rainy November morning. That was a bad one, my date was way too close to work with, there was somebody fitting for a November 2010 wedding. Thank God I went shopping before going for the appointment. Still happy, life is good.
The third bridal place was not any better either, am I really supposed to make up my mind in one hour? it will not happen. Unfortunately I am one of the few people in this world plagued by extreme indecision. It takes about forty five minutes to decide what's for dinner on a good day. It took me five years to finally make it to Business School.
Back to the dress gist, we moved on to the next place without missing a pulse. Lo and behold, four dresses made it onto my list, all I had to do was think and sleep over them before making my choice. Needless to say, my newly upgraded Fiance managed to throw out the bridal magazine where I noted the reference numbers for my dresses. Do I really need to start looking all over again? Not really, finally traced the dress, it was over our budget anyway.
The hunt for the perfect wedding dress continued.

New Phrases

Well, I definitely love living in Yankee, much more than living in Jand.
Although nothing beats my life in Lagos, it was packed full of excitements.

I have not made it to my blog in a few months. But in these past months I have picked up a few new words and phrases, a few pounds, a few friends, a few hairstyles, and a brand new attitude to life. I also started a list of names that I must not give my kids - only God knows what can happen 45 years down the road.
My favorite new word is Maverick-y, but I refuse to put lipstick on a pig. Although a cross- dressing Mayor can attempt to run, he can only have one state. I still love shopping spree like most girls, but I am yet to find an employer that will foot the bill.
I am still considering changing my name to match my brand new attitude, only one name comes to mind. So my friends, please call me 'Thomas the tank engine"

Good old days

The beauty of youth, the pleasure of confidence, the passage of time. O, how unfair!!!

Damsels become Naggers, how time has left its scars on the sweet heart of mine. Awake in the wee hours of the morning, reading the sweet mails of good old times. I wonder what happened, what has changed. Deep down in my heart, i know the only person or thing that has changed is me.

Although I wondered if I could ever bring sexy back, but I realised the damsel in me still lives on. Fargone are the days when 'Damsel in distress' was the theme of the day. The days of 'women liberation' has come and gone. I remember vividly the sudden realization of the fact that
'it's a man's world' and how sober I felt. It was a long lost battle.

About seven months after hitting the big 3 0, I finally made peace with growing up. Although I can never be 25 again; I can be sweet, I can be nice, I can be friendly, I can be fun, I can be forgiving, I can be beautiful; and far above all I can be carefree.

DC, ere we come

Labor day weekend seem to hold various memories as far as it goes. My first labor day weekend was a week after I arrived at JFK and kissed the floor of God's own country. We went shopping on Saturday and LB left for London later that night. MOG came to pick me for church service the next day, the rest of the long weekend seem to drift by really fast; I spent hours on Fordham website, trying to figure out how I could make my MBA a bit cheaper than the bill I had been dealt at school.
Everything was fine until the evening of Labor day, when I realized a bit of fresh air would not hurt and I decided to open the window. Did the AC just disappear? O yes!!! It fell out of the window and crashed to the ground like humpty-dumpty. How can I ever forget!!!

After one year, labor day weekend was not as daunting, although it was a bit different. I left for Philly the day before and LB left for DR. Did he travel without me? O yes he did!! I went for Lizzy's wedding and came back to NY on Sunday. This time around, I had plans for labor day, I could not risk staying at home and getting tempted to open the window and let the poor AC out again. I went for the Carribean Parade in Brooklyn.
So this is my very third Labor day weekend and off we went to DC, this time around it was LB and I. It was a weekend with DC monuments, museum and Hilton on Embassy Road. We even managed to see a movie, for the first time in my life I sat through a movie with no pop-corn or drinks.
As usual, I came back with observations and questions
- the trains are comfortable and fancy; but why would they trade comfortable seats for AC on the trains?
- most of the metro lines run really deep in the ground; how come the escalators going up never seem to work?
- Yes, it was labor day, how come nobody was shopping?

Anyway, it was fun trip.

Corporate Me

So it's been four weeks and two pay checks since I started work. I am loving it but I am still not sure what to expect.

The first week was a blurr of general orientation, heavy laptops, grubs, uncomfortable shoes, loads of people and more grubs. Stepped into the second week knowing exactly when I will get the "gbemu" and on the train to CT. So it was another week of training with, nice hotel and extra - extra grubs; I gained the six pounds I have lost in the past two months within that week. I came back to NY with a few questions, some lessons and two more pages of my book done.

1. why do hotels serve crappy expensive dinner?

2. why do rich people live near water/rivers/beaches etc?

3. why do people have to keep eating to stay awake in a class? - lunch makes you sleepy, keeping the inflow of snacks and food just makes you sleepier.

End of the week, it is so good to be home. We finally got a furniture for the apartment and I am still on training/orientation. I even joined a gym - although I spent only about twenty minutes in the first group class I attended. I can't say why the instrcutor felt I am J-Lo cos I sure don't have those deadly hips; but she made us do all those funny weird dance moves. I gave up as quickly as possible.
The personal instructor was a different case, he probably thought saying my name a million times will give me some energy desperately needed - I ended up asking for something more interesting. Life got to be a bit easier on thirty year olds.

A book by its cover

Whoever said "don't judge a book by its cover" or "don't stare the gift horse in the mouth" . They are totally wrong. Although the bread comes as an extra in most restaurants, I realized you can fairly guess what to expect from a restaurant before seeing the food by tasting the bread.
In New York, I have come to realize that "the bread in a restaurant says a lot about its chef and the food you're about to order. Little wonder my favourite restaurant is French, they serve fantastic bread with butter or anything interesting you can think of.
Although in Naija, location is everything. A born and bread Nigerian, I still can't deal with eating bread with oil - olive oil, extra virgin oil, Johnson baby oil- which ever one is just not right with bread. Somebody needed to preach it.

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.