Beginnings and Endings...

Hi Guys,

F here... For the last time. It's the first day of a new year- perfect time to embrace the new and let go of the old. Blogging was a great thing for me to do at a certain stage of my life but I'm afraid I'm just over it now. I do not, in any way, mean to patronise others who still wish to blog. it's just not for me anymore. At first, I thought it was writer's block but even when I am inspired to write, I just don't have the desire to share it online anymore. This chapter was fun, interesting and quite informative. I've read challenging, annoying and just plain hilarious pieces and comments on this blog and others. It just happens that this chapter is over. For me. I keep telling M that this doesn't necessarily mean that M has to stop too but she's pretty adamant. CONVINCE HER!

Have a fruitful new year, guys.

Kisses,

F.

:)

...

Yo Mensss... M in the Hizhouse!!!!

Lol!! (i'm seriously going to miss doing that)
So its a new year, Happy new year peoples!!!

So as F has said we are quitting the blog, I am seriously going to miss blogging, it has been an AHMAZING (amazing) experience, I have had soo much fun blogging but Half and Half is a two people blog and to be truthful I think that I am a little over blogging... I mean i love to blog, but somehow I just don't think that I have the time to blog anymore, after all I am a masters student, i mean, I should be focusing on school. But no worries I"ll always be around, dropping a comment here and there..

I am going to miss you guys.. but most of all I am going to miss Hibari chan ==> Our blog mascot!! (Chai I want to cry a little now)

Have an Amazing year guys..

M

Nigerian Anti-Gay law.. Carry go JARE

Gosh, I was not planning to blog at all today but after doing my daily blog check… I felt that I had to say my piece concerning the Anti-Gay law.

Nigeria has so much to worry about right now; Boko Haram, the fuel subsidy, poverty, eliminating corruption etc. (come on guys we know that this list can go on forever). But the Nigerian Government has decided to pass this Anti gay law, which punishes anyone who is gay or anyone who aids and abets gay marriage in Nigeria.

I mean SERIOUSLY we have so much to worry about at the moment and this is the item that is on the top of the senate’s priority list it just shows how warped the government is. That they would rather focus on this issue as opposed to the plethora of problems facing us as a nation…

I don’t want to discuss the morality of Homosexuality because at the end of the day I am somewhat prejudiced because I am a Christian and it is clearly stated in the bible that it is wrong. But one thing I always say is that the Bible commands us to love your neighbor as yourself and I apply this to things and people that I do not understand. Just love the people around you, if they are gay or not how does it affect you? The way that Nigerians talk about this issue it’s as though the gay people are raping all of them at the same time. Please abeg carry yourselves and sit down somewhere, eat a banana and think about your lives.

If someone is gay fine, its their life to live and they should be allowed to live it in anyway that they want because at the end of the day on the day of judgment it is going to be you and God, Its not going to be you, God and a random amebor..

Plus I should mention, that I was, am and will forever be disgusted by how rude and ignorant Nigerians are. I was on Linda Ikeji’s blog and I read the article she culled from the CNN by Chude Jideonwo I scrolled down to read the comments (even though I promised myself that I would never read the comments after the whole rape incident) and I was completely disgusted by the level of stupidity and childishness for lack of a better word. The commenters called this dude gay (I don’t know if he is or not) insulted his life all because he did not agree with them.

**SIGH** If you people want you can join me on the cloud of love, love everybody without focusing on our differences (e.g. religion, sexuality, length of Peruvian weave). Trust me Nigeria and the world at large would be so much better of everyone did this…

One of my friends made an awesome comment on twitter a few days ago, She said “God sees no difference between u telling that white lie or calling someone a 'mumu' n a homosexual 'ACT'. All na sin.” So my Nigerian Brothers and Sisters, please Oh, Remove the trailer of firewood in your eyes before you deal with another person’s wahala.

That’s it for me dudes

*** Drops Mic****

M

Classic F & M...

Hey guys,

Here we are... Giving you some good old F & M argument... Just like we did when we started this blog... This time, the subject is a two-word phrase- "You're mine". The whole issue got brought up by our previous post... Towards the end of the guy's part, he says

"... I realized that our friendship wasn’t enough. I wanted you, all of you. I wanted you to myself. Whether you know it or not, you’re mine. I would love for you to act according to such but as I haven’t mustered the effrontery to let you know how I feel, I can’t put reins on you."

Now, this part was the bit that resonated most with M... It just made her crazy. ""You're mine" was her favourite line... She kept saying it over and over again. I still have the ringing in my ears from our skype conversation we had about the piece... M- grown woman, Masters student- squealing... LOL... It was hilarious. I want to maintain, however, that this post has nothing to do with the actual piece... I referred to it to explain how this conversation started. I don't think the character in that post is the kind of guy I'm talking about... Moving on sha...

Now, I've always known that M has a bit of a thing for "bad boys"... The ones that blow hot and cold... "Take control"... The "alpha male", basically... And there's no problem with that. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. The problem arises when this same person tries to maintain the idea of an independent quasi-feminist who is completely self assured and detests any attempt to control her. This right here, I think doesn't add up. More than just not adding up, I think it is a key inconsistency that most women seem to wear with pride... "I'm strong and independent... But... I still want a man to take control and save me and do this and do that..." The kind of guy that M describes is simply someone you CANNOT have a mature relationship with. Someone who blows hot and cold is not exciting... He is undependable. You cannot plan when you don't know if the guy you're with is suddenly going to decide tomorrow that he wants to screw around on you- then realise his mistake in two weeks. The kind of guy who puts no definition on a relationship but still seeks some kind of ownership... That is not sexy. Not stimulating. It's selfish.

With that being said, I will be the last girl to go down the "I don't need a man" path. I think it's bullshit. Everyone wants someone to get them- a real companion. BUT... I cannot accept that we can be completely independent creatures with our own identities, dreams and fears... Yet, all this goes out of the window when your knees weaken at the prospect of being "claimed". I do not buy the "It's not the words... It's the sentiment behind them..." argument. Surely, if a guy is not being serious in a relationship but is claiming you are his and can't date anyone else, the sentiment is clear. He wants control without giving much back. Either you go down the independent woman path, or jump on the "I need a man to take control" bandwagon... You cannot ride on the latter and stay on the former at the same time... It just makes sense.

I think the problem is that we feel this pressure to be militant feminists sometimes. If you like the kind of guy that sweeps you off your feet and takes control of shit, then go for it. Just don't talk out of both sides of your mouth and claim that you don't take nonsense. After all, he's not your father. You can't like a man saying and acting like he owns you and then claiming you cannot stand that very behaviour. It's confusing at best and hypocritical at worst.

F

M's corner

Ok F and I have had this conversation too many times and F has forced me to put this post up. Ok so for this post I am taking off all my feminist regalia and I am just going to put this out there, so to all the feminists who read this PLEASE OH! Don’t come and shoot me! (LOL)

Ok I’ve always had a thing for very enigmatic men, you know the type of guys that you never know what they’re thinking, what their doing when they are not with you, the type that’s hot and cold – one minute he can not live without me and the next I don’t hear from them in like 2 months. I think it was because I could play their games extremely well and I knew not to get very attached to them. The thing about the game is that each player needs to stake a claim on the other person, it can be done in many ways for some its sex, for others it may be done through material things and lastly through emotional manipulation. In the game the loser is the one that falls deeply for the other player, once that happens the game falls apart and then you reach the point that you have to confront each other about ‘feelings’ if you both feel the same way then the game evolves into a relationship but it you don’t the looser walks away crushed.

Now this is when the you are mine thing comes in; I am not a strong believer in love, love is too abstract a concept for me to grasp, love is something that I feel only towards my family and one or two other friends. Even though I don’t know what love is, it does not mean that I’m not open to it (but that’s a blog post on its own). F finds it weird that I think it’s hot when a guy tells me you are mine, but I feel it is imperative to paint the scene

In my first year of University there was this guy that I was super into but it was just one of those games, he was a lot older than me as he was a masters student but it was all in good fun. We hardly saw each other even though he lived really close by and went to the same school, when we saw each other in public there was never any contact because at that particular point the other didn’t exist however behind closed doors everything was great. But I ended up really liking this guy and when that happened everything unraveled I found out that he was dating this other girl so I had to one up him. I started seeing this other guy (who was his friend) very publicly to ensure that the news got back to him. Eventually one day he cornered me and forced me up into his room and finally we had a very heated conversation about the whole situation. When I asked what this is? (the relationship) he replied, “ You know what this is, it’s you and me and we are US” when I asked about the other girl he was seeing, he said “this has nothing to do with her” and I retorted that my relationship with the other guy had nothing to do with him either. And then he uttered those two words that literally shook me to the bone ‘You’re Mine’and my mind went blank. I think it was because of the honesty in the situation, it wasn’t calculated there were no lies, no promises of love or to leave the other girl. It was just real; we both didn’t know what we wanted from each other

Now when people hear ‘You’re Mine’ they take it as some form of ownership that the guy owns me; my body, my mind and soul. No oh its not that deep no man owns me I am a child of God so there we go. But for me it’s that those two words can convey so much and it has such a deep meaning; I want you, don’t leave me, don’t be with anyone else, I don’t know how I feel about us right now but let me figure it out.

But I should mention that nothing ever came out of the whole thing but it just stayed with me. It was the closest thing to an “I LOVE YOU” that I’ve ever been able to appreciate, understand and reciprocate.It might have been selfish for him to say that but for that moment he was mine, mine to hold with no promises of love or forever but at that moment it was everything he needed to say and all I needed to hear.

I know it seems like I am contradicting myself I mean as a feminist if I was to read about this on anyone else’s blog I would go crazy in the comments but this is where I’m at. To be truthful I’m not the kind of girl that likes men to be all Alpha male and in control in relationships but I like a man who can take control (does that make sense?).

Anyway the situation outlined was a once in a lifetime thing, my taste in men has changed (Thank God) and I’m a lot more mature than I was at the time so may be if i hear it now it’ll be different!

Does anyone understand what I’m getting at or does it sound more like the Masochistic ramblings of a pseudo- feminist psycho?

Let me know in the comments below xxx

M

NIGERIA I AM ASHAMED….

DEAR BLOGWORLD AND NIGERIAN BLOGGERS

I am ashamed, I am saddened and I am in fear for our future. Late last night/this morning I came across the information that a woman was gang raped by 5 men and that there was a video going around. People that I know have watched the video ( I personally do not have the link and I do not want to watch the video) but I am sad, this is what Nigeria has come to, Is our Generation going to be known for the death of common decency?

Why would people film such as act, share it with their friends and why is nobody doing anything about it. Out of all the people who watched the damn video can't somebody recognize them and turn them in to the police or something! This BOTHERS ME GREATLY… It bothers me a lot... it deeply burns my heart to see or hear about things like this and know that we Nigerians are keeping quiet about acts like this and/or laughing about them behind closed doors

I am deeply saddened by the level of ignorance that I have seen and heard/seen concerning this issue people are saying the girl deserved it or she didn’t struggle so its not rape or that rape is surprise sex… WHAT!!! What does that even mean? I have heard a lot nonsense like every woman who is raped deserves to be raped, its all the woman’s fault: “she dressed provocatively”, “why did she walk down that road at night” or even in this case that she provoked it by insulting the men that raped her. No matter what happened, no woman, no man, no child deserves to be raped. It goes against our basic human rights. It appalls me to find that my fellow Nigerians can justify a rape. Would they feel the same if it was their daughter, sister, cousin, friend or neighbor? The Nigerian culture subjugates women, Women have less rights than men, our culture and our religion teaches us that the men are our head and we must bow to them. The children learn by watching how adults interact and they themselves don’t understand why it is so but take at face value i.e. a man is stronger and therefore better than a woman and also a woman’s place is in the home and it is the duty of the man to go out and work therefore a man is better than a woman. This is the message that we teach our children; it sneaks into our collective consciousness and becomes the norm. If Nigerian children were taught that we are all equal and nobody is better than the other and everybody has equal rights would the ignorance surrounding this issue lessen? Definitely, in my household we were taught that in regards to my siblings, there is no man or woman, there is a first-born and a last-born and that is what has stayed with me all my life.

Another issue that I feel the need to address is the Voyeuristic AMEBORISH culture that we have in Nigeria. I have always hated it, Nigerians feel the need to know everybody’s business not in order to help them but just to judge them and have something to talk about when they meet up with friends.

Every Tom, Dick and Biliki has watched that video in question but I don’t see anybody doing anything about it, no mention of sending it to the police but its just so that they can say ‘Yes oh I watched the video’. I went on Linda Ikeji’s blog and I read her post and I then scoured the comments and saw people asking for the link... HOW BARBARIC IS THAT I mean its not like they are going to use it for good… and send it to the right people. NOOO they are going to sit there and watch somebody else anguish may be with a few EYAHs and AWWW's. How is that going to help the situation on ground? PEOPLE in general and NIGERIANS specifically make me sick…this AMEBORish attitude that we have is disgusting we make Voyeurism a lifestyle and we see nothing wrong with that.

I am not at all politically minded, if anybody was to ask me about Nigerian politics all I know is that our president is Goodluck Jonathan and the governor of Lagos state is Fashola. But I know that it is our duty as the enlightened youth to make a stand and fight against the death of decency in Nigeria, the death of freedom of speech, the elimination of our right to just be who we are without fear; without fear of being physically abused and the fear of being judged by others. It is our job to uphold decency and morality and prevent the ignorance of others from harming the innocent.

Please join Sugabelly’s Man Hunt to find these people and make them accountable for their crime… so that the victim can have peace that justice is served. And so that we as Nigerians can hold our heads up high and know that we have done something to help, for the sake of our future.

Inumidun

AKA

M

By the way see the post before this to hear F's opinion on the issue and PLEASE if anybody has any information about the people involved get in touch with sugabelly or Linda Ikeji

The Trouble with Technology

We are a generation of voyeurs; peeping Toms trying to keep up with the Joneses. Sex tapes no longer make headlines. Everyone and their dog has a reality show. The fashion blogger inundates us with the groundbreaking manner in which she... Covers her nakedness. The self-obsessed glamour model tweets about her awesome day making more money than a doctor with less than one per cent of his IQ. These are the joys of the jet age.

I am not pulling a Reuben Abati on you. I refuse to degenerate into a rant about the evils of modern day life and how things were amazing back in the good old days. Being barely twenty years of age, the good old days to me are the nineties. You can see why I cannot claim such a moral high ground in this matter. I understand that technology has given us almost miraculous opportunities. More than half of the people I know are on a different continent most of the year and I have had the chance to see places I only saw on TV thanks to the wonders of modernity. Yet, is the proliferation of technology eroding something which can not be digitised? Is it taking away what it means to be human?

Forgive the melodrama. The drama queen in me tends to do the typing when I am upset. This post was actually spurred by a story I came across on Linda Ikeji's blog. It was about a female student who was gang-raped by five men. As heart-wrenching as the thought of such an atrocity is, what really infuriates me is the fact that this horrific act was filmed. And shared. And watched. By people other than the sick bastards who perpetrated the said act. WHY... I repeat... WHY would you see or hear that there is a video of a girl being repeatedly raped AND DECIDE TO WATCH IT? As much as I share Linda's disgust but WHY does this have to be buttressed by the actual footage? I would like to stress that she did not post the video on her blog. Instead, she offered to send it to women's rights organisations interested in taking up the case and defending the victim. Is it not enough to know that this has happened? Why do we need this sick "show and tell" to accompany it? Is simple empathy not enough anymore? Or does everything now require video evidence?

This post, like I said was spurred on, by this story. It is not an attack on Linda. She claims to have contacted the Abia state government on the issue which is more than I can do to help this girl in any tangible way. Still, I believe that this case shows, again, something which has been worrying me lately. There is something wrong with us. This need to film, tweet and share everything... At the end of the day, what is left? Linda herself admitted to having the full one hour video of the brutal attack on her laptop while keeping only a ten minute clip on her phone. Thankfully, she only posted a screen shot on her blog. This same sort of thing happened in the shamelessness that was the twitter fight between has-been rapper Joe Budden and his video girl ex Esther Baxter. Those who follow this blog might recall that I wrote a rant about this. To refresh your memories, this woman- in order to prove that Mr Budden beat her into miscarrying his baby- put up pictures of her dead foetus. The obvious thing to do when you lose your baby in the bathroom. Take pictures of it. And then share them on twitter at a later date. I can't even begin to understand this thought pattern.

We all know people who "overshare". Those who intimate their facebook friends with every fight and reconciliation in their relationships, those who post videos of otherwise private events, those who tweet everytime they take a shit. Yet, I ask, in this hyper-connected world, are we really closer? In this day and age of thousands of facebook friends and followers, do we really have confidantes? You have thirty-eight "likes" on your facebook status, but does anyone really value your opinion? Do you even care? Or would you rather go back to pouting for that picture you want to upload?

Right now, I'm wondering what the world is coming to. My mind is not wandering in a hopeful direction.

P.S. To get the Reuben Abati reference and for more info about the post on Linda Ikeji's blog, click here or here and here respectively.

The Reality of Self Discovery...

You know those little insecurities and insanities that make you more of a stalker than a girlfriend? Or the excruciating inadequacy that has plagued you and pushes you to hate or judge other attractive or successful females for next to no reason? What about the one centimetre of fat on your stomach that keeps you from wearing that dress you love? You’ve always wanted to get rid of all these things, haven’t you? Well, friends, I have the answer. It’s called self discovery. Yes. All along, it really has been you. Your boyfriend is not screwing around, that girl is actually nice, and that layer of fat is not hiding; it simply does not exist. There you go. Problem solved. Delve into the intricacies of your soul and discover the beauty within. Therein you will find gardens and orchards populated with unicorns, pink ponies and fluttering butterflies. Look inside yourself. There, my friend, you will find the answer.

This infomercial has been brought to you by the Meaningless Cliche Association of Life. Remember, if you buy one dose of “self discovery”, you get an extra helping of high self esteem free. Go forth and flourish.

***

Now, that was a little self-indulgent, wasn’t it? If sarcasm was the proverbial dead horse, I have probably flogged, murdered and decapitated it by now. Still, these crimes have been committed for a good cause. There is a point to all this.

Anyone who has ever watched a tv show, read a magazine, or breathed has heard any or all of these cliches. Be yourself. Look inside. Discover this. Explore that. Inner beauty. I could go on for days but these few cliches are already killing me so I’ll spare you. Yet, have we asked ourselves what these actually mean? How do you come to this place of inner peace and self acceptance? Do you lock yourself in a dark room until a lightbulb comes on in your head? Or do you retreat to some desolate mountain until you hear the winds whisper the secret of life to you? This pseudo-philosophical “You hold the key” crap is, to me, just that. Crap.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not about to descend self absorbed defence of nihilism. I am not criticising this quasi-spiritual self-searching because I think that there is no spiritual consciousness to aspire to. I am simply tired of the meaninglessness of most of these cliches... They are empty. Seriously. What does it actually mean to find your inner beauty? You look into your heart and see a Page Six Model or her spiritual/intellectual/emotional counterpart? I don’t think so. No number of self help books, motivational speakers or tapes can teach you how to live a better life. At least, they cannot teach any of us what we do not already know. I’m not even going to go into how they all say the same shit. Let’s just leave it at this. There is nothing new to learn from all this pretentious self-righteousness, however well-meaning. It’s all the same shit. Be yourself. Find your bliss. Fuck off.

If so-called self discovery was an Olympic sport, I would be a celebrated world class athlete by now. Gold medal winning shit. The last few months, I have been at home back in Nigeria after two years of wandering. I was all over the UK, then I went to Hong Kong, went to China, went to Vietnam, passed through Qatar and ended up back in Lagos. Since then, I have been catching up on two years worth of growing up. Getting to know my parents better, actually understanding them as people and not just bosses... Catching up with old friends... Just growing up. Learning. And what have I learned?

That we should have real conversations with our parents. Our uncles, aunties... Speak with our elders. They had lives before we came along. Lives that a lot of them have given up because of the very developments that brought us to life. That we should be genuinely interested in people. Not as voyeurs or gossips. But as people. As students of life. We should be inquisitive. Not about others’ business. But about life. Travel. Live. The things we learn from doing all these cannot be contained in any 5-point action plan; neither can they be contained in this self indulgent rant. It would be arrogant at best and plain stupid of me at worst to claim to have discovered the meaning of life before I have spent two decades living it. All I have to offer is my limited knowledge and experience- both of which have led me to this conclusion. The only way you can find yourself is to search others. And when you look, you may not always find roses, rainbows and bright lights. Sometimes you find darkness, decay and dirt. You find issues. Self discovery is not paradise. It’s hardwork. If you’re thinking about it, at least know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s illuminating. It’s fulfilling. It’s freeing. But it’s not pretty.

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You thought the last post was long didn't you? Writer's block is gone o... Only God can save you all now... :)