Habits and consistency

I've been thinking a lot in the past few weeks about how to form good habits and be consistent at positive things. I've heard it takes 21 - 30 days to form a new habit. The problem is just keeping it up for those first few weeks.

Jewy and I started running in the mornings a couple of months ago. We had each separately expressed a desire to do so, and eventually we started. We've completed two 5Ks since - which is awesome. However we took a break to attend a friend's wedding out of town, and it has been so hard to get back into the habit since returning. I finally went out again for a run yesterday evening, and I definitely felt rusty. I hope I can get back into it and continue improving my 5K times.

The other new habit has been waking up absurdly early and getting to my office by 7.00am. For some reason if I'm still at home/in bed by 8.00am, my entire day becomes toast. It's a combination of not wanting to pay for parking on campus (the free parking spots are all full by 8) and not being very productive lately when working at home - there are way too many distractions, including the fridge. So waking up at 5.30am and getting a jump on the day has been a really great solution. Again, the time off to travel was hard to recover from, but I/we seem to be back on track (yay!).

Who would have thought after ~eighteen years of grumbling over being woken up at 5.30am for morning prayers at home, I would voluntarily return to it?

There are several other things I would love to do consistently - updating this blog on a regular basis is one of them. It's not that life stopped being interesting living with Jewy - we've just been more focused on living it than on writing about it. I hope we can do a better job going forward. Wish us luck ;)

My break-up

So I recently broke up... with the Colbert Report.

I enjoy the (relative) transparency of politics in this country, and I love to laugh. A show that takes shots at politicians and highlights the ridiculousness of (mostly) Republicans while cracking me up? Sign me up, I thought. This was in 2007/2008. The Colbert Report, The Daily Show and I started going steady. It was a threesome that made sense. 

We had some good times. We got through the 2008 primaries and presidential elections, the health care policy debates, the mid term elections, the numerous Republican filibusters, the 2012 campaigns... it was quite fun. 

But then, over the years, Jon Stewart morphed into a perpetually angry man, constantly yelling at the screen in disgust. Eventually, I started spending more time with Stephen Colbert, who may have been on the same page with him but managed to mix in more wit and less anger. I would listen to him while I worked and crack up, and together we got through the 2012 elections and even the inauguration. But then Stephen Colbert started to go too far. 

He started by gently mocking the Catholic Church- I'm not Catholic, but it was still offensive. Even us Christians should be able to laugh at ourselves, I rationalized. Then he took it a few steps further. A couple of weeks ago, during a segment called "The Word", he was talking about people taking fictional things out of a book and pretending it's the truth. "Seems to work for the Bible" was the joke's punch line. I was irritated, and shut the program off. A few days later, I tried again. This time, he was mocking Pat Robertson's response to a question about demons and familiar spirits possibly clinging to used clothing in thrift stores. I don't think Pat Robertson is a paragon of virtue, but it felt like Colbert was beginning to make a pattern of mocking people's religious beliefs. Don't mock things you have no idea about, Colbert, I thought. 

I shut the program off again, deleted the rest of his videos off my Hulu queue, and unsubscribed from his show as well as Jon Stewart's, even though I had been ignoring those videos for weeks. It was the equivalent of officially deleting someone's number off your phone. The break-up was final. 

Source

I don't know why this country has to be so polarized. Democratic-leaning Christians exist. But the more the Democratic party runs to the extreme left and makes all matters of faith something to be laughed and sneered at, the more likely we are to shrug and leave and coalesce with moderate Republicans. That's all. 

Things that irritate me about America

1. The endless winter

2. The flu 

3. People that tell you you are not serious about your career because you decide to work from another city for a week to help out family. 

4. The lack of Nigerian restaurants 

5. People crying about falling victim to 419 emails. If you were not a dishonest thief yourself, would you fall for it? That's almost like a criminal getting mad that the police got him through a sting/undercover operation. Not the same, but almost. The emails are irritatiing, we all get them. Delete them and move on. 

6. Changing gradually and not realizing how much you've changed till people from your past life come to visit. 

7. Bills in general

8. Heating bills in winter. 

That's all I can come up with for now. I'm sure there are lots more. 

I could be Nancy!!!!!!!!

It’s been a while I know and I miss telling my stories. After a long day of miscellaneous school activities, I decided to go home and rest for a good weekend. It was a Friday night; I remembered how interesting my Friday nights could be at home on days when I wasn’t in hermit mode. I saw people hand in hand with friends or significant others doing fun things or going to fun places. It is a few days to valentine so it makes sense to secure positions with whomever, lol. I guess my thoughts found their way to my face and I must have had a 12-inch long pout and some ripples (frown) on my forehead. Some guy in his mind thought he was being compassionate and started saying “hey why are you so sad? Common smile aint that bad” I was able to pick this out of an epistle he spat out. He was supposed to be speaking American but that accent was way off my level of comprehension. I speak with people of many colors and backgrounds at school daily, but I aint ever heard nothing like da, lol. At this point my pout must have elongated a bit and he won’t stop saying things I couldn’t hear. Eventually, I got bullied into giving a stiff smile. That type that comes out when you have just tasted lime or unripe African star apple  (oh Agbalumo!). Thank God! The bus was now in sight. He asked for my name and the finest I could utter was Nancy. I had just met a nice Asian American lady the day before and it felt good to borrow the name briefly.  That choice was my undoing. He got into bus but I wasn’t playing nice anymore. I put all my baggage on the next seat to me and turned away. He found a male ally at the back and five minutes later boom! He started cursing, remember that I can’t make sense of 70% of what he says but I heard enough keywords and was grateful that I didn’t hear it all. “she looked sad…………….f….,f….,f…, aint no black girl name….Nancy, f…, that some white chic’s name….f. She telling me Nancy…..,f…. He went on and on till I got off 20minutes later. I was scared to bits why would some1 be so angry about another person’s name. I really could be Nancy! So I have now put other replacements in my subconscious: Nikki, Kiki, Piki, Miki, Tiki, Shiki, or even better; Ajalatanaa, Erinlakatabu, Tioluwanileatiekunre, Aseniserare, Ifeoluwakiishi, Eghwrudjakpor, Ejikemeifeuwa, Zubaydah.

I will try not to take so long again.

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year to everyone who comes by Immigrant Living! I am so glad that you still remember us. If I still made resolutions, one of my resolutions would be to post on here more often. But since instead I highlight intentions, I would like to highlight that I intend to post on here more often - say two - three times a week?

Jewy abandoned me for the past three weeks and has been gallivanting all over the east coast (gallivanting - ah, that word reminds me of my dad). I have been suffering and making do all by myself in Pittsburgh. Well, not entirely. Christmas at the Ruwase's was delightful, and then I went to Urbana and had an awesome meeting with God. I am still reeling and trying to follow up on all the decisions I made while I was there, some harder than others, but I am super excited about 2013 and some unique challenges I will be taking on!

So what has been shocking as an immigrant lately? For me it's realizing that I have lopsided winter priorities. I have at least six or seven winter coats (bubble jackets, leather jackets, pea coats, and at least one cape) and not a single ice scraper for my car. I also don't appear to have a shovel for the snow on our front walk anymore (I would have sworn I had one last year) or any more salt for the steps. These are all situations I intend to remedy in the next few days. But yeah, when it gets cold, I think about keeping myself warm and passably cute first before anything else.

Anyway, Jewy comes back tomorrow and she better be laden with yummy nigerian food goodies or I'm not letting her in the house. Here's to an amazing 2013 and an awesome roomie to share it with!

Owumi

Se ko si ero ni?

Jewy has a craving for moi-moi.

I proposed the two solutions I know: we need to get a more powerful blender to blend the soaked beans, or use the moi moi powder from the African food store.

Jewy: se ko si ero ni?

Me: huh? Ero ni bo?

Jewy: Ni adugbo Lilac

Me: Ni bo lo ma wa?

No Jewy... we can't dash down to Tejuosho market to get our beans or pepper ground... ko si ero :-)

Source

peppersoup craze

I am really getting frustrated with the food here but the good thing is a disadvantage tips you into innnovation. I started this week with hot dog peppersoup, today ground turkey peppersoup. At this rate I might just include pizza peppersoup ooo.