Date with an Octopus

Octopus Paul in olive oil

Why does it look like eyes? Doesn't look like the picture on the pack. Eyes afraid to eat it. 

A random buy. Never had it before.

Rice sticks and octopus with carrots, corn and salmon. YUMMY!!! (A sting original recipe)

 

Octopus straight from the can tastes like some kind of seafood (ha ha) but with a meat texture. More like a tendony(?) texture. Tastes much better after it has been cooked or in this case sauteed with seasoning.
Verdict: I liked it.

I'm still waiting for my psychic, fortune telling abilities to kick in. Watch this space :)

Wishing my baby brother a happy birthday today. I'm so proud of him. He starts pharmacy school this fall.

Gerber Graduate

Ever since i got home last week, i have become a Gerber graduate. Yes o. I have been eating my 11 month old niece's snacks. I even have a favorite sef...... Gerber graduate yogurt melts, the strawberry flavor. I put one in her mouth, and eat like 6 before she comes back for more. Yesterday, i didn't even bother feeding her, i just ate the whole pack. When my sister asked me to give the baby some, i was like.... it's gone. I'm shameless like that. Na to drink breast milk remain cos i taste everything she eats. Hey! I'm curious.

I still haven't eaten my Octopus in olive oil, for some reason i think it's going to taste like snail. I love snails, especially fried snails. I hope i'm not disappointed sha.

Moving to school on Sunday. I'm going to be making the 13hr drive with my dad.. I'm just enjoying the last few days of freedom as much as possible. Actual classes don't start until the 16th but there's a week of orientation to attend. I'm going to be skipping a good part of it even though i'm "supposed" to attend everything. Not going to happen. Orientation week last year was a blurrrrrrrrrrr............

I'm EXCITED about something that is happening next week. It's a secret so i can't tell. Shhhh........I'm excited sha. I pray it turns out to be a positive experience. Keeping my fingers crossed. I just might end up gisting u guys sha ;)

Unexpected longing

I just watched Jim and Pam's wedding on "The Office" and i was filled with a longing........... to marry the one i love and who loves me just as much.

Weird, cos i told someone today how uninterested i was in getting married and i was serious. I guess this is what having that desire feels like. I hope it is fleeting cos i can't entertain such dreams right now. I see why they say TV is bad for you, it puts thoughts in your head.

Update

This is what i woke up saying " God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he will never leave me nor forsake me" Hmmmm...... I wonder what that is about. I also dreamt Azazel called me, now that was weirder cos in the dream i thought it was weird too. The only other blogger i have dreamt of was Sugabelly, but i didn't mention it then cos i had no idea why i was dreaming what i dreamt about her.

Anyway, i am home in GA. Enjoying time with my family. My 10 month old niece (she will be 11 months on the 24th) took her first couple of steps on the floor the day i got home. She has been taking steps in her crib, but on the floor, she will take one step then sit. My mom was very excited. So now i hold her by one hand and she walks with me. I think she's fast sha. My mom said we should pray this morning, and she put her hands together until the prayer was over. It was so funny to see. She can blow kisses, hi-5, clap, wave bye and if u say show me ur teeth, she'll stick out her tongue.

So i went to Walmart yesterday, my new favorite thing to do is to go to the "ethnic" aisle. I like being surprised by what i can find. I ended up with some Octopus in olive oil, which i am excited to try today. Who knows, maybe after eating that i will be able to predict the future. Watch this space for future predictions. No, they will not be free. I will be rich, biatch!

Look what i did!!!

Yep, i got two more piercings on just my right ear. I only wanted one, but somehow got talked into getting two. I think it's cute. I actually wanted a piercing in my tragus, but the lady said we had to do that in a tattoo shop and we were at the mall. This was kinda impulsive cos the last thing on my mind when we got to the mall was to get my ear pierced although i had been thinking of extra piercings for a while now. I had ditched the ear piercing entirely and was going to get my belly button pierced, but i think this is cool too. It's not exactly aligned perfectly in the back of my ear like i would have liked but i moved really bad the first piercing cos the pain was a shock to my system. I have a very low tolerance for pain. I love it though. The studs are pink, btw. Pretty cool.

UPDATE: SO i just got home to GA. Drove 5 hours non-stop. Not even one pee break. I'm so proud of myself. Anyway, i showed my mom my piercings. I first told her i wanted to show her something but she can't freak out. She made a couple guesses, then she asked if i had gone to "open my ears". I pushed my hair back and showed her. She frowned, i blabbed a couple of incoherent reasons, then she said, it's fine. As long as you are happy and she meant it too. Surprise, surprise. I think my mother is getting old. She is getting laid back about stuff. I approve.... lol.

Anger

Everytime i have an angry outburst, i feel like the worst person afterwards. Even if the issue is completely resolved, i still feel really bad that i wasn't able to control myself better. I hate how i am..... i really do. Maybe i should seriously consider anger management because this thing is getting the best of me and i'm worried i will not be able to beat it on my own.

My regrets

Whenever i am asked the question, what are my regrets, i always take a moment to think and then answer that i have no regrets because every experience that i have has been a life lesson. I'm a liar! I have been lying to myself. Well, not on purpose but i think i've been lying because i haven't given much thought to the question. I know one of the unspoken life "rules" is to never have any regrets. For the most part that is a good philosophy to have, i mean there's no use crying over split milk, really. However, looking back in my oh so short but so long life, i do have some things i wish i had done differently. Are they regrets? Maybe. But i don't sit around moping and thinking about them all day. Ok, fine, let's cut the crap and all the English speaking, here are the things I regret or wish i had done differently.

I regret

• Not having lived a balanced life. Since the day i stepped foot in this country, all i have done has been with one goal in mind, get into medical school. I haven't lived my life in any capacity. I am a nerd that doesn't look like a nerd (that's my only saving grace). Everything that i did, really was connected to getting into med school. I didn't travel, or party, or have friends i hung out with. I've never been to a club, i don't drink, don't have random hook ups, never been to a beach, don't know how to swim or ride a bike, never been back to Nigeria or gone to europe (something i have been dying to do). My biggest regret of all this is not taking the time to cultivate meaningful friendships. Since i left Nigeria, i don't know what it feels like to have girl friends. I finally got into med school, and it wasn't worth the sacrifice that i had to make. I could have been more balanced and still gotten into med school. I think i was too single minded in my pursuit of my dream and i should have paused from time to time to smell the roses cos after you get into med school ur time is really no longer yours.
• Not having the backbone 5 years ago to say no: I have been a victim of domestic violence. I am a statistic. According to the bureau of justice statistics, 1 in every 4 women will experience domestic violence in her life time.The first time he hit me was last time he hit me and it was the day the relationship (finally) ended. In a way the physical abuse was just the finale to an already verbally and emotionally abusive relationship. It went from verbal abuse to emotional abuse and then physical abuse. It was only by the grace of God that i got out of that situation alive and only had bruises to show for it. I thought i was going to be killed. Being chased with 2 knives by someone who has morphed from a human being into an incoherent monster right before your eyes is the stuff nightmares are made of. In case you have ever wondered, this is how husbands end of killing their wives. They lose their minds in a fit of rage.
  I regret not saying an emphatic NO when my sister decided to hook me up with this guy. I never would have met or agreed to date him otherwise. I should have stayed true to my superficial self when i told her he was too ugly for me. I should have said "yes, na handsome i go chop" I regret not ending it that first week, when i noticed he was off and complained to my sister about him. Instead, i let her talk me into staying. I regret not listening to her, weeks later when she finally came and told me she found out stuff about him and i should leave him alone (Apparently, i'm her little puppet). I should have listened because even then i knew he wasn't right but i didn't. I was already attached. I was so young, naive and STUPID. That experience changed the course of my life, for the worse. I have never been the person i was before that incident. That shit sent me to therapy and that's when i started gaining weight.  

So far, those are the two things i know i really have any type of regrets about. I still thank God for everything and i'm not such a bad person to be. 

Sting and a married man

Yes, u read that right but no...........it's not what you think. So there's this guy at my job, i remember the first time i saw him when i first started working there, i thought he was cute. We had a conversation one day when they had movie night and i found out he was from haiti. I like his accent, it's one of those nice sounding accents that you can't place the origin, I guess cos he's been here for a while. Anyway, last week we were standing at the nurses station chatting while he was doing some paper work and his phone was on the table. He asked me to put in my number. I think he called the next day and we talked about stuff. Me being me, i like to ask questions and never assume anything, but long story short, he mentioned he was married probably like the second conversation. Ok!!!!!

Now, mind you, i wasn't interested in him that way (I have someone else that has my attention at the moment: ;), but i didn't know what to think. I've never made friends with a young guy who was married.... well, if i remember correctly i have. It was this one dude who was like 28 at the time whose wife was in Nigeria. He ended up liking me and i had to nix the friendship as soon as he crossed the line with the endearments and calling me 20 times a fay. Now this guy, he lives with his wife. I notice he never talks to me at home, he calls usually when he is driving and the one time he talked to me at home, his wife was at work. Now i have to say that the dude has not crossed the line at all. We just talk about stuff and when i asked him what he wanted from me (yes, i dey crase like that), he said the first time he spoke to me, he got the impression that i was smart and his smartest students when he was a teacher were Nigerians and he has an affinity for Africans. So according to him, he wanted to test his hypothesis about me. He is a therapist at the hospital and i have sat in on this group sessions and he is pretty good, so i told him that what i could get out of the friendship was free therapy. He thought that was very funny, but i wasn't joking o!

Anyway, i really don't know how comfortable i am starting a friendship with a young man (28 years old) who is married. We spoke on Tuesday when i saw him at work, but i haven't called him and he hasn't called since Monday. He asked why i never call and that he doesn't usually do back to back calling (like call someone everyday) unless they call him back. He's cool and all that and i'm sure he will make a good friend but i don't just want anyone's wife to call me up one day and tell me to leave her husband that i did not want in the first place. Not sure if there is a balanced way to go about this friendship or should i just ditch the whole thing?

Free therapy- Honesty Meme

I got these sentence stems from work today. They are used during group therapy sessions. I figured they would make a good meme to pass around. We haven't had those in a while on blogsville. Feel free to tag yourselves and pass it along.  So it works by you pretty much answering the question with complete honesty. It helps you explore your feeling and thoughts. Let's call this the Honest meme.

1. Right now i'm feeling....overfed. Free chinese food does that to you. General Tso's chicken, yum! I'm also excited for the future.
2. When i'm alone i feel....bored and restless sometimes, content at other times, depressed and lonely sometimes. It depends on what kind of day i'm having. I kind of like being alone but on my own terms.
3. When i'm surrrounded by people i feel.....claustrophobic and withdraw into my shell. Unless i'm around family then i become a talkative that wants all the attention.
4. One thing i hate is....lies
5. One thing i really like about myself is .....my ability to really care about people. I do give a shit :)
6. When i'm feeling sad I...... want to be alone and feel sorry for myself but unfortunately, i really can't wallow in self pity like i would like to because i have a people around me who are supportive and really care about me. They won't even freaking let me feel sorry for myself, can you imagine ;)
7. When i daydream it's usually about.......you don't want to know what i daydream about these days. Trust me, you really don't want to know.
8. I'm afraid of.....failing and rats.
9. I'm happiest when......when i feel in control of my life and things are in order the way i want them
10. One thing that really worries me is .... how i am going to cope with my health issues while at school
11. If i could change one thing about myself it would be.....my short fuse
12. If i could be with anyone right now I would be with.....AK
13. The family member i am closest to is........JR (my one and only brother)
14. If i was really honest with my father I would tell him....In spite of everything i love him and i appreciate all he has done for me these last few years.
15. One thing i regret about my life is ......I don't regret anything. I'm still learning.
16. If i only had one more day to live I would......be with my family and the people i love hanging out, gisting and laughing. We would take lots of pictures too.
17. If i was really honest with my mother i would tell her.....I just want to take all the hurt away and make everything right
18. One thing about me that nobody knows is......i really enjoy picking my nose. It's a nasty habit, but don't worry, i have good hand washing etiquette.
19. I hope that someday in the future.....I will be happy doing the work that i love, with a good man and a couple of munchkins running around, spreading the blessings i have received.
20. When i think about my family I feel.....depending on the day i could feel a headache coming on, frustrated, loved, hope, or blessed. My niece makes me smile every time i think of her.
21. Something i'm really embarrassed about is......I can be a graceless klutz. I always find myself in embarrassing situations. I don't get embarrassed by much anymore.
22. One thing about me i never want to change is.....my level of empathy and compassion i have for people.
23. One thing i feel really proud of it.....my resilience and determination.
24. Blogsville has helped me to.....explore my feelings
25. One thing i like about blogsville is......it is an outlet and a support system.

 I tag, Ms. Nitty Gritty, Myne Whitman, 2cute4u, miss.fab, Mwajim Al, Ego du Jour, Naked Sha, Lahlah and Doll.