olaoluwatomi

146-150 A tender heart, a conscience that can be pricked! Lord help me never to lose it! Great blogs that encourage, inspire, challenge, chastise,comfort, renew you and make you realize that you are not the only one on the journey called life. Blogs like this one http://www.aholyexperience.com/ Moments with loved ones. I remember moments spent with those who have gone ahead and so cherish the precious time slots. Music. Music. Music that makes you for one moment forget the troubles of this world and gives you wings to fly high above the seemingly impossible mountains, above the giants with bared teeth, above the ghosts that lurk within the darkness that seems impenetrable. Melodies that point to the one who is able to give you renewed strength and hope for tomorrow. The opportunity called life.

Does it ever surprise you that when your mind is set on something, nothing else can come in the way of that dream? Not even when others tell you that there are other more exciting things to be seen or experienced, the bond between you and the yet unattainable goal is not broken. The road is long the way is rough, yet what you want seems just round the corner. The jeers are loud, the boos are almost a slap in your face,but what you want only beckons louder. Then the day comes when that goal that seemed beyond your reach lands like a soft pudding right in front of you. The loud drumbeats of your excited heart finally begin to quieten. A spoon lifts your goal to your lips, at first taste you savor the goodies, a second and a third taste assuage your hunger. You eat greedily like the tortoise who does not one to share his meal with another. Before the end of the meal, a shooting star races by, one moment later your eyes feeds hungrily on the new spectacle, suddenly the food is forgotten, t...

The tears do not fall down my cheeks They roll down my throat The smiles I paint on my face Are white lies stuck on to save face The words I speak are laced with pain But tinged with humour and jest to deceive My bed has become a prison and a refuge Dawn breaks and Im loathe to rise but before the night beckons I seek solace in the sheets I toss and turn, rest and recover, The alarm goes off but I am not roused by its shrill sounds I want to sleep away the day, every part of it. Is life so bad? Is there nothing more to it than this? Am I to crawl around as a beast hunted? The pain sears, it lashes out without pity, without mercy It smothers and seeks to crush out every flicker of life The burden is more than I can bear Will no one help lift it from my chest? Silently, quietly I feel a breath of fresh air Swirling like a mist within the dank damp walls of my prison It does not chill and it does not tease Its a whisper yet it wraps itself like a warm blanket around my cold bones It eases...

141-145 Amazima, there is a widget by this post which takes you to this lovely lady's web page. The care she provides to children and others treated as outcasts is akin to Jesus walking the earth. She is an inspiration that Jesus words to love others is not theology meant to be debated but words to be taken literally. While you head over to read her blog, please click the donate button as well:) New friends, the return of old friends, Chance meetings, Great times all around. A little brother much bigger than me, who is a year older and wiser:) Help when you least expect it, words that help me see the road ahead a bit more clearly. The passage of time. This year seems to be faster than any other year of my life.

Tonight is one of those nights that my diurnal clock seems to be ticking backwards, I cant seem to fall asleep. I have done a number of things in the way of counting sheep and extra since my battle to conquer sleep begun. *I have gotten up several times to eat a snack. *I finished reading the Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks. Its a great read, I particularly liked the authors weaving of historical medical events like the origin of informed consent with the history of the descendants of Henrietta. *I have dived for cover in between my bed and the wall when I heard shots which I mistook for gunshots, realizing sheepishly 20 seconds later that some funny neighbours were probably just using their remaining stock of firecrackers from July the 4th celebrations. *Trawled through blogs I have not read in weeks. *Switched off my laptop, lay in bed (read tossed and turned) for about forty minutes and then decided to switch it back on and be productive if sleep refuses to come. *Writing this blog...

Yesterday on my way home, I started humming and whistling 'Gimme hope Joanna'. It was a song I heard as a kid and while I knew the chorus I did not know the words of the stanzas, I just realized its an anti- apartheid song! This morning I was reading about systemic sceloderma on wiki, and a film 'for hope' was listed at the end of the page. It is a story about the film directors sister who had the disease, so I decided to see if it was on you tube and I spied out of the corner of my eye Eddy Grants 'Gimme hope Joanna' ; so I hit the play button and it took me a few miles down memory lane. Listen to it below!

I wont describe myself as solely a lists person, because I do not necessarily write a list of things I need to do. Depending on my mood, I write them down or I carry a mental note of things I need to do. I remember having a small pocket book as an intern where I wrote out all the things I needed to do. Anyone outside the hospital reading through the book would have considered it indecipherable but I could not do without it. Entries like the list below filled my small jotter and it gave me no small measure of satisfaction when I had done my days work and crossed out all the things I had done. I miss those days when I had something to do. 1. short cast RL msw 31 (Translation put a short cast on the right leg of the patient in bed 31 on the male surgical word) 2. CBC msw 2 (Take a blood sample for a complete blood count for the patient on bed 2) 3. d/c summary fsw 1 (Write the discharge summary for the patient on the first bed in the female surgical ward) 4. Prv 3 d/c traction/ FL pop (F...

136-140 Henrietta Lacks Plane crash in Colombia all saved except one Joseph Prince Omokolawole The end of summer............

I am not very good at waiting patiently for things to happen, I like to go out and make things happen. People say God is teaching you patience when you wait instead of receiving all you have asked for promptly, others say its a period of soul searching, getting yourself ready for the next big thing etc But I ask what happens when you have reached the limit of your patience and there seems to be no end in sight to the road you are called upon to travel what do you do then? Do you keep on along the road, or stop out of sheer exhaustion? I am not at the end of my rope yet and hopefully I wont get there but I daresay it would be a more exciting journey if there are people to cheer you on. Ill admit I have so many cheerleaders along my way who believe in me and tell me I can reach the very top and this has made the trip much better than it would have been otherwise. But I long for signposts that tell me I am travelling along the right road, things that keep me looking on earnestly to the en...

131-135 My own space:) New friends! A fabulous twin, Swotting for exams, Information at my finger tips.

Just a pictorial map of my life over the past couple of weeks! Things I enjoyed and things I viewed! Attended the Boston Gospel Music Festival! Flowers in Boston Commons A turtle and duck greet themselves!:) Humus A hookah pipe! A hookah menu Largest Mosque in........ Lovely dessert from Shatila- was too full to partake:( Shatila! Yemeni Breakfast- note the small teacup upper right of the plate. Tea & Coffee cups from Yemen! Coffee made Yemeni style!

Many times it is not the big things in life that make us happy! Oh it would be nice to be driven around in a chauffeur driven car but does it really give me great joy?:) Yesterday for me 'my little joy' came in a small package. It was a packet of 'pekere'! Peke what? I hear you ask. For the uninitiated, pekere is fried plaintain which is hard and crunchy and makes a lovely snack. Considering I have not eaten Pekere in ages and it is not available in Stop&Shop or Shaws, being handed one of these packets by my roomie made my day! You should have seen the smile on my face when she gave it to me, you would have thought I had been given a million dollars to spend! And to think I almost said no because I thought she wanted to give me a packet of potato chips:) Look for your 'little joy' today and enjoy it while it lasts, I certainly did!

I gave my sixth speech today at the Toastmasters meeting! Yay! I decided to post my speech. The emphasis was on vocal variety. I was to use a voice that is pleasing to listen to, with proper balance of volume, pitch and rate, and use pauses that enhanced my message. I do not think I succeeded in achieving all the goals of this speech, but I gave it my best shot! Thanks to www.teainapril.blogspot.com for the inspiration for the speech! We the selfish ones have created for ourselves a bubble in which we are impervious to real pain and tragedy- Copied from http://teainapril.blogspot.com/2010/07/we-selfish-ones.html! I stumbled on the above quotation on a blog while struggling to decide what to speak about today. And I chose the topic of Pain. Pain has both physical and emotional components and can be experienced individually and shared collectively. It is an emotion which cannot be hid, real pain cannot be missed. But ever so often we are impervious to the pain of others and selfishly pa...

I was young and foolish once:) I remember when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I was asked to pass around a plate of meatpies. I happily jumped to the task but I devised a method where I used the rules of the house to gain what I thought was a monumental victory! Each time I stopped in front of someone to give them half of a meatpie (the meatpie had been cut into two so everyone present would have a piece),I would spin the plate in such a way that the other party was forced to pick up the piece in front of them. I did this in such a way that I kept what my greedy eyes had selected to be the biggest piece away from everyone else. If the other party attempted to reach out and select this prized piece I would gently remind them to pick the piece in front of them. The rules of the house I had so cunningly used to my advantage were that the person sharing picked the last piece and those being served picked the piece immediately in front of them. Of course at the end of the day I was left to d...

Thanks to Jaycee's tweet (www.lightherlamp.com) I watched this video clip and want to share it with you! A poignant lesson from a Nobel Laureate!

126-130 I am thankful that I am not in charge of deciding the day that I die or the different experiences I have. Im glad that I can go through the days not looking over my shoulder to see if death is around the corner, I can go through life hoping for the best and not running away from painful experiences that are designed to make me grow. I am grateful for His peace in spite of everything around me, a calm mien and a happy heart. I am thankful for all the teachers who have passed across their knowledge throughout my life, Late Mrs Olanihun in Kindergarten, Mrs Olojede, Mr Tetteh, Mr Ampofo, Mrs Jackson and Mrs Ankamah in Primary school, Mrs Onuzo, Mrs Adimorah, Mrs Akinsanmi,Mrs Ugowe and so many more in secondary school and University. I have taken a piece of them everywhere I go and I am who I am because of them all. I am thankful that I can cook and there is food to be cooked! I am grateful for all the things I should be grateful for but cannot list or even remember! Thank you God...