18 Days – Invalid

Right, so, as Azuri, so nicely pointed out, I slacked in the countdown. No fault of mine, I’ve actually been down with what turned out to be a combined mess of typhoid AND malaria. Trust me now, I don’t do things small time.

I got to work on Wednesday, feeling great, looking good, expecting a later visit from a certain someone, and even though I was swamped, NOTHING could dampen my mood. So I popped out for a late breakfast, came back and…

Felt like crap. I couldn’t believe it. I was suddenly weak and irritable. Everywhere hurt and I couldn’t think. This change happened so quickly I thought it was something else. Maybe I was sleepy. Maybe I’d eaten too much? Nope, that wasn’t it. An hour later, all I wanted to do was wave my magic wand and appear at home. Needless to say I was unproductive for the rest of the day. I ignored all my calls from the people I had jobs pending for, and fought sleep for 2 hours until Darkman came and helped me kill 2 and a half hours before closing time. I had work to do, but who cared? I had the attention span of a goldfish that evening anyway.

Thursday, I stayed home. That was a double edged sword. Sure I got to sleep it off but the parental harassment, I could have lived without. At the end of the day, I pulled myself out of bed around 12, upset I had to cut off on watching my ‘Deathnote’ and head to a lab (where the woman missed my vein 3 times and caused me pain beyond measureto prove what my mum had predicted last week. Yippee *eye roll* I don’t know what’s up with my health these days.

Could have stayed home today, but I don’t need that drama. But drama I KNOW I’m gonna have. I came in saw TEN missed calls on my extension and 20-something mails. 1 from my manager chastising me for not letting her know I was not coming in to work, and and another one from one of the many job-owners. Oh, yay.

To add to the issues, my dad’s not going back to Agbara tonight, so I can’t go out with my friends (he kinda banned me from staying over anywhere ever, not my fault, pinkie swear).

Due to my crappy mood, I don’t much feel like talking about Christmas. Maybe tomorrow. Cos word on the grapevine is… yup, you guessed it – I may have to work n SATURDAY.

Time to Stop Being a Slacker

Yeah, so, after Eji insulted me yesterday that I’d only posted twice in the past month, i decided that maybe it was time for me to stop being a mushy little girl and get back on the blogging horse.

I admit it. I have no excuse. Let me lay it out there: I met a guy (who we’re gonna call … uh… Darkman … cos he’s really dark and I’m very uncreative this afternoon), and all of a sudden, there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE I wanted to talk about. Nothing at all. I mean, I tried… I would start a post, but… halfway, it’ll be like I was just trying to appease someone and not my best of writing, so I just said, ‘Screw it’.

It’s been just over 2 months since we met, and for those of you that care, it’s coming along GREAT. I’ve liked about 5 guys in my life: One didn’t know I existed, one was a total retard, and till today I don’t know what I was thinking; one was a lech; one was unavailable and one was an arrogant a*hole, I just chose to ignore it.

Now, I’m not going to spend this entire post gushing at this oh-so-wonderful person I met and how it seems for the first time… um, ever… that I’m involved with a guy I actually like and his main priority isn’t either a) a quick shag now and then or b)making me miserable for no real reason.

Then again, maybe I am. Might as well get it off my chest and be done with it, so that I can once again bless your pc screens with my infinite words of wisdom and wit.

Right now, however, I appear to be the battleground for a war between Malaria and Fansidar. I took it yesterday (and with each passing hour I realize why my inner instinct had been putting off the dreaded moment) and it’s been an ‘exciting’ new experience ever since. First was the irritable stomach, then the nausea, which has refused to go away, the dizzy spells, the general lack of enthusiasm to do ANYTHING, and the THIRST, oh God, the THIRST. Unfortunately, I’m too irritable to take too much water at a time, so I think I’m dehydrating. Doesn’t help that my cubicle is suddenly hot as hell due to some new machines… As I type this, I feel a growing neck and headache.

With all this drama, I would have been better off doing what I normally do for malaria: NOTHING. Just sleep for a couple of days till it got bored and left for another year or so. At least then I won’t have had to come to work. I blame this Anthony of a place. It’s got mosquitoes for days and if you choose to stand outside for more than 2 minutes at night, you’re on your own.
Also happening as I type, I’ve got an impending lunch date with a colleague I would have preferred not to have lunch with. He’s one of those extroverted, ‘look-at-me’ types who, during our first conversation in the staff bus, he said he was not going to let me sleep and that I had a funny nose. WTF? I mean, yeah, you’re friendly, we get it. But there’s such a thing as OTT. Back off. Anyway, on seeing my new phone some weeks later, he said I had to ‘wash’ it, and has been bugging me everyday ever since. So, at this point, it’s like, I might as well get it over with. Just hope he doesn’t aske me to come over to his place again.

Speaking of work, I’m working too hard these days. Ok, not really, but I’m working a lot harder than I ought to, considering as I’m supposed to be working with FOUR other people! I’ve now resorted to sleeping in the office before official opening time (considering as I get there by 6.30, you can’t blame me). I suppose making 2-3 hour midnight calls – on a weeknight – doesn’t help.

It’s called an addiction, people.

I’m hungry again. For the first time in … EVER… I ate full plate of rice, plantain and chicken for BREAKFAST. And now, i crave a Munchies roll. Mmm, roll… Might as well go for that lunch date, kill 2 birds with one stone, eh?

Feeling Good… Lazy, But Good.

Yeah, so… I’m at work. On Monday, I felt a bit silly for coming back when I hadn’t gotten called, but hey, I felt guilty that I had run off at a critical time.

I needn’t have bothered. Apparently, a fourth person was hired in my brief absence. But it was still good to be back to my beloved RSS Feeds. I spent about an hour and a half clearing my mails, and going through my feeds. No small task, I tell you.

Tuesday morning, I felt especially good that we had a lot more work on our plates, and even though I wasn’t assigned the job I really wanted (re-design of the company site … I already had great plans for that, sigh), it felt good to be busy. But for some reason, I wasn’t inspired to do it, and at the end of the day I didn’t start it proper till about 2 (3 hours after I was given), when I plugged in my earphones and got at it.

This morning, I’m feeling rather motivated to once again work on my blog’s layout, but I can’t … cos I’m at work. Dammit. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’ve been saying I would change it for AGES. I actually had something. But it took me so much time to design (thanks to NYSC), I got bored with it… Oops. So, it seems I may have to start from scratch. Again.

Don’t worry, it’s going to be worth the wait.

I’m also considering making a weekly comic (something I haven’t done in oh, 5 or 6 years)…. good idea?

In Good Company

Yeah, so I’m all good. Apparently. After a dreary lunch, D called and told me that he won’t be leaving early after all, so I got to go home with him.

It was a bit of a shock to open the car door and see him wearing some silly sky blue face cap, advertising some new product. It looked even sillier considering he was wearing a shirt and a tie. I had been hiding a smile before I got in, but the cap was a good excuse to let it all out. He, however, refused to be deterred and refused to take it off, claiming he’d been wearing it most of the day, and his colleagues thought he looked cool.

(This would have been good, if his colleagues didn’t apparently half-worship him, giving more to fuel the fire that is his over-inflated EGO.) I told him I was a true friend, and I won’t lie to him, but he said I should. Ah well.

Needless to say it was the company I had so needed. I felt a lot better when I got home, and I made the mistake of telling him. He believes its his charm.

Right.

Work sucks, as usual. And I’ve officially written it off for the week. My colleague slept for like an hour, and then had the audacity to attack me when I popped out later. She said ‘there was work to do’.

*eye roll* 

Now What?

So, I’m very pensive at the moment. And I don’t know what caused this. Maybe it’s a couple of things that went down during the weekend, maybe it’s the impending end of my NYSC, and the official start of my adult life, or maybe it’s just a very random mood swing I’m experiencing, or maybe it’s even the really tight shoes I’m wearing that’s stopping the flow of happy hormones to my head. I don’t know.

All I know is, I’m not very happy. There really isn’t that much to be UNHAPPY about, but I’m not really happy nonetheless.

So, D stops work this week, which means I’ve officially lost my good, free ride to work. That upset me more than it should have, and I’ve been thinking of a better way to get to work on time that doesn’t involve waking up at 4.45am to catch the staff bus, or entering hot public transport. Yeah, a car one again, has never looked so good. And what’s going to happen to our wild drive-home conversations???

There were also plans to move in with a friend come September, which would have been so good for me, cos it would have meant a shorter distance to work, AND a shot at independence. But a  couple of things are getting in the way, like parents who don’t know how to let go, and finances.

Also, D abandoned me today to go somewhere, so I have to take the staff bus home. Sigh. It’s already feeling like I have no ride, and it’s miserable. To add to my discontent, we still have a bloody rat at home, and I’m not in a hurry to go there.

Then, there was something that happened in the past 48 hours that I’ve been running over and over in my head. I’ve been accused of thinking too hard about things, and maybe I do. But I can’t help it. I have too many things in my life that I already regret doing, I don’t need to add a lot more to prove a point to anybody. Unfortunately, I still seem to be a victim of my own stupid choices. So, when it comes down to it, the question is, do I STOP thinking things through so much, and throw a little caution to the wind, or keep this foolishness up?

I’m just neither here or there, right now. I’m unhappy. I need something new and refreshing to happen. And it’s really annoying.

NYSC, Strange Parties and Potter!

Hmm, I guess I appeared sooner than I expected. Considering the events of Friday, I feel it might be even longer before I resume work.

It was HELL. People were pushing, screaming, cursing and fighting. And to make things worse. It was RAINING. I couldn’t believe it. I was soaked to the skin, looking well and ready for a wet t-shirt competition, water was slushing around in my over-sized boots, and my hair turned to frizz. I did a lot of things, but after 4 hours of standing, i finally made it into the Zonal Inspector’s office.

I was turned into an improptu errand girl, told to go and get free mosquito nets for all the officers. At least, it gave me the opportunity to help out a friend. I gave her some of the nets, and after much swearing and squeezing, we got in again.

Just so I’ll be told that I have to do 4 more weeks. I had a flash of emotion where I thought I was going to cry, then it passed and I became sadly impassive. Later on, though, a bunch of us with the same issue pleaded and reasoned, and one of the officers told us not to worry, that we should just come back Monday after everyone has gotten their clearance.

I can’t do another month. The domino effect of that is too large to think about. It will be hell for me to get my certificate after pass out day, and my office will continue to treat me like a corper till I can show it to them.

Sigh. Afterwards, though we went to B’s house, where her sister mistakenly locked the car keys in the car, and also forgot it in gear, so we couldn’t move it. It was hilarious. We sat on the curb, waving down any Camry that passed to see if we could use their keys. At the end of the day, we had to get a panel beater to jack the car.

Some more friends came over after getting back too late from Convenant’s grad, and around 10 we decided to go for some birthday party for a classmate I hadn’t seen in 5 years. Only in her house.

We got lost. But i’ve never had so much fun getting lost. B’s sister was high for some reason and we laughed all the way there. The party was full of FREAKS. All the guys were oddly high and i think, a bit immature, and tended to harass us with BAD lines and even worse dance moves. The DJ was drunk and played the same songs over and over again.

We gave up at after 12 and went home to discuss the mess that was the party’s guests.

Saturday was a blur of picture-taking and being forgotten while B went off cavorting with her bf. Me and her sister spent some minutes feeling sorry for ourselves and truly mystified at why we were still single at that point.

I got HARRY POTTER today. Can’t wait to go home and lie down with it. It cost me half of what I own, but I don’t care. He’s worth it. 🙂

It’s Finally Over

So, this is probably going to be my last post for a bit. We started Final Clearance (for NYSC) today and I probably won’t be at work for a while. I’m feeing an almost proportional mix of JOY and MISERY. Joy, cos, duh, it’s over, and Misery cos of the HORROR involved. I haven’t even started yet, and things aren’t looking promising. 

First of all, there’s that itsy-bitsy situation of the 1-month extension I was given for re-posting so late. BASTARDA! And it wasn’t even my fault! Curse Intercontinental! And while we’re at it, curse NYSC! I’m just hoping and praying that it will be waived.

Secondly, on getting to the local government today…Late, I saw that my number was among those listed for starting WORK late i.e. January. So, my file was seized, and I have to show up tomorrow to GROVEL. I don’t even know what to do about that.

We’re almost over 4000 in Lagos alone, and just the thought of going to secetariat to do the final thing gives me the heebie jeebies.

But on the flipside. IT’s OVER. And that means 2 things: 1. No more khaki. and 2. A chunkier salary, hell yeah.

Wish me luck, elbow grease, and PATIENCE.

Peace.

One With The Art

I’m crazy mad with anticipation right now. I just want to do something CREATIVE. We were having a dry spell at work today (one of many), and I decided to explore my new Adobe Bridge CS3. It’s so cool. I’m not sure if it was working with the Internet connection, it probably was. But anyway, for all them designers out there, it’s a great place to look for inspiration and tutorials. Unfortunately, you have to install an Adobe product e.g. Photoshop or Dreamweaver to get it, and most of the links go online, so if you don’t have a moderately speedy connection, you may get impatient.

One of the sites that I found via the Bridge is The FWA -Favourite Websites Awards . Awesome site with some of the most creative flash sites you’re gonna see. Also, another fast Internet warning.

After some exploration and my usual daily browse of Deviantart’s design and interfaces section (take a gander at my GALLERY), I felt myself really itching to get back to my wild experimentations with design again. I haven’t really had that opportunity since I started work back in January, and sadly, most of the nice stuff I DO start end up hanging, for instance, Snow White Gets Even. It’s turning out to be one of the best paintings I’ve ever done, and definitely the friggin longest to complete.

I need like, a week off from work, going out, and whatever. Just me, Photoshop, some nice earphones to shut off the world and some food; bonding the way we were meant to. Sigh.

Weddings Blow

So, this past weekend re-affirmed in me three things:

1. The only wedding I ever REALLY want to attend is my own.
2. I REALLY can’t stand the tarts I work with.
3. I am NOT having babies. Naturally.

Please, let me elaborate. So, Saturday, I was up sharpish cos I had to head down to Apapa for my boss’s wedding (the woman actually asked us to come there the evening before by SIX for a meeting, such selfishness, does she know where I live???). And because I am who I am, a freak for coming on time, I got to the reception area way on time, in the pouring rain. God, I’m too friggin dedicated. Even the bride was still around. Yup, she was 30 minutes late for her own wedding. I swore that this was not going to happen at mine. I hate tardiness.

I came in jeans but changed to a pretty lil thing I wore for my grad, with the silent hope that if I had to be here, let there be to least a few fine boys. I was disappointed. I had to thus sit through the whole wedding, be mostly ignored, just so that I would get to the reception and everyone would act like I was late. Oh, the insult. I told the other women that I was actually the first to arrive, but since they were tarrying I went over to the church.

I was an usher. And I stood for ages in heels, enduring old men’s calls and serving food and drinks. Want to see irony? I didn’t get any kip! Believe it. I waited till everyone had eaten, like the rest of the ushers, but somehow, when I went to the kitchen, some weird white guy with an odd accent started giving me a lecture about how the couple only paid for 250 people, and so far they had served 362 plate,s he was going to charge… bla …bla…

I didn’t care so much so I left. However, I did get a complimentary mug! It was very organized, and very cozy.  I want mine like that. But with fewer people. Don’t need folks I don’t know or care about coming to my special day cos they’re looking for free food. Freeloaders! Yeah, it’s inevitable. You go to a wedding, you think about yours.

My colleagues, esp that older cow, kept looking at me and then giggling to another woman. It was cute at first, then it got annoying to the point that if she did it ONE MORE TIME, I would have said something … (*sigh*) You’d think she wasn’t a married woman.

Another thing struck me this weekend. Babies. Yeah, it was just one of those weekends. But that’s for another post.

Did I mention my sister got chickenpox? Well, she did. Was home since Wednesday, and I wouldn’t go near her with a 5 foot pole. Cos I admit, I am very attached to my skin. Probably the most rest she’s gotten since starting at that weird bank some months ago.

Laying It Out

I have a bunch of things on my mind right now, so there might be some excessive posting today. Bear with me.

Just got this sexy new app: Windows Live Writer, which I use to post without opening Blogger, and dealing with my nosy colleagues looking at my blog. It also allows you to post in a Live Preview so you see how it would look published without refreshing and drafting. Cool, huh? Check it out.

Also, I’ve found myself growing more and more impatient with my layout. I mean, the whole black thing is sexy and all, but Blogger is not giving me that flexibility I want, and I swear, I do NOT have the patience to deal with the new Blogger template. I’m sure it would make a lot of sense if I took time to analyze it, but… why…? So, lately, I’ve been looking around at other blogging sites, many of which would easily import my posts from here to there, and have more features. So, what am I waiting for?

A re-direct page. It’ll be a shame to lose my dear readers due to a move. And besides, I actually really want my own website. But I’m still suffering from designer’s block. Maybe it’s the stupid tarts I work with that are killing my flow.

Then again, they probably are.