Holy Crap!...I will soon have a 3rd degree

I began this year stating I will blog my heart out.. Well, July is the seventh month and I have only posted 4 shabby write-ups.

I will call them shabby because re-reading them, I wanted to throw my laptop out.

Um, who starts a juicy story in January and abandons it when the story gets sweet??? Who does that???

That is a shabby way of blogging, so no wonder my fan base hasn't hit 1000 after 5 years because I am as guilty of abandonment as I am guilty of shabbiness. He he...lol.. Lock me up and throw away the keys but while you are at it, follow me up on https://www.facebook.com/dadadupeola/ and maybe, just maybe I might hit 1000 followers

Honestly tho, I had this year  planned out. Run my business, blog every month, write a book quarterly... Bla! Bla! Bla!... I thought I had the whole year figured out until BAM! I get admitted into a PHD programme this January and not only did I have to move, I had to gather funds to pursue this dream of mine that started 4 years ago.

In 2014, I had my graduation ceremony after the successful completion of my second degree I started in 2012. That same year, I picked up a form for a 3rd degree hopeful to continue what I had started. I wasn't unemployed, so it was not like I had nothing to do with my time but I enjoyed research. As boring as it might sound, I enjoyed searching for a problem, finding the problem and analyzing different ways to solving the problem. After the analyses, I will have figured out the best way to solve the problem and then solve the goddam problem!

It sounded sooo easy in my head and by God's grace my Master degree was child's play so I wanted to challenge myself further and applied for a Doctorate degree in July 2014.

I purchased the form for 22,500naira and thought I was on my way to getting the degree until they told me that I had to first come up with a proposal. Wait... What?

Nobody told me I needed a proposal before starting a PhD. Nobody ever tells me anything important anyway, so I wasn't surprised. I took  one year to come up with a proposal and in 2015... Hold up, 365 days to come up with a proposal?? Am I that dumb???... First of all, finding a problem takes time...Besides, I wasn't in a hurry...Okay, maybe I was dumbing down my research skills a little... Anyway, In 2015 I was back to the university with my proposal but the form I had purchased had expired so I had to buy another for 22,500naira.

I was working at the time so, big deal... I bought another form... 45,000 naira in 1 year on forms alone....

I had the proposal, had my form in hand and applied again for the PhD program.

Why was I so adamant on starting this program? I do not know till date. The only thing I can say is that once I make my mind up to do something, I will literally not rest. So the pursuit for a PhD degree became more like a tick off my to-do-list than having "PhD" written behind my name...

FYI,  one day I will write on my to-do-list...You will flip when you see what's on my list, even I flip most times when I see it...lol

Moving on, I didn't get the admission until 2016. Why? Well, so many stories that touch between my supervisor and I on my proposal. We went back and forth trying to get the best proposal until I finally came up with something nice. I submitted to the department and it was approved. Yaay!

Unfortunately, I didn't get officially admitted into the University of Lagos for a doctorate degree until July 2017.

Sigh, remember this journey started in 2014.

 Three years is the normal duration of a PhD program but I was using the 3 years in getting the admission. I said, I was working and earning money the whole time so big deal!.

Finally, the admission meant the program was to start in July 2017 but my admission said the session was 2016/2017 not 2017/2018. Let me break this for you so you understand this, what the session 2016/2017 meant is that as at July 2017 when my admission letter is issued, I was 7 months behind in my first year.

That wasn't the only heartbreak I experienced, to crown it, they gave me the bill for my tuition, accommodation and research budget. The figure made me fall sick for 1 week.

Where was I going to raise that money????

Do not even remind me I was working... Do not!

It was a huge deal!!!

Yes, I was working, but no I wasn't earning millions or saving the whole bloody salary.

I couldn't afford the program. Except I rob a bank and that wasn't even a choice.

Sigh...

So, I went to my supervisor with my tail in my mouth and told him how poor I was. It was a sad story. Even I wept for me and how my retired parents cannot... will not... pay for such rubbish.

I was expecting my supervisor to call someone who will throw me out as garbage from his office but...

To God be the glory, God's grace was upon me that day and i got unmerited favour. My supervisor looked at me strong and hard and told me how stupid I was.

"You started this journey 4years ago and didn't think of your finances?" he said. "Do you know you came out with a distinction?" he continued

Wait..what???


Going back 2014 after my graduation ceremony all i requested for was my certificate. It did not occur to me to check my CGPA, I was just glad the program was over and I was graduating.

" No sir". I replied coming with my thoughts back from the year 2014
" Well, after I received your admission they sent your transcript to the department and I saw you came out with a distinction. This means you can get scholarships abroad" . My supervisor said smiling.

Abroad??

The abroad??

Enter-a-plane-and-leave-the-country, abroad??

There is no Nigerian who has hustled the way I have and hear the word "abroad" and not light up because foreign money is the best dibs.

I wiped my tears at the possibilities of leaving the country... The earth was yielding its increase for me.

Psalm 67: 6 The earth has yielded its increase; God, my God, shall bless me.

While in my supervisor's office, he makes a call and informs the person at the other end that he had a student whom he will like to refer to for a doctorate degree. He gets off the phone informing me that I had a supervisor and all i had to do was get money to migrate.

Money to migrate ke?? Well, how i gathered the money is story for another day...

Just like that! Tuition, accommodation and research budget was all free of charge.

Just like that!

I will never forget leaving his office filled with new hope of having something else to tick off my to-do-list....

The rest they say, was history.


Crap...I am on my way to having a 3rd degree #ThankYouJesus

Based on Logistics

Happy Love Month

This is the month to show love, Yaay! But it has always been the season of my becoming single. I know it sounds cheesy but February is the month where I test the relationship I am in and decide whether to push forward or let go.  I cannot count how many relationships I have disconnected from after trying to make work but it doesn’t just end well no matter how I try, I read books, follow they-say advice, communicate, sacrifice... I have done everything needed, still, nothing works.

Yesterday, my dad and I spoke and I could see the disappointment in his eyes and fear in his voice. He and my mum have tried their best to model the values of the family to my siblings and me but I am the one who has shown no sign of success in that department. He is disappointed, I could tell, but he didn’t say it. What else do I want him to do to prove that family comes first? What?

Well, if I could talk back which I can’t, I will tell him...

"Pray for me, pray I find my way because nothing can be done than love me either way."

My rollercoaster love life starts when I dated at 15. I said yes to my first real boyfriend at that age and so far I have had over 10 years dating experience in relationships. If this was job experience, at 10years; I should be an executive by now, fulfilled, and well paid and comfortable. Instead, I am single and not in a hurry to jump into relationships based on my wealth of experiences.

I have tried to make it work with as many that I have dated but it doesn’t just work and I will keep trying but I won’t make a love interest permanent until I am sure, positive and God led to do so.

A former toaster teased me that maybe I do not pray enough. Wait... What? After that rubbish talk, I stopped communicating with him. First, I didn’t date him because he was violent. When he gets angry, he threatens to hit whatever makes him angry and one day, he pulled through on his threat; I hope his wife knows this... Digressing; who in the world aligned the word toaster with a love interest? Buhahahahahahaha...They should have called it washing machine stead. lol

Second, he thinks his prayers made him married and not God’s mercy. Those words expose his spiritual immaturity and that is a big turn off for me. Prayer is the master key to everything but it only open doors God assigned to you. If God did not create that door of opportunity for you, if you pray from now till forever, nothing will change except God has mercy on you.

Do you think religious men who lose their children to sickness or accident do not pray enough? Or barren women who do not bear children did not spend most of their youth praying for a miracle. Atheists do not believe in God and do not pray, yet their dreams and aspirations come true. How do you explain that? 

Romans 9: 16 put this discussion into perspective “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy.”

God has given us everything we have whether we want to admit it. If He doesn’t want you to have it, it doesn’t mean He doesn’t love you or your life won’t still be great. It means He has other plans for you with a good expected end so you have to trust Him and focus on what He has given you so you can live a happy life.

Back to our discussion, as a woman, society has made our existence defined by our ability to find a man, have children and stay with a man. I am not a feminist so I won’t argue against the societal norm but I will argue in favour of the exceptions to this norm. There are wildings; me, who have tried to make this social norm our reality but have failed. Wildings have become frustrated, depressed and bitter while others, I,  inclusive have looked within to realize that we are not failures just because we can’t fall in love with a man and stay with him forever. There is something we thrive in and that is what we must focus on until we succeed in the societal norm and if we never succeed in this so-called normal, at least we get to live a great life.

Statistics: I need not exert myself too much to succeed in academics and I have succeeded and failed but I have succeeded more than I have failed compared to relationships where I have failed more than I have succeeded.

My calculating self never repeated a class, but I passed my senior school leaving certificate examination with “CS” and “DS” and I had to take “GCE” to boost my WAEC results and then I took Jamb 3times before I passed on the 4^th try... I know right sucks, crap but that was my wake-up call tho.

This young svelte got admission to a polytechnic; Yaba College of Technology studying Estate Management and my first-year CGPA results were in an upper credit. I left after my first year to study Ceramic art at the Federal University of Technology Akure and graduated after 5years with a Second Class Upper degree. Afterwards, I went to take a master degree at the University of Lagos studying Ceramic/Materials Engineering and I graduated with distinction and an international publication to my name at the prestigious Journal of Materials (JOM) and now I am pursuing a doctorate degree. Based on this logistics, I have studied Estate Management, Art and Engineering finishing the recent degree strong and bagging a distinction; the harder it became, the better I got by God’s grace and mercy.

 So with everything I have written, and you were me, so far, you have succeeded in academics and least successful in relationships, which will you pursue further?

Well, wisdom is profitable to direct, and I have made it my map to figuring out the way I should go.

FYI: As from now on when you meet wildlings, instead of being a bully by talking/thinking crap about how they should be married or looking down on them or making them feel like they are rejects, why don’t you just   ... Pray for them, pray they find their way; love them either way because they are no less female than the married ones and if you can’t do the aforementioned, get the hell out of their faces and lives.

Share the word! Shine your light!

Nothing but ..The Truth

My mother’s sister called me on my sidekick - my mobile palasa phone - Thursday this week. My Aunt has been out of the country and just came back, so she went to see her sister. She told me when I picked her phone call that my mom keeps mentioning my name in their conversations worried. She didn’t let my aunt rest even when she told her I was okay. “So please tell her yourself that you are okay,” my Aunty said and handed the phone to my mother. It is incredible how my mother does this every time when I am not okay but as usual, I will put up my best show and tell her “Mummy, I am fine”. She will ask "are you sure?” And my epic response will be “Yes”...  Lies! Lies! Lies! Sigh

When I said this story was my story, I lied...  This story will be nothing without the one who carried me for nine months in her womb...Trust me; it is not as easy as women make it look.

To put it in a nutshell, I have been lying about my emotions for a long time but I see them as constructive lies not destructive. There are white lies and terrible lies but in moral justifications; a lie is a lie. So the truth and nothing but the truth is; I am not fine...Oh, not that truth, the real truth and nothing but the truth is; this story will be nothing without telling the story of my mother. She was the one who sacrificed everything so I can be here today. She is a fighter, strong headed... Not stubborn but strong-willed and holding on to what she believes in... These attributes remind me of me tho... lol

It is important to note that she had it tough and wanted me to be better, to get better, to have better and live better. She wanted me to have what she never fully accomplished; Education. Her life’s journey begins when she gains admission into the University of Lagos as a diploma student in mass communications. She is a young Muslim, hot chocolate, beautiful, who had a dazzling future behind her that most men adored... if you know what I am saying; winks!

She was the first child ever of her mother and had a brother but she lost her father when she was 12years old and her mother remarried and had 2more children afterwards.

She had to grow up fast, helping her mother raise her stepsisters, so she didn’t get to be a child for too long. The responsibility was so massive on her that by the time she is 18, my mummy was with a pressing need for her to start her own family but she enrols into the university stead then meets a Muslim man who liked what he saw behind her very much....he hehe...Her backside, like her daughters, was glorious to behold. In no time, my mother was pregnant, and he was telling her to drop out and become his 3^rd wife. “Wait... What?” My mother must have said.

To add to it, my mother’s father was a Muslim but he loved every religion so he found nothing wrong with enrolling my mother in a Catholic boarding school. My mother often went home during the holidays when her father died so the Muslim ways of a man having 4wives and loving them equally were not what she was raised to know. She would not be a third wife so she and her baby daddy fought a lot. He wanted her married before she showed and my mother would not have any of it. My mom said the fights got so serious that one fateful day, the man beat her to stupor and she lost the babies. My mother said it was so much of a traumatic experience for her she became withdrawn. My mother broke off the relationship and turned to partying and drinking. Well, it was when she was out clubbing one day months after her ordeal she met my father. 

One day, I found a black-and-white picture of my mother in her youth. She was wearing a mono strap white top - One hand strap - and a pair of tight jeans with stilettos, holding a cigarette in her left hand with her friends. God knows I couldn’t ask my churchgoing, cover your whole body with clothing, holy ghost fire spitting mother at the time about the picture I found but I can just imagine it was something close to what she was wearing in the picture she had on the day she met my father.

She was out hanging out with friends in a party when her female friend introduced her to a tall slim, handsome, witty Yoruba demon who will later become my father. My dad was taken over by my mother and he couldn’t get his eyes off her behind.

She liked the attention too and didn’t mind getting more of it so when my dad asked her on a date she said “Hell Yes”.

He was in her department, the same program. There had been so many students in the class so they had not met each other until that day at the party.

My dad was a sleek, royalty from Ekiti State who left attending lectures to those who needed it. The cool kid, so smooth and intelligent passed without wearing glasses or showing up for lectures. Women loved him and my mother was no different; my dad brought a new swag to her life and in no time she was pregnant with his baby... lol

He had a girlfriend at the time and things went Ludacris from there.  My dad wanted to be a Lawyer and hoped that after his diploma he will enrol for a degree program in law but all that became mere wishes when he realised he would be a daddy. He broke up with his girlfriend and found a job. 

There was an opening at the National Television Authority (NTA) and my daddy applied and was accepted into the organization.

He made money and had enough to rent an apartment and have a small but cute wedding ceremony. My dad’s dream of becoming a lawyer had to take a backseat and when he graduated with a diploma certificate in hand, he went in full time into working at NTA and that will be where he will retire 30years later.

To be continued...

The Best Mistake Ever!!

Sipping on chocolate milkshake thinking Fridays has never been so good for blogging, sigh. I remember going on and on how I want to write on my past, so let me take you through memory lane.

I shared this story with a guy recently and he argued with me that there were loopholes in my story. 

At first, I didn’t care because I was having so much fun just talking to him but after I got home and recapped the day’s event; I saw the loopholes myself. So if you find it, just smile at it, no need to buttress your point of discovery because, this story is my story and I can tell it the way I consider fit; I can say I fell out of the sky if I want to and you will just have to take my word for it. lol

Moving on, my journey began many decades ago. My mother had two children; a girl and a boy and my Father content he had finished the burden of childbearing but wasn’t finished with the process if you know what I mean. Winks!

So on a fateful Yuletide season when everyone was merry and happy, my parents took their happiness to another level way above normal for family planning specifications and they conceived me.

The boy asked if I was a mistake. First, no child is a mistake. Even if I wasn’t planned; I am not admitting that I wasn’t planned. I am just stating facts. It qualifies no child being called a mistake. Call me spontaneous or not adventitious but not a mistake, never call me a mistake.

Then why does my title say "Best Mistake Ever??" Well, only I can call myself a mistake and not get lynched... he he he

You can roll your eyes, it's your eyes not mine...But don't just forget never to call me a mistake because God never makes mistakes. 

To make the long story short, in medical terms my mother had cryptic pregnancy; she didn't know she was pregnant until she was more than 8moths gone. Then, one day at work she slumps and they rush her to the hospital. My mother sits at the reception thinking she had stomach flu only to hear “Madam, you need to get something to eat so that your baby doesn’t starve”

“Baby?” My mother must have asked the doctor.

“Yes, you are 8months pregnant," The Doctor must have replied

“No, Doctor I can’t be pregnant. Even if I am pregnant, how do I tell my husband I am due next month with a child he didn’t even know exists?” My mummy must have asked again... She was a journalist so asking questions is her forte and I know the doctor was put under my mother’s award-winning microscopic string of questioning.

What I don’t know till date is how, when and where she told my daddy she was pregnant. Nobody wants to give me the details, but I am guessing my daddy didn’t take it well because I spent my 1^st year living alone with my mother who was camping at my uncle’s place.

To be continued...

New Year Resolution



Happy New Year...

I thought long and hard about what I will write this year since I was absent for most part of last year but nothing came. Blank! Zilch! Nothing!

My mind has been going through many things, trying to balance and still no inspiration to write anew or finish whatever I wrote many years ago. The good news is I have decided that since I can’t write for the future, I will document the past.

The journey that has brought me to this point of a severe writer’s block where I carry a pen and pare around and still can’t find one word to write. 

A stage where even when I get inspired, my very critical self pushes everything aside and before I can reach a pen and paper, I can’t remember what it was I wanted write.

I may not have the future to write but I have the past and as much as I have tried to push it aside, forget and move on, it still follows me where ever I go. It beckons on me to refer to it when the past repeats itself; it tries to control whatever future I have left.

 Everyone has a past; I have heard. So why do I think mine is juicy enough? Well, I don’t but it is all I have and I plan on starting with what I have and maybe, just maybe, I can progress from there.  

What is in for you? You may ask. Um, my story may not be a novel price winning- started-from-the- bottom- now- I-am- here a kind of story but trust me, it is juicy and I will tell it. I can write a mini biography off it someday.

I spent most of last year praying and reading the bible less. A stage where I needed to be broken, I was in a place where I needed God so much I knew I could not go further without Him and I was being such a disobedient child it amazes me how His mercy kept me despite my transgressions... Then I read the bible again this year and it hit me; the apostles recorded their past why don’t I do the same.

Tada!

There, you have the reason behind my new found love for jotting down experiences and off course not forgetting how the Lord works in mysterious ways.

 I hope you enjoy reading as much as I will enjoy writing.

Share the love , Shine the light

Novel by DadaDupeola - You RIP what you sow AT THIRTY ---Chapter 8

Chapter 8

King Tyre

Scientists call pregnancy a biological process to give something they can't explain a name but everyone knows conception and the birth of a child is a miracle. One hundred million of sperms released for only one to achieve its goal. What are the odds of that happening?  What if the egg is not open for business at the right time when the lucky single sperm wanders its way into the Fallopian tubes?

No one can explain how a child is formed in the womb for  nine months for-instance boiling raw egg in water for a few minutes and when it's done like pregnancy, you get something solid.

 Babies are pure miracles and when born, a star lights up in the sky to celebrate its success.

So every human being owns a star up in the sky. Baby Jesus had one, and those after him were no exception. Curiously, if you follow a star, you are sure to find the location of the baby it belongs.


Amongst these stars, two stars fight daily for these miracles; the  day star and the morning star, good and evil.

 So if miracles do exist, it's safe to imply that these stars exists too.

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Celestial images begin to form as one moves swiftly in the darkness. The King of Tyre; hasn't had a wink of sleep ever since he lost the war thousands of years ago. The feeling of defeat burns through his entire form so he must get as many souls as he can to be ruined with him when the time comes.

He hasn't accepted total defeat even if he knows inevitable. He let one little star slip by him thousands of years ago and it cost him the keys to his abode and without the keys he had no chance of winning the upcoming war. He is a sore loser, and that makes him angry, ruthless and evil. So, day and night he looks desperately for those naïve enough to join him in his lost quest for victory and his job gets easier with each passing generation.

The Tyre King glides through the walls and makes an abrupt stop. He has been summoned by fools willing to trade souls for something superficial and he wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

If this humans knew what they had inside of them was more precious than what they seek. Fortunately, what he seeks they have and what they seek he has, so for decades they just exchange one for the other.

The irony is that what he has to give is temporary but what they give him in exchange is eternal but that's their loss not his.

He reaches his destination and watches a group of men in a circle wearing only wrappers enchanting something stupid at 2 in the morning. They have blood in the center of their gathering and they won't stop the chants until something happens.

So the King raises the pail of blood placed in their middle and perceives it. The group can only see the pail rising and they increase their chants knowing that the King they summoned is in their midst.

Tyre King smells the blood. It is the blood of a human being just as he requests. What a waste of life, he thinks to himself and flings the pail on the floor to grab the attention of the men.

The men stop chanting and they all bow down with their faces to the ground.

It is a pathetic sight because they were greater than he was but looking at them worship him aroused his ego.

"What do you want," the Tyre King asked

One of the men, whom he is conversant with and they refer to as babalawo raises his head and speaks.

"Some seek money, another political power and the others seek children," The babalawo says

"What do i get in return?" The Tyre Kings asks rolling his eyes

"Eternal devotion and whatever else you ask for," The babalawo responds

"I want more blood," the Tyre kings says even if he has no use of it but just the thought of these stupid beings killing themselves for something trivial makes him happy.

"They have brought me the blood of complete strangers. I want them to bring family members. Only then, will i oblige," The King Tyre says as he brings out his journal and counts the souls present,they were fifty in number.

Just fifty souls? If he wants to win the war he needs more than fifty souls a minute. He wasn't happy with the turn out of souls and this makes him angry.

"I want more blood," Tyre yells as bars of iron from the graveyard where they were flew around and slashes through some of the men with wrappers as they fall to their death.

"Oh well, they were as good as dead anyway," the King tyre thought to himself and leaves their midst.