My Discovery of the Essential 2p's...

Spending over 13 hours in the laboratory last Friday taught me two essential things in life I now call the 2p’s; patience and persistence. I realised that I had been lying to myself all along as being the patient type and also someone who kept pressing on. Truth is, I run away from challenges and give myself the excuse that it looks like God is giving me a sign to look elsewhere.

I was in the lab trying to turn a thick pudding into a less viscous and a flowing beverage by the addition of enzymes but anytime I added the enzyme to the pudding, it made the pudding very watery and was therefore unacceptable. This meant I had to prepare another pudding and add the enzyme and wait for an extra 40 minutes to make it work only for it to turn out watery again. I must admit that I was really angry, frustrated, confused and hungry. All I had in my stomach was the breakfast I took which I couldn’t even finish because I was running late for the lab. That was unacceptable, not forgetting the time I had to spend on blending a full bucket of tiger nuts and extracting its juice all alone. Recording every detail of the work was also another thing I never had to forget. Hell in the lab! I nearly gave up after working for 160 minutes and on the third sample without getting any results. Suddenly something struck me; I could hear someone telling me to press on because I have nowhere to run to this time. “You either do this work or you don’t graduate” was what I could hear. The thought of not graduating if the work is not done made me feel butterflies in my stomach suddenly, I felt weak at that moment and very much confused but I remember something strange I did; I spoke to the tiger nut pudding. “I will make you work, you can’t let me down” was all I said and I was set for a whole new procedure. I tried again but this time round, I changed the time range from 40 minutes to 30 minutes. The end result was worse! You should’ve seen me at that moment; I was going bananas in the lab and to tell you the time it was 7:15pm, no food in my stomach. Hmm, the thought of it even makes me tear up. I was so done with this experiment and now was the time to look for a plan B; a story to tell me supervisor since I didn’t want him to see me as a failure or someone less. I sat on a lab stool idle for close to 20 minutes just thinking of an excuse but anytime I thought of one, a likely question to be asked by my supervisor popped up. Then I had an idea! I decided to do the work again using an alternative method but that would take an extra 1hour and 10minutes. I was devastated, waiting for another 70 minutes seemed impossible to me, my legs were shaking, my lips were dry and I was hungry but I was determined to get some results. I got up with my last strength and got on the job, I did it with all my might and lo and behold! It didn’t work, funny huh? Now, I just stood there laughing, I was laughing out loud not knowing what I was laughing at. I bet someone would think I had gone crazy and to admit I thought that too. Then my angel appeared, how? A professor leaving his office opened the doors of the lab when he noticed the lights were on to see who was there. When he set his eyes on me, he just smiled and said, “Research is not for the lazy but it is for the person who is determined to see a change.” He looked at the sheets I recorded my values on and said, “what you are doing is absolute torture, if you can’t get results go home”.Ok, so an excuse to stop working, I thought.  As I was cleaning the apparatus and discarding my samples after an unsuccessful work, I found out something. I just had to do a plus or minus calculation of the enzyme to water ratio, that meant I had to do some serial dilutions and bam! It worked like magic! How I wish you were there to see how I danced. I was screaming like a lady who had been given a diamond ring by her lover. Aww, now the tears I held on begun to flow freely but this time it was out of joy. I could never stop praising the Lord for the new thing He has taught me. For one night in the past weeks, I slept well not thinking of tiger nuts.

Fact is, I’ve learnt many things from what I went through on Friday. I now understand why people say everyday is a new life experience. I’m now a happy girl who can’t wait to show her values obtained and graphs to her supervisor. Indeed, patience and persistence are all you need when things seem impossible. People say patience is a virtue but I now say patience and persistence are amazing virtues.

If these two virtues wouldn’t kill, why not make them a part of your life? Well, they’re a part of my life now and they are here to stay. I know that for sure!   

Questions........

I just asked myself this question; "is it wrong for me to dream BIG and aspire to higher heights? Is it wrong for me to tell myself beyond the sky is my limit?” I strongly believe I'm not the only one who has ever asked herself such questions and I guess this question pops up because of the things we see around us and what we go through sometimes as human beings. Sometimes, our plans seem so impossible that it scares us; we feel stupid and embarrassed when we tell people what we want to do and they go like, “are you sure this can be done?" or the worst of all, “are you in the right frame of mind?". Bet me, you'll get a pessimist or a "laggard" to ask you such questions but I love what the good book says in proverbs that we should commit our plans to the Lord and they shall be established. This verse tells us to tell God all our dreams and not men who will pull us down (PhDs).Man can do very little but God can do the greatest. Choose who you talk to today for positive outcomes.

To those who are dreaming beyond imagination, I tell you today that everything can be done only if you are determined, you can read Ford’s story and study how he was able to make the cars we see on the road and you will understand what I am talking about.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.  

Henry David Thoreau

“FAIR IS UNFAIR”

It was 8:07am on Thursday. I was sitting on the porch enjoying a hot coffee, a good morning I thought it was going to be. As I was sitting there, two women passed by and they were talking about something interesting. One of them was actually describing a lady she met at church last week Sunday and what she said about the lady was “ne ho yƐ fƐw papa,ƆyƐ obaa kƆkƆƆ paa”to wit, “she’s very beautiful, she’s really fair”. I must confess that I was actually eavesdropping but that interesting conversation reminded me of a day I met a childhood friend of mine with his pals in town. I was chatting with them when this nice girl came to pass by and one guy was like, yes, “that is what we’re talking about, a fair coloured lady who is going to brighten up our room when there’s darkness and not a dark skinned girl who will be dislocated when there’s darkness!.” Indeed I was amazed at the comment the guy made but maybe what he forgot was that he was dark like me and he will also not be found by the fair girl in darkness, how funny!

I keep asking myself this question; are fair coloured people or the light skinned people the only beautiful people in the world? If so, then what about the dark skinned people, are we ugly or just ok because we are not fair? The truth be told, we as Africans are fond of qualifying the level of beauty of someone with their skin colour, in other words, we consider the skin colour of people as a contributing factor to their beauty. I really get surprised especially when some mothers keep talking about their light skinned children and described them as the most beautiful. Are those mothers trying to say that their other kids are not as pretty because they are dark coloured? Spare us that superstition! If I am to list the number of dark skinned people who are considered as the epitomes of beauty, I bet their level of beauty will surpass that of tens and thousands of light skinned people. Please don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to demean some people here. Of course, everyone is unique and special in their own way. We all have that special thing that makes us beautiful inside out but I just dislike the fact that people are describing others as pretty based on their skin colour and others are being insulted and demeaned just because they are dark. Seriously, I was really sad when my roommate told me that that is what a particular tribe do to their members who are dark skinned. They don’t regard them and are insulted with their skin colour, “hwƐ ne ho tuntum bi” to wit, “see how dark skinned you are!” Some people actually liken the dark skinned to charcoal, coal tar and whatever dark thing one can think of. I am not surprised there is still racism in some parts of the world. How unfortunate!

“Black is beauty” they say. From my perspective I think this adage means black people or people from the black race are beautiful. The adage never went like “black people who are light skinned are beautiful”, it just said “black is beauty”. What amuses me most is what some ladies and even some gentlemen are doing these days: BLEACHING! Eei, I only thought clothes were bleached with optical brighteners to achieve a desired result but not human beings. I was once chatting with my friends and I kept asking them why they think some people bleach. Some said people bleach to make them beautiful, others said people bleach to make them attractive. Beauty attracts so I believe in general, people bleach for beauty purposes. Indeed, it is a fallacy, a falsehood and a big lie (as our controversial Kweku Baako would say) that bleaching makes one beautiful. I seriously don’t understand why people walk around every day and see the end result of older people who once bleached but still go on to do it. Bleaching, I believe, is like trying to tell the creator of man that He made a mistake by creating you this way. Who said being dark skinned is not beautiful? The nicest thing you could ever think of is to portray the rich African culture and complementing that with the rich dark skinned colour of yours and yes! That makes you that pure African who is proud of their skin and would not want to become who they are not. Remember, bleaching destroys the skin and as you grow older, the skin eventually becomes multicoloured and of cause that bad smell never leaves and recent studies by scientists has also shown that the bleaching products can be cancerous to the skin.

Be proud of who you are, appreciate what the Lord has given you and also remember to eat well, live well and stay healthy!