Convalescing in school.
Good afternoon dear readstars!
I hope you all have been living life strong and appreciative. We all gotta keep up with the pressure without breaking ya know. Remember I told you guys I was sick in my last article? Well unfortunately, it turned out to be worse than I had expected. Anyways I am very much better now and I want to thank all those who commented on my last article wishing me a speedy recovery.
I resumed school while I was still on medications so I am going to spend my convalescent period in school. I had already spent the first week of resumption at home so I didn't see it fit to add another week so I gathered my drugs, my blankets and other luggage and off I went to school. I am accustomed to starting my journey in the evening time just so I can arrive when it is dark. I dislike drawing attention to myself, that way no one would know I even resumed except when they see me the following morning.
The atmosphere of the school was far different from that of inside town. It is much colder in the school owing to the vast amount of trees that are planted all over. I expected the school to be cold compared to outside, but I in no way expected it to be freezing! It isn't even half way into th harmattan and my school is already the Antarctica, crazy!
I was immediately glad I came prepared for it, even though I wasn't expecting my preparation to be put to use sooner. The last thing I want at the moment is for my pneumonia to be triggered, as that wouldn't be very favorable for my stay in school. Exams is coming up in about two weeks, although medical students aren't part of the semester exams, we still have a series of tests we should have written prior to the strike coming up, so I for one have to prepare. That's part of the reason I had to resume despite not having fully recovered as there's no way I can bring myself to study while still at home.
Overall, the turn up for resumption is still rather low despite it being the second week of resumption now, I guess even the students are tired, I mean who wouldn't be? Eight months of stay at home literally doing nothing is well enough to milk a person dry of any motivation he had. Environment-wise, the school is still a big mess. I wonder why sanitaty measures haven't been put in place by the school management yet.
While other students are busy preparing for exams, medical students are to continue with lectures and judging from how no lecturer has showed up even to say hello(we are quite friendly with our lecturers), it makes me wonder if lectures would start anytime soon as they would have at least announced a fixed date. In all fairness though, our academic calendar is yet to be out so that could be a reason why the lectures haven't started.
Well, we move. I will take this week to readapt to the environment and create schedules for the rest of the semester.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️
Down with malaria
Within the span of 8 months since ASUU embarked on its strike, I have fallen sick up to four times. However none has been worse than what I am experiencing now. When I woke up yesterday in the morning, I was quite okay but as soon as it was around 10:00am, my body temperature became high, there was this internal cold I started feeling and I felt palpitations in my chest region. I was the only one left at home so I took some drugs and went back to sleep. Writing an article didn't even cross my mind.
It woke up to a splitting headache at 2:00pm. By that time my sisters had came back from the market as they too went to get some things for school. The headache was so intense that I had to lay on the bed with my back upright for moving it would move my head, which wouldn't produce a pleasant feeling. I spent most of yesterday sleeping, waking up, eating, taking drugs and back to sleeping again.
Before dozing off to bed for the night yesterday, I really hoped I'd wake up feeling much better as was the case with my last illness, but unfortunately I don't fell any better. Although today isn't really worse, but my head feels like it'd been stung by a whole colony of bees. I had planned to wash cloths im preparation for school but that won't at all be possible in my current situation. My sister told me to come sit with her as she washes our clothes, since staying out of bed might take my mind away from the sickness for a while, I agreed, but the sun was too much, so I had to go back inside. That's when I decided to write this while sitting on the room's chair. Just another way of doing what she says since I can't sit with her in the sun.
I shall, God willing visit your articles and comments on my last articles when I get slightly better. I just think I need to rest some more. I pray it doesn't result in something that I have to go to the hospital for as that would be really bad news since school is just a few days away. Anyway I have a feeling it wouldn't come to that. At least the fever is almost gone, it's just the headache and the general fatigue and the nausea that's left. I believe I would feel much more better by tomorrow or even this night. Put me in your prayers.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Some tips on maximizing productivity.
Yesterday I was reading scrolling through my Twitter feed when I stumbled a post on tips on how to stay productive. At first glance I knew it would be helpful but as I was looking for a particular post at that time, I decided to save the photos for a later read after scanning through them. Sadly upon checking my phone gallery this morning I couldn't find it. It turned out that when I tried to save it, I was hasty with it so perhaps it didn't save. Unfortunately also I couldn't remember the Twitter page on which it was initially posted, it wasn't a page that I was following. Nonetheless, I could still remember some things, one thing actually and I am going to share it with you all because I think it to b a really good idea, especially now that I am going to be having alot on my plate due to resumption.
1. Planning your next day on the night before:
I have most of the time never cared about plans as I prefer living in the present by far. I used to think that no matter how well you plan your day, it doesn't always go as planned. I used to believe that there's alway something that gets in your way to disrupt your plan, and end up destroying most of it if one plan is dependent on the other. It's like shaking up the whole foundation while the other parts follow suit.
Planning one's day the night before makes you wake up with the next day with a strong sense of purpose, as you know exactly what it is you're going to do. You even tend to wake up with more energy ready for the day.
2. Prioritize more important and difficult tasks:
When a person is strongly motivated, th most difficult tasks can seem like the easiest ones. When you wake up with that strong sense of purpose to get things done, it is best to take on the tougher tasks of the day before you lose the motivstion. But then of course we don't always wake up motivated and that's why it is very important we get a morning routine for ourselves. A morning routine consists of series of activities you do in the morning before doing anything else. A morning routine can help boost motivation in a person, especially if it includes morning walks or workout sessions.
When you take on the most difficult tasks first, you find that the rest become easy. Normally most hindrances to our plans come during the day so when we do the most important stuffs in the morning, we can take care of other things that comes up unexpectedly without bothering much for the other not so important tasks. It has also been found that taking up the most important tasks first greatly enhances productivity. I think it has something to do with the 80/20 rule, 80% of productivity comes from 20% of the work you do, which in this case are the most important ones.
Thanks guys for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
A message to my fellow students.
I write not from a place of a fellow student who shares similar feelings to other students pertaining the calling off of the 8 months' strike. A lot of us are unprepared be it academically, financially, mentally, emotionally or otherwise, there are even some of us who aren't prepared at all but still, there's no option for us than to resume.
Despite having wanted the strike to be called off, I felt a little uneasy when I learnt it had finally been called off because I was stuck in the middle of some activities and abandoning them to resume school would ruin a lot of things. To be honest, I was a bit saddened not by the calling off of the strike, but by this fact. It would be extraordinarily difficult to continue with these activities of mine while being in school.
Despite all those plans I have and the things I have done during the strike, I realize that worrying about them doesn't make any difference at all. I would still have to resume no matter what, even if I extend my resumption date, I would still resume in the end.
No matter how unprepared you think you are, it is going to be alright in the end. Just think of that one thing you're supposed to do when school resumes(which is study) and do that until the end of the session. I remember that I lost two course mates within the span of the 8 months strike, some of you also so I bet. They too had plans that they hadn't fulfilled yet before they were taken away, they never knew they were going to die before schools decide to resume. They also probably thought of what and what they where going to do when school resumes so no matter your unpreparedness in whatever aspect, see this as a mercy from God. The fact that you didn't die, the fact that you're still alive to take some, steps towards achieving your goals.
When you finally resume, do not forget to take things easy. There are some of us who the first thing that's on their minds when school resumes is to oppress other students with either money, clothes, beauty or whatever, they are there to show off and this can create thoughts in a person's head. Refuse to be oppressed, you're not them and they are not you.
Get yourself in order first before even thinking of doing anything, for orderliness makes your brain less crowdy and helps you make better decisions. Make a to-do list of the things you have got to prioritize. If you're among those who are to start exams when school resumes, I suggest you start revising now. I believe some schools will organize their own revisions but starting to do so yourself is, a very good idea.
If you're amongst those struggling financially, everything is going to be fine. I know it's hard to be in school with little financial support but we just have to make good use of the resources you have. Everything has time and this too shall pass. It always does..
All in all, let's all take our studies seriously. There are some of us who have started learning a skill already. If you feel like it would be a hindrance for now, lay it off for a while, for no one knows what side of their personality these lecturers will show us. Let's all be careful with them so that we part ways with them without hate.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
My first discovery in my journey into mindfulness.
The first time I read about mindfulness and decided to engage in it, I noticed many things about myself in an hour that didn't in months. It was both an eye-opening and scary experience. I took a back-seat and played a third person character in my head and I could "see" all my thoughts in front of me. All of them. I practiced it for a week and after seeing the results, I made the decision to practice I go the rest of my life. I am still yet to regret ming that decision and I don't think I ever will.
Below are some of my findings:
Majority of our thoughts are influenced by what we see from the external environment. In fact this is the layer from which all other thoughts spring. From birth, what we perceive through our senses and how we interpret them make up a very large part of who we are. It is said that the quality of a man equals the quality of his thoughts.
In my generation, since most youths spend a large amount of their time on their gadgets at the same time being oblivious to their surroundings, affect the way they think which in extension affects their lives. I used to be very addicted to social media, I binge watch Facebook reels and videos, YouTube shorts and whatnot. I could spend hours doing that and I noticed that my thoughts were affected too in a way I can't explain. Our sense organs are windows to our brain, heart, and soul so be careful what you watch!
Of the thoughts that I watched, I am able to identify three : ***fleeting thoughts, recurring thoughts, chain thoughts***. These are terms I gave them myself. I don't doubt the possibility that there is a more advanced study about this.
**Fleeting thoughts** are those that use the mind as some sort of window for their passage. I am still yet to understand how they come up because they are never really thoight up, they come on their own and pass as quickly as they come. While most of these fleeting thoughts have little or no substance to them, some of them can lay a solid foundation for some serious critical thinking if you're fast enough to grasp them.
**Recurrent thoughts** are thoughts that keep on repeating themselves and in my case, most of my recurrent thoughts were due to unpleasant past experiences. Some of these thoughts come when I feel distressed while others come when I wake up, or just randomly. Recurrent thoughts, as the name imply, keep on repeating on your head until they become part of your life. The more they repeat in your head the deeper they become ingrained into your mind, too bad if your recurrent thoughts are negative. They are one of the most difficult thoughts to change. It goes far beyond just mindset, it's like something you grow up with an letting it go is like letting a part of yourself go, all the better it is negative.
**Chain thoughts** are group of thoughts that spring from other thoughts and they in turn give rise to other thoughts. Chain thoughts aren't necessarily carefully thought out, they to can happen on their own. Our brains follow pathways we adapt them with and connect thought after thought on their own. It doesn't necessarily require our effort.
If only we know fully how our brains work, we would be more careful with what we allow into our brains via our senses. Destructive thoughts spring from experiences and once our bad experiences start influencing our thoughts, it can destroy us if we do it for too long. A lot of us have a lot of junk in our heads, we often feel tired without doing much, feel hungry unnecessarily. Have you ever take a step back to examine th garbage that's in your heads?
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Adaptation.
I have lived in different places at different times. I was born in Kaduna, had lived in kogi, Edo(though I was still little), Abuja and now Kano. For my non-Nigerian readers these are states in Nigeria. One thing I have reaffirmed while living in all these places is that our environment, the language that's spoken therein and the people have a strong influence on us, if we live long enough in that place. For a person like me who is very observant, I tend to observe things quickly and try my best to blend in as one of the commons, and that has helped me a lot. As someone who's born and spent significant amount of years in Kaduna state, there are differences depending on which part of the state you reside in due to its diverse cultures. Luckily for me, the part I lived in had an almost equal distribution of both hausa-speaking Muslims and Kaj-speaking Christians, so I have unconsciously adopted the mannerisms of both ethnic groups which had become part of me.
When I moved to kano and was put in a boarding school, it was like a whole new world for me. Although the hausa speaking people of kaduna and the hausa speaking people of kano share many similarities, there's still a mild difference in dialect and pronunciations. While that wasn't something I couldn't easily pick up, it still felt strange to me because I had thought that hausa was a unified language. Apart from that, their mannerisms and behaviors are different, like I can differentiate between a kano hausa man and a kaduna hausa man. Kano people are generally more street smart, more direct amongst other things while their kaduna counterparts are more approachable, have a softer demeanor and I think kinder lol.
Pidgin English is mostly spoken in the streets of Nigeria and even some households like mine. In my household we speak pidgin English, hausa, Edo(my dialect). Everyone in my household knows how to speak at least two languages, even the little children. This is because my area, even here in kano is littered with different tribes and it makes it much fun to live in. You can get a general idea about people from other states without having lived in that state before. People who live in Lagos can best attest to this.
One of the advantages I have gained as someone who knows how different tribes react to different things is that I can relate to almost everybody. In my school, Bayero University, the hausa are the most populous tribe because apparently the school is in Kano and sometimes, there's a rift in communication among them and other students who got admitted from the southern part of the country. Most relationships even among course mates of different tribes end in class. People who aren't hausa form study groups together, eat together and do other things together while the hausas do theirs together too. But me, I can be in either of the two groups without feeling out of place in either. There are hausa people who don't know that I am not hausa till date because of my fluency in the language and my mode of life. People from other states gradually learn the mode of life of the state they are in, and that in general improves one's understanding of others an creates unity among all tribes in a country.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
A sudden morning illness.
There's been a power shortage for the past week in our area so most of the night, I leave the door open and put little clothing on when I go to bed. Yesterday however, they brought back the power in the night. I suspect it must have been around 2:00am in the morning. I woke up to a fast whirling of the ceiling fan and an intense breeze coming into the room through the door. It was the breeze of the fast approaching harmattan. It has been like that for some time now.
Iwas too tired to get up from the bed to reduce the fan to a lower speed, so I drifted off once again with the thought still on my head. All these while, the harmattan breeze and the air from the fan were all affecting me without me knowing it. I woke up at 6:30am with a tight chest and an internal cold. I instantly realized what had happened and became sad suddenly because it's something that I could have controlled. My pneumonia was a little triggered so I got up immediately to take some biscuits so that I can take some erythromycin before it got worse later on. As for the internal cold, I couldn't do anything about it yet since I was the only who was awake at that time. I decided to go back to sleep with a huge blanket drawn up to my cheek.
At exactly 8:00am, I was woken by my sister. The internal cold had subsided although I still told her to prepare tea for me. I drank the tea and went back to sleep again, woke up at 10 and started typing an article at 11am. So here we are!
For breakfast, the folks here seem to be all lazy as me today. The aunt says she wants to eat yam porridge and since there's none left in the house, she's gone to the market get some and is yet to be back. The thing with my aunt sometimes is that when she has cravings, she wants everyone to eat same as her. If it were some other thing, I wouldn't have bothered but aunt knows how to prepare yam porridge better than anyone else, hers is the most nutritious. Writing this gives me nostalgia as there was a time a neighbour went to buy yams for porridge, invite us to eat after she was done but then I saw frog meat in it! I don't eat frog meat. I had to fake being called at home so that I can take the food away and give the meat to my cat. I didn't want to upset her.
**Image Source:** http://www.foodnify.com/recipes/vegetable-yam-porridge/
When it clocks 12:00am, I will take my afternoon dosage of the medicine. I have a feeling my aunt will soon ne back and I don't want her to notice my raspy breathing. She will definitely scold me about it and may not let me on the ceiling fan for a long time. I know, she just cares about my health, but there's heat these days and I am usually fine when I throw a blanket over myself with the fan on, I just wants expecting yesterday's incident because of how long it has been since we had power supply.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Rants and musings.
Good afternoon from this side my people! How have you all been? I missed writing here yesterday because I attended a wedding and I got too tired to write after coming back, although I tipped some articles early thus morning but was too brain-fogged to comment on any of them. I had wanted to write about the wedding I attended but there isn't really to worry about. It might sound kind of mean to say this about someone's wedding but to me, it was so boring and I instantly regretted ever attending!
Anyways guys, we move. Today's another beautiful day to appreciate life. I don't really have much to write about today except about what happened I think a day before yesterday on read.cash when the servers became overheated due to too much traffic.
Normally, I don't write my articles on read.cash. I write them on my purewriter app then copy paste to read.cash, this is something I started doing recently because I found it easier and faster to type on purewriter app, plus there's a word count feature so I keep my articles at 3—4 minutes read. This feature would be an awesome improvement on the site as I used to go off track sometimes when writing articles and end up putting more words than necessary. Anyways, my recent usual posting time is 12:00pm, so on this day, I copy pasted my written article but I couldn't post it upon trying and ehr I finally did, I remembered I made a mistake in the article so I edited it and upon doing so, I couldn't post my edited article again. I tried repeatedly for about 30 minutes but it didn't go. I decided to let it go them to avoid being marked as spam from repeatedly trying to post an already posted article because I suspected the bot could have marked it as that.
Unbeknownst to me however, the edited arfi le had already been posted, it was just thayth notification didn't show. @bilqees told me on whatsapp that she saw my article notification more than 20 times, it was funny because when I checked my notifications after the issue had been resolved later in the evening, each article on my notif has replicated itself to 10 times its original haha!
Well guys thanks for reading my rant. The 8 months' academic strike has been called off so students are expected to resume school any time soon. I have to get to the market to get some things. While other universities have fixed their dates of resumption, mine is yet to do so but nonetheless, one has to get prepared.
See you soon!
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Corporal punishment for children : for or against?
A news about a woman who almost killed her child with beating has surfaced online. She 13 year old child with a razor blade, apply grounded pepper on the wound and afterwards spanked her mercilessly with a cane until the girl fainted.
What were this woman's reasons for doing such? When interrogates by the police after she was reported, she said that she had sent the girl to purchase some food items for dinner since around 3:00pm yesterday and she didn't return until around 6:00pm which, according to her was already late to prepare dinner since the man of the house comes back around that time. This 36 year old mother asked her daughter where she had been for the past three hours but according to her, the girl didn't give her an answer, perhaps she meant that the girl didn't give her an answer she wanted to hear from her as she clearly had making assumptions which is alright, then she proceeded to strip the girl naked, cut her with razor, applied pepper in her wounds then flogged her until she fainted. The young girl is now in the hospital in a serious condition. Of course, the woman blamed it on the devil.
I am quite sure the above story isn't something some of you haven't heard of before, such things happen all the time, especially in African or maybe Asian homes (I doubt Asians go to such extremes though). This is something that happens a lot in African homes . It makes me reconsider what a lot of us call "disciplining" our children. If this woman had not been caught, I doubt if she wound have had any regrets about the pain she inflicted on someone she calls her daughter, she probably would have thought she was doing the right thing. I don't know, perhaps she had thought her daughter had started seeing a man hence her late response to the errand she embarked on and she has acted out of anger, she might be right or wrong about that, but doing something like that, to a 13 year old or to anybody for that matter, is...not cool.
On a general note, the issue of employing corporal punishment to discipline children is something I have mixed feelings about. As a child, I have been spanked on the butt a couple of times by my mom, especially the time when I used to.... but it never exceeded three to five strokes of the cane I remember my dad being against it at the time even when it was light, moms are usually the parents who carry out these sorts of punishments. Nonetheless, I find it quite unsettling when it exceed certain extremes in the news I read. There are children who've been killed accidentally with this so called means of "discipline" by their parents. Kids can do naughty things at times I get it, but while punishing them, do not forget what they are.. kids.
Perhaps those who beat their children mercilessly aren't only angered by what they did. Perhaps they have underlying issues which they need to seek help with because I seriously can't understand why you would do that to a child you carried in your womb for nine months.
Whats you take on this?
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️.
Dealing with trust issues.
People who have trust issues are much more greater in number than those who don't and you all know the reason why. I doubt if anyone here has never been betrayed by either a family member, a friend or anyone else within your circle. The depth of hurt is something many of us do not overcome, not even in two lifetimes. There are other reasons why a person might develop trust issues which include mental health disorders or even past childhood trauma, whatever the reason for a person to develop trust issues is, it is very important we learn how to manage it. Trust issues, although being a form of coping mechanism or protection against a form of hurt you have experienced in the past, can be really detrimental to other genuine relationships you still have left.
A lot of people suffering from trust issues developed it in romantic relationships they had once given their all to, it shattered them to th point where they feel like they will never be the same again, to a point where they feel like anyone who comes to their life is there to use them and betray or dump them when they have fulfilled their purpose which is very sad. Betrayals can be very hurtful, those who've been there know what I am talking about. While that may seem like a reasonable thing to do, if you ever have wish to be in another relationship, carrying serious trust issues you have developed from previous relationships into a new relationship is just another firm of emotional baggage which is never something that is healthy in a new relationship. This if course doesn't mean that you should lower you guard down too early, you should be careful all right, but if your past feelings of betrayal begin to interfere in a new relationship, know rush you aren't only hurting yourself, but also the person with whom you are in this new relationship with, all because of someone who never valued you and is probably there living carefree as if he did nothing to hurt another soul, no worth it is it?
I know, it can be hard sometimes to come to trust another person after being subjected to such heartbreak after someone else had made you feel like you will never get out of such feelings, that's why it is important to take time to fix yourself first. Go to therapy, talk to a member of your family, go on a vacation, spend time alone, reflect alot on your past relationships, practice mindfulness alot, do things that make you heal. Try to see it as a part of life's lesson from which you've gained experience. It can be difficult to heal from such things of course and for some people, they never do, and to those people, I pray they get God bless them with extremely understanding partners.
I have had trust issues once, but not from a relationship. The source of one's trust issues doesn't matter much as the effects are always the same. I have seen how it severely affected those in relationships, how it destroys homes. You see, trust is a very important ingredient in maintaining relationships, sometimes even more important than love. What's love anyways if not a state or sacrifice and surrender to whatever it is that lies ahead as long as you love that person. Learning how to move on is a skill that need to be taught in schools, or perhaps an art we should all train ourselves in, for bringing past into present always affects the future.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Five things that make me happy.
Happiness is a feeling or a state of mind we all want to be always immersed in, but life happens sometimes and the happiness is taken away from us, still we cherish the happy moments we have had in our lives because we have felt what it is to be unhappy, sad. Happiness can be created either by one's self, or by another person, while both forms of happiness are worth cherishing, the happiness created by one's self is more guaranteed and long lasting in my opinion. The happiness created by someone else could be short lived and totally independent of you, meaning you can't do anything to make it stay. For me, happiness is a decision and I have decided to always choose to be happy, and share that happiness with anyone I meet, as long as they are willing to receive.
Engaging in activities that make you happier, calmer and relaxed is paramount. I don't get what why I should feel sad all the time, even when facing a difficult life situation.
Below are things that make me happy.
1. **Praying and reading the Quran**:
I am a Muslim and find great pleasure in doing things that please the God I serve. There's this peace that grows within you when you know that God is pleased with you, and that type of peace an happiness can it be derived by doing one thing : pleading God. I recite or play an audio of the Quran recitation when I am down. It goes a long way in lifting up my spirits and I eventually feel better.
**2. Taking nature walks:**
Although I don't do that often any longer because I am home and my town is a bit over industrialized so we don't get to do that here, in school however, I merge my nature walk with my morning jogging exercises. You can call it a nature jog if you will lol. This activity greatly improves the spirit and keeps me grounded, mindful and happy for the rest of the day.
**3.Hanging out with trusted friends :**
As an introvert, I have got an incredibly small circle consisting of me and four other individuals. I am more than blessed to have them in my life and I feel I am not alone whenever I am with them. If I am sad, I feel happy when with them because I know that these are people I could trust.
**4. Meditation:**
The journey of spirituality is a never ending one because it starts in this world right into the next world, and we all know that the next world has no end. I am constantly trying to let go of things of the past. You know sometimes when you're sad for no reason, it could be due to a past hurt you never expressed. Bad energies are not to be bottled up in the body but expelled as could mess up the entire system. Meditation has helped me greatly. There's this meditation session we have every Sunday via a zoom meeting. God bless the man that bring the idea of that!
**5. Helping others and seeing them do well** :
Our nature as natural helpers and givers is always there, it might be expressive in some and buried in others. We are all connected beings and I beleive that a giver never loses anything in giving. He gets rewarded in this world and the next, apart from the reward, giving brings me joy. I love to see others do well in their lives. Life is too short to be spent hating on people and wishing for their downfall
**6. Achieving my goals:**
Who doesn't become happy when all the things the planned worked out just fine for them, or better still, worked out better than they planned? The dopamine rush that comes with unlocking an achievement is next to none, depending on the amount of hardwork you put in, th happiness ranges from satisfying to orgasmic🙂.
Thanks for reading guys.
What about you? What are the things that make you happy?
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Even my alarm clock is disappointed in me!
Happy Sunday my read.cash lovelies! How are you all doing today? Hope you all are doing just fine! To those that went to or go to church, have a wonderful Service! I imagine you must have woken up early in the morning to prepare yourselves. I myself had it in mind to wake up early in the morning, but the usual thing happened.
I once talked about a type of sleep sometime ago in one of my past articles; polyphasic sleep so due to how things are for me now with my messed up schedule and all, I decided to re_implement it after laying off it for some time. One can imagine that I set alarms at regular intervals, in my case I set alarms at 8 hours' intervals all through the day. It must have been a long time since I engaged in polyphasic sleeping patterns because I am finding it really difficult to adapt. Polyphasic sleep is something that's hard to adapt to in the first place. The alarm I find most difficult answering to is the one where I have to wake up at 4:00am. In a week, I only wake up to that particular alarm and do what I had planned to fo not more than two to three times because that's the exact time the sleep transforms to a whole new level of bliss😂, mind you, I do wake up to it everyday, but I am the one who removes it by my self. My sister with whom I share a room has complained times without number how the alarm interrupts her sleep because of how it is and the most annoying part, according to her is that the person whom the alarm is meant for doesn't even flinch. I apologize whenever she complains but I never turn off the alarm, I have only adjusted the volume to a lower intensity. I will definitely adapt with time.
Today as part of my cycle, I intended to wake up at exactly 4:00am as part of my sleep cycle but the alarm didn't go off. I woke up 7:30am, was shocked at first as to why it didn't go off the I checked my phone to see if there was any alarm notification. Normally, when it rings, I still see its notification in the morning saying "alarm clock rang" but this today, I didn't see anything as such. I asked my sister if she was the one who deactivated my 4:00am alarm clock but her reply wasn't affirmative, even if I know she doesn't have access to my phone security. Honestly I wouldn't even had blamed her if she was the one who removed the alarm, she had every right to do so. Could this mean that my alarm clock had given up on me and decided not to ring again🙄? The rest of the alarm did ring, as we speak, there's one of the alarms coming up at 1:00pm, but the 4:00am alarm is no where to be found.
Please has anyone here suffered from this bad habit before? Have you overcame it? If so, please how'd you do it? I really want to stick with my alarm schedules. I know things would go smoothly for me if I find a way to do so.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Thank you @foryoubtc09 for the sponsorship.
Terrible things I have seen (2)
I talked about the experiences that scared life out of me yesterday, today I am going to be talking about experiences that stopped me dead in my tracks because the stages of fright were too hard to process. Experiences that turned me into an empty bottle for some minutes, before my consciousness finally came back.
This one also happened when I used to be in a boarding house. I think I have posted this one in an article I wrote long time ago but since this covers it, I am telling it again.
In a night, I used to wake up for two to three times just to pee, I drank alot of water because the food served in the school was substandard, so I had to complement it by staying hydrated always, that was my logic back then. On a Saturday morning, I mean the very early hours, those hours that are reffered to as the ungodly hours, I woke up to take my routine leaks. I don't go to the bathroom because I used to be afraid of bathrooms during the night time. I used to be afraid of the dark, so I prefer to take that piss outside, close to a gutter behind my hostel where I can see the moon and the moon can see me. Well, that was a mistake on that day, if I had known what I would see on that night, I am sure I would have developed instant bravery to go as pee in the toilet. I was even already done peeing when this happened: a bird with the face that looks like that of an eagle and wings like that of a bat, the size of a fully grown human, stood on the roof of the hostel adjacent to mine. It looked so big in the moonlight that I am beginning to think that it was twice the size of a full grown human. This bird didn't make a noise because I am pretty sure if it did, I definitely would have shat myself or probably faint right on the spot. It stared into the space, then as if finally coming to a decision, it flapped its wing to fly and friends, this is no joke, I almost fell on the ground due to the little hurricane it created with the wings, the wind was so strong that it blasted some open windows shut. Never have I ever seen something like that in my entire life on earth. I was shocked and full of wonderment, that's after my spirit returned to my body. I summoned courage after like ten minutes and entered my hostel with shaky legs. It was a terrifying but also a surprisingly wonderful thing to have experienced.
I DON'T BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE OF GHOSTS AS I BELEIVE EVERY SOUL GOES BACK TO GOD WHEN IT DIES. This next incident however through me into a dilemma for a long time. This also happened in my boarding school(.... Again huh? ). That bush of a school is probably where the house in Amytville Horror gained EXPERIENCE. It happened after night prep hours. Me and school bestie had forgot to fetch drinking water before going to prep, we had to go get it as I have no other choice, remember I took staying hydrated seriously back then? There was this water scarcity at the time so we proceeded into the staff quarters which had some thick shrubs in it. We got to the borehole at around 11:30pm and guess what we found? A new born baby in a cradle, just near the borehole with a kettle beside it. We weren't so scared at first as we thought it was a case of an unwanted baby but that turned became volatile when the babe disappeared with the kettle right before our eyes! It wasn't instant, it was as if the baby gradually dissolved into a mist. If I were alone, I definitely would have thought I had gone mad or something but when I say the horrified look on my bestie's face, I knew! I felt like my soul left my body in that instant, and I fainted. I can't imagine anyone bringing their legs to cooperate with them after experiencing that. I had to go home for two weeks after that as I started behaving strangely, and the scholars said it could be a case of jinn. I and my friend felt better after some weeks though and that led me into a serious question, so ghosts really exists?
I have experienced some more guys, but I don't wanna bore you with my story, so we gonna stop here. Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Terrible things I have seen(1)
How many "what-a-bad-day-to-have-eyes moments have you seen?" I guess some of us have had quite a few, while people like me have had, a couples of handfuls to be light in words, scratch that pal! See these eyes of mine👀? I have seen a shitload of "what-the-f***" moments with them(just saying how I feel🙄). There are times I wonder how I managed not to have fainted or piss myself during one of those moments. Some of these moments scared the living hell out of me, some of them kept me wondering for days on what the hell I had just seen, others left me feeling like an emotionless bag of meat and eventually plunged me into depression for days or sometimes even weeks. Without further rambling let's get at them:
I have witnessed a slaughter, not that of a Christmas chicken, not that of an Eid ram, bull or camel, but that of a person, again, not in movies but in real West African Standard Time, right before my then innocent pair of eyes! This was during the period when we used to live in Kaduna(a state in Nigeria) with my parents before moving to Kano. It was during the 2011 presidential elections period. I wasn't very much different from a kid back then and I definitely shouldn't have seen that. You might be wondering what a kid was doing outside to have witnessed such traumatizing event while a violent riot was ongoing right? Well I wasn't really outside. I was looking through the window and it so happened to be my fate to have witnessed such inhumanity. The moment my eyes caught the act happening, I was so horror-stricken that I couldn't even bring myself to look away. This gave me countless nightmares for months and I eventually fell really ill. I deliberately didn't go to detail on how I saw it happen because reliving that memory is the last thing I want to do.
I have once witnessed a gut-wrenching highway accident that literally took the willingness to board any form of transportation from me for quite some time, not even a bicycle. This accident happened when I was in an all girls boarding school. It happened on a Friday which is an outing day when we are allowed to spend a fixed amount of time outside school to get essentials. The school road is a very busy one and it so happened that I was again, unlucky to have witnessed such.
We were walking at the side of the road when a car somersaulted right above our heads, it was going the opposite direction. The car literally flew like a bird for whatever reason and a passenger, was pulled out of the window mid-air. He fell on the tarred road on his stomach which busted like a balloon, littering the road with intestines and other viscera of the human body. His head broke into pieces like a bottle and you could see his brain spill out of his ears. That was it for me. That was it for me, I and the girl with whom I was together sprinted to back to school, letting out our withheld vomit the moment we set foot. That had me sick in the stomach and head for about two weeks. That was the first time I witnessed human internal organs before I started dealing with cadavers in medical school. Still, I feel like I am to witness such incident again(God forbid!) , I would probably have the same reaction regardless. There's clearly a difference between witnessing how such a thing happened and seeing it when it already happened, besides cadavers aren't as bloody as fresh bodies.
To be continued...
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
The intricacies of truth(2)
Still on the topic of the various shades of lies, how the truth encompasses all, and how certain people are delusional(yeah! That's the word I am looking for. ) when it comes to the truth, we will talk about how people let the truth take a backseat as they argue with one another on which version of their "truths" is inferior or superior to the others. Remember on my last post I said something about the truth not being hard to find as long as we loo deep, well I would have to take my words back on that one. Truly, sometimes the truth can be so hard to find, but that's part of the journey of a true seeker, you dedicate your whole life towards finding truth and die an honorable death on that path. Due to how hard the quest of truth can be at times, we use reason and intuition to form opinions on matters, but this can be really tricky as most times, our emotions sneak their way into the company of these two: reason and intuition. When dad was still alive, my curious mind would question him about why people can't control their emotions, especially the negative ones, and he'd say "Emotions are like a lubricant, while the right amount is necessary for smooth running of the surfaces of reason and intuition, too much of it can make them become slippery, sliding them away from each other thereby destroying the system." I don't know if that's practical but you do get my point right?
Now, there are people who think that just because they feel a certain way, then they are truly that way. If you look at how dynamic our emotions or feelings are, how some of us quickly transition from being angry this minute and embarrassed the next, happy this minute and sad the next, cheerful this minute and sorrowful the next, you will come to realize that most of our emotions are actually caused by voices in our heads, which 95% of time are wrong. My read.cash bio used to read "a crazy female medico with a thousand mood swings" and that's just how I am, so I know exactly what I am talking about. This is not to say that our emotions are based on lies, but the majority of them are. There are emotions influenced by those voices, and there are those provoked by intuition.
Truth, can do with a little bit of emotion. As a believer in the existence of a God, I believe that human nature as a whole is meant to work in the way of truth by the One who created us, but when emotions becloud reason and judgment, then it's as if a thick opaque veil has fallen between you and the truth. Conversely, most lies of whatever "color" are largely influenced by emotions of the person doing the lying or the one being lied to, most of these emotions are negative, else, why do you think a person with the mindset of greed wouldn't mind lying so that he would get more loot? I bet you can think of other instances where you or someone you know lied to you or to someone else. No matter how well they try to justify the act, it's mostly emotions, except in the case of white lies that have an element of reason at times.
Thanks for reading guys.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Uh, I have seen some of my friends display graphics like this one at the end of their articles so I decided to create mine using Canva app. Not the best but still pretty cool to me 🤷♀️.
Why do lies have labels and the truth doesn't? (1)
Labels are being used to describe lies as if they are some sort of colors refracted through a prismatic pyramid: white lies, yellow lies, pink lies, Grey lies, green lies, blue lies and even black lies. I just came to read this on a Facebook post as I had no idea there were literally "50 shades of lies." I only knew of the white lie, well here's a life hack: you should get your kids some packets of lies for their coloring pages! Now wouldn't that be amazing?
The purpose of this post isn't to dissect the individual type of lies that we have, but to raise the question, why do lies need such labels? Don't you think that all lies are lies irrespective of their "pigmentation"? While we can all agree that not all lies are the same, at the end of the day, what are they? L-I-E-S. I am not saying that these labels aren't necessary, in fact, there are lies that we can tell to ourselves or other people to make us feel better, to make them feel better, or to get ourselves out of trouble without the risk of hurting anyone. They are called white lies and can be necessary at times, what I am trying to say, comparing it with the Truth, is that all type of lies are still inferior to the truth, no matter what the motive of telling them was.
The beautiful thing about the truth is that you don't have to add labels on it. It is unique and singular, not as "racist" as lies as it gives not a monkey's about color. It is sufficient in its essence and is there for all to see, as long as we are willing to embark on a quest for it. The truth looks you right in the eye and it's either you run away from and embrace lies, or look it right back in the eye and give it a warm hug, then you can step back and watch your life change for the better.
Of late though, I have seen groups of people take really bold steps towards giving truths labels too, but all I do is laugh at their foolishness and ignorance. They begin twisting emotions , truth and opinions in a mesh of entanglements and you start hearing things like, "I am living my personal truth", "I feel therefore I am", "that's how I have been all along ". Please, isn't the ignorance in these sentences glaringly obvious? First off, there's nothing "personal" about the Truth. Truth is universal, it is either it is or it isn't. As long as the truth doesn't live within the confines of your testicles, there's nothing personal about it. The truth applies to you, not you applying to it. What some people call "personal truth" in reality means "personal opinion", so just because you've got an opinion, you mean you're in the right? Gosh! How arrogant! Do you realize that if this really becomes a thing in this politically correct society of ours, we would b creating divisions for the truth? Then you'd here sentences like "what you are talking about is universal truth, I am referring to my personal truth" haha how funny and sad would that be?
Let's take a break here guys, I will be continuing this in my next article, God willing.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Myth about Eczema.
We had a friends' hangout this morning at one of my friend's house. I usually bone these slowly becoming more frequent visit invitations due to me being closeted for God knows how long. I naturally don't like social events that much but it has grown much more worse or should I say better?? Anyways, I decided to follow my friend who literally dragged me out of the house today to go and meet with the other friends (duh!! She didn't really have to do that anyways, I would have gone on my own I am not expecting today to be a busy day for me.).
We arrived there just before 9:00am but it looked like is was afternoon already there, nothing to do with the weather, just the activities that were going on: friends playing chess, others gossiping about other friends, while some others were arguing. I joined the arguing group of course as I instantly felt in the mood. I must have missed out of the main argument because they seemed to have just concluded an argument just before I stepped in. Just then, Cecelia, a friend in the arguing circle commented on the face of another friend there, who isn't really part of our friends circle but a friend to Cecelia ", you've got some terrible looking eczema on your face, don't you seek treatment for it? " to which the girl whose face is being commented on replied that she's tried all the lotions and ointments she knew but still to no avail. One other friend made an ignorant comment about how it is due to prolonged lack of hygiene and because she didn't nip it on the bud, she will have to live with it. While that comment made me a bit annoyed, I didn't say a word, I was already getting bored as a matter of fact and just wanted to go home, besides I know for a fact that a lot of people out there think that people with eczema do not observe hygiene or are dirty people which is a very misleading myth and sometimes, people with eczema try to hide it, except it appears in places they can't hide it, like their face.
**What causes eczema?**
Eczema(atopic dermatits) is more of trigger than the actual rashes we see on the face of the bearer, the eczema is what is triggered to produce the rash—like patterns on the skin, so this means that eczema has nothing to do with bacterial o fungal infections, it is something tush a person has and can get triggered due to genetic factors, environmental factors or factors due to body defence mechanisms i.e the immune system. It's more of an allergy than an infection.
The cream that makes it go away, that's if it works for you doesn't kill off any bacteria or fungi, there are creams or ointments that make the rash go away but doesn't affect the eczema in anyway, these sort of creams are usually short term. The long term ones act as inhibitors that protect the skin from rash outbreak due to eczema. Note that the eczema is still there, not just the rash.
For the last time, eczema has nothing to do with poor hygiene, you shouldn't be ashamed if you have it.
Thanks for reading guys. Special thanks to @Tomi-Ajax for the sponsorship.
Thanks for reading guys,
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
...and breathe!
*As medical students who just completed priclinicals, the excitement of being a step closer to becoming actual doctors was all in the air, we had just rented an apartment which wasn't that far from the teaching hospital and were taking a tour in the university-cum-hospital premises.*
*As we walked down the main road leading to the Orientation Centre, one of my friends, Abel turned his neck around as if looking for something, the look on his face made me and the rest of my friend follow suit, and there we saw a well adorned horse, galloping with light speed towards so fast that I had little time to take in the details, shiny nose band, head latch and reins, must have had a height of about 15 hands. With the speed of light, the horse rode past us, I could even feel the brush of wind despite not being the one at the end at which the horse rode past. The next thing I saw was a seemingly lifeless body some inches before us. The body was that of a boy, not more than 13 years,gasping for breath with a bloodied face, the seriousness of his condition was such that his facial expressions changed with each inhale. The horse had knocked him over! The way he was gasping for breath could mean that he had his lung affected and could mean he was suffering from tension pneumothorax: a severe condition in which air is trapped in the chest making it difficult for him to breath. If that told me anything, it is something had to be done quick and fast. By the time I all these was going in my head, crowd of people have already started accumulating, attempting to take him to the which is still distance from where the accident happened. My friends suggested that we do something else the boy could die so we set to work . I happened to have been carrying the exact same needle used in thoracostomy and with the help of my friends, we succeeded in evacuating the air from the boy's chest. Although he became unconscious soon after that probably due to the pain, his breathing returned to normal. He was shortly after taken to the hospital by an ambulance which somebody probably called while we were at it. It was an exciting and motivating experience. I and my friends felt like heroes!*
*A day later we checked on the boy in the hospital, he was doing absolutely fine after another minor surgery. We were praised greatly by the doctors but also secretly mildy scolded because what we did had a huge risk as we were just done with preclinicals at the time, and it was all book knowledge applied. All I know is that what mattered most to us at that time was a young boy's life, and I was so happy we saved it! What still saddens me a little till date is that the rider was never caught!*
*________________________*
*This is a fictional story!*
*Thanks for reading.*
*Yours Layly,*
*❤️❤️❤️*
*Lead Image: Unsplash.com*
Special Thanks to @Bloghound for the sponsorship renewal, means Alot to me!
I can't live without you!❤️😚🥰
Humans, no doubt, are social beings which translates to us being dependent on one another. As the popular saying goes, "no man is an island of himself" and I believe no matter how advanced science and technology becomes in the future, humans would always need other humans for one thing or the other. While having this attribute of dependency an being sociable, we still manage to retain our individuality, that attribute that gives us a feeling of oneness that only us know about, the more spiritual aspect of us, that is what I am going to be talking about today.
People, over time seem to be losing the latter gradually, that's the aspect of our own individuality. Humans are unique beings and there's something that each person has that no body else possesses, even if they might look or sound similar. There's also this individuality that comes with knowing that you are alone in this world and if you're a believer in the here after, you're also alone there, a kind of individuality that comes with knowing **that at the end of it all, you're alone, no matter how you love or care for another person or no matter how they care or love you. Of course you'll meet people, fall in love, develop feelings of love and care for various people, but at the end of the day, they won't take you with them to their grave nor can you take them with you to yours.**
The most often song and cherished phrase "I can't live without you" to me is utter bullshit, I know that's quite superfluous to say but nonetheless, there it is! I know some people say that phrase just to make the person hearing it feel loved, but truly, there are still people out there who say it and mean it, matter of fact, I used to be one of them. Note that I am not trying to say those who say such things are naive but to say that if you believe in such thing, sooner or later, you will realize that that's not true. You will live, you will break, you might even get depressed, but you shall live unless you stuck to your word by commiting the unthinkable, and I don't think you'd end up in the same place as them.
I believe those people who have lost a good amount of people whom they have deep affection for can relate to what I am talking about, it is like a part of you, that can't be replaced, died and was buried along with them, I see that part as the part that you have to shed so that you might grow, maybe that's the reason why most of the people who've lost many people in their lives are spiritual people, because they have come to know the Spirit of individuality as well as that of connectability with others, and have come to balance them in adequate proportions in their lives.
The thing is that **Life goes on,with or without whoever or whatever**. That's it! Not only people but also things, for I believe that anything that you lost, either a person or thing, would be replaced with something better, whether or not you realise it. So cherish those you love and do the things you love to do until you can no longer. Don't be afraid to love for fear of loss or betrayal, do not be afraid to pour your soul into doing the things you love to do, let go of fear and embrace love, for in love comes everything good, whether lost or found.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
A ruined day worth of code.
It's been a day since my nephew decided my laptop has not been having enough shower lately... I left it in the living room where it was charging while lay down in the bedroom. Unbeknownst to me, my little nephew was up to some mischief. It was raining and he was at the door with a cup, trying to collect water. The little devil in him must have told him my laptop needed to take its bath because that's what he did! He poured water into my laptop until it started dripping. After the rain subsided and I went to the living room to check it it's charged, I saw what this lill devil did and I was so furious and confused I didn't know whether to spank the hell outta him or tie him with a rope unto a pole. On seeing how angry I was he started crying so I left him alone. Now drained the laptop and dabbed it with a clean clothe after which I put it on the roof for running. I switched it on and alas! It powered on but sadly, it came up with this after loading:
It turned out it was a loop as it kept loading for like two hours, I tried troubleshooting it but still, nothing. I tried every other thing I could and even watched some YouTube videos for other possible solutions which I all tried but still, nothing!🥺
Today being Saturday, I had planned to code for an extended period of time since I don't have to go to work today, but my little nephew just ruined it. Now I had to take it to the repair shop and today being Independence day in Nigeria, most of them don't open. At least, my favorite computer repairer didn't open so I had no other option than to take it to someone else who I ain't sure about but it seems he's quite good. I so hope that whatever I wrong with it doesn't end up affecting all the codes I have written as that would have a devastating effect on me.
Since this unfortunate Incident has happened, I am thinking of how to spend the rest of my day. I will probably spend a quarter of it at the repair shop as the guy hasn't still gotten what's wrong with the laptop, he has checked the hard drive, then the processor, only God knows what he's checking now!🙄
I will probably spend another quarter of my day issuing my nephew a Stern warning never to tamper with my stuff again, because there's nothing stopping me from whooping his butt if he ever tampers with my stuff again. He's well known for destroying things in the house, ranging from phones, to breaking cups, to dumping stuff in drinking water, to ripping the covering of the sofa. This dude definitely has a lill devil in him!😬
Thanks for reading my rant guys.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Oh, I almost forgot. Happy New Month to you all. May this month bring peace, love and happiness and anything good into your lives. Happy Independence Day to my fellow Nigerians.
🇳🇬🇳🇬🇳🇬
A BIG thanks to my first sponsors since my resumption on read.cash, @Apex_Thomas and @ Mictoranni I see what you did there, it's a big motivation on my part to not run away again lol😅
Thanks Alot.
Let your children fight their battles.
An intense quarrel ensued yesterday in my neighbourhood. The quarrel was between two mothers and the cause of the quarrel was their children whom of course, both of them loved.
Now what caused the quarrel is still sort of unknown to me but people say that it was a minor issue that just served as an common reason for them to act out on their long term subtle feud, because that is none of my business, I will just talk about what caused their fight as at yesterday.
Now both mothers have children who attend the same school. The daughter of Neighborhood A is a year older than that of neighbour B who is five years old. Because the hearts of children doesn't breed hate like that of adults, these children are even come back home together since the school isn't that far from the neighborhood. Now, as we all know, children have their own little misunderstandings where they fight one another but reconcile within a short period of time. What happened along the way was that the older daughter of neighbour A beat the daughter of neighbour B so the started fighting. Now the daughter of neighbour A had an upper hand in the fight and injured the daughter of neighbour B, it wasn't a major injury, it is more of a minor scratch. The girl started crying non stop until she reached home. Now her mother asked her what happened and she told her that the other neighbour's daughter fought her, she grabbed neighbour A's daughter by her pinafore dress just as she was about to enter her house, pulled her and gave a resounding slap across her cheek which attracted the attention of the her mother as well as those who were around when it happened. Neighbour A was suddenly furious and gave neighbour B a resounding slap, then they started fighting in the middle of the street shamelessly in front of their children. It wasn't a very pleasant sight as even I who had nothing to do with the fight was embarrassed for them. They were eventually separated and after a series of insulting verbal exchanges, each mother entered her house with her child.
Now while I don't like taken sides in matters like this as both of them were wrong in how they reacted to circumstances, I'd say neighbour A was the tresspassor as she slapped a child terribly in front of her mother over some misunderstanding between children, not she say she deserved what came to her, at least not in the presence of her daughter, but she was Soo wrong because fighting as kids is part of growing up. I remember when I used to get bullied by this girl , Chioma in primary school and when I'd come home crying, my mom would console me. It got to a point when she stopped consoling me and told me that if Chioma ever bullied me again and I don't stand up for myself, I shouldn't enter her house, that after all she was my age mate. I grew a pair after some time and began standing up to Chioma any time she fights me and I'd end up beating her. The tables turned real quick , not that my mom was training me to be violent, but to learn how to stand up for myself if need be as that's the way to grow.
Don't beat other children just because they beat your children, even if your kids are naturally meek, at least complain to their mothers first. Remember that they are all children and they all have mothers who love them as much as you love your children.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️
Lead Image: Nairaland.com
Since Hector was a pup....
Just a while before deciding to write this, I googled, "how to start writing after a long break" but all I could get was a list of plans of how to get back on your usual writing habits in the long run. While, without a doubt, that would be soooo helpful to me, I was looking for a way to just put a first word in writing, then another, then another....
Now, to say it's been a looong time is an understatement, so I wouldn't even begin to write about that as it would just be restating the obvious. I have been off this site for about three months and it feels really awesome to be back!!! The feeling of familiarity is feels really good and I can't just even stop writing right now haha! It's like visiting a former neighborhood and meeting your old time close friends haha!🤣🤣
How long has it been really? Three months?( I just checked ) and yet it seems like almost half a year! It's not even really that long. I guess I have just missed y'all too much.
What have y'all been up to? Well I'll tell you what I have been doing for the past three months. I have been at home doing all sort of things. I have been busy and yet not so busy. I have been busy in the sense that at the moment, due to the heavy strike action by universities that's still ongoing, I have been to *forced* by my elder brother to learn how to code. I mean my laptop was serving no purpose except for movies so he decided that I learn it. Now, the reason I used forced was because I was really forced to start, but I wasn't forced to continue. All it took for me was to start and I am really enjoying it! As someone with no prior programming experience except the one I "*learnt"* with a chalkboard in high school, Java took me up to two months but I am still not done yet! Although I have started learning C++ on the side. Alright I guess I will talk about my coding journey in another time.
***Well that's what has been keeping me busy....***
I also got a part time job last two weeks. I was told by a friend that I needed that my skin was getting rough and I needed a break from my unhealthy lifestyle of sitting for hours with my eyes on a screen and absorb some sunlight. She was joking but I took it seriously, I applied for the job and fortunately got it. The company's name is **Bizapp**. It's basically an app where you can advertise your products on-line, something like AliExpress or Amazon but that's not the only service we offer, you can also pay your bills via the app, buy airtime at cheaper rates and even earn commission for referring your friends to join. The job is pretty cool though but I guess that's how we perceive our new jobs until they're no longer cool hahaha. The people are amazing too you know, I get to improve my social skills to so ....yeah!😅
So there it is guys! That's been my life for the past three months except on some days when I just get possessed by an evil lazy genie who doesn't wanna do anything haha. I would to hear your story too if you're interested in sharing in the comment section. What have my wonderful read.cash buddies been up to lately? Layla is excited to hear abautiti!!😜😜.
Thanks for reading guys.
Yours Layly,
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
A father and more..
Hello my dear friends. How are you all doing? I hope you're fine. It's been a while since alI peeped in but here we are again, thank God for life. You know, it hasn't been easy for anyone lately and these breaks we overlook, are often times necessary, doesn't matter how long it takes as long as it enables you to get back better and stronger.
Ok guys before I get sidetracked, I want to wish all of you a Happy Father's day. Today is a very special day because it celebrate a parent a lot of us tend to overlook as children, and some of us even as adults. We all go about talking and making eulogies about mothers (not that they don't deserve it) but take father's love and sacrifices for granted. Fathers are heroes that come to the aid of those in need, Lions willing to defend their lionesses with her cubs even if that means his own life is at stake, superheroes without cloaks or hoods, God's own representative on earth because God works through them a lot.
As someone who's lost her dad at a very young age, today is both a happy and sad day for me. I am happy for the reason that I get to remember him more and appreciate his life on earth and the legacy he left behind. I am happy that all the efforts he put into training us, making sure we grow into responsible people in the society aren't in vain. Although he died when I was young, I never forgot the values I learnt from him and will never forget as I live by them daily. He's the one who made me understand the virtue of sacrifice and love and I think that alone is enough.
I am sad of course because he's no more, but I seek solace in knowing that by God's grace, he is in a better place. A place that's incomparable to this world in terms of anything good, and I hope to meet him there when my time comes.
Okay now, enough with the story 😂. What are y'all up to on this day regarding the event it is set for? Well typing this just made me remember when my dad would want to go to work in morning but we wouldn't let him until we gave us 20 naira which had value back then. He used to work as an editor for a newspaper company so he usually left early. Dad would walk with us trotting behind and with a frown on his face, he'd give me and my sister 20 naira each. I remembered the story because of the frown. It looked like a smile, a frown, and a sneer all rolled into one haha. I remember a lot of things about that but the story would be so exhaustive for you to read, but this article isn't meant to tell a story but to wish everyone a happy father's day and tell how the day is for me.
To all those who have lost their dads like me, I pray they are in a better place void of all suffering. They will always occupy a large place in our hearts for the rest of our lives.
To those whose dads are still alive, know that everyday is father's day and they should be cherished for as long as they live. Consider yourselves very lucky and blessed people and appreciate the blessing for it is indeed a big one!
To those not in good terms with their fathers, know that they still deserve your thanks, if not for anything but for giving birth to the beautiful, kind hearted, strong, passionate, hard working, and blessed person that you are!
Happy father's day!
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly.
💖💖💖
The pain of regret: a double egde sword.
Actions birth consequences, regardless of whether we think of them as such. The repercussions of our actions(or inactions) always back fire accordingly, sometimes in the form of regret for something we've done to ourselves or someone in the past.
Regret is a double egded sword depending on how we choose to view it. Since the feeling of regret is birthed from mistake, it won't be far fetched to say that we all have things we regret doing (or not doing) since we all make mistakes and since regret only comes once we've realised our mistake, there's this pain that comes with it, especially if things go so wrong that there's no means to correct the damage that has been done.
We do things with ourselves that end up affecting us in the long run and then we regret our actions, we can still work to correct it when we realise our mistakes and the more we do the work, although after a delayed realisation, we end up feeling better, since it involves us alone. Example is when we regret all the times wasted in procrastination during our old days, but then decide to make amends by becoming productive. This type of regret are birthed from actions that involves mostly us and is more easy to dispel by forgiving yourself and striving to do better.
The greater form of regret comes from actions and mistakes that involves a third party, like when we hurt a person really terribly but being blind to that fact at the time of our bad attitudes, they leave or something else happen along the line that makes us comes back to our senses and then we regret. The thing with this form of regret is that, it is very hard to do away with especially when the attempts we make towards making things right with those we've trespassed against become in vain, like when they can't find a place in their hearts to forgive us or even say things that they otherwise wouldn't have said to us and when the bond keeps getting weaker and weaker until the point where it is no longer there, we go down the "had-I-Known" road. Now this point is very critical because that road of regret we take can soon become an abyss if care is not taken, taking us deeper and deeper into the depths of the pain of regret. It reaches a point where due to how deep we're in regret, we become blind to other things that could make us see the bright side of life again, leading us into depression and we end up doing more harm than we've done to that person, to ourselves.
The pain of regret, being the double edge sword that it is, can be used to better ourselves instead of letting it draw us into feelings of self hate. That pain can be a reminder never to repeat the mistakes we did that caused hurt to others and generally improve our state of well-being when we truly learn from that mistakes. We are bound to make mistakes as human beings and why repetitive mistakes can be a sign that we're trying to be better, one has to be careful if the mistake affects others so this type of mistakes shouldn't be repeated often and we should try our best to take as much lessons we can take from the first one as possible.
Do not drown in the river of regrets, whether or not the mistakes were intentional or not, as long as you truly regret your actions with all sincerity, which means you would try to avoid such mistakes in the future, then I guess that's all you need to move on.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
💖💖💖
Layla, where have you been?
Hello readcash Layla, it's been quite a while since I last had a talk with you. How are you and all your readcash friends, hope you're all doing fine. I came here just to adopt your personality for a while and have a good time with your friends. I know that's sort of self indulgent but I am sorry, I know I should have at least peeked in to say hi to your friends.
Well first, how's readcash? I know you have been lying dormant for almost a week, looking randomly at articles, comments and notifications, wishing you'd be able to comment but my absence had made it impossible for you to do what you love doing, which is interacting on this space. I promise you will continue doing what you love from today onwards until a very long time.
Well readcash Layla, I haven't been very fine plus I was busy. You don't have to worry as it's nothing really serious. My mood swings got more frequent and I have been a little depressed for a reason I know nothing of so I had to take steps back to retrace my steps, maybe I was doing something wrong. For me, depression doesn't come like that, there's always a reason but instead of focusing on that reason which I am very likely to miss, I have just decided on emptying my mind.
It's crazy when you try to stop thinking about stuff but you just can't, makes you want to rip your head off your neck and toss it in a trash can because that's where you feel it truky belongs because of all the intrusive depressing shit it comes up with and you'd be like, "where the hell did that come from?" and there and then, another thought soon takes over and then another leading to a chain reaction of thoughts, which are mostly depressing and anxiety triggering; of no use in general. I concluded that it must be due to the excessive amount of stimuli I receive on a daily from my external environment having too much effect om my head, my brain is too decent to make up things like that on its own. I stopped going outside altogether but it didn't go away and then I realised, I realised that it's not the physical but virtual world. The constant notifications from whatsapp, news, most of which I don't need from Facebook and Twitter and other social media apps are what are creating those effects, still I wasn't sure but that did seem the most probable answer. I decided to not only get off social media, but my phone also. I had to take a break off readcash too and there you have it. Although I still peeked on WhatsApp but it's only to answer the most important messages which don't take up to three minutes most of the time as I try to do so as fast as possible so I'd get off.
I am back, however! I missed you and all your readcash friends and I know you missed me too and I know they missed you too haha! I am doing much better now after some good sleep, warm baths, constant meditation and a book I am currently reading titled "The Masnavi of Rumi." This book helped me alot, and is still doing so. It not only feeds the brain, but also the soul. It takes you to a whole new realm of wonders and mysteries, you should definitely tell your friends to check it out, they won't regret it at all.
Although I needed the break, I won't fail to apologise to you for leaving you out there without any explanation, and your friends for not giving you the power to interact with them dear readcash Layla. I am sorry you weren't able to visit their articles and drop your comments as you'd love to, and I promise even if thos happens again, I'd inform you beforehand. I am also sorry how this ended up being about all I had to go through instead of what I had intended it to be, an inquiry of how and your friends have all been. You know you're the only one I vent to and not anyone else..
Happy writing readcash Layla!
To all those who renewed their sponsorship, thanks greatly. My notifs is too crowded and I can't go through them all. I know I haven't been delivering but I would try my best to do better.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
💖💖💖
Looking for a safe haven.
Today being the sixth day of June makes it almost a week since I last wrote on this platform. Aside from having to take care of problems in the real world, I admit that I have become a bit lazy and laid back that I found it hard to write anything or event have a chat on my social media. I just do some work, eat and sleep... not to even mention the thoughts that have been plaguing my brain, both intrusive ones and otherwise. Of these thoughts are something I read this morning.
**Before I go on, I just wanted to ask, how are you doing dear reader? Good? Bad? However you're doing I pray you remain happy!**
So I was reading something on the internet this morning, a sad story of how people were killed when they were worshipping God yesterday in their holy place. A church in the town of Owo, ondo state Nigeria, was raided by gunmen, leaving people killed and the community in distraught. They were conducting mass and didn't finish early since yesterday was pentecostal Sunday when they heard a gunshot, it was loud enough to be anything ranging from a burst tyre or anything else that could produce that sound, although it was loud they didn't think much of it. Then came the second gunshot from the outside and at that point they knew something was terribly wrong. These armed men opened fire on the church through the windows since the doors were shut, killing adults and children in the process. Sadder it is that many of whom were killed were children as they must have panicked and got caught in the crossfire when trying to run to their mothers. Those who were lucky enough to have access what was about to happen laid flat on their faces and were saved from the bullets of these trigger-happy individuals, the terrorists. The sad thing is that such happenings aren't news anymore as they happen quite frequently in the south western and middle belt Nigeria. They aren't safe.
The other day, the news alongside a gruesome and tear provoking video of a Northern woman who was killed in the south-eastern part of Nigeria, alongside her four children, none of which were up to 10 years old reached my ear and my eyes. She was killed simply because she wasn't from the region.
**Northerners aren't safe in the south anymore. L**ikewise southerners aren't safe in the North as there might be a retaliation or a "revenge" for their brothers from them. An issue or tribalism here.
Again, a girl was killed in a northern state not long ago for allegedly committing blasphemy. She wasn't just killed but burnt to death over a whatsapp voice note. I can only imagine how beautiful lie would have been here if part of the energy we channel into religion is used to fight corrupt leaders in power. **The culprits were known, not hidden..**.
**Christians aren't safe in Muslim states** and I think same can be said for the Muslims in Christian states, especially those from the North.
What does all these show? It shows that the country isn't safe anymore! This isn't to create panic or propaganda but a truth that's glaring at us in the face. As I am seeing it, although we don't pray for anything bad, it is only a matter of time before things go wrong, that's if no action is taking and sadly for all these sad events, no action has ever been taken, just a twitter war and debate with hashtags spanning from days to months depending on how interesting the happening is, then the politicians...hmmm, they are the best at "condemning" terrorist attacks but do very nothing to stop them.
I am from the north and live in Kano, one of the core northern states in the country. I live in Sabon Gari, a region predominantly made up of southerners and Christians and things aren't really as they used to be. There are rumours flying around which might be true, but I refuse to believe in any for now.
When I look at the world in general, it isn't a safe place anymore. Look what's happening in some countries in Europe, the Middle East, India and some other Asian states, things are really messed up and it's only getting worse.
My prayer for all of us is that we make some money, live well and only die when God is pleased with us.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
💖💖💖
May I present to you....
Good day y'all!
It's time to recount what happened in May and set goals for June guys! I bet many of you have already done that and are putting plans in place, while matching them with actions to make every single day of this new month count. If you have done that, great! If you haven't, that's great too as it is best to take your time with such things.
The month of May came and is gone, still it left prints on us that may or may not be forgotten depending on the things the month presented to us, as we always carry the remains of each day we live no matter how small, which all sums up to become what we call "experience" over time. Although things can't be forgotten, it is essential for us all to pay attention to what is ahead of us in detail, because that's the opportunity that each day presents, that's the opportunity that each month presents.
For me, May hold a special place in my heart for the reason that it is my birth month and to me, it represents half of a year. I do a lot of self assessment and retrospection in the month of May. Things that are way beyond my control happens that weren't very nice in the month of May, amongst other bad things, something unpleasant happened to all of us in this month of May; the crypto dip, yeah, we all shared in the unpleasantness of the situation due to plans that have been left unexecuted and expectations that have been left unmet, and we can only hope for the best and I have been seeing good signs lately in the crypto market, still there's still a lot to be thankful for, I realised a lot of things about myself because of the self assessment I had done plus I made good online friends, I used my free time to learn arabic language and Spanish amongst other things, I think those alone are an achievement. You had them too👏👏.
May came to an end rather fast didn't it? That's how it felt to me anyways. The days moved so fast and I actually had to pay attention to my calendar to notice today's the first day of June lol, so here's to a new month 🍻 filled with everything good. May our unaccomplished goals in May be completed this month, may this month present many ways to unlocking and tapping into new blessings... Amen.
My readcash earnings for this month isn't something worth talking about so Imma just pass on that one haha, although to be honest I haven't been active as I was in April. Anyways it is very understandable for I am quite sure I am not the only one since the bearish market took a toll on the platform. Nonetheless I am grateful for all the beautiful souls I engage with regularly here, you guys are all precious!!
Happy new month read.cash!
I wish you a happy June.
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
💖💖💖
Kids and me.
Good day y'all and thanks to all those who wished me a happy birthday on my last article. Thanks for all the well wishes, prayers, compliments and blessings. I wish you all same too, I felt happy and loved when I saw all the messages 😍😍🎈. Indeed I have awesome friends here!
I don't really have much to write about today as I have been feeling rather demotivated since my a day before my birthday, burn out I guess, happens sometimes to me. So allow me to introduce you to these two lovely children.
I had wanted to post them here on children's day but they were nowhere to be found when I got ready to take their photos. We call them Mama and Zully. They are my cousin's children and they came to visit for sometime. Now the interesting thing about these two children, despite being 5 and 3 year's old respectively is that they are much wiser than their age, of course that's not so surprising of children of this generation but these two have a sort of wisdom that just leaves you in awe😅. They have great observation skills and while they seem like kids outwardly, they've got really old soils.
The other day, the one with the blue hijab who's the elder one, that's mama, saw me going chatting on whatsapp with a friend and we were sending voice notes back and forth to each other. I got called so I dropped the phone on the bed without locking the screen. I got back to see this girl recording her voice on WhatsApp with the voice note icon and I seriously cannot remember when she saw me doing that because I hardly even chat on WhatsApp let alone do voice notes, for a kid her age one has to do something repeatedly for her to be able tp grasp it. Neither her mom nor dad uses an android phone so there's no way she would have learnt that from them. The most annoying part is that when I caught her recording a voice note, she was singing nursery rhymes!! When I asked her how she learnt how to do that, she just smiled a knowing smile and I was like, "oh...".
The other one whose mouth is wide open like crocodile's, is the most mischievous and cunning amongst the two, despite being the younger one. You could tell that from that hilarious smile on her face 😂. She's the plotter, planner and master strategist. She's exceptionally good with numbers for someone her age. She's got the moodiness of a teenager and the charisma of a successful business person. Sarcasm seems to be her think even though she barely knows how to pronounce words. She's the one who always hides their school uniforms or the books in hopes that their mother won't force them to go to school since they can't find them, but little Zully isn't that good at hiding and always gives herself away in the end. Gets easily annoyed when not in the mood to play, you could just touch her and risk hearing her cry for the next hour!!
Are kids in today's generation wiser than us when we were kids?
I am sure that we all know that one little kid who's too smart for their age when we were kids, but do you realise that most of today's kids are smart? You do know those cute little children who belong to your sisters or brothers who are pretty smart for their age because I am sure I am not the only one. Kids these days pick up cues easily and have great deduction skills. They easily put two and two together and make sense out of something in their own way. Perhaps the latest developments in technology and science have something to do with this trend I don't know. Perhaps it's just evolution thereby sharpening their senses, this too, I don't know.
For this reasons, now more than ever , there's a greater need to be extra careful with our words and actions when the kids are around. They pick up cues in instances and before you know it, they start copying you. I somehow envy kids for how fast they are in learning new things, the brain is still fresh, the mind still innocent, and endless possibilities ahead of them. I think I would be way less of a dumbass than I already am lol😂😂.
Thanks for reading guys.
Yours Layly,
💖💖💖
It's my birthday!! 💖💖
Good day y'all!!
Today is the long awaited day, my birthday! On this day, a princess was born👑👑😊. I am not really a big fan of celebrating birthdays in the conventional way like preparing cakes or throwing parties, nonetheless my birthday is a special day for me and will always remain so. I of course treat myself to something nice, most especially in the night and it's a day when I reflect on how I have lived my life so far, no one is too young for personal accessment. I take my time to appreciate and thank God for all the blessings and achievements I have had so far. It's been a wonderful journey despite all the challenges.
What am I most grateful for?
**Life**
First, I am grateful for today. Many people who had birthdays last year never lived to witness yet another one this year. I am grateful for life and all that comes with it; the good and bad, the happiness and sadness, and everything of opposites. I believe that as long as we live, life will always throw things at us regardless of what our feelings are about them. I believe that God never burdens a soul with more than it can bear, I believe that as long as their is the gift of life, there will always be challenges and I thank God for giving me the strength to overcome most of them so far.
**Family**
There's nothing like family in this life, when we say home, we don't mean the building really, we mean the people inside the building and wherever it is we live with them, that's home. I am grateful for my family, there are many things I wouldn't have achieved without them as God uses them mostly as a means for his blessings to me. We share alot in common, we face similar challenges and we come together to surmount them as one, most times we succeed, other times we learn.
**Friends**
I consider my true friends as my brothers and sisters from different parents. I thank God for all the people outside my blood relatives who I have come to know really well and bonded with over time. Real friends are a blessing to anyone lucky enough to have them. I cherish the ones I have because I know how difficult it is to find a true friend nowadays. As a person who spent most of her teenage and early adult life in school, most of my friends are my school mates, we do stuff together and have become like family.
Also, I am grateful for all the friends I have here, you guys are awesome!
**My achievements**
For me, what I am hoping to achieve in the future are greater than what I have achieved so far. Most of my achievements for now are centred around my academics and writing. I was the best graduating student in my year from my high school and got three A's and 5 B's in my WAEC exams. I scored 300 in my JAMB making it easier for me to gain admission into the University to study my dream course, Medicine and Surgery. I am a level 300 medical student and so far, everything is going fine and good, thanks to God's love and mercy.
My dream achievements.
My number one dream at the moment is becoming a medical doctor, I have interests in becoming a neurosurgeon or gynaecologist for specialty. I have always been fascinated by the human brain with all its complexities and wonders and I hope to do my own research on it. I am also interested in gynaecology so that I can be of help to women and help save lIves, besides that I feel more female doctors should specialise in gynaecology because men seem to be more than women in the field, that to me is like white people teaching black history lol😂.
I also dream of becoming a certified content creator with exceptional writing skills, and I am working on that also, I thank those behind this site for helping me hone my writing skills while earning at the same time. I aspire to be a novelist, actually I had worked on writing one a year ago but later abandoned it. I aspire for many more things.
Quick questions to my viewers :
Below are two versions of Layla, which version do you think looks better? 😂😂
Thanks for reading.
Yours Layly,
💖💖
My dream achievements.
@DocLayla
