SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOL

I was so quiet during the summer!

Recap of summer -
I worked like four different jobs - my inability to keep it on the dl is a joke. By far my most interesting was a stint as a telemarketer. I actually had two different telemarketing jobs - one at VIP Publishers and the other for Martinez Marketing. The first was a 9 to 5, six day a week job. This was the interesting one. I basically sold magazines to unwilling people.

It was a little bit like lying.



They [ 'we' I suppose] attempt to sell you a magazine subscription after letting you know your name has been entered into a sweepstakes. The Sweepstakes are real, the prizes are real. It's just that they ['we'] fib a little when we tell you about the magazines! You can have anything in our database, for sure, but once you sing up you are locked in. They don't tell you that. Hell, I didn't even know that till my third week there!

Poor sods.

Anyway, when people weren't telling me to go screw myself or implying that I was born before my parent's marriage or that I was a female dog...it was actually pretty interesting. Some tend to feel a sense of comfort with a friendly stranger on the phone! I heard some very varied lifestories - some stuff that made me sympathize, some that made me laugh, some that even made me tear up a little! It was a good job even though I never hit quota!

Anyway, school's back!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Written Vomit

Terrible imagery, isn't it?

But this post is sort of like a thereupitic verbal diarrhea that I spewed out today. To keep to the authenticity of it, I think I'll just keep the words and improper grammar and terrible word usage as they are.

Aftermath

Sometimes it feels like a scar

A wet wet scar

A sensitive scar

And when fingers run over it, it shivers

but the fingers are my own and I tease it because I like the pain of remembering

Sometimes I don't like the pain of remembering but I figure I might have to remind myself

I haven't fallen in love again. 

Well, sort of. It was brief and I ran before I could accept it

I'm a coward, the real kind.

I do cowardly things and then flaunt it proudly so that I can call my own faults

before anyone else's does

Sometimes in the books I read, the girls who call their own bluffs are the ones who get the worthy guy in the end.

This is really not a book...or a movie...or a love story.

And it's hard sometimes to wake up even four years later and think...hm...what happened? Where did I go wrong? Was it me? Wasn't it me?

Was it him? Wasn't it him?

Wasn't it both?

I dunno. maybe that's why I love romance novels so much. I;m wising up to the idea that you have to be someone's cup of tea.

You're not nobody's cup of tea

So there's gotta be someone out there but in the meantime, can't I find a nice torrid affair to while away the time? 

Do I have to be the kind of person who buys so deeply into the whole 'sex is love' idea that it's hard to envision one without the other?

It sucks to be a throwback to an era where no one monkeyed around with someone who wasn't marriageable.

It also sucks to consistently be the single one in a group of friends as interesting and more confident than me

It's like overcoming a phobia, you know how they say that the more you're confronted with the thing you are terrified of, the tougher your skin is regarding it?

maybe it's true. i'll never know.

i spend about 5% of my time crying over someone who i can't seem to completely put behind me

i spend about 5% of that time wondering if i was wrong, 10% of it making up dramatic day dreams in which we reconcile and the remaining 75% thinking of ways to get around and over and under the feelings that seem to spout from the neverending fountain of God knows what.

No real words to sign out...I suppose.

Just dreaming.

Trendy Thursdays!

First post in the new year - huzzah!

School actually started yesterday in Sometown, Somecity, USA. I swear to you, I'm like a three year old on turkey...by 1:30PM I was ZZZing through my class. I have two classes MW and three TTh and absolutely nothing on Friday's. H$!!'s yeah. Okay, so blogging needs to be done more frequently. I say this every single year.

New Year's Resolutions -

1) Work out. Everyone says this. But if you're going to talk about it, be about it, right? With that go-getter mentality in mind, I went ahead and signed up for two workout classes on campus. The first starts Jan31st and runs until before Spring Break, the second is actually a women's self defense class. Since I'm paying for it, best believe your girl is attending it...WOOT MUTHAFLIPPIN WOOT!

2) Clean. I'm oh so messy and it sometimes makes life difficult. Twice a week, I'm going to pick things up. Hopefully, it's a habit that keeps?

3) Write more. YEAHHHH done it! I did so much fanfic over break, I was like 'OMGIMAMAZING'. SO I guess I just need to keep up with that.

4) Eat somewhat healthily. This is going to be the hardest thing ever. Alright, so I love lots of new things almost every single week.

5) Attend class. Easier said than done... ZzzZzz...

That's it. I don't understand the people with a billion resolutions - you know in your heart of hearts you're never going to actually go through with 80% of that list. MEH. 

So Trendy Thursdays!

I'm totally totally loving a few things this week that I did not know about last week. And some things I've just always loved and only getting to tell you about now...

Music Crush(es): Cloud

Pandora is AH-MAZE-ING. It has introduced me to so much music I would otherwise never have been exposed to and 'Cloud' is one of them. I have a particular soft-spot for lounge, house, & electronica. This came on and I was jamming out automatically.

and

Also in love with Electrik Red ---> took two years but the album is now on my laptop! Can't stop listening to this song...on repeat.

Girl Crush: Alison Sudol from A Fine Frenzy

If I ever met her in person...I'd probably just cry. And I'm not kidding when I say that.

Boy Crush: Matt Lewis

I don't understand how I missed his transformation from

 to 

Yes, that's the fat bumbling kid from Harry Potter.

My reaction -

then 

Hahahahahahahahahahah goodness gracious. Real talk though, he's the perfect example of puberty done right. Like holy sugar honey ice tea! Even as I type this, I'm just shaking my head like

HELLO? IS THAT YOU NEVILLE?! Because you can be the father of my children, kthnxbyeeeeee.

Show+Movie Love:

VAMPIRE DIARIES.

I've been sleeping on this show and finally just blazed through the first two seasons in about three days at my sister's house. It was ah-maze-ing. I laughed, I swore, I cried, I cooed. Goodness. So incredible. DONT WANT TO READ THE BOOKS - just want to watch the show.

Ocean's Eleven.

Finally watched it and really liked it, interestingly enough. 

Book Love:

Rereading Jo Bev for some reason this week - Company of Rogues, what what! I didn't ever finish the Rogue circle books so I'm going to start The Devil's Heiress in a bit since I read all the ones

before that.

Clothing Obsession:

SOCKS. Like high-knee what I used to wear in Catholic school type socks. I think it's because Urban Outfitter had a sale on high socks so I was literally like this is amazing! I added myself to lookbook.nu (my sister will be pissed bc I always steal stuff she loves but HEY!) and I like to see all the funky

stuff people put together on there. I want to incorporate a traditional African piece into a lot of my outfits but don't know where to start! meh

Okay check this -

or this -

or this!

Yep, I want this look for when it gets warmer where I live. But I suspect this is what I'm going to end up looking like lol -

 

I have nothing against Monsieur Castaglioni but his stuff's just always too far out for me. And that look <------ is not one I enjoy or want to replicate smh.

Alright. It's 2AM. The witching hour. Except not.

Adieu, mes amies!

OOOOOOOHHHH PS! I got featured in Abby's World Natural Hair Section :) Check the link 0_0

http://www.theabbysworld.com/2012/01/natural-hair-journey-sherrell.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theabbysworld%2FveNn+%28Abby%27s+World%29

TOSHIBA A500 Restore from Disk

A lot of you are going to be like 'WTF'.

I'm doing this for everyone out there who has ever had to reset their Toshiba from scratch. Now, I'm actually doing my sister's computer from scratch.

I wanted to kill myself every step of the way.

If you google how to reinstall or recover a Toshiba A505, you're going to get some of the most standard steps known to man. I am the idiot who didn't immediately create recovery disks upon receipt of my baby. Luckily, my computer works fine whereas my sister's computer (which is a carbon copy a.k.a. exact model) of my own so I created the 5piece recovery disks from my own laptop.

The road was rocky.

Very rocky.

 I'm no computer whiz but I'll lay out for you the most popular answers -

"

"there's an invisible image inbuilt. use it."

or the ever popular - 

"2)Shut down your computer, turn it on then immediately press "f8" repeatedly then u will see the option at the bottom of the screen "press f2 to log to boot manager" press it fast or else you'll have to repeat everything again 

3)Then there is the option at the top "To access advanced boot option press "f8" ,press it. 

3)Under "Advanced Boot Option",highlight the option"Repair Your Computer" and press enter. 3)System recovery option menu will show up, select country and keyboard layout then press next. 

4)Then there is the option to log in as a local user so you can access recovery option,enter your password. 

5)After that the "System Recovery Option" will be visible,just choose what action u like 
a)Start up Repair 
b)System Restore 
c)Windows PC Complete Restore 
d)Windows Memory diagnostic tool 
e)Command Prompt 
f)Toshiba Recovery Wizard. 

Select "Toshiba|Recovery Wizard",then select the option that says "Restore to factory default out of box state." 

6)There will be a warning that all files will be lost, dont worry just go on because all the files will be rewritten just like when u first bought it. Cheers


 The problem with these answers is that not a damn one worked for me. My sister's computer must be part of the Illuminati - it consulted Lucifer every step of the way. Anything I did was moot when I tried to access the in-built partition to try and fix the computer for free without disks.

So, in came the plan to create the recovery disks.

This is my revised list of steps of what to do when you need to get that shit fixed.

BE ADVISED, THIS ISH TAKES 3HOURS MINIMUM.

1) Steal or make a copy of Toshiba recovery disks. You have to do it from a computer like yours otherwise it won't do a damned thing.

2) Hit up the toshiba forums. Luckily I'm just going to copy and paste what that damned User Guide said with some edits.

3) Put the first disc in the drive, and then load up the computer. Hit F12 like a mo'fo to get to the boot screen.

4) Once that boot screen loads up, you're going to want to use your down arrow to get to cd/dvd then hit enter.

5) Now, at this point everyone magically acts like shit will happen all at once. This is a LIE. A LIE. This is why you shouldn't be alarmed that

• the screen resolution is large enough for even shortsighted grandma to read
• there's a hell of a lot of waiting time - I stared down a blank black screen for about ten minutes before that massive WARNING THE END IS NEAR sign popped up asking me if I would be okay with deleting my sister's life away.
• 
  

6) Click yes to being okay about deleting your life away. The answer is almost always going to be yes, folks.

7) Another magical ten minute wait while Windows tells you it's 'loading files' or something like that. You might find it useful to pick up that book you've been meaning to get to for some light reading. I started a new kdrama - hey, whatever works for ya.

8) Now you're going to get to that magical grey screen of system recovery. It is REALLY IMPORTANT that you follow the next steps carefully.

11) RECOVERY OF FACTORY DEFAULT SOFTWARE. Then click next.

12) RECOVERY OUT OF BOX STATE. Then next.

13) Then the instructions usually say something like follow instructions bloah blah blah it'll tell you when the drive is recovered...
Also a lie from the enemy.


14) Don't worry yourself. This is going to take a long time. Another grey screen came up with something along the lines of preparing or downloading or something (can't remember, brain is numb) and it ran through three discs.

Here's my problem - I also have a windows recovery envrionemtn 64 bit disk (the fourth created) and a toshiba apps and drivers (the fifth and final one).

So when it told me it was done after 3 discs I was HELLA CONFUSED. Note that this took around 2 hours to complete just step 14.

15) Okay cool. It restarsts itself, still with that mega resolution that makes sure I'm going to have a grand headache.

16) Prepare yourself for the tricky part (note, a long drink of cold water will be helpful and maybe some Advil, since God knew I needed it...). It'll go through normal startup protocol succesfully.

Or at least it should - if it doesn't, you're royally screwed.

Anyway it'll go through the usual steps of starting itself and hit the start up screen and then the pretty blue 'log in, master' screen and it'll override that function and just enter.

17) It will open like it's done doing everything it needs to do, that is my point. THIS IS A LIE, DO NOT BELIEVE IT. It is not finished, not by a long shot.

18) It's going to go into this Configuring System screen thing. Don't be alarmed. It'll remain there for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, with the status box doing its thing with the glowing green meter. That's all fine and as it should be.

19) It will leave the screen and then say 'system needs to reboot to finish installing blah blah' or something like that. It will also say
 Do not touch keyboard or touchpad.
And by God, you'd better listen to those instructions.

20)  It's going to go into this Configuring System screen thing. Again. Don't be alarmed. It'll remain there for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, with the status box doing its thing with the glowing green meter. That's all fine and as it should be. Again. 

21) It will leave the screen and then say 'system needs to reboot to finish installing blah blah' AGAIN or something like that. It will also say
 Do not touch keyboard or touchpad.
And by God, you'd still better listen to those instructions.

22) Excercise patience and restraint. Because steps 18 through 21 are going to repeat for the NEXT HOUR. You are going to go insane. You'll think you fucked up somewhere. You'll wonder why you spent a billion hours on the first half of reinstalling and reformatting Windows for the computer. You'll briefly consider selling said laptop on eBay for parts...or holiday gifts. You might even go so far as to get up and leave the room.
Do what you got to do.
BUT DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TOUCH THE GOTDAMNED KEYBOARD OR TOUCHPAD.
In fact, please leave the room to lessen the temptation.

23) I nearly touched the keypad. Nearly. But I'm a great believer in waiting to see how things play out so at the last second my itty bitty fingers veered away from my itty bitty computer.

24) I'm not kidding when I said an hour will go by, give or take a quarter of it. Next  it will say 'system needs to reboot to finish installing blah blah' or something like that. It will also say
 Do not touch keyboard or touchpad.
Again, do what you're told.

25) This time it's going to log in and all that good stuff and go to a different blue page - something along the lines of checking system performance. Praise Him because you are getting close to the end. It's going to remain on this page for a little over 10 minutes.

26) Read that book. Drink that water.

27) Now it's going to exit out of that blue screen and say "processing cleanup phase Susprep plugins". GOD IS GOOD. YOU ARE AT THE END.

28) The rest is the computer telling you it's preparing for first time use then it's going to walk you through setting up user and pc name and all that good stuff.

Time taken - 4.5hours
Time wasted freaking out - 4.4 hours
Time spent thanking God for the help - 10mins

You should now be all set!

Late Night Guilt

Sometimes I feel like I might never get over it.

Earlier this summer, an older friend of mine was killed in a car accident along with all other passengers. She was well-known and well-liked among the college community, and she was (still is) sorely missed. To be honest, when I first met her I thought she was a little too curt. By the time, she graduated I looked up to her as an older sister. She was smart and nice and good - genuinely, good. She bugged me to do my homework, cajoled me into attending church regularly with her, impressed my parents, gave me good advice, was a friend.

When she died, it was like being sucker-punched.

Almost a day to the month before her birthday. I'd never had anyone close to me pass on before, nothing to look back on, nothing to compare this to.

Like...I just remember I didn't believe it for a few hours. But then everyone began panicking on her wall and I called my mother hysterical and it was confirmed and...holy shit, I'll never forget what that felt like. I just couldn't understand it. I cried before I even allowed myself to believe it, like my body was overriding my mind's adamant desire to keep holding on to hope that we were all mistaken. I have never understood what it's like to continuously - continuously - cry. Even exhausted, my face hurting from it, my skin raw and sensitive, I couldn't stop. My mother came to get me from my apartment, took my best friend too, and we cried.

I feel like sometimes I'm still crying.

Her Facebook is still up. It's turned into a living memorial of sorts - those of us that her miss leave her notes about our lives, or just drop by to tell her we miss her, or simply post words of simple love and desire to have her back.

It's particularly difficult at night. I don't know what it is about the night time that makes grief swell and swell until is giant and all-consuming and all-encompassing. Perhaps it's that I find myself drifting to read the messages on her wall, looking at her pictures, watching the way people interact with her wall like she'll log on and comment. I'm really bad about keeping in touch with people whom I don't have direct access to. I tend to forget I read messages, or fool myself into believing I responded. With her, I hadn't spoken to her - realtime rapid fire conversation - in over a month before she died.

I cannot forgive myself for blowing it off, saying 'I'll catch her next time' or 'Gosh, I'll get on Skype in a few hours to talk to her". I cannot forgive myself for not texting her more often or calling more often or shooting her an e-mail or something.


It's probably the biggest reason I can't seem to get over it.

I can't.

And it makes me sad because if this how I feel in the position of one who didn't know her as well as I'd wished, I can't begin to imagine how her best friends and family feel.

I don't want to.

Sunny Sunday!

Hello!

I'm in a remarkably good mood - this is always the case when I leave my rents and come back to my own apartment. Despite a two hour long confrontation with the mother, nothing can bring me down. BIG THINGS ARE COMING.

So here's the plan, Stan.

Find a job. Find a way to get to L.A. Find a ride to church every Sunday. Find my cellphone, which I suspect is somewhere under my bed. Find some grit.

In that order :)

Happy Sunday! Happy Thanksgiving!

Selfish

Hello everyone,
It's been aaawwwhhhhiiilllleeeee. Major life changes? I've switched my major. This was actually the source of most of my chronic stress. I can't tell you how many headaches and sore throats I've had over the first major and minor I had. In the fall, I finally came clean to myself about what I want and my capabilities. I might be smart enough to do but that a) does not reflect in my grades and b) was never what I wanted to do. The major I switched to is much more interesting but will make my parents supremely unhappy. I've also been looking in to CRAS. Like, really really hard.


I used to think that part of my birthright was to be perfect. I am not perfect. I've gone out of my way to prove that to my parents and family (maybe a little too enthusiastically) and I don't know if I've got 'em convinced.

Hah, I sound like a regular teenager. Or maybe not a regular teenager but a regular person, someone who is a sister or brother or daughter or son of someone.

My maternal grandmother came over the summer from overseas. She's so fesity - there's awareness in her eyes and strength in her grip! (Tell me I was surprised when this little 5'1 lady yanked me down to sit next to her!) She leaves tomorrow with my aunt - my favorite aunt ever - who came to pick her up. They are extensions of a greater mass of people who all want me to succeed for various reasons. Their words 'You are not American. You're Nigerian. No matter how much you might wish it, your parents are yours for life.' It's not because I don't love them - not at all. I think I like to believe that it would be easy to cut off ties with family, not because I want to, but because I just don't believe my parents will come to terms with the fact that I'm so different. A lot of my best friends believe I'm selling them short - maybe. It's also that I really think they deserved a better kid. Their firstborn should have been filial and obedient, respectful and kind and honest. I'm not all of those things 100% of the time and I'm very selfish. My sense of self-entitlement is greater than most and while I don't want to add to my parents worry, my dreams are so out of the scope of what any of my perfect cousins want that I feel bad.

I'm the bad egg, the proverbial prodigal's daughter, except I'm not sure whether I'll be coming home at the end of painting the town red and blue. I feel as if I'm going to bring them a lot more heartache without trying down the line so I just want to cut it off so I don't feel guilty about my selfishness. I think I've always liked to believe that I'm free from expectation.

It's a lie that I no longer bother upholding.

Hah, this reads like such an emotional post but I promise you this is me at my most level-headed.

Selfishness. It's amazing how much of it we have. It's incredible how far we'll go to fulfill our own needs. I could lie and say 'I don't want to do this but...' - that's a lie. I do want to do this - and that's the problem.