Busy Busy Busy.....................

The week past has been really hectic and I don't see that changing for a while. That explains my lack of posting. The other part is that I applied for High Spped internet service from Cable and Wireless and after waiting for 1 month I am still not hooked up despite the fact that they have been to the house twice. The technician says that there is only intermittent signal from the line hence the problem of installing. In anticipation of the install I had cancelled my regular dial up connection but from how things looking I may need to go pay the bill and reconnect.

I had mentioned that I would tell you all about my exam troubles well here goes..... The 1st 2 exams went extremely well and I expect good grades for them. The final exam however ended in disaster. The nigerian lecturer that I have written about decided that he was going to f@#^ us royally. He told us up to a week before the exam that the paper would take the form of objective type and multiple choice questions.....60 of them to be exact. On the afternoon of the exam, when the papers were being issued, he walks in and advises that the exam format had been changed and that we would be getting essay type questions and that it was all "our fault". The entire class, after nuff upraor, walked out of the exam room, resulting in a closure of the exam and several meetings with the Dean of the faculty. This lecturer had tried our patience long enough. His attitude throughout the semester and his teaching methodology, or lack of it thereof, had resulted in, all I can describeit as is, a nonsense course. It is a pity, since this course should be one that we can relate to on a personal basis, as we Caribbean nationals live this course daily. The lecturer is rude and, from all indications, has one purpose in mind...to mess up the students. I should truly hope that he is not an example of how "educated" Nigerians behave, or we are indeed in trouble as a people.

The exam was done at 5:00 p.m. with the understanding that the results would be void if there was hard evidence of cheating. Myself, being partially involved in the meetings, did the exams under severe duress and as such I hold little hope for good results. Honestly I was tired, upset, pissed is a better word and just plain old disoriented. Anyways I will wait and see. All I need is a pass and hopefully to put the dark side of that ass behind me.

Family is home. They arrived on Saturday and it is great to have them around again. Wifey looks rested and kids are good. Tall One got himself some pocket money and bought himself a phone so he is happy. Short One helped somebody to pack for house moving and she got some stuff and some money as well so they both were able to do a little shopping. Good for them.

We have been having some really bad lightning storms recently. On Sunday a bolt hit the utility pole in front of my sisters house in Stony Hill. It split the pole in 2 and sent splinters of wood flying some two or three houses down the road. A 6 foot piece of the pole landed between the 2 cars. Thankfully no damage to the vehicles. The pole is now significantly shorter and the surge damaged the fridge, the telephones and a battery charger. Luckily all the other stuff was plugged out at the time so no damge to the other items. Our weather patterns have really changed though. Last Wednesday I got caught in a lightning storm, no rain, just lots of lightning and thunder.

Other than that it's just lots of work and work and lots more work.

Anyway guys, we'll chat more later....take it easy.

Girl Attack

Strange title?....maybe not. In one of my lectures the other day, the whole argument of women in the workplace and dress and sexual harassment came up. Quite an interesting discussion but one part I would like to share is the view that ladies will always be "harassed" they will always be subject to the stares and the whistles and the suggestive comments simply because it is in the nature of the beast..... PHAT attack if you will.

I always thought it was a misspelling of the word fat until a few months ago I was enlightened to the fact that it is used as an acronym..... P = that catlike part of the female anatomy, H = hips, A = her most admired ass-et, and T = the milk factory. No disrespect ladies.

It was in fact the lecturer who pointed out that all ladies carried the same features and it was these features that the male of the species is attracted to. The beauty, variety...let me stop there before I get myself into more trouble. In other words the male cannot but observe the obvious beckoning that these anatomical features present to him. It is however in the will of the female as to whether or not she is willing to allow the encounter as expected by the male. It is in the maturity of the male to accept the will of the female and move on to other more willing creatures of splendor.

I went a step further to use this theory to try to explain sexual preferences but it never quite panned out. I can see the male female attraction and I can ....to a lesser extent... see the female to female attraction after all PHAT is PHAT but I for the life of me still cannot fathom the male to male one. Maybe I should leave that to when it's time for me to do my research paper. I don't think the university review board will sanction me doing my research on PHAT.

Have a great day all.

Just Passing Throoooouuuuuggghhhhh

Morning all, just a really quick "Hi". I forgot to tell you guys that this is exam week. I've had two already and one to go. The two gone have been pretty good so no complaints here. Just haven't had much sleep and am dog tired. Discovery is home. I'm sure it must have been a trying 2 weeks for the crew and their families. Apart from all of that, 2 of the 4 people in my section are on vacation so I really have had to put the internet surfing and blog stuff on hold for a while. I should be back to normal next week. Until then...take care of you.

Journalism

If I wanted I could probably make an argument that journalism and sensationalism are one and the same thing. Kami's article is a good example but it was so vivid on ABC's news feature this morning about the space shuttle. The caption was "Spacewalk to save shuttle". I was like what?...the shuttle is in some mortal danger?...something happened overnight that the machine is gonna go boom? As it turns out, the shuttle has some spacers between its tiles that have come out a bit and so the crew needs to cut them off so as to prevent what they call a blow torch effect on re-entry. According to the mission people it is precautionary. I guess they aren't taking any chances with the last event still fresh in everybody's mind. But if you read the caption and you had family up there you may have had a coronary.

Another case in point is the Halloway girl. I think CNN and Fox have milked this story to the limit. If you watched long enough you could probably figure out what her mom has for breakfast lunch and dinner and probably what time she goes to the bathroom.

It's no longer about getting the truth out to the masses, it's about getting the masses to come to you at all cost. I know it's a difficult task but could those of you in journalism try to make a difference. Stretching the truth to breaking point has become long in the tooth.

Our media here takes delight in being brutally frank, which is the other extreme. We have had horrifying pictures of murder scenes and car accidents splattered across television that would turn the hardest of stomachs. At one stage, one wondered if the practice wasn't to show the dead bodies being hauled around and then apologise for not being sensitive. That has been tempered to a great extent these days.

Which brings me to the question I posed earlier... Is journalism merely sensationalism?

Bammy

Smallislandgirl,

This is what bammy looks like. When fried it becomes soft and turns a nice rich yellow colour.

Post Emancipation Day

Well, yesterday was a holiday here in Jamdown. Emancipation Day. It was a nice break from work and might I add...most welcomed. Well Sunday marked 10 days since I have been completely familyless. I spoke with them last light and they are doing fine. Wifey is having some cooling out time and The Shorter is doing what she does best...shopping. I need to start checking my money carefully because I can't figure out how she shop so much and still manage to save money.

Well I had the last of my in course tests for the semester on Saturday. It wasn't too bad. I was gearing up for a lot worse but it was pretty much a balanced exam. The lecturer divided the questions evenly with about 50% going towards theory and 50% towards problem solving. I should pass. Exams are right around the corner though. My 1st draft of exams is 8th, 9th and 12th of August. All crammed into one week ...yuck. But at least I get them out of the way and over with.

Yesterday I decided to finally do my 1st real cooking since wifey left. I managed to work up some fried fish and bammy with vegetables. I learned a little trick with the bammy some time ago. If your bammy is always coming out kinda tough, a great way to get it soft is to actually deep fry it. Those people who don't like the fried foods or are on low cholesterol diets...stay far. If you do it just like festival it actually makes it really soft. what i do is to drain it on paper towels after to remove the oil. Another great alternative is steamed bammy.

Anyway guys...I gotta run..work start calling already.