Happy Late New Year!

2014!

Wow, it's been a while! I don't really know what to say. How can explain my prolonged absence from this blog?

Well, that's a tough one. Four months ago, I had promised to myself that I would post an update about returning to America, right after we got settled in. Heck, I was even trying to finish up a post while in the airport in Dubai. But for some reason, it never got past the planning stages. I never hit "send".

And here I am, writing this at a crazy hour in the night. I don't know where all of the months went. It's like they slipped through my fingers, snaking right around me before I could even blink. That's a good thing, I guess. That means I'm busy!

That's one thing I'm sure of. I'm definitely busy.

I'm not buys doing anything specific, but I just feel like I'm doing a lot of things. I'm highly active in an online writers' forum, I'm taking a high school chemistry class...As you can imagine, I'm happy to relax over the weekend.

But why do you want to hear about the rantings of a crazy teenager? (Well, if you're reading this blog I don't really know what you'd expect...)

"This blog is supposed to be about travel!" That's probably what you're saying, shaking your fist at the screen. "How dare you plague this site with your personal issues!"

Maybe it's because I don't want to write something boring. I want to post something that's really intriguing, something that'll make you think about different world views and stuff. You see, that was an easy feat while in Nigeria; I was experiencing conflicting world views all the time. But now that I'm back in America, it's hard for me to spot the idiosyncratic habits in my life. To put it simply, I don't feel like I'm travelling anymore.

Does that mean this blog is dead? No, not by a long shot. This just means that I have to try harder to find interesting and new things to write about. I'm a creative guy, so I surely haven't used up all of my imagination juice. I keep a whole bunch in the fridge, anyway.

I'm not sure if anyone reads The Xplorer anymore, and that's okay. I'll keep posting, though. From now on, I'll figure out something, anything, to say. There's no need to worry about that.

Before I submit this post, I would like to mention that it's been more than four years since I started this blog. Four years! That's a long time. My younger sister is the same age I was when I made my first post! That just blows my mind; there's four years worth of blog here. I successfully documented my life in Nigeria, and I've gotta admit that I'm super proud.

Signing off,
The Traveler

Two Days

In two days, we'll leave Nigeria for six months.

This time, it's back to the States for real! Not for three weeks, but half a year. It's what we've all been waiting for. Now it's time for us to go back to Durham, catch up with friends, get our lives back home started again. We had a little test thing back in April, so this time it's not going to be as shocking. But it'll still leave an impact, that's for sure. This isn't just something you decide to do overnight. Just like in '09 when we left for Nigeria, returning to America is a pretty big deal.

To be honest, I'm super super excited. I really want this, very badly. I know that the people we met here are going to miss us; some have already said "Just stay here!" I understand...whenever you leave some place for a while, people want to latch onto you. Even so (I'm being honest again here), I'm not giving Durham up, not happening. Yes, Nigeria has become a second home. Yes, Ife is a pretty nice place. But would a Nigerian like to be in a foreign country for years on end without returning to their home? I know a lot of Nigerians do that a lot, but I believe that they miss Nigeria after a while. And that's just human nature, I guess.

Another reason I want to leave is NEPA. *shudders* I certainly won't miss the inconsistent power supply. Or the messed up water system. Or malaria...

I will miss the people I've met. And some of the dishes here. And the relaxed atmosphere of Ife...

It's alright though. Nigeria isn't going anywhere. I'll be back in six months. So I'll enjoy Durham as much as I can!

Signing off,
The Traveler

P.S. I'm still debating over whether I should update this blog while in the States. If I continue posting in Durham, I probably won't be doing it as frequently. I don't want to get repetitive.

Iiiindoooomieeeee!

Iiiindoooomieeeee!

Indomie. I shudder whenever I hear little kids shriek that on commercials. On the radio, they're all like "Mommy, give us Indomie! Give us Indomie, Mommy!"

The bane of my existence.

Indomie is ramen, Naija style. And I hate it. Have I mentioned how much I hate it? It's all soggy and wet and the chicken flavoring doesn't even taste like chicken and the "spicy chili packet!" that comes with it isn't even spicy and oh please don't get me started.

To put it simply, it's really gross if you've had it over and over and over again like I have.

While we were driving to Lagos once, there was an Indomie commercial on the radio. And this woman was all like "You know grandkids, back in my day my mother always made me Indomie. It's my favorite food!"

This is impossible. Indomie was introduced to Nigeria in 1988.

Unless if the grandmother is 35, there's no way she could've eaten Indomie as a kid. Indomie, you liar!

LIES, LIES EVERYWHERE

Signing off,
The Traveler

Pictures

I have a camera now!

We had to visit a hospital in Ife, to go see some friends. They live there, because there's a whole residential area for the doctors.

This is the main road. To the right is the ambulance, and the building next to it is the cafeteria.

This looks like a barn or something. *shrugs*

This is a common tree in Nigeria. It reminds me of the pine trees in Durham.

This is another view of the hospital.

I told you I'd get a camera!

Signing off,

The Traveler

Group Reaction

This is going to be a short one.

So I was on the OAU campus today, I was buying some suya--a beef jerky sorta thing. I must have mentioned it in an earlier post so I'll let you do all of the hard work and find it. Because I'm lazy. DEAL WITH IT

As I was saying. I was buying some suya, and it was pretty dark. It was 8:45 PM after all. So all of the streetlights were on and there were all of these bright buildings and stuff. You know, how it should look? And people were going about doing weird stuff and I was there buying the suya on the street corner and everything was normal and--BAM. PHCN strikes again! All of the power goes out, simultaneously. Every building, every streetlight, goes dark. Here comes the cool part.

All of a sudden, I hear this huge collective sigh! Like, everyone on campus rolling their eyes and huffing in exasperation. I know it might not sound so cool, but it was an amazing experience. It was as if this experience kinda brought everyone together. We all hate PHCN's unreliability. So we can all unite under that. Alright, maybe it's not the best thing to agree on; hating the electric company? But it was still really cool to hear. Like this huge...wave of sound! You know, similar to that Marvel superhero, the one that can't say a word because if he does he'll like explode everything in sight or something like that? Because his voice is so loud and immense and all that stuff? (Okay, you can take my nerd creds away.)

Signing off,
The Traveler

MY LIFE IS FULL OF WORDS

AND NUMBERS

It mostly involves a lot of this:

And this:

So as you can tell, I've been rather busy. It's been so much fun, learning C++ and Calculus. Plus, my math teacher let me borrow his Kindle DX for a week and a half. How awesome is that?! Now I can read my e-books on a proper e-book reader! Sorry laptop, but you're staring at words on your screen for too long will give anyone a headache.

Speaking of books, I've also been snooping about in the old library. We have a decent collection of books (my Granpa's old collection), and most of them are from the 60s and 70s. I found a couple of good ones (1984 is one of them) , and I tried reading The Iliad too. I'm sorry to say I failed. :P Who knew the Greeks could make such confusing literature?

Anyway, there are a lot of really old Nigerian magazines. It's almost like travelling back in time. You get to see what people cared about back then, what issues they had and what accomplishments they had achieved. Maybe I'll talk more about that later.

I know this is a short post, and it's more of an update about what I've been up to. But that's okay! I'll try to find more interesting things to talk about next time. :)

Signing off,

The Traveler

P.S. I was looking around my blog, and I saw my old "Favorite Sites" widget on the right-hand side. I haven't changed it for years; one of my sites on there is "GMail (ESPECIALLY BUZZ)". I remember when I used to talk to my friends through Buzz! I didn't even have a Facebook account. Ah...memories.

Stuff Can Get Boring

That title might seem like an obvious (and vague) thing to say.

Well, I can agree. But it got your attention, right? :P Anyways, stuff really can get boring. For example, have you ever realized how much you depend on electricity? Stop for a second, and think about what you're using to read this blog. Whether it's a tablet PC, a laptop, a desktop, a smartphone--it has definitely got something to do with electricity. If you're reading this after sunset wait a minute. What if you couldn't turn on the lamp next to you because there was no electricity? You wouldn't be able to read at night. And if you use an electric stove you definitely wouldn't be doing any cooking soon. Do you see where I am going with this? In the modern world with all of it's digital thingamajigs, an individual without access to electricity is seriously handicapped. And trust me, it can be boring; I've experienced this firsthand. I've talked about this frequently in the past so I'm not going to go over how unstable PHCN's service is again. All I'm saying is that you really don't understand how boring things can get without electricity. How can I check my mail? Or even turn on a light?

I've been thinking a lot on the differences between America and Nigeria. I was wrong to say that there wasn't a shock when we came back here. Now, I've changed my mind. I was shocked when we came back to an unstable cycle of power outages and electricity. Whenever PHCN starts to act up, I always wish I have a good book to read. Unfortunately a lot of my books are digital, and battery life doesn't last forever.

The only upside to all of this is that I spend more time with my family and stuff. You know, talking to my parents about some weird video I saw on YouTube or petting one of our cats. And I love drawing, so sometimes I'll just sketch, write things down. I'll get hit with inspiration and I'll write down a chapter or two of my novel. These things are nice, but they shouldn't be forced on us. We should be able to choose when we want to go digital and non-digital. We don't need PHCN to decide that for us.

Signing off,
The Traveler