When I stole away
That's not even the disease yet. It's how you get it. And so for your next relationship, you're just waiting to be heartbroken. Not that you want to, but that the guy is giving you the same signs as the previous one. He's doing the ignoring after you send him a message at 7:00am in the morning and he's always "busy" doing I don't know what, maybe herding some cattle. But mostly, he promises he still cares and then you really don't know what's going on. So you want to call up your x and say "you damn boy of a human being, see what you have done to my heart and my brain." But your sisters in the sisterhood group keep telling you you are in control of your mind, whatever goes on in your environment is you and you own your space, and you want to say how bad you feel for not being able to control yourself the first day you met him.
Well I'm up at 1:29am (I might post this later) because I just finished watching Divergent and it goes so well with the theme of my life right now. If I was like one of those Ghanaian pastors holding a crusade, my theme would be :Be Bold: No Time to Be Afraid. Life is like that: it forces you to watch movies and use them as sermons to yourself.
I think it's just the excessive barking, no, the deepness of the voice behind the barking. Yes, and the verocious nature of their teeth when they yawn. I had a lunch date with my professor last week and I was hoping with all the hope left in the rains of California that the dog would magically disappear from her home or that we would eat lunch outside. Alas, God had very different plans. The minute I got out of the elevator, Penelope started to bark. So I called my professor, "can you please put her in a cage, I am scared." She laughed and said, "there is no cage, just push the door and come in." At that moment, I could have turned around and just left. Lunch couldn't have been that tasty. So, I took in a deep breath and realized the world was not waiting for me to stop being afraid. "I will hold her but she will have to come and smell you." DEAR LORD!! I just want lunch.
There's nothing worse than having to ride roller coasters as part of your job. There's nothing better than having to ride roller coaster as part of your job! I worked with BELL this summer and the students were sent on a trip every Friday. The best part of this job was that I could do all these cool things for free and still get paid: bowling, Skating, Movies and SIX FLAGS. All my 10 years in America, I had never been to Six Flags, just because it was never meant to be. But this summer it was meant to be because I really didn't have a choice. So, when we got there, I was so excited as I had to be for the group of students. Super excited because the challenge seemed so easy: get on roller coasters, scream, and pray it all ends soon. When you are further away from something, it seems small, easy, until you get closer to it. I am telling you the Kingda Ka is so scary, and no I didn't get on that so I could write a fabulous story about how I got over my fears. After the Nitro, I was angry at the world of roller coaster inventors for making this up: charge people money so they could be scared out of their mind. If you love this, then you must love what you love. But I am not going back!
Of Course, the devil is a major device in this fear, but He has not given us the spirit of fear, but of love, power and of a sound mind (2nd Timothy 1:7). Yeah okay, but don't leave me with lions or anything. What bothered me the most about telling people about God was that I didn't think they would believe me. I was scared that people would ask me questions I had no answers to. I was not even good with memorizing scripture. But, I was so happy to have joined my youth group to share the gospel. I hope at least someone received some healing. I just thought of it as having a conversation with someone. The first time was not as eventful as the second. This is where my fear of dogs makes sense. My friend and I were telling a man, "God loves you," when we heard two of his tiny chihuahua's barking, not on leash: why don't these people ever put their dogs on leash. I told my friend, "I'm scared of dogs" and her reply was "Me too." We walked away laughing only to turn back and to see these two tiny dogs were chasing after us. I didn't run but my friend had left me and thrown the pamphlets on the ground. I just stood there telling the dogs to stop and telling the owner to come get them. He just sat there, as if I did not even exist. Dogs must always retreat to their owners.
The snow rushed down
Like sunshine rain, 
Hello lovely readers,
This month, I'll be sharing some of my favorite poems I have written so far. The first would be this one, because it was one of the first few poems I wrote when I began to take my poetry seriously.
As a child, living in the city of Accra, I spent a lot of time in the market which was loud, large, and yet so colorful and rich. I would do anything to make sure my Saturday afternoons were spent in the market instead of the quiet kitchen at home. I found that markets in New York were not the same as markets in Accra. I was highly disappointed because everything was too organized and I couldn't bargain for anything I bought... So mechanic. Here's a little bit of nostalgia in black ink and free verse.
A Taste of Accra
My feet in cold clay.
Dried in the burning heat of Accra.
My wet kente lies on twisted blue ropes.
Welcomed by the high-pitched chattering of fat market
women. Sweet juice from red tomatoes and acid green peppers,
blend with the sourness of gari, dried fish, and wet snails.
A school girl squats near a Forget-Me-Not tree.
Her beige overalls sag between brown legs.
She bites into a purple Indian almond, waving away flies.
Peep! Peep! from long lines of lorries
standing under the orange sun.
Fading in the music, I hear
the invisible crickets wail,
and the pitiful moan
of the Christmas goat.
I love this piece because i have no idea how I wanted to end it. Enjoy!
I only thought about him a few times after the bread incident. I couldn't go around the whole schoool searching for guys who liked bread. But whenever I went to the cafeteria I made sure I got some bread and looked all over the cafeteria for a guy with curly hair. I think he had green eyes. I never took time to observe.
But I found him. At the Lamont library cafe. I sat quietly scribbling what I thought was a good revision to a paper I had previously drafted. I lifted my head just in time to see his slightly bent back making it to the other side of the university. I just stared quietly. Excited. He lived near Lamont. Maybe he didn't ,but I had found him.
He never passed by Lamont whenever I was there, but one day I found him sitting a few feet away from my seat at the cafe. My heart raced with enthusiasm. I sat at my regular seat facing the door, with my back turned to him and his friends. They spoke Spanish. I couldn't piece the nouns and verbs and proverbs to create sensible English sentences. I simply waited. He passed by me and I whispered a soft "Hello." He must not have heard me in the very quiet library. My heart sunk deep. He was soon to return and I decided to smile. But he looked over my head. I sighed in frustration and scribbled nonsense on my paper. I stayed for a few minutes after he left but returned few days after. He was there this time and alone.
I read in an article yesterday that you're the only one responsible for your happiness. There is no relationship that can make you happier than you already are. So instead of waiting for someone to make you happy, you must search for it yourself and keep it in a box. When you're sad, open it slightly and let it blow over you like a cold breeze from the refrigerator on a hot day.
Swimming is my cold breeze. I didn't know how to swim from Adam. But, it looked so cool from a distance and I wanted to try it. The first time I stepped in the water was in 2013 and it felt so heavy. Only 4 feet of stress. So now how do I swim? All you have to do is float and kick your leg in the water. What a simple task. I might sign up for the Olympics after. But I could barely let go, let alone float. After my first kicking session, I couldn't walk. So much pain. But, I came back the next day because my goal was to swim not to try kicking. After a few tries, I still couldn't float. So I gave up. I was only able to float and kick without holding to the wall after my roommate left for another conference. But, I found the urgency to finish my goal.
I continued this only for the summer of 2014 but still was in 4ft. How was I ever going to grow?
This summer/spring I wanted to challenge myself. I would go into 7ft and then 13 feet. But, I would start with 4ft with the intention of never going higher. It so happened that the pool I swam in extended from 4-7ft. I didn't know and kept swimming with a kickboard. I was able to swim properly and only began to panic when I couldn't stand up. More like when my feet couldn't touch the ground.
I was embarrassed. I was doing fine until I knew.
There are many things you know today that is keeping you from taking a risk and enjoying what makes you happy. There was no way I could have drowned. There was a lifeguard, and my friend who could swim perfectly in 13ft water nearby.
Oh, didn't also tell you I can swim backwards?
As you can see, I have a problem of commitment, especially to my writing. When I'm outside, I tend to think about the great and million ideas I want to write about. But, when I get home, I am completely worn out and hungry. After heading straight to the kitchen, I either go straight to bed or fall asleep in the couch while editing pictures. Have no fears, I am awake, yes at 3:51 am! and today, I will tell you what has been on my mind. I have been thinking a lot about going back to school, and how I spent my year off (semester off really), since it's graduation season. 
I was definitely not lost or confused about the direction I was headed. But I had difficulty deciding between continuing as a writer or a scholar. As an English major, my options were two and few. But my options also had very different directions. Scholarly work involves a lot more research, while creative work involves more writing and reading. I respect both but I felt more drawn towards creative writing. The real truth was that I was in a fellowship program that encouraged fellows to pursue Ph.D.'s after their undergraduate career but I was not ready. So I wanted to push it aside a little bit, which brings me to my next reason.
I kept hearing that graduate school is expensive but I didn't care or was I bothered because I believe in the power of God and SCHOLARSHIPS. So, in addition to applying to graduate school, I applied to 2 major scholarships, this is not to include about 5 more little scholarships I applied to (I got only 1, but I am still grateful). I think my job search process was so funny because it was so frustrating. Then I discovered INDEED!! That app gave me juice and a lot of depression. I would stay up all night refreshing the jobs. The funniest parts came when I had to revise a resume for about the 15 jobs I applied for. Then the interviews, then the Thank You notes, then the chaos at my current job, then the rejection emails. Wow. I'm telling
I am incredibly passionate about the things of God : I sing, dance, and plan events at my church and I felt like school had taken me away from most of that. So, I wanted to spend more time on using my passion to serve my maker. I honestly don't think that happened in the sense that I was busy doing I don't know what. But, I know I wasn't in Church as much as I had wanted to be. I did, however, start attending bible studies which transformed my perception of love. I took more time to also walk around the city after work. Initially, I couldn't wait to go home after work, but this time, I was patient, willing and excited to meet strangers(I met no stranger) and just looked at buildings.
I was at dance practice last week with my girls (sonctified) (I sort of like to do everything and so I teach dance), when one exclaimed "Jesus Christ," and the other responded saying "Don't you know Jesus is a busy man?" I thought that was funny, but then the writer in me bagan to twitch and I started thinking, how busy is Jesus? and is He so busy that He wants us to call on him only when we need Him?
I have been pretty busy just setting up myself for a lot of excitement. I started a professional photography business that focuses on portraits recently and that is simply exciting! But more importantly, I started realizing how relevant it is to be grateful. As a Christian, there is nothing more important than showing gratitude. God actually gets upset when He's showing you so much grace and favor but you decide to be ungrateful.
I love love and love loves me. I think being able to just tear your heart out into pieces and share it with others for all the right reasons is even better. I think we were
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I love taking pictures. Love! Love! Love!. But whenever I give the camera to my mother, she doesn't take them well. She does not get the right angle or she simply cuts my head off. My sister is so busy reading her books she would think its a waste of time to follow me to the park and take pictures of me. I can just imagine her saying 'no' with her eyes. I can take the camera outside and put it on timed mode but by the time I turn around to pose someone would have probably stolen the camera (well something along those lines.) And so sometimes when I look really great, like last Sunday when I wore those high-waisted patterned trousers, I have no one to take a picture of me. 