Happy New Year!

Yea, it is belated but isn’t that better than nothing? That is presumptive me again, thinking that I have an audience. But what is better than positive self-deception, especially when one knows the true picture?What have I been up to apart from generally not blogging? Well, I was in Uppsala for the Christmas. You know that was where I did my masters. I went there to meet old friends and to have a taste, no, a taste of a pinch, of what I had when I was there. It is always nice to go to a place where one used to stay. You know that when a person first gets to a place, if they are observant, they see things that even the natives don’t see; and when they return there they see changes that natives would probably have lived through. I saw some changes, but most interesting of all, I met old friends. It is so funny how places look like they have changed and people just look the same. The same old angers and frustrations, the same old resolutions, old aspirations. But do I love the people! I really missed them. One is now married and another is on the way to getting married. Some have changed jobs and moved/ are planning to move to Stockholm, and others still are now on some university courses. And I said they haven’t changed? To illustrate I’ll use myself. I went to Nigeria, got a job with a company, worked with them for a while, left again and now I am in Germany. Changes, right? Yea, changes, but have those changes really changed the Me? I guess not. I still have the same aspirations as I always did, the same frustrations, the same bitterness. I think there is just something inside us that refuse to change despite the superficial changes. Yea, there have been changes but my friends, the friends that I had, and the things that attracted us to each other, haven’t really changed. Maybe the same thing goes for cities too. Maybe if we know a city well enough we probably would find that it never really changes. Perhaps it always retains its essence – whatever that means – even in the face of what we would consider near-extreme changes. Let us ask our geographers and urban planners.

Yea, to more current things. I now attend a Deutsch language course five days a week. And after I discovered that I had added some weight I have joined a gym. These all are avenues for stories so I should be giving you some sometime soon.

Two days ago, I had some colleagues over to my apartment and made some eba and obe egusi (for those who are not Nigerians this is a Nigerian dish), and suggested that they ate by hand. It was a fun time. It is always great to have people visiting, and it is always good to cook for people. Yea, that is a really, really short summary of what has been happening to me.