the graduate.

this school year will be my senior year at NYU. i think that's pretty amazing that i'm almost done with college. but it's also overwhelmingly nerve wracking. i have no idea what i want for the rest of my life. at least, not in any specifics. i don't know what i want to do. what i want to be. who i want to be. if any of that matters.

i hope i don't sound like a failure. i know for some that uncertainty is a sign of weakness. a miscalculation that results from a lack of preparation.

but, i'd have to wholly disagree.

for me it's an open mindedness. it's an acceptance of the fact that i don't know everything and am willing to learn. uncertainty for me means that I care enough to consider it all, and i won't be tied down to anything. i need to live.

my parents are on me about grad school. my father says that they'll need a list of schools and courses of study before i go back to new york on sunday. mind you, this is all after i told them that i didn't especially want to go to grad school. and my father got all snarky, saying fine, you don't have to go. she can just get an apartment and a job. any job, whether it's flipping burgers or anything else. thanks for the support pops.

but on the real. i don't see myself in grad school. i don't really see myself in a lot of places until i'm there though, so maybe i should just go for it. but i don't want it to be a waste.

now, more than ever, i just have this urge to blow up. to make it. to really get next level. and i want to be me. i don't want to be forced into anything, pushed in any direction. i want these next steps to be of my own mind, but i still know that i need help.

so the end is near. c/o '09 is live of course, so i know this year will be extra official. you just have to respect senior status. and i hope that i get some more perspective and a better sense of what i want and what i need. what will make me happy.

i'm hoping to put myself on. i'm not entirely ready for graduation, but i will take that shit. i've earned it, let me reap the rewards.

yeahhh, these next few months should be really interesting. catastrophic, euphoric, perplexing. i don't know.

i just gotta make it.

hi! do you have a minute for __________?

i don't know about other cities, but i know that if you live in New York, then you've definitely heard this intro.

meet the clipboard activists.

you're walking down the street minding your business. maybe it's a good day, maybe a bad day. but you basically just want to be left alone. unless it's somebody reasonably attractive or a celebrity, you don't want to be bothered.

but ohhh, how they care not.

you'll see them, wearing their organization's t-shirt, with a messenger bag strapped across their body. sometimes they're holding a clipboard, other times they're not. but they're looking to trap you. draw you in. or just plain pester you.

as you attempt to walk by/ slide past unnoticed:

"hi! do you have a minute for gay rights/children/the environment?!"

if you say no, you come off like a heartless devil-child. if you say yes, then you have been conquered.

personally, i try to say nothing at all. give a hint of smile and keep it moving.

but some of them follow you.

you'll give your nothing smile and dismissive nod, and somehow, they take that as an invitation to pursue you down the street.

one time, i clearly was not trying to talk to anyone, just coming back from lunch, sipping a frappucino, on my way back to work. but dude would not let me live. he walked side by side like we were cool, or better yet, like we even knew each other.

he was working for children's international. so he did his whole spiel about starving kids and how i could save them [that sounds mean. i don't want kids to starve. but i don't want to be badgered into donating either. what a conundrum]. and at the end, he asked me to donate. of course, i said something like, "i don't know, i'm not sure. do you have anything i could read and get back to you later?"

and they never do.

it's like they want your money right then, or not ever. i find that a bit counterproductive and contradictory. but that's just me.

so then he said something like what is there to think about? don't you care? you could help right now! but i'm not the one to just volunteer credit card info on the whim, on the streets, even if for a good cause. when he realized he would get nothing from me, he said ok, thanks, have a nice day. but he gave me a look that distinctly said, "you will burn in hell for this, and i will be carrying the clipboard, on which i will check 'extra fire.' "

oh well. "i'm not looking at you dudes, i'm looking past you." so true.

are you thinking what i'm thinking?

to come:

• WNBA
• clipboard activists

deuces.

walk of life.

so i told my homes the other day that we needed to go on a "walk of life." these walks, by definition should be completely random, so by dictating that we do one, i kind of defeated the spontaneity of it. but still-it's real.

what i call a walk of life is an experience. it's a time when you focus on the now. whatever pops into your head, your heart, your stomach, whatever, you satisfy it in that moment. it's charcterized by randomness (whatever that word means these days). i turn left, the convo changes. i turn right, maybe it's a new approach. you get it?

and, if i daresay must, it must, be at night. the night for me facilitates that restless spirit. the gotta go now. the these walls are driving me crazy. the nightime air awaits feel.

maybe it's a walk where nothing matters. it doesn't take itself seriously-there's no goal. maybe that sounds like the ruin of our generation, but i love that feeling. not just of not caring, but of not having to care. to be able to make one decision without thinking of its effect on another. i wouldn't call it irresponsibility, but maybe it's close. it's my secure recklessness. i welcome the uncertain. i'm not thinking about the 10 page paper, or the presentation, the problem set, the meeting, the notebook, the pencil-whatever. it's about me and all that other. a selfish little event that's mine.

the walk of life is a non sequitur. it's nothing like what you were doing before earlier in the day. you weren't thinking of going on one. it just happens.

so it follows that on this walk, you're accompanied by a down for anything kind of person. someone who isn't worried. it's not that he or she doesn't care, it's more like, what's the point?
this is someone that's chill, where the words come and go easy, and the next step is the best step.

since all (2?) of my walks of life have been in New York, it makes me feel like an urban adventurer. but an adventurer that doesn't get tired, pressed, stressed, or bored.
blocks upon blocks we walk. don't know just how far we've gone, cause we're looking forward, not back. and we don't see street signs cause they're not in our eyeline.

and it's a walk where distance matters. travel. explore. get the most mileage outta those $40 chucks. blisters, cramps, aches--and? please, move on.

personally? i've done one walk of life from west 4th st. to water street. think about it, please. one is the locale where ballers get to work. the other is just about certified wall street. just the differences in the places is enough, but the experience of walking into one realm of consciousness after another that's dictated by these hoods is something crazy. really. like did you just walk from the village, into chinatown, to the financial district? yeah i did.

my inaugural walk of life, and probably the biggest and baddest one, was crazy. don't really remember where we started, but we'll say around west 13th street. walked to the west village. the east river. around and around. then times square. yes. get into how real that is. walk back to 13th. then off again to a 7/11 on 23rd and Lex. it just gets realer and weirder. but always in a good way.

i wish i had a camera during these moments, but i always forgot them. and since it's so the essence of now, there's no turning back. so you just remember. like how one old, very possibly crazy dude came up to me and the aforementioned friend, saying real crazy stuff. "yeah, yall look good...yall eat p....." but you get the picture. i would say be prepared, but why? it's all in the not knowing. the oh shit, did that really just happen? "ignorance is bliss" works every time here.

and you just go.
it's.... "i want a chili cheese dog." "alright." "uhhh, let's just go this way." "sure." "you pick a direction." "okkkk, left."


it's really that simple. and perfect.

olympic moments. :: the gold is mine.

like i said before, i'm very hyped for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. i love the chance to become a guiltless fanatic for sports that i usually change the channel on. Like swimming. only every four years will swimming grab my attention, sit me on the couch, and put the remote aside. it's intense, all that back and forth. and the men have something like the perfect Greek body. all triangular and such (shout out to 9th grade history with Mr. Tottenham for that tidbit). loving track and field is a given, even with all these dummies taking steroids and ruining their careers and legacies (paging Marion Jones...). and then there's gymnastics. everybody loves it. and who can forget the '96 Olympics when Kerri Strug nailed the landing on one foot. hello?! american gangsta she was.

which gets me to thinking: do i have any olympic moments in my life? where i snatched the gold, and stood over the opponent like Christian Laettner did to Aminu Timberlake, minus the stepping on the chest?

in 6th grade (actually, pretty much all through pre-k-12), i was a gym class hero. i killed on all those tests they made us take: sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, balance beam, agility. i could limbo (omg, i was such a beast at limbo, especially in 2nd grade), ball, all of that. and then there was this one game- TJ Wizards. allow me to explain the name and the game. I went to Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, hence the TJ, and our mascot was a wizard. so in this game, like 4 kids are picked to be the wizards. and they stand in the middle of the floor. now the rest of us commoners line up facing them on the other side of the gym. at the appropriate time, when the whistle was blown, or the wizards told us to go, we would try to run to the other side of the gym without being tagged. if the wizards got us, we were out. so basically, the last person or people who survived without being tagged were the winners.

the game started out real regular. a couple of back and forths with only a few people being tagged. but then gradually, everyone started to feel it. the wizards went harder, so we had to dodge harder, trying to figure out who would be an easy victim for them to pick, and kind of use them as a shield as we ran past. so when the game gets down to like 2 or 3 runners, that's when it gets good. that's when you see skill, not luck, get you by. you try to use somebody to block-you're out. and you're outnumbered. now if i remember correctly, i was one of the only girls left (like always, but i'm not bragging). i always felt cool being the athletic girl. it was a good different. finally, it got down to only me. it's the kind of situation where everyone's watching, and cheering, and you don't wanna let the crowd down. probably like how LeBron felt in his first NBA game. and yes i did just compare myself to the Chosen One. and?

so i'm trying to get to the other side. i'm on the far side of the gym, and the wizards are between me and my classmates. and even though i'm the only one left, the game's not over for me. i'm running, and there's a couple hands grasping at me. nah, you missed, come harder. yeah, i see you up front, how about a fake left go right? got it. now you look determined. stutterstep and spin, and i'm at the other wall. the wall? that makes me a champion. where's my medal?

i remember Peyton saying "You're amazing," as i finished the wizards off with my footwork. that's quite a compliment. i mean, who hears that from a friend in 6th grade outside the confines of a yearbook page?

so that was one Olympic moment of mine. but trust, i have others. like the basketball game at Grand Valley when chick was trying to get her inbound pass, and i went for the steal and basically laid her out. no whistle. no foul. and i stepped over her and got back into position. that was Olympic beast, i think. or the game against Berkshire, where we were losing. and i saw ms. ponytail in the short corner looking to take a 3. so i got over there, and sent the ball into the bleachers, like i was Misti May or something. i know they say if you block a shot you should try to get possession of it, but damn, that way felt better. that was Olympic beast.

those are just a few Olympic moments off the top, and i'm looking to make more.

i'm always going for the gold.

the NBA. where singing happens.

ok, my little brother (shout out to Ogeezi, Univeristy of Houston '12, football squad) put me onto this video of then NBA hopeful Shan Foster. he can't wait to go to the NBA. so he made a song about it. i love this and worry for him at the same time. how often these days do we see that kind of innocent passion to join pro sports? but he has to know that he will be clowned for the rest of his life. and his days as a rookie on the Dallas Mavericks (assuming they keep him) just got really real. like, he just loaded the gun and put it to his head. but that's just my opinion.

anyway, let Shan take you on the magical, soulful, journey of his NBA dreams.



"take you off the dribble, go past my man-i'm in the lane, now watch me--slammm."


i would marry this dude, if only for the inevitability of more laughs. youtube video and song for our marriage. actually, there would probably be a video for the engagement. honeymoon. first child. house. dog. new dinette set. we'd be stars. until the novelty wore off, and he became a living, droning, whining music box that needed a change of batteries. but i'll think positive.

he did.

you don't know my name.

To Whom It May Concern,

sorry, sir? i think you're mistaken. my name isn't sis. or ma. nope, not miss. definitely not baby. it's not purple shirt, black pants, stilettos. not short hair or brown skin. beautiful, gorgeous, sexy: those could be nice, but- not mine.

how are you supposed to catch my attention, then? good question. you might wanna wikipedia that.

nah, really though, dudes of the world.

i know you feel like those are the only words/phrases available to you, but i really think you can do better. you have to. or you're doomed to a life of retreating shadows and dirty looks.

so how do you get me (take "me" as universal for women) to stop. and then listen. with a little etc., when you don't know my name, and i'm not telling? it has to be something different.

I remember freshman year, i was 2 minutes away from my dorm. and on my street there were construction workers. as a freshman, all cautious and the like, i generally crossed the street to avoid those dudes, because a catcall is inevitable. like, i feel it's scheduled into their day. 12:30-lunch. 12:32-scope out. 12:37-leer and catcall. but i'm just guessing.

anyways, i stayed the path, looking straight ahead, trying to mean mug (side note: i feel like my mean mug is broken sometimes. people always asking me for directions). And this dude, Jamel (number's still in my phone) tried to holler. i ignored him quite strongly at first, but then he said "i love you," and i had to laugh. and stop. it was too cute then.

but even so, that's been used already, so you have to come harder. be interested without seeming lewd. be charming without being phony. don't grab me or impede my path (unless you're t.i., t.j. holmes, osi, and some other dudes with special privileges). but how. how?

maybe introduce yourself first, instead of making me feel that i'm the 10th girl in a long line of girls that you've hit on today. i know you're mindless when you drop a line like this: "hey ma. you looking real good right now. you probably get this all the time, but i'm really feelin you. so why don't you give me your number so we can discuss?"

no. you gets no number, no name, not even a slightly irritated smile with that. i'm just walking away. and you ask for my number before my name. does that make sense?

you could be persistent, aka bug the hell out of me, until i break down and acknowledge that we are both breathing the same air and let you get 8.7 seconds of my time. i don't care how determined a girl is to betray no emotion to a dude that's trying to scoop. keep going at her, and soon enough you'll see the almost imperceptible pull at the corners of her mouth, signaling a laugh, a smile, a word.

however, i don't advocate that approach. annoying is annoying no matter the intention and some women won't take it. believe me, i know ladies that hit.

approach. finesse. practice in the mirror, and i'll practice my response. be nervous. shy. personable. let me know you have something to lose. don't be a robot programmed to get the number and snatch the panties. you matter and i matter. act like it.

you'll probably get rejected a lot. no avoiding that.

and by the way, my name is...

on the brain.

a few things that have been on my mind, which i may fully post about some day:

• the controversy/craziness happening in my dear Episcopal Church (and i mean that in a worldwide, not local sense. but i'm still possessive).

• the 2008 Olympics. i really can't tell you how hyped i am.

• senior year and beyond. and that's a great beyond, my friends.

• summer in new york. am i capitalizing on summertime ny? (read as summertime "nigh" to rhyme with Kanye's "summertime chi" line. it's cooler that way)

• the midwest floods. mainly because i have to write about it for work, but it's truly some end of the world, repent, write the will, type ish.

• money. how i want to save, spend, and increase. please.

• good people. real talk. those people that make you smile like 10 hours after you saw them. romantic, platonic, whatever. life is all about finding and keeping good people.

• i need to buy a bed/mattress/futon before i develop severe back problems.

• i may be way late on this, but why didn't anyone tell me that when i vote in a presidential election, i'm not really voting for the president?! i'm voting for electors who will then cast their vote for the president. i just learned this today at work. blew. my. mind.

• T.J. Holmes. i first saw him on Sunday on CNN, as i was waiting for my bag to come off the conveyor belt. please google him. he is so seriously sexy. and supposedly he dated Chilli. yeahhh.
  
  
  

• the situation in Zimbabwe. welcome world, to a very gangsta, grimey leader. Mugabe, your life is not ok.

• whether or not i should cut my hair again. not short-short, but short, ya know?

alright, i'll holler.

basketball--and you know this....

the playoffs are underway in the NBA and nothing makes me happier than to watch LeBron James and my Cleveland Cavaliers take on the NBA's "finest." but the whole LeBron vs. DeShawn Stevenson + Soulja Boy + Jay-Z is too complicated for this post.

part of my renewed love for the NBA is the cast of Inside the NBA- Ernie, Kenny, and Charles keep me entertained every night that they're on and tonight was no different. Freshly retired Chris Webber was a special anchor and the initiation they did tonight for him was priceless. The last in a series of questions: How many timeouts are there in a college basketball game?




so coldblooded, shameless, but hilarious! we all know how Chris Webber called that timeout against UNC when he played for Michigan. still, he handled it well. oh, how i love Inside the NBA, and so shall you.

alright, i'm out for now. good night and sweet dreams of clutch 3-pointers and championship trophies.

reading is fundamental.

and i don't do it for my pleasure as often as i want. fortunately, i sometimes read things for class which fulfill the requirement. in my foreign correspondence class, we were talking about crisis and catastrophe reporting and read this article by Mark Fritz, about the Rwandan genocide:

By MARK FRITZ
Associated Press Writer

KARUBAMBA, Rwanda (AP) Nobody lives here any more.

Not the expectant mothers huddled outside the maternity clinic, not the families squeezed into the church, not the man who lies rotting in a schoolroom beneath a chalkboard map of Africa.

Everybody here is dead. Karubamba is a vision from hell, a flesh-and-bone junkyard of human wreckage, an obscene slaughterhouse that has fallen silent save for the roaring buzz of flies the size of honeybees.

With silent shrieks of agony locked on decaying faces, hundreds of bodies line the streets and fill the tidy brick buildings of this village, most of them in the sprawling Roman Catholic complex of classrooms and clinics at Karubamba's stilled heart.

Karubamba is just one breathtakingly awful example of the mayhem that has made beautiful little Rwanda the world's most ghastly killing ground. Karubamba, 30 miles northeast of Kigali, the capital, died April 11, six days after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu tribe, was killed in a plane crash whose cause is still undetermined. The paranoia and suspicion surrounding the crash blew the lid off decades of complex ethnic, social and political hatreds. It ignited a murderous spree by extremists from the majority Hutus against rival Tutsis and those Hutus who had opposed the government.

This awesome wave of remorseless mayhem has claimed 100,000 to 200,000 lives, say U.N. and other relief groups. Many were cut down while cowering in places traditionally thought safe havens: churches, schools, relief agencies.

One stroll past the bleached skulls, ripped limbs and sunbaked sinews on the blood-streaked streets of Karubamba gives weight to those estimates.

Almost every peek through a broken window or splintered door reveals incomprehensible horror. A schoolboy killed amid tumbling desks and benches. A couple splattered against a wall beneath a portrait of a serene, haloed Jesus Christ.

Peer into the woods every few hundred feet along the red-clay road to Karubamba and see piles of bodies heaped in decaying clumps.

News from Rwanda has been dominated by accounts of the carnage in Kigali or of millions of refugees living in mud and filth in vast encampments just outside the border. But what happened in Karubamba has happened - and is still happening - in villages across this fertile green nation of velvety, terraced hills.

Survivors from Karubamba say when early word came of the Hutu rampage, people from surrounding towns fled to the seemingly safe haven of the Rukara Parish complex here.

On the night of April 11, the killers swarmed among the neat rows of buildings and began systematically executing the predominantly Tutsi population with machetes, spears, clubs and guns.

"They said, 'You are Tutsi, therefore we have to kill you," ' said Agnes Kantengwa, 34, who was among dozens holed up inside the yellow-brick church. "We thought we were safe in church. We thought it was a holy place."

It wasn't. Her husband and four children were butchered amid the overturned pews.

Bodies stretched to the ornately carved hardwood altar beneath a large crucifix.

Somewhere amid the stinking human rubble is the Rev. Faustin Kagimbura, "who tried to protect us," Kantengwa said.

Down the road, outside the maternity clinic next to the hospital, about 25 bodies lie beneath a cluster of shade trees; most appear to be women, but it is difficult now to be sure.

"They were women waiting to have babies," Kantengwa said. "The killers made them go outside and kneel down, then cut them in the head with machetes and spears. They said, 'You are Tutsi."'

Mrs. Kantengwa, her 6-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter survived with a mosaic of machete wounds. They share one hospital bed in nearby Gahini, a larger town that breathes bustling life as easily as Karubamba exudes the suffocating stench of month-old death.

At the primary school midway between the maternity clinic and the church, a man lies prone beneath a meticulously drawn blackboard sketch of Africa, the capitals of each nation listed alongside.

Serena Mukagasana, 16, said the man was teacher Matthias Kanamugire.

The girl also was in the church when the slaughter began. By the time it was over, she was an orphan.

"All my family was killed," she said. She fled outside during the slaughter and watched from the bushes.

"They just killed and killed," she said.

The Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front that has been battling the government since 1991 has made huge gains in the countryside since the rampage began.

Their secured areas are relatively stable and well-policed, though scores of villages remain empty and thousands of people line the roads looking for safe places to stop. More than 1.3 million people in this nation of 8 million are displaced.

The rebels took Gahini and set up a base just days after the massacre at Karubamba. It is one of the staging areas for what is believed to be an imminent rebel assault on Kigali, where guerrillas are battling government troops backed by Hutu militias.

Capt. Diogene Mugenge, the rebel commander in Gahini, said an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 people died in the carnage at Karubamba. The only sign of human life in the area is a lone sentry posted roughly where the fresh air begins.

When asked about the massacre, and the fact that mutilated, battered bodies remain frozen in the moment of agonizing death just a few miles from his base, Mugenge shrugs.

"It's happening everywhere," he said.


in class, i said it was hauntingly beautiful, even if about death. take a look at a line like:
"...the bleached skulls, ripped limbs and sunbaked sinews on the blood-streaked streets of Karubamba..."

it's crazy what we can do with words. real talk.

seriously? you may have a problem.

ok, this is a very serious issue. i am almost incapacitated by my procrastination. case in point-i am going to bed right now. at 7:29 am! i have class at 10. the bus leaves at 9:10. let's think about that.

i amaze myself.

welcome, i suppose.

wouldn't an introduction be lovely here?

my name is Chika. that's no typo, nor a nickname, nor a pseudonym. and yes, i know "chica" means "girl" in Spanish- but, i hope you notice the difference.

hmmm, these things are never easy....

i'm a junior at NYU. I'm Nigerian. i'm from Cleveland, Ohio (216 all day). i love Duke basketball. i love Harry Potter. but enough, you will come to know me in time (that's kind of presumptuous, right? like i'm assuming you even care).

you might be wondering about the title of this blog. OCEA are my initials, but, alas, i don't think you're ready just yet to know what they stand for.

i don't know what i want this blog to be. my thoughts, perhaps. my likes and dislikes. my achievements. discoveries. failures. my life.

we'll see how this turns out.

deuces, darlings.