Discombobulation of life

Oh my God I am so bored right now.

When my schedule came out for this term I was a little worried as it looked pretty busy. But none of the teachers seem to want me to be in their classes. So, i thought, who cares? I shall just catch up with my reading and studying and that is what I am trying to do, but any lenghty reading session usually ends up with my falling asleep at my desk, which would be ok, if I did not snore so loudly.

This week I have taught 5 classes, and am about to teach my sixth, one of those classes has been a double session. I was going to work out my per hour rate but decided not to as it would probably turn out to be the best paying job i will ever have once that is considered.

I read, I go home and I sleep, I make lunch, I play computer games, I try to study but sleep gets in the way. Going to the states, should I get through, is going to be the biggest shock to the system I will ever have. I really think that it might be a good idea to get me a part time job so i do not completely sink into sloth.

any ideas?

anyone know of any good jobs in London, let me know.

At the moment I am feeling pretty apathetic about quite a lot of things that are happening. I have usually focussed on the problems of the world to stop me from focussing too much on myself, but now there seems to be a void. It stems from being here too long. I feel more apart from everything than i ever have. More and more, this world seems to be spliting from reality and there is nothing that I can do except for to leave. And i am leaving, but not soon enough. And I do want to write about things, but they just seem so distant now. So i ventured into my vault and into my "non-book" and brought out another one of my ramblings.

Enjoy dear friends, enjoy.

2. of Race in Relationships

One Christmas, possibly the best ever family Christmas that we have had in my family, my father said to me: “No self respecting white woman would ever marry a black man” I think that I was 20 years old at that time. It shocked me, it should not have done but it did; on two levels. The first was as if my father was admitting to us all; that he believed that we, as blacks, are an inferior race. That was said despite is relative success in the world of banking. He still felt that blacks were second-class citizens. The second effect it had was to instil doubt in my mind. I am not a stupid fellow and I am fully aware that blacks and whites are not very equal. Here though is where I began to doubt my worth, whether I would ever be worthy of any woman.

By that time I had gone out with a multitude of nationalities, none of which were black. There had been two relationships with mixed race girls but no blacks. Even up to the point of writing this I have still had no relationships with any females of my race. I am sure that the reader, having taken note of the title perceives this lack of rapport with my fellow Nubian sisters as an indication of my inclinations towards women of a lighter skin tone. I would have to disagree here though. When it comes down to it, I like women, all different types, all different colours any nationality. Most of my preferences actually stem from the lack of experience with certain types of women.

Though my father was not openly hostile to my supposed preference for white girls, he was clearly not happy, neither was my mother though, as mothers tend to do she showed a little more understanding and compassion than my father. Since then my mother has made the discovery that the pastor of her church is married to a white lady. That means that she is more willing than ever to accept things should I eventually end up that way. But it must be nice being a pastor and being able to tell people that God told you to pick the white woman. After that there is nothing that people can say to you is there? My cousin dates a white girl, my half-brother and half-sister all, I believe, have or have had black girlfriends or wives or boyfriends or husbands or spouses. My brother has never dated a white girl. My sister on the other hand will probably date white guys, that is her preference and one to which she is entitled. There is a fundamental difference between the ways we were raised which led to this outcome. My sister, my cousin and I were born in London. Even though each of us have spent time living in the countries of our parents, the majority has been spend in England. That in itself does not point any of us towards a certain preference but it definitely shows us that there is more out there. If we had also lived in a predominantly black neighbourhood I am sure that would have had an influence too.

Schools outside London, in Kent, ensured that I was surrounded by middleclass white boys and girls most of my life. There were a couple of black girls but none that I took an interest in. well there was one but that was never going to happen. At university I joined the afro Caribbean society but did not remain there for long. It felt strange being a person who is pretty liberal about race but being a member of a group whose membership was based on the exclusions of other races, and therefore most of my friends. I am sure that if I had stayed with the Afro-Caribbean society I would have had the opportunity to meet and socialize with many women of my race. The thing is that I don’t really care. I don’t think that most of my friends care. I have to admit though that for some strange reason I find it hard to communicate with Black English women.

I remember my brother having some marital problems, major marital problems that caused a temporary separation. My mother said that this was due to a clash of cultures. This is understandable, some cultures do clash and when they do, you need to be a very strong partnership for that not to affect you and your family. The thing is though, they come from the same country. They almost grew up together. Sharing a similar culture is important, today though, there are many people who travel. Immigration is changing the face of culture. People travel and they assimilate cultures. They take in various aspects and in themselves create new cultures. Lines are increasingly blurred, so are races. Times have changed since my father’s arrival in the UK during the 1950s. For his sake and my sanity I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he worded his phrase wrong. I believe that people of my generation understand that colour should not matter. I believe that when men see women and women see men, it is the beauty of the person that they look at. Asian, Black, Oriental, Caucasian, it does not really matter. Beauty is beauty and the future of the world is brown.

Wednesday morning in Japan, Tuesday evening in Villareal. I wake up, at 0325 Japan time and crawl out of bed. I am shivering, not because it is cold, but due to the nerves building up inside me. I put on some old clothes and quickly cycle down the 2mins it takes to get to Tom's house. My eyes are watering from the wind. I get to his place and the TV is on. UEFA is doing its obligatory slow-mo frames of the important players in the game. Each one has a different reaction to the magnitude of the occasion. The one that stands out though is Cesc. He looks relaxed. RELAXED!! A not yet 20 year old midfielder playing an influential role for the Arsenal Team on a night determining who goes into the final and he is smiling. Not a nervous smile, mind you, a smile that looks like someone has just told him a rather good joke.

Well, I am sure that you all know the result now. We (Arsenal will play Barcelona) are in the final. But oh my God!!! that was a shit game. It was so bad, and i have not seen Arsenal play worse for a very long time. And it was all the fundamental stuff too. Players too far away from the Striker, losing the ball too easily. No one, absolutely no one moving and providing options. It was the most frustrating 88mins ever. Ahh you may think, but a game is 90 min. And right you would be too. For 88min it was shite. Then the ref gave a very dubious penalty. And up stepped un Riquilme but Lehmann guessed right and was correct. Then we actually had a few shots on target and the game was over.

I would like to say Thank you to Jens Lehmann. Without whom this season Arsenal would have been even more shite.

In the Final, my head says Barca. But the Arsenal players know that it might be a while before it happens again. Plus we have to leave 4 place to Spurs so that we can take away their champions league place.

That would be perfect.

At some point i was in the process of writing a book. It was going to be a book about being black. Well not just being black, cos then any black person could write that book. It was going to be about being me. But why do you deserve a book you may ask. Because I am special, I would reply. Not that special, but I figure that I have travelled and lived in quite a few countries and I do not really see myself as "black", though I am. I have always considered myself, well not always just since we had to start using those really annoying terms to describe ourselves, as Afro-European. Yeah, i have a British passport and a Sierra Leone one too, but I am more European than British. Besides Britain/England is not really that great a place.

So, to my book then. "1. Of Blackness and being black" was and maybe still will be the first chapter. It was in no way going to be a big book, just one of those small ones you pick up at the counter cos there was still enough money left on your gift voucher. Just one of those. And here it is:

“People call me white ‘cos I speak proper English”
Rah Diggah
Darn, I just quoted a lyric from a hip-hop song so that must automatically make me blacker than I was a few minutes ago.

No matter how western I consider myself, how I think, how I act, there is one thing I cannot escape from, and that would be my fatness. Ok, maybe not. A few months of exercise and even my fatness would disappear. But this is the beginning though. This is where my words are coming from. This is the part that will hopefully make it interesting for people to read and maybe even talk about in the distant future.

I am black and there is nothing I can do about it. That makes it sound that I would want to change it but I do not. I like being black. As a black man, you can get away with the ridiculous and still look cool. Simple dance moves are made to look sublime. As a black man, I do not feel the compulsion to remove all items of clothing at the first sign of sun and hit the beach. I keep my tan all year round. I can fall asleep in the sun and not worry about being burned. As a black man, a glance can instil fear into the hearts of hardened men. Slight exaggeration there, but we can still instil fear into the hearts of old grannies trying to push in when we are queuing up at Sainsbury’s. I can still terrify little Japanese devil kids running around loose in supermarkets. A little sinister I know but we all have a side like that.

I once had a job working at a supermarket. I used to read “the Guardian” in my lunch break. I did not always understand what the other black people were saying to me due to the fact that I had gone to public school and the English I spoke was nothing like the English they spoke. At first they did not speak to me, which did not really bother me as I was getting some good reading done. My cousin started to work there at the same time as me. His assimilation into the whole thing was almost seamless. The difference was that he was a true Londoner, he spoke the language and he dressed the “right way” and listened to all the right music. My stint at boarding school, in this case seemed to be somewhat detrimental to my initial acceptance. My language was too “white”, I disliked a lot of the music they liked due to the lack of musicality and did not really give much of a damn about what clothing I wore to work. Having my cousin there did facilitate the whole integration process. Of course there was the lack of belief that we were related but the people working there eventually took to me and I made some good friends. By the way, I do listen to hip-hop; I just find that a lot of it, especially the newer music completely lacks inspiration.

So I am black, well at least I look it, my colleagues were black and still it was hard for me to feel at home for a while. In some respects I just was not black enough. How many of them do you think had even been to Africa? I know at least one who had lived there but the rest of them had never been. Even the West Indians had never been back “home”. So what does that mean? Does the fact that I lived in Sierra Leone for the early years of my life count for anything? Does that make me automatically blacker than those who have not visited what is commonly termed as “the motherland”? Well it does not really matter does it? What does matter is that outside Africa or the West Indies, the only thing people ever really notice is that you are black. West Indian or African or American, until you open your mouth no one really cares. You have already been marked. As far as blackness goes, that is definitely a black thing. The time is right to let go and stop competing on how black you or your friends are. It is not a competition and it is not something that is important. If a black guy speaks well, like he has been educated, don’t put him down and make him feel uncomfortable just because he speaks in an erudite manner, be happy for the guy. It is not necessary to drag people down just because you do not like that they are different or, dare I say it, going places. Blacks have the chance to show so much diversity, and to influence so many different ways of life. Basically it is time to grow up and leave the “blackness” thing out in the cold.

So the question is what is it to be black?

It is harder than being white. I do not believe for any second that there are many people who will disagree with me here. Unless you are a member of the BNP or are living in the Bible belt and vote for George Bush. I consider myself a very liberal person, I believe in equality and I feel that I am also idealistic. It is still evident, however, that being black is not easy. But what is it to be black?

This is a personal question and I shall answer as such. In fact this whole thing is personal so most answers you will get to any questions that I pose will be personal responses. Before everything, I am a black man. I would just like to be a man, but that is not possible. I am a black man and it is clear for all to see. Before I even open my mouth, people will have passed judgment on what type of person I am. I am guilty of doing the same regardless of race, creed, or sex. The thing with being black though, is that the judgment is usually negative. I am not saying anything that has not already been said, but people who claim that this is not the case anymore are blind.

If you see a black man in a nice car, a thought will flash through someone’s head; “it is probably stolen”. It may not even be a conscious remark but it happens. If a black man stands next to a woman in a subway or on a street, the woman will clutch her purse tight to herself and pray that the train comes, or that he turns in the opposite direction. I am not speaking from hearsay, this is my own experience.

The clothing that a black man wears is of course a telltale sign of whether or not this man is going to rob you. If he is dressed in a “hoodie” then you are of course in trouble. The problem is that when you treat people in such a way, then sometimes that is the way that they start to behave. I am not saying that it is ok for that to happen, but it does. The whole “judging books by the cover” thing is not limited to blacks. As I said before, we are all guilty of it, even towards our own race. If you see a person with too many piercing, or lots of tattoos, or a certain hairstyle, or even a certain way of walking, we all react. We all feel slightly threatened and we all become defensive.

This article was, it seems, written, for me.

http://articles.blog.co.uk/2006/04/13/acting_your_race~725153

Well maybe...

Woke up this morning and as usual went straight onto the internet. Finally got the email that I was hoping for. I have been invited for an interview for the New York programme that I want to go on. I have not been this happen since, well since a couple of weeks ago when my girlfriend came to visit and then Chris came to see me. But that feels like a long long time ago.

So, now I have to sort out flights home, which is good as it means that I can take back some stuff with me. And I get to leave Japan for two weeks, and yes one interview does take two weeks. And when I come back, i shall only have one month left, which will go by in such a flash that when I get back to London it will be like i never left in the first place.

Damn it feels good to be happy.

A bit annoying I can't really share it with anyone at work though, I hope they miss me when I am gone!

The wind howls like a banshee on pcp. Leaves flying through the air like endless tiny green meteors. The rain pushed by the wind, smacks my face, again and again and again. With every gust of wind, I am almost lifted into the air. Me. A 6ft tall big (and not in the muscular sense) black man. And this my friends is this year’s Japanese spring time. The cheery blossoms are being pounded by the rain, as if the rain is unwilling to wait until June. June is the rain’s time, but not today the rain does not want to wait. It has asked the wind to help bring forward its time.

Since this morning I have been sitting at my desk. I only have last period today. Sitting at my desk dreaming things up to do. As yet no one has told me about my objectives for the next three months of class that I shall be teaching. Evidently they think that I have already left, and maybe they are right. My mind has already started to walk across the Pacific. We decided to have a race. Mind goes that long way round and with the wind, while I wait and go around the 27th of July and we see who gets there first. I am being incredibly rude right now, I know it. I sit at my desk with my headphones on (currently listening to Black Star, well I was when I started to write that but now it is Zero 7/ When it falls. And I had to check that too.)

Chris was kind enough to take a look at my CV, which incidentally was really a pile of crap, obviously not very thick crap, more steamrollered crap, which although not a very high pile, is still crap, I digress. So I got the CV back and though he did not say it in so many words, it needs a lot of work. So for three hours this morning, well 2 and a half, I wrote the “Integration of ALT” guide first, I have been slaving away, looking stuff up on the internet and trying to be very geeky about this type of thing and now I just cannot stand to look at it anymore. There has however been great, and yeah I do mean great, improvement. I shall give myself a week to work on it and then I shall send it back to Chris, and in the mean time check out some Sports Marketing firms and see what it is all about. He (and yeah that would be Chris) reckons that could be my niche, and since I have no reckoning whatsoever about what my “niche” could be, I am going to go with that, since generally he knows what he is talking about. Now Listening to “Prefuse 73/Odd Job”.

There lies my plan then. Work on CV for a while, a week, in the meantime find out how and where and what Sports Marketing Firms there are and then apply, all while hoping that the Mountbatten Programme selects me as one of their prospective candidates. I am still hoping and wishing that comes through. Now Listening to “Herbert/Leave me now” which goes to show that I am either a really bad/slow typist or am having a really rather ponderous time of it right now.

Now listening to “Company Flow”. Which brings me to something that I have been thinking about for a long time: my taste in Music. Music, is something that I have always loved. I remember being back in Sierra Leone listening to Michael Jackson when I was a child and then when I watched Hotel Rwanda last year, the song accompanying the end credits brought back memories long gone of when I was back home in Sierra Leone with my brother and my sisters, well Jemma and Christiana anyway. That song made me laugh. But it was just a really feel good song and I guess that is one of the reasons I love music so much. That whole mood thing just gets to me. You can pretty much put on any type of music and create an atmosphere or a picture or bring back a memory. Alone, I cannot remember what I was doing at a specific time, but with music, it comes back, the sensations, the mood, images come back and it feels great.

So, now comes time to admit something. I went out of my way to make sure I could not be pigeon-holed by my music taste. I mean I still like hiphop a lot. But it would have to be old hiphop, since everything right now sounds like it has come from the South and to be honest with you, I may have a girl from down South, but I am not feeling the music at all. I have got really into different hiphop though, and don’t get me wrong cos at a club I will pretty much dance to anything, but if I am going to purchase my own music, the one thing that it has to be is this: daring/innovative. And oh yeah, not constantly chatting about money, bitches and hoes, and grillz. Please, get yourselves an education.

I bought, well acquired the Dead Prez album yesterday “Let’s get Free” and it was nice to see black music being so political again, it seems like that elements has been totally washed over. The music industry feeds us crap and the sad thing is that we seem to imbibe it gleefully and then ask for seconds. Anything that does not seem to follow the normal formula gets completely dismissed. Now listening to “John Cutler Feat. E-Man / It's Yours (Jon's B-Side Breakdown Mix)” from Hotel Costes 4. I am really loving my house music too, love the funkiness, the vibrance. The beats, the vocals. The feeling, the smiling. The memories it brings back. Once again though, I digress, the main thing here is hiphop. When I mention hiphop, most people will think Bling, sexy girls in the Video, phat rides and all those lovely extras that come with a record deal with a phat label. The stuff I listen to now though is so different, and I looked for different, I dug into the virtual crate and pulled out some gems, well tunes that suit me, my possibly “quirky” personality, and my neverending quest to always bring something new and different to the table. {Jade/Don’t walk away}(remember that one?)

So if you are a hiphop fan, and tired of the usual garbage you see on the Video, MTV and hear on the radio, give these people ago. You never know, you might like i!!

1. Sage Francis
2. Murs/Living Legends
3. Master Ace Inc
4. Aceyalone
5. Pete Rock
6. Grand Puba
7. Buckshot
8. Edan
9. MF Doom
10. Jean Grae
11. Immortal Technique

Some of them are better known than other, obviously, but still definitely worth trying.

It was all supposed to start on the 10th of March but it did not. I got home, received an email saying that LMW’s flight had been delay. I called, being the concerned boyfriend, and was told that one of the engines “exploded”. There was smoke, inside and out, and they had to turn the plane around and head back to Raleigh. I think that the experience would have scared me to the point of refusing to fly ever again…. that week. But I have a brave girlfriend and even though she could not fly first class like she was going to, she arrive a day later, with only a little mental damage done by the ordeal.

We had a lovely week together. There was a lot of relaxing, and a lot of eating, which was not good since she has been on some special diet for a while and was looking pretty good for it too. (not that she wasn’t looking good before). We even went up to Osaka and stayed a couple of nights there, it is probably the most romantic I have ever been. Not really a big fan of all that stuff, but girls seem to like it for some reason.

In Osaka, there is a Ferris wheel on top of a building called HEP5. Now I have been on this Ferris wheel 4 or 5 times. This time up there was scary as… there was a really heavy wind which did not affect the carriage we were in until it was about a quarter of the way up and then suddenly the wind blew, and blew, and the carriage shook, and all I could think of was that quote from La Haine: “jusqu’ici, tout va bien”. There was a little vent and each time the wind blew, a gust of air would come shooting into the vent causing me even more discomfort. The Ferris wheel was not a good experience, but we did get a lovely photo out of it, which I am still waiting for. I wish my camera would work properly, everywhere I take it, tells me it can be repaired but no one will tell me how much it will cost, how much could it cost to change a light bulb? (I am sure there is a joke in there somewhere).

So, that was Osaka the first time around. Not much more to say about it, except that it was a really blissful time. Left LMW at the Bus station, watched her get on the bus and then was on my way to Kobe by train then Bus to Takamatsu, ready to do it all over again.

Chris (mate from Uni) arrived on the Friday, I woke my arse up at 5am to go get him from the same place I had dropped off LMW only a few days earlier. There was a slight delay on the bus as someone decided it would be a good idea to have an accident, and then finding him at Osaka JR/Namba was not the easiest of things to do. Surprisingly enough the first thing that we did was to go out and have a beer together.

Basically, what followed was ten days of drinking and late night sleeping. Going out to bars from Takamatsu to Tokyo, meeting all types of people.

The best thing that happened goes a bit like this:
It was Saturday, our second day in Tokyo and we managed to get out of the hotel at about 7pm, we walked down to Roppongi, which was only a ten/15 minute walk and tried to find a nice bar, we looked, albeit brielfly and found ourselves in Hub, not the same one that we had been in the night before but a different one which looked exactly the same. Tonight had a pretty slow start to it. it took us four towers and a very large long island ice tea beofre we were feeling alright again, and i also took up chain smoking just to keep myself going. thought how that helped i do not know since i am not really a smoker, especially when i am drinking. So we left the hub, and went to Gas.. something, a local hang out for filth basically. We had the pleasure of being there the night before, but we had arrived late. this time we arrived at peak time and it was packed. Ridiculously packed. We have a few drinks there and then head off to Vanilla, one of Tokyo's largest clubs, except for the fact that tonight the top floor was closed off. My memory of what happened here is not too good, all i know is that it involved two glasses of really cheap champagne and lots of whisky cokes. There at the club, Chris and I met this geezer called Bill. Bill was drinking all on his own and invited us to join him. We obliged and chatted only to find that he was touring with Paul Weller. Anyway, to cut a long story short he got us free tickets to go see Paul Weller in Osaka, which preceded yet another messy night out.

I have not really been keeping up with the news, neither have i been reading much over the past few days so no crazy rants from me for a while. Maybe some photos might be nice though. My thoughts are really not that coherent right now. Too many things i want to say about the holiday, so i will take it slowly and write when it is ready to be written.

Happy blogging!!

and much has passed since the last time i wrote, i could get into all that now but all i really want to do is watch another fantastic episode of Boston Legal and get some sleep. However I shall be taking my computer to work tomorrow, so that should produce at least half of what i intend to write.

Here is something I brought out from the archives:

I do not think that I could have chosen anywhere else to live where I would be looked at in equal measure with scorn and admiration, maybe not quite admiration but a sort of childish level of bewilderment. That is too say that the elder generation, those still wary of the alleged negative influence of the foreigner, look at me with such hatred at times that I feel that they would jump at the chance to join the KKK local branch. I have never been looked at with such skepticism and fear as I have here. There is an inherent fear amongst these people that cause them to believe that those coming from the outside world present a clear and present danger to the local population. Even the teachers I am with do not know how to treat me. I am sure that they think that I am nice enough but not that many will even try to converse with me. I have been in Japan for more than a year. Have caused no problems and not given anyone at school the reason to bad mouth me and yet even the school nurse still finds me intimidating. I find that the language barrier is not so much a barrier as a full scale wall of china when trying to present one’s self as a decent human being.

On the other hand I have ladies coming up to me commenting on how beautiful my skin is, ooing and ahhing, stating that they would so very much like to have a baby with skin as beautiful as mine. Now that is just strange. First there was complete lack of comprehension when I told some kids that I was actually from London. I remember the look of complete disbelief, her jaw slowly dropping to the floor as it dawned upon her that yes, in this day and age, the blacks no long just come in boat but there are some born on foreign lands. What seems to be apparent though is that there is a varying difference of knowledge of the world outside Japan among the children that I teach.

I find that one of the strange things here is that there is a really huge American influence. That though is only just surface deep. Talk to the students about big name actors and big name stars, they can give you a few names and that is it. There is supposed to be a love of all things American here. To some extent there is. When it really comes down to it, American exported culture mainly consists of fast food and some not very meaningful pop music. You have to be thankful for the fact that Japan was isolated for so long otherwise this would really just be America with yellow people and we have South Korea who perform that task so admirably it would be wrong to deprive them of their crown. I guess that SK is in a bit of a different situation, with it being a hell of a lot smaller than Japan and needing the outside help in order to drive its economy.

This is just jumping around because I am writing as I think. There is no structure to what I am writing and as such there may be repetition. I am not really a bit fan of repeating myself but sometimes it happens. I was just thinking though that I have been here in Japan for well over a year now and I still feel complete indifference towards it. I know that it has been good for me to come out here. To “grow up” and all that shit. But I really feel no attachment to it whatsoever. (At the moment) I do not really have any Japanese friends that I will miss when I leave. There are not really any jets that I will miss when I leave, or when they leave, maybe except Laurie but I have to say that right now as she is sitting next to me and may try to see what I am writing any second. It is the first time that I have been away from home and not really made good friends. Jets are a special breed of people. You cannot pigeonhole them as they do come from all different walks of life. What they do have in common though is their propensity to talk shit and be completely insincere. I am not sure that these are the characteristics that the Japanese government was seeking when they did the whole recruitment thing, but they succeeded in getting a bunch of people with whom I have very little in common. I never thought that I was picky about my friends. It seems that way now. I think now that I do really appreciate the friendships that I had in London but I know that upon my return, nothing will ever be the same again. I guess that is why I am so keen to just move out and move on. Never go back to live in London as time as pushed me apart from my friends. It is a sad state of affairs when people say that they will keep in touch and then do not. I have been guilty of it many a time but strive to be more proactive in doing so in the future.

Friendship has always been an important thing to me; my mother will gladly testify to that I am sure. However as time goes by I do realise the value of family. That part of your life where no matter what you do, there will always be someone there for you. Obviously the “no matter what” is conditional but you get my drift right. Anyway friends have always played a major role in my life. Whenever I was in trouble or wanted to talk, it was always with my friends first and then if needed I would ask my family. A little weird I know, but I blame my boarding school education for that little mess. Well, as time goes by, I am realising that although my friends are great, were great, I do not know what tense to use, I need to be a lot more secure about myself by myself. I am always considered myself to be a loner, but I always needed approval from somewhere. I figure that is why I did some semi crazy shit when I was younger. Now though all I want is to be sure about me by myself. Time here is allowing me to do that.

There was a time when I was not very comfortable in my own skin. No that has nothing to do with me being black, I was just uncomfortable with who I was. I could not be pigeonholed and I guess that I still can’t (I hope). It bothered me for a long time. I was black and most of my friends were white. I had gone to boarding school with mainly white people and lots of rich ones too. My family on the other hand came from Sierra Leone. They are very black. That is to say that we are very different people, incredibly so. There were at times when we had such difficulties that my mother thought that I was ashamed to be a member of their family. Mother, how wrong you were. I have always been proud of where I am from. I was always keen to let everyone know that this little nigger was from a small country in West Africa that size of Scotland that most people never knew existed. I guess in a way that was my way of justifying the fact that I felt different. I had black friends and I still do, close ones at that. They were all Nigerian and I did feel intimidated at first when we started to hang out. Their humour was made of brutal stuff more than just the regular banter that you get with the average group of male counterparts. I guess though that we hung out so much with each other that I started to feel Nigerian too. I think that there was even a moment when my mother said that my grandmother was half Nigerian or so. I thought that it was fantastic news. It meant that I could validate my claim and once of for all be accepted as one of them and not an outsider. I guess that I have always felt like that really. When I look back at my life all I remember is being on the outside observing things, people, codes of conduct. It did make me pretty sceptical about people, but it also helped me to know and understand who I could or could not trust or be friends with. No bullshit, no little idle chitchat. I have never been one for that, though when pushed I can do it for the sake of being civil.