Here I Come!!

I'm not worried.
And my friends can't understand it.
Especially the ones who graduated last year and still haven't found stable employment.

They just don't understand why I'm so calm about the whole job-seeking thing. They think I'm being naive, and a little (or maybe more than a little) foolish. But I don't think so. I'm just not worried. At all. About finding a job or making a decent living. Even in this economic climate.

I keep trying to explain to them that I'm being calm (because it goes hand in and with rational and thoughtful, lol) and because I'm more excited than anything else. And because I have a plan. And I've already begun to execute it. See, I'm not just leaving University and then going back home to deep rural St. Mary to sit on my beautiful bum and send out countless resumes to people. I have a PLAN!!

I've been doing my research. I've already seen loopholes, gaps and spaces in the world of PRINT and ONLINE journalism/production where my skills can prove useful and profitable. And what I don't know, I'm making every effort to learn to make myself even more marketable. Yes I'm sending out resumes. Yes I'm dropping the word. But I'm also looking into self-employment options. Looking into the world of entrepreneurship. I'm exploring *profitable* volunteerism, and all that wonderful jazz.

I guess maybe if I sat at home just waiting for something to fall into my lap after sending out some CVs, I'd have time to get worried. But I'm NOT worried because I'm working my amazing azz off to make sure I don't have anything to worry about! *Plus I'm praying like crazy (lol)*. And I am seeing things happen...

I'm in a weird place. Transition, I guess you could call it. I know I'm leaving a season. And I'm also entering a new one. Exciting? Yes. Absolutely. I'm at this point where I can see my whole life before me. I see everything I want. And it's all within my grasp. I mean, it is all really and truly right there staring me in the eyes, kinda daring me to come get it, to get up and do what is necessary to get them. And I just can't keep still. Because this is not a dream any more. It's all a real and very visible and tangible reality.

All the things that were supposed to limit me... lack of qualification, experience, age, location... they're now the very things that are empowering me. And if you ask me, it's about time! I can't explain this (supposedly naive) feeling that has engulfed me lately. But I also can't lie to myself. I feel ready. Ready to work. Ready to be successful. Ready to actually see what I've been studying and planning for... I'm ready, world. I am ready!! Are you??

I Don't Like Funerals

I don't like funerals.

The last time I went to a funeral, I was about 7 or 8 years old. I've had people close to my family die since that time, but I have never gone to any funeral since.

I don't like funerals.

They're sad. And all about dead people. And I don't like coffins. And the exorbitant drama that people believe has to happen at funerals. The wailing. The screaming. The griping and rolling on the floor and petitioning God. The wanting to jump into the coffin with the deceased. The passing the (poor little innocent) babies over the coffins (something I would outlaw if I were in government, cause that is just creepy and unfair and wrong).

I don't like funerals.

I especially don't like the graveside processions. The singing and dumping dirt on a slowly lowering coffin. The realisation that this person is really gone and never coming back. The old women getting into spirit as they sing ancient hymns and negro spirituals. The dumping the rum into the grave-hole to (supposedly) appease dead spirits. The nasty loose grave-yard dirt that I don't want on my shoes or anywhere near my home. And most of all, the sadness. The oppressive, pervasive, overwheliming sadness. And tears. And burdensome grief.

I don't like funerals.

So when I found out that a cousin of mine had died, I know I'll never see him again, and in my mind, I make peace with that fact. Because I don't like funerals.

Why I'll Never Forget Ayi Kwei Armah

"What do you do when people, free to choose, choose what they want??" -Ayi Kwei Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

I think I felt the book more than anything else, and that affinity made me appreciate it more than many other texts I'd studied. This one got me.

It's main character, the man (yes, the man - he remains nameless) experiences life in corrupt post-colonial Ghana under Nkrumah's rule. Different aspects of the man's life are affected by the corrupt politics that pervades his society: work, school, church... everywhere! (Sounds familiar?)

The book gives an allegory of people who lived in a cave and thought that was all there was to the world. Then one day, some of these people ventured outside of the cave, and realised that there was a whole other world out there to be explored. They went back to the cave and tried to explain this other world to their friends. But their friends refused to believe it. They refused to listen, and chose to remain the cave. Then Armah pops the question: What do you do? What do you do when people, free to choose, choose what they want?

Those words haunted me. I started to apply them to everything. And that was around the same time we studied Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'... and we were looking at Caribbean intellectual traditions in Caribbean Studies, and all our lovely slavery history... sometimes history can be depressing. Especially black history. We've certainly come a faaar way! I never wanna go back.

So that's how Armah's book got me. And why I'll never forget it. I mean, really: What do you do? What do you do, when people, free to choose, choose what they want.... especially when they're making the wrong choices???