The Lazy Perfectionist Who Doesn't Ever Get To Live Their Dream Life

April 27, 2018

I'm a dreamer. The funny thing though is my dreams aren't even big fancy dreams- I never dream of owning a private jet and buying a glass tower in central new york or being on the cover of forbes and heading a company that controls billions of dollars or inventing the thing that suddenly means every poor child can drink clean water and never have to get malaria again. Basically, my dreams are what people call 'goals' and the reason for me, goals are dreams is because I'm never really willing to do the work.

This article is me. I read it and was convinced that my life had changed (lol), but it wasn't until I was telling someone off for making excuses about something they needed to do that I contextualised my behaviour. How does this behaviour play out in real life? It's like this- I want to learn French by my dream is basically having casual conversations in french to imagined people I haven't yet met, but you know what I don't really think about? The parts inbetween. Like okay how do I get from bad secondary school/ 1 20 credit course in uni french to this casual fluency I'm talking about? Well, a regular person might think- oooh i'll do duolingo 10 minutes a day for now and go from there- no but my lazy ass is like hmmm, you either fly to France and do this expensive ass immersion course (that I'm sure not willing to pay for) or, I don't know? You'll magically know french one day. *sigh*

It's like the reason so many diets don't work- you're waiting till you buy out the organic fresh food aisle of the grocery store and you don't have carbs in the house to start- meanwhile if you just gradually added in more veg or gradually took out the worst of your snacks, you will start heading somewhere- and here's the thing- cutting out soda isn't going to make you drop 100lbs- I know that, you know that- but compound interest... small things done consistently lead to bigger things done consistently and at the end of the day, consistency is super key. But for people like me, I fail because I fail to imagine that 10 minutes a day of French will do anything for me. I should be thinking, would it hurt though- would 10 minutes a day take that much from me that I'm not willing to even try???

I think dreams and goals should be the things that show you what you need to become consistent at- but then they need to be forgotten. I remember when I first started running- bruh, 12 minutes everyday- a painful 12 minutes. If you had told me I could go from that to running a half marathon, I would have just stopped and called it a day- but when I was running 12 minutes, I genuinely had no big plans- it was just the cheapest way to exercise at the time, but it was easy to be consistent and so it became more and more. And isn't that just the most obvious thing? Of course its easier to be consistent when you're running for 12 minutes vs when you're putting pressure on yourself to do "at least 45 minutes of exercise 3 times a week".

Anyway, this is honestly just a post directed solely and completely at myself- but I hope anyone who is like me would think about themselves a bit - also , this post is my 10 minutes attack on waiting for perfection- I'm not even going to proofread it, which is making my blood cold because I KNOW my punctuation was all over the place, but hey!

Noir Lagos Review

February 14, 2018

Not sure why it took me so long to write this. I feel like it always takes a long time to do things I want to do, almost like I get one chance and I want to do it EXACTLY right; basically a fancy way to procrastinate...but anywaaaay...

In January, I went to Noir. Restaurants are popping up like moles on whack-a-mole in Lagos and I've given up trying to play the game, I like what I like okay?

It was the last chance to hang with my sister before she went back to school so along we went.

Supermarkets are kind of my guilty pleasure, so I'm pretty surprised that I'd never been to La Pointe (the grocery store by the owners of Noir). I still haven't been (the restaurant is upstairs) but I got a peek and thought- hmmm groceries *rub palms together*

I was fully prepared for a three course meal, something I don't really do anymore and we got salads to start. I have to say, ordering a kale salad as a starter was a first for me, and it was BLOODY delicious. It DID NOT look like much- saying much is actually an understatement, it looked like NOTHING. It came and I was like whaaaat have I doooone? Honestly, the kale was massaged to death because it was sooo soft (and if you prep kale, you know it takes a lot to get there) the dressing was sweet and tangy and the apples were crisp- listen, it was a delicious salad- that's what you need to know.

The prawns in the prawn salad were so delicious and mangoes are in season, so you couldn't have tasted a better mango. I was ready to end the meal right there.

I dont want to say too much about the cocktails except there was grenadine in places where there shouldn't have been grenadine- not impressed- the cocktails were actually the downer for me- the bartender needs to have grenadine taken away from him- less grenadine, more muddling mint.

It was cook your own steak time, the USP of Noir. I went for South African Tenderloin. The meat was great, absolutely amazing, but I would not cook my own steak again. There was smoke, I had to work at the table, I ended up with a perfect steak, but at what cost?

My sister's meat was overcooked, but she had no-one to blame but herself - cooking steak is hard man.

I won't lie to you, I was completely completely full at this point, but I had to have dessert! Had to! The desserts were good, but not memorable. So if at the end of your meal, you want dessert, I'd say go for it, but I wouldn't go there because of dessert.

I had a really good experience. Next time, I would skip the cocktails and I definitely wouldn't cook my own steak. Actually, I might skip everything and risk it all for that kale salad!

Vacation Diaries: Accra, Ghana

January 10, 2018

I've been to Accra a few times before, but never for Accra, do you get? Like one time I went for a wedding and barely stepped out of Labadi beach hotel- another time, I went to stay in this resort in the hills and went into town to shop and have dinner once- This trip promised to be longer and different- a trip to finally SEE Accra.

A note on yellow cards

You need a yellow fever card to travel to Ghana, South Africa and some other African countries. I already had one (it lasts for 10 years) from my recent trips to Ghana and South Africa, but a few other people going on the trip did not, and so I was dragged along to the Lagos Port Health Authority.
The process is quick- you need two photocopies of your passport data page and you need to go at least 10 days before your flight (it takes that long for the vaccine to kick in). The injection is super quick and not painful (if your nurse is skilled).
In 2013, all countries on the regime introduced new cards- I got my card in 2015 or so and they've already updated the cards again- so you're probably not going to get away with getting a card at the airport from a guy thats going to charge you way more than it costs.
If you don't have the card, you can get the shot in Ghana, but if you go to SA without the card, you'll probably get returned.
If you're travelling from another state, look for Port health in the airport. It's called Port Health because it's near the Ports- Duh!

A note on flights

Return tickets cost approximately =N=100,000. Can be more or less depending on timing, airline, etc- but that's a good average.
Flights take an hour or less from lagos and about 1.5 hours from Abuja.
Road travel costs about =N20,000. each way from Lagos and takes about 8 hours.

Anyway, travel day- yay! Is it just me, or is it weird to follow international travel procedures when you're flying less than an hour away to somewhere you can drive to? There were some angry Medview passengers in the airport yelling about their flight being delayed for over 24 hours with no word on when they were going to leave- awkward because their counter was right next to ours and we had to brave the angry mob to check in.

No-one needs to be this happy in Nigerian duty free

Isn't it funny that the KFC is like the unofficial economy lounge- or nah? We arrived on the tarmac to a tiny plane- I have travel anxiety on the best of the days and I had never been on a plane that small- I overheard another passenger telling his friend to "pretend its a private jet" so that's what I did. 50 Minutes later we landed in Accra.

We bought sim cards and data plans and tried to use the ATM. I'd say sort your sim and data out at the airport- it's quick and the plans in the airport were far better than the usual network rates.

A note on Naira cards

remember that they do not work outside of Nigeria for ATM withdrawals- Yes, EVEN in Ghana. It was super awkward to travel all the way to another country and have no cash. I was there on the phone to my bank, trying to see if there was "anything I could do" .
I used my card to pay for stuff a few times on the trip, so POS payments are fine for some banks. Always check these things with your bank before you travel, and for goodness sake- TAKE CASH.

Our meeting point was a Holiday Inn near the airport. We had burgers and mojitos and got into our magic trip bus that was taking us to Ada Foah (about an hour and a half out of Central Accra) via shoprite because two hours on a bus is too long without supplies!

We arrived in Aqua Safari in Ada Foah at about 6pm. Driving up to the entrance was full of promise. We checked in and got changed for dinner because food is ALWAYS the priority!

Last time I was in Accra, I tried the banku and tilapia and honestly could not cope with the raw tomato and pepper blend it was served with, so this time I stuck with fufu and okra. A few people ordered the banku and tilapia and the sauce was just as raw but not as offensively raw, just regular raw.

After dinner, everyone was TAYAD, as we didn't all fly in from 50 minutes away. A few of us persevered and went for a freezing swim in the tiny pool. I'm shivering thinking about that swim.

In the morning, I woke up at 5.20, had a quick shower and rallied everyone to catch the sunrise. My rally call led to exactly one person coming out at 6.15. We missed the sunrise. We went by the water, took some pictures and chilled, but at 7, everyone was ready for free breakfast (like I said before, priorities!)

After breakfast, we headed out to the Ghana sailing club (also in Ada Foah). I'd never been sailing before and it was really lovely. The instructor was friendly and sailing was surprisingly intuitive (also really hard on the arms). It was really nice to be on clean water- very different to my kayaking experience on the filthy Lagos water.

We headed back into central Accra and to our apartment in Cantonments. After pizza and recovery (and I'm still burnt by the fact that Ghana has pizza hut), we headed out. First stop- The Republic Bar in Osu. We took regular taxis and got dropped off right on the street the bar was on. It was a very different kind of bar, almost like a street party- especially when I saw women in neon carnivally outfits selling glow sticks.

We started with a disgusting but very awakening ginger and local gin shot and then ordered a round of kokoroko- a cocktail made with hibiscus and local gin (zobo and ogogoro basically), yam chips, chicken and calamari. Everything tasted great and the drinks tasted strong but did not feel strong. We ended with another REALLY REALLY gross shot and then got in another cab to find kizomba- It wasn't meant to be with kizomba so we headed home.

The next day, we were supposed to go on a walking tour but it was way too hot so we chilled and then headed out to a "day party" at about 6pm.I spent a ton of time in the pool and eating and then we headed out for a supposed day party. Got to Suncity Hotel Apartment, paid the cover fee (it's never free to enter anything in Ghana)- and then walked in to an empty ass spot. Talk about a non day- party day- party. We admired the view and ordered drinks (bottles only *sigh*)

We stayed at the day (turned to night) party for a good five hours, had more drinks, some food and headed out to crash a wedding.

The wedding was soooo gorgeous and the music was the best I heard in the entire trip. The Republic bar was serving drinks (that kokoroko drink was chasing me).

Finally, we got to new years eve! After a day of eating Nigerian jollof and Ghanian waakye (pronounced wache sha), we headed out at about 6pm to do the Jamestown tour we had been putting off for two days. On the day we went to the Republic in Osu, our friend assured us that it was "like Lagos Island"- friends- THIS was like Lagos Island. We did the tour, stopping to try their local spirits (never drink in a place that has a curtain instead of a door) and buying different kinds of Ghanian food. At the end of the tour, we ended up with kelewele (a spicy ripe plaintain), kenke (made from steamed corn), fried flat fish (seriously, this fish looked like crisps), shito (spicy pepper and fish mix), kpako shito (made from a spicy green pepper and made to be eaten fairly fresh), and some tins of sardines.

It's interesting that Ghanians have a lot of main meals that are snack like, and made to be eaten not warm.

After that meal, we said goodbye to our lovely tour guide and headed to Tea Baa a cute little bar in Osu, where we had spiked ice tea, chicken kebabs and played a noisy game of Taboo. My team won because apparently I'm an expert guesser.

We left Tea Baa and headed to a house party which turned out to be an intimate family party- yikes. The family was super nice and the food was sooo good, so we sat on couches in the driveway, watched fireworks and got pleasantly drowsy.

At 2.30am, we went to a club called Twist, where again, we paid to get in. It was PACKED. Apparently, it was full of Ahaspora (The Ghanian name for IJGBs) because locals were at home with their families, having lovely parties that were being crashed by foreigners :)

at 4am, I could physically not stand anymore and headed home.

The next day was spent in a montage of of eating, lying down, watching Dark and eating. At 7, we started playing lemon until we started dropping like flies and heading to bed.

By the time, we were headed to the airport in the morning, I was DRAINED, but in a good way.

I was literally on the escalator down and it stopped very abruptly, nearly throwing me off- that's when I knew I was home!

How to Finally Keep Your New Year Resolutions

January 8, 2018

So you know how it goes. A new year starts and you race to make the most dramatic resolutions ever. I wrote this post last year about how the new year doesn't mean YOU're new, it just means the calendar changed date. I'm all for fresh starts- every Monday, every month, every payday- but at some point, you need to stop your dreaming and get realistic about how to go from point A (you now) to point B (the you, you aspire to be).

The first step really is- chill. No, you don't need to start a diet on January 1st, it's okay for your budget to start after your next pay check, you can start waking up at 6am on the first day of work, you can join the gym on february 1st, you can write the first 1000 words of your novel after you've recovered from staying up too many days in a row over the holidays. IT IS OKAY. I find that too many times, we set ourselves up to fail by starting new things on tough days- you want to stop eating carbs and sugar on the day that your auntie is coming to yours with her famous chocolate cheesecake that you eat once a year- it's not realistic. You want to start a novel on the day that you and your friends are going trampolining and then having dinner- why?

The second step is - also chill- no, I'm joking, well, kind of. Trying to jump from zero to tatty billion is not a smart thing to do. You're not going to gorge yourself for a whole month and instantly switch to green tea and salad (GT & S ammiright?) if green tea and salad wasn't your status quo before the holidays. You want to go from not working out since July to two hours in the gym everyday- probably not going to happen mate!

So why don't you start with setting yourself up to succeed- why don't you try snack free days, why dont you start with walking? Why not start with saving 20 percent of your salary instead of half? - why dont you set yourself easy targets that you're likely to meet? the impact on your brain would make you stop feeling like you're incapable of achieving anything. You are probably not going to finish duolingo and get fairly fluent in french in January.

The third step is- set tiny targets that you can measure- 100 words, 3 hours of exercise a week, not eating sugar one day a week; I find it easier to set the large goal and not measure every step- so last year, I set a goal to read 50 books (finished at 82), and tracked every book on goodreads but didn't try and make sure it was 1 a week- there were weeks where I didn't read anything and that flexibility made it easier to stay on track. So you might want to write 5 thousand words a month- you don't necessarily have to have a fixed number for every day- but by all means, do if it works for you.

The thing about setting goals is that you have to anticipate failure or flagging and then plan for it. If you want to start eating more fruits and vegetables, make it was easy as possible for yourself, which could be a smoothie, or always having it in your line of sight and obviously- buying more fruit and vegetables. It is important to account for possible failure- we all have the capacity to succeed but we also have the capacity to sabotage our own goals, we're only human. When we set resolutions as if we can't fail, when we fail, we give up.

Take a second look at your resolutions. Are they in line with the person that you know you are? or did you make them for the version of yourself you haven't met? Ultra-stylish, speedy, always with a witty comeback, limitless you?

If you adjust your goals, you might get to the meet the other you at some point- corny but true :)