Dhale's Blog💕

  Primary school was bliss, really. Remember how we used to shout “it cannot go” when we were made to subtract bigger numbers from smaller numbers? Amazing time. Having to make reference to the characteristics of living things while studying “Biology of Behaviour” took my mind back to my MR NIGER D days. I said the familiar acronym, stating what each letter stood for, and I thought, “Where’s adaptability?” While I cannot completely recall at what stage adaptability as a characteristic of living things was introduced, I found myself thinking about this characteristic longer than expected. Adaptability, according to the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, is the quality of being able to adjust to new conditions. And according to the Cambridge Dictionary, it's the ability or willingness to change in order to suit different conditions. Once, I had to meet up with someone to pick up a few things. As I headed for where she was waiting, I stepped into a puddle of dirty water and some of it...

  “What will it cost you to help him?”  “Why can’t you help her?” “Just help.”  Definitely words my mum said on repeat to me and my brothers while growing up, accompanied by a look that said, “Nawa for you.” My dad, on the other hand, always said, “We are here to serve and not to be served.” This was (and I believe still is) our family motto. It took a while for me to accept this, because why would anyone choose serving over being served? A number of times, I voiced out: I didn’t want to serve anyone; I wanted to be by myself. My dad didn’t have it though, he always tried to make me see reasons why I couldn’t be by myself, and insisted we lent a helping hand anywhere and everywhere. Once, he made us help out with the serving of food at someone’s wedding reception. And yes, we were guests. As I grew older, our conversations changed shape, maybe because the problem had changed shape. I had finally understood why it was good to be helpful, but what I still didn’t understa...

  Babysitting was one of the first jobs I considered while in primary school. I developed a desire to be financially independent really early, and I saw the holidays as an opportunity to make money. Being the first child made me an automatic babysitter, and since I had two younger brothers, I was an expert at a very young age. Sadly, the parents I wanted to babysit for would not drive all the way to my house to drop their babies off in my care. I did have one client—a lovely parent in my estate—who allowed me go over to her place to watch her baby. My career as a babysitter died a natural death, and I’ve looked into more promising ventures over the years. The morning of Thursday, June 15, however, brought back some memories when a family friend dropped their four-year-old daughter in my care. Although she was no match for my years of babysitting experience, it had been a while since I had a preschooler  in my care. She came to meet me in the kitchen, and the first thin...

Not too long ago, I dug up my childhood diary and read my diary entries. From laughing at myself to squirming, it was an emotional rollercoaster. For some of my entries, I had no words for myself, and as I read others, I half wanted to go back in time. Writing this down made me remember how I felt when I had to watch some video clips from when I was younger. The cringe that came with watching those clips is really unexplainable. At some point, I’d make a comment like, "Oh, Ayomide! What was that?" A particular video clip from when I was ten got me rolling. It was during an interview that I was asked about how many books I intend to write. The next thing I said was, "I’m going to write a lot of books; before the age of forty, I might end up writing thirty-five books!" When I watched it, I just exclaimed, "Thirty-five books before I’m forty? I’m seventeen, and it’s two books down, thirty-three more to go!" I just kept laughing and asking myself, "Where...

We all have our breaking points—times when we question how strong we are and if we can go farther. Our questions often give way to doubt or fear, and we soon find them speaking through us: "This is the farthest I can go," "I can’t go any farther," "I think I made a mistake thinking I could pull this off." Luckily, Scott Stabile’s quote holds some wisdom for us. It goes thus: "My fear whispered to me, ‘I am just trying to protect you.’ I whispered back, ‘I know, but I’m stronger than you think.’" I had to read the quote again, a bit slower the second time, and I thought, "How many times do we let doubt silence our goals? How many times do we agree with our fear, all in the name of trying to protect ourselves?" "You can’t be a dancer; you’re not flexible enough." Or, "You can’t continue; if you give up now, no one’ll notice." Our fears convince us that we’ll fail if we try this, or we’ll mess it up if we try that, ...

  Over the years, I’ve heard people make statements like, "That was just his fate; there was nothing he could do" or, "Not everyone is destined to make it in life." "What is meant for you will find its way to you." Wikipedia defines fate as a predetermined course of events. It is also known as destiny. But who says we have to go through that predetermined course of events? Who says we have to submit blindly to the plans fate has for us? Who says what will be will actually be? What if what is meant for you misses its way to you because you didn’t stand up to fight for it? So many people choose to believe that every failure they experience and every opportunity that slips out of their grasp is something they can do nothing about. "It was fate," they say. Stop blaming fate! I strongly believe that we can rewrite our fate, but only if we want to! If I am fated not to achieve my dreams, am I to give up that for which I long the most? If fate ...

  It’s been a while since I wrote about being lazy. I know, I know, I wrote about it already, but I did mention in my welcome post that I'd center my blog stories around topics that pop up in my day-to-day life. So today, I’m going to write about the vicious cycle of laziness. Do you ever wonder why you’re so lazy? Or do you look back and wonder, "How did I even get here?" You do? It’s perfectly fine; a lot of us wonder as well. This is the first and most important part of the vicious cycle of laziness- realization. Do you then think of ways you can fix that? Make up your mind to do better. A to-do list, waking up earlier? Anything to make you feel better at the end of the day. You do? That’s amazing; you’ve successfully made it to the second stage of the cycle- resolution. Do you then work on your resolutions and put them into action? Watch yourself become more efficient and meet up with deadlines faster. I’m pretty sure you felt really good after this; it happens to...

For as far back as I can remember, I haven’t been the best when it comes to drawing. It was no surprise, then, that my drawing of the story mountain didn't look quite right. I did, however, comfort myself with the fact that it didn’t matter whether or not I knew how to draw a perfect story mountain; all that mattered was that I could attempt a look-alike of the mountain and remember how to label it properly. Here's a picture and brief explanation of what the story mountain looks like for the sake of non-Literature students. From it, we see that the story begins with the exposition. Here, we’re introduced to characters, settings, and so much more. Shortly after, comes the rising action, where events begin to build up, things begin to happen, and the readers or audience begin to discover facts about the characters that had been introduced previously. Along the line of the rising action, conflict sets in. It is at this point that issues begin to arise, tension creeps in, and figh...

I didn’t want to go, and that was that. Why risk public humiliation when I could just avoid it? I made up my mind not to represent my region at a Bible competition held at the church’s annual camp meeting. The fear of failure is recorded as one of the top fears that holds people back in life. "What if I fail?" "What if I let everyone down?" At some point, we’re all faced with the tiny voice in our heads asking these questions. After so many persuasions to go for the competition, I decided to try. "It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all", right? Right! "If you don’t try, you won’t know how far you can go", right? Right! As the competition drew nearer, I kept a very positive mindset and told myself I could do whatever I put my mind to. On the day of the competition, I put away all my anxiety and gathered all the confidence I could muster. Together with my teammate, we marched on to victory. The questions were asked, and we provided...

      "Launch a blog", they said, "it’d be easy", they said. Actually, there’s no "they", I brought this upon myself. I was actually super eager and excited to start my blog. Some call it the joy of venturing into something new. I had butterflies in my tummy as I chose my designs and settings. I felt good when I explored and discovered new things in my workspace. While preparing to make the video in my welcome blog post, the excitement was so overwhelming that I almost committed to uploading content twice a week! But being the lazy kid that I am, I had to be true to myself. I literally wanted to explode with happiness when I created the meme for my first post and published my first blog post. The comments took me off my feet; I was super happy to know that people liked my writings and could relate to them. I blushed countless times at the sight of my blog until I had to caution myself because how would I randomly start smiling at a non-living thing?! ...

  I first heard Winston Churchill’s quote, "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it," in a Nickelodeon show: Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn. Thank you quadruplets for all the amazing childhood memories! I once heard of the experience of a family plagued by the unwelcome visit of a four-legged creature—a rat! They wouldn’t tolerate such audacity and insolence, and so they took extreme measures to eliminate it. I'm talking explosives, gun powder, and ammunition! Just kidding, they used a mouse trap (one of those sticky boards that catch rats). The funny thing about the mouse trap was that it did all but catch the rat. The next morning, one of the children (Tony) walked past the mouse trap and found a wall gecko in the trap! (Don’t even ask me how it got into the mouse trap; wasn’t it meant to be on the wall or something, as indicated in its name?) Tony sympathized with the wall gecko but was pleased that the mouse trap was getting rid of the oth...