THE LOVE CALCULATOR

   Relationships are sometimes pretty hard between two people. There will always be disagreements and misunderstandings but one thing about all that is, it can break or make the relationship. You either break up or you make up and are stronger from it. Yes, most times we battle the fear of the unknown that comes with being in a relationship, the uncertainty especially because of past experiences and things heard or seen from the environment. Not knowing where a relationship is headed can be nerve wracking. No one wants their time and emotions to be wasted. No one wants to be taken advantage of. Sometimes cause of it people tend not to give their all or they just clam up with the notion that if anything happens then they won’t feel utterly terrible.

   Once in a while we expect our relationships to turn out the way the movies, magazines, novels say they should. We expect it to follow a certain pattern and also expect our partners to do what everyone else would do. E.g. ‘it’s Valentine’s Day so you should get me a gift, take me out to a candle lit dinner and spend time with me no matter what.’ If it doesn’t go that way, does it mean your partner doesn’t love you or care about you? Well, men are from mars and women are from Venus. Men tend not to reason that way or see anything special about it but the media has made it that way and most wanting to keep the Lady happy, do what is expected for that day. What then happens to the certain few that do not conform to this? Simple, the ladies keep parting ways with them. 
   Which brings me to a point,’compromise and sacrifice’. Sometimes, they are necessary in a relationship. It is a very important tool. You know your spouse likes the whole Valentine razzmatazz but you personally don’t care about it but you still go out of your way and make that extra effort to keep them happy.  Vice versa, you know your hubby sees Valentine as nothing, he may even forget it. In the end he does as expected but you, Valentine lover as you are try to understand and reason as per his character and you don’t break up. You reason it doesn’t mean he has no love for you, he shows it on every other day. You try not to expect your relationship to be like another that her hubby bought her an Aston Martin for Valentine. You see there is compromise and sacrifice on both ends if they decide to. It’s a hard thing to do but it keeps things going.

   Let’s look at it his way, Valentine’s Day wasn’t originally made for lovers but the media and corporate bodies have built a multibillion dollar network on it. They have made huge sums from painting an image of love that has to do with gifts. If you don’t buy gifts for your partner then you don’t love them. Valentine’s Day is a day to measure the love your partner has for you depending on what kind of gift they buy for you. If they love you they’d do so and so. It’s become commercialized but hey what lady doesn’t like romance and gifts? Even, the toughest lady wants it, to feel that craze that Valentine’s Day has to offer.  We have been trained right from the days of reading ‘Mills and Boons’ that romance is to be expected. This is what it should be, so we buy the Valentine Day story, so if you want to keep and make us happy, go out of your way to do it. Romance has been defined in various forms by the media; A box of chocolates, Flowers especially red roses, a candle lit dinner and not just any dinner, expensive gifts, then a night of lovemaking but don’t forget to spread rose petals on the bed and light up scented candles. Is that now the definition of love? If you don’t get the above on that day then your spouse doesn’t love you. Most men now push all that down to just Valentine’s Day. Shouldn’t it be everyday or when you feel like? Should your gift giving be now restricted to only Valentine’s Day, Christmas and birthdays?

   This takes me briefly to another thought, ‘comparison’. We begin to compare our relationships to that of others. Well, not just to theirs but to what is expected.
’ If he doesn’t do it like Femi did for Titi then it means he doesn’t love me’.
 ‘If he did he would go out of his way to make the day special for me.’ 
‘Valentine’s day, he is meant to take me out and spend time with me, get me a gift.’ 
Guys should take note here, in most cases this leads to a break up, don’t forget about sacrifices. Women love romance. Ok, I have another thought. ‘that Femi did all that for Titi does it mean he really loves and cares about her and doesn’t have a lady elsewhere or that they will stay together forever?’ No it doesn’t! It’s been proven that most women get fooled on Valentine’s Day. Smart guys use the whole romance razzmatazz to create a notion of true love. If he wants to get her, Valentine’s Day is perfect; all he has to do is put on a little show. I’m not a love cynic but it’s the truth. It’s just done because it is what is expected or people expect something. Thanks to the false interpretation of love on Valentine’s Day the case of young unmarried teenage pregnancies goes up after this period. It’s said that women go by what they hear but on this day, actions have to speak louder than words so buckle up. Failure to do this,

   Brings in the third parties, friends who help in defining what you just did or didn’t do. Believe me a break up is eminent because if you did nothing or little  then you don’t love her, don’t care about her, take her for granted, she means little to you and God forgive you if you are not in town even if it’s for a genuine reason, she is the side ho. You travelled to be with the number one. Well, instead of talking to friends about it, why not just tell the dude what Valentine’s Day means to you, even the dumbest guy or one who doesn’t give a hoot about the day would go out of his way to make it up to youI don't mean nag about it or complain and sing it all day. Drop hints or say it out straight once. They’d know how you feel about it but hey, what do i know? Yes, people are meant to know like duh, it’s THE DAY, the news about it is everywhere, and sadly some people need to be told. Yes, I said the impossible, actually saying how you feel about it to your partner but that’s communication or isn’t it.

   Finally, your friends aren’t in the relationship with you. Don’t let one day be the judge of your love for each other. I am not asking you to make excuses or make yourself unhappy. You should sit down and check not the things that your partner has said to you and how they said it but their actions. Actions show love. Their actions excluding that day they didn’t live up to and what it shows you. What’s important is how they make you feel by the way they treat you. Besides, you should know your partner better so ask yourself what he/she is really like. How does he/she treat you? And then if you know what they like, going out of your way to do it, would make your partner appreciate you more. If they have a tendency to forget, find out if you can deal with the tendency or not or if forgetting that day ruins every good deed done. Say how you feel. Yes, it does hurt. We all are scared of being too understanding and being fooled and taken for a ride. Everyone shares that fear both, men and women alike.  But, hey, everything is a risk or better put an experiment and no one prays for either to fail, so, Que sera sera. It can go any way so if it’s on the end it side, let it be the right reason, should Valentine’s Day be your love calculator?
  Yeah Valentine's day is next Saturday but seeing this old article you're reading got me thinking again. Don't wait till Valentine's day to show someone you love them. Life is a gift that can be taken away in any moment. Live it. 
  Cheers! Love yourself first and every other thing shall be added unto you. *wink* .
Love, Frances. 

P.S: These are my thoughts on it not a rule You mustn't agree. I don't know it all.

Happy St Valentine's day in advance!

 http://youtu.be/GCHxMX9WaNc

                                                            

HOW TO CHANGE PEOPLE

   Change they say is the only constant thing in life. Everything in life goes through a procedure or stages you pick the word you prefer. It is never static. Things move forward, backwards, up, down or sideways, it just has to move. A rock that is in a static position also goes through changes. It doesn’t have to stand up and run. Lol!  Look at the Evolution theory, you and I have come a long way from our Ape days. Let’s visit the Bible; Adam and Eve were naked, then they put on leaves, then the leaves made way for clothes in the time of their children. Then for a while women didn’t wear trousers but now they do and not just that we are reverting back to the Adam and Eve days. What more proof do you need to agree with me that change is constant?
   The right way to have phrased this thought is; ‘Change is the only constant thing in life when it has to do with things, time, fashion and non-humans.’ Change in humans is not constant.

THE VENT ISSUE I: ELECTRICITY

                            

  Ever since I was a little girl, every president's promise has been that electricity will be constant. Now, I’m an adult and that promise seems farfetched. They all sing, before the year 2000, before the year 2004, before the year 2010, 2012, 2014 and on it goes. The electricity issue just seems to deteriorate. Then they promised that the privatization of the Power sector would make electricity constant. If you ask me, they should have just left it as it was, it’s worse now. We go on for days without the electricity that a great inventor had been so gracious to invent.

  It’s saddening, that every kid born in Nigeria grows to learn the national anthem and dance of ‘UP NEPA!’ You hear them scream it with glee. When will it change? I tell you, not in a long while. 
                                                       

  I was in Lome, Togo for almost a year. I remember the day we arrived, early in the morning that January; we all ran to look for charging ports to plug our appliances into. You should have heard the cries of’ I got here first’. We went for registration and got back, there was still light. We slept and woke up, there was light. It went on for three days straight; we began to question ourselves if this was Africa. If Nigeria couldn’t have light, how could they? One month straight, that light never blinked. I heard rumours of we give them light, that’s topic for another day. I entered Ghana, it was the same. My first night in Ghana, it was announced that the lights would go off for a certain period. I was shocked, is this Africa? In my country, the light officials act like demi-gods, like you should be grateful to them for it. You should see Nigerian electricity officials, the way they carry themselves. People begging them, greasing their palms just to have the meagre light that is doled out.
                                               
In the end, they bring a heavy bill that makes you wonder if you run a factory, where power is consumed all day.

  As I got older, I began to realize the sad truth. The reasons why any grandeur thoughts of having constant electricity in Nigeria will not be possible for a long time.

·         One of the biggest and unannounced businesses in Nigeria is the GENERATOR business. I remember my Togolese friends laughing their hearts out when I asked if they use generators. Every single household in Nigeria, be it a shanty, a tiny apartment, a mansion plus all businesses have a generator or two. One in the office, another at home. The generators come in varying forms; the tiny ones called ‘I pass my neighbour’ that makes enough noise to raise the dead to the silent, Lister types that use diesel. Just sit down and calculate the population in the country, then you’ll see what I mean. Even students use generators.  Nigerians are so proud of it, that a man who uses the ‘I pass my neighbour type’ rejoices when he upgrades to a bigger one. It’s just sad. If you know the amount of generators that are imported into this country daily, you’d shudder. Every big business has one; all the factories have more than one.
                                   

You may wonder who the importers of these generators are, yes, your guess is as good as mine; ‘THEM’. They reap billions of naira from it. The Generators weren’t enough; they introduced the inverters and solar panels into the country. This is the big brother of the generator business. Only the big boys and girls, use those. Yes, all these are a thing of pride. Imagine if we had constant power supply, there’d be no need for the generators, inverters and so on. They’d lose billions of naira. So, they can never let us have constant electricity.
                                    

                                      

·           They say we are an oil producing country. One of the largest. OIL, that accursed black gold is another reason why we’d never see constant electricity in a hurry. The oil business is the biggest in the country. From it we get all forms of fuel, Petrol, diesel, kerosene etc. Have you ever wondered why even though we are an oil rich nation, we still pay almost a dollar per litre for petrol? It’s because they know we have no choice. If you get two hours of electricity in a day, you are blessed. Every single thing you do, from your house, cars, business and every appliance in them, even that generator of yours, you need to use fuel. At work, you make money and still spend more than half or more of your capital to power your business. God, help you if you are into production, maybe you are into textiles and the rest, and you need fuel. That’s why produced goods are expensive here. The Coke I tasted in Lome is different from what I drink here. It’s downright disgusting. 
                                       
        They want to break even in the biggest Black Country, every material they use has to be transported to the factories with fuel, the machines in the factories use fuel, moving the finished product down to the consumers need fuel too. Hence you have an expensive shit for a drink. It’s the same with every manufactured crap they make. Let’s not enter the tasteless frozen milk and water they produce as ice cream and yoghurt, which tastes better in other countries. Ok, I’m deviating.
                                      

The oil men make a buck load because thanks to the nonexistent power, we depend on them to progress in the modern world. Writing this needs electricity. Oh darn it; the idiots just lived up to their name.

Imagine if we had constant electricity and our president opens that his mouth to announce some fuel subsidy ish again, we’d just park our cars at home and take taxis because there’s light at our offices and in our homes. What more do we need. But you try to break even in business, and still spend money you don’t have on the costly shit they have refined in some other country for us. That’s the dumbest thing this country does; you have oil, you take it out, then give people with refineries operating with constant electricity to refine for you, then they sell your own thing back to you at a high price, which you now sell back to the people, that’s just crazy! And we say we are no more colonized. Reminds me of the whites taking our resources from our country, sending it to theirs where they refine it, then sell the shit back to us.

  These two factors and the people that run them are our biggest problem in achieving constant electricity in this country. I am sick and tired of it. Just pause for a minute and imagine a Nigeria with constant electricity; road accidents will reduce because there’s only so much your headlights can do. Our economy will boom, people will be more productive in every sphere, more SMEs will spring up and survive, investors will troop in, our bank balances will be happy and maybe some of these companies will stop serving sugar with coloured water as orange drink and pay attention to the quality of their products. The cost of living will go down. Robbery and other related acts will go down; imagine the police using torchlight in a dark neighbourhood trying to rescue you, are they witches? They have to see. We’d be able to stay out and walk the streets four a.m in the morning and not be scared. So many things that are wrong with this country will be better.

  Maybe our rulers have constant electricity in their houses, if not I don’t see the reason, they’d travel round the world and see the basic amenity called electricity and come back to their home country then relax in their houses with a generator or inverter. Maybe they don’t have neighbours with noisy generators living close to them. The neighbour in the next house, rented his house out and now, I have sleepless nights filled with the thunderous sound of a tenant’s generator, I have flung that generator into the Bar Beach a million times in my head but can I blame the generator owner?.

  Forget the anti gay rights law or whatever cock and bull law they draw up next, forget the constitution amendment crap that they’re wasting billions of naira on. We have more pressing issues in this country. I don’t care what they promise, just give us light. 
                                                 
Well, can you blame the rulers, when the people themselves don’t know what they want; they’ve all accepted the no light situation. Give me constant electricity first then we can talk about the other things.

   Constant electricity is what we deserve from them, it’s our bloody right. Pardon my French.

  When you provide constant electricity, your next job is the rotten sick education sector. Well, these are my thoughts, what’s yours?

  May I see constant electricity in Nigeria before I die, may my children meet it.

P.S: looking for land to buy in Ghana and in Lome. Why will I build here and spend all my days not enjoying the house I built, with the heat and constant noise?