Ongodiyedire

This is not a post about living the dream or about roses and rainbows in a marvelous city ... First I was ecstatic about the whole thing, then I wasn't, then I was again and then I wasn't... And that feeling lasted for a very long time.   I always wished I could see other countries before 30 but I never imagined it would come quicker so when I found myself out of the country for the first time last year, I was giddy about starting a new chapter of my life in 2020. It felt surreal, even my family couldn't believe that it was possible, that the world of academia opens doors and this time, it opened one in our home. So January, 14 2020 the journey began, one that would shape my experience and make me look good on paper. But it started off really bad, for my mental health. I felt myself shattering and I couldn't pick up the pieces. I mean, how would I tell my family, my friends, the people that made it possible for me to be there that I...

Most questions Artists ask themselves right from the first time they decide to do art is if they have an art style. First off when I started, I didn't know what an art style was, I didn't think I had one even up to this point because I always wanted to incorporate a lot of things at once in my art. Also because I was self taught and most of my art tutorials came and still comes from the internet. I wanted my art to have life, I wanted it to be fashionable, I wanted concept, I wanted it to look like a work hanging in a museum. All these I wanted and more but I didn't give myself time to breathe and actually enjoy painting. So whenever I put out a painting, I saw a million things it could have been so I will end up resenting the art but that art will end up beating my expectations. What am I actually saying? Art styles come naturally, from famous painters like Pablo Picasso, Leonardo Da Vinchi, Henri Matisse down to instagram works of @loisvb, @_picolo , @...

There lived a fairy in Nondally, but she wasn't always seen. The people who did, said her face was gleam. She made the roses bloom, she guarded the loom. She was dressed in green, a clothing fit for a queen. There lived a fairy in Nondally, she barely spoke. Hair  of brass, eyes like it was teary from smoke. She looked at the splendor with eyes of wonder "O' what a scene that stretched to yonder" There lived a fairy in Nondally, I was told. Who could have known how I would feel if I could behold. A beautiful fairy, immaculate beauty It pleases me to pen down this in a jiffy. 

A long night far away from a world you once knew. The streets lit up like dynamite and the air smelled of dust and metal. The rain poured but there wasn't any flood, each trickle hit the ground like sparks of electricity, what could have been a puddle, became streaks of lightning that created a path to infinite places. She wasn't of that world, but it all felt familiar. Her hair, neon with streaks of purple, blue and lilac. She was clothed in metal, shiny, lustrous transparent metal that matched with her umbrella and the bra underneath complemented her lips. Where would she go? A happy place? The perfect place? No one could tell but she knew by following the path the electric rain paved, she would finally be in a place called... Home. 

If you want to watch a movie so surreal that it feels like it is just you, watching from a distance, as a certain family goes to through hurdles to retain longevity, then you should see Lionheart. In all hype and noise, Lionheart stands in the rubble, undeterred, whilst it goes ahead to break through clichés, stereotypes and the nerve jerking predictable story lines always churned out with few polishing. So it is safe to say; I did not expect the ending. I expected like a big BOOM where the protagonist Adaeze (Genevieve Nnaji) saves the day, but still the ending was very real life and a great moral lesson particularly for people in business. Also I loved how they movie was able to incorporate how lives were ruined by the 'Change' in government. How people were are forced to make huge gambles just to stay afloat. In all diamonds: the rubies, the topazes, the sapphires, the hyacinths, the crystals, the peridotes, the amethysts, the emeralds.... Lionheart is a Sa...

(photo credit : Elena Berezina)  Let me tell you a story about the boys you want. They are mysterious, have a dangerous appeal, a spice of melodrama and zest for fantasy. Wonderland du jour and attention je ne sais quoi. They make you feel like you want the world to stop, heck the world stops when you are with them. The calls, damn the calls! Incessant, over the edge, every moment affair. You pour your hearts out on the phone, through texts, chats... It is a drug, you can never get enough of the intoxication. It is highend ecstasy borderline on molly heroine, morphine... The love engulfs you, you love them till your breathing stops, you love them till they call the cops on you... The love breeds madnees, you always want more but you never really get enough. And then... Reality sets in! It is an illusion, there is a sudden awakening, a flash of lightning that jolts you back to consciousness.  It comes fast, it ends faster. And then... Y...

There is nothing I hate more than this phrase 'Bad things happen to good people' It is devoid of hope, a lacuna of misery, an avalanche of agony. It shouldn't make any sense at all, because if it does then the opposite means that:  'Good things happen to bad people'  Why should bad people get what they want? Why do people believe that because of how the world has been wired, there is no karma? Let me make this known; Bad things happen to Bad people. You know why it looks like it happens to good people? Karma is very slow in action, consequences don't happen in a snap of a finger and that is why it appears like good people are endangered. But they are not! There is always a price to be GOOD! In thoughts, in actions, in words, in everything! Forget the world, forget the horror, the terrible people, the unfortunate humans, genuinely do good! Why? It pays to be good! It might look like people always take you for granted but you are...

Every October 5 of every year, right from the year I became conscious of my actions, is always a year I get to have a deep thought of what I really wanted in life. Some years I cried... Some years I felt lonely... Some years I felt like I am not enough... Some years I felt angry... Some years I just felt 'let's  get this over with'... In those years, I worked my ass off in my own way creating something that I could call substantial but in one way or the other, it didn't work. So I blamed myself over and over. But not once did I just look back on what I was doing, not once did I ever see that even though what I created didn't work, I actually have something to talk about. I mean I am 25 years old and I have a CV that can pass for a 30 year old or more (not to brag). Now this year, I am not going to do any of the sad things above. I am going to acknowledge that I am powerful! I am going to acknowledge that the world should be grateful that I am in...

I got into Twitter this evening hoping to live off some savagery until I saw a bunch of 'snowflakes' burning their Nike apparel, with the hash tag #justburnit This is on the grounds that Colin Kaepernick who was signed on Nike, disrespected Trump their country, so everyone should boycott or better still set some couple of Nike's bought with their money on fire. How cool is that? So I googled Colin to get with the program and saw this on Wikipedia: Colin,  born November 3, 1987 is an America football quarterback who is currently a free agent. Kaepernick played college football for the University of Nevada in Reno, where he was named the Western Athletic Conference(WAC) Offensive Player of the Year twice and became the only player in NCAA Division I FBS history to amass 10,000 passing yards and 4,000 rushing yards in a career. After graduating, he was selected by the San Francisco 49ers in the second roun...

Photo credit: Elena Berezima on Art station. Well yeah, I have a blog post... In ages! I really missed writing, well I didn't really stop (I wrote a fiction though... Story and details coming up later. ) So on this topic that has always been in my head, do we really get what we wish for? Life can be funny sometimes, life can be hard, life can turn out to be a thousand things we don't want it to be. But yet again, we are always hopeful that we get exactly what we desire... Health, money, academics, love... We always desire and hope that eventually everything turns out perfectly the way we want it to be. But life can be a BITCH! It can steer us in a different course, we always find ourselves in a bumpy hellish rollercoaster ride that can either catapult us into utopia or straight into the abyss. But what do I know? Someone once said to me 'Allow things to flow naturally, don't try to stop it, don't look at the future thinking you know all abo...

For the day’s project, I told my students to look at liberation as a muse and by the end of the day, I had stacks of beautiful potraits. When Marian placed her canvas in front of me, it was moody and gloomy as usual ,I wanted to just say ‘Put it with the rest'   But I could have sworn I saw a streak of light. I looked at the painting and I was taken aback. I am quite familiar with potraits of people crouching in an illuminated room with a silhouette figure lurking in the hallway or at the door but Marian's potrait had a figure in the dark that was illuminated by a shadow. A lucent shadow I saw the features of the face and a feminine figure crouched in the darkness with an awry smile all highlighed by the shadow. ‘How did you come up with this?’  I was amazed because her art was worthy of exhibition She smirked and said ‘When I draw, I don’t want compliments, I don’t want nice things said in return. I just want people to look at the shit and be spee...

I am almost easily fascinated by anything. My wife Dalia would say I am bullish, well I could be in a sort of way. I once made a mural out of wet shoelaces I picked from dumpsters. She became endeared to me when I made made a painting out of the coffee she spilled on the table on our first date.  ‘I am so sorry I made a mess'  She said as she tore frantically at the paper towels but I held her hand, placed it on her lap as she squeezed the towel tightly, then I drew the most beautiful coffee panda. She blushed like a school girl and felt so bad when the squirmish sales girl wiped it off from the table. She barely saw me frown at anything and five years after saying ‘I do' just the two of us, at the beach with our feet buried in the sand as the minister pronounced us husband and wife, we have been stuck in that beautiful memory, full of optimism and full of hope for our beautiful twin girls. I am a Fine and Applied Arts Professor at the State University and I w...

As the news of the mass rape conducted during the free concert hosted by Flavour in Enugu is continuously peddled on blogs, I can't help but wonder if it is a crime to be born as a woman in Nigeria. The heart wrenching news of vile men in tens, moving up and down a concert in full swing, singling out their preys and taking her pride by force. Rendering her utterly useless as they fondle her privates shamelessly before taking turns to wear condoms and have their way until they reach the peak of their pleasure. Like a hungry fool who walked into a continental buffet and ravishes the meal without permission and before the exquisitely dressed host can eloquently say Bon appetit! They are the lords of the arena, unstoppable with a distasteful flame of monstrous libido which can only be quenched when they draw blood and jerk off to the helplessness of their victims as they give a loud grunt of savor then step down for the next man to have the same experience that can't be ...

Image from Jumia Travel Blog Overtime, the Residents of Port-Hacourt in Rivers State, Nigeria has made known their plight using social media on evidence of black rain, black soot in the atmosphere and the smell of gas in the air they breathe. Although according to a report from Vanguard, in February 2017 which I quote: However, the Rivers State Government, according to our findings, had shut down three companies in the state for allegedly operating machines that emit high magnitude of hydrocarbon into the atmosphere.  If three companies have already been shut down due​ to black soot emissions coming from their machines, why are the residents still not in the clear? The Residents of Port-Hacourt need to understand that in whatever you do, if your health and safety is not prioritized, you should speak up for it. It will not magically disappear overnight, it might not be just hydrocarbons, it could grow to be nuclear emissions which are highly radioactive and spread ...

I must say that I am totally appalled by the lackadaisical attitude showed by mostly youths on the Kidnap of 110 school girls in Dapchi. It happened in Chibok 2014 and now four years later the same attack occured again but this time in Dapchi. When something of this magnitude repeats itself, we need to start asking mental questions, we need to use our social media to challenge this sad normalcy that has ripped into our already faulty foundation. Why are we so relaxed? I don't see hash tags created, I don't see Nigerian Twitter sent to a frenzy, it is like everyone is saying something but no one is.  And then when you think about what those girls are going through, you can't help but cringe at the fact that the government are still planning on deriving measures to help rescue them.  Is there even a dialogue going on? Are they even worried or uncomfortably complacent?  Are we supposed to think that because we are not close by and we don't know the pare...

Yara Shaidi Natural looking full brows are fast becoming a fashion trend. You must have seen a couple of Hollywood celebrities slay on the red carpet, magazine covers , on Instagram photos with their well sculptured natural looking​ brows and you always wonder how they​ pull it off. The natural brows are steady coming in that one would think we will soon have no need for the eyebrow fillers and pencils but this look can still be achieved perfectly with the above. How you can rock your full natural brows: Always leave a desirable amount of brows, do not thin down completely when carving. Carve the edges to give it a well defined high lift look. Cara Delevingne If you don't really grow brows fast, you can create a faux brows by separating pencil strokes/ filler strokes when shading  or microblading which an A list treatment done in Hollywood for growing fuller brows If brows are naturally bushy, always brush up with a styling toothbrush and use a gel to h...

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