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I get the call late – sometime between 5.00 and 5.30pm on Monday evening - as I drag my bone weary self homeward, plowing a lone furrow down Guild and up Union through the masses of people heading home in the opposite direction. A sudden change of plans on The Project has thrown the curveball that is being the designated short term relief in my direction, and being the young, unmarried bloke on the team I get first dibs at the possibility of catching a 9.30 am flight the next morning. With the prospect of performance reviews due in a mere two weeks, I’m not exactly keen to refuse an opportunity to demonstrate my ability to ‘handle changing priorities’, so I shrug inwardly, accept my lot and grumble all the way home. ...

A few days late but an interesting read nonetheless. Denise Morris explores inter-racial dating and marriage from a biblical worldview over at Boundless.org. Parts One, Two and Three explore her experiences in growing up as a child from a mixed marriage, the pseudo-biblical objections people may have and offers a useful summation: Will choosing to date someone outside of your race make your life more difficult? Hopefully not, but it could. If it does, remember that the father of lies still has a grip on humanity. He will until the day Christ returns to put him in his place. Are the potential difficulties of an interracial relationship worth it? Of course they are if it’s the person God has prepared for you. Most importantly, all of us are precious in his sight — red, yellow, black and white — and every shade in between. ...

My short Saturday morning sleep (I’d stayed awake till 4.30 am) was shattered by the insistent buzz of my cellphone at a little over 9.00am, and with it came summons to meet up with a bloke I met at NYSC camp and his wife. After braving howling winds and nearly passing out on my feet with the sheer amount of shops we went through, we got to share my peri-peri chicken addiction, and chat. True to form our conversation segued into the murky waters that are Nigeria and its various issues. Thankfully, reminiscing over the highlights of our service year provided a spot of cheer. ...

My little experiment in online dating comes to an end over the next few weeks, thanks to expiring subscriptions. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that online dating may not be for me. If my experience is typical, it would appear the Nigerian man trying online dating has three strikes against him. First is the perception in the wider world of Nigerians as being inherently scam artists. A bevy of websites has sprung up whose MO appears solely to be defining tactics and strategies for identifying Nigerian scam artists and outing them. The three or so women on eHarmony who I made it past guided communication into emailing with suddenly became reticent when I declared I was Nigerian. From a couple of emails a day, things segued into an email a couple of days and then them leaving my emails un-replied. ...

From Project Syndicate: Urbanization is blamed for a wide variety of modern social ills, ranging from crime and incivility to alienation and anomie. But, by infusing us with their unique spirit and identity, our cities may, in fact, help to empower humanity to face the most difficult challenges of the twenty-first century. What ‘unique spirit and identity’ might Lagos infuse us with?

Source To the woman in the green dress: Oklahoma City, December 24th… She had me between ‘duh’ - and the nonchalant, sultry blur of her unruly hair; and the pouty, smouldering incandescence of her blood red lips; shimmering life-like in the dull, barely there blues and reds and flickering purples of the BeeJay’s mirror ball. We were like two large - lumps of rock; boulders locked in the unwilling, eternal waltz of gravity; stuck in distant orbits around the crowded dance floor like as around a stranded, listless star. In the interludes between the mindless drone of the DJ’s songs, and the rude, insistent scratch of his beatbox our eyes weave and bob, like corks floating in a sea of ice cold beer. ...

From the Prince of Egypt soundtrack:

Not quite my state of mind, but this will do: via xkcd. The alt text (to stave off miss.fab’s wrath): The worst resolution to the Valentine Prisoner’s dilemma, when YOU decide not to give your partner a present but your PARTNER decides to testify against you in the armed robbery case

On a whim, I decide to wear a yellow shirt to work. There are no dress codes out here, but light greys, shiny whites and spartan blues are the most likely colours that peek out from beneath the heavy, grey jumpers that are de rigueur around these parts. It is a relatively mild seven degrees, less the wind chill and I feel sufficiently warm enough to ditch my heavy overcoat in favour of a lighter jacket. ...

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