2012

Develop a daily practice of meditation, prayer and journaling Complete 40 consecutive days of prayer Make morning prayer meetings @ FOL three times a week (M, W, F) Weigh 80kg Gym thrice a week (M,W, S) Improve eating habits - cut down on eba, soup and rice Use myfitnesspal.com as food journal Save 30% of Net earnings Min of £1k per month Target 12k extra saved this year Improve Professionally, get Chartered engineer status Receive feedback on IMarEST CEng application ASME Level 2 Plant Inspector/ NACE Snr Corrosion Technologist certification Register for a PhD in corrosion, materials and or welding (Newcastle/ Manchester/Cranfield) Get a driver’s license: Pass theory test, Get a driving teacher on retainer Get 20 hours practice in Get full driver’s license Resolve long term settlement options Base plan - Remain in Aberdeen + progress professional development opportunities(see #4 above) Only seek to leave Aberdeen if US/ Canada/Australia opportunities open up Resolve my dating conundrums; target being in a stable committed relationship by YE 2013: Clear all people I’m currently stuck in the friend zone with, gain clarity (Mo, Fola, Ese etc Gain knowledge about Dating and Relationships the Godly way; Prayerfully pursue the woman God has prepared. Find a spiritual mentor Take 2 main trips Nigeria US (Depending on where I am with Project M by Q3 2013) Oklahoma ? Houston Spain or Portugal Complete a writing project - the3six5N Buy a house (2 bed) Requirements: 2 bed room flat, city centre apartment, parking space, etc tba

Dickens most eloquently captured the paradox that was the year I had in that most evocative of openings to A Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, ...

2012 was to be the the year of just 12 things. If I learned anything it is that life’s far removed from the order and clarity of an excel spreadsheet complete with target dates and milestones. Most importantly perhaps was that I gave living a good go in 2012, whether that was a success or not is a whole other conversation. So here goes: Develop a daily practice of meditation, prayer and journaling: I struggled with this all year - and for a variety of reasons, not least because work ebbed and flowed through the year, God and I didn’t see eye to eye for the larger part of the year and my 2012 was an emotional roller coaster. I did improve over 2011, but real work, and focus, are required through 2013 on this. Thankfully, I stumbled on this post on the Justin Taylor blog. That should come in handy I suppose. Lose 20kg: I lost 7 kg - returning to the weight I was in 2008 when I left my Nigerian job. Walking to and from work each day certainly helped, but the big kick came post November when I joined a gym and cycled twice a week for 30 minutes. Losing the remaining 13kg has to be a focus area for 2013 - if I do not end up adding a few more thanks to the swathe of Christmas parties and the associated gin and tonics and rich pudding I had to down all through December. Read (and review) 25 books in 2012: I read the books - a grand total of twelve - and bar three barely there reviews, this was a colossal failure. Call parents and siblings once a week: This was the one area I excelled in. A particularly testy November/ December required a lot more phone calls to the family than I am used to. The one small positive from all that is that we have bonded and grown together as a family. Save £1,000 a month: Plan was to cut out the soft loans which I typically never got back and scaling back on my gadget buying sprees. I did pretty well here until December - and I am blaming the emotional turmoil of navigating my season of detox for the retail therapy I needed to pull through. :) Get Chartered Engineer status: Ended up gaining professional membership of two institutes. Spending the greater part of the year waiting on a slot for the professional review interview meant this slipped. A chance opening in December ensured I did get the PRI sorted, January should bring confirmation of what the decision is - hopefully it’s a pass and I can check the CEng box after 8+ years of working! Get a driver’s license: This was about an EPIC fail as possible - I never even got to take the theory test. Resolve long term settlement options: I flip-flopped on this. At some stage I was certain that the future lay in Canada, and I actually seriously began interviewing for a role in the cold, wintry realms of Fort McMurray. Then L happened, the details of the role I was chasing didn’t quite fit what I wanted (more tailored towards someone with refining and sour gas corrosion experience as against my oil/gas/condensate/offshore pipelines experience and I fell out of love with the idea of (yet another) move. In a sense there was resolution, I am more likely to remain in Aberdeen, unless something significant happens to change my views, which given the history is not unlikely. Resolve my dating and meeting issues: I did end up de-cluttering my head - in a round about way after nearly eighteen months of moping around. Strangely, it took meeting L, and getting to enjoy her company, to give me the jolt I needed to let go and realise there was a whole sea of smart, likeable women out there. Small mercies, even though it doesn’t look like L and I will work out after all. Complete FAN integration: Plan was to reengage with the Youth group at church as a way to get some more activity into my life. I did end up leaving this late - the year end party was a blast, and I did sign up to get more involved. Fingers crossed. Re-engage with FOL service: 2011 was a year to forget - 2012 was marginally better - even though God did find me in early November. Hopefully 2013’s a lot better with my rengagement with the technical/ media team and the Youth group. Find a mentor: My friend O became a defacto mentor through the course of the year as I pulled my CEng application together and worked through my girl issues, as were Izz and Dee my wing-women-in-chief. On the work front MrG was more pain and bother than help, but it was all in good spirit and helped to ease my various work related transitions through the year. All told, again a fairly reasonable year - a few misses/ near misses but overall ending in a better place than where I started the year… Hoping 2013’s a lot better too, and the momentum from the last two months of the year carries over. :)

Although a year and some ago I thought I had truly gotten over the pain of the EJ debacle, I still managed to spend Christmas stateside attending a wedding, hanging with mutual friends and kind of hoping I would run into her. Neither happened, and when push came to shove I couldn’t bring myself to take the short hop across town to the city where she now lived. Coming into 2012 then, the targe t was to resolve a number of the other friendzoneships I had somehow gotten sucked in over the years. ...

In his 2012 book, How Will You measure Your Life, Clay M Christensen attempts to analyse three key life pursuits from the perspective of the theories he teaches to his MBA students at Harvard Business School, looking to extract ideas which when applied to life will ensure that the outcomes we get are aligned with the outcomes we say we want. The three areas he concentrates on are Career, Relationships and the very aptly captioned ‘Staying Out of Prison’. A few highlights: ...

WHEN MY MOTHER was angry with me, which was often, she said, ‘The Devil led us to the wrong crib' So begins Jeanette Winterson’s autobiography, a meditation of sorts on growing up adopted and the descent into dystopia that was her childhood; spent growing up in a Pentecostal home being groomed to be a missionary. It is a childhood that is quintessentially evangelical, replete with very regular church meetings, Biblical literalism, corporeal punishment and a feening for the apocalyptic dawn of the next world to the detriment of the enjoyment of this one. Looming large in that phase of growing up is the image of her adoptive mother, a controlling creature, intensely fundamentalist and addicted to her cigarettes, who both in her quiet moments and in her moments of rage ruled the roost,with the young Jeanette and her adoptive father as collateral damage. Being adopted, and the uncertainties this brings to family relations is a recurring motif in the book, and her successful search to find her birth mother takes us through an emotional wringer. ...

This year I decided I would only have seven focus areas - from which twelve things for 2012 were derived. Interestingly, whilst there has been progress in some areas, quite a few other areas have been the equivalent of a Lagos traffic jam for progress. 114 days in, here’s my review. Develop a daily practice of prayer and meditation: This has come along in fits and starts. there definitely has been some progress, but nothing sustained so far. I’d rate myself as ‘poor’ here. Lose 20 kg: An epic fail here. I suspect I may have actually gained half a kilogram! Read and review 25 books: Currently on book number four. No real reviews have been completed so far. I’ll need to decide a format and start progressing these ASAP. Call Parents and siblings at least once a week: I’ve made some progress on here with phone calls, but again not on the level of consistency that I’d be hoping for. Save £1,000 each month: One of the areas where I’d say I have performed very well. Get Chartered Engineer Status: In progress, I hope to send in my initial applications this May and kick start the process of getting C.Eng registration through the IMarEST. Get a Driver’s Licence: A couple of false starts here. The intent is to get the CEng application done and dusted and then focus on studying for the theory test and passing it in May 2012. Resolve long term settlement options: Canada featured heavily in the plan for a while, but at the moment it’s looking like the UK is the base plan. The intent is to sort out the CEng status and then take it from there. Resolve my dating issues: Not quite progress here. Met Q who ticks a lot of the boxes (geek, recovering bookworm, under 31 yrs of age, Nigerian with the added benefit of real life mutual friends/ connections). The one quirk is she’s very into the Grail Message thing which ended up scuttling my dalliance with EJ from back in the day. I’m not quite sure I can risk lettnig my heart go when there are these issues. FAN integration/FOL Service: One word, abysmal. Find a mentor: Some progress, O’s essentially become my non work mentor what with his interest in getting me married and his listening ears, and the three gorgeous kids he’s got. :) On the work front, I’m getting along quite nicely with the QNX* team now - RG seems like a good candidate for a work mentor. Getting him to sponsor my CEng application cxould be the key. Finding a hobby: New item on the lsit, thanks to pressure from CS & NP at QNX and my buddy Chizz. I’ve signed up for the company touch rugby team - hopefully that pans out nicely. All in all, there’s been areas of progress and some of none. The top targets for Q2 through end of June are getting the CEng application through, passing the theory test and heading off to Nigeria.

To God be the Glory.. :)

Ninety one days into the new year, I do not appear to have made any significant progress on the one thing on my 2012 to do list which my mother is most interested in - finding myself a potential wife. Following on a review from late last year, I decided a multi-pronged approach would work best - fusing online dating with physical meet ups and the occasional introduction from mutual friends. Arguably, there have been opportunities with potential, even though the bulk of them have not been. In any case here goes the journey so far: ...

In what is going to be a first for me, I will cross over into the new year aboard an airplane, albeit one headed homeward. It certainly is a far cry from how 2011 started, but perhaps this unconventional start will afford me the chance to pause and ponder a few days early, and agree on 12 things for 2012 all aligned with my seven priorities for life. Here goes: Develop a daily practice of meditation, prayer and journaling: Taking time out to examine life, capture things as they happen and improve daily has to be a key component of my daily routine going forward. The seven priorities are great on paper, but unless progress on the continuum towards achieving them is measured and recorded, I suspect the end of the year will come, and I will still be where I am as of today, stuck in a rut. Target: 4 of 5 days a week of reading the identified text in the Our Daily Bread app. Lose 20kg: I am overweight – no amount of faffing around can gloss over that simple fact. I tried for a month, before slipping back into my my routine of Nandos, large potions and baguettes at work. Losing weight has to be a focus in 2012, the target is to lose 20kg for a return to c. 80kg weight and a healthy BMI. Target: Walk to and from work daily, take 2 days in the week to eat only fruits (seedless grapes, bananas and apples only), stay off coffee, eat half of what I would normally eat. Read (and review) 25 books in 2012. Call parents and siblings once a week: Quick phone call to Dad/Mum every two weeks; hopefully I can catch the siblings weekly for a quick chat. Save £1,000 a month: The YE spend data for 2011 was abysmal. For a net (ex. taxes) increase in pay of c. 600 pounds, I ended up doubling my expenditure versus 2010. Some of it was unavoidable – the house move in late 2010, increased bills and rents hit for the full year 2011 versus the one quarter in 2010, but large swathes of cash remained unaccounted for. The plan is to move 1,000 each month from my net pay prior to any expenses coming through, as well as refuse to get involved in providing soft loans to the lads. Get chartered engineer status: I didn’t make a lot of progress professionally in 2011. There were no conferences attended or certifications gained. This is a focus area for 2012 – I am looking to get at least one of either the C.Eng designation or complete my NACE certifications before YE 2012. Get a driver’s license: I have had a provisional drivers license for over a year already. The focus in 2012 will be to use the 1st quarter to write and pass the theory test, and the summer months to practice for and pass the practical test for a full drivers’ license. Given my traumatic car crash from 2008, and the fact that I haven ‘t driven since then, I suspect this will not be a trivial pursuit. Resolve long term settlement options: 2012 will be crucial for me as I decide where I will lay down my long term routes. TheBZ would be a good place, but the increasingly louder anti-immigrant rhetoric is a niggling issue at the bottom of my mind. Canada seems to be a longer term option – one that I will explore to a greater extent in 2012. Resolve my dating and meeting issues: I am at a stage where I can truly say that I have let got of my EJ issues. Having said that there remain pockets of memories I need to ditch finally. The target through 2012 is to bring myself to the place where I can truly say I have forgotten and moved on, a position where I am free in my head to meet and date again. 2012 in this regards has to be the year of de-cluttering. Complete FAN integration: Given my constant moaning about how mind numbingly boring the little city I live in is, that I am not taking advantage of what opportunities there are to meet people is a shame. Through 2012, the intention is to reconnect with the Youth and Singles group at church once a month. Re-engage with FOL service: My service in the group I work with in church was shocking in 2011. Granted, part of it was a busier, less controlled work load, but my worldview issues also contributed in no small measure. The plan in 2012 is to reconnect and reengage with the group, and be useful once again. Find a mentor: I’m looking to get more intentionality in life, a mentor would definitely help for the accountability bits here.