Death to the first semester's first half
or Tolu since the last post... :)
If someone asked me how the past weeks since my last blog post on the power of love through space and time have been, I’d say hectic but that’s an understatement. I’ve had an absurd number of things to do, ranging from CA tests to project proposals, and the first, second, and third chapters of my thesis – it’s been unrelenting. I often ask myself, on reflection, how I get through these bursts of extremely demanding activities without getting flustered. Honestly, the existence of that question in my mind is a major disservice to myself. I most certainly do NOT feel unfazed during the moment, and it takes so much resilience, more than I think I normally possess, to get through the events of the past few weeks like I have. Feeding into the delusion of being unfazed, and even proposing that I was laidback dampens the experience. This coupled with the trouble in my mind concerning the ongoing Palestinian genocide and the visceral anger I feel about the world’s complicit silence, I was as stressed as a turkey on Thanksgiving.
Normally there’s a lot of anxiety during any tests or exam period I’m in, which I still haven’t shaken off despite school accounting for the majority of my life. It’s hard, especially for me, to feel like I have prepared adequately for every test or exam I’m faced with. I normally attribute it to the way I study and its ineffectiveness, but that’s not true because the results always say otherwise. It seems that despite carrying my burdens up thousands of steps throughout my twenty-year life, there’s an endless horizon above the mountain of insecurities I have to climb. Sometimes, I lay down the burdens and clap for myself, a brief unconscious reminder to congratulate the efforts I’ve made, but this is not the optimal way to live. Existence has already placed me in a Sisyphean conundrum, compounding this inherent issue with doubt is useless. I say this to myself every time, but it just never sinks in. Thankfully, this isn’t a unique experience. I think it’s disingenuous and dismissive to even suggest that it is, because that invalidates the help that is available from my friends, family, acquaintances, school colleagues, and so on. Maybe I’m not the only one cheering myself on. Maybe we’re all on the same mountain, multiplied to satisfy the population of humanity, clapping for ourselves when we feel we’ve achieved what we’ve wanted. Maybe that’s why existence is such a noisy menagerie. In any case, I did not feel like the tests were going well while I was writing but my scores are genuinely incredible so maybe I should remove the veil of self-doubt for once haha.
After my tests ended, we (my entire college department, that is) got into project stuff. We’d been assigned our supervisors before the year resumed and up until that point, I only had a vague idea of the kind of project I wanted to do. Studying for a computer engineering bachelor’s degree gives you a false sense of security regarding the scope of the topics available to you. The truth is, there’s nothing “computer engineering” I could do in a Nigerian university that hasn’t been done before and despite the relative novelty of my project’s area (quantum cryptography, which isn’t really engineering (yes, I’m a nerd)), what I’ll be doing has been repeated multiple times in the past, albeit recently. I think this is my major frustration with the engineering degree I’ve been made to pursue. My options are very limited, first because of the department’s HOD (who I had to battle with just to get my topic approved pending review), then the resources available, and finally the exposure I need. Then again, are these all excuses I’m making for myself in anticipation of failure? Maybe deep down, I don’t think I can execute this project completely, but I know I have to. The dedication of my project report reads, “This is dedicated to my family, my friends, my colleagues, and all those who dare to think beyond what they can see.” I can’t let them down and I will try not to.
Lana Del Rey was a staple figure in my ears during these periods. I streamed her songs more than anyone else, specifically her latest album “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” which I believe is her most spiritual work. It’s hard to pick favorites from it because I’ve had different opinions at multiple points since it came out, but I think “Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father as he’s deep sea fishing,” which is her coming to terms with the grief that accompanied the loss of some of her family members, “Candy Necklaces,” about loving someone despite their flaws and toxic nature, “Paris, Texas,” about leaving home and coming back changed, and “Margaret,” about love at first sight and the beauty of it all, are songs I resonated with in school. Not all of them pertained to my experience while during school, but they allowed me to escape temporarily from the chaos and imagine a movie starring Lana herself and her lover. I also streamed a lot of Victoria Monet, mostly her new album “Jaguar II,” another excellent album I couldn’t stop listening to after it came out. Doja Cat’s “Scarlet”, Maddison Beer’s “Silence Between Songs,” Wolf Alice’s “Blue Weekend,” Ludwig Goransson’s Oppenheimer score, Lana’s “Norman Fucking Rockwell,” Rema’s “Ravage E.P.,” Amaarae’s “Fountain Baby,” Janelle Monae’s “The Age of Pleasure,” Frank Ocean’s “Blonde,” Radiohead’s “In Rainbows,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “GUTS,” Kali Uchis’ “Isolation,” Tyler, the Creator’s “Igor,” Sza’s “SOS,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” and Steve Lacy’s “Gemini Rights” were other albums I listened too significantly during my tests and post-tests periods. It’s safe to say that I stuck to the artists I’m most familiar with.
I also met a lot of new people online and in school. You know that thing when you meet someone for the first time and get attached as though an invisible line has been placed from that person’s heart to yours? It happened again, and I still can’t particularly explain how profound that realization is. It’s something that hasn’t happened since I met my best friend (I miss you so much!!), but I guess the best things happen unexpectedly, as every human does. Since then, we’ve had various infinite moments that I will treasure even when my body dies but my brain doesn’t.
One-click to help a Palestinian
I wanted to use this last section to talk about the movies I watched, or at least tried to watch, during this period but I feel it’s necessary to talk a bit about Palestine and the Congo. It’s been very hard to articulate the raw emotions I’ve felt since the forceful displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people was amplified in October. The images and videos were horrific and painful to watch. I tried spreading the word, donating, and creating awareness, but it felt like my efforts were futile as the death toll was rising significantly daily. I could not help but feel pure rage at the silence of so many people and world governments. Activists, journalists, and people with huge platforms all suddenly lost their voices and refused/still refuse to do the right thing. It was disheartening. But my spirits were encouraged by the wave of protests all across the world demanding an end to Israeli oppression. It proved to me that humanity still has hope, hope fostered and fueled by the people. Unfortunately, that same awareness on a global scale was not extended to the terrors going on in the Congo. I found out about the humanitarian crises in DR Congo during the COVID-19 lockdown and the same sadness I feel about Palestine now befell me then. Western exploitation of African people won’t ever stop, will it? I wish people cared more. There’s a cry out daily from every oppressed African for a savior but it all falls on ears stuffed by blood money i.e. the plague of corrupt leaders across Africa. I have so much more to say, but the words escape me. I felt dreadful during my tests and feel the same way now. These are not easy things to think about, but my delusional hope is that freedom ascends from being just a dream for all oppressed people around the world.