If only we knew!

The preacher stands at the pulpit and speaks about the samaritan woman.

He talks about how the woman met with the Lord and he pointed out to us - the large congregation - that if she had known she was going to meet the Lord that day, she would most likely have had a different state of mind. Would she have worn a different attire? Would she have gone to the well side at the wee hours of dawn and waited for him? Would she have gone there with the best cup she had on the shelves in her kitchen,if she knew that the Savior was going to ask for a drink of water?

He goes on to draw out a sermon from the tale of the woman at the well. I can still hear his voice as he even cracks a joke about how we make assumptions and the bad sides of having our minds made up,before we get the opportunity to find out the true position of things. He made a quick digression telling about how his wife says that Adventist men are not romantic(i share a similar opinion, though I pray fervently that my husband is different). He claims that this is an assumption wrongly generalized. He was driving home the point that Jesus was open minded enough to accommodate the neglected woman from Samaria who visited the well.

As he continues to open his mouth for the words of God to pour out,my mind catches a flying thought. If I knew that my husband was the man I was going to get married to some years ago, would I have acted differently?

Ours is like a fairy tale, (and I am so so looking forward to the happy ending where we get to live happily ever after) we met as kids. Though my senior,we met again in school where he was in his final year as I was just in my first year. Our paths crossed again in the University- his last year,my freshman year. Then we became phone friends(to think that I used to wonder why the long calls kept coming) and I even refer to him as a family friend(me representing my family and him,his- though my mum knew his grandparents)

There, I guess I have narrated enough about our history,so back to our discussion. If we had known we would eventually get married, would we have related to eachother in different ways?

My husband hangs an accusation over my head...he claims I broke his toy,when we were kids(you think that's funny,no?) Don't tell him I said this, it's between you and I. When he goes on and on about how I spoilt the toy - i think it was a car,or one of those boyish thingies - in my head am like it's either the thing was on its way to being condemned,or the thing was probably fake from the outset cos I wonder how a girl under 5 could have done much damage.

I could go on with the dirty laundry, but I'll let things slide for now. But the main question on my mind is, if we had known we were gonna end up together what would we have done differently?  To a large extent I would say we had a good relationship. Many had thought we were cousins while others called us school father and School daughter(me,i saw him as a brother,so you can imagine my bewilderment when he spoke his love to me). Raking through my mind(though not a detailed search), I can't pinpoint anything I would have done differently, my husband?...amongst other things, I bet he wishes he didn't give me =N=5 for lunch that day in my JSS 1(maybe I would have been fatter if he had given me more sef)

Well, so much for my ramblings. Guess I'm just taking the topic personal. I'll try to apply this to other life aspects....you probably should too.

Running away with me...

My blog titles are usually random but a lot of them come from the lyric of songs I'm listening to at the time I write. For instance I'm listening to Peter White's cover of the classic song "Just my imagination" (that's the title, no?). Bueno Funk's my favorite song on that album - 1 of my goals in life is to be able to play the melody of that song!

I start work next week after a whole month off. I don't know what to expect. It's still a programming gig but it's different from what I've done in the past. In the past, I worked on in-house java web based applications primarily. I'll still be doing java work but it will be centered around xml and web services this time around from what I gather - which isn't much. The pay is good though and the environment was the best that I interviewed at. We'll see what happens. This whole job thing reminds of the 2nd chances song in Veggie Tale's take on the story of Jonah. The older I get the more I realize that I'm not exactly as smart as I once thought I was, and the more scared - the scareder - I get. Human nature is funny though: you'd think that been scared and realizing that I suck at virtually everything would make it easier to surrender to the source of all things. But then again, maybe I don't fully comprehend my inabilities. What's that they say about people, death and lack of knowledge again?

I just finished Stephen King's "Desperation". I blame C. S. Lewis and the Screwtape Letters - which by the way, I've still not finished reading despite having started reading it before I switched to "Desperation". The thing is the more I read Screwtape Letters, the more I felt like Lewis was writing about me. When he got to that letter where Screwtape talks about the subject enjoying his pleasures I made up my mind to pick up novel reading again. I'm like screw it - I'm busying beating myself up, taking up pretentious - and terrible - habits, not doing what is right, not doing what I like and generally been miserable. Not! I remember how long it took me to choose "Desperation" at yaba about 2 weeks ago. The guys selling the used novels were on me like ants on honey, offering me one Stephen King book after the other. And in my coolest Fela-ish tone, I would go "O, I've read that... nice book" or "Hey! I remember this story...". Anyhow, now that I've read and totally enjoyed the book o there's the what next question. As in, I know it would be worse badder now to go back to my pre-Desperation days and I don't really want to go back to losing myself in each new novel I come across either. Life just keeps throwing curve balls - 20 belows in July, if you wish.

Anyhow, my favorite line from the novel goes something like "Disbelief and Unbelief are two different things - the former comes natural the latter is willfull... after unbelief comes desperation". And then I like how the book ends with 1 John 4:8. Go read it!

I've got to write a to do list of paper... clear my head a little! And then I've got to do something I've really not done in a while... I need to just put off the TV, computer, phone and just... be still!

Egyptian genetic networks

I have a friend that says that much of oyinbo technology is just plain magic. Educated dude, this friend, but that doesn't stop him from sounding terribly naive ever so often. Lately, though, I'm beginning to see the light. I guess it could be said that the fact that I'm meant to be working on intelligent systems means the thing shouldn't be straight forward. Anyway, I'm stuck with this really nice sounding thesis that never seems to work. But then I'll have to redefine 'work'. Yesterday, for instance, I was able to train the network to do 'something' - the problem was that the 'something' was not the intended task. But for a moment it looked uber cool and I totally loved it.

The middle east is one of many fields I'm obviously not vast in. Last time around I thought the riots in Egypt will result in nothing. I guess you can take a moment now to laugh at me. To be far though, I still stand by what I said earlier that not much will change. Yes, true democrazy may come to stay in those areas of the middle east where 'dictatoships' have been toppled but nothing much else will change. I'll also say that I thought Arsenal would win the carling cup this year but we all know how that turned out.

So that's life as we know it. I wish it were better - not that I believe that will make it better. Dont get me wrong o - this season Arsenal will win the EPL. But in the larger sphere of things a group of about 20 twenty-something-year-olds each earning in a week what I earn in a year is sadly irrelevant. What's relevant is good and evil, right and wrong, joy and sadness, peace and sadness. Thankfully, there is still a God and He is still in charge however contrary things may appear.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Way to start the year
I'm grateful for a brand new year (yes, I know I'm one month late). I'm grateful that I can still dream and better still my dreams can still come true. I love that I'm in love - it's a beautiful gift having someone to fall in love with. Life, this side of the ocean, is short and largely unfair but each night is totally worth the pain and effort if you give your all during the day and trust in God each day.

Tunisia, Egypt and the U.S

If you believe the riots and protests that are currently been experienced in the middle east will launch a new dawn in civilisation please give me a moment while I laugh at you.
Ok, now that we've got that out of the way let's face reality. Or let me put it like this - this world isn't going to get better. I've lived almost 30 years and in all that time mankind has collectively gotten more depraved, living conditions have got more desperate and generally we've found better ways to hate each other. But I'll like to be proven wrong especially because if there's a power vacuum in any of the middle eastern countries and the wrong parties seize power then we are all in trouble.

Neural networks and protein structures

It's my final semester. I need to get an 'A' in that statistics class without attending classes and also wrap up my thesis. Let's just say greater miracles have happened so I'm not too worried. That said, there's no tellng how regular blog posts will this first half of the year though - especially since I hadly ride the train nowadays.

It's fun times for me. I love it. Now, if only I had the good sense to make sure I make time for God. God help me