And what was I saying about my school again?

This is where I'm currently spending thousands against my future earnings. This place is preparing me for a successful future career in business. You'll find that hard to believe after you watch this video. Its supposed to be an official presentation of the school, but the more creative, the better. It's a French thing, most schools produce a 'Lipdub' video every year, but this is hands down the best I've seen. Go ESSEC!!!

Last night I had a dream

Last night I had a dream
that I was traveling in this place,
where people were actually welcoming, warm, helpful
and they smiled a lot.
I didn't get stared at all the time,
and no one made ludicrous assumptions about who I was
or what I was doing there,
I woke up and realized hot damn!
I was traveling through Africa.
Soon come my love, soon come.

(P.S. This literally was a dream)

On the verge of a quarter of a century

In a couple of days, I will turn 25!
This is quite incredible to me, but at the same time I feel like it's about time. I can't believe how much time has flown over the past years. It feels just like yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that my 17th birthday was approaching. And now it's 25. One of my quirks is that I do not like the odd number ages as much as the even. I don't know why, lol. It just irks me, but 25...j'adore ca. It's such a rounded age. It's grown up, wise (with room for mistakes), definitive. I love this age already. I'm trying to remember, where I imagined my life would be at this age when I was much younger, but nothing specific really comes to mind. I am more the flexible kind who takes life as it comes, deals with it and moves on. I learnt this when I was about 12 and realized how much I hated the mention of diseases, blood...anything medical. Prior to that my lifelong goal was to become a doctor. Ha! Talk about revising of future ambitions, no need forcing that medical route.
I love where my life is right now. I had my quarter-life crisis earlier. Thank goodness! My crisis saw me reevaluate life, apply to grad school in France, get accepted, quit my job and begin this amazing journey. This has been one of the best things I have ever done for myself and regrets I have none. More important than knowing what I don't want out of life, I know now exactly what I want (ok more like big picture becoming more defined :)). The words to this song comes to mind and it mirrors the mood I've been in lately. I'm definitely not perfect right now, still a few elements needed...ahem a man! But i feel pretty darn blessed right now.
Count your blessings name them one by one
Count your blessings see what God has done
Count your blessings, name them one by one
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done

My school the circus

I was telling someone about this recently and I thought I'd share here. Its abut my school in France. It's a business school, and a pretty reputable one too but sometimes I feel like I go to a circus. Now that I'm on the corporate grind for a minute doing this internship, things are quite dull in comparison and I kinda miss that madhouse. I was just telling someone about the day I got to school and they were having international day, so there were all these cultural clubs doing their various presentations. Some had food, some had activities, games etc. but the Moroccan club absolutely took the cake. This is why...


Like where the hell do you find a camel in Paris??

This was right in the main hall in school. loves it.
So sometimes its a luxury sports car exhibition (like seriously they had Ferraris, Lamborghinis, etc. in the main hall), other times its a freaking camel, or its the undergrad kids going into classes to serenade girls with roses and spanish guitars...its always some damn thing going on.
And this is why I love it!

Celebrity sighting in Prague

So I'm walking through Old Town Square after drinks with friends today, and I spot a group of black folk.  I had to stare a little because such sightings are very rare in this city...and it wasn't just one or two black people, more like a whole group of 5, 6 whoaa.  Lol, I'm sorry but I was intrigued. 
So as I'm focusing on this group, 1 of them becomes vaguely familiar, like I know the dude or something.  And then it finally hit me.  I had just downloaded a free episode of 90210 (a new show on CW thats a spin-off of Bev Hills) recently and watched it and this guy was from the show.  Tristan Wilds. I also saw him in The Secret Life of Bees (which was such a good book AND movie, btw).  I never really got hooked on The Wire, but he was in it too and Half Nelson as well.  I just looked up his bio on wikipedia, and I see that he's also from New York...Staten Island (ewww) but New York nonetheless.  

So now I'm officially a fan.  I hope he loved Prague.

Mama's coming to visit and Buena Vista Social Club

Yay! My mom's coming to visit me in Prague.  I'm super excited to host my first visitor in this city and show them all its glory.  Even though she's coming on what seems like a whirlwind visit, i.e. barely for 2 days, I'm still glad to get something.  The woman is sooo busy, and we're both getting to that age where I have to start worrying about her health and how much she works. I'm glad to give her an excuse to just slow it down a little and get some rest in this new city of mine.
Then also, I get to go see Buena Vista perform. Soooo excited about that.  I've been listening to the album lately just to get myself in the groove for the concert and I swear I think that South America is somewhere in the nearest future for me!  Cuba is restricted, but I could do with a little Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina...geez anywthere in that region will do!!!

I've lost a friend

Just when I started with this whole loving more, being more open tip, this happens.  But it's all well and good, maybe this friend just couldn't handle all the love and openness I was ready to shower. Lol.  

So I decided to talk to said friend about something that had been on my mind for a while.  Granted, it probably wasn't the most pleasant topic as it concerned her directly and something she said to me a loooong time ago.  I just thought no matter what, we were on the same side and that being good friends it would work out regardless.  Well I was dead WRONG.  There was no understanding, I was called ridiculous, and worse she called for a termination of the friendship.  It was amazing.  What is even more amazing is hearing that this friend has called a few people to brief them of the demise of our friendship and even made some insulting remarks about my mum.  

It sucks that things had to end up this way, but I think deep down we both know its for the better. We're totally different people and I think fundamentally, we honestly didn't know how to be friends to each other.  It always felt to me like the closer we got, the more we disagreed on opinions, views, life...everything.  

Making it public...

So this started as a way to keep my friends updated with my life as I made the big move to France.  I invited only a few close friends to read because I've always been that kind of person...shy, private and not very open.  I've been trying to change some of that lately.  And this all comes with the whole 'taking a step back and getting to know myself better' program.

First step is realizing who I am now.

Next is figuring out what steps to take to be a better person. Still trying to map all of this out, but one thing (amongst many) that I know now is that I want to say what I feel, when I feel it, and to whomever cares to hear.  One of the many ways to achieve that is by making this blog public.  

So hello world...Je m'appelle Dami, bienvenue dans mon monde!

Live from Prague

Its been a week now, and I can prematurely say I might fall in love with this city.  Its beautiful, has history, is rapidly modernizing and relatively small so its easy to get around.  Basically all the ingredients for an outstanding city.  I haven't had a camera since I moved to France, so I've basically been bumming pictures from friends.  So I really really really really need to get one soonest...yeah I need to get a camera!  Highlights from the past week, in words, since I do not have pictures yet:

I can count the number of black folk I've seen...not more than ten. Lol.  So I pretty much get stared at all the time, getting quite used to it.  

The other day I was taking a passport picture in the photo booth in the metro, then these two dogs came up to me, sniffed me and kept going.  I come out the booth, and I see their owner, this young homeless looking girl pulling up her jeans, right there in the corner.  OkKKk? 

Whats going on here, I'm thinking?  I quickly look away just incase she's crazy and doesn't like ppl invading her privacy, you know, while she's dressing up in public (ppl can be strange like that, lol). She walks away, and I'm still there waiting for my photos to print.  And what do I see?  On the floor, a puddle of pee!!!  She had just done no.1 right there on the floor, in the metro, in the full glare of everyone.  WTF.

I went to a vegetarian restaurant with two new friends, and it was great! I wasn't impressed when they said we were going there cos I was mighty hungryyy and I didn't think a vegetarian meal would do my hunger justice.   But two hours later I was a convert. That's right.  Now I know I probably won't become a card-carrying member of the vegetarian movement.  But I def started thinking of eating more organic.  It was good tasty food (and the portions were healthy too), but I didn't get that tired, sleepy feeling you get after eating a lot of food.  It was amazing.  The restaurant is called Clear Head (Czech translation) and I definitely had a full stomach, and a clear head afterwards.  I had a cheddar quesadilla that was just amazingly tasty, will be going back there for more more more.

On the same day that we went to this restaurant, there was the Prague marathon.  We watched a few of the runners and I got inspired.  I WILL run a marathon sometime in my life. 

A new friend who's french took me to a french cafe here, and we had some cakes.  I wanted to try this one that I thought was red velvet.  The cafe owner only got a chance to explain that it wasn't after I had ordered.  I tried it anyway and didn't particularly like it.  And now, I'm not an alcoholic but she came around to ask how we were doing and I told her I didn't really like it.  and she goes "Yeah, it has rum in it so if you like rum...". Now tell me why I liked this cake better after hearing it had rum in it.  Haha.

That's it for now folks.  By the way, I craving for some cool naija friends in these parts...they have to be here somewhere.

School Project - Best Hotels in Eragny.

Please permit me to use this as a plug for a class project.  It is for my e-commerce class, and we created a website to promote hotels in Eragny, a town close to Cergy where I live.

The objective of the project is to get our website ranked as highly as possible in an organic google search.  So we are optimizing our websites with all the right keywords, etc.  In addition, the more links pointing to your website, the higher the site ranks in google.  

So here I am creating a link to best hotels in eragny.  Check it out and link if you can.  Thanks much. 

Bisous.

Praha here I come!

Finally, a resolution to this internship ordeal.  I have been searching for an internship in hotel development since last October, and to say its been a harrowing experience is an understatement.  Basically it has been a combination of the tanking economy, immigration issues, language barriers, etc.  I contacted so many people and sent so many resumes only to hear sorry but the present situation of the economy prevents us from hiring.  I don't know how I managed to keep my sanity and not break down, but I was truly frustrated.  

But eventually God made a way and I ended up getting responses from Accor hotel group - one of the largest hotel companies (read Sofitel, Novotel, etc.) and a Real Estate development group in Prague.  I have just accepted an offer from Prague and I'm so happy about it.  I was hoping Accor would be my calling because they were proposing to send me to Lagos and work solo doing market studies, but I think I'm getting more at peace with my decision to go with Prague.

Anyway they say the city is beautiful, and these people really seemed to want me so I guess its good.  So in about 2 weeks, I will be reporting to you live from Praha, and I'm getting more and more excited about this!

Back from Vacation

We got a week-long break last week, and I went on an impromptu trip to the South of France.

Actually, the south-west so it wasn't Nice or Cannes, etc.  But it was still blissful.  Biarritz and St Jean de Luz in France and San Sebastian in Spain...all places you probably never heard of :).

I loved it.  Highlights of the trip:  

Getting stared at by everyone in Biarritz - they probably were wondering what the hell a black girl was doing strolling around like she owned the damn place, or that I was some celebrity person. I don't know, but it's a bit much. I mean, really, sometimes I feel like some kind of 'alien-being' when there are millions of people who look like me on this planet...surely folks must be aware of this.

Being propositioned in Spain - this old man started to follow me when I got to Spain, and he proceeded to talk to me in spanish...finally he asked if i worked in Spain and when I didn't seem to comprehend fully he began making a gesture with his fingers...basically a finger going into a hole! Hopefully by now you know what this means, he was asking if I was a prostitute! His face really wanted an encounter with my hands, but I resisted (perhaps this is what the stares are about?) 

Realizing I can't travel solo - luckily I was only there myself the first couple of days before my friend and fellow 'Citizen W' came to join me

I love San Sebastien (even if some residents might take me for a prostitute)! I absolutely loved the vibe and shopping in Spain is absolutely glorious

I had a great relaxing time away from school, internship worries, and even some heartbreak issues.  But I got back two days ago and its raining heavily with all the work I have to do, sigh.

I want to run away again!

This is where I stayed in Biarritz...Hotel du Palais (I kid, I kid...not with my student's budget). This used to be a palace built for Empress Eugenie, Napoleon's wife...now its a hotel. Ahhh the luxury


Lucking into such great weather in february was just priceless


San Sebastian is hands down my fave city in Spain...well at least...so far



Mi casa es su casa


Meet 'Citizen Ws' (W = World)

A frenchie broke my heart!

Ok, a tad dramatic....he didn't break my heart...but something broke though.  My pride, the budding 'likeness' that I had for him....something.  And now I have to deal with seeing him (or rather, ignoring him) for the rest of the term.  Thank goodness he graduates this year.   

I've been reborn...Happy New Year!

Yesterday, I raised up my hand in church when they did the alter call thing.  

I go to Hillsong church in Paris, and a pastor from the London church was preaching about Love...not so much our love for each other, but more about God's love for us. 

And more than anything right now, more than my need for a fabulous internship, or a great loving boyfriend, or a nice apartment in Paris...lol.  More than anything right now, I think I just want to feel this love more and more.  I want to radiate it, and let it shine so much that everyone sees it.

Does that even make sense.  

Anyway, its been a while...if anyone is even reading this, please accept my apologies.  I've been crazy busy and occasionally bored out of mind the past few months, but nothing can excuse my absence.