Learning To Live

I just woke up from a really scary dream. (I assure you that there are far worse things than people dying or getting physically harmed in a dream). But what hit me was this, I had been sleeping for 3 hours on a Friday night! Why would a 29 year old single night be going to bed at 9pm on a Friday night? Then I realised that this is the second night in a row. yesterday was 8.30pm.

Almost every weekend for as long as I remember, definitely since I got to UK, my weekends especially Fridays have always been depressing (except when I was going for one tech event to anther). I get depressed because I have not become what I planned to be and yet another week was passing by.

But as I woke up this night/morning (it’s 12:30 am here), I thought, I might just be trying too hard while pissing away the prime of my life. Of course, I had been told this before. severally. My oldest buddy actually visited me a couple of weeks ago and scolded me severely. “you do not even know how to be social anymore”. But it is totally different when you realize it.

The greatest fulfillment and ‘assets’ you can have when old are the experiences you garner with family and friends while young. A career is just to provide funds and make the journey more interesting, not replace it.

While, money and career may come and go, youth and time only go.

So enough of trying too hard. And I hope to learn to have fun. I’ll start tonight.

My Single New Year Resolution

I’ll Just Do It.

Quite a number of us already know what we want to do; start exercising, launch that company, travel, ask that girl out, quit that job, read those books, call family more, stop taking bullshit and the list goes on. My mental mode is different this year. The world ends this 2012 so there is no time to say no time. So what ever I think I should do, I will do. I hope you will start doing too.

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Image Credit

What is your ‘real name’?

Recently, there has been a lot of hullabaloo on the inter-webs about people being kicked of Google+ for not using their real names. As someone that goes by the name Oo pronounced Oh Oh, I get the “what is your real name question quite a lot.

My comment on this topic on Fred Wilson’s blog post on this topic was quite long I decided to blog my thoughts on this “real name issue.

—

I think the fundamental question is “What is your name?”

I have always been called Oo (my initials) by family and friends. My Mum, Dad, Sister who have known me for 28 years of my life have NEVER called me any name but Oo. They only mention what can be said to be my first name when I am being introduced to some people.

90% of the people who have known me in the last few years do not even know by any other name but Oo. If you go to where I have lived in the last 5 years and ask for my formal name, I would walk pass and they would not know who you are talking to .

Recently, I have attended tech events, introduced myself as Oo had a quick chat and moved on only for the person to come back and say, “Hey, wait a minute, are you OoTheNigerian (Thank you Twitter!)?”

What then is my name?

I would say it depends on the circumstance, but the main reason for having a name is for identification. Whatever can identify you to a person is your name to that person or authority.

It is also interesting to note that your name is not for you to use but for others.

When it is time to write my cheques, you’d be writing it to Osita Orji Nwoye. Money has a way of settling these disputes 😀

So what is your real name?

—

Bonus: But why and how did I come to bear Oo?

Legend has is that when this great man was born, his father’s people gave him Ositadimma and his mother’s people gave him Orji (not orgy!!! ). However, when it was to be decided what name I would bear, a war nearly broke out between the village of Abba and Umunya. My brilliant and diplomatic mother, wanting to avert a crisis had a moment of inspiration (hopefully inspired by God) and decided to combine the initials and it became Oo :).

This awesome name has a logo and its own song embedded below. Go ahead and download to your heart’s pleasure.

The Oo Song by Oo Nwoye

I Don’t Mean To Be Vain But…

I’ve got a personal logo. Before you hate me let me explain how this happened 😀

One day last year, I was researching logos. I think I typed a query like “best logos ever” and I came across one of the most awesome logo I have ever seen “TalkMore“. So I did a little research about the person behind the logo and found out the guru behind it Nido, was in Birmingham with me! (then, I was still a Brummie). I got in contact and we chatted over Skype. It was around the time I was returning back to Nigeria so we did not get to meet up. While I was in Nigeria, I was still in contact with Nido and promised to check on him whenever I visited Brum.

Last Thursday, I went to visit my man Joel in Birmingham and made it a point of duty do track down Nido. We agreed to meet up on Thursday evening. We went back and forth via SMS trying to fix a good time. Unfortunately, things came up for Nido and we could not meet up again.

Well, on the way back to London, I got a text from Nido saying he sent me something cos he was feeling bad for not being able to meet up with our appointment. When I returned to London, I opened my email and wow!!!

Trivia fact: The first time I spoke to Nido was when I called to thank him for the logo. And the first question he asked was; “how do they pronounce your name?”. All previous communication was via SMS, email and Skype.

Some people are just AWESOME.

Thank you Nido. I am really grateful.

Now I can now go ahead and think on how to incorporate the awesome generic logo into OoTheNigerian, Political Oo, Oo Nwoye

</vanity>