Waving bye to my Gap Year :'(

A Gap Year to Remember

As I sit here attempting to work through the mass of Pre Course study for my LPC my mind wonders into a realm of anxiety! My gap year is actually over and I will be a student again! And while I thought doing my LPC part-time would mean I would still have lots of me and you time the pre course study indicates that that’s not the case! And I have a part-time job AND I’m still working at the Law Centre once a week! I’m about to be MIA!!! The prospect of being super busy does excite me as the devil makes work for idle minds so I am pleased mine will be consumed but yesterdays dozing off at court (while assisting the duty solicitor on housing cases) reminded me of my inability to function 100% during lectures and tutorials! So I can just see the cans of Monster and Red Bull I’m going to have to get through to keep up with myself!!

But on a happier note this gap year has been well worth it! Through the sad times – my cousins loosing their home to that Peckham fire, my beautiful Volkswagen Beetle exploding in the same fire, the crappy times at BPS (call centre) and failing my driving test (argh) twice (double argh)...to the good – the fun at the BPS, my buzzing social life, working at the law centre...to the downright AMAZING...Spain, Portugal (last summer counts!), Tunisia, launching my own business (Liallah Vintage), my blog  , the birth of my beautiful nephew and of course the trip of a lifetime...KENYA!!! Not to mention the friends I made and kept along the way - My BPS buds (though their unlikely to last let’s face it!) and my Kenyan lassie’s!

All in all its been truly wonderful and a serious learning curve in my life. I have definitely grown immensely in this short time and as I enter this next season I will allow my life lessons to guide me through...

One of my closest friends Abimaro once wrote to me and said something like - Everything in life has a season and we are not always in full bloom but like a beautiful orchid, we are constantly growing and if we wait patiently we will realise bloom is never too far away.

I live by that in many ways. I have three goals for myself that I hope to achieve in the next year of life and I feel that next season I will attain at least one of these. And I will wait patiently until full bloom reaches me...I’m not sure I’m ready for full bloom anyway though it’s slightly creeping up on me (aging) ;)!!

It’s a pity that orchid died!! Lol!!

P.S...Hold tight marriage season too...I have 4 weddings to attend in the next 3 months!!! Hang tight the Joan in me...keeping it zipped!!! ;)

(Above is a random pic of me and three of the Superb Six at my leaving do b4 Kenya)

For the Love of God Put the Guns Down

So I have another itch...an itch to get into youth work...after ranting to my brother about my fury over these young boys stabbing and shooting eachther I was scouring the the web for youth groups I could work with and do my whole preaching thing to! Bro then said to me 'your gassed, you know you aint got time for that now'! And he's sooo right!! I wish I did but with all the things I'm doing now this may be a gassed moment that won't materialise any time soon.

BUT that doesn't mean there isn't a need for such things. Bro was saying to me that these boys don't have positive examples and all that jazz. And while I have problems with that notion in itself I know it bares some truth. And it is true, they are gassed up on Giggs and all that reppin Narm crap that leads them into a web of rubbish in pursuit of street credibility, money and status. All the while they fall into a life of crime, violence and hopelessness. It saddens me. And every time I see a news report about this yout that has been killed in this way, part of my Black British pride withers away.

Today interestingly, on the way back to the law centre after lunch I bumped into two old family friends-twin brothers. When I saw them from afar I thought they were just two city men...then as I got closer I realised who they were! Aside from the fact that they had grown into men, they just looked so professional. I came to learn that they actually have their own business and have employees! They are only 21! One handed me his business card and I had a naughty peek at the website at my desk and it was really impressive!! This is exactly what our community needs! More entrepreneurs like them! Another one of my good friends is working on a social networking website and in this day and age it is a very smart look! We need brothers like them to step up and inspire the young men that need it. And especially to explain how they could have gone down the path of crime but chose a better way.

I say more power to them!

But the sad thing is that at the same time I see tributes on Facebook and bbm for a young man who I did not know but have come to learn was sadly killed last year after having been stabbed outside a nightclub where he just performed. I watched a tribute to him and I could see exactly what kind of funny, fun loving and ambitious young man he must have been and its just such a shame his life was taken in that way. It actually makes me really emotional.

They say poverty breeds crime. But what baffles me is that the poverty we may lay claim to here isn't even really poverty! The 1.5 million people in the Kibera Slum in Kenya is poverty.

These young men are just so desperate for the easy money through pushing drugs, making music and what ever else that they cant even grasp the concept of anything that requires real hard graft (not that music unsupported by illegitimate means isnt hard graft).

The claim that there is a lack of positive role models is true yes(to some extent), but perhaps we as a community are not doing enough to be that example? And perhaps the positive examples aren't doing enough. Perhaps we're too quick to jump the fence and move out of the endz and forget those who need us as a positive example (I say that knowing I haven't moved anywhere lol). And perhaps we're labelling them too much anyway. There is truth in the self fulfilling prophecy theory after all.

I could go on...I don't think I can do the youth work thing right now but more needs to be done to put a stop to this now ongoing problem that is crippling our communities even more...

I was telling my friend the other day...its sad how I see big 25 year old men who I knew back in the day...they were puttin p's up on road reppin Peckham then and lo and behold their still doing that now! And these are the ones who have managed to escape prison (many of whom have been in mind you). Its so worrying that those who have been incarcerated come out with the same, if not worse wasteman mentality then they went in with! It's seriously worrying...maybe my next step will be prisons!!!

God give us strength and allow our communities to prevail above this sometimes seemingly helpless situation.

Still smiling.