I remember SLUMBOOKS,IHATE FACEBOOK.

Slumbooks or autobiographies were the specialization of my high school. Basically a notebook designed with cutouts and stickers where you wrote the names of all your friends and invited them to write comments about the author and themselves. Then the really good part, the dedication imploring you write lines and lines about the people that matter in your life.

GOD; The alpha and omega. my source of inspiration, what am i going to do without you?Parents; You provide money and provisions.Thank you

School mother; Thank u 4 taking care of me 143.

BOYFRIEND; You make my world go round. 143 never to part.

FRIENDS; You know yourselves. I love you all.

ENEMIES; YOU will live to see me succeed.

However, as time gradually advanced so did the technology of the slumbook which started by upgrading its name to 'autobiography' [shortened to auto book.] and advanced from 'IYA RISI'S' notebook to fancy 'butterfly designed' hardcovers. They also started coming with instructions of

1]PLS apply stickers or decorate your page creatively. and

2] Put in your best pictures[ONLY MUFTI ALLOWED PLS]

With this change in quality began selectivity AND the once free to sign books became exclusive only for the 'tushest' and the most popular students. With the quality of your slum judged by the number of highschool royalty who took the time to fill the book in detail and not with one liners, every student stood in line to make auto books and ended up changing their rep .

I Never got round to making an autobiography before i left high school but i did get to filling quite a number. No i was not the most popular kid but i fitted in the idea of classy being defined as the number of 'made in the USA' products you had, the cuteness of your school shoe, your schoolbag and the pink barbie many accessorised key holder. If you actually got to talking about travelling to the US or London during the third term break and corroborated that with pictures, then you were the bomb(pardon the high school pun).

I left high school in a blaze and with the immediate resumption of A' levels, i never thought the thought of slum books would ever come to my mind again. Until Facebook.

I got to hear about facebook from a friend in a private university, somehow they seem more knowledgeable of social happenings than all of us in the Federal schools.

'Raliah, are you on face book?' i thought to myself. 'Face book?' she looked at me like i was mad 'face book, like the coolest social networking site ever? And yes, she always talks like that. she sounded like an paid advert but i indulged her and allowed her explain to me the intricacies of the facebook thingy. i never got round to seeing face book then. unlike some other people i was barely holding on to my sanity under the barrage of tutorials and homework i faced daily. It will be a year later that i'd see facebook and two years that i'd join after i had no more excuses for friends, really good ones too who kept asking. Are you on facebook?

And with every visit and every question asked by 'the facebook team' i've become more and more unwillingly reminded of slumbooks. First you submit all your personal information to them and your e-mail which by a means they connect it to your inbox and then all the irrelevancies of your favorite quotations, movies u've seen, books you've read, places you've been. Then they ask you to upload your photos and this is where the trouble begins. The attempt to build your reputation, embellish it to the point that strangers would sit by your profile all day sighing to themselves and envying the perfect life you have. You are given the ability to add only the perfect friends. You could search up the children of the perfect politicians and issues of the creme DE la creme[if there's such ] of Nigerian industry[i wonder if Bush's kids are on the site]. You want to show off too, tell all your old school mates just how successful you are now, you paste all your modelling pictures. Pictures you took with the Queen of England, P.diddy, or the Dali Lama. Don't you just love the envious comments 'OMIGOSH! DID YOU ACTUALLY MEET P.DIDDY?'

What exactly is the function of facebook [apart from the minute amount of people who actually connect themselves]. The point is that most people are on face book with an alternate name no one knows them by, a middle name, a nickname or some fifteenth name they've never used except when announced on their naming ceremonies so what exactly does it sub serve than to fuel our emblems of desire and inspire our envy. i have many a friend who'd sit searching on 'find friends' goshing over some schoolmate who just joined Microsoft,is now a popular artist or a model of some sort.Then the games ensure that you never get bored when you're prompted a million times to.'Enter in the words separated by a space.' i don't know how to end this post so, what the hey, I HATE FACEBOOK.

HE DOESN'T WANT TO MARRY ME TOO!

He approached me with a swagger and from the distance i was already shaking my head. My eyes were rolling all the way to the roof top and my feet tapped incessantly on the floor. Like i'm prone to do when nervous, my brain was working out all the details of him. From his wildly bushy hair, to his unshaved brows, to the black pants he wore so carelessly i was afraid they'd fall. He looked like a joke and i stared at my mother, silently imploring her to tell me. 'Aduke, this is just a wild joke' but she smiled weakly and mouthed. 'cute uh?' 'no way!' i mouthed right back. She kept silent, doing that scrunched up face she does when she's unhappy with me. It was a wonder she still had no wrinkles at fifty considering the many frowns i'd put on her face. My 'future husband',Akanke; he had the name of a furniture[i'll make sure i tell him so if i evr do decide to marry him.] approached steadily.Father stood up, grinning sheepishly, a strange maniacal glint in his eyes as he observed my prospect. I understood that look, it meant.'You're going with this one and there's nothing you can say to change my mind!' My husband had arrived and as he stood in front of my father, i had the opprtunity of surveying him more carefully and i groaned audibly. He looked a sight. His shirt must have once been blue and i never thought i'd ever see a hate- deserving brand of blue if what he wore was dirty blue, grey blue or blackish blue.And instinctively, my sensitive nose strained to catch any putrid odours. His good point, [the only one] was that he seemed to have at least washed this morning. 'Akanke,Kanke' my father praised lavishly.Being overtly boisterous never suited him, but for this occasion, he seemed to have chewed an entire bottle of 'nice tablets'. my suitor smiled and held out his hand for a shake.my father stared at it like it was diseased and i silently swallowed my laughter. 'Er,Er. We are turning into the west' my father joked and motioned him to sit. My mother smiled encouragingly at him while i just stared point blank, communicating with without words just how miserable i'd make his life, what a misfortune he'd meet,how he'd better run and never look back and all the adjectives i could express. He ignored my dirty look and i winced. here comes trouble! 'So you're the one who wants to marry my daughter!'my father asked jovially as he took a swig of palmwine, his adipose riddled belly bobbing ominously. 'Yes sir!' answered loverboy. 'i'm very much in love with your daughter sir, i want to marry her' he proposed earnestly. At that stage i couldn't take it anymore, not his insincere professions of love or the sight of that brand of blue. Briddling with anger, annoyance and pure outrage, I exploded 'LISTEN TO ME BOY!' 'I AM NOT GOING TO MARRY YOU,' I declared indignantly brimming with self importance. My father stared at me blankly, so did my suitor and my mother. 'What do you mean Aduke?' he asked quietly.' i rose to my complete five feet two. ''Father i am not going to marry him.' It seemed some minutes before comprehension dawned on him and strangely, he smiled.'oh but Aduke, you're very mistaken' he announced. 'Your mother and i have given up on you long ago when you refused to marry the chief's son. we figured you are a queer. Akanke has no intention of marrying you, he's in love with your youngest sister!' The entire floor seemed to have shifted off from me at that instant and a prolonged ringing began in my auditory meatus. the ringing was so bad i almost missed the icing on the queen-sized cake in the form of my mother saying. ' Don't worry, Aduke! tomorrow we're sending you to the convent!.' Here's me welcoming me to me blogspot.