Purple Lipstick

The title “everything and nothing” is totally open to interpretation. You can give it whatever meaning you want to. Just as the title is ambiguous, so is this short article. Maybe, this is me being very “artsy” but maybe this is me being uncreative (insert emoji that is thinking). I would like to believe this article is the former.
So, if you will notice the title is not in uppercase. It is literally a reflection of my feelings and my life right now. I feel ambiguous, I feel like I have everything and nothing. Confusing, right? Let me confuse you even more.
The real purpose of this article is to talk about nothing and everything. I am out of high school now and have been thinking about it a lot of late. High school was a little bubble. It prepared me for everything and nothing.  I think whoever is reading this (hopefully someone will read this LoL) may still be in high school or is just fresh out of it.
I placed myself out of the university situation and out of the high school situation. I was a floating body watching the young teens come to my university for open day. Here is what I realised.
Because of the bubble that is high school you feel like you are everything. But really you come to university (which is not even the Big Bad World I tell you) and you see a real glimpse of life and realise that you are kind of nothing and that you are this little fish. No one even cares about your leadership positions or the little high school dramas. You feel everything and nothing. (Can I just say you are NOT nothing. Everyone is priceless and should have some self-worth but I am just feeling what uni has me all up in my feels about.) Maybe it is the fact that I submitted my first assignment and there are 534 of us on that particular course which is shocking for someone who is coming from  Upper 6 at Arundel with 15 people in a class. I’m just a human and I am sharing, not my “culture shock” but my “academic shock” with you. That is all this article is about really. I lied to you when I was trying to sound “artsy” at the beginning. The confusion with this article reflects my university career thus far. My life is the sinking titanic at the present moment. And kids I just have one thing to say about university:



 PS.  regarding advising you “not to do university”. It’s just a joke. Get your degree please. Not all of us are Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. And even if you think you are Bill gates…he dropped out of Harvard. So please go get that degree.

You may be reading this and may recognise the title as being   J. Cole’s song “Love Yourz”. This article will indeed be about the wise words J. Cole dropped in this song. If you don’t know this song…please go listen to it. It may be worth your while if you are ever feeling insecure about where you are in life.

So basically J. Cole opens with the lyrics “No such thing as a life that’s better than yours.”, and everyone has those days when they look at the girl/guy next to them and think, “I wish I could look like her/him”. Or if you are a student like me, you have probably thought “I wish I was as clever as student X”.

Well I have been having quite a few thoughts like this of late, and listening to J. Cole helped me. So, I just decided to share my insecure thoughts that I had lately because I feel a lot better when I know that I am not alone, like when Ashley Graham said that she had cellulite too! (LOL)
So, in one of my tutorial classes there is a guy who makes everyone feel inadequate by showing his knowledge. I do not think he knows it though (or maybe he does)! He just says stuff like “I did all the required reading and the additional reading” (by the way the required reading itself is quite a lot). Anyway, so I then shared with him that I had barely managed to finish the core reading and he straight up called me lazy! Obviously, I caught feelings at first but then I realised that his path is his to walk and I am on mine. I am certainly not an over achiever but I know I am doing the best that I could possibly do. So why would I want to be him when I am just outchea doing me. (well we probably all want to be like him but who knows maybe he is lying)!

The second issue is an issue that is very touchy for most women. Me included! And writing this is so hard for me. But here goes…I have continued with my love for rowing, something that makes me very happy and helps me a lot when I am stressed. When I rowed at Arundel, I was never self-aware cause well the meaning of “fat” and “thin” in Africa is very different than in the first world. When I rowed back home (and to be fair I have gained a little bit of weight) I was not fat. I was not thin but it wasn’t a situation where standing among people smaller than me would make me feel out of place. But here, the rowing girls are literally all size 2’s, maybe, if you are lucky, you’ll get a size 8 every now and then. Since, I am not a size 2 or 8, some people may consider me to be “fat”. I have put quotation marks because I love my body (sometimes- except when I’m having one of those days where it’s like the apocalypse in my life!)

I am not fat; I prefer the term “thick”. Yes, I wish there were parts of me that were not on me. But this is me. Take it or leave it. How I hate that I get cleavage, even when I am not trying to get it (because I am a 34E/F) is some other woman’s dream. Even though it is my nightmare it is still me and who I am. There is certainly no such thing as a life that’s better than yours.