I thought this was a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote his son, just found out it was a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It could be both.
Our passage in UNILAG is for mental as well as social education. We all have social lives. There's always room for improvement.
If by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count on you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Giving - A Virtue
Hi all, everyday in UNILAG is filled with opportunities to help others, to give to others. Be the change!
The Cold Within By James Patrick Kinney
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold.
Each possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back.
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.
The next one looked across the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich.
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without...
They died from cold within.
The Cold Within By James Patrick Kinney
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In dark and bitter cold.
Each possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers back.
For, of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.
The next one looked across the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich.
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of wealth he had in store,
And keeping all that he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For he saw in his stick of wood
A chance to spite the white.
And the last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving just to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their sticks held tight in death's stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without...
They died from cold within.
Life's Hard But Don't Give Up!
I came across this in a newspaper. It touched and inspired me because life's about ups and downs. I share with you too.
When Things Go Wrong By Anonymous
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
When Things Go Wrong By Anonymous
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Last Week In UNILAG
Good friends bail you out when you are in jail, but a true friend will sit in there with you
Hey, Akokites, UNILAG Lords and Ladies, a lot of things happened last week. I was ‘in the red’ midweek, was locked out of BTN class for being late, attended the last PHS practical, lost my calculator and my pencil got nabbed! Like I said, a lot happened last week.
“Friends bail you out when you are in jail, but a good friend sits in there with you”. I read this I-don’t-remember-where, and it made a lot of sense to me (not because I was jailed), but because I was in, forgive the language, financial shit last week. I haven’t yet decided if I spent too much or if my allowance had become too small. Having just N1000 in UBA Bank Account, and being the type that prefers to tough it out than ask for help (is proud the word?), I set about calling up debts (Hey, lending money to friends is a way of investing, by the way). Despite major belt-tightening (as if I wasn’t slim enough already), the cash recalled lasted just two days (I patronize restaurants, having little or no culinary skills). One of my friends whom I used to dine with didn’t seem to notice that I was in a bad way. They say “Help comes from the least expected places”. Well, I knew the truth of that when a casual friend, seeming to notice, subtly decided to help me by handing me N4000, claiming he would need it in two weeks and wanted to save it for then.
The moral of the story – People appreciate being genuinely asked “what’s up?” I know I do
Less of Facebook
Each time I’m online, I visit Facebook (although, I must confess I’m beginning to spend less time on it giving the excess triviality of my group of friends on Facebook). Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that each time you logon to Facebook, you are asked “what’s on your mind?” I found out last two months that you don’t have to make sense. As opposed to making some comment about the state of Nigeria or the struggle it is sometimes to work hard or something else on your mind, you could simply tell us you are eating ‘edikaikon soup and eba’, singing in the bathroom, dancing on your bed, facebooking in church, sleeping… Seeing such comments daily wore on my tolerance and patience, and thus, I’ve reduced my facebooking time and allocated more time to, ahem, other things. Or maybe I need to change my friends?
Yakubisation
This term has been accepted by 103 Baku Men as an English Word. It all started when our countryman decided to make a name for himself, albeit in the wrong way. The story is that Yakubu was the only man before an unmanned post in a World Cup match against South Korea and he made history. See for yourself.
Good morning, class. We will be treating Yakubization – the latest entry in the Akokites’ English Dictionary.
Yakubise (verb) – (1) to mess up a very good chance (2) to screw up a major opportunity (3) to try and fail (4) (sports) to score like Yakubu
Yakubisation – the act of yakubising
Now, we waltzed out of the World Cup. Let’s give honour to whom honour is due. We thank you, Yakubu, for adding to our vocabulary and I thank you, Akokites, for taking the time to read my thoughts. I leave you with this – In whatever positive endeavour that you pursue, if you yakubise (3rd meaning), try, try, try again and you will succeed.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
2010/2011 UNILAG Cut Off Marks
FACULTY | DEPARTMENT | MERIT | EKITI | LAGOS | OGUN | ONDO | OSUN | OYO |
ARTS | LINGUISTICS/YORUBA | 62 | 57 | 61 | 54 | 60 | 58 | 56 |
LINGUISTICS/IGBO | 46 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
CREATIVE ARTS | 57 | - | 53 | 49 | 51 | 53 | - | |
ENGLISH | 68 | 61 | 64 | 64 | 63 | 62 | 62 | |
EUROPEAN LANG (FRENCH) | 63 | - | 54 | 55 | - | - | - | |
EUROPEAN LANG (RUSSIAN) | 63 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
PHILOSOPHY | 67 | 54 | 63 | 64 | 64 | 64 | 62 | |
HISTORY | 69 | 54 | 62 | 62 | 55 | 65 | 57 | |
FACULTY | DEPARTMENT | MERIT | EKITI | LAGOS | OGUN | ONDO | OSUN | OYO |
ADMIN | ACCOUNTING | 65 | 62 | 64 | 64 | 63 | 63 | 63 |
ACT. SCIENCE | 58 | 56 | 55 | 56 | 51 | 54 | 52 | |
BUS. ADMIN | 66 | 62 | 64 | 64 | 63 | 64 | 63 | |
INSURANCE | 63 | 57 | 61 | 62 | 59 | 61 | 58 | |
I.R.P.M | 66 | 64 | 64 | 65 | 63 | 61 | 63 | |
FINANCE | 63 | 58 | 61 | 60 | 59 | 61 | 60 | |
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