Back in Lagos

I'm back in town after finalising my visa arrangements on Friday and navigating the British Railway Networks to the airport. I would have liked to have said the train journey was good, and that the poor reputation of the railways is undeserved. However, finding a flea sucking blood from my arm while sat in a First Class coach of a First Great Western train, I decided there and then that I would not be praising them. Despite being almost on time.

So I arrived here yesterday morning, and made it out of the airport by 6:15am to be able to reach home before the Environmental curfew started which is 7am-10am Last Saturday of each month. Most of Saturday is a blur as I didn't sleep well on the flight and I was dozing on and off most of the time.

Today I hooked up my laptop and checked my email and received this story from a Nigerian friend of mine about the unswerving confidence of Nigerians. Not long after reading it I saw another headline come in from the BBC. Plane crash near Nigeria capital. Since then some of the names of those that perished on board have been revealed, including the Sultan of Sokoto, seen as the leader of all Nigerian Muslims.

After the crashes of last year, and the crash in September, one wonders if anybody in the Nigerian Government actually cares that their procrastination, inability to make simple rules stick and inefficient methods are costing the lives of the people that they are there to serve and doing untold harm to the economy along with it.

Nigeria High Commission

Nigeria High Commission
Originally uploaded by ajbrowe.

Paid a visit to the Nigeria High Commission today, The place was absolutely packed. nearly 200 were waiting for visas and my guess is almost the same were waiting for passports, all in one quite medium sized basement waiting room.

I arrived early, 9am, and got a ticket. I was 28th in the queue. If not for waking early to reach the High Commission in time for the doors to open, I doubt I would have managed to get out of there in time for my train home. It was 12:25 when I got out, and the queue seemed to be still growing.

Monday and Tuesday this week were public holidays in Nigeria for Eid ul-Fitr. The NHC closes on Nigerian and UK Public holidays, so Today there were Three days worth of people trying to squeeze in. I do feel sorry for those who had to wait hours upon hours, and especially those who were getting their first taste of Lagos!

Exams done.

Finished my second and last exam for 2006 this afternoon with over an hour to spare. I spent 20 minutes checking through and tweaking some answers and then left.

Reading the OU forums for the course I see that many other people left early. I'm not sure but I think we are the first year to sit this course as there were no past papers available for revision, except a specimen exam sent with the course.

I noticed a few errors in some questions which was quite annoying. You'd think someone would have proof read it?

Well I'm still hopefull of a distinction (85+%) but time will tell. Results should be available near Christmas. I've almost settled on which courses to take next year but quite shocked at the price rise. I'm going to need to find £950 just for next year!

I will now be rushing around preparing for my return to Lagos very shortly.

Technorati Tags: Lagos, Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria, exam, Open University, M255

One down...

My exam went well. Questions were quite taxing but I think I may have scraped it. It was nice to see quite a few people my own age there, or maybe I'm just getting older?

So MT262 (putting computer systems to work) is finished now. I hope to gain a distinction but one can never really tell how well one did until the results come, can you?

M255 (object-oriented programming with Java) is coming up next week, and I'm more comfortable with that one than todays.

The results of my last TMA coursework assignments were, 94% and 100% for MT262 and M255 respectively.

How to survive a plane crash.

As I prepare for my exam tomorrow, I came accross a distraction that I thought I'd share.

The tale of an Expatriate surviving a plane crash in Nigeria, in 1983.

Back from Rhodes

Bought a tripod before leaving so I could try my hand at Panoramic Photographs.

Check them out.