With the (re)start of my blogging career and just the general ins and outs of living in the 21st century, I've been thinking a lot lately about keeping up with new technology.

I've usually been behind the curve when it comes to new gadgets and trends. Years ago when I was a freshman, Zuckerberg and a friend of his interrupted our first year Biology class in order to convince us to join this website he started for fellow Ivy-leaguers. I thought the whole idea a silly waste of time that was cutting into our lecture. I still think Facebook a silly waste of time, but I must admit, it is a very profitable waste of time. Oh, and I remember a classmate who presented a short presentation introducing the concept of blogging - particularly in regards to activism in China. Again, I thought the idea of an online journal was one no one would find useful. And here I am, eight or so years later, blogging. I once predicted the upcoming demise of Twitter, Instagram, and Pintrest. Yeah, I know. But, thus far I have been correct about MySpace and BlackPlanet.

In regards to the practice of medicine - well, the time is already here for the infiltration of technology towards everyday practice. It seems, though, things seem to be moving faster than ever in terms of the innovations. This is all well and good, but I feel as if sometimes, these pace prevents us from vetting these new technologies. And when to I have time to not only keep up with medicine but the technologies that engulf it?

A recent post (well, few months ago), about physician, 2.0.

By the way, I started this blogpost on the Blogger app for my iPhone. Way too cumbersome and many of the editing features were absent. I would like to write on the go, but doing so on a keyboard half the size of my palm take too much effort. Well, I guess it is back to the good ol' trusty laptop.

I'm not much of a television watcher, and usually I find that NetFlicks, Hulu, and YouTube series suit me just fine. This means that I am not on the up and up about what's been happening with Oprah's new network OWN. I've heard mixed reviews from varying sources.  From time to time I will venture on to the Oprah website when I'm alerted of interesting content from the channel. And what a coincidence -  gratitude, which I wrote on last week, was covered in one of her life classes.

Sharing it below - Enjoy!

I'm a sucker for inspirational quotes. I understand the predilection to cheesy-ness when it comes to memorable catch phrases and mantras. However, on several occassions, I have found myself literally powered by a well-thought out phrase of encouragement or advice. The CLUTCHMagazine series, Wise Words, has literally been giving me life. It would be a crime not to reshare their latest quote from American playwright and screenwriter, Neil Simon.

Don’t listen to those who say, “It’s not done that way.” Maybe it’s not, but maybe you will. Don’t listen to those who say, “You’re taking too big a chance.” Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most importantly, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside of you rears its ugly head and says, “They’re all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier and have connections…” I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respect."

Quote originally found here
Picture taken from here

For the past few days now, I've been in, frankly, a crappy mood. Partly, I blame it on the fact that I just finished a rotation in a medical specialty I thought I would thoroughly enjoy. - However, I found the experience un-fulfilling and it was bothersome to continually squelch the itch to discuss diabetes counseling or address a patient's major depression. Then there's boyfriend issues, best friend issues, family-wants-to-come-to-me-with-their-issues issues. And I'm pretty sure that I just ovulated. The whole experience again revived the "what should I do with my life?" conversation that places me in a chronic state of worry - save for those precious hours of sleep. I feel like everyone and their mother has settled on a career choice, while I found that mine was still somewhat up in the air. I was frustrated, I was moody, and I wondered - why me, why me?

Two things helped. Prayer, followed by incessant worrying, certainly did not. First, I needed someone to identify the problem. Boyfriend enters stage left. Sometimes, when I am so obsessively self-focused, I fail to realize that the fundamental problem is my reaction to the situation before me. Noticing and bearing the brunt of my foul mood, my boyfriend - let's call him Mr. P for being so sickingly positive all the time - wanted to know whether my worrying had solved any of my problems. No, it hadn't it only worsened them and prevented me from attacking the pressing needs of the day. I get it. The first step to solving a problem is naming it.

Second - and I know sounds incredibly corny - was to develop an attitude of gratitude. Perhaps, surviving my third year of medical school with a somewhat hazy idea of my future goals, is perhaps not the worst condition to be in. I hesitate to dwell on the notion - "well, at least I'm better off than..." Not the most effective strategy since usually, for every person I can say that I feel more well off than, there are hundreds out there somewhere relaxing in some luxurious island resort sipping on chilled mojitos. Instead, I remain thankful for the fact that where I am today is much better than my yesterdays. Much, much better. I am also thankful for the future I have to look forward to, and I am thankful for my support system which keeps me sane in the present.

During our psychiatry lectures we were intimated on the idea that one of the many contributors to depression is an excessive self-absorption. Although I cannot yet identify a period in my life in which I was depressed for more than a two week stretch of time (dysthymic, yes), I find that holds true, personally, at times. Gratitude, in a number of studies, has been linked to an overall sense of well-being, life satisfaction, and thankfully, better sleep. A brief review article on gratitude and well being can be found here, which also includes a six-item questionnaire. Of course, in the case of true major depression, addressing gratitude and other thought patterns may be a small component of one's overall treatment plan, which may include formal psychotherapy and medication.

Personally, I have tried to be more conscious of those quiet moments which provide ample opportunity for worry to sneak in. In their stead, I try to not only to refocus on some other task, but remember those things for which I am thankful for. The article provides several recommendations on incorporating gratitude into one's self-care regimen. Here are some along with others I found elsewhere.

Some months ago, I presented at conference sponsored by the CDC, which focused on public health issues surrounding hemoglobinopathies - and of note sickle cell disease. On the last day of the conference, we were honored to have renowned family physician Dr. Camara Jones as the lunchtime keynote speaker. Her talk focused on the interplay between SCD outcomes and race. At the end of her talk, she presented the Gardner's Tale, an analogy I heard before at another one of her talks years ago while working on my MPH degree. The analogy originally appeared in the American Journal of Public Health some years ago, and I would very much encouraged that anyone who deals with issues of racial inequalities (i.e. Americans) should either take a peek at the video below, or read the pdf file*. In summary, Dr. Jones explains how the three levels of racism - institutional, personally-mediated and internalised - came to be in American society by likening Caucasian and African Americans to roses developed in varying quality of soil.

I spent a good portion of my formative years wondering why the hell Vanessa and Brandon get neatly cut peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch while my siblings and I had to lug in a flasks of jollof rice and fried plantains to school. Don't let me even start on pounded yam and soup Wednesdays.

Growing up in rural North Carolina as the only black immigrant family in a white neighborhood and then subsequently, in New England in an all black neighborhood has its challenging moments. Add to it inevitable teenage angst, unrelenting acne, and raging hormones in a socially conservative Christian Nigerian home, it's a wonder how I made it to my twenties with my sanity intact.

But I did, and I figure since I survived - I'd tell the story. Funny enough, after I got through my decades long "woe is me" phase, I found out that, (gasp!) there are other first generation Nigerians out there - just like me. First generation Igbos, Yorubas - hmpf, very few Hausas - first generation Ghanaian, Togolese, Ethiopian, Rwandan, south Sudanese - and the list goes on and on.

Africans born in America.
Americans born to Africans.
The new African Americans.

And we're getting noticed - a bit. But I think it's about time we take a page from Dora Akunyili's playbook and actively seek to rebrand ourselves. For far too long, we've been placed in boxes that may not necessarily reflect our reality of dual citizenship - whether legally documented or not. We're English speaking and some. We proudly sport our trads on Sunday, while mouthing the words to Bruno Mars on Monday. And we're not a monolith - either. Our experiences are diverse and our identities fluid.

And this blog is not only about the first generationers out there - but also about all others of the black (particularly female) diaspora whose lives fail to comfortably fit into set definitions of what it means to be of African descent. It's time to project ourselves positively to the world, borrowing Akunyili's phrasing. Let me start with myself, and this blog, as an answer to the next person who asks me - "so, where are you really from?"

Oh, and a bit about myself. I've blogged before, though the name I use here is a pseudonym - Echidiime, which means tomorrow is pregnant. I have always liked that name, and considering that I do not have a middle name, I once told my mother that I would like to adopt it as such. She frowned on it, stating that nobody would want to marry me with a name like that. Oh well, it suffices as a fake name. I have a number of younger siblings, I'm female, in my twenties, rock dreads, and currently I am trying to stay afloat in medical school. I have a thing for blogs, French West African accents, and fried fish.