THE ESTHERIAN BLOG

Have I done my best here, or So, as I mentioned in the last post, or for anyone following the Nigerian online space, it is election season. The presidential election was held on February 25, 2023, and wasn’t peaceful in most parts of the country. This is the first election I am vested in because I am a first-time voter. I did my best to inform people with my platform, I had a candidate I was supporting, I made mention of it in one of my podcast episodes, and I influenced my parents.  I was unable to vote though; my dad asked me to come back home because he was scared of the way the elections were going to turn out and I was too far from home. So I had no other choice but to return to Ogun State and chill at home. My reasoning was along the lines of honouring your parents, and now I wonder, I should have preempted the possibility of this happening; I should have chosen a polling unit closer to my parent’s house, and now I ask, did I really do my best? Will I be here next year, or Ar...

Some days, I struggle to come up with what to write, which idea is worth exploring or what to talk about. Other days, the idea hits me like a freight train going at maximum speed. And this is one of those ideas. Photo credit: Mikhail Nilov Source: pexels.com  I don't know if you know that I live in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria, or if you are aware of the sit-at-home order every Monday imposed on the region by IPOB. The sit-at-home order has been on since August 2021, and towards the end of the year, it became sort of inconsequential. Although I avoided leaving my immediate environs on Mondays, I sometimes go out to visit friends or run errands. When the new year came around, I truly believed that the sit-at-home was over, and I was not the only one with that train of thought, what we didn't know was that whoever gave that order had put measures in place to ensure we complied and that brings me to my story for today. After talking with a few friends and classmates,  we dec...

Source: pexels.com Hello,  How have you been? And how has the year been going? So for the past six weeks, I have been on postings while trying to do every other thing. And I am just going to say I love this posting experience compared to the other ones because of two things: one, we get to visit a lot of places and two, we are not stuck in the hospital all day. Saying stuck in the hospital is going to seem like I am complaining about being a medical student and taking my training for granted and all that, but I assure you it is not. For one, I like being on postings at the hospital even if it seems like everything just goes on and on, but for some reason, the visit to different places was refreshing. It was a break, a step away from the things we usually do. There was no clerking of patients, no presenting to consultants, no ward rounds and the hours were generally shorter.  So Community Medicine is centred around public health, the community, factories/industrial health, gove...

  Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. For this episode of TCS, I happen to be with an august visitor. We were roommates when I was in 200 level, and she graduated, went to law school and now, she is a barrister. I have an esquire in my apartment y’all.  She hit me up sometime in August and was like, “Hey, do you still stay in Enugu? I need to come around to your place”. I was excited, and it was a pleasure having her around. And I decided to have her on TCS because, why not? Seyi, it has do, let’s move on. So for this week TCS, we are going to be talking about life beyond university and graduation, what exactly is the dream outside the university and what are the things that she is yet to achieve and so on. So I am going to allow my guest to introduce herself. Hello guys, my name is O. O Ijor (Esquire). Don’t mind me, Damilola for short. I graduated from the University of Nigeria in 2019, and I happened to be this “big head” roommate, and she is...

So every week, I get to put a pencil on paper and write something or sketch, sometimes I just doodle things that don’t in any way mean anything. I avail myself of the opportunity to create something that I can or cannot share. And I wear the badge of “Creative” as proudly as I can. And it is encouraging to know that anybody can be creative, and it is not limited to the very big or highly anticipated and appreciated things if we are being honest. For this episode of The Conversation Series, I decided to invite another Creative to have a conversation on what it means to create and how it feels balancing that with living.  Note: This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. Our guest today is quite a big person and I would like her to introduce herself. Hi everybody, my name is Zara. I am a medical student and also a YouTuber, you can say I am a medtuber. So what was your initial reaction to receiving the message, hey Zara, I want you to be on TCS. I was wowed and was l...