Wole Soyinka was born on 13 July 1934 at Abeokuta, near Ibadan in Western Nigeria. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where, later, in 1973, he took his doctorate. During the six years spent in England, he was a dramaturgist at the Royal Court Theatre in London 1958-1959. In 1960, he was awarded a Rockefeller bursary and returned to Nigeria to study African drama. At the same time, he taught drama and literature at various universities in Ibadan, Lagos, and Ife, where, since 1975, he has been professor of comparative literature. In 1960, he founded the theatre group, "The 1960 Masks" and in 1964, the "Orisun Theatre Company", in which he has produced his own plays and taken part as actor. He has periodically been visiting professor at the universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Yale.

During the civil war in Nigeria, Soyinka appealed in an article for cease-fire. For this he was arrested in 1967, accused of conspiring with the Biafra rebels, and was held as a political prisoner for 22 months until 1969. Soyinka has published about 20 works: drama, novels and poetry. He writes in English and his literary language is marked by great scope and richness of words.

As dramatist, Soyinka has been influenced by, among others, the Irish writer, J.M. Synge, but links up with the traditional popular African theatre with its combination of dance, music, and action. He bases his writing on the mythology of his own tribe-the Yoruba-with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre. He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959 and were published in 1963. Later, satirical comedies are The Trial of Brother Jero (performed in 1960, publ. 1963) with its sequel, Jero's Metamorphosis (performed 1974, publ. 1973), A Dance of the Forests (performed 1960, publ.1963), Kongi's Harvest (performed 1965, publ. 1967) and Madmen and Specialists (performed 1970, publ. 1971). Among Soyinka's serious philosophic plays are (apart from "The Swamp Dwellers") The Strong Breed (performed 1966, publ. 1963), The Road ( 1965) and Death and the King's Horseman (performed 1976, publ. 1975). In The Bacchae of Euripides (1973), he has rewritten the Bacchae for the African stage and in Opera Wonyosi (performed 1977, publ. 1981), bases himself on John Gay's Beggar's Opera and Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Soyinka's latest dramatic works are A Play of Giants (1984) and Requiem for a Futurologist (1985).

Soyinka has written two novels, The Interpreters (1965), narratively, a complicated work which has been compared to Joyce's and Faulkner's, in which six Nigerian intellectuals discuss and interpret their African experiences, and Season of Anomy (1973) which is based on the writer's thoughts during his imprisonment and confronts the Orpheus and Euridice myth with the mythology of the Yoruba. Purely autobiographical are The Man Died: Prison Notes (1972) and the account of his childhood, Aké ( 1981), in which the parents' warmth and interest in their son are prominent. Literary essays are collected in, among others, Myth, Literature and the African World (1975).

Soyinka's poems, which show a close connection to his plays, are collected in Idanre, and Other Poems (1967), Poems from Prison (1969), A Shuttle in the Crypt (1972) the long poem Ogun Abibiman (1976) and Mandela's Earth and Other Poems (1988).


Biography Thomas Edison Portrait of Thomas Edison sitting down Thomas Edison by Louis Bachrach Biographies >> Inventors and Scientists Occupation: Businessman and Inventor Born: February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio Died: October 18, 1931 in West Orange, New Jersey Best known for: Inventing many useful items including the phonograph and a practical light bulb Biography: Thomas Edison may be the greatest inventor in history. He has over 1000 patents in his name. Many of his inventions still have a major affect on our lives today. He was also a business entrepreneur. Many of his inventions were group efforts in his large invention laboratory where he had many people working for him to help develop, build, and test his inventions. He also started many companies including General Electric, which is one of the biggest corporations in the world today. Where did Edison grow up? Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. His family soon moved to Port Huron, Michigan where he spent most of his childhood. Surprisingly, he did not do well in school and ended up being home schooled by his mother. Thomas was an enterprising young man, selling vegetables, candy and newspapers on trains. One day he saved a child from a runaway train. The child's father repaid Edison by training him as a telegraph operator. As a telegraph operator, Thomas became interested in communications, which would be the focus of many of his inventions. Edison and Phonograph by Levin C. Handy What was Menlo Park? Menlo Park, New Jersey is where Thomas Edison built his research labs. This was the first business or institution with the sole purpose of inventing. They would do research and science and then apply it to practical applications that could be manufactured and built on a large scale. There were a lot of employees working for Edison at Menlo park. These workers were inventors, too, and did a lot of work on Edison's ideas to help turn them into inventions. Light bulb patent application by Thomas Edison Light Bulb Patent Application by Thomas Edison What are Thomas Edison's most famous inventions? Thomas Edison has the patents and credits for many inventions. Three of his most famous include: The Phonograph - This was the first major invention by Edison and made him famous. It was the first machine that was able to record and playback sound. Light Bulb - Although he did not invent the first electric light, Edison made the first practical electric light bulb that could be manufactured and used in the home. He also invented other items that were needed make the light bulb practical for use in homes including safety fuses and off/off switches for light sockets. The Motion Picture - Edison did a lot of work in creating the motion picture camera and helping move forward the progress of practical movies. Fun Facts About Thomas Edison His middle name was Alva and his family called him Al. His first two kids had the nicknames Dot and Dash. He set up his first lab in his parent's basement at the age of 10. He was partially deaf. His first invention was an electric vote recorder. His 1093 patents are the most on record. He said the words to "Mary had a little lamb" as the first recorded voice on the phonograph.

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Professor Wole Soyinka’s Achievements



The Straightest Road to Success

You know, to be great, I think you have to fight. I very much think that my success is a product of some level of skill, but I do think I win because I outwork people. I really do believe that. I believe that 100%. And let me remind you, I don’t care if you work 18 hours a day. I don’t care if you want to hustle or if you want to buy the Jets. My advice is tried and true; find your happiness to win. I need you to do what makes you feel good. I need you to reverse engineer your own wants and needs.
I’m sharing this story because I’m not sure that if my dad didn’t set that example, that I’d even have the ability to think one could work this hard. The fact that I’ve been working 15 hours a day every day for the last 20 years is easy for me. It’s the only gear I do. I was poor. I sucked shit at school. It was the only gear I have.
You know, I think that you need to recognize that your biggest advantage when you’re just starting out is that you’re hungrier than your competitor. That if you’re not applying your one advantage, which is your work ethic and the hours that you have to put into your business, well, then you’re going to come up short. I sit up here with enormous assumptions around all of you that you’re just too soft to beat me. I obviously don’t think that’s an issue because of most of you don’t want it. But it’s clear that I think you’ve had it better, and that alone doesn’t allow you to beat me.
Somebody will come with a counter point of view and be like, “Gary, that’s cool, but I don’t have to work that hard, because I’m working smarter.” Yeah! Me too asshole. I work hard and smart. Now what? Look, there’s 12-hour, 10-hour, 8-hour, 15-hour work days. You can finish a lot of things in those 18, 12, 9 hours, or you can finish medium amounts of things, or lightweight things. People focus on too many small details.
Way too many people in this room are going to spend the next 30, 40 years of their lives trying to check the boxes of the things that they’re not as good at, and because of that, you’re going to waste a lot of time. I highly recommend for all you hustlers that you go all in on your strengths. Find the thing you are good at, and you love and you want to improve on. I know that a lot of you tell me, “Gary, I do work hard,” and you do. You work for 16 hours. But there are so many of you deploying your energy toward something that you aren’t good at or don’t truly love.
Because listen, there are a lot of things I can’t learn either. I wish I was the quarterback for the New York Jets, but the problem is, it’s never going to happen. No matter how hard I work, or how hard I train, it’s just not in my DNA. I had to accept that and find another way to win.
I was a very poor student because the subject matter bored me. If I was forced to become exceptional at understanding the great artists of the 20th century, I would be in big trouble. I would tell people to bet on their strengths. You need to find what you are good at and don’t give a fuck about what you suck at. You need to put yourself in a position to win with your strengths, because that is absolutely the straightest road to success. Greatness comes from adversity, and looking the challenge in the eye, and having the intestinal fortitude to step up and go after it

Now tell me, is it in you?

The Straightest Road to Success

Another year has just begun and this is usually the best time to take stock of achievements in the previous year, while mapping out new goals for the future. One can give some thought to side hustles for augmenting his/her normal monthly income this year. As needs keep piling up and cost of living keeps escalating, creating multiple streams of income is one sure way to overcome the twin problems of lack and poverty in Nigeria.
We will be going through a list of 10 side hustles (small businesses one can do alongside normal jobs) and you can decide which of them will be suitable for implementation depending on your passion or funds available.
Manage social media platforms
Startup capital: N150,000
Payback period: 8-12 months
Estimated Income: N20k/Month
Market – Blogs, Small Businesses, Entertainers
The internet world has become a veritable marketing tool and more individuals are using social media to create a steady stream of income. Celebrities, companies and businesses are using these social media platforms to create profitable brands for themselves. All you need to do is study how these platforms work. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube are just a few social media platforms you can manage on behalf of clients which would make you earn serious money this year.
Online Tutor
Startup capital: N80,000 – N100,000
Payback period: 6 months
Estimated Income – N15k/Month
Market – Students, White Collar Workers, Job Seekers
By using Skype and other online platforms, one can become an online tutor and start making some serious cash regularly. People desire knowledge and information in some specific fields and are ready to pay for the information. For example, the current business in demand in Nigeria is the cryptocurrency business and lots of guys are still not aware of how it works. If you are knowledgeable about it, this is an opportunity to earn some money by teaching others who are interested in making profit from cryptocurrencies, at a fixed rate or fee.
Lesson Teacher
Startup Capital: None
Payback Period – Immediately
Likely Income – N100k/Month
Market – Students (Primary, Secondary, Professional)
The demand for specialised lesson teachers is on the increase. Parents increasingly want their children to excel in subjects such as Math, English and Science as they prepare for their common entrance or JAMB exams (or even ICAN exams). If you have a skill in any of these subjects, you can join a freelance tutoring ring, where you can be called upon to teach children an anyone looking to write an exam. You can also start on your own by teaching children in your estate or street.
Create an online course
Startup capital: N70,000
Payback period: 4 months
Estimated Income – N10k/Month
Market – Job Seekers, Students
This is another internet related side hustle that won’t disrupt the normal 8-5 job you do on week days. It is convenient, easy and hugely profitable. Create a blog or website and upload a specific course around a field you are an expert in. It can be an online course on creating income streams from fish farming, poultry farming or agro allied products. You can even create an online course on mastering Mathematics for students. The possibilities are endless. After uploading the course outline, you set your rate, then those who are interested will subscribe and start the course.
Write and sell profitable eBooks online
Startup capital: N20,000
Payback period: 7-8 months
Estimated Income – N30k monthly
Market – Students, Job seekers, Career Seekers, Entrepreneurs
An eBook is simply an electronic book. The world is diverging from paperback to electronic books and more people are keying into the eBook niche market. All you need to do is package information that people are willing to pay for and convert it into an eBook using free Microsoft Word to PDF converter online. Ensure that you are packaging very profitable information. Some years ago, I saw an eBook titled, “How to immigrate to Canada without spending a dime”. It was being sold for N5, 000 and feedback from buyers showed that it sold out.
Become an affiliate marketer
Startup capital: N50,000
Payback period: 5-6 months
Estimated Income – N15K/month
Market – Forex trading websites, Cryptocurrency websites, fashion sites, merchants etc.
There are thousands of companies online that are willing to pay you a commission for promoting their products and services; it’s called affiliate marketing. All you have to do is register free of charge on the affiliate site and get affiliate links which you can add to your website or blog, thereby pushing traffic to the sites. These sites have cookies installed that can track your affiliate links and record your sales. Once your affiliate sales get to a $100 threshold, you get paid.
Computer repair services
Startup capital: N30,000
Payback period: 4 months
Estimated Income – N10k/month
Market – Neighbours, Colleagues, Church Members, Friends and Family
Virtually everyone is becoming computer literate in Nigeria. The need for computer repairs is more in demand as computer users encounter one challenge or the other during the course of using their laptop or desktop systems. The computer repair person basically helps to restore faulty computer systems to their normal status, by using simple diagnostic equipment. It is a specialised skill that can add extra income to an individual’s pocket.
Refuse disposal service
Startup capital: N1million
Payback period: 7-9 months
Estimated Income – N120k/month
Market – State/LGA, Private Estates, Offices

Side Hustles You Can Try Out In 2018


We all know that some people deceive others but what does deceiving one's self mean?
According to psychology, self deception is one of the popular escapement methods that people use to prevent themselves from feeling guilty while in the same time allowing themselves to escape from something that they don't want to face.
Of course people don't deceive themselves on intention but it’s their subconscious minds that come up with such tricks in order to protect their psychological well being.
If a student lacks self esteem when it comes to exams and if he is afraid to get bad grades he might find himself unable to concentrate whenever he tries to study without knowing why.
In such a case the student's subconscious mind came up with this brilliant self deception plan to prevent him from testing his self worth in the exam without feeling guilty!! The self deception part here can be noticed easily because the student will blame his lack of ability to concentrate whenever he gets poor grades and thus protect his self esteem.
According to individual psychology each self deception attempt has a very important goal behind it and the only way to prevent self deception is to help the person attain that goal in a different way.
For example, if a man was unsure of his skills and was afraid to test them in work he might turn into an alcoholic without knowing why. Using that self deception method that person can blame his alcoholism for his poor performance without realizing that its all a scenario set up by his mind to allow him to escape. The only way to help that man stop deceiving himself is to allow him to feel worthy.
Even stuttering can be a sign of self deception, one theory that was proposed about the psychology of stuttering claimed that its a self deception method that helps a person avoid social contact in order to prevent others from discovering that he is less worthy than them.
As you just saw it’s not easy for someone who used to deceive himself for years to suddenly admit that he was escaping or deceiving himself.
In fact it takes a lot of courage to find out the self deception plans your subconscious mind is coming up with because they are usually set up to hide something that you don't want to admit.
I still remember that man who had no social skills at all and who deceived himself by becoming a workaholic and thus blaming his tight schedule for his poor social relations.
Certainly reading more about psychology can help you get over your self deception attempts because one study found that most people tend to believe the information they read. If a friend or a psychologist told you that you are deceiving yourself you might not believe him but if this fact came to you through a book or an article such as this one then you might be able to believe in it with less resistance.

Psychology Of Self Deception

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Lots of people keep fighting bad habits for prolonged periods without succeeding in breaking them. They sometimes manage to break the bad habit for few days, weeks or even months but in the end they return back to them again. The question is, why does this happen??
Its because those people never tackle the root of the problem behind their bad habit!!

Sam is a heavy smoker since more than 10 years. He tried many times to stop smoking and he even succeeded in breaking this habit for six months but he didn’t manage to continue to the end and he returned back to smoking.
Sam wasn’t a social person. whenever he had to sit with a group of people that he doesn't know well he felt irritated and uncomfortable. when he finds himself that irritated he usually grabs out one of the cigarettes and starts smoking.
When understanding Sam's mind you won't wonder why he can't quit smoking.
The root cause behind his smoking habit is feeling uneasy while being with strangers. Its his poor social skills that are responsible for his smoking habit.
Many people like Sam smoke when they feel uncomfortable, uneasy or irritated while believing that they suffer from nicotine addiction and that's why they fail to quit smoking!
 Sarah’s story is no different than Sam’s story. She has been struggling with the habit of over eating without being able to stop it. Sarah managed to break the habit for sometime but eventually returned back to it.
Sarah Had almost no friends so her main hobby was watching television and of course her favorite show wont be that amusing unless it's accompanied by delicious food.
Although Sara adored food still this wasn’t the main reason behind overeating but the main reason was not finding someone to hang out with!!
People keep trying to break certain habits for years without succeeding as a result of not being able to spot the root causes behind them. Sarah and Sam were two examples of those people.
Just as you saw in the previous stories things that might appear unrelated to your bad habit might in fact be the main reason behind it!! Whether it was feeling anxious while being with strangers like Sam or whether it was having no friends like Sarah this root cause is what you should seek in order to be able to quit your bad habit.
Don’t fool yourself by thinking that addiction or having no strong will is the reason that is hindering you from breaking the habit. If one of these reasons was behind your bad habit then you wouldn't have been able to stop it even for one week!! In short, If you managed to break a habit for a short while then returned back to it again then know that you didn’t tackle the root cause
Find this root cause, eliminate it and you will be free from your bad habit, wish you good luck https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/f4c/1/16/1f642.png

How To Break Bad & Unwanted Habits


Do It Differently!



Awesome Letter From Husband
No matter how much you love your spouse, arguing with them is pretty much inevitable — especially when you have kids.

When you both work hard to do what’s best for your family, the stress and frustration may become too much to bear.
So when this wife felt unappreciated by her husband, she got tired of fighting with him. She tearfully left him alone with the children without any sign that she’d come back. Just two days later, though, her husband decided to write her a letter about his feelings, and you need to see what it says.

“My darling,
Two nights ago, we had a huge argument. I was exhausted when I got home from work. It was 8:00 p.m and all I wanted to do was to lie down and watch the game.
You weren’t in a good mood, and you were clearly tired after having a long day. You were trying to put the baby to sleep as the other kids were fighting, and all I did was turn the volume up.
“Would it kill you to play a more active role in your children’s upbringing?” you asked, turning the television volume back down. “You can help out more around the house, too.”

“Hey,” I said defensively. “I work hard all day just so you could play in the doll’s house all day.” The argument just kept going like that. I said terrible things to you that I can never take back, and you screamed, saying that you were sick of it all. So you tearfully ran out of the house, leaving me to take care of the children on my own.
I was forced to feed the kids and put them to bed all by myself. When you didn’t come back the next day, I was forced to ask my boss if I could take a day off so I could take care of the children.

I experienced the crying and the tantrums. I experienced having to run around so much all day that I didn’t even have a chance to shower.
I experienced being forced to heat the milk, getting the kids dressed, and cleaning the kitchen all at once. I experienced being cooped up all day without speaking to an adult. I experienced the inability to sit calmly at the table to have a relaxed meal whenever I wanted, because I had to run after the kids.

I experienced feeling so physically and emotionally drained that I just wanted to sleep for 20 hours straight, but had to get up a few hours after falling asleep because the baby was crying. I lived two days and two nights the way that you do, and I think I get it now.

I get your exhaustion. I get that being a mother is all about sacrifice. I get that it is more tiring than being among corporate bigwigs for 10 hours and making economic decisions.
I get how frustrated you must be to have to sacrifice your job and financial freedom so that you can provide for your children. I get how uncertain you are about the fact that your economic security now depends on your partner and not just you. I get how hard it is to not be able to hang out with your friends, exercise, or get a good night’s sleep.

I get how challenging it is, being locked up and being forced to to watch the children while imagining what you must be missing in the outside world. I also get that you become upset when my mother criticizes how you choose to raise our children, because nobody in the world knows what is best for children like their own mother.

I get that being a mother means carrying society’s greatest burdens. Being the person that nobody appreciates, values, or remembers. I write you this letter not just to tell you that you are missed, but additionally because I don’t want to go another day without telling you: “You are strong, doing an excellent job, and I admire you.”


Awesome Letter From Husband

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