Wow, everyone it was a roller-coaster week.

It took me a long time to realise that I have been a victim of a bully. It was a shocking thing, which I will explain soon.

I am currently with friends as I look to get this situation sorted out.

If any of you read the stamped posts or any password posts,  I will write up what exactly happened with that same password.

I hope you are all well and safe

In cheerful news, my girl Bee is happy to call out her husband in her speeches! Too cute — it’s at the 5:00 minute mark.

and who’s legs are seriously better than hers? No one’s!

Something has happened to me emotionally where I have been the victim of a campaign of verbal and emotional abuse.

I cannot go into too much detail but it is related to my living situation.

I have alerted my mother to the news. I will not be blogging as I am no longer living at my flat for the time being. I am staying with a friend until the end of the week and I will stay with another friend for next week.

I am sorry for this hiatus but it is beyond my control as I will not be sleeping at home for a while now due to my flatmate’s campaign of bullying and verbal abuse.

I will be back soon.

–a

I was in Borders today and in the UK, the latest issue of ESSENCE is the one with Nia Long on the cover.

There was an interesting roundtable discussion which included Solo Knowles, Nia of course and the stunning Tanika Ray, as well as Mikki Taylor, Tonya Lewis, Ursula Stephens (Rihanna’s hairdresser) & another lady called Ledisi.

ESSENCE are trying to step up their game, and that is a good way to go about it.

There was one shocking statistic that I read in the mag at Borders and I paraphrase, it said something like 20-something per cent of black women don’t think a man would like natural hair.

Well F that man then!

Okies, this video is sliced into three parts for this review.

Good: I like the song, and as usual, the video has warmed me up even more to the song. It has a slight hypnotic tone to it. I can imagine it being played in secret dens and lairs, where it is members only. Black & White always gets a thumbs up from me at any rate.

I also like the Aaliyah-esque look of her warderobe in the video. I think that is what I love the most — she is looking very Aaliyah here. It’s cute.

Bad: Eye-patch? This Captain Hook thing doesn’t spice me up.

Ugly: Prancing around in a church and holding her crotch,and (presumably)  standing on an angel….HMM?? Those gave me quizzical looks. Not feeling the church thing at all, especially since Rihanna is a Christian.

The video is okay, but I am getting mixed messages from the video. What do you think?

Rating: 3/5 coals.

[All pix & interview from Glamour]

The thigh high booties are MINE!

This bish has my thigh high booties on. She did an interview with Glamour.com (US) in which she revealed a lot about her background and the incident.

Here are some key quotes:

On the photo of her face leaking:

It was humiliating; that is not a photo you would show to anybody. I felt completely taken advantage of. I felt like people were making it into a fun topic on the Internet, and it’s my life. I was disappointed, especially when I found out the photo was [supposedly leaked by] two women.

Really sad, and never knew about the women part. That’s awful!

On the media attention:

It has taught me so much. I felt like I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears. That was the level of media chaos that happened the next day. It was like, What, there are helicopters circling my house? There are 100 people in my cul-de-sac? What do you mean, I can’t go back home?

On the theme of Rated R:

I was involved in a lot of the writing. I put everything I’ve wanted to say for the past eight months into my music. The songs are really personal. It’s rock ‘n’ roll, but it’s really hip-hop: If Lil’ Wayne and Kings of Leon like my album, then I’ll feel good. I would not change anything about it. Even if people don’t love it, I made exactly the piece of art that I wanted to make. It’s super fearless—which is exactly how I feel right now. I am in a really good place.

This is a really interesting comment. I don’t know how Rated R will come across, but I am interested. I still stick by my original views from back in the day that Rihanna sounds best on uptempos, dancey tracks.

Predictably this is a hot topic and lots of people think it is insincere. She is releasing an album, but it is no big deal. Many artists use the media when they are promoting a product to discuss issues.

I don’t think it is a big deal that she is talking about it now. I would be more disappointed with her if she didn’t discuss it at all so at least she has opened up.

Focus.

That is one of the hardest things for me. I get so distracted quickly by things. Even now, I am writing this post, whilst having GMTV on in the background and listening to my mp3 player.

What kind of things do you do to stay focused whether it is on a task you need to do or work?

Here is what I am trying to implement to stay more focused:

1. Stick to my lists in my notebook: I think a notebook makes you more organised but if you don’t stick to your lists of what to do, it becomes harder to focus

2. Wake up early: When I wake up early (ie before 8am), I do feel more productive because I feel like I have spent more time on work.

3. Don’t overthink things: This is the most important thing, I think.

There has been a lot of upheaval in my life recently and I am sure some of you have felt the same. I think in this instance, it really is about telling yourself that if you focus, you will succeed.

What do you think?

I always loved Valerie’s Afro from the cartoon Josie & The Pussycats. So round and fluffy = fire! Today I went to the hair shop down the road (not black owned, sadly — can’t seem to find those here). My friend was coming around to cornrow my hair. I popped down to the shop and the man at the till asked me:

Is that a real Afro?

I was like….*crickets*

While my Afro may not be as round as Valerie’s, I don’t know why this man (an Asian male) could not see that my hair was 100 per cent my Afro. Why would he think I was wearing an Afro wig? It goes back to this assumption again that some people hold that black women do not have *hair* hence having to resort to other methods. My friend plaited cornrows for me using extensions. I am doing this as a method of protective styling due to over brushing and combing my coils for the past few weeks.

The fact that I do have a big Afro has shocked people and again, it goes back to this so-called idea that Afro hair does not grow.

Just because hair does not fall down your back does not mean your hair is not long. I refuse for anyone  to look at a huge Afro, lovely and circular and think that it isn’t long. Also, what kind of bad business manners must you have to ask one of your patron customer such an obnoxious question? It shows me the flagrant dislike he has for a black woman’s hair if he cannot even understand what he is selling.

It also links with this idea that we MUST as black women shop at black owned shops, with people who understand our hair. My mate showed me one hair shop in Bow that (I think) is owned by a black woman. But I live in Walthamstow which is far out of the way to shop in Bow, but I have to because the rudeness in non-black owned hair shops in this area is getting ridiculous.

What would you say to someone who asked you if your Afro was real?

Russian Roulette is growing on me, but I am not sure about the direction of this album. I suppose we will find out when it is released in mid-November, but image wise, I do not understand how this is different from GGGB.

Rihanna succeeds in her element when the production of her songs are fire.

What do you think of the RR song? Do you think this album will be Rihanna’s magnum opus or has the CB controversy helped her to gain fans?

I’m looking forward to hearing the songs from the album, but image-wise I think the album cover is slightly repetitive of the so-called edgy factor.

Are you ever stuck on what to do?

I handed in my MA project in last term. One segment of it was creating my careers website/blog for people who want to work in entry level PR, which you can view here. I am so pleased and humbled to say that I got great feedback from some PR experts in the industry.

I am delighted.

Several wicked things have happened so far (which I kept under wraps until it was confirmed):

• The site has placed its’ first work experience placement ad which you can check out here. It would be an understatement to say I was delighted about this, I was ecstatic. It was a free advertisement and I just couldn’t believe it. So happy.
•  One careers advisor at a college I interviewed and did a survey at asked me that she would like me to come in and give a talk to media students about my careers blogsite. I will keep you updated on how that goes.
• Really nice complements from industry experts who seem keen to help me.

The practicalities of the situation is this, I am working on the website part-time, I can’t do it fulltime because I need to get a fulltime job to pay the rent.

But it is just what I love and breathe.

I subscribed to Black Enterprise this year and I think that helped to focus me a lot. I have so many dreams of how I want to use media to get careers possibilities across to people so I really hope this website could be a success.

Please let me know what you think of it and what you think of what has happened!