To the Greeks, chaos was primeval matter in total disorder.
Cosmos, on the other hand, was the same matter in some appearance of order.
The creation of the universe then was not the creation of matter; that already existed. It was the creation of order.
Anything that imposes disorder on matter originally in order is chaotic. On the other hand, anything that imposes order on matter originally in disorder is cosmetic.
And now we know what it is that a woman does when she uses cosmetics to make up her face.
Culled from the book Test Your Word POWER by Jerome Agel.
My Dreams achieved...
I am Joseph the dreamer. I dreamt and i became a Prime Minister in a strange land. I walked past family hatred, my coat of many colours my father gave to me was taken away.
I became a slave because of my dream; was stopped by a mirage of hope in Portiphar's house,but thanks to God for focussing me aright. I passed an important and compulsory test in the very person of Portiphar's wife. I dreamt on in prison but i worked alongside hardwork all along my life's journey but those rewards called achievements were not my dreams.
After the prison i entered into life's final audition which happened to be my very last, had i failed i bet you wouldn't have read about me not even now.
I Joseph son of Jacob- Isreal the Prince, son of Isaac- the very son of Abraham, Abraham- The father of many nations and the Friend of God! I was hurriedly ushered into the palace where I was crowned with honour and majesty because this was the very picture of my dream which became a reality.
Forgiveness is a weapon of maintaining prosperity therefore personal effort and choice are required. Since I had developed a habit of making good decisions and right choices , I chose to forgive. Who? My brothers of course. They never saw this glorious picture with me! I embraced them with love in spite of all their fears. I was designed and programmed to preserve posterity! That's me Joseph the son of Jacob!
It’s one of the major events or would I say a normal routine of most only girls’ school in the east where I come from and very common with boarding schools. The frenzy of the ritual can be felt in the entire school once it is announced. The targeted group would not be aware of its time and day in order to reduce absenteeism especially on the part of the day-students. On the D-day during assembly the fresher’s (freshmen) would be the only ones to remain on the assembly ground while the others returned to their classes.
Cutting tail could be called legit, because the act had the backing of the school authority; not sure if they still do, with the boarding students the most affected in all these shenanigans.
This particular ritual favours the senior students’ only; as they are given the power to either pour out love or venom on the fresh junior students. Although a particular set of new intakes could either find favour in the sight of these seniors or become scape goats. And this would affect their tail cutting experience.
The term Cutting Tail was gotten from the poultry farming rituals performed on domestic fowls that kept flying high up in the trees and walls to roost. In order to prevent them from flying, the farmer would clip their wings and tail. Knowing fully well that even if it’s an eagle. If its tail is clipped, it will no longer be able to fly. Likewise, in order to get and retain respect from new junior students, the seniors ensured that the act of cutting tails was religiously executed.
Favour can play down the unpleasantness off the ritual. As a girl raised in the city, but who found herself in the village for a good reason, my set belonged to the favoured group. Naturally, shaving the hair on the assembly ground by the seniors (which the school authorities approve of) was the most common way of cutting tails. There were other demeaning methods of cutting tails, but they happen in the background.
When it was my set’s turn to have our tails cut, we had the luxury of having a one on one pep talk with our seniors. I definitely did not find it funny knowing that I had to shave off my beloved punk, so I lied on the spot that my (enemy) was suffering from pneumonia; so I got off on the note that I had to reduce the height of the punk, and not to shave the entire hair on my head, and that was okay by me. Many students too got off on one excuse or the other, which was really rare since the history of cutting tails in our school. Normally, a part of our hair would have been shaved off so badly that we’ll have no other choice but to scrape the entire hair off. The day students would have to use the school beret or look for a scarf to cover their heads to avoid mockery on their way home.
Where am I going with this? Revealing the injustice and demeaning act meted out to innocent junior students/sophomores, acts that had great psychological impact on the development of our psychology. And because this inhumane act was supported by the school authorities, it caused a rippling effect and a strong urge and anticipation for revenge in the victims who were ignorant of the type of seed that had been sown in them. And thus, the case turned into a never ending cycle that replicated the suffering of one set of freshmen on a new set. The junior may become compassionate and rational or turn out to become abusers themselves.
I remember a case as if it happened just yesterday. It was a case of sheer jealousy and what this generation would call ' having a beef', and a show of highly irrational and irresponsible behaviour on the part of the school authorities too who escalated the issue; Cutting tail (an irrelevant issue) treated like it was a do or die affair. Something that i still believe could have been avoided if it was handled with wisdom and maturity.
It happened during the extra-curricular activities period, we had just dispersed from the literary and debating society club meeting headed by senior Elsie, an amiable senior; when suddenly a scream pierced through the air, instinctively every one rushed towards the direction of the scream which happened to come from the senior students block. Since i was already closer to the building, i was among the first students to arrive at the scene. Oh! I could not believe my eyes. What i saw was our beloved senior Elsie held in a death grip by a junior student whose body was completely soaked in her own blood. On closer look, I could see that the blood was gushing out profusely from her temple area. The question that came to my mind was, ‘how did Elsie get into this mess when we just left the club room not quite long?’
Cutting tail had already taken place some weeks ago, but from the gist that had been circulating in school; the bleeding girl had refused to shave off her hair because her hair length was already very low, shaving it would have only resulted in a skin cut which was not ladylike. Truly, judging from the hair level you'll deduce immediately that this was a ploy to impose supremacy laced with open-faced jealousy.
I was curious to get to the root of the matter. In the course of my digging or fishing for the underlying reason behind this dastardly act, i found out that the lady in question was once classmates with most of the seniors but dropped out of school for some family and personal reasons. But after several years, she returned to school and enrolled in our school, where she became a junior to her former mates. One question i kept asking was, ‘If this lady was once your classmate at some point, why go to such length to cut her tail? Why cut her tail at all?’ Some of the excuses gotten from the seniors were lame but they kept on saying that she was arrogant blah, blah, blah (all because the girl decided to stay on her own. I gathered from reliable sources who were close to her that she was a quiet and a cool person to be with and to top it all she was financially comfortable and otherwise). No tangible reason/s for their action.
The seniors had been insisting all week that they would shave off her hair at all cost and with the backing of the then principal of our school, who also mandated that the seniors cut her tail, their egos got pumped up even more.
Before senior Elsie left the debating society club to her building, some group of seniors had invited the bleeding girl to their classroom as usual and had been trying to shave off her hair with a scissors even if it was a little. Some of them held her, while another would try to cut the hair, but all to no avail. The girl overpowered them at every attempt them, she was a bull. They kept at it for a while and when they saw they were not making any progress with her, a senior left and returned with a shaving stick and before you could say ‘jack’ her temple was cut, deep, and blood began to gush out. Every body fled at the sight of blood. In a bid to catch at least one person she caught Elsie who had just strolled in from another direction at that time.
The lady lost so much blood, the wrappers used to tie around her head were heavily soaked, a major vein had been cut. She held on tightly to Elsie while walking out of school until they got to the hospital. It was a bad day for the senior Elsie who became the scapegoat for those bad seniors. The girl held her in such a way that everyone around could see her red panties – thank God they were clean and sexy, if not, that would have been another catastrophe for her in an all girls' school ha! Students felt for her since she was a friendly senior.
Even after all these happened our principal still supported those crooked seniors. After her hospitalization the girl returned to school to pack her things out of the boarding house and i never saw her again.
The real question here is 'Was it worth it?' In order to subdue others just to impose and get some foolish respect. Why not earn the respect?
There were other atrocities that have claimed the lives in other single-sex schools around us, some came to limelight while others where quickly swept under the carpet, but that is for another time. Single-sex schools, be it an all boys' or girls' school to me should be abolished, the stuff going on is too grave to be overlooked.
I believe cutting tail should have been done away with. Twas a fresher’s nightmare, gorier than what i just narrated was that of a compulsory-forced lesbian induction. Timeout!
