Category Archives: BLOG

SECOND YEAR OF MY PHD PROGRAM

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It’s been a year and 8 months since I started my Ph.D program. I wouldn’t say it has been easy especially with the global pandemic caused by the now infamous COVID’19. I faced a lot of difficulties in passing through my second phase. One major difficulty was my mental health. I will start this story from the beginning of when I moved into the second phase of my research.

I was supposed to be registered for my second year by May 2020, however, I was unable to register that month. This caused me to apply for an extension. In summary, I registered for my second year by June 2020. This is when my journey began. Due to my late registration, I was unable to meet up to certain deadlines which made me tighten up my buckles. The pressure of my year 2 deliverable was too much and I was battling with concentration. There were lots of distractions/hindrances at that time such as the fear of contacting the virus, worrying about family and friends, no access to the library. To be honest I felt the world was coming to an end, but it wasn’t. I managed to submit my RDDA, which normally entails an agreed plan of you and your supervisors towards the next phase of your research.

Going into my second year, I thought about several conferences, paper articles, seminars and many other research activities I would like to participate in. Sadly, all of them were canceled , however, I was able to participate in online workshops and training that were organized by the university. Examples of workshops I attended are data collection, data analysis, career planning, ethics, research planning and so on. And yes, the 3MT competition I participated in and was able to reach the finalist stage.

These issues aside, my thesis focused on my theoretical discussion and continuation of my literature review. I had a full grasp of my research, better than my first year. I was supposed to commence my data collection, however, my ethics was denied three times. I am literally still on my ethics process and I do hope to get done with it as soon as possible. My ethics was denied due to different reasons such as the vulnerability of some of the participants, travel restrictions, ambiguity of my research questions.

Honestly, my second year was a marathon but I am excited I passed through it. I am looking forwards to commencing my third year and the higher marathon that might come with it.

I am concluding this by using this opportunity to say a big thank you to all my family and friends that have always trusted and believed in me.

Cheers xx

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3MT Competition

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Yes, I participated in the 3MT competition. If you do not know what the 3MT competition is about, it is a 3 minutes thesis competition that started at Queensland University, Australia. The intention or aim of this competition is for Ph.D students to be able to present their thesis to a wide range of audience within a limited time.

The moment I saw the opening for the competition, I was excited to participate but I was not sure I would be able to catch up to it due to too many activities I had on my list. As always, I was determined to try. However, I was not able to attend enough training and feedbacks that were organized by the doctoral college at Coventry University but I attended 2 sessions and presented during one of the sessions. The feedback session was very important because I got relevant feedbacks and opinions from both the organizers and other participants, this helped me in restructuring my content to fit the understanding of the audience.

I was glad to be amoung the finalists at the Coventry university finale. The news caught me unaware and I got really good feedback from other participants, lecturers and organizers of the competition.

One mistake I realised I made was that I was talking too fast during my presentation.

The key things I addressed in my presentation are

  1. An engaging topic and introduction. I started my introduction by saying ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. This is a popular religious phrase, however, I briefly explained the use of that phrase in my presentation. My advice is that when preparing for your 3MT, you should use a catchy topic and introduction.
  2. I involved my personal experience in the presentation and I made the audience feel what the victim
  3. The presentation was simple and straightforward. The presentation had a coherent and consistent flow by explaining why I decided to work on my thesis, what my research is addressing, the methodology that I used and that will be used, the importance of my research and who or what organisations it will be beneficial to.

I hope you enjoyed readng this and you have been able to have a broader understanding about the 3MT competition.

WHAT IS THE WORST ACADEMIC OFFENSE?

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PLAGIARISM!!! This is what I believe to be the worst academic offense. According to the University of Oxford[1], Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or idea as your own, with or without their consent. My reference to the university of oxford is an example of how to acknowledge a source. Plagiarism is very common, and it proves a lack of understanding or knowledge in your essay or academic work.

In the past years as both an undergraduate and a postgraduate student, I have been a victim of plagiarism unknowingly and knowingly lol. This was either due to my impatience or lack of interest in a particular essay. However as a research student, I have learnt that the same time I spent paraphrasing a particular term would have been the same time I would have spent to think properly and have a good understanding of the topic. A lot of students are victims of this act, I do understand that as students there are times we can’t meet up to deadlines and want a shortcut but that is very wrong and not an excuse. Apart from the academic sanctions for perpetrators, education is quite expensive which a lot of people/students have sacrificed a lot to be in the academic world, therefore I believe we should be very focused and willing to think or create new ideas instead of borrowing or using someone else’s knowledge.

There are several types and forms of plagiarism, however, I will be explaining the forms in the context of the types of plagiarism, which are:

 Self-Plagiarism: Submitting his/her previous work either it is part of the work or the full work. Using myself as an example, I had my master’s dissertation in the topic ‘Corporal punishment of children in Nigeria’ which is related to my Ph.D. thesis ‘How does the Nigerian government enforce the security of child’s rights? An analysis of corporal punishment in public schools’. I got tempted to use some part of my master’s thesis into my PhD thesis, but it is wrong, and I avoided doing such, this is also to avoid academic dishonesty. YES, I am sure some people will say I can do anything with any of my academic work, sorry, you can’t except in situations where approval is granted. Another example of self-plagiarism is submitting the same work in two different academic institutions or authorities. Even though they are the same or similar topic, the context must be different or referenced properly.

 Direct Plagiarism: This includes word for word quotations without referencing the source, the act of cutting and pasting from the internet is wrong in the academic realm. For example, as a law student, there are several laws that I cannot paraphrase because they are laws, therefore I quote them with inverted commas to indicate that words are exactly the same from the same and then I reference them accordingly.

 Mosaic Plagiarism: The act of using phrases from other sources without using quotation marks or paraphrasing or writing it in halves. Paraphrasing is reasonably essential. However, it is wrong to paraphrase a work with the intention of claiming ownership of the idea.

 Accidental Plagiarism: In instances where the source is not mentioned or is incorrect. It is important to use the correct referencing style, depending on the discipline.

Avoiding plagiarism will help to have an opinion of oneself, instead of relying of other scholarly work or writers. It is difficult to have a personal view or opinion, however, that is why you are in academics.

[1] https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism

BEWARE OF TOXIC PEOPLE

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A toxic person can be defined as someone who abuses a person emotionally, physically or mentally. You know, that person that makes you feel like shit. A toxic person could be a friend, a romantic partner, an acquaintance or even family. A toxic person is known to oppress another individual and sometimes that individual may not even know they are being oppressed. A toxic person is great at lying, manipulating and great at pretending. They drag you down and you might not even know it.

Toxic people affect various areas of your life as you begin to see yourself making excuses for the person. Your self-esteem begins to drop. You begin to feel like no one can really see or hear you, like your own self-consciousness is choking or drowning away. You begin to settle for things you would otherwise never settle for. I need you to know that you deserve better.  Toxic people do not necessarily share the same traits. These are some of the traits of toxic people:

They’ll keep you guessing about which version of them you’re getting. They’re lovely today and cold tomorrow. You can’t tell which version you’re getting. You could assume you’re playing with them and all of a sudden, they become very hostile.

They are very manipulative. They are very good at manipulating you to do things you would not want to do. In some cases, you begin to think their thoughts are your own and you’re only doing what you think they will like. You most likely will not know you are being manipulated

They won’t own their feelings. They never own their feelings or emotions. They find a way to push blame to others for emotions that they single headedly brought on themselves. You see them blaming you for their anger or their sadness when you have nothing to do with it. They will project their problems on to you and most times even blame you for it.

They get angry and blame everyone but themselves. You don’t have to defend yourself to move forward. You don’t have to explain, defend or justify yourself with these kinds of people.

They’ll make you prove yourself to them. They’ll regularly put you in a position where you have to choose between them and something else. You find yourself trying to impress them at every single turn. You do not have to impress anybody. You do not have to prove yourself to anyone.

They’ll never apologize. They’d twist the story to declare them right and you wrong. They will always forget about the other persons feelings and if the other person can also be angered. They see themselves as being bigger than apologizing to you or righting their wrongs.

They’ll be there in a crisis but never in joy. They’ll find reasons to downplay your good news. You never find them when you are in trouble or dismay. They never try to help you but always want you to help them and suddenly show themselves when you are beginning to enjoy life.

They’ll leave a conversation offline and unfinished. They can also leave a conversation half way to keep you guessing and troubled.

They’ll use non-toxic words in a toxic tone. Things like “what did you do today?

So, I bet you did nothing as usual”. And then they’ll come back and say all I asked was “what you did today?” They know it hurts but they say it anyways. 

They are trying to belittle you at every turn they can.

They’ll bring irrelevant details into a conversation. You’re trying to resolve something and toxic people keep bringing details that are not important. It always seems to end with what you’ve done to them and not what they’ve done to you. They bring up the past as a way to make your points seem null.

They’ll make it about the way you’re talking and not what you’re talking about. You’ll find yourself defending your tone or speech pattern instead of fighting about what you were talking about.

They exaggerate. They increase the smallest mistakes you’ve done to such a big feat. Basically “making a mountain out of a molehill”. They over react to the slightest mistakes you have made.

They are judgmental. They are quick to scrutinize everything you do. It’s worse when they’re no better than you anyways. Like someone ridiculing you for something they equally do as well.

They are quick to bring you down in front of others. They want to remind you in front of others that you are under them. They are willing to shame you in front of others. They will bring you down at every opportunity they find. They may do it sometimes to stroke their ego. Making jokes at your expense. They are having fun while you are hurting. They don’t care about how you feel. They don’t care about how they emotionally wreck you. All they care about is that people laughed at you.

They try to gather more information about you than they give you about them. They try to have all the information They snoop through your phone. They ask people about you. They want to know everything about you possibly to know how to manipulate you some more.

They do things to you they would not take. They could snoop through your phone but throw a fit if you did the same. They insult you. They pick at your wounds.  They take slight jabs at you and call it comedy. The moment you try to do these things back to them. They lash out at you. 

It’s been said before but emphasis on they never apologize. Or make their apologies a joke. There is no sincerity in their apologies ever. They apologize by joking so as to never show weakness.  Instead of saying “I’m sorry”, they say “Why are you angry over a little thing?”

Toxic people constantly latch on to you and drain you of fulfilment. They can be said to be parasitic in nature. They claim to have done nothing wrong when they have done a significant amount of damage to you. Please learn to value yourself and stand up for yourself. Learn to seek help whenever you may need it. Friends, families and loved ones, please look out for others as they might not even know they live with a toxic person. They could act like they have been hypnotized or under a spell. Please try and help each other.

A RECAP OF YEAR 2020

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The year 2020 is one of its kind in a century. It is a rollercoaster, they are itemized under the good, the “in-betweens” and the ugly.. World shifting events has been experienced in this year. Every year typically has a few defining moments, but 2020 has a whole lot.

The year 2020 has had its fair share of epoch making events which cannot be erased from the annals of history.

THE GOOD 

November 7: Joe Biden becomes the United States President Elect. He clinched the party’s nomination in June and Kamala Harris, his Vice, was chosen on August 11. The election recorded the highest voter turnout in 120 years and Joe Biden’s electoral victory makes him the 46th President of the United States of America.  

February 9: Bong Joon Ho won Academy awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film for his movie, Parasite

February 9: Brad Pitt, American actor and film producer also won his first Oscar for his film, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

2nd July: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) named its Washington headquarters after Mary Jackson, its first female Black Engineer.

29th July: Netflix added seven classic Black TV shows to their platform, namely: Moesha, The Game S1-3, Sister Sister, Girlfriends, The Parkers, Half and Half and One on One. Lady Gaga and Carly Rae Jepsen also released new singles.

July 31: Beyonce also released her album, “Black is King”

THE IN-BETWEENS

January 7: The world health organization notified the world of SARS-COV-2 (also known as Corona Virus) Corona Virus originated in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China. The year 2020 witnessed the rapid spread of the Corona Virus Pandemic to 196 countries. As at March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the status of the novel COVID-19 from an epidemic to a pandemic.

January 8: Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down from their duties as senior royals of the Buckingham Palace in a bid to becoming financially independent. 

January 11: The United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union.

February 5: Donald Trump of America was acquitted by the United States’ Senate in an impeachment trial. The trial began on January 16 and it bordered on abuse of power and the obstruction of Congress.

Among Us a mobile game from 2018 suddenly boosted its popularity and became not only a greta streaming platform but a political platform as well.

Kanye west has issues with everything and begins tweeting. Kim Kardashian apoligizes claiming it was due to his bipolar disorer

Cyberpunk 2077, a game that has been on the hype train from 2013, came out and was a cluster of ugs so much so that playstation removed it from the store.

Tiger King came out and people were heaily obsessed with it.

Streaming services saw a whole new high because of lockdowns. Gaming consoles also sold a lot during this period.

Tiktok became he most downoaded and used social app and also had its problems as Donald Trump planned on ban it it due to supposed breach of information to china.

Ellen Degeneres a most known witty talk show killed her career as people began to call her out for her toxic management of staff.

Pictures of UFOs began to surface with no clear expalnaion for it from the Pentagon.

Mysterious Monoliths are being found round the world. The first was spotted in the utah desert. No one knows where they are from.

People began fighting oer tissue papers and cleaning materials. Pasta and flour started vanishing from shelves. Tissue paper was also the most searched thing until it was beaten by the ps5.

New cpus from AMD, Graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia came out. Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles also came out. All these were bought by scalpers and sold at ridiculously high prices. It was so drastic that the british governemnt decided to act on it.

Murder Hornets began to surface around America and quickly disappeared.

For the first time in 10 years, Marvel did not release a movie as it had to postpone all of its movies.

Star Wars finall came out on top with its new series, The Mandalorian

Kanye West surprisingly ran for president of America. He was endorsed by chance the rapper and elon musk as well.

Kanye West also got Kim Kadashian a holograph of her father saying he’s proud of her for her birthday.

Chris Evans, Captain America, leaked his own nude accidentally.

Kim Jong-un, Leader of north korea, faked his own death to fish out people in his government against him. His sister was rumoured to lead an this sure enough sparked some memes.

People really believed 5g Antennas were causing coronavirus.

EVERYTHING WAS CAKE!!!

Twitter got hacked as every verified account started scamming people. Donald trump also got hacked as someone guessed his password which not surprising was MAGA2020.

Chris Delia was accused of sexual harrassment.

Shia Lebouf was accused of Sexual Battery.

Vin Diesel released a song which was actually not bad.

THE UGLY

It is noteworthy that China recorded its first death from Corona Virus on January 11 while United States recorded its first case on January 20. Italy was the first country to implement a nationwide lockdown on March 10. The pandemic that caused the lives of millions of people. The Covid 19 sets and placed questions in the minds of scientists, professors, medical practioners and all. The pandemic led to lockdown in all the States of the world, this led to massive employment and business closure.

January 2: Bush fires threaten tens of millions of acres and one billion animals in New South Wales in Australia prompting the call of a state of emergency by premier Gladys Berejiklian.

January 8: Ukranian 737-800 plane crashes in Tehran, Iran killing all the 176 passengers on board. 

February 24: Hollywood Producer, Harvey Weinstein is found guilty of third-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act.

March 16: Owing to fears from the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Stocks (The Dow) took a major plunge, falling 2, 997 points, the largest drop since 1987. 

March 24: The 2020 Tokyo summer Olympics postponed until July 23, 2021 owing to COVID19 outbreak.

25th May: George Floyd, an African American was killed during an arrest after a store clerk alleged that he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. Police-involved killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and BreonnaTaylor sparked protests under the banner of “Black Lives Matter” to demand an end to police brutality and racial injustice. More protests were witnessed in August when Jacob Blake, a 29 year old was paralyzed from the waist down after shooting by a Wisconsin police officer. 

July 15: A group allegedly spearheaded by a Florida twin hacked the Twitter accounts of prominent business figures and politicians including Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Kanye West, in a bit coin scam. At least 130 accounts were affected.

August 4: A massive explosion erupts in Beirut, Capital of Lebanon after the accidental detonation of 2, 750 tons of ammonium nitrate. This led to the death of 190 people.

 Mid-August: Deadly wild fires erupted in the United States, spreading from California to Washington state and burning millions of acres and displacing hundreds of thousands.

October 2: United States President, Donald Trump diagnosed of COVID-19. He was immediately hospitalized at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and discharged after three days.

Nashville had a suciide bomb Orchestrated by Anthony Q Werner even though police was tipped by his girfriend a year ago.

Hong Kong continued its protests to not be consumed by china.

There were locust swarms in Africa.

Nigeria began multiple protests against its special anti robbery squad SARS as it had been abusing its power on civilians. It spanned multiple days and people got killed in it. It hs since reduced but it is not gone yet.

Donald Trump praised a Doctor who believed there were demons in sperm and coronavirus was not real. Donal Trump also caimed the virus could go by drinking bleach.

THE UGLY: DEATH OF PROMINENT PERSONALITIES

Famous basketball player, Kobe Bryant and his 16 year old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.

January 2: Death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraq’s Commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhanidis in a United States airstrike in Baghdad airport. This sparked a lot of world war 3 memes on twitter.

January 8: Iran retaliated on January 8  bylaunching ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq, causing traumatic brain injuries to 100 American soldiers.

August 28: Chadwick Boseman, “Black Panther”actor died at age 43 after a four-year battle with cancer.

September 18: United State Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at 87 years. She was a relentless trail blazer for gender equality.

October 6: Eddie Van Halen, a rock legend and iconic guitarist died at 65 from mouth cancer.


In conclusion, the saying that in every bad there is an inherent good, even though 2020 was of ups and downs, the most important is the realization of the importance of relationships.