Kolajo Blessing is a 20 year old law undergraduate at Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU). She is the First Female President of OOU’s Literary and Debating Society and also the First Female President of VeeCee Success Stories. Blessing is an excellent writer and a great spoken word artist. She shares her “Ruby Girl” story in this interview.
Meet Me!
My name is Kolajo Blessing Oluwabukola. I am 20years of age and a 400level law student of the faculty of law, OOU, Ago-iwoye. I am an indigene of Oyo state, Okaka town to be precise but I reside in Oyo town with my parents. Blessing is simply a girl who tries to find happiness in all situations and what I love doing most is making a caricature of everything around me, impacting in others is a part of me.
My Inspiration
If I am going to answer this question sincerely, my answer will be God as the source of my inspiration. I get inspiration generally from what comes my way, no specific person inspires me. I have been an ambitious kind of girl right from my childhood, I hardly settle for less, so, I choose friends and acquaintances that are in line with my goals and mindset. People of like minds that can keep me going regardless of the situation and these are the kind of people I am surrounded with, they all inspire me. I also get inspiration from reading about the life others, I read any biography or memoir I lay my hands on, at the end, I feel refreshed and the strength to keep going gets renewed.
Hobbies
My number one hobby is playing on words, and I do this every minute. Naturally, I am a very punny and funny person, this particular act tends to make the people around me smile and it makes some feel I’m not serious. Secondly, I love creative writings most especially poems, flash fictions and mythical stories. These are my major hobbies, others include, dancing, athletics and new discoveries.
Biggest Fear
Not being able to live out all my dreams. By the time I am old and death comes, I want to be able to say that “I have truly lived” so my biggest fear isn’t death or any other thing but realizing in my old age that I have done nothing for humanity.
Would you rather like to go back in time to correct a mistake or time travel two years to the future?
The past is gone, even the mistakes I made back then are part of my body of knowledge today, why will I want to change that? I will prefer to time travel two years to the future so that i will know what knowledge to acquire so as to dive through the challenges of that period before I get there, getting there will just be a smooth sail.
What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
I will write 100 poems in a day.
If given the chance to be the President of Nigeria for a day, what will you change?
The outcome of the word “change” has been a disaster so far in the country. So, I won’t bother changing anything, I will just invest largely on research and fund the country’s inventors.
In a time when people pay less attention to improving their vocabulary, what is your reading and learning of vocabularies routine?
This question seems funny to me because I don’t have a time set aside for developing my vocabulary, because it is my lifestyle. As a spoken word artist that loves being satirical, I learn tons of small words and I get to decode big grammars from the small words, it helps me to be more punny. For instance the word “military”, is a small word, if I want to study it, the first thing I do is… How can I be satirical in its usage? “military” satirically, “meal eatery” they sound alike right? I have achieved what many might not be able to with that word.That’s what my vocabulary routine is like. I check the meaning of small words more than I do for big words.
Impact of being the first female President of VSS & Literary and Debating Society and juggling my academics
Being the president of Veecee Success Stories and the president of OOU literary and debating society totally streamlined my lifestyle and disciplined it in a hard way. When I was appointed, people said it will affect me academically and it did, but positively I had 4.50 last semester which I never had when I wasn’t the president of any association and I really had nothing to do. So, I arrived at the conclusion that it’s a matter of mindset, I determined back then that I will not lead an association that promotes success and be a failure academically due to tight schedules and I paid the price of hard work. Being a leader is one of the hardest task that I have been given but the most practical arena to learn so far I have learnt that “a leader should never be too small to lead and too big to serve.” As regards my rehearsals, that is a part of my lifestyle, I hardly get a separate time to rehearse for my performances, I make use of my friends indirectly, I rehearse while joking with my hallmates, as long as you have the words in your head putting them together in a punny, rhythmical and sensible way that passes an information will never be difficult. I also record my works on phone and I listen to them while moving around or when I’m stuck in a boring or irrelevant gathering, that’s part of the ways I rehearse too. As the first female president for the two associations, my dreams and goals were solidly on these two realities, I do not look down on myself because of my gender, whatever I set my mind to achieve, regardless of the gender barrier, I go for it fully.
What keeps you up at night?
My academics, prayers, poetry or worries.
Future plans
As regards what I do, I have so many plans to take my pen and voice to another level. Right now, I have two unpublished anthologies written by me the first one is titled “ONCE UPON A DAY AND OTHERS,” the second one is titled “HER BRUISE (ABUSE)”. I also have an unpublished novel titled “TO THE HOME THAT BLEEDS.” They will all be published when I have the resources to do so. As regards spoken words performances, I do not just see myself performing on big stages but I see myself promoting the world of poetry with that tool.
Advice to girls younger than me
Search within yourself, identify your gift and passion and start making it your area of influence. Your voice isn’t too small to be heard.
Instagram ID: @kolajo_blessing
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