Above is my friend Cyril Mettle, and his pretty little naughty sister — Eileen Elsie Mettle. No, he’s NOT dead. He just packed out. Of course last time I checked, both of us were as straight as the long wooden TV poles protruding out of people’s houses at my village — and we both knew we were going to, at some point, find pretty little things each and… and go our separate ways with out little things… to have a whole lot of kids and live forever after. Or somthine like that. At least I though so.

But having lived together for such a long time, his moving out didn’t go without a scratch on this achy breaky little heart of mine. Sure, we’ve had our ups and downs, like all lovers friends do. But what would life be without these?

And I’ve always dismissed this feeling of emptiness that creeps in every now and then — making believe everything is ok, and telling lies to the only person I’ve become accustomed to (and comfortable with) lying to — myself. That is, until the next time when this emptiness creeps in again.

Hasta mañana, gool ‘ole friend, Cyril Mettle, hasta mañan.

If you’ve been reading about the struggles that I’ve been sharing here recently on this blog, let me tell you this is nothing new.

I’ve been in in constant $h1t$ nearly all my life, often too personal for any one to comprehend, and often through no fault of mine.

The below photo brings to mind three years of enduring pleasure in pain.

From January 1994 to December 1996, I had my secondary education at Fijai Secondary School in Secondi (NOT Takoradi, FWIW!) in the Western Region of Ghana. While at school, the entire year group was sent home and later made to sign a bond of “good behaviour”, for whatever crime I never got myself to understand. And our final exam, the (then) Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE), was cancelled nationwide, and we had to re-write the whole damn thing again.

But I digress. I just wanted to share this great photo of my friends, which I found today… taken over a decade ago back at Fijai Secondary School. From back to front, left to right: Fritz Williams, Moses Bentil, William Ayitevi, Emmanuel Insaidoo, Cyril Mettle, Gershon Worwu, [psss... can't remember this guy's name], Tsemeng, Maranatha Acquaye, and Manfred Amissah.

Where am I? Of course I’m not in the photo, but looking at this squad, I couldn’t be too far from the scene. Either I shot the photo, or I stood aside and opted to be out of the photo (the latter being more like it).

Guys… where are you all? George misses you all, dearly.

Why the silence since I announced my 30-day exercise plan four days ago? I promised to do daily updates but I’ve not had the chance to post even a single update yet!

Since last Thursday, my Internet connection has been all but dead. My ISP seem to have some major DNS issues across their entire network. I’ve also not had power most of this time. And my long time “apartment mate” Cyril packed to strike out on his own last Sunday… so I had to help him with the packing and all that.

I’ll do a batch post of my progress on the exercise plan shortly.

You must have also seen some new changes here on this website, especially the new top menu links — and it shouldn’t be too difficult to guess where my life is heading now. A comment on that is also coming shortly.