Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

In a world where image and looks matter...

It’s been the IAAF World Championships and of course Usain Bolt won both the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4x100 meters and he also improved his own World Records he ran last at year’s summer Olympics in Beijing.

But the thing that has caught my attention was the women’s 800 meters. The winner was Caster Semenya, yet this caused a whole lot of controversy and gossip. This time it isn’t about illegal substances, but more about the rather masculine look, voice and movements of this 18-year old athlete. This caught a lot of people’s attention and questions/gossip started to arise, saying that she was actually a man. She was forced to undergo tests to establish her sex.

These allegations need some specifying though. It is not an issue of female versus male, but of “entirely female”. It is very much possible that she is suffering from hermaphroditism, which means she has both male and female reproductive organs. This may cause her to possess secondary male characteristics. If this is indeed the case, she can be disqualified since the IAAF says only “entirely female” or “entirely male” contesters can participate. Is this fair? Yes and no. Allow me to explain myself.
It would be fair to disqualify her because if she has indeed a Y-chromosome, this means she is naturally favoured compared to the “entirely” female athletes because she would have male hormones. Face it or not, and as a girl I hate to admit it, but men got naturally more power, more muscles and run faster than woman. The stats prove this: Usain Bolt 9,58 versus Delorez Florence Griffith-Joyner 10,49.
On the other hand, it isn’t fair to disqualify her because this is what she loves doing, this is what she has trained for. And then who are we to tell her she can’t run any longer because of a medical condition she did not choose for. How inhuman would that be… Neither would it be fair to let her run the men’s 800m because then she would always end last.

But all this aside, the way this has been handled by the IAAF is just too outrages for words. This woman has the right on privacy and, if the IAAF found gender tests necessary, they should have done this quietly and privately and not, I repeat not, in the very open. This girl has her dignity, pride and human rights and no one should have the right to humiliate her when the whole world is watching!

All I can say is; you go girl! Keeping your head up while the whole world is on a witch-hunt. Going out there and run your race while the public is not cheering after your victory. No standing ovation like Usain Bolt gets just because you don’t meet up to the stereotype image of a woman…

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you

Without a strong rhyme to step to

Think of how many weak shows you slept through

Times up, I’m sorry I kept you

Thinking of this, you keep repeating you miss

The rhymes from the microphone soloist.

Kudos to the one who can tell me the name of the song and the author(s). Hint: these guys are my favorite MC’s of all time.

But I know I’ve been gone for a very long while. The fact is that I just did not know anything to write about. It’s not that there has nothing happened to write about, it’s more about not knowing how to share it. Isn’t this what they would call a writer’s block? Anyway, I think I have found a subject to write about and I’ll see where it takes me. It can become a long post or a short one, I don’t know because I am not the type of writer who has written everything inside her head and only needs to note it down. I am writing down what my feelings tell me at this very moment.

Here it goes. It was last Saturday and I was on my way home from a day in town. Because there was a fire at my home station a few days earlier, there was only a train every hour, and of course I missed it so I had to wait for the next one. While I was sitting there, it was around 6pm, a bunch of guys who were celebrating a bachelors party arrived my gate. Some of them were already drunk, some were sober but one of the guys started a conversation with me, and soon the whole group joined the conversation.

Since it was a bachelor’s party, the subject turned to relationships of course. They were all surprised I was still single because –and now I am using his words- “I was a foxy lady”. I mean, really? Am I a foxy lady? Maybe the magazines are right and the super skinny girls are becoming out of fashion, but I’ve never heard that my type of girl –I am more like the Jennifer Hudson type- can be described as foxy… Most men prefer to call that “fat”. Anyway, I love my curves.

But one thing the guy said kept lingering in my mind - “luckily you are not wearing asocial earphones because that screams: stay away from me, I am not available for any kind of social interaction”. I must say, he might be right. When you are stuck somewhere and you switch on your iPod, you are shutting yourself off from everyone around you and then other people who, at first, thought you looked interesting, might not be interested anymore once they see the earphones. That is indeed what I have noticed in the past 3 years. You get on the train each day and you often see the same faces, but you never ever spoken to them, because we are all locked up in our little world.

Body image decides for a large part whether people notice you on the street or not. That and a banging body of course. But since that banging Angelina Jolie body is a utopia, I will have to work it with my persona and style. You cannot be too diva-like because that seems to scare of the people from actually walking up to you and starting a conversation. The main problem here is that I am addicted to my silk scarves and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses… The other mistake is the girl-next-door-look. She might be a beautiful girl, but you never notice her because she can easily be overlooked because she just does not stand out, matter of fact, she just blends in the crowd. Yet again, this is/was I, even though I try to stand out –maybe a cute accessory, a piece of clothing that shows my slim waistline with curvy bottom or something else that pulls the attention- but sometimes I cannot help to notice I look dull and even boring. I mean, I would never start a conversation with myself on those days because I would not even notice I was there. So then what does do the trick? Well when I was waiting for my train in the morning, a girl with a very short skirt was also waiting on her train and when a group of guys passed her, they asked for her phone number. Fine, I admit, I wouldn’t want to get asked for my phone number because I was wearing a skirt that barely covered my ass, but still the fact remains that she was asked for her phone number. Now what does this mean: most guys don’t care about conversations, all they want is a girl that wears a short skirt and has a banging body. Solution: I’m single and that’s how I will remain until the day that men stop being so superficial!

PS: The song’s title was I Know You Got Soul by Eric B. & Rakim.