Living Out Loud {LOL}

The tale of my accents requires a little back story. I was born in the United States. Shortly after, my parents decided that my brother and I should be schooled in Nigeria [It was an interesting life, but that is not the focus of this post].  I picked up an accent there, as I was very young at the time this happened. The Nigerian accent is quite interesting. Words are typically pronounced exactly how they are spelled. Some say there is a British influence on how Nigerians speak but, I beg to differ. I have mingled with British folk, and the Nigerian accent is as far from it as east is from west. A typical Nigerian would pronounce butter as bot-a and water as wot-a. The intonation and the flow of words with the Nigerian accent are remarkably different from Western accents' rhythm. Nigerian Accents- as seen on Pinterest Of course, I was comfortable speaking in a Nigerian accent as a resident of the country. Everyone spoke exactly like me or close enough. All my English/Grammar class...

First of all: Introduction "What is your name?" We hear this question a lot over the course of our lives. Knowing another person's name is the start to building a relationship with them. A typical response to this question is a short one-word answer, uttered without much thought. Most of us are quite sure about what our answer would be. We mention our name and the conversation continues. We tend not to dwell on the topic of a name unless the name is particularly interesting or complex. However, our names will go on to identify us to the world for the entirety of our lives. My name is Grace Ayobola . Even as I write this, I struggle between putting Grace or Ayobola first. These two names are significant to me in their own right as they each represent me in unique ways . I did not always have this mental struggle about my names. Growing up, everyone called me Bola (which is a diminutive of the name "Ayobola"). I had no idea that my first name was Grace until I saw...