Month: February 2021

Everyday Living and Inspiring

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Lately, I’ve been curious about careers in tech, and it’s such a pleasure to have this tech mama share her everyday living and inspire us. Ngusurun Hanior is a wife, mama of 2 amazing boys, a beautiful singer with a heartwarming smile, and a great cook (you need to taste her jollof rice!) Let’s get to meet her. 

I Live In…

Lagos, Nigeria. I moved here in 2011 to be with my husband. The things we do for love…

I am…

A Team Lead at a global tech company. I manage a team of cloud solution support experts and have been in the Tech industry for three years. Before this, I ran a professional janitorial services and office supplies business for three years. We are still in business, now run under hubby’s management (now you know the plug if in need of those services).

My day begins…

At 4:30 am or at 4:00 am if I have to prepare lunch for the children to take to school. My work schedule changes bi-weekly, so I either have to be at the office by 7 am or 1 pm. On a 7 am workday, I have my prayer time, get dressed, and leave the house by 5:30 am. I’m grateful for my nanny who has stayed with us for six years now and helps to get the children ready for school amongst other chores.

Work for me is…

9 hours at the office with numerous meetings, tasks, performance reviews, and people management. My closing time is either 4 pm or 10 pm, depending on the schedule. Sometimes I have to stay back for some meetings with other colleagues or stakeholders from other countries in a different time zone.

As the day unwinds…

It takes another 1:30 mins to 2hrs to get home. It should be a 40-minute drive but takes that long, no thanks to the typical Lagos traffic jam (I wonder where everyone is going to all the time, but I digress). When I’m back home, I take a shower, have dinner or fix dinner (depending on how early I get home), homework reviews with the boys, and of course, I have to listen to different versions of how their day went and settle scores if any. Creating time to catch up with ‘le hubz’ is also very important to me. We end our day with family devotions, and it’s always such a delight to hear the boys pray.

What I enjoy most about my work is…

The platform to interact with individuals across the globe daily, and dishing out some intelligence to counter the impressions some of them have about Nigerians.

The challenging part is…

Laying off an employee, as my work environment is strictly performance-driven. It comes with mixed emotions.

To unwind, I…

Stay indoors pretty much during the weekends (except it’s absolutely necessary to go out) because of how busy my workday schedule is. I spend time with family, sing while le hubz plays the piano, or just get some sleep to rejuvenate. I love to sing and like to check out the latest releases of some of my favorite artists. If any of the songs touch a spot in me, it’ll be on repeat for at least a week. In recent times, I love to research different areas of interest per time. 

If I were to choose between work-life balance or work-life integration…

I’d say work-life balance. It can’t be over-emphasized as it is essential in maintaining mental health and productivity. Surrounding oneself with people that add value and make life easier while prioritizing family and other goals is essential. Thankfully work from home is now becoming the norm. This has helped a lot of individuals find that balance.

If someone were looking to start a career in my field, my advice would be…

You can attain any height you desire. Invest in upskilling yourself. Don’t just work hard, think and act smart. Life is what you make out of it and the perspective with which you look at it.

Bonus Question: Camp in the desert for a night or go a month without internet connection?

Just a day without internet connection is frustrating enough biko bring the desert sleepover on!

Thanks for sharing, Surun!

This resonated with me so much. Surun’s career advice sounds exactly like what I preach every day! I don’t know about the desert sleepover though.

If you’re looking for top-notch professional cleaning services in Nigeria for your office, home, or post-construction, hit her up here. Tell her Iember sent you and you’ll get a good discount.

Pancake Tuesday and Nostalgia

.Reading time 5 minutes.

I don’t think I have a favorite food. I have seasons when I obsess over a dish, but that quickly passes and I’m unto the next thing. I also have certain foods I hold dear, not for how they taste, but simply because they remind me of a certain time and place. Mangos are one of such, not just any mangos, Gboko mangos that my parents lovingly sent to me year in year out without fail, whenever they were in season.

Pancakes are another food that evokes feelings of nostalgia. I don’t remember who taught me to make them, but memories of my time at the University are incomplete without a mention of pancakes. They were my go-to food during my broke student days when I tried to stretch what was left of my little pocket money, and believe me I had lots of those periods. Choosing to study Architecture meant buying all manner of expensive paper and tools when my friends in other departments could get by with a simple pen and a couple of notebooks.

My monthly budget always began with my design supplies, followed by printing costs for my assignments, and by the time I got to foodstuff, there was little to throw around on anything fancy. Simple pancake ingredients it was. If you’re picturing nice fluffy pancakes with a drizzle of honey, please be informed my student budget couldn’t afford that. It was the basics. Flour was affordable and sold by the mudu. Sugar, which thankfully you could buy in small quantities. Eggs, if more than one got into my batter per time best believe I had just received bonus pocket money after a visit to my Aunt’s. Baking powder, the cheapest brand at Oga Emeka’s shop. Kulikuli oil which the villagers at Samaru market sold in anything from a full bottle to a quarter of a bottle. Milk was an occasional luxury. Butter? I laugh. That was the student equivalent of premium caviar.

School of Architecture in my day meant being plagued with endless design deadlines that saw us burning the idiomatic midnight oil. With all-nighters came hunger pangs, and what was my go-to ‘snack’? Pancakes. I remember my flatmate back in the day woke up to me frying pancakes at midnight and asked with so much concern in his eyes if all was alright with me.

Only last year, the third trimester of pregnancy saw me bingeing on pancakes once again. I went from not being able to keep anything down in the first trimester to a second trimester of moderate eating, and then a third trimester of carb cravings.

I hear it’s World Pancake Day today. My pancake recipe has definitely evolved as my pockets have gotten fatter. These days it is go fluffy or go home. To celebrate the day I made a pancake dinner for the husband and me. And because our baby is such a little foodie, he had his first taste of pancakes today.

I’ll share my Fluffy Pancake Recipe with you.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons of baking powder

6 teaspoons of sugar (A little more sugar if you’re a sweet tooth)

1/2 a teaspoon of salt

1 egg

3 tablespoons of butter (melted)

1 1/2 cups of milk (I use almond milk, dairy milk will do too)

Mix the dry ingredients. Beat in the egg. Add milk and butter. The milk should be lukewarm, you can melt the butter in the milk for a few seconds in the microwave oven.

Mix and fry in a lightly greased pan. I use a 1/4 cup scoop to get even sizes.

This recipe makes 8 mid-sized pancakes.

Drizzle some maple syrup and enjoy.

Bon appetit and Happy Pancake Tuesday!