The Soft Issue
August 2017
Story from Within
it, real life does not apply the laws you are taught in these
four walls”.
am kuku here to read and it will soon be over ‘.
Today is Sunday and I had been in school since Friday to
prepare for my examination and mop up all pets academic
programs before examination starts proper. First semester
examinations of the final year are the hardest so I heard,
so this is a necessary sacrifice to scale through unscathed.
I was so dedicated to this sacrifice that I decided going
home will serve as a distraction not needed. So for the
two nights I have spent in school; it’s been rub and shine
all the way and praise God I came along with a toothbrush
this time. Worst still, I had been alternating between bread
with beans or Fufu or the science burger (bread and akara),
I had to summon the last molecule of pride in me to buy
meat in the last meal of fufu I had; “times are really hard”, I
console myself. My friend and I had sworn not to go eat at
SUB restaurants in our 300 levels, he says and I reasoned
‘we are now big boys and ‘we can’t be letting our WCWs
be seeing us eat bread and beans up and down’.
8:05 pm. It i s time to go home. I cannot come and go and
kill myself, I soliloquised. I
had planned to go home by
4:00 pm but here I am, stuck
between preparing for this
data analysis examination,
taking friends tutorials, doing
assignments, putting finishing
touches to my chapter 1 and
2 of my final year project so
my supervisor can make me
rest, working on personal pet
academic projects, editing
some articles submissions.
Being a student is definitely not a day’s job. I said to myself.
I had not finished solving the past questions and
the time says 2:30am then it dawned on me that I
am yet to finish an assignment to be submitted the
following day , I am yet to take some coursemates
I had promised tutorials , I still have two more
topics to learn before the examination.
An hour later, I had gained no knowledge, I had just
been literary flipping through the notes and I had
been getting the wrong answers for the questions I
was solving. The bout of headache is now intense,
the pangs of hunger was having a laden effect, I
can barely recall three formulas I had known by
heart before, 37 × 0 even yielded 37 in one of my
equations.
Alas! Mental block. Armageddon.
Suddenly, I was in trance and like it happen in
movies; the two spirits in me - the serious and the
unserious - had a dialogue. However, for the first
time they were in tandem and like a rehearsed line
they chorused
I woke up to see missed calls
on my handset only to see
a message “data analysis
has been moved to 12:00pm,
where are you?”
I had barely moved out of the Faculty that I received a call
from an unknown number “wicked boy, you have been
ignoring my calls abi! Don’t forget our deal of you taking
me tutorials tonight I am already on my way to school. I
will get you food on my way. Bye “. So the call ended with
me nodding sheepish approval to her request. Only Sandra
has the key to my mumu button, she’s a good cook and
she helps boys.
An hour class with Sandra stretched to a two hour tutorial
with about five more coursemates. The result - energy
expended, eyes twitched, little pounds of all kinds of
ache. I could no longer go home, so I decided to ‘sleep’ in
school, go home early the next day, rest and come quick
enough by 12:00pm for my 3pm examination. It surely can’t
get worst than this.
I am after all a scholar of data analysis as my course mates
will make me believe, I can afford to have the night off.
Pause! Take a breather,
a deep one. Play back
memories and see how
far you have come and
become better. Now,
relax well, recharge your
batteries and fire on.
I packed my bags off to Lr
6 (Faculty’s dreamland) to
pay homage to the world
of dreams. Then slept till I left for my hostel where I
slept till almost 12:00pm.
I woke up to see missed calls on my handset only
to see a message “data analysis has been moved
to 12:00pm, where are you?”
My eyes twinkled, adrenaline rush, I dashed out
from the bed, took my course form and school
identification card then raced to school.
It was in the bus I saw the message was for the
test we had written and it was dated mid February.
My faulty phone had replayed it bad behavior of
bringing old messages as new messages.
Gosh!
At least, I can prepare for the examination with the
two hours left.
Conventional Student’s life, what a rush. Rub and
shine - Day 3.
I had barely slept for an hour that I heard there are
available past questions likely be our examination
question. I deliberated waking or sleeping in my half
asleep half awake state of mind, I chose the latter option ‘I
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