Inspired by Labbie's Hi
All things being equal, I hardly ever and in this moment wouldn't have written a nonfiction piece. Not that I would feel guilty or judge myself in my writing while writing a nonfiction piece about me. Instead, it is just that nonfiction pieces are so engulfed with realism that they paint pictures of my realities just the way they are.
If I make a writing that paints my realities just the way they are, I'll feel naked. I'll feel that even though I'm not judging myself, the reader of my nonfiction piece would read about me and judge me from seeing the depths of my folly or indecisiveness.
So in this writing, I am putting my fear aside and I'm walking through time and backwards to my admission year. I was taking a preparatory program for the Interim Joint Matriculation Board Exams (IJMBE). Students who take the IJMBE get to boycott the first of university and start their program from second year.
And so I had taken the IJMBE, and although I passed the exams, I didn't gain admission through the IJMBE means. I got admitted through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exams and that was the beginning of the first year and everything.
In my first year I was calm and so drenched with anxiety that whenever I was in a public space where I was going to be the cynosure of all eyes, I dripped anxiety.
When we got called to stages in groups, I would arrive on the stage in time so that I take a safe position fast. A safe position is a spot behind someone who can be a cover. To be a cover, you'll be taller or bigger than I am. If a safe position is almost eluding me, I would move frantically until I find a safe position.
But the times and happenings of that first year are long gone and the follies of those times are plaited with the archives of my little history. The dividend of the follies however is that starting from my second school year, I learnt to no longer be a freshman or present myself as one.
So I was a second year student of pharmacy and my first major blow got dealt in having a "repeat" at the end of the academic year.
Admittedly, I have been lazing around and disregarding the intense efforts our courseworks calls for. I didn't know that the consequence of my lazing around was going to be severe. The outcome was repeating my second year with few of my classmates who got dealt the same fate.
The height of my anxiety rose to its topmost when I found myself in my new class. This was when I felt most anxious and self conscious. I would be seated in the middle of the class, most often at y = -2, x = 0, yet I would feel the whole class was peering at me.
Once or twice, when a lecturer asked every repeater to signify, I got really ashamed. At other times when lectures are ongoing, I remember listening to the very same explanations the academic year before. This makes me sad and I wished I had taken my school work more seriously.
At this time my former classmates who got promoted were now in their third year and my junior colleagues who promoted from first year were now in their second year. Now to avoid coming late to class and having to shove through the class rows to fetch an empty seat in the midst of my new classmates, I choose to come early for classes.
I was taking every course I had taken the previous session again. As a result and particularly in the row that I consistently sat in, some of the new class members were asking me about the courses. In asking for my opinion, some questioned me in a way that showed some reference for how I was still a senior colleague a few months prior. It felt like they were trying to say
"don't feel you're not book bright, you were just unlucky to have repeated this class".
Others questioned me like I was simply a classmate and didn't hold any perspective for my taking the class all over. Usually, I would explain the best I can but sometimes, I got quite anxious and would be done with my opinion of a course work in two sentences. I'd simply say
"The course isn't difficult. Just attend classes and take notes".
I cannot remember asking any question in class in that academic year. I was quiet and collected but as the months progressed I was labelled as one of the most gentle classmates. Taking this class again led to the eventual realization that secondary school courseworks are miles apart from university courseworks. The latter is far voluminous and difficult.
As the months went by, the intensity of my anxiety lessened and I felt more natural in the class. When I walk through the corridors, I'd see my former classmates who in the early times greeted me with consolatory looks in their eyes. Just like I expected, my repeating mates shared the same experiences but in somewhat different manners. In all, we all wished we had progressed to our third year.
In really rare occasions, some of my repeating mates have had to talk harshly to condescending classmates who insinuated that they repeated the class because they were lazy or weren't smart enough to have progressed. In my case, I was truly lazy but interestingly when the academic year was over, I progressed to the third year.
Today when I think about those times it feels like a dream. For the most part I feel indifferent but I know those moments are now gone and embedded in the deep archives of my little history.
Sometimes in the future, maybe in a decade or two decades, or in much longer years when I get to think about those times, perhaps I would want to sit down once more in our El-said and Marquis lecture theaters. Perhaps, I'd love to attend a laboratory session to see people in their protective gear maneuvering test tubes with fumes rising up fume cupboards.
Maybe sometimes in the future when I get to reminisce about my past, I would be submerged by the intriguing thoughts of it. But today I remain bland to the mixed memories of my past. I am only taken by thoughts of the future and what the prospects and opportunities are for me.