My Last Days At School 3

2017 was different things for different people. For some, it was the year they got married, the year they got a new stable job but for me, it was the year I graduated from the university. I finished since June last year and I was supposed to write this article around November like Shalom asked me to but somehow, I couldn’t get myself to do it. 

I can be quite lazy. 

But now, it’s a new day (I don’t believe that new year, new me bullshit), so I am giving it a shot. 

I got into school, a private university at the age of 15 or thereabout. I was supposed to go to a federal university but I didn’t make the cut even though it was by a few miserly marks but my parents didn’t want me to stay at home waiting for a 3rd supplementary list that was never gonna come out. 

They knew that that one month wait would turn into one year and they didn’t want me staying at home so that ‘ubulu m a ma la mmanu’. Simply means they believed staying home could dull my fresh-out-of-secondary-school brain. They sat down and made plans on how they were going to afford it for the next 5 years.

You see, contrary to popular opinion, some of us in private schools are not just there because our parents don’t know what to use their money for. They have plans for it but they have to make provision so that we can actually go to those schools instead of waiting at home for admission that was probably never going to happen because of the dog-eat-dog environment common in those government structures.

Anyhow, this story isn’t about the pros and cons of a private university, this is about my last days in school. I had gotten into school knowing I had 5 years, no room for extras because it was already planned, money had been allocated. I got admitted to study Information Technology. Studying the course was fun, not too stressful. I was usually the lecturer’s pet. In fact, there was one lecturer the other students liked to call my uncle. He was also my project supervisor. This name continued right till the last day we defended our final year project. I might have nagged them about it a couple of times but it stuck, so I didn’t fight it again *shrug*.

I made it through the first year, no hassles. The second year was tougher because I came down with something that almost made me think I wasn’t going to succeed at this school thing. I bounced back in the third year, not with a ‘BANG!!! Screw you bitches’ but more like with an ‘I made it out alive. BAM!! WHAT!!’ My fourth year, something happened that made me question whether the whole school thing was worth it. Gladly, I had my internship to occupy me so it was a lot easier to cope with and finally I made it to the fifth year. 

Fifth year. Well my fifth year was a lot of things, I remember the lecturer who kept students who came late to class in the naughty corner. This same lecturer had a class with us one day where he was taking us on waveforms and fourier transforms. It would have been just another day in class except something funny happened. 

You know when you have a presentation in class; let’s assume it’s your final year project, however, it wasn’t you who prepared the slideshow for the presentation. In fact, you just handed the project topic to someone to do for you then on the morning of the presentation, you glance through the slide show and you’re feeling all fly like ‘Bam! I am soooo ready to kill this’. Then it’s your turn to give your presentation and you’ve were having a smooth ride until you get to a point in the slideshow where you’re like ‘Wait what? Is this supposed to be here? How is this possible? Should this even be there?’ At that moment you’re frantically looking at the slide hoping some miracle happens and that you were probably seeing it all wrong. Your panel is looking at you, barely holding in their disappointment, watching you struggle, almost laughing.

That’s exactly what happened.  He got stuck in the first example he was trying to solve in class. He kept looking back and forth between his handout and the board. Apparently he had solved it on the board and the outcome he got was different from what was in his handout. So he was trying to find the discrepancies.

Long story short, he couldn’t. We, the students, all sat down in class, with straight faces and zipped mouths ‘cause like hell, no one wanted to get on his bad side. Eventually, time went out and he had to leave. He urged us to try to solve it with a threat that it was going to come out in the exams and left. Now this is the fun part. We had all been holding in our laughter because like I said no one wants to be on his bad side. We laughed so hard tears started rolling out of some of our eyes. If that day wasn’t a cold one, he would have probably been profusely sweating. Now wouldn’t that have been more fun to watch. What a day that was! 

Talking about my project work, I had a great project supervisor, albeit the long project supervision meetings and the ‘I need you to add this and that’ statements. He made me push myself till I got my project up and running – a web browser based system for sending and locating documents within an organization. 

Initially, I had had someone do it for me because I thought I wouldn’t meet up with the time constraint, which he failed woefully at BTW. However, I ended up using only his design interface. He made me sit down, think and do the work myself. 

I came out a better web developer who knew how to research what she needs done, how to get it done and eventually gets it done. 

Love wasn’t left out of the mix either, these final days in school. I did meet someone. Okay a few ‘someones’ and maybe the ‘love of my life’. I was older, no longer naïve so it didn’t take me long to realize that one of the ‘someones’ was just a fling that was never going to mean anything. This guy legit told me he liked me but he also liked someone else and I smiled through it thinking ‘What the actual fuck?’ The ‘love of my life’ was never actually going to be the love of my life, I eventually learned. Very, very long story, one I am not willing to get into in this post. Another someone was a certain tall, dark-skinned caramel chocolate, who eventually decided to shoot his shot when I was on a pixie cut, body con gown and dark purple lipstick. We still see occasionally *wink*. Hopefully this one leads somewhere.

I got to realize that some friendships were never going to be as strong as you thought they were. I am an introvert, not an anti-social one but I found it a chore making friends so I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had two female friends, tight buddies, or so I thought. I would call them D and A. We were supposed to be like the three musketeers in my naïve mind; one for all and one for all. Some events happened that made me start reevaluating that narrative or illusion of us. However one stood out more than the rest that made me realize it was just me for me from that time on. 

Clubbing is not my scene so don’t start imagining that they set me up to be raped in a club or something. It is not that bad. Haba!

Moving on, in my school, private uni that it might be, we did have fun when we could on campus in the limited way we could. There was always one dinner, concert, music show, bon fire and what not organized by various student bodies in school. It was our final year. I, A and D. We decided to go for one of these events to create one final lasting memory, pictures and all. So we picked this dinner; we were going just the three of us, no dates, no sisters, no dirty boys around, just us. A celeb artiste was performing. I didn’t care much for who it was. It was probably Orezi or someone, can’t remember. I was going with my ‘friends’, which was all that mattered.

I had this bomb outfit made, my contribution for the table ticket fee was ready, all that was left was for them to tell me when they needed the money to finalize the arrangement. Then A tells me that since it was going to be a six man table, they had people who wanted to be on it too. I was like ‘no problem. They are not gonna allow just the three of us to stay on a six man table for an overhyped dinner’. As long as I was still on it, it wasn’t a biggie. She told me it wasn’t going to be an issue. A day to the day, she calls telling me a certain friend of D’s, Lady O wanted some ugly, lying, slutty as hell bitch to be on the table. I didn’t see what the big deal was until I learnt she was going to be taking my spot. 

‘Why aren’t you fixing it? Why’s she in my spot?’ I asked. 

‘She already gave Lady O money.’ She replied. 

I was pissed as hell. ‘You never collected my money because you told me yours wasn’t ready yet and now you’re telling me this?’ She apologized and said she was going to get me fixed in another table. I didn’t care at that point. I just ended the discussion with an ‘Okay’. It was just about making memories with them, I wasn’t going to allow some bitch make me forget that. However, thinking of it got me so angry I was even about to tell her to go to hell when the ‘love of my life’ called, somehow knew I was pissed and I told him the story. 

He convinced me to just get a regular ticket and go with him instead since he didn’t want my bomb ass dress to waste. Long story short, A never did get me another table. I did get a ticket though, a different table with some acquaintances of mine. I still needed those memories, pictures, whatever. They were still my friends even though they were wussies who didn’t make stuff happen for me at that moment.

The D-day came. I got all dressed up, glammed like a slay queen, on some pepper dem gang shii with my highlight popping. From the moment, I was done with my makeup, compliments kept flying from left, right and center. The ‘love of my life’ wasn’t wrong after all. I was going to kill this shit regardless of the little hiccup at the beginning. (And no I never fell down because that’s what usually happens in Disney movies with this narrative *eye roll*). Even a certain ‘someone’ said I looked like a snack *yum*

Picture time; I took so many, I had to get all my good angles, duh?. I still needed a few with my friends. Lady A and Lady S. Well, they were supposed to call me, they never did. The ‘LOML’ who convinced me to still go made sure that those final memories I wanted, I got them. The pictures, yes. Bless his soul. I did make sure I enjoyed the damned show though. I danced so much, my feet hurt. Then the dinner ended and I left.

I later aired my feelings to my friends and how at that moment they weren’t shit. They apologized. However the memory still lingered because my bunkmate noticed.

Lately though, I try not to hold it against them because these same people defended my rep when my ex tried to deny not dating me; trying to make me look like a fool, because he was chyking some girl who happened to be their roommate.

However, everything that happened, albeit the feeling of betrayal, did teach me an important lesson: Most people ain’t shit. It’s everyman for himself out here. That is what I am taking with me into 2018.

All in all, 2017 was the bomb. I graduated with a first class B.Tech Information Technology (yes with all the drama in my life, I am smart *eye roll*). 

So if you happen to need a web developer, albeit an ever-ready-to-learn and self-improving rookie, who also happens to be a bad ass writer when she’s not being lazy AF and a small scale weave entrepreneur, 

I am your girl. Michelle is the name. Till another time.

Written by Michelle 

Twitter: @aniuchia

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Last Days At School 2