SCHOOL SWEET BUT EXAMS...... - Uncle Stephen
I had a friend who to read, he would soak his legs in a bowl of water and for the next twelve years, baba's eye will never close. All he needed to do was just change the water after a while and keep nibbling on his shirt, twisted to become pointy. In fact, to better soak in a particular point, he would put the tip in between his tongue and upper teeth and suck on it.
Na my own go loss? Baba was getting some nice A's after being an O O all semester. I had to join in this exam water baptism so the dove of knowledge can land on my head mbok.The day I tried it, till date, I have never slept a sweeter sleep in my life. The Ura t'oorom abeg your pardon.
In fact in my dreams that night, I was in a swimming pool, wearing my friends twisted shirt, with some nice babes, enjoying life. In the dream I even received a message that exams had been cancelled. I woke up and there was an sms on my phone. Afternoon paper was now morning paper. Hot tears filled my eyes as i looked at my legs looking like i just had a pedicure, and even more when my friend said he tried to wake me up when he saw my leg inside water and I had told him that I was using it as an alarm to wake myself up. He couldnt understand it but exam period na all man to himself.
Night classes are just the worst. You come back to the hostel, eyes red from crashing beta, doctors prescription 8 hours crashing with guilt eating your insides up and your room mates are hailing you Chairman! Master! First class material! Jackie chan! Jacobian! Crowning it with chants of Prof. And you shake your head knowing that if only they could see what had happened, they would realize that you were no prof. you were in crèche, and with the way you were turning left and right on the bench in the night class, and even chewing what you dont know in your sleep, you were the class captain of the crèche.
As if the wahala of preparing for exams is not enough, sometimes you end up sitting with an unfortunate person while you're trying to remember what each letter stands for in the song Mama Put Rice For Jane Inside Big Bus, which makes no sense, but was the only mnemonic you could come up with to memorize the points under 'the importance of an engineer in society'
Psst! Stevo. Abeg number 2 you hear this unfortunate brother call out rather loudly.
You look around and on determining that the invigilator isnt near, you decide to help him.
'number 2 na C'
'oh okay thank you,' he says.
And just when you think, ok! That is it. You realize that who you have beside you is a village people in training personnel because you hear
Psst! Stevo! Number 3 to number 25
Chineke gawd of my geography!
You crane your neck to see the name on his answer sheet hoping it is OLANIYI OLANIKE.
A motherfuckerly, whats strong with this one look begins to slowly take residence on your face while you wonder…. Brother does your hobby in life not include fearing of God. There are 30 objective questions and you want number 3 to 26.
Ngwanu! Take number 3 to 36, take my reg number, inshort take my life, take my will and let it be consecrated unto thee.
Then there are those exams that when your eyes rests on the question paper, you react in one of two ways. Either you cry or you Laugh in a my own don finish way. This was the case with the worse exam I have written till today, ENG 307- engineering mathematics 1. The lecturer told us clearly. I'll set five questions. It will come from so and so place. Easy ba? Brethren that day our collective eyes saw American wonder.
I knew there was a problem when as they were passing the question paper from the front people were laughing. Some were shouting Jesus. When I knew there was a real problem was when I looked at my guy who was sitting in front. Just from the look in his eyes, I knew what was happening. You know that song, the game featuring kid marley- one blood, a remix was playing in his eyes.
(Sing with me)
There were vampires in the city of the question paper, Shouting bloooooooood! Blooooooaaddddd
ddd!
And as it reached me and I examined each question, the song continued.
Question 1 – bloooood bloooooood blob lo blooooooooood
Till question 5.
I read the instruction carefully, hoping somewhere it will say this is a joke do not answer any question but for wia? answer question 1 and any other four. The more I looked at the paper, the more the words in every question seemed to converge into one letter. A big letter F. shimmering and shining, whirling and turning, seemingly dancing even.
Sometimes the questions shape-shifted into single words, all starting with F still. Failure, finished, fool and I kid you not Fufu; of which I had taken two wraps before the paper to steel myself against hunger.
If na like this engr maths 1 be how two go be? We wondered.
Do you know the funniest part? The night before I had done night class tutorials for some of my guys and so for their mind, stevo don kill them (stevo get sword? My razor blade no even sharp) Little did they know, that the race is not to the swift, and it is not of him that willeth or runneth but to him who the lord showeth mercy. All this I said while looking up. Hopefully from where my help would come from.
Some of my "students" from the night before were looking at me like master what must we then do? And With the way I looked at them, they knew the answer. For almost 300 of us in the hall, It was a case of "sparta today, we don get dining table for hellfire "and no be even better food we go dey eat.
You know an exam is hard when the best student in your class is chewing biro cover. She would chew it ever so softly and write small, look up, chew again, like she was sucking knowledge from it. I said to myself lord is this a sign? Must thy servant chew? Because he shall cheweth it now according to thy will.
Nna no time. I started chewing not just my biro cover, but the entire biro. But you see, what is good for the goose is sometimes not good for the gander. Because at a point the biro cover was so sweet that I forgot the number 2biii that I thought I knew. And when I attempted it again, there are some answers you'll get and even without anyone telling you, you would know it is the wrong answer. Which one is -12564.495? mtchewww. I cancelled the nonsense village people answer. Number that looks very Chinwetalu agu-ish.
Exams also give you an avenue to know who is deceiving who. That guy that is always looking like a jonser. Unserious. A -as my uncle calls it- Never do well. You'll see him writing furiously and even asking for extra sheet. Like dude? Which way Nigeria na? No be we we again?
Lord knows after that Eng 307 paper, I went straight to fellowship as did most of us in engineering faculty. Singing loudly and soulfully when they were singing
do something good in my life
but lowering my voice during
he can never ever change song
because I was hearing
it can never ever change instead.
The result eventually came out the next year and praaaaaaaiseeeee the lord,
Children of gooood praaaaay praaaay praaaay master chesus!
I made an E.
When I saw it on the board, what I saw wasn't an E. I saw exceptional. Extra-ordinary. I saw Excellent performance and I rewarded myself of course with three fufu, two meat and because of such an exciting result, one Extra-cold bottle of Guinness.
I cannot come and go and kill myself.
I miss writing exams though.
Lmao! Who am I kidding. The storm is over biko.
With love,
Uncle Stephen.
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