Most times after I finish reading my course notes, I ask myself “what actually is so invigorating in reading?” but the response my inner self tells me never leaves a smile on my face, rather my inner being tells me, “you need to read so as to pass because you can’t stand failure in the face.”
I am a final year student of Electrical Engineering, but not an ardent fan of the course I am studying. I am lazy when it comes to reading, but I can finish up a whole semester’s course a night prior to the exam day. I am not intelligent, but I have a Grade Point (GP) that smiles on the board, the type of Grade Point that will make you finish your day with Cold Stone on one hand and a Domino on the other.
Let me not bore you with the description of myself because this story is simply How Final Year Turned Me To A Sane Madman.
My oldest brother used to tell me ‘final year is scary’, but all times that he told me, I always disregarded it because I thought he was not as brilliant as I am. Now I am faced with the same final year, and I cannot but describe myself beautifully as a sane madman.
My school is a Polytechnic, so there was a break of a year (time used for Industrial Training) in my academic life after I finished my National Diploma.
The first semester of my HND Programme started on a beautiful note. New set of friends, old friends reunion, the same boring lecturers and classes, the meekness in everyone, and the little penance I felt for returning to a Polytechnic and not a University. So with that battered heart of returning to a Polytechnic, I called my brother few days after resumption of first semester of HND 1 and asked, “How do you make most of a Final year?”
He replied, “try a little of everything!”
With my brother’s response, after school resumed fully, I partook in almost every sane activity; taught students tutorials, wrote fervently that my christened name got substituted for my pen name in addressing me, did a little of politics before joining the School’s Press Organisation, travelled and attended seminars, conferences and conventions, Played and argued football, Joined recognised organisations on campus, and the one that crowned it all, I flirted, I still do, with almost every girl without them knowing I did.
The semester proceeded with a number of responsibilities that I could manage with my academics, and as I discharged every bit of the responsibilities, I ‘jacked’ my book moderately, having that mindset that I cannot fail, and the worst CGPA I could graduate with is a 3.0 (Upper Credit) out of 4.0. Amid all these, the expeditions, responsibilities and academics, the test of one’s intelligence, first semester examinations, came and went like a flash with my beautiful nonsense caught up in between.
But there is a way my school plays its cards when it comes to result. You’ll crave for it, but they will withhold it until you get tired of the craving, and when you no longer look forward to seeing it, booom! The results come out on the board like a Tsunami, sweeping you off your feet.
Time had flied swiftly and I was already in my final year (HND 2) when the first semester results of HND 1 came out. I had thought, as the usual, that my CGPA should be within the Upper Credit range (3.0 – 3.5), but little did I know that what I called my moderate ‘jacking’ was no moderate at all, and that was the beginning of the making of a sane madman.
On that day, I was fidgeting with my phone and would switch intermittently between replying my Facebook messages and doing something unnecessarily important when the Whatsapp message popped up on my screen. It was my class group on Whatsapp with its long streak of banters, and as usual, I wanted to mute it but the streams of messages flowing in caught my attention. If it wouldn’t be I was overstating it, I would have said the messages were running helter-skelter from one person to the other, for everyone in the group was busy replying messages with, “can someone please snap and send the result sheets to the group?”
Fortunately, a good Samaritan did snap and send them. Without further ado, I calculated my grade, and my calculation had put me in a position that I was with mixed feelings. I knew I read but it seemed I overdid my reading because my CGPA amounted to a point greater than 3.5. Damn, that was unintentional!
How I then became a sane madman was the challenge that came with the grade, which was maintaining it. I, in my final year, was already too harried due to my undulating and seeming unending responsibilities to beginning to strike a balance between maintaining the grade point and discharging my responsibilities which are leaving a O-shaped marking around my neck.
Thus, in a bid to strike this balance, I have become a sane madman, ‘jacking’ extraordinarily to maintain the grade and as well attending to duties as an administrative head.
Now, I have exams forthcoming, I know I cannot fail, but I am not sure if I would pass because my definition of pass, consequence of the present grade, has transcended having a grade that keeps me within the range of 3.0 – 3.49.
I don’t know why I have revealed this now, because this, is meant to be a graduating speech. But till then, enjoy.
PS: This piece is a fiction that meddles with reality, and the writer has only scribed it after a long stretch of time (approximately 11 hours of) ‘jacking’, with short intermittent breaks in between.
broken mirror
Weldone darling
But the first thing you have to understand clearly is that 3.0 isn’t an upper credit in polyib… It’s 3.5…. Polyib makes use of 5.0 for their CGPA graduating GP like universities unlike the other polytechnics…Just two polytechnics uses that grade point all over Nigeria and polyib is one… Thanks… Keep working it up… The Lord is your strength
Thanks ma. By the way Polyibadan has changed its grading system this year. Polyibadan now uses 4.0.
Tiri gbosa for you my boss, my mentor
Broken_Mirror will not kill me. Nice work man
Weldone my son try as much as possible to read well and make sure you bring distinction to me ALMIGHTY ALLAH will guide and bless you, more stories