MOMMA, IT'S NOT TOO LATE
If wishes were horses, I would be on a journey back to the year 2008. I'll tell you a little bit of my secondary school days and why the I almost told momma that it was late.
I made a decision to join science class year 2008 after my junior waec. During my primary school days, my teachers had always mentioned doctors, lawyer, accountants, engineers, pilots as successful professions.
If you talked about being a teacher or a police man, you would sound very stupid and look like someone without a bright future. Of course, I cannot really remember what I really wanted to be during my early years.
However, I remember I made the decision to join science class because I wanted to become a successful electrical engineer. I actually hated electronics, anything that relates with holding pairs of wires and connecting to a power source or something related.
Nevertheless I chose it and joined the class and I wasn't doing bad. At least I can say I was amongst the best 10. However, my real life was in arts. I was sometimes skipping chemistry class to attend literature class.
I loved reading novels, history, I loves drawings. I was always drawing patterns on my notes. I was always going from street to street to borrow novels.
I had read through Macmillan English from Jss 1 - Ss3 right when I was in Jss1. I represented my school in essays competitions.
Every novel recommended for art class, I got them to read. I wrote poems then even though if I read them today I feel ashamed. I wrote stories.
Deep within me, I was unsure of what I wanted to be. I loved art and everything there but I felt I also loved science and so I continued since I wasn't doing bad either.
Gaining admission into the University till today is made the 5 years of my life miserable. I couldn't get into electrical electronics but got physics electronics.
I started low despite my hours of reading in the library. I was always making researches in my first year. Read tonnes of textbooks on different topics only to discover that questions in tests and exams are strictly from notebooks and has to be hookline and sinker.
Trying to perform the garbage in, garbage out method for physics which I was already losing interest in was hell for me. The lecturers were not helping, the curriculum was disastrous, the lack of exposure and all.
I mean for someone who is trying to develop passion for physics, it would be a land where such passion would be killed and thrown away unapologetically.
By my fourth year, I had already given up on school, on my academics. I was on second class upper but I couldn't pinpoint what I had learnt over the years and I couldn't see a future ahead as well.
December 16, 2017, an idea struck me. I had already gone back into writing which I initially loved.
I started writing during my I T period and it was as if I got my life and that o wasn't living my life.
I was always reading on writing and I spent good hours reading, watching videos on how to become a good writer.
While in the process, an idea struck me December last year which changed my whole life and reconfigured my journey.
It made me realize that I still had one year before I exit school and that I could go back to tell Momma that it was not late.
I had initially gone home to tell Momma that 4 years wasn't useful and that I haven't learnt a single thing so far.
However, my idea last year opened my eyes and it set me on the course I've taken for me life.
Do you care to know?
I would share soon.
Ajayi Joel
