Remembering...

Remembering.

For a day that was supposed to be fun, today was pretty darn stressful. In my tired state, I began to reflect on my university experience, at least some parts of it. So today, I’m gonna write about some really good times I can remember. Hopefully in the future, when I’m real busy, or working very hard, or just swamped with this and that, I can take time out to read it and smile. Here goes...

Year 1.

My best memories here centre mostly on opard. We used to hang out quite a lot back then, and I can say he was pretty much my first real friend in unilag. We would walk around, talking about his many philosophies, or rather, he was educating me about them. He used to sing the weirdest songs too. I remember one day, I was feeling rather gloomy, for reasons i cannot remember and my good friend Opard broke out into one of his many songs, and I laughed so much, all the gloom disappeared. It was like a ray of sunshine on a very cloudy day. Yes. My first year was good. I had Opard in it, and I would not trade him for the world.

Year 2.

Hmmm...somehow myself and opard where not as close as we used to be, I guess new situations and experiences came along. We even had a fight at the beginning of the session, but he taught me stuff, like when things are bad between you and a person, you don’t carry on as though things will never get better, or like you’ve totally given up on that person, unless of course you have.
One major thing I will never forget about this year was what was to be the beginnings of my reading adventure with Ekwi. You see, me and this girl started talking in year 1, but we got closer in this period, and we would read together. We all lamented that who sent us to read law, when we could have been happy dancing for grades or drawing or something, the suffering was still new to us. There was the street light episode, where we had to seat under the lamps at the centre of the road because there was no light anywhere else. I distinctly remember the incident where we had read all night, were very tired, and we had early morning papers. Exams were over for everyone else, so we, i.e my class mates were generally the only ones around. After we had taken a bath, we decided to attempt to rest for an hour before the paper. We even knelt down with our heads on the bed so we would not sleep too much. Apparently sleeping at all was a bad idea because by the time we woke up, we were in pain! Those were the beginnings of what we would call suffer-head days...
I cannot not mention my first real guy-experience that occurred in this year. It was the first time I had someone really like me..like he was quite besotted! It was nice to be able to make someone that happy. Apparently, I would later learn in my experiences, that I could make a person really sad too.

Year3.

As much as I would say that this year was not my best in many ways, I have some really good memories that I must not forget. This was the period in which I started talking with Icicles. Ii remember that after roda one day, he called me up after 12, and we chatted about all kinds of stuff. Little did I know that this was to become a constant occurrence. We would talk for nights at a stretch, many hours, then we would wake up with what i termed ‘talk hang-overs’. Those were fun times, perhaps the best in my entire 3rd year experience.

Year4.

I have two major events that I will always remember this year for: the moot competition and valentines day. I’ll start with the latter.
It has become something of a tradition for myself and my big sister to sacrifice sleep on the altar of business during valentines day. We work hard to bake those tasty chocolate cakes and get them all ready for that ‘special’ day. Anyways, vals day of year 4 was no exception. We had been up for two nights at a stretch and it was delivery time. The day started with a trip to idi-araba to drop off some cakes, then to unilag. There was so much traffic! I remember this because I was to run my errands quickly, then spend the rest of the day with Icicles. But traffic had its own plans. I was quite delayed in getting home, quite tired too. I remember that icicles came to my house to take me back to school, and I still had two stressful deliveries to make. In addition, it decided to rain on that day. He was gracious enough to take me on my delivery rounds, which were once again fraught with traffic. I also remember that there was no food anywhere. Now I’m sure your thinking, where is the good part? I’ll tell you in a bit. At the end of the day, when I was done with all the work and we had little hanging out time left, while I was thanking him for being so supportive and wot-not, he said to me, ‘ You’re everything I want, and then some.’ I don’t think I will ever forget that statement. Because it crowned the day with so much love, and it will go down in history as my best valentines day in unilag, and in my life so far. No one has ever said that to me. So saying it, and meaning it, totally transformed my day, heck , my life. It made me feel so good, and I replayed it over and over, and one day, I hope to God that I will be able to tell him the same thing, when all issues in heaven and on earth have been sorted out.
Next up, the moot competition. That was the first time I would represent unilag for anything. It was such a good experience, for two major reasons. First off, it brought me closer to my partner, Gbonka. I remember that we would wake up almost everyday for a month, head to the law annex, and begin practicing. We would read, memorise, watch a bit of the great debaters for inspiration, we would criticise, fumble, start again, it was amazing! Really good stuff I tell you. Even though we did not win, I was glad that I was able to stand before those foreign judges and not stutter. We made pretty good points, even won our rounds, the points were just not high enough for the finals.
I cannot not mention one of the most amazing lawyers that I had the privilege of meeting during the moot. Mr. Babatunde Irukera impressed me for many reasons. He had absolutely no reason to be there with us, teaching and coaching. He probably had better things to do with his time. But this man took it upon himself to share from his vast experience and properly tutor us in the art of advocacy. He was even willing to pull an all-nighter with us! I was amazed, like, are there really people like this in the world? He was extremely cool, very supportive, and even when we did not win, he still thought we were very good. One day soon, hopefully, I’ll get the chance to work a real life case with him. He, being a major part of my 400 level, definitely made it worthwhile.

Year 5.

Ah yes...the final year. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting this year in a hurry. Lets see...good memories...
Majorly, i will not forget my friendship with Gbonka. He helped me through some really hard times, and hanging with him was such fun. We would go on bread and sardine dates, work hard on my project, try out new food joints, have walking tutorial sessions, strategize on how to go about exams. He shared my burden of finishing with a good grade, and he believed with me. I will never forget the Sunday when I could not stay in my room, I was feeling really horrible, somewhat claustrophobic. I called him out of his room for the second time that day, and we walked to the senate. I remember we sat there, and I just wept, because I was so sad. He was just there, listening to me ramble on and cry, and he understood. He was one of the few people that actually got where I was coming from. Perhaps that night was the cement that sealed our friendship. I will certainly remember him fondly in my university experience.
One of the really good memories I have are of my final year dinner. I actually had a good time. After all the stress, it was really nice. The company, the food, the little after-party adventure, everything was just...fun. I wont expanciate much because I’ve done that already in my previous blog, but I can safely say, I made a good choice in dates.
Finally, I must write about the results. I will not forget it so easily because of how close i was to losing it. I mean, I could very easily have finished with a 2.2, the rate at which I was going. I filled my law school form and put a 2.1 as the class of degree because i was believing God for a miracle, and i most certainly got it. I don’t believe I have thanked Him enough for what He did for me. I will be eternally grateful to Him for His mercies.

My university years were nothing like I imagined it would be. But then, almost nothing is usually as i imagine. It’s usually better. Sometimes worse, but mostly better. It was a great learning experience, and I am truly thankful for everything.