Secondary school comes with a whole package of fun and before she knows it, six years is gradually coming to an end with the upcoming Senior Secondary Certificate Examination. A time when all her efforts, hard work, sleepless nights will have to come to play. A time when all the classes she has attended and all the books she has read will play a major role in her performance in the exam hall. It is the examination that practically crowns your efforts of six years with autonomous success. Memories go down to her loving teachers, the ones she can never forget. The ones that even disliked her for reasons she doesn’t know. The ones that left scars in her heart, the ones that placed irreplaceable smiles on her face and the ones that are that contributed a lot to her academic and moral growth while at school.
The exams are here – about three examinations (JAMB, WAEC, and NECO) within 4 months. She has to be serious and at the same time create the last few memories with all her mates and friends including the ones that had been there for a long time and the ones who just made a way into her heart within the last few months. Within the blink of an eye, she is done with her examinations and is already on her graduation gown and dancing all the latest dance steps on the day of her valedictory service. That day marks one of her happiest days on earth and her parents very happy to see their baby complete another phase in her life and about to move to a higher level. She's leaving secondary school and going onto university, where a challenging phase of her life begins.
After her exams and valedictory service, she is back home waiting for when she will be offered admission by the university she has applied to during her JAMB registration. During the waiting period, she gets busy doing all the things she loves, engaging in activities she fancies, maturing and becoming the “big girl” she has been looking forward to and also a worry to her parents; always cautious where she goes, some parents even prevent them from going out, to save them from the prying eyes of men, who are ready to devour her at the slightest opportunity. At this time, with no worries, her life revolves majorly around the having circles of friends, social media life, having celebrity crush and real-life crush, hoping for admission into her preferred school and more.
Now she is getting more mature and getting the attention of the males. A lot of disturbance from guys and she may finally want to settle with one to reduce the attention from others. Many boys would have gotten her phone contact, directly from her or indirectly from her close friends or even young siblings. Surely the calls will be coming in and she will only receive them when alone, so mom will not find out. The day mom finds out and hears her receiving calls from a boy; she gets the big question,
“Who is this guy?”
"He's a friend mom" is likely the first thing that comes to her mind.
Mom agrees to disagree until the day she walks into her room at midnight and meets her on the phone with the same friend. Trust Nigerian mums,
"You this girl, who did is this boy to you, that he is keeping you awake till this time of the night, what are you guys even talking about? If you don't start talking your father would hear about how you have been going around hanging out with all kinds of guys."
Most dads scare the shit out of the children. So sometimes, Nigerian moms play the “Dad will hear this” card to get the children talking. She is somewhat right but some moms are impatient to calm down and listen to their daughters and go about things the wrong way. She will talk for hours, giving the usual lecture, all that just keeps on ringing on her mind is
"If only mum could understand, I’m not exactly doing anything wrong, I really wanted to tell her when he asked me out but I couldn't, I just couldn't and now she keeps on lecturing me, doesn’t she believe in the training she gave?" But, moms know what scares them, when they have a grown-up beautiful girl in her prime.
Next, she receives the admission letter from her dream university and things are turning into a big reality – she is going to the university. All that will fill her thoughts at that moment is figuring how life in the university would be like.
Another stage of life begins; her first day in the university, going through the screening processes and finally being in a lecture room. A new form of learning, environment, much larger than she is used to. And this time around she has more freedom than she ever had, no parents or teachers to guide her, she is open to a whole new world of new people, a new form of learning, new experiences, and in fact new influences. A life in university is a bit stressful, having to deal with lectures after lectures, reading handouts, carrying out researches, trying to make her stay more comfortable, making the choice of who's going to be your friend and who isn’t, trying to stay true to her roots and away from bad influence no matter how enticing such a life can be. Dealing with roommates is a whole new form of stress especially when not all of them are as serious about learning as much as she would like.
Some of the things a typical Nigeria girl might have to deal within a university campus, with a roommate(s) are; dealing with a sluggard, they just are so annoying because they are usually lazy with virtually everything and find the fastest possible means to be idle, then the roommate that bring in people without letting her know before time, these sort of things are usually the most annoying because not everyone is meant to be allowed in most especially those fussy, ill-mannered and malevolent looking kind of people, they just really get her nerves out, roommates who keep on going through her things as they belong to them as well, roommates whose only job is to go partying all night, going out, and coming back home drunk and wasted, roommates that are fond of pushing her to do things she doesn't really want to do.
To be continued…
Waiting for the next part.