Hi, im Ani Kolise im 17, currently out of secondary school looking for admission into the University of Benin(uniben) to study computer science because of the passion i had, Yes had I'm not sure if do anymore, nowadays i feel like I've lost important virtues I once had which is or should i say was my curiosity, my enthusiasm my passion.
I grew up in lagos, mile two with my three sisters, parents and my grandma who lived with us before she passed. Life back then was fun for me not just cause I was little at the time and didn’t have responsibilities but because I actually knew my purpose and what i was made to do, back then at maybe around 6-9 years of age I wanted to be a pastor, pilot and a musician, I sang I had the passion and the talent but never the courage to sing outside my home, at age 12 thereabout during the holiday I registered to join a coding class cause mum said I could use a skill or two in the future and the world is shifting towards what you can do with your hands, my grandma supported it, I didn’t mind cause i didn’t want to be cooped up in the house throughout the holiday with my grandma and my three younger siblings, dad and mum still had to go to work though as their job was a time demanding one.
First day, I met people made friends the class was quite okay at first, the sports within breaks and after the classes ended for the day it was okay but I really didn’t feel I belonged to the coding world, till the next day the first day was kind of a free day in the sense that teachers barely came and the ones that did just explained what coding was all about which didn't really interest me, we had more breaks than class periods. Time for our first practical class, sat beside pelumi a girl i met yesterday, lessons started… everyone trying to keep up with the teacher, He was teaching html a programming language for creating webpages, practical begun I was doing fine following his instructions, he talked a lot about how a single mistake could create a huge problem and how programming languages were just languages used to communicate with the computers, He gave an example of two tribes who dont speak the same language and how they could end up in a fight because they don’t understand each other, in this case the fight would be the error on the pc screen.
Thirty minutes into the class, pelumi had a problem, She couldn’t figure out where she made a mistake and asked me to help I tried taking a look at it,scrolled up viewing the code and finally I found it, there was an unclosed tag in the code I simply just closed it and boom problem fixed as little as the effort may be and as insignificant as the moment was to you reading or to her the girl I helped, that moment was when I realized that your not born with passion, it doesn’t come from your parents, it’s created at just the right moment when you realize there’s something you can do that will cause someone to look at you and just stare amazed at what you can do with your mind body and soul at that moment I found mine.
Four years later, preparing to exit secondary school, last two years were tough grand-mum passed, house quiet, mum doesn’t look the same after, feels like everyone’s trying too hard to be fine which includes me of course. Gained another skill during the past four years, mum says learning an instrument will be useful too, bought a keyboard and started lessons but never had enough time to learn holidays were just too short.
Year 2019, finally got the time I needed thanks to the big holiday( Corona), learnt to play the keyboard but that was all there was to it I just learnt it, i didn’t feel anything, yes useful it was but did I enjoy it? that im not sure of. Life went on, the compulsory holiday had come to an end went back to school, everyday sitting in classrooms listening to words and words, stopped by the computer room during breaks, watched people far exposed than i am coding and I just stare. Told mum I wanted to continue learning to code she said she would find a way but she never did, tried my dad but same story, I had already decided to go into computer science cause I really just want a job
Graduation day, seats full, me happy ill be on a break from teachers for a while, wished friends good bye, took pictures watched girls cry and stain my suit with make up and tears, it was kind of funny and cringe watching people who barely talk to to you come up to you and ask for a hug but it was okay, memories made and i was off got out of the school gate really hoping i never get a reason to go back in, got a job in a Tecno store to sell phones, got a lot of free time because we had little sales also got a lot of queries because I showed up late a lot, I thought about life a lot, sometimes all you need is free time to realize something is missing, where did my passion go? I don't know if it fades the older you grow or maybe I never exercised it, maybe it shrunk after seeing people who were better than me and i felt inferior over a while and subconsciously accepted it, either way right now I’ve lost something valuable something I need back.,My passion is gone.
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