SCHOOL BREAK, LESSONS LEARNT

Well, I know you should be used to my lapses now, Adriel, but as a figment of my imagination, I am sure that you have resigned yourself to your fate…lol…ok. I shall try to treat you better this upcoming semester. Anyway, guess what happened after the exams? I met this bloke at the pool, supposedly from the States. He’s nice and young and a very good swimmer. He’s also a very patient teacher – believe me, he’s very patient cos he seems to derive some kind of joy in helping people learn how to be swimmers. I once told him that he’d missed his calling – he was supposed to be the trainer for those Navy Seals people that had to know how to swim first before going about their secret missions.

Wait…I’m rambling. Anyway, exams are over, and I had to redo only one of those courses’ exams. So the damage to my grade point average is quite minimal. Mum is out of the country to some conference for shrinks around the world, and it’s a relief because she is not studying me with those knowing eyes around the house. Towards the day she was traveling, several times I had the urge to scream, “Yes! You are right! I have been hiding something important from you!” It was quite an effort to actually fight my mouth – it just wanted to blurt it out. My younger brother is so busy trying to maintain his first class grade point average and still create a social life for him self at the same time. It is not an easy task, he tells me all the time, or as we say it in Nigeria, “Ko easy!”

He’s so busy that he doesn’t realize that Mum is trying to make me confess something
with her silence-works-wonders method. If he could tell he would join forces with her as usual and frustrate me out of the house – which is not an option because school is on break.

I’m rambling again.


I was talking about Douglas, or donald or what’s his name – the American. Ok, I know it will not amount to anything but I have to tell you Adriel, the guy is cute! And he is well built. Ok, I hear your preaching in my head – “Thou shalt not lust after a man”. But surely I can do it with only you knowing, can’t I? No one else would know. Honestly the guy is so cute, but I am beginning to think he might be gay – can you imagine he keeps turning down offers by babes, and I do mean babes – fine, hourglass – shaped beautiful ladies, not girls like me, with my chubby cheeks and irrepressible grin. Just last week, this fine babe that I have only seen in campus magazine came to the poolside to “relax”, and before I could say Jack Robinson, they were having a conversation.

Adriel, between you and me, her phoneh (phonetics) was forced jare. I mean, you could hear the false ‘h’s that she was putting before every vowel. Don had been sitting by me – he’d come over the second I emerged from the changing room, and started attacking me for coming an hour late, when she had called back to the pool for help. Apparently he had been helping her perfect her backstroke or something. I simply pushed him towards her, and told him to give me time to settle down. My guess was that the helping hand he was giving her would turn to lunch and then to a dinner invitation. A fine girl like that could not possibly pass up such a tasty morsel (yes I know he’s not edible, but Adriel, the guy is good enough to eat). If you had been there I would have bet my remaining allowance on it, but do you know, Don disappointed me o – and the chick of course. He kept coming back to me to talk, and even in the pool, he would swim towards me for a few minutes.

Come to think of it, my conclusion has been revised. Its either he’s gay, or he’s trying to portray to the world that we have something going on. Now you know that After Fred, I simply cannot even cultivate any kind of feelings for another guy again. I mean, would I not be stupid, knowing that all they want is sex, and I do not come with that option (or even the urge). Plus I know now that Fred must have had what one of my crazy friends calls “an arrangement of mutual agreement” friend (AMA), since he did not pressure me for it in the first few months. If Don is gay, it will be a shame because he deserves some TLC from a loving and giving woman. But that is his choice.
Everyone has finally forgotten “the swimmer girl”. I am so glad that is over. Its been so long now – about four months right? I am sorry that I have not been very constant with my letters, but you will understand that I had exams and then I had to settle that missing result issue and …and… a lot of other things. Sorry. Anyway, the story is dead, I clipped the articles in the newspaper though, so I can keep them and show my grandchildren in case they decide to be heroic, to show them that they can help out, but for the right reasons…lol. Don’t mind me, it’s not as if I don’t daydream sometimes about where I would be right now if I had accepted that prize. I know that I would have changed a lot of things for my family, and even friends. But I crash land again back to reality, and like today, decide to work hard at making money.



Lessons learnt….hmmm…let me see, for one, I still have to live with those …er…babes in that room for another semester, so I must never let my guard down. Ever since that showdown in the room, the three evil babes have been watching me with malice in their eyes. Even my cheerful greetings does not get through to their thick brains. My own upbringing frowns at keeping malice, so I see them as children still sulking over flimsy issues. As I do not really spend time in the room, it is not an issue for me. ijeoma on the other hand, is even more friendly. She got my number from one of my classmates that came to look for me (I was careful not to give her personally), in the name of having credit to use to call me so I could be located, and since then she calls me just to greet me almost every two days. Its disconcerting, because I have a feeling she thinks because I defended her to those hypocrites, I did not disapprove of what she did. I am still trying not to offend her sensibilities (remember she’s a tall, lithe, and strong babe, with every – present manicured talons), but if I reach my limit I hope I do not do anything drastic for my health.
Then another lesson I learnt this semester is that I must check my results with the lecturers in charge, even before the general list is pasted. This is necessary so that I can take the necessary precautions, like searching for a result if it’s missing. That is about it.
Oh, and another lesson is to always seek to help, but not for recognition. I still feel good about not coming forward, and I enjoy the really good feeling a lot, particularly when I have another bout of depression about being good for nothing and stuff like that. It did wonders for my soul when I was depressed after breaking up with my ex. I felt worthless and absolutely ….er… not worthy of another man’s love, but then I remembered that even if I didn’t deserve another man’s love again, at least I was not worthless – while about fifty people stood by watching I had saved two precious lives. If that didn’t mean God still counted me useful then my thinking faculties needed retuning.

I think overall, I have decided to find ways to help others.