Memories of Secondary School: Survival of the Fittest

-

I can't speak for kids born in the 21st Century; in my days, being a boarding student in secondary school was a bittersweet experience. Sometimes, you were glad to be far away from home, enjoying the extracurricular activities offered by the school. Other times, you wondered what your sins were that made your parents sentence you to a life of misery. Through it all, most of those who endured the boarding experience came out well-prepared to face the uncertainties of life. Looking back, Lagos State Model College, Meiran was a fine formative institution.

In today's memoir, I recall the efforts to thrive, especially in food matters.

No matter how endowed the student was, for most people, provisions hardly lasted till parents visited to restock them or one went home on holidays. Because the school meal was usually small, most students were chronically hungry and sometimes angry. It was therefore, common sense to devise a survival strategy.

In most cases, students who made friends with others thrived better than the ones who went "solo" (living independently).

The benefit of solo life was that you enjoyed your goodies alone; they lasted more than if shared with other students. On your rainy days, you bore your pains alone too.

Students who belonged to one or more cliques needed intelligent survival strategies to manage the demands and overbearing attitudes of colleagues who could deprive them of their food and other items.

Visiting day was a peculiar day when you could not afford to "loose guard." Since most students were perpetually hungry, if you were too slow to eat your food, those sharing it with you would do justice to it. Some students were notorious for being malignantly parasitic on other people's foods. They lacked shame and did not care if they were mortgaging their destiny through food. The Biblical Esau's story paled in comparison to their gluttony and lack of self-control in food matters.

Nevertheless, it was fun. Students who felt offended often reconciled with their villain...

Video inset: An uninitiated student eating with hawks.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Opti-Pessimism": A Balanced Outlook to Life

-
Image
If Alexander Fleming had dwelt so much on the side effects of Penicillin, the wonder medication that saved several lives in the early 20th century, perhaps many of us would not have lived long enough to read this article. If the Wright Brothers had exercised a morbid fear of crash of their flying contraption, which sparked the invention of the Aeroplane, many persons today would be discouraged to travel long distances. Does it mean we should always look at the positive sides of things only and ignore the possible unfavorable implications? No! We cannot do that. While optimistic thinking invented the ship, pessimistic thinking led to the invention of lifebuoy to prevent death of passengers should the ship sink. While optimistic thought invented the helicopter, pessimistic thought inspired the development of a device that can make passengers survive a crash. The inventor called it Parachute. The beauty of optimism is in harnessing resources to improve quality of life, else it is wishful ...
Read more

Vaginismus: Sexual Knowledge Doesn't Always Lead to Practice

-
Image
  In most vocations, sound knowledge of the subject often translates into performance. Sex is an exception ; that an adolescent has knowledge of sex doesn't mean he or she will practise it. As concerned guardians, we often fall into the error of not discussing sex when older kids or teenagers raise the subject. We hush them into silence. Most times, the curious person goes elsewhere to get the knowledge. Unfortunately, the knowledge may be incorrect, causing problems in the future. Our fear is that if the person has knowledge of sex, he or she would prematurely engage in it. We are wrong.   Sexual education can be done in a controlled and morally-congruent manner. Our attempt to preach chastity before marriage has caused some of us to unknowingly, and unnecessarily, illegitimize sex. Young girls and ladies are often the victims of this improper sexual education. Some of them unconsciously develop phobia for sex.  In most affected women, sex phobia is the problem associate...
Read more

The Unfinished Story

-
Image
Chapter 1 My childhood years were filled with pleasurable times listening to my paternal grandmother tell us stories.  Storytelling in the village square by the popular community storyteller was the pastime of many kids during my grandmother's formative years. "We assembled twice a week under an Obeche tree near the Oba's palace those days to hear Baba Aro's stories," grandma said. He told more fiction than non-fiction, I learned. My grandma was one of the few girls who had a Western education when it was introduced to her community.  The popular vocations then were farming by the men and women, hunting by men alone and weaving by women alone. Most girls were made to work on farms or weave with their mothers. The boys who were smart enough were allowed to receive elementary education that was provided by the Anglican Missionaries in those years. St Thomas Anglican Primary School was the first school in my hometown of Ikere Ekiti. My grandma was glad that she had a...
Read more