Category: ARCHIVE

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 7)

If we had exceptional results at the end of freshman year, we could cross to Medicine. And so many of us did excellently well. Hopes were high. Excitement levels were fever pitch. Some started buying textbooks for Premedical classes.

Then again, the oddly unique thing happened. There was a new provost in the College of Medicine who wasn’t so excited about crossing into Medicine. So, he banned it for that year. Again, this was the first and last time something of this sort happened.

We were heartbroken. We were disappointed. We had had high expectations that we had missed up to 5 weeks of lectures in our parent department. Everywhere looked bleak. Many of us were further disillusioned by our senior colleagues who told us that all we achieve as a physiologist graduate was a lecturing job. That sent shivers down our spines! So, that ‘disorientation’ caused us to search within and without for what we could do with our lives. Now, we are still pretty much confused. But this time, it isn’t because we don’t know what we want to do. No, it’s because we are spoilt with various mouth-watering career paths to pick from!

As I glance over my shoulders, I can’t help but to see God’s hand at work in The Platinum Set of students admitted into Physiology in 2009. He caused us to be beacons of light in a place where that had been the darkness of anonymity. He caused us to be rivers in a dry and weary land. We are salts that are adding flavour and taste to where there was none before. Despite all the ‘oddities’, we have pulled through. Suddenly, we find ourselves as a point of reference, as a result of our ‘uniqueness’. We are condemned to Greatness, so, you’d better stand by to be stunned!!!

CONCLUDED.

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 6)

Another chemistry course was Inorganic Chemistry. Majority of high school chemistry was inorganic. So, my approach to preparation for this course was lax. Soon, it was exam time and when I saw the questions, I almost chewed my pen halfway. There were 50 questions, each starting with ‘WHICH IS ODD?’. Then there were 5 extremely similar options to choose from. How were we expected to fish the right answer out? Well, all I know is that I passed!

We also had fond memories of our Physics courses, especially the BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICS II. The name struck me as something like a movie series. Interesting.

However, when the time came for the exam, I didn’t find anything amusing about the course. The course was just too abstract. I couldn’t relate with it. I had never been a fan of cramming stuff and I would never be. That’s why I try to understand whatever I’m taught. The bottomline’s that I had never before in my life written an exam like this one! There were options for each question. And naturally, only one was the correct one. Only that, I couldn’t relate to the questions. They were hostile. The fans in the exam centre were on, yet I remember sweating profusely.

I had 2 hours for the exam. An hour and half later, I was at Question 3. Out of 35! I was even sure the answers I picked were correct. Soon, I saw my self shading the answer paper randomly. It was THAT bad! At the end of the paper, I was earnestly praying to have the passmark, which was 40%. I knew I had no hope of passing. Eventually, when the results were out, I passed and got higher than my expectations.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 5)

Physical Chemistry had been overhyped for us. And rightly so. The Almighty 157 was responsible for sacking over 100 students the previous year! Everyone was afraid of being nipped at the bud. So, many faced the course, at the expense of other courses. Different weapons were flashed in the face of the enemy course. I started reading overnight, solving past questions, going for classes earlier than normal, and the works. It was also at that time I started praying like I won’t read and reading like I won’t pray. It paid off. At least for me. 70% of the students who wrote the course failed it. I didn’t get a ‘WOW’ score like I used to in high school. But hey, I didn’t fail!

The funny thing about this course was the exam format. All past questions that I used for practice were in the Multiple Choice Format (MCq). However, in my set, the format was changed! We had to fill answers into blank gaps! I never fully grasped the course but I had been relieved that there would be options to work my calculations towards. And, as was the case of the UME scores, the format was reverted back to MCq after my set. And it has not been tampered with again!

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 4)

As at the time I was running around for my admission, I had not written my SSCE. When the time came for that, I made up my mind to do very well. And I did excellently well.

So, here I was, ‘overqualifying’ for the course I had changed to. I had a weighted score of 75.6 while those who had a weighted score of about 66.0 but didn’t change their course were picked for Medicine. I consoled myself with two facts. One was, I wasn’t the only one with my predicament. The other was the mouth-watering prospect of changing back to Medicine, if I did excellently well at the end of my freshman year.

I soon finished with high school and the rest of 2009 was uneventful. There was also a general strike in all public universities, including UI. You can check my post, ‘ Strike Three- You’re Out!!!’ for more on that.

January 2010, all universities resumed work. I and all my classmates with a similar situation with mine devoted ourselves to ending our freshman year with excellent results, so we could cross back to Medicine. There were more than a couple of shocks and surprises waiting for me. For example, I had thought that high school Physics and Chemistry were the last in my life. Instead, I was met with 5 physics and 4 chemistry courses. That, for a freshman!!!

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 3)

Days later, the results were out. I rushed out to check my score online. 225. 225 out of 400! I was sad. I fought back tears. Then, I cried. How was I ever going to study Medicine with such a score?! Though I had been convalescing when I was writing the exams, I couldn’t forgive myself for falling ill at that time.

So, what was the next step for me? Staying at home till the next year’s UME was not an option!

I soon found out that I could change my desired course to one that was not as demanding as Medicine, in terms of admission requirements. Then after obtaining admission, I could always change back to Medicine. The idea sounded good. The only clause was that I could only make use of this card once. Fair enough! So, I changed my preferred course of study to Physiology.

If only I knew the events that would unfold as the days went by…

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 2)

The story starts with me.

At least to some extent I got to know myself before meeting other people. In high school, I was somewhat an all-rounder. Academically. Though I was never the sporty type, I was quite playful. Looking back, I have discovered that I excelled in all my subjects, despite not always reading. I was neither a geek nor a whizkid. All I can say is that there was, and still is, a grace working in me.

So, because I performed well in my subjects, I was persuaded to pursue a degree in Medicine. At that time, I had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. All I knew was that I wanted to be where the brilliant students always went to. And in this society, that was Medicine.

My stay at in high school was drawing to a close and soon it was time to sit for the University Matriculation Examinations (UME) for the year 2009. I got the forms and filled in for Medicine and Pharmacy for the University of Ibadan and the Obafemi Awolowo University, respectively. I got the necessary materials for practice and started my preparations in earnest.

About 3 weeks to the exams, I came down with typhoid fever. The sickness was so severe that I gained admission into an entirely different institution. A hospital. The day for the UME exams drew nearer and near. And I was unable to prepare. In fact, I was discharged from the hospital about 4 days to the D-day.

On the fateful day for the exams, I was less than a shadow of myself. So, I went in for the exams, did my best and came out…

TO BE CONTINUED…

The Platinum Set: Odd And Unique (Part 1)

In a bid to outstandingly stand out from a selected group of people, it is imperative for one to possess something that the others do not have. In my post, ‘The Real McCoy’, I talked about the fact that each individual is the only one of his kind. Others may be similar but they are just not quite the same. Unsurprisingly, a way to stand out is to realize that one is unique and consequently choose to be noncommittal to the norms and unspoken rules of the community or society. I searched my mind for the best example I could use to buttress my point. I couldn’t come up with anything better than the set of students to be admitted into the University of Ibadan for the 2009/10 Academic Session. Especially those of us who were chosen to study Physiology.
The story starts with me…

TO BE CONTINUED.

Auto Mode

The basal ganglia is a portion of the brain that is respönsible for some of our especially unique behaviours in our day to day activities. For example, when we were younger, we found it difficult to perform the skilled movements of our hands when writing the different convolutions of the letters of the alphabets, as well as the numbers. Now, when we write, we simply think of the words or numbers that we write and not the individual complexities of each alphabetic or numeric symbols. The same phenomenon occurs when you compare the ball juggling skills of an accomplished player such as Lionel Messi and those of an unsporty person like myself. For Messi, controlling a football would almost be second-nature, while I would have a hard time staying on my feet. The only reason why you could write so well without stopping to think about how you actually wrote is due to the fact that you’ve kept on writing and writing over time. Also, Messi’s ball control skills are impulsive because he has continually played the ball on and on and on.

You have the capability of going into an automatic mode without consciously thinking of what you are doing. And during this automatic period, the character you exhibit is a product of what your habits have been over the course of time. For example, there was time I found myself in an awkward situation where I had to give a minispeech. I did not know what to say. I consciously thought of a few limes but they were not going to be enough to carry me through the speech. So, I just started talking! I was not actively thinking but I was just talking. Soon, I started listening to myself and I found out that I was making sense. What I was saying was acceptable. It could have been better, however, if I had been feeding my mind with more edifying materials than comic strips, novels and school books.

The basal ganglia is not the same as the mind, since the basal ganglia is only concerned with the subconscious performance of voluntary motor functions. However, they are both dependent on the principle which is our minds. Just like the evolutional theory of use and disuse, if Messi would suddenly decide not to play ball for a considerable period of time, ball control skills would no longer be second nature to him. The same applies to our writing skills. In the same vein, if we develop good/bad habits consistently over a period of time, whenever we enter our ‘automatic’ mode, we’d naturally ooze with good/bad, as the case may be.

The good news is that it’s never too late to pick a good habit or drop a bad one. Psychologists have discovered that it takes only 21 days to learn a new habit. So, why not purge yourself of all bad habits and make up your mind to feed yourself with positively edifying material. In the end, it would all be worthwhile.

Because You Don’t Believe Doesn’t Make It Less True!

I had a discussion with a friend of mine not too long ago. He was shedding more light on some simplistic truths about life that seemed so good to be true. I like calling thes truths, ‘CHUNKS OF SOLID MEAT’ because you have to possess some level of maturity before you can believe them. I’m still having a hard time recovering my equilibrium after being hit by these truths. While I would not talk about these particular truths, I would like to talk about our attitudes to the truth. Especially when it is too good to be true.

Yes, we are living in a world with a lot of scam mails, get-rich schemes, lies and deception. And these have caused us to build an invisible wall around our minds as to what we decide to accept. In fact, we always point back to the fact that the quickest believers always need broad shoulders to bear the consequences of quick believing. True, trusts are betrayed on a daily basis but amongst that rubble of trash, there can always be the place of the pure truth.

This is the point where intuition and discretion are paramount. God has placed in the heart of every man a kind of sixth-sense gut feeling. Some could call it conscience but it gets sharper and more accurate when one is filled with the Spirit of God. This intuition/discretion/conscience plays an important role in helping us to sieve all that would come to us posing as the truth. Eventually, after our hearts and minds have tested all things, we are left with the truth(s).

Indeed, the reason why many people are hurt by easily believing whatsoever that comes their way is because they believe on impulse. Once the information appeals to their emotions, they immediately jump on it make it theirs. Acting this way is dangerous. Dont be brash. When next you are faced with a truth that you find so hard to believe, please do not hold on to your emotions, past experiences, personal prejudices or what other people feel about it. Instead, test the truth with your gut and if you have peace within you, you can go ahead and embrace it.

The Narrow Way

When I was much younger, I used to have a uniquely funny imagination of heaven. I had just read the words, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’. I was scared! At that point, I made up my mind that when I died (at the ripe old age of 120), I would ensure that my soul remained stable on the ‘straight’ road to heaven, so I won’t slip off and fall into the eternal flames of hell. I also told myself that I would try as much as possible to squeeze myself through the narrow singular gate to heaven, peradventure, with patience, I would find a way through. And you thought I was smart!

As I grew more matured with age, I discovered some basic truths about this whole Heaven and Hell business:

1. God did not make Hell for human inhabitation. It was meant as a centre of punishment for the devil and his cohorts. However, God loved, and still loves man so much that He gave man the freedom of choice. Thus, where man would spend eternity is a by-product of his choices while he was alive on earth. And by that, a man can partake of the punishment meant for the devil and his demons.

2. If you have time to read through the Book of Revelations in the Bible, you’d discover that Heaven is soooooo big. So big that if every individual from the time when man was created till the end of time itself were to have a mightily large mansion each, there would still be ample space left. Why then would God make Heaven this big, if He only planned to allow a few people to trickle in? Arbitrariness and disorganization are not part of God’s characteristics. Reading carefully through the book of Revelations, we find that at the end of time, the population of Heaven would be so much more than that of Hell. People from all tongues, tribes, nations and colour are going to be in Heaven. Hell is a crammed up place. It is a place of population explosion, so to speak, because the ‘resources’ of Hell were only meant to ‘cater’ for satan and his demons, not man!

3. Also, from the book of Revelations, you’d discover that Heaven has 12 extremely large gates that are ALWAYS open. What’s more, it’s God’s earnest desire for all to make Heaven. His Spirit continually cries out to us, non-stop, ‘Come, come, come’.

Phew! Now that is settled, why did Jesus say, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’???

The world is under a great bondage that majority are unaware of. The Bondage is UNGUIDED FREEDOM. A guy and a girl that like each other start living together as husband and wife without bothering to get married. When the going gets rough, they simply walk out of each other’s lives and move on. Nowadays, the rate of divorces are so much such that a marriage now seems to be the prerequisite for a divorce. In the name of freedom, an individual that finds himself in an exalted position decides that the next item on his agenda is to siphon his organization’s funds to some personal foreign back account. People now indulge their apetites and massage their egos at the expense of their souls.

What Jesus had in mind by the ‘straight’ gate and ‘narrow’ way can be summarized into one word: DISCIPLINE. In order to get the very best out of life, we have to subject our natural instictive desires and apetites to that which is right. When one’s highly disciplined, he is bordered all around by the right principles and guidelines. In that way, he’s prevented from staggering through life without a due sense of responsibility. The narrow way is not the popular way (Check my write up on ‘The Novel Way’ www.promisetewogbola.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/63/) and this is why Jesus said only a few find it. Only a few are willing to subject themselves to a disciplined lifestyle.

The narrow way is tough. People would snicker at you. They would taunt you and scoff at you. But at the end there’s an abundance of life in its superfluity. Choose the Narrow Way. It’s worth it.