My biggest fear as a student is an F or a trail. In fact, that is my prayers on Fridays - that the Almighty should build a very huge wall between me and F. I don't just want to be associated in any way with an F. Just thinking about it Catapults me into a state of frustration and hypoglycemia. Truth be told, there's a difference between fantasy and reality, a difference between what we want and what we will get and to some extent, an uncertainty as to whether our prayers are actually being answered. My first F as a student in the University came to me as a gargantuan shock. Sometimes students deserve an F but others are just "Fd" (past tense of F) by the system - I don't know where I belonged. Nnabi, all I can say is that my heart left me. Words can't actually be used to express this particular feeling but let me try. It was devastating, I had just finished preparing a very delicious jollof rice but immediately lost my appetite after taking a look at my results. The distance between me and a smile was like from Ghana to China. I couldn't even feign it. The world is wicked ooo. Just a certain letter attached to a certain index number under a certain course code can drive a person into a state of discombobulation and depression. I suddenly became a question bank. Questions started running through my mind like Usain Bolt. How? Kaman how? How did I succeed in failing? What does it mean to trail a course? How come I trailed? It is that I didn't learn? Where the questions so difficult? Or did the lecturer intentionally trail me? But wait, how come some people passed ? A network of questions running through my mind. The most depressing part of this is that some people had 'A's. Does this mean I'm a dunderhead? After attending all the lectures, my F was still assured. Hmmm!! Trailing in my first official exam was not a joke.
With all these happening in my head, I knew I had to move on. I knew I had to find a better response to this devastating stimulus I had just been subjected to. I had to find something to hold on to. I had flashbacks of how I studied and prepared for that particular paper. It was almost as if I left no stone unturned but still things didn't turn out well. I began to calm down. I did my best and besides there was nothing I could do at that particular moment to change the results. I had interactions with my senior colleagues. In an attempt to calm me down, they told stories of their Fs. Apparently, it is normal to trail but nonetheless it was my first F. I subjected myself to a serious meditation, trying to find inspiration and motivation. I remembered His Royal Intelligence, Albert Einstein once failed a certain mathematics paper. Thomas Edison failed on several attempts but finally succeeded in inventing the light bulb. Then I realized that the only way we can defeat failure is to see it as an integral part of success. So that any time we face any kind of failure, we know that success is an extra effort away. There's always a second chance. I just had to take advantage of the re-sit. My first F became my fuel, it became the driving force behind my persistent determination to succeed. Sometimes we just have to make comedy out of our tragedies. Failure is not final. Is a marathon not a sprint finish hard!!!
