Day 12: Kowontan Yewande

   Life isn’t static, thank God it’s constantly in motion! 2014 started on a stressful note, imagine been away from school for the past 6months and then you get called back and ushered into an examination hall! It’s safe to say that’s what happened to my friends and I, for me one or two weeks of lecture wouldn’t suffice. I wasn’t prepared, lecturers were at our neck, incourses kept rushing in at an alarming rate, their excuse was “we need to meet up with the calendar” a well rehearsed line by my lecturers, no doubt a general consensus. Looking back at how they all kept saying the same, I’m like ‘really, whose fault? Oh please… quit the charade!’  Well of course, I didn’t get to say that to their faces, they’ll have my head on a plate.

I’m Kowontan Yewande, you might as well call me Wande, sorry about my whining, was necessary to get that out of my system. I wasn’t going to let ASUU spoil my year, wrote my exams and the rest is history. The result skyrocketed me into the next level, I was now a final year student of CMUL (long awaited Year Book Class!). I started the new year with a private party, celebrating the woman I’ve become (smiles). You see In the middle of 2013, I got out of a relationship not so healthy and had told myself I was going to quit the dating scene for a while, which
I did. I can’t tell you how much joy it gave me to live without a care or worry for anyone in particular, what a phenomenal feeling. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful thing to love, but it hurts when your honesty is taken for granted and emotions is being toyed with, my guess is beauty becomes ugly after all, how else do you explain it.

Sometimes we find ourselves caught up in currents and carried along where we don’t want to go, then we find out later that God’s hand was in it all along. As the year went by, I met new people, made a couple of friends, got closer to a few. There was this one friend I got stuck with though,his was just an exceptional case, little did I know I was going to fall in love with him. As I came to this realization, there was so much struggle within me, for the first time in my short existence I was scared to test the waters. I must say it’s very unusual of me, am never scared of unfamiliar territories, how much more a terrain I was quite familiar with. Like they say when you’ve got a bleeding thumb, you can put a band around it, but how do you soothe a broken heart? Once had been there but overtime I was in a better shape, it took a strong will, loving family, friends and God’s grace. A lot of times it’s not in our power to forgive someone who has hurt us, we have to ask God’s help. Between you and I, really had forgiven him (let me help you out, just in case you are wondering who; my ex), I never had any hate in me for him, it was just anger, had let it go and we are back being friends.

Living Life in itself is a risk, so I talked myself in, talked myself out, get all worked up that I let myself down and gave love another trial. And I must say… Even though we go through rough water sometimes, am having an exciting time of my life. A good man is hard to find… true quality never goes on sale. I can only tell you this much and i hope it gets more amazing. My birthday was just around the corner, 12/04 precisely and i couldn’t keep calm! God kept me till that date and beyond (apparently that’s why I’m still here, and someone else is telling fine tales in memory of me). I had a party in school, friends came around, I balled, we danced and rocked. Lots of lovely gift, basically I had so much fun.

“In partial fulfillment” ever heard of the phrase before? I’m quite familiar with it and I must confess… personally have got quite an issue with the set of people that came together and coined the term. I mean why would anyone be capable of giving his/her fellow being so much trouble. If you’ve been required to write five chapters on a project work in partial fulfillment of obtaining your first degree, you probably would agree with me. I started the race against time, my work was experimental and I was required to recruit a total of 915 undergraduate CMUL students in no time. I said to myself the only way you are going to achieve such huge number Yewande, was to go from room to room, Jesus! I thought I was going to die somedays during my data collection when I left my room 17:00, only to return past 23:00, little did I know I was only starting to begin. I had much more turbulent days ahead. A great roller coaster makes you find God when you ride it, the meaning of those words never dawned on me until one weekend (a saturday) just before the week of my project submission deadline (on a Wednesday) when i realized my statistician made an error in the analysis of my results. It felt like someone hit me and I didn’t even know what direction it came from, more like a traumatic brain injury, all efforts to reach my statistician turned futile that night. I switched to an emergency mode of operation, I was frantic and scarred, made a couple of calls that same night and got another statistician, was a very long night. For no reason in particular I had Mma mma by Frank Edwards on replay through that weekend. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone in it, and I was able to smile the next day. Days passed by so quick and day of submission came upon us, I wasn’t able to meet the deadline but I submitted the next day with a late fee, such relieve. At the end of my data collection, my quiet identity cover had been blown and I was now well known by almost everyone that I came in contact with at school, well i guess that’s what you get in exchange for working with 915 subjects! Had promised myself I was going to give myself a treat at the end of it and of course yes i did notwithstanding how much my project research had gulped from me. In between all the stress my only sister left the country, watching her leave was nerve wracking. I hate goodbyes, as a rule I run away and pay for it later. So I wasn’t surprised one sunny afternoon when I started to cry in between an outside posting lecture, I wouldn’t attribute this emotional outburst to the boring lecture but owing to the fact that I was going to miss my sister sorely.

You see my year was quite eventful, series of YBC events, dad organized a 3day seminar and I had to help out, never knew I could multitask so well, even met a long lost cousin and am happy I did. Exams approached pretty fast, my final exams! If you know what I mean, you’ll see why I’m probably twerking right now. On the day of our last paper, we had this signature theme on a white shirt, screamed round school… because we were the latest Physiotherapists in town! The long hard journey of five years was coming to an end. I for one could see the light at the end of the tunnel, just the hurdle of our final clinical exam and almighty project defense left which had us all jittery.
Imagine my horror when I woke up one monday morning (a day before my clinical exam) and realize I’ve got an inflamed gum with a painful tooth( I told myself if this is a dream, please kindly pour ice water on me and wake me up). I pulled through my clinical exam (4unit!) on Tuesday with so much pain, Wednesday came and I couldn’t open my mouth to talk any longer. I went to dental school and after I had spent the whole day there, i was diagnosed with acute Pericoronitis eventually, and my project defense (project was 4unit!) was the very next day(thursday). I told God if I were to defend my work before the external examiner and it went very well, I was going to come back, get on my knees, thank him and give a testimony. In all my years in CMUL had never given a testimony… as I can be shy sometimes, most people don’t quite agree with me on this, so I run away from testimonies. My defense turned out to be an awesome experience, my joy couldn’t be contained and I did give a testimony at a special program organized for my graduating class at Chapel of Transfiguration. During the  sermon, this words kept coming to me; “what a privilege we have to carry everything to God in prayers.”

Through all of the stress, the madness, recess and deadlines.I have already come. I realize at the end of it all, I have come a long way from the Yewande I used to know,  had passed through the school and vice-versa, I’m better, more experienced in handling crisis and troubleshooting, most of all have possessed the right to be called a certified professional from the prestigious CMUL (lool.. Yea I know, but let’s just keep the image going). It’s essential to have a steadfast relationship with God, it’s a sure source of unending joy, as most times than often CMUL strives to take away our inner peace. All in all, thanks to those who made promises they never intended to keep, they helped me learn that my word is my bond; it represents the content of my character. Appreciation to those who saw me through the tedious years in this great citadel of learning, I cannot thank you enough.

Etched in our memories forever is my late classmate Nicholas Adesugba, today 12/12/14 makes it a year since we lost you. Angels continue to guide your way home.

At this point, pardon me but I’ll like to borrow the saying; we started from the bottom, now we are here! you’ve ever seen a view of the sun rising? It’s beautiful.. that’s me just getting started.

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance, never settle for the path of least resistance. Living might mean taking chances but they’re worth taking, Loving might be a mistake but it’s worth making. Don’t let some hell bent heart leave you bitter, when you come close to selling out reconsider, give the heavens above more than just a passing glance. I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
whenever one door closes I hope one more opens, promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance, and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance…. I hope you all dance come 2015.

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