He replied, “same thing”.
One sunny Friday, I was sitting in class, listening to the lecture of the day.
Honestly, lectures can be boring, and your mind can drift away, or you start feeling sleepy.
This day was no different, but our lecturer tried to add stories in between from time to time.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the lecturers who teach us, using stories to make lessons more engaging and keep the class lively.
On this day, the lecturer was one who always told us life lessons through stories while making us laugh. He began his tale, recounting his secondary school days (senior high school). As a student then, he wasn’t very fluent in English, as he was more accustomed to speaking in vernacular. He was transferred to a new school, where his homeroom teacher was not his favorite. This teacher made it a strict rule that no vernacular was to be spoken in class.
The whole point of this exercise was to ensure the students perfected their spoken English. To enforce this rule, his class teacher put a fee for a student that defaulted.
My lecturer didn’t like his class teacher because most days his feeding money went to paying the default fee since he wasn’t fluent in his English language.
As things went on like that in class, he and students who were not fluent at speaking English ended up not saying a word and refusing to speak when asked.
On this day, a friend of his, who is now a professor of engineering in the United States quarreled with a girl in the class. Note, this girl was way fluent in English. The teachers came by and asked what happened, the girl went on to narrate her side of the story. It reached his friend’s turn to narrate his side of the story, and he simply responded with, “same thing”. His friend answered like that to avoid speaking vernacular and losing his lunch money.
We all laughed hard at the story. And it made me realize a lot of things.
However, my main takeaway
Where you are now doesn’t define where you will end up.
Feeling inspired? Learnt something?
Comment
Thank you for reading this piece! Till I come your way again.