THE FIRST TEST

This week has been crazy, let me say that. To begin with, last weekend I touched no book, never mind that I had an array of CATs. I went over to my pal’s place at Daystar, Athi River, but it is nowhere near Athi River but rather like in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, I skived afternoon classes on Friday, packed an overnight bag ( it’s an ordinary bag, nothing overnight about it..), took a mat to tao, surfed a little, met another friend whom we took the bus with to Daystar, which turned out to be more like a camp, yaani we could have met hyenas, etc..had we ventured into the night alone…

So yah, Sunday night, I was back to this place..wondering where to start from..kwanza I remembered I had a Bible study to attend.. I decided I could skive that one, God forgive. Never mind am the spiritual mother of the group..(am sure u are wondering, spiritual mother??? Anyway, that is a post like the head of the Bible discussion group.)Why they put me there, I will never know but perhaps it is to do with the fact that when I first came, I stood up to greet the church:
The call was like this: “Any first year who would like to say hi?” before you can say first year, I was on my feet with gusto:

“ Praise the Lord!” I admit it did sound funny coming from me, but I kept going, by the grace of the Lord, hallelujah!

I did not want to go to the next obvious statement, that of : “am saved and love the lord JC”.

So I just said hi, my name and my course. Then I sat down. It’s like I got famous since that day.

Back to this week, you should see how I do my CATs, like the devil is at my heels or something; fast. If a CAT takes one hour, 30 minutes later am relaxing and 31 min later am collecting my paper. So anyway, I have acquired this ‘choppee’ reputation.. and I have somehow proved it with a few CATs that have been returned. In other words, I have managed to keep my head above the water.

Come Wednesday, and since am the Class Representative (did I forget to mention this before? How could I? ) anyway, the papers got delivered to my room. I eagerly start scanning other people’s marks: A, 20/25, X gets 17/25… things are hotting up… T gets 3/25, waaa, a rancorous laughter follows from me, how can so and so get a 3? Then there was a 2/25 and louder laughter, then, heart beating, my paper.

And I get the shock of my life:
(drumrolls please!)

A four. 4/25 people. I couldn’t believe it. I blink to remove what could be the beginning of tears from my eyes, Oh my God, this cant be happening. But it is.

I start counting the number of people below me, never mind above me coz that is like the whole class, turns out am 5th from down. This has got to be the worst day of my academic life this semester. I tell my roommates, they don’t believe it either but one thing about me is that I don’t take some things like it is the end of the world. A few minutes later, am laughing and joking about like nothing happened, even laughing at my pitiful marks.

But deep inside is the resolution:
I WILL EAT, SLEEP, DRINK AND LIVE CALCULUS.
The next CAT, which is next week on Wednesday, am getting a 28/25, or 120% of the total. Wish me luck.