What ASUU Strikes

“I am so confused and tired”

(2:33pm, Wednesday)

It has become so that I write something like this when I am clueless of everything going on in my life. I am absolutely clueless of where these words lead to but I will just write anyway, because I am worried and I don’t know why I am worried. I had written a story I intended to share with you last week or two weeks ago but this one seems more accurate, more aligning to my reason of starting this Substack; to be bare, about myself, which is why I am typing this directly on the Substack page and sending to you directly immediately.

If you’ve been ferrying well through this strike, abeg cut soap o.

I have always wondered if this happens to other people too: I woke up this morning and everything seems stagnant, as though my life does not have a direction. Well, in all true sense it does not but some days you wake up and seem to know what exactly to look forward to. I woke up this morning and there is nothing for me to do. Okay, I mean to say there is nothing for me that I want to do. There are books up there at the edge of my bed but I don’t want to read. There are movies I had written out to check on Netflix but I don’t want to see them. I feel like doing something but nothing, whatever that means. I am so clueless that I forced myself to anticipate the opening of a fellowship class only for me to find out minutes to the time I was expecting the class to start that there’s no class. I have spent more than my usual time on Twitter in a day just this morning. I texted my folks and waited on them to respond, very unusual of me because these days I prefer calling to texting. What is wrong, with me? Does this happen to you too?

A friend asked me last week what I have been up to and I responded, “nothing”. I am not exactly doing “nothing” because I am holding onto two fellowships and they both require more from me than to say “nothing”. What I should have responded with is “I am doing lots of things but I am tired of doing them. Nothing appeals to me anymore. Maybe I am overthinking everything again, or maybe it’s the strike but I am tired of doing them”.

It just occurred to me that I have not really written anything on how this ASUU strike affects me which, I think, makes some of my close friends think I am handling it so well. Some days ago, one of my classmates called me and with the sound of her voice coming out of the phone’s speaker, there’s a little crack of tears in her voice, that any sensitive word could break whatever wall that was holding those tears back. She told me she could no longer feel herself because she had been waiting on the hope of expecting the strike to end, hence doing nothing. It was late before she realized that she shouldn’t have waited. It’s been over seven months since the strike began, and my classmate was just realizing that those months have been a total waste of time. She told me, “I am so confused and tired”.

That call made me realize that I am not alone. My classmate is one of those you see updating their WhatsApp status every day, thinking everything is going on well with them. There is a big decision I’ve wanted to make for a while but has been held back by the strike: getting an apartment. I have always wanted to live by myself and experience how it feels to live alone, wake up alone, cook alone, eat alone and repeat the cycle. Might be a little tough but I want it. I love being alone, naked, but I can’t have that total freedom when I am at home or with my brother. The thought pe I might get the apartment this month and the strike gets called off the following months sits me. Apartments are expensive in Osogbo because it’s a city, (never, ever comparable to Lagos) and I can’t pay a lot of money and not wallow in it.

But not just that. In fact, it’s a simple thing in the whole issue, I just love throwing in my worries in-between words. I am a final year student and even though I have finished my examinations, I am yet to finalize my final project. There was an exam I wrote that seemed as though, when the questions came, I was never a student of the course. I don’t even know what, generally, my grade would be. It is easy for people when they say, “get a job, read books, do other things”, but it is not easy to just throw my mind off something that is attached to my future. If I graduate with a low grade, I will be personally disappointed in myself because mo gbari gaan. The previous strike drained my brain and I was entirely disconnected from anything academics. With this, that I am already thinking of how to put my leg and head out there, I no even sabi anything wey dem teach me for school again. Person wey enter school after me don graduate from state university. The thought of that alone could break you, watching your classmates or those who got admitted after you graduate. If you’ve been ferrying well through this strike, abeg cut soap o.

(This is a thank you to my brother, Adnan, who has been keeping me under his roof for a while now).