Embarrassing Moments: [Ep. 3]: I Mistakenly Sent A Love Letter To My Lecturer!

 Since I got into my school, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, in October 2019, I can bet with the robes of my small intestine that the number of times I have done assignments by myself is less than the number of times Tolani Baj has made sense in two years of podcasting.

I can rub mayonnaise on my scrotum and swear that the number of times I have actually attempted at home what a lecturer urged me to 'attempt at home' is less than the number of times your friends or relatives in the U.K. have returned to Nigeria in the last five years.

Even some of my coursemates can pass a vote of confidence on me, affirming that, in truth, the number of times I have 'taken on' a take-home quiz is less than the number of minutes Yahaya Bello has taken to ponder on how to improve the living conditions of the people people of Kogi State State during his eight-year tenure as governor.

The reason why I don't do assignments or take-home quizzes myself is absolutely not the reason why you, yes, you, this reader, don't do or didn't do them. do them—absolutely not because I'm not intelligent or book-smart, but because I have been an ardent believer in the words of a Pakistani fisherman. Fisherman. "Successful people do not bother handling every chore; they handle the most important and delegate the least important. That's what I have been judiciously doing since my first year.

While I focus strictly on reading for exams, I usually pay all those 'education Juggernautcoursemates, usually from humble backgrounds, to run my assignment.

While I focus on weightier issues of life, such as finding more side hustles to increase my income stream, I set aside part of this income to settle the people helping me run my semester course.

Brethren, that's the kind of "My money speaks for me" type of way I have running assignments, semester in, semester out.

 

But just recently, I began to notice a seemingly 'pride' or, do I say, "sense of self-worth' in the behavior of these guys who help me with assignments and all.

 

In recent times, I have noticed that these guys, who used to have a "humble background, poor parents," have started replacing it with a poise giving "arrogant groundback, rich wallets.".

Not only has their perceived "intelligence" gotten into their heads so bad that they now almost view themselves as demigods, they now also charge outrageous rates for their services.

 

For a two-full-scalf-page assignment that used to cost me nothing more than N1200, these criminals now charge N5,000.  For take-home quizzes that, with my 2,500 Naira, I was revered, adored, and almost prostrated to, these clowns now charge an amount that can afford 140 plots of land in Dankwobo, Gombe State: N10,000.

The kukere waka that finally shattered my dada" was when one certified highway robber, who I trust God will carry arms once we graduate, charged me an amount almost equivalent to the "Nigerian Minimum Wage" to just fill out an in-course booklet.

I blame them, not them! No single blame do I allot to them! I'd rather lay all the blame on the eye-widening crypto, forex, Yahoo, blockchain, and the rest that gave rise to that temerity that made one dude reference the 'rising and falling' of the dollar as a reason why he has now increased the rate he charges for assignments. I blame them not! 

 

Now I see why the Nigerian politicians are hell-bent on keeping citizens in abject poverty. Now I see why an Anambra business mogul would rather take his "loyal boy" to a beer parlor and stock him with 600 crates of alcohol and 800 plates of fish and Nkwobi for free than assist him with 600k to start up a stockfish trade.

I used to think it was wickedness! wickedness! But now I see. Now I see that it's in human nature to always get puffed up when they start eating something other than puff-puff. It is human nature to have their 'taste' changed when their hands start counting some little change. Again, I blame not the greedy lots, nah Binance cause am.

 

Long story short, though, ever since the incident of getting charged the 'Nigerian Minimum Wage' for filling out an in-course booklet, I have since taken responsibility for my stuff. As I said, the reason why I don't do assignments is not the same reason why you didn't do or don't do them. It was simply laziness and a lack of passion for what I am studying, not olodoism.

Actually, TBH, I have pinches of olodoism,... Oh! No, that's too heavy and uncompassionate! I dey try, just that at times, there's this invincible cotton wool that does clone and infringe on some sections of my brain, thereby causing it not to function at full capacity. That clone did what it knew how to do best a few days ago.

So last Monday, around 8-9pm, our class rep dropped on our class WhatsApp chat group an assignment sent to her for us by a lecturer, also at that odd time of the day.

Mind you, this lecturer had lectured that same day, exhausted her two-hour lecture duration, and even took some extra minutes to tell us about her unsolicited success story, from being an ordinary roadside earpiece seller to now being able to board AirPace flights to travel across the world. How she went from squatting in one of her town's men's quarters to now housing about a quarter of the young boys from her village.

 

All those moments she used to give those self-exalting, pride-reeked talks, laced with spices of motivational speeches to conceal her actual pride, could have been enough to imagine, formulate, and give out any form of assignment, but no, it was by 8:53 p.m. that it occurred to her.

8:53? When the lecturer send the assignment? The motivational talks in class? Nah! That's preliminary. That's what English people would call "furthermore," or maybe "looking back," because the actual thing that enraged me was the time the lecturer asked us to submit the assignment unfailingly. 6 AM the next morning. Who does that? [In the late Jnr. Pope's voice]

 

Assignment given by 8:53, asked to be submitted by 6:AM unfailingly? This literally means anyone with plans of beating the deadline will have to be up at the latest by 4:30, take his or her bath, eat, and get prepared all in less than 30 minutes.

Then be sure to put on easy-to-navigate footwear, preferably bathroom slippers, to enable a smooth and super-fast trekking experience, because, of course, except in the case where one is lucky to find a cab driver chased out of his unhappy home by a nagging wife, there is no chance of getting any bike, cab, or taxi by 5 a.m. So how exactly do we submit assignments by 6 a.m.?

With boiling rage, I immediately put across to my class rep and almost wanted to tear her apart on the phone, as if she were the lecturer responsible for my vent. But she's the class rep, for goodness' sake, and a class rep shouldn't just be Dora Ka Dorathy and allow a lecturer to run the class like Sani Abacha's administration.

She should have talked to, countered, and influenced that lecturer into knowing that 6 AM is too early for even the Bornu bororo breed of cattle to go on grazing. A class rep shouldn't just take toxic instruction from a lecturer and pass it on to the people she's representing. That's why I would have preferred a male, active, and outspoken class rep instead.

 

I ranted, ranted, and ranted over the phone while my class rep, Calmly, listened until I was done, then she softly asked, "Ebuka, are you done?

Oh! That softens my heart!

 

N.B.: My course rep's temperament is one in a million! Her type of person can successfully train a lion for 35 years with the notice of members of the neighborhood.

I'm so convinced that even if that girl, unfortunately, falls into the hands of an alcoholic, physically violent, chain-smoking, lazy, irresponsible man by a union of marriage, social media won't hear a few of her struggles. 

 

Rather than seeking divorce like some of these  'biscuit bone Gen-Zs, under the same condition would, her kind of person would hold down her marriage with midnight prayers, believing that one day the Lord would finally get her once abusive husband, Christain Basil, pricked in the heart, and make him decide to join her in worship at Christ Embassy.

 

Now that's the kind of temperament the course rep we were blessed with has.

After my long rant, my course rep Calmly asked, "Ebuka, did you read the entire instruction I sent in the chat group? Did you read to the end?

 

And then it dawned on me that I really hadn't read everything. It was immediately after I read that line, "To be submitted by 6 a.m.," that I went haywire; the screws in my brain loosened, so I didn't bother reading further.

 

Heyyy! Embarrassment cloaked my voice and my entire being!

With all sense of "Be like say I  done fuck up,"

I hung up the call and rushed to WhatsApp, to our class chat group, and after really going through the whole thing, the lecturer, through our class rep, sent, Oh!. I felt stupid!

Yes, the assignment was supposed to be submitted by or before 6 a.m., but not physically; it was to be sent to the lecturer's email address. That was the part I didn't read. A typical instance of one being faster than his shadows, which LinkedIn experts would describe as "not paying keen attention to details,".

 

My course rep would have definitely been laughing her ass out after that call!

 

More embarrassing was that some of the "derogatory words" I used while ranting revealed the concealed hatred I had towards her being a course rep in a male-dominated department.

 

Heyyy! This was so humongously embarrassing that I almost felt like slicing myself up.

But if only I knew it was just a prelude and an appetizer.

If only I knew that this was just John the Baptistic embarrassment preparing the way for a bigger one.

 

If only I had known that this assignment that started with "Come One" [the embarrassing situation with my course rep] would graduate to "Come All" [the public shame that followed], I would not have done it.

 

What's the worst that could have happened? I get dashed for not doing the assignment, failing the incourse, or, worst of all, failing the course and graciously rewriting it next year. That would have been better!

But people of God, despite the warning signals I got deep down in my soul to just forget the assignment—in fact, turn off my phone and sleep off the one I've gone through—I still forced myself. I wrote the assignment and submitted it to the lecturer's email that night.

 

Brethren, Yesterday, the lecturer was in our class again, did her two hours, and was about to leave when this oversabi-sabi girl of global repute and standard, who, if God has permitted, should be sharing the same kindred with Phyna BBN, asked about the assignment. How well did we perform on the assignment? How impressive we were!

 

The lecturer should have just ignored that question coming from that girl suffering from pokenogossiphil (an internal infection caused by excessive pokenose and uncontrolled gossip), but as expected since it was coming from a woman, the lecturer answered.

"Yes, you guys did well. The majority of you did well. But there was one abnormal person in this class who sent me a love letter. I don't know whether it was a deliberate act or if he or she mistakenly sent the love letter for the assignment. But whichever it is, I cover my thirteen-year-old marriage with the blood of Jesus.".

 

Who ma? Who sent a love letter? Who? Please, who, ma? Please read out the letter, ma?

The whole class, including me at this point, was curious to know the content and the messenger of the love letter.

 

If only I knew, brothers...

In line with the ethics of her job, which includes Privacy Police, at first, our lecturer didn't want to reveal the sender of this 'love letter' sent to her email, but due to the Aprokorism of my class, she finally bowed to pressure. [In the words of Nigerian media outlets]

 

She read out the content of the love letter, and, brethren, it sounded like something I had ever come across before. It sounded familiar.

It sounded like one of the most beautifully crafted lines of a letter I have seen online. I copied the letter and pasted it on my Google Doc. I was hoping to use it one day on that awesome soul I'll finally love.

 

Jesus!!! Let it not be what I'm thinking.

 

The lecturer would have actually finished reading the letter and left out the "sender" of the mail, but mheeen! My coursemates were terrorists. They insisted, pleaded, begged, prostrated, and almost harassed her into revealing the sender.

And, oh yes, once again, she succumbed to pressure. She mentioned the name of the mail sender.

 

Slowly "Ebukafulfill796@gmail.com".

 

Ohhh! You should see the way the whole class shouted "Jesus" in ECWA's Zumunta Mata's unison, then turned and looked at me. I couldn't literally feel chicken boxes spiraling around my abdominal crest. 

 

P.S. I met the lecturer and explained to her that it was a mistake, and she understood and forgave me. But to my coursemates, I go explain, explain tire. Maybe, unless the lecturer decides to clear the air on any other lecture day.

 

Hey, Hey, Hey, wouldn’t you love to meet the writer of this exciting piece you just read? Maybe patronize what he does for a living as well.

 My Name is Chukwu Ebuka Fulfill, a chemical engineer by profession and a writer/psychologist by divine ordination who hails from Nimbo town in the Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State. My induction into the writing space happened sometime around July 2011, while I was still 9, when I started writing kids’ church dramas and playlets. I have since then developed a special interest in writing engaging, conversational, fun, motivational, and exciting write-ups, both for viewing and reading purposes.

Before the Chat GPT era, I wrote for notable websites, and have over a hundred works credited to my name and more than two hundred discredited from my name (Ghost Writing Jobs).

I deal with the following writing specializations:

-Script/Fictional Contents

-Blog/Article Content

-Copywriting

-SEO-Optimized Contents

-e-Books computations

Want to hire me for your upcoming writing project? Please send me a message at ebukafcchris@gmail.com or send a WhatsApp message to 09017632896 or 09137414523.

 

It would be an absolute delight to work with you.