The focus for the 34th week (August 21 – August 27) of the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge was:
Things You Like About Fall
The other time I talked about my favorite things about Spring. Today, I’m talking about Fall. Like that other article, experiencing the 4 seasons only happened during my 9 years in Cyprus. So all experiences and stories, are tied to Cyprus.
For me, Fall marked the beginning of shorter days and longer nights. You knew it was Fall when the day was already dark at the time you finished your last lecture, at 5 PM. It also meant that “outside” was slowly becoming a place not to be caught at, after dark.
But what did I really like about Fall?
1. New Students
There were no festivals, like the Spring Festival that my school organized each Spring. There were no other special events on campus either. However, we (or I speak for myself alone) always looked forward to the arrival of new students!
Around October is when we start to see new faces of all colors, from different countries. That meant, a new buddy, classmate or lover. For me, it was usually a new classmate or new friend. Occasionally, I’ll get a new crush, or a new neighbor and it was always exciting.
Like one time, I had a crush on this Tanzanian chic who didn’t feel the same way about me. We remained friends though, and she was friends with my Zimbabwe neighbors, all of whom I used to cook for occasionally. The Tanzanian and the Zimbabweans were the ones who introduced me to eating rice with mayonnaise… lovely combination!
And then Fall of 2007 was particularly memorable for students of my set. That was when we saw one of the largest intake of Nigerian students. That was the beginning of different sightings and stories on campus. And that was when I lost my fame on campus because until the crowd came in, I was about the most popular Nigerian on campus.
I was so popular that it would take me 10 to 30 minutes just to walk from the main gate, through campus, to my dormitory. This walk normally takes 3 to 5 minutes, depending on how fast or slow you walk. I would have to reply and sometimes stop to respond to people calling out to me… classmates, dorm mates, acquaintances, friends of friends, and so on.
2. New Courses
Being the start of a new academic session, it meant moving to a new year or level in school. That means out with the old courses and in with the new ones. Within the first few weeks, I look out for courses that I’ll dread for the rest of the semester, or courses that would excite me for the rest of the semester.
Thankfully, the university had a flexible system where we were allowed to drop courses we didn’t want to take. We could then take them later on (if they were core courses) or swap them for another course (if they were elective courses). I thank God for such system because it saved my ass many times!
Two courses that gave me a hard time: Advanced Mathematics, KUDA (I forgot the actual name). As if ordinary mathematics wasn’t hard enough for me, I had to deal with Advanced Mathematics during my M.Sc. program… twice! Then there was KUDA… programming supercomputers to perform enormous calculations in multiply dimensions!
Besides these two things, I cannot think of anything else that excited me about Fall. It was often a reminder that the weather was about to get cold, and my nose doesn’t go well with cold weather!
So that’s it… What things do you like about Fall?
Please share in the comments section below.
7 things I was grateful for during the 34th week of this 52 weeks of gratitude challenge:
- Finally, the photo album of my sister’s wedding of last year is out. It took many months, but it seems like it was worth the wait
- Started the day in Abuja, had lunch in Lokoja, supper in Benin… Grateful to God
- Even though I didn’t get the visa, I’m glad that he did. Now the trip will cost a lot less 🙂
- Thankfully, I was able to make all the printouts and photocopies, ready for tomorrow
- So we’re lodging at Ibro Grand Annex, courtesy of a family friend, and I’m grateful for that!
- I spent some time discussing with some neighbors at the office today, and I ended up giving them a brilliant idea for their business. I may not be able to bring the idea to reality on my own, so I’m just grateful that I gave the idea to someone who’s in a better position to make it a reality… And it felt good!
- I finally can upload to ChowHub, after about a week! I managed to find and fix the problem 🙂
View last week’s post: