Sometimes when a circumstance wants to strangle you, it invites you in slowly, tightening its grip on your neck gently, gradually.

Soon, you find yourself gyrating in pain and regrets.

Level 100, we were seduced into believing university life was cozy. And that, like a bus, we could waste away precious time and still find the bus waiting for us anytime, any day.

Soon, this illusion was quenched, like the flames of a wild fire. In level 200, the bus had picked up pace, and we were sweating and trotting much longer than we found it fun, trying to keep up, to catch up.

I made a few changes to my learning approach. Wait till we were about three to four weeks into the semester to figure out a more strategic personal timetable for learning.

The previous semesters, I was overly ambitious. I studied ahead, learning many things that were not even related to my course. Good habit. However, by diffusing the focus, the impact at the end of the semester exams was not all that impressive.

This time, I was determined to employ what I termed as laser focus. Understand what it was we were learning, then read more around those areas, make notes, then go over the notes many times, resumarizing the notes further to make it easier for the brain to download and store.

It was an experiment. Had never tried to calm myself and take life easy, step by step, a little bit but with consistency.

But the experiment paid off in the sterling performance at the end of the semester.

That same semester that I was about to witness extraordinary results for implenting new habits I had never tried, things turned out very tough for me. Not academics, but other personal stuff.

I was not resident on campus yet. And so I came daily from a room I rented some kilometers away from campus. There were days I was broke and had to walk the long distance to campus for lectures. I arrived exhausted and hungry and sweaty.

On top of the financial difficulties came loneliness from rejections – part-time job applications, love proposals and many more.

I had so many rejections if they were cotton I could supply to a factory, the factory would make clothes for decades without running out of raw materials.

At some point, I told myself that formal education was not the only way to success in life. And I started thinking of other things I could do with my life aside schooling. The thread that held me back from giving up was so thin till today it’s a miracle how I hanged in there.

But when those storms were over, I learnt a big lesson : moments leading to big breakthroughs require plenty of patience and focus. Delicate moments like those of women in labour.

The semester preceding that difficult one was one of the brightest in the rest of my undergraduate years and I look back and wonder all the good things I would have missed if I gave up.

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