NYSC Orientation Camp Day Eight : Who Am I? ?‍♀️

Day 8 : Thursday

Motivation is not a problem for me. I can generate 80% of the enthusiasm I need for life within myself. I don’t know how ?‍♀️ but it’s true. ?

It’s true but now it’s becoming false.? NYSC is changing me, better still this camp life is changing me drastically. This early morning waking up is seriously screwing with me.

It’s like I don’t know who I am anymore.

This deep-sleeping, easily-triggered, perpetually-hungry, unmotivated-individual is not the woman my mom birthed after several grueling hours of labor. It just can’t be?

I need to find myself. Sounds cliche but I seriously need to.

I had a pretty good dream tonight which makes me feel all gooey, but when I wake, the goo vanishes and I sit for 20 minutes looking for a clothing item that was really sitting in front of me. My walking is slow and snail paced as I drag myself to the parade ground.

I need to motivate myself but even my inner voice at this point is a lull.

Chinenye approaches me on the parade ground to ask if I have sorted out my modeling clothes ; I have not. Infact there is nothing to sort out. ?‍♀️ I may as well just quit this competition because I can’t go home to pick a proper dinner wear, once I get home, my big bed will abduct me and that’s where I’ll be until end of camp. These people should just take the stress off me and provide it, I mean I already supplied the curves, what else do they want from me? ?

ESCAPE ?

I decide to rebel today, I plug my ear piece after tunneling it underneath my blouse to obscure it and I play my all time favorites. “You gotta live your life, while your blood is boiling….. these doors won’t open…. while you stand and watch them”

That’s not a motivational speech, it’s lyrics to the very first song I play. In no time, the world becomes colorful again, the birds start to chirp, the monkeys are swaying the trees with more pomp and my heart; oh my good heart, is really beating faster, I’m in another world and it is such a better one.
Music; my all time means of escape.

We go to mamy-market for breakfast. By we, I mean Aminat, Umar and I. Aminat convinces us to eat bread and egg and she even selects the freshest bread available for me. ? We sit and shortly after mine is served she changes her mind and orders noodles instead. I give her the side eye ? because nobody is allowed to switch up on me like that. I kid, I kid. ✌️

WHAT I LOVE TO DO

I’m back to the clinic and CMD tells me he needs me to help with a medical outreach for the kitchen staff. I tell him it’s an ethical conflict for me. Simply because on my first night here, the head kitchen staff refused to give me my dinner and proceeded to eat it herself. That was the night of my exam and my long dreadful journey. She made the already tedious night worse as I had to sleep on empty stomach as a result of her actions. ? The CMD hears that and gives me a charming smile, he says go ahead and have your revenge. (Solid guy)

I decide I’d give her IM Aqua because that’s the meanest thing I can think of. If that’s the meanest thing I can think of, then I’m really just a nice person. ?

The outreach is fun and even though I have to give an impromptu speech in Yoruba, I love every moment of it.

I get to consult for the woman who denied me dinner and I find that I like her. She’s cool in her own way. I tease her about starving me and she apologizes and then she proceeds to tease me on my anatomy. ?All is good and well. As we leave the place, they hand us a carton full of bread, butter and bottled water. It’s their gift to us for our generous service. It’s a well appreciated gift.

We finish the outreach at a time too late for me to join my drone training SAED class so I just head to the clinic to see patients. There are none there. So the next agenda is sleep. I wake up and I’m bored again. I’m thinking about my life, What will this one year hold for me?

How will NYSC change my life ?

Will it be a memorable time?

Where will I be posted to?

Will it be busy or not?

Do I want a busy place so that time will just fly by?

Or do I want free time?

Can I handle free time?

I’ve been busy enough this last three months that I know I don’t want to be that busy any time soon because my body needs to rest.

I have also been busy long enough to not know how to enjoy a non-busy time.

So what do I actually want?

Sweet Jesus, what does you girl want?

MUSINGS

Medicine has a way of disconnecting you from the real world. It’s an isolant. Of course that’s not likely to be a proper English word, but I already have a self bestowed poetic license and I’m sure you get what I’m trying to say.??‍♀️??‍♀️??‍♀️

I decide to pray about this and try not to worry or at least not to worry too much. ? God always did know how to sort me out. I’m the one who hasn’t perfected my trust in him. Ha, adulting. This scam that is adulting ! This scam that is adulting that adults before us rushed us into entering !!

It has a way of bringing out the melancholy in all of us right!

PUN’s ie WORDPLAY ?

I secure a charging space in the clinic and I choose to sit there to safeguard my property. A physiotherapist comes to join me. Her name is Tomisin. We’ve been seeing each other in clinic every once in a while. When I say “seeing”, please keep your mind clean as I’m very straight. Okay, I’m not actually straight, I’m very curved ???. Anyway, what I mean by “seeing” is we walk by each other and occasionally acknowledge each other with a greeting or two. She joins me on this bed. Again, I must emphasize it’s a harmless joining. We get talking ; Talking about insecurities of the coming NYSC year and it’s a reminder for me that everybody has something legitimate to worry about. We all have problems even when we don’t talk to others about it and we are all fraught to feel alone and isolated in our troubles. It needs not be so. Especially if we find the right person to talk to.

Some girl comes in and bounces another persons charger off the extension box. I start to complain about it because life is supposed to be fair and Tomisin tells me that I should chill as the girl may be dealing with something hard too. Much like the rest of us. I keep quiet and conclude that she is wise. It feels good to have exchanged my fears with another human. I should do this more often. My self-independent side should do this more often.

There’s this announcement on the group chat that we should all go to the tent to open our NYSC accounts and as we get there we discover the process is coordinated by our code numbers. They currently have capacity for 1270 but my number is over 2500. So I guess I’ll have to wait until menopause before it’s my turn to open the account. I have no issues with that ???