If I were a father

Yes, It all begins with a BMW M9. I believe I am going to be successful in future – in this case, I mean rich. I would be rich enough to afford such a car, and a nice house too!

 

Now that house is quite an exaggeration, but at least you get my point.

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If you notice the car is a two-seater. This article is about an outing with my future son.

So it’s a Saturday evening, say around 5:00pm. I call my 17-year old son and tell him to kit up for a boys’ evening out. I tell him we are going to the beach. I tell my wife goodbye and we step into the car to begin the journey.

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I believe by then, Nigerian roads will be as good as the above.

We start to talk about school. I give him some ideas on how he can survive better academically so he doesn’t end up with my manic depression.

He talks about some mean bullies in his school. I tell him to avoid the menacing ones and make friends with as many as he can. I also tell him how I used to ‘bribe’ the bullies in my time with bowls of cornflakes. He chuckles and I laugh.

I ask him about the education system. As a part-time philosopher, I try to find out how to improve the field that affected me negatively the most – Education.

Then, I take the bold step and ask him about women.

He’s shy and doesn’t respond. I decide to break the ice. I tell him there are different types of women out there. I tell him that I had crushes on girls since primary school but never went too serious until much later. Sadly, my secondary school was an all boys school and as a result the only girls I knew during that period were my sisters and Nma (his grandmother).

I tell him of my first experience with a girl. It was in primary two. A girl and I entwined our legs together throughout the day. I didn’t know her before that day nor did we interact after that. But it was wonderful. It was then that I found out that it was possible for a girl to like you first.

He starts to glow with interest as I continue my story.

I tell him of my second experience in primary school. It was the last day of school and John and I were playing catch with the most beautiful girl in the school. Then time came for John to go home.

Then, I stood and watched as he confessed his love to her. I watched as he told her he prayed and wished they’d meet in future and get married. Hey, I liked her too! I just didn’t have the guts to say anything.

I tell him about senior secondary school and of how my mates got their girlfriends. Once again, I didn’t have the guts to get one.

I tell him of the three things I think he should look for in women.

They are: beauty, morality and spiritual similarity.

He looks at me with a confused face and asks me to explain.

I start with beauty. I tell him that my grandson must be handsome. So yes, I am talking of physical beauty. The woman should be physically attractive. But even if she isn’t, she must possess at least two of the three qualities.

Next is morality. Her mode of dressing, her words and her deeds must be pure. She should be a role model when it comes to morality. She shouldn’t be a proud and judgmental nag. She shouldn’t be easy to provoke and she should be able to obey the ten commandments as explained by ABD-RU-SHIN.

Oh, that falls under spiritual similarity. She should have similar beliefs with you, I tell him. She shouldn’t just adopt those beliefs because she likes you but because she was trained in that manner.

I also tell him that he is free to disregard these rules without any fear of condemnation from me. They are my principles and may not work for him.

I ask him if there is any girl he likes. He nods to denote the affirmative. We discuss the qualities of the girl.

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We arrive at the beach. We sit on long chairs and observe the sun set. The gold above and the gold below.

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We play around in the sand.

It’s 6:45pm. Time to go. We take the most beautiful route home.

We enjoy the last glow of the sun.

We are just in time for dinner.

I love my future family.

#Kaluspeaks

Just one tip

THE PROBLEMS

For two decades, I have been in the education system of my home country. I believe that is enough time to learn the trends, study the system, find the loopholes and fill them.

It’s no news that our education system is bad. The university in which I study medicine is one of the best in my country yet not even the 6000th in the world. I have seen so many loopholes that the thought of them just makes me sad.

The lecturer to student ratio is very low (as low as 1 to 300). Even when the lecturer to student ratio is increased to about 1 to 60, the lecturers are expected to carry out researches (which have no point and even those that do are not used practically), treat patients (as is the case amongst some good lecturers in the field of medicine), write papers and still teach! So much workload with poor financial compensatory mechanisms to at least alleviate their suffering that I wonder how they cope.

There is a saying very popular among these lecturers that goes thus: “we are here to lecture and not to teach”. As a result, little or no effort is put in place to carry along most of the class. The primary motive of these lecturers is to finish the syllabus as quickly as possible. The students have to read up 90% of the academic work, with sham practical sessions.

The result? Stress induced ‘creativelessness’ as well as frustration, drop-outs, suicide attempts and mental disorders to mention a few.

There is also the issue of tests and examinations. They are spaced out and so few that one has to cram so much for so little marks.

Philosophy states that it is creative to identify a problem but innovative to solve it.

ONE SOLUTION

So far, I have only thought up one solution, one tip for the education minister or whoever wants to or is in charge of revolutionizing the education system.

The tip is to make marks more  easy to get. It is better to do this than to add marks to students at the end of the exam as a result of mass failure.

The system such be reorganized in such a  way that marks are awarded for innovation (like for organizing a quiz), for answering questions in class and for asking practical and useful questions in class. This would make the class more interactive and fun.

A review of every class should be done to ensure that learning did in fact take place. A special mechanism should be put in place to identify and help weak students.

In summary: Stop lecturing and start teaching!

It is not how fast, but how well.

#Kaluspeaks

The challenge of being Satisfied!

Short. Precise. It is one of the best blogs I have ever seen. I wish to make something like this. Welldone

Writings of my Life. .

The challenge of being satisfied. .

As I was going through some write-ups, I came across this image. . . Which so beautifully says ,’You cannot always get what you want, but if u try sometimes You may get just what you need’. . . .

Many a times, We are not satisfied with what we have, and feel if I get a little more I will be much more happier.. Its good to some extent to have a thinking like this, especially in your work life, where you work harder and harder to achieve more and arrive at greater heights. . But too much of something may prove to be too bad for us. . .We need to give this a thought. . .

If we always get habituated to the very habit of not being satisfied and demanding more and more , its something surely not always possible…

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My very first blog post :-)

Hi there! I feel overjoyed that someone out there is reading this. I have finally decided to tell the whole world about the day to day burden that I, Kalu Torty Kalu, a 300 level student of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria carries on his shoulders. If I may add, I say 300 level because although I have written my final exams, I am yet to know if I passed the promotional exams or not.

This blog was opened for various reasons. Some of them are as follows;

1. To serve as an open diary to the whole world
2. To save me from boredom
3. They say that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. So, I wish to use to use this medium to keep myself busy writing useful articles.
4. To talk about issues I consider important. I once wanted to be a pressman but my principles did not augur well with the judges at that time. Here, I am free to express myself.

I am a very unique and interesting person. A boy with no religion, bipolar affective disorder, addictions, goals, plans and so much more. I am sure there is much you can learn from me and I from you. I look forward to it.

with love,

#Kaluspeaks