As I walked into the small room I shared with three other students at the male hostel, I wanted to slam the door behind me to signal my frustration. However, the door slowly slid shut as I did not have any strength left to pull off such antics. I felt sore all over my body and felt numb in muscles I never knew I had. Most painfully, I felt empty and washed out on my inside, not because I had not eaten anything but a sodden doughnut all day but because today seemed to be a miniature version of all the rat-races of everybody in the world put together – it had been both grueling and unrewarding. Today had been my first day at my new school, State Polytechnic, Jigawa.
I had left the room this morning brimming with energy, confidence, enthusiasm, and everything else that I don't seem to have any longer. The first thing that dropped off along the way, very early after I set out, was my confidence. Because I had come into the school premises on a Sunday afternoon and had stayed in my hostel room arranging my possessions and familiarising myself with the room all day, I had not been introduced to the massive population of the school. So, as I stepped out of the gate to Male Hostel II, the sheer size of the crowd moving around in various directions slammed into me with the force of an unexpected body tackle. This wouldn't have lasted for too long if not that I have an issue with my height (although scientifically incorrect, I believe I am the shortest male specie of the homo sapiens) and having this many people looking down at me all at once was both unnerving and not very welcome. So, there goes a big chunk of my confidence. I lost the remaining parts of it in each office I entered into after that since the occupants of such offices did not find my clumsy and stuttering ways in any way funny and showed their displeasure with raised voices and unveiled threats. By the time I entered into the third office to submit my file, yet again, to my department's general office, I had no bit of confidence to my name.
