I didn't know I was a laugh-dust until I had a misunderstanding with one of my lecturers in early October, this year.
She hadn't been my supervisor for my final project, but I heard that there was an official change which could make her my supervisor. The first supervisor I was working with was a young, dark, free man who believed in the ideology of "humanity". This man was daring, so he assigned my topic because it was challenging and knowledge-breaking. He said, before his assertion to my topic, "Are you sure you want to do this?", his eye balls,sceptic. I answered him, not only in words, but through the enthusiastic expression on my face. He smiled. He went on and signed my topic and asked me to bring a more constructive topic for reconsideration. I wasn't able to reconstruct, so he was kind to help me play the puzzle of finding a befitting topic. We discussed a little about the topic; what he was expecting to see, the audience he would love the project to reach-- the discussion was worth it. He gave me the go ahead to bring in my chapter breakdown, but before I gathered my chapter one, I was told my project had been passed on to another supervisor. I wasn't too bothered, but I knew a lot was going to turn wrong. I began the journey.
This day, I think the next day after which my project had been passed on to the new supervisor, I took a step of confronting my initial supervisor, to be sure if it was true, that he would not be taking responsibility of my project. And aye, he did confirm it was true, and he advised me to follow whatever instructions this new supervisor gave. I admitted and left for her office, the new supervisor, Wena.
A Naija-Delta woman, with this endomorph body shape, who spoke broken mostly, who pronounced "Yesterday" as "Yestoday", and whose English most times are not understandable. She often complained she was tired whenever students ran after her or said they should come back because she was feeling sleepy or she was going to call somebody so the student has to come back.
I knocked against her door that noon. She said, "Who dey there? Abeg come inside." I pulled down the door handle and smilingly entered. "Seun, na you?" She met me half way to her desk. "Yes, ma. Good afternoon, ma. I heard you will be in charge of my project now," I gladly replied. "Yes o! I will be in charge of everybody's project now. Who dey inspect you before?"
"Mr. Biodun, ma"
"Okay. I told everybody yestoday that I wee be monitoring everybody's project. So, where you stop?"
I presented my file on her desk, she scanned through it and persistently said "Homophobia." She apparently didn't know what it was, so she told me to move on to bring a clearer chapter one. I said my end pleasantry and darted off, excitingly.
I submitted my file the next morning, with 3 A4 papers between it, ink-filled front and back pages. She wasn't in her office, so I just dropped it on her table and left. I sat in the canteen and later visited Miss Tolu in the staff room. I left the staff room and went back downstairs, to the canteen, and when I got there, she'd dropped a message for me, so I swiftly complied. I took the two storey building stairs with a race, and then hoove and patted my slight-sweaty face at the doorstep of her office. I knocked at her door and she replied hastily.
"Na you. You no tell me say na gay film you dey try do. Homosexuality is never, has never, and will never be accepted in Nigeria. For this reason, you can't do this project." I laughed the kind of laugh that holds rage within. I replied her, "Ma, I don't have another topic, this is all I have."
"Bring another topic. Or make I pick for you?"
I said no and left her office gently but angrily. I went back to the canteen to meet my colleagues that Wena had cancelled my topic, asking me to bring another one. As I was talking, someone cut me, "It is not only you. She wants everybody to do her topic, which is not possible. We are waiting for the M.D to return from her cruising." When I heard this, my rage became more fierce. I was annoyed and shaky that nobody, not even my mother, would hold me from bursting out the words from my mouth.
I walked through the stairs shakily and swiftly. I wasn't bothered about how draining those steps were, I just wanted to burst out. With my file on my sweaty right hand, I respectfully hit the door. "Who be that? You na no get door for una house?" She reacted. I didn't wait for her to tell me to hit the door open, I just slid in. "Seun, na you. Have you thought of another topic?"
"No, ma. I returned this for reconsideration."
She began to shout at me. She said they arrest gay people and all, and the school could not promote gayism. She opened the upper drawer of her desk, by her right, and brought a folded A4 paper that looked like a letter sent to from somebody, to her. It was in there that she had written in the topics she would want students accomplish. She called the topics out to my ears, but I wasn't interested. I did cut her off when I got tired of talking and said I was going to report her to the M.D if she wasn't competent enough. I touched that point in heart. She was almost going to flush in tears. "Leave my office, idiot! Leave here! When she comes, make you tell am say I cancel your project. I go stand tell am say I cancel am! Leave my office and don't come back again! Give Biola your project make she supervise!" It hurt her that she offered me an exit by opening her door, and I angrily, with my diva attitude, swept myself out. I got downstairs and gisted my colleagues, what other students would do if they had such encounter.
At closing, Kareem, one of my friends, asked me what I had done to Wena, that she was gisting him about my sexuality, that one of the Waptv presenters, the one with the teeth of an empty skull, whose shortness was scary to a dwarf, and hair like train rails, tinted in a curry-like gold, had discussed it with her. This same idiot had invited me to his office, thinking he had a job for me, not knowing he wanted his other colleagues to laugh at me, watching me through their control room or so. This same idiot told me he liked my swag and how I was girly.
Kareem told me how Wena was cursing me, and in details, how she was talking about my sexuality and how police would arrest me. I just laughed. Not quite long, as I was sitting on one of the uncomfortable white, four-legged, plastic chairs at the school's car park, she appeared, with her fanciful, leather handbag across her left shoulder, and another clothed one, containing some things that looked like an important set of files, carried by a student. She got out of the pedestrian gate, when Dammy said, "That's Wena. Go and apologise." I just laughed, with this self-assurance, beating my chest that I would never apologise. Wena turned back as she was exiting the second pedestrian gate, she saw me and headed to me, with some nasty, angry words flowing out from her mouth. "See, I no be your mama mate. Gimme some respect. What you can't do to your parents, don't come here and do it for me, " She said, as she got close, her index finger pointed at me. It seems she was going to slap me. I simply threw my face off and did some talk back, because I did know how painful talk backs were. She shouted, talked till she walked out of where my ears sensitivity could reach. Great!
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