ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Academic category.

Campus Random

I’m slowly warming up to this new yet familiar experience. School, with a once dry and slow atmosphere suddenly bursts into life without warning and everything finds its root from it. Just last week was the last days of the summer semester, and by this time tomorrow, the school would have burst into the full form of a busy, happening place. The geese are here, still not yet nesting. So are the deer. I saw one yesterday on my walk back to Cougar Village for the very first time in three months. It must have recognised me for having visited a place where its kind are “bush meat” because it immediately retreated from the road further into the woods.

Starbucks remains where it usually was, deep on the side of the students centre. On many sides of Peck Hall are water fountains that give the passageway a kind of home feel. On Friday, just for the kicks, I moved the knob on one of it and watch the water sprout up onto my face. The candy and cookie dispensers also remain, stationary as a public building. I won’t be using them this time. I think I have enough sugar in me to last a year. I won’t be patronizing Papa John’s either even if I get a 200% raise. Something about the exuberance of a bubbly Fulbright scholar has receded, and all that remains is a more relaxed mature student (but of course not without sufficient residue of needed mischief).

What remains is the famous bicycle, and/or the car. The latter is a luxury about which I am fighting myself very very seriously. Even with a bicycle, I remember the horror on my own face to discover how much weight I had gained after a mere ten month’s absence. Now imagine that spent in the comfort of a moving vehicle that requires even less physical exertion. I can also almost swear that I will forget where I’ve parked it on campus nine times out of ten. It doesn’t make sense that people who think of so many things should have to operate a moving vehicle. Isn’t there a law against that?

Today I attended a get-together for Turkish students on campus from various levels and different programmes. I was one of the third non-Turkish students there out of about fifty of us, and I made it a duty to tell whomever asked that my qualification for being there was that I had recently been a victim of Turkish Airline bag misplacement. What I didn’t say was that it was actually convenient that the bag had to be brought to me on campus two days later and I was saved the hassle of having to drag it all by myself all the way from Chicago.

I think pretty much everything is in their place now. Now let’s go enjoy the semester.

Campus Random was published on August 22nd, 2010, under the Academic, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Faculty of Arts

I took these random shots at the Faculty of Arts, in my former University in Ibadan, a few days ago. I also discovered that the very first female Head of the Department of Religious Studies since 1948 when the Univeristy was founded, has just been appointed, effective August 1st. It’s a positive news, tinted with the disillusionment that this should have been commonplace since very many years ago. I took these pictures from the balcony of the Department.

Faculty of Arts was published on August 3rd, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Academic, adventures, Art, Fun category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

August

By some chance, I will return to school sometimes this month to become a student again, and there are a few chills that accompany that realization. The last time I was a full-time student in a University was more than five years ago and I have (almost) forgotten what that was like. I woke up at six, got prepared, went to school and stayed around the school area until evening when I’d finished all courses for the day. I had time tables, and there were oftentimes gaps between each course that I sometimes had to go back to my hostel, take a nap or complete and assignment, and return to school. The little memories I have of that says that it was a mixture of fun, frustration and stress. Add to that the chance of doing exactly whatever what one wanted.

In the intervening years between then and now, I had grown a beard, however little, lost (much of) my innocence, and become a teacher (of some sort), seen the world (or some of it) and grown pretty relaxed. What kind of student will this one make? Back in the University, my best way of being a sane student was to do exactly something else whenever I’m supposed to be studying. In this case, it was campus journalism, and it worked, and of course almost ran me out of my mind at different times. If I am to survive such another ordeal of learning in the University, I must develop a new past time. Blogging? Writing? Basketball? Swimming? Anything to take the mind off the stress of writing papers along with references. Now let’s see how that goes. Any other suggestions?

August was published on August 2nd, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Academic, Opinion category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

The Impossible Brief

Are you creative?
Do you work in advertising or does it interest you?
Can you think outside the box?
Can you crack “the impossible brief”?

Will you save the world?

Click here.

The Impossible Brief was published on July 28th, 2010, with the tags , , , , under the Academic, Art, Fun, Literature category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Writing a Book

I have broached this idea of writing a book from my experiences in the United States, or from some of the observations I’ve shared with you on the blog. I’ve been surprised by the poll responses and I thank you for taking the time, especially to those who left comments. All the poll options reflect my own thoughts and preferences, so thank you for pitching in, although I’d hoped that everyone would ask me not to write it. Now I have got myself in a corner :). Time to get myself to work.

The fun thing about a book is that you don’t really know what you’ll find when you open it, right? If you knew what you’d find, then it doesn’t make much sense, does it? My hope was to write something totally new on a particular theme, of the peculiar experiences I’ve had visiting places and the impressions they’ve had on me, not put the whole blog down into print, even thought that has crossed my mind before. So here it is, many choices as to consider. I do want to write something more than just an essay with ideas that will last for a while, and will contribute to thought.

And then, what about pictures? When I was young, like everyone else, I used to like books only if they had pictures. Growing up changed that, or did it? What is the place of photos – or maybe artistic illustrations – in a serious book? Well, it has to do with what kind of book, isn’t it? A travel book will have more pictures and less texts. A book of original random memoir-like essays will have more texts and less photos, isn’t it? Or what about just write many books, one of them just a photo essay book on interesting places of interest?

Random thoughts in my head, and July is already crawling out of hands. I guess it’s time to change the poll now. Thank you.

PS: Novelist Salman Rushdie has decided to write a novel about his days under the fatwa. I look forward to reading it, yet with a fear that he’s putting himself on the spot once again. I hope that he will be deft enough not to stroke any new fires this time. News is here. (Thanks Chris for the link).

Writing a Book was published on July 28th, 2010, under the Academic, Opinion, Soliloquy category. There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.