ktravula – a travelogue!

Browsing the archives for the Observations category.

New Lessons

A few minutes ago, I concluded a chat with a French student in this University (on a different but similar international programme) who told me that I had done the abominable by putting my red wine in the refrigerator. “If you were in France,” she said, “you’d be thrown out of the country by now!” Oh, the French!

IMG_0672Checking my post mailbox this morning, I found an envelope postmarked from Pennsylvania. Since I wasn’t expecting anything so soon, I was surprised to discover in it Wole Soyinka’s Collected Plays 2. I had indeed ordered it a few days earlier from Amazon alongside books by George Carlin and William Shatner.  That was fast delivery! The book wasn’t new, but it was in very good condition. Back in Nigeria, Amazon was never my friend since I didn’t have a credit card, and they won’t ship goods to Nigeria anyway. The book contained The Lion and the Jewel, Kongi’s Harvest, The Trials of Brother Jero, Jero’s Metamorphosis and Madmen and Specialists, that last one being an all-time favourite.

Today we saw the Chimamanda Adichie TED video talk in class for the first time. As I remarked to a Nigerian friend afterwards, the video was lovely, but in the end it wasn’t spectacular. I think I must have expected too much a response from the students, although in the end, I’m sure they were able to understand and appreciate Ms Adichie’s valid points in a way that they found interesting, and in a way to which they could relate. My own initial response to the talk, which was pride and exhilaration the first time I saw it, was – as I realize it now – because I’m Nigerian and, seeing her speak to such an international audience filled me with such pride. Why it did so, I can’t explain now. She hasn’t said anything new, but she has used many new ways to illustrate it. And that’s always a good thing.

Later in class, as I was about to receive a usb flash disk from a student who wanted to submit her Yoruba audio recording assignment, I felt an electric spark when I collected the disk. I was alarmed, until the other students told me it’s normal, calling it a “static” current. (Wikipedia calls it “the buildup of electric charge on the surface of objects” which is either bled “off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge”). A few minutes later when I gave the flash disk back to her, it happened again just as our hands made contact, and I “freaked out”, to use American colloquial expression of shock and disbelief. That was one thing I have never experienced before, but I have no doubt that it exists, perhaps even in Nigeria, and all over the world, but I’ve never heard any personal stories. According to a few more people that I’ve asked, this is a rather common phenomenon in America which comes into play when one of the contact persons has spent much time making bodily friction with the floor with their feet or body, they are indeed capable of conducting electricity. I find that strange. I’m surely not touching anyone again soon. Time to go back to receiving assignments through email.

I miss home!

New Lessons was published on October 19th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , , , , , , , under the Academic, adventures, Fun, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

Yesterday

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These are a few random pictures from the Le Claire Festival at Edwardsville Park, yesterday, just by the beautiful fountain lake.

If my computer quits misbehaving, I’d put up some more pictures from the event which included a book fair/cheap book sales, live music, outdoor eating and barbecue, popcorn and exhibition of historical materials, photos and artworks.

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Yesterday was published on October 19th, 2009, with the tags , , , under the adventures, Art, Fun, Observations category. There are currently 7 comments on this article so far.

On the Mid-Term Test

IMG_0571The test of students’ progress is not always as tricky if one is lucky to have listened to the students beforehand and to have understood what they are used to and what they are not. In most cases, as long as the teacher knows that his purpose in the test is not just to surprise and attack but to monitor his own progress, there would be less tears and heartbreaks when the day is over.

A few days before our mid-term test, I had given the students a list of areas to focus on, as well as how exactly to answer specific type of questions. There should be no one-word answers to questions requiring full sentence responses. There would be extra credit points for those who put the correct tone marks where necessary. There would be questions on personal introduction, identifying objects, numbers and greetings. And lastly, they should go over virtually everything we had learnt in class. After all, it was supposed to be a test of ability as well as hard work.

Beside the thirty questions that covered all we had learnt in class, there were also five extra-credit questions meant to help whomever needed it to get their grades up, and the questions there included “Kíni orúkọ olùkọ rẹ?”, “What is your adopted Yoruba name, and its meaning”, “Who is the author of the class novel ‘A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt’”, “Where was Suzanne Wenger originally from?” and “What’s the word for ‘zero’ in Yoruba?.

I have now finished marking  (or scoring/grading in American English) the tests, and beside an overwhelming joy at how good they performed, I have made a few prominent observations:

  • That none of them remembered my surname. It must have either been too long to remember.
  • That many of them spelt “Good Afternoon” as “kassan” instead of “kaasan”. I’ve now told them that Yoruba does not have consonant clusters. That’s why when the word “brother” enters the language, it is pronounced as bùrọdá.
  • That only a few of them knew the name of the author of the class novel. A few more remembered only the first name and not the surname, while a few knew the surname but couldn’t spell it.
  • That everyone remembered the Yoruba word for “zero”.IMG_0573
  • That some of the students studied beyond what they were taught in class. A case in point: even though I didn’t ask for plurals, a student responded to a question on identifying pens as “èyí ni awọn gègé.” (trans: here are some pens). I found that very impressive, and she was rewarded extra for it.
  • That almost a quarter of the class didn’t remember their adopted Yoruba names, and half of those who did had forgotten the meaning. It was sure that they were not expecting to be asked about this in the exam.
  • That some students would just NOT read the instructions on the exam question paper no matter how many times they’re told to do so, and notwithstanding the same instruction having been previously stressed again in the exam review materials.
  • That there is always one student in class who would not perform well no matter how much help the teacher gives. S/he is either just lazy, or dull. The problem is, they are the ones who do not speak up when they don’t understand, for fear of being too prominent, when they should ordinarily be the most vocal.

I have my work cut out for me for the next half of the term.

On the Mid-Term Test was published on October 17th, 2009, with the tags , , , , , under the Academic, Observations category. There are currently 3 comments on this article so far.

Random Pic

IMG_0464 Seen on an office door at Principia College, Elsah Illinois.

Random Pic was published on October 16th, 2009, with the tags , , under the Art, Observations category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

How I Became An American

I had gone with Chris to the game centre within the Student’s Centre in the University to while away the time, and have fun  on some of the game consoles present there. Considering that we had written a class test two days earlier which had sapped all our efforts and energy, the lecturer had given us Wednesday free of class so we felt that we deserved some quality play time which we could spend doing the things we usually won’t get the time to do. In the Gaming Centre were table tennis tables, a bowling alley, plenty billiard boards and a few computer-based games, each requiring an amount of dollars to play.

But in the end, we did not end up having that much time to spare after all since he had to go to another class later in the evening, but for the little time we had, we touched and played everything except bowling which I’d never considered an intelligent form of recreation. When we played pool, I defeated him on all three games, and when we played ping-pong, I defeated him on the only one game we played. But when we got on the computer car racing game, he whooped my butt real nice every one of the three times we played. It was during one of those instances of complete hypnotism  and game-cum-dopamin-induced excitement with the speed tracks of the computer game that Chris looked at me and remarked: “You’re becoming American”.  And the reason for such a remark was that I had used the words “shit”, “(mother)fucking” and “son-of-a-bitch” one time too many during the intensive race, while lamenting how slow my computer-appointed Chevrolet seemed to be moving.

There is no punch-line to end this one.

How I Became An American was published on October 15th, 2009, with the tags , , , under the Fun, Observations, Soliloquy category. There are currently 10 comments on this article so far.