THE PREMIERE JOURNEY

                      TO THE UNIVERSITY,

                        THE ROUGH RIDE

                          EXPERIENCE

"If I could discover my real self and master writing my simple experiences without blemish, then I am more likely to craft more creative literary works and write someone's without malice."                                                                     ~Agbesi Kofi Derrick

COPYRIGHT:

Copyright © January, 2022 by Agbesi Kofi Derrick.

All rights reserved. No part of this anecdote may be reproduced, used or kept in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, recording, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission from the author except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

This short piece may never come to fruition but for the life, strength and above all the divine grace bestowed on me by the Almighty God. I am highly indebted to Him for giving me the retentive memory in recalling every detail of my immediate past as I journeyed to the university. But for that, this noble piece would lose its supposed existence. My gratitude also goes to William Zinsser the author of the book: “On Writing Well”. The said book served as a great guideline and propelled me to put my ripping thoughts on paper.

DEDICATION:

I dedicate this piece to Mrs. Amakwe Afi

my dear mum

, Mr. Eric Ebo Sey

The 2010-2020 Assistant Headmaster, Academics of the Accra Academy

and Mr. Ebenezer Kobby Obeng

The current general coordinator of the Accra Academy Science and Maths Quiz team and a chemistry teacher too in the same school

. These great figures paid no deviance to the voice of God as He assigned them to contribute their quota in my life. Ultimately, without these, my much anticipated dreams would have gone down the tube.

POEM:

The heavenly dews came tumbling down 

Daring the waning Sun to frown                

Then the energetic rain came pouring

Admonishing land creatures to stop touring

The proud Summer suddenly dreaded its existence.  Consequently obliterating the grisly harmattan pestilence.                               

This is an evidence to reminisce 

That vanity, the biologists would say is a senescence.

Brethren, man needs not be proud

For this is a slogan to be preached aloud

                Written on 20/12/2017

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:                               

Agbesi Kofi Derrick is a second-year petroleum engineering student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. He hails from Vogan, Togo but grew and neutralized as a Ghanaian having grown and schooled in the latter. He currently lives with his mum and surrogate father in Accra.

He is also a product of the Accra Academy Senior High School and completed in 2019 as a general science student. Notwithstanding that Agbesi has a higher craving for science, he has got an unquenching desire for literary works too – writing poems, novels, proses, anecdotes and so on at his leisure time. The latter thrust has given him the push to come out with this impressive maiden work. With this serving as a stepping stone, he hopes to produce more of this work when he stands down from his first degree at the university.     

COMPENDIUM:                                               

This is a non-fictional anecdote about Agbesi as he was hooked up by the tussles in securing his university education. As he graduated from secondary school, he was very passionate in furthering his tertiary education in order to make his dream as a petroleum engineering come true. Though brilliant, he could not make it to the university that very year he had completed secondary school by virtue of gross financial constraints.

Agbesi having known his fate, had to spend a year at home and work for his industrious but poor mum and his rich misery surrogate father. Loving his mum so much for her care for the family, he decided to help her in her petty business as against teaching. As the real-life experiences unfold in the story, Agbesi had been stood down from her mother’s drinking and food spot business and coerced to embrace his surrogate father’s block factory and land-surveying enterprises. Notwithstanding that he earned meagre wages from any of those businesses, he continued saving and finally applied into one of the most prominent public universities in the country and bought a few school items too from the same savings.

Finally, when he was about to leave for the university, there arose the issue of paying his academic fees. Through the intervention of two of his benefactors in his secondary school, this dire condition was resolved. All set and done, he was full of gratitude as he set off to his new school.