Chapter 4: Chapter 4
# Chapter 4
I wasn't moved by whatever 'scott mills' said to me, most of the time I ignored his messages. I started dating, he was a really nice guy and I really enjoyed the time I spent with him. Due to certain reasons, the school began her academic year January instead of September, it gave me a lot of time to prepare and get myself together. The University was close to my house, it was a 20 minutes walk from my house to the school but I chose to live in the school dormitory.
I made new friends,it seemed studying here wasn't so bad after all. Although I had to stay in the same room with my sister, I really enjoyed it, I was much closer with my sister in school than at home.
I woke up one morning to see a voice message on WhatsApp from an unknown number, when I played it, the voice wasn't that of a native, it had an American accent. It was a female voice, she said she wanted to let me know that I was one of the 7 African candidates chose to study in the University of Houston and that I should endeavor to pick up my particulars at the American embassy in my country.
I wanted to get excited then I remembered that there's an app that can change a person's voice, but anyways I still had to be sure if it was true or someone was playing an big prank on me...My sister really helped me out with a lot of things in school, she assisted me in doing my assignments, term papers, she even taught me how to dress in a fashionable way without having to spend a lot of money. I learnt how to wake up at night to read, wake up early and prepare for lectures, her friends doted on me. some days we'll treat ourselves to a nice meal, since our house was close by, we went home often.
on Saturday evening well go home to spend the weekend there and come back Sunday evening. One night, her friend wanted to go to her department's night party and she invited me, it was my first time staying out all night. It was a Friday evening and I had an early morning Saturday class the following day but it was too tempting to refuse. I and two of her friends, Blessing and Victoria, went for the party. I had a lot of fun because I met some familiar people.
I forgot about Scott Mills, University of Houston, international scholarship and all things related to that. This is how my life was meant to be and I was happy living it.
My bunk mate, Esther, moved in 2 weeks later and we turned into best friends within a short time. Turned out she had a good friend who was very close to me and most of my friends were close with her so we became inseparable, even my sister was surprised about our friendship.
our birthdays were close and we were freshers, we really had a lot in common which made us so close.Our matriculation ceremony was on February, it was a day I'll still remember. All year 1 students were busy to make the day a memorial one, especially the females. Hair salons were packed with students who needed to style their hair, cloth and shoe shops increased the price of their wares because they were in high demand. My parents couldn't spend much on me because my eldest sister got money to handle her clearance and final things in school, my second sister also got money for her final year project and seminar. My younger brother's school fees was paid so that he'll have to participate in class test, due to this, I didn't really have fancy attires. The morning before the ceremony, my hair wasn't made, I still had the old weaving I had 2 weeks earlier, I didn't buy any new clothes or shoes. I was panicking, my friends had done most of their things. My boyfriend called and asked how I was preparing and I couldn't help but break down in tears as I told him what happened, he told me to cheer up that he'll see what he could do.
Five minutes later, I received an alert, he sent 2000 Naira to me. It wasn't much but it helped, I quickly paid 1000 Naira for our hostel party, used 500 Naira to make my nails.Later in the day my mom sent 5000 Naira and my dad sent 3000 Naira for me to use. I and my eldest sister went to the market to buy things. I bought a dress with colourful vertical lines, a black 2 inches open toe stiletto, 2 dozen soft drinks for my roommates and friends, a pair of stud earrings. The following day, I woke up very early, Esther was already awake and was heating up water to bath. I was feeling too hot to bath warm water so I had a quick cold shower.
Since we're not allowed to cook in the hostel, we went out to buy food came back early and had our make-up done. We went to the venue but got separated because we had to seat according to our faculty. After the ceremony was over, we went to take pictures, we had lots of them, personal, together, with other people, our family members. When we got back, the hostel had been transformed, balloons and colourful decorations hung everyway.
wherever we entered, people gave us gifts, food, hugs, they even sprayed us glitters. It was one of the most happiest days of my life. This day was far better than my birthday.
I ate, danced and had a lot of fun, music played till 12 am.One thing about Matriculation was that after partying and enjoying, first semester examination was just in two weeks and so I started preparing. We had minimal classes which gave us time to look into our books.
I and Esther rarely slept at night, either we're in class reading or we're in our room. My course mate, Precious, and hers, Ofonime, later joined us.
They both stayed in the hostel but in different rooms so they usually come to ours. Few days to my first exam, I woke up to see 2 missed calls from an unknown number. When I clicked to check it out, it was a foreign number. Oh God, this is not happening again, I exhaled.
I tried calling the number but I was told I couldn't make international calls. It was annoying, what was this guy trying to prove? Maybe he suspected that I knew his little secret and was trying to confuse me. I went online to WhatsApp to confront him, it was time this little charade end. I was happy where I was and didn't want anything distracting me from my exams.
The first thing I did was to change my profile picture to one of my matriculation pictures, luckily for me he was online at the moment. ''What is the meaning of this?'' He asked sending an angry emoji. ''What does it look like?'' I replied, I was kinda enjoying the way he was getting pissed off. '' here I am, working myself out to get you a scholarship and you started schooling without letting me know. What's wrong with you?''