Six weekly words from Monty Don that fill me with excitement.
My weekend starts right here.
It’s Friday night. The housework is done and the fridge is full. I have no weddings to attend, no airport pick-ups to complete, and no job applications to submit. I don’t know where my phone is and I don’t care. Tomorrow I will go to The Garden Centre: my only appearance beyond my property’s perimeter. I won’t buy anything, plants-wise. I will be there ‘for inspiration’. The only permitted extravagance will be a couple of cappuccinos and a couple of croissants in the café, where my couple’s conversation will be of clematis, crocosmia, camellia, and chrysanthemum. Pot to pot, bed to bed, border to border.
I am a Millennial Gardener and I married one too…
Dirty at thirty
I’ve never been hit by a bus, but last week my wife and I completely overhauled our garden, and I feel like I might as well have been. I’m in agony. It took fifty hours over four days, involving three conversations with adjoining neighbors over adjoining fences, two car journeys to collect supplies, and baking one homemade fruit loaf to enjoy during our self-allotted tea breaks.
From which, as the days went by, our knees increasingly struggled to rise up again —
You’re dealing with someone who’s run half-marathons in his time here.
I’m an ex-personal trainer and amateur boxer.
I’ve played two-hour Rock & Roll sets to audiences up and down the UK, night after night, with a band that recorded an album over eight days, surviving on little other than two hours’ sleep and the fumes from an empty bottle of tequila.
I accidentally converted a seven-mile ramble into a 30-mile expedition in the Lake District when I missed the turn-off back to the … pub.
And I once worked for 36 corporate days in a row preparing for a trial in the High Court of England & Wales.
But I did all that in my twenties, a time full of exciting and youthful debauchery. The decade in which I’m now horrified to find myself in is one of aches and pains, indigestion tablets, weather forecasts, early nights, and compost-covered knees. I should’ve watched for the warning signs.
A passion project
Yet, looking down from my window at that garden as I write these words, I am proud. We’ve taken a sad patch of overgrown turf — in the middle of a newly-built estate inhabited by our generational comrades — to a flourishing hideaway from what we’re conditioned to believe is reality.
Unlike my legal career where the absence of a physical work product left a hole where satisfaction should’ve grown, the garden rewards us with fruits of our labor. Quite literally – our apple tree is about to burst and I’ve spied some baby strawberries hiding from the local birds.
Our border plots are packed with hidden references to personal memories shared with lost relatives and absent friends. Our sweet peas climb in tribute to my granddad. Our fresh mint multiplies with a nod to childhood Sundays, foraging with my dad for lunch condiments. A peace Buddha keeps watch from the corner, grounded at the base of a crimson tree with love-shaped leaves. This year’s display of dahlias will be a psychedelic wonderland, and our self-built vegetable bed is our own slice of hippie self-sufficiency. The magnolia tree we wrestled from the jaws of demise is a reminder: if there is passion, even the most clueless and misguided forms can lead to greatness.
(Image courtesy of Lynnelle Cleveland via Unsplash)
Don’t fence me in …
I don’t understand why gardening has such a geriatric reputation. That’s like saying cooking is boring. Sure, cooking is boring – if you’re one of those people whose craziest culinary flirtation is heating up a frozen lasagne. But, like any pursuit, artistic or otherwise, gardening is a blank canvas buzzing with endless creative potential.
Yes, it’s a place for solitude and wholesome reflection. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a source of constant connection to sit, unbothered by the pressures of a fast, frightening world.
It’s a place for entertaining, strung, as it is, with festoon lights, like a small stage at Glastonbury, over a fire pit which was, last weekend, surrounded by my wife, my best friend of twenty years, his wonderful girlfriend, and me. Draining bottles of champagne and sharing cigars, playing mad games and acoustic guitars. Remembering times of old as a Two, and now as a Four, making plans for times new. Toasting marshmallows and friendship.
I never thought I’d find myself replacing the vodka-swilling nightclub promise of a Friday night with the dulcet tones of Monty Don. Just like I never believed I’d swap the supple collagen of twenty-five for the damaged cartilage of thirty-one. But with the slow wilting of the body seems to have bloomed an ameliorating of the mind. As we sat and drank and smoked and played and reminisced and conspired, I think our little share of nature, in some way, saved us all.
The protest, which started on the 21st of July 2025 in Abuja, was led by several retired officers and activists, including Omoyele Sowore, an activist and 2023 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress in Nigeria.
To show the gravity of the matter and express their dissatisfaction with the pension scheme, the retired officers marched to the National Assembly and the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters in Abuja, where they protested under the rain and refused to leave until they spoke with the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun.
Aside from the capital in Abuja, retired officers in other parts of the country including: Edo, Plateau, Kwara, Taraba, and Cross Rivers states, also demonstrated their solidarity by starting protests of their own.
Retired Police Officers of Edo State Chapter (Photo via Vanguard)
According to the protesters, retired officers earn about 10,000 to 20,000 Naira monthly, while those managing the pension distribution, PENCOM, languish in wealth. This pension salary, which they have described as ‘discriminatory,’ doesn’t come close to minimum wage and is insufficient to cater to the needs of retirees.
The major demand of the retired officers is to be removed from the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), a pension scheme in Nigeria that was established in June 2004 by the Pension
Reform Act (PRA) 2004.
The leader of the protest, who is a retired Chief Superintendent of Police, Manir Lawal, said, ”We are here to ask the government to remove us from the CPS. The pension scheme is exploitative and unjust.”
Vanguard notes that another protester said, “I am receiving #20,000 as pension after serving for 35 years. This is the receipt, how can anybody survive this very harsh economy with this, let alone children and family?’’
A police officer in the Nigeria Police Force, who I spoke to under condition of anonymity said, “The protest is much needed because the pension scheme is a killer.”
He went further to state that if the government does the needful and reviews the pension scheme, he would be at ease knowing he can adequately cater for his children after retirement.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, addressed the angry protesters at the Force Headquarters, saying, “We all feel concerned. We empathise with you because we are also going to retire. I have been engaging at the highest level to ensure that something is done to improve the condition of the poor pensioner.”
The Nigeria Police Force Headquaters (Photo by POLAC VS NDA Via Facebook)Retired Police Officers of Edo State Chapter (Photo via Vanguard)
He further added, “I am not opposed to your exiting the CPS, I’m not opposed to it. If exiting from CPS will solve the problem, I will go for it. But if it is difficult for us to exit CPS, what else can we do? We have been agitating, exit CPS, exit CPS. For the past 11 years, it has not worked.”
The IGP, however, assured the retired officers that he was on their side and has been working behind the scenes to ensure that retired officers earn better pension wages.
With the ever-increasing population comes a decrease in resources. Or will the next baby be the genius who solves hunger, poverty, cancer, pollution, dry skin, and loneliness?
This confusion is but one area that gives people difficulty in choosing their careers, while others seem to fall into a pot of gold.
There is always pressure when it comes to one’s future in terms of work and source of livelihood. Have you ever been in a position where the career you adored suddenly became an out-of-choice nothing? Maybe it is overcrowded or not looking as lucrative as it did. Many times, people find themselves in career paths they never had a passion for. Then the passion rises later or never at all.
Having witnessed these questions, you might wonder how you will know what your career will be in the long run? Who doesn’t want the job/career that is the match made in heaven?
Career choice is indeed different from the actual career itself. For many people, there is the bitterness with their job. For instance, you might think teaching is just tutoring and lecturing in front of students, but there is much more: the commitment and all the professional documents you need to become the ideal teacher.
Now, for someone falling into the dilemma of what his/her career will be, here are some points that I found will keep you at peace when you are ready.
Look at yourself, look at your options
These bits worked for me, and I am sure they will help you too: Self-observation and considering many options. Recognize and evaluate your skills, interests, values, and career objectives, but don’t forget to find out about the job market, to project salaries and scrutinize educational requirements.
Who am I, and what skills do I have now or need soon?
Employers are all looking for skilled employees. Someone who they are sure will bring value to their place of work. You need to understand what set of skills you have that you can execute for top results — productive and unique.
For instance, when I was about to apply for the post of Student Outsourcing Coordinator at Biomed Laboratory Limited, I was obliged to read and evaluate my experience and honestly scrutinize myself if I had what it took to take up this role.
Although the job requirements stressed knowledge of microbiology, histopathology, and neuropathology I had trained on during my studies, I was still not certain if I had the skills right and went back to my notebooks. I even called my former facilitator to help me understand what the job demanded. Having done all this, I realized that indeed I had the right skills, and so I applied for the job with courage. Through my field experience, I developed skills with real applications, not just theory.
How would I recognize my true interests?
Most people have fallen into the trap of getting into careers that they never wanted or had a love for. This is the point where the CVor resume is convincing, but is full of uncertainties. I was almost becoming a victim of this frustration when I was applying for the Outsourcing Coordinator position for Biomed Lab. I saw it was important to follow what resonates well with me, working with students and assisting them in getting lab training. The fact that I was the bridge between what they learned in theory and actualizing that material in real world situations is what motivated me.
Surely, my interest was not in working in the lab only, but also in helping others get a chance to create an experience. So first understand what your passion and interests are — things that when you do them, you feel motivated, and not because you have no other option.
Do the company values match my own?
You need to make sure that the career you yearn for holds the matching set of values and principles that will set the ground for an easy time while at the job, and not those that will conflict with your standards. When I joined Biomed Lab as their employee, the work environment was in harmony with my values of cooperating instead of competing, with good communication and a genuine urge to help every student achieve their goals.
Yet I was afraid that the experience I had during my internships would recur in this new work environment, where nobody cared about the feelings of an individual, only what they gave to the company. But I am happy to say that at Biomed, we share values, making my job enjoyable — fertile for growth —and therefore more meaningful than the internship.
(Image courtesy of name_ gravity via Unsplash)
Which career objectives will make my career bloom?
Objectives are very important to sift through when it comes to knowing how your career will grow. Before you choose that career, plot out the goals you want that field to achieve clearly and understand how you will achieve them within that career. With this landscape in mind, you are sure your future career will bloom with the harvest you envision.
Having clearly defined objectives made me courageous when new opportunities poked up. Before I applied to Biomed, I reviewed whether the position I applied for matched what I wanted to ultimately reap.
I have always yearned for a working domain where science, education, and people meet. But how would it actually turn out when I finally accepted a job with my feet on the ground? Fortunately, I got a role that connected students to lab practices, which to me was the right path towards achieving my career goals. At least it was a start. I gained experience in communication, organization, and leadership, the experience I was expecting to achieve in the long run of promoting public health research and training.
Don’t worry, setting goals does not mean you limit yourself to that scope alone, but rather helps you work purposefully. Focusing.
How is my job market operating right now?
Another way of determining what your future job will look like is through the job market. Conduct some research on easy websites to identify the trends of how the career you want is now absorbing employees. Review various careers and assess which ones best fit your expectations based on the market.
For example, I never considered knowing how my own job market would relate to me getting real opportunities. I later faced how important it is to understand the market when I was looking for career options during my final year of school.
I was shocked to learn that my intended field of lab positions was overcrowded and at the same time offered limited job titles. This constraint compelled me to research other flexible but related roles where my skills would still count. Luckily, I came across Biomed actively hiring at that time and even offering a position related to what I wanted — not exactly, but at least in the same area of interest. So, stay updated on the jobs that are actually in demand and highly competitive in terms of the salary offered.
Which salary should I expect?
Pay is another important factor to consider when thinking about taking on a given career. You need to predict the wages you are likely to be paid for some balance between the labor given and the salary you get in return. This range will save you from exploitation by your employer.
(Image courtesy of micheile henderson via Unsplash)
Before I applied for the Coordinator role, I took some time to research salary expectations in similar roles. I did not just focus on the immediate salary, but also on the likely future salary, should I secure a higher rank. You don’t owe interviewers your idea of your salary expectations, but you need to know what the market will bear as you react to their offers.
This “digging” would help ensure that my salary grew relative to the work I put in, with room for advancement. As much as salary should not be the center of focus for an employee, having an idea of what to expect financially helps prepare a balance between input and output, to avoid overextending yourself or being used.
Which education (or paper proof) do I need?
Once you have identified a career that you want to pursue, how will you get there? Figure out which educational and then professional goals you should aim for,
Personally, I looked for whatever would enable me to work seamlessly in the lab training field, thus identifying shortfalls in my knowledge of biological science. When I first decided to apply for the position in student outsourcing, I understood that having overall knowledge about science would be of great help. Still, I needed to be sure what the employers were specifically searching for. I conducted research mostly to know what qualifications and degrees were in demand in my line of work. With this knowledge I was driven to consider positions that could offer promotions — space for growth and continuous improvement.
You must familiarize yourself with the various levels of programs-training-certificates you can take to enable you to rise in your career path and attain achievements easily. In other words, choose a career trajectory that will see you get promoted easily, and not a career that will stunt you.
Taking it all in for me
Taking the above factors into consideration from evaluating skills to understanding salary expectations, I applied for the role at Biomed easily, since they helped me match my personal goals, values, and interests with the opportunities that were available there.
The primary aspect is knowing that my career was not about predicting my future, but plowing in to learn more about my career without guessing wildly. Through self-evaluation of my skills, weighing my interests and personal values, having clear goals, knowing about the job market, and making sure that my salary balanced with my labor, I was able to come up with good strategies to navigate my way into and through my career.
As I continue to develop new skills in this position, the same factors guide me confidently in getting new opportunities, whether I will consider advancing in this field of work or looking for new career directions entirely.
Who knows, maybe you are the baby who next solves the world’s challenges, starting with your own almost-perfect career that at least matches you.
The late Sunday evening of June 22nd, 2025, was reportedly the last time that two teenagers from Eastern Idaho, Rachelle Fischer, 15, and Allen Fischer, 13, were seen by family or friends.
The juveniles from Jefferson County in Monteview, Idaho, have been reported missing by their mother, Elizabeth Roundy, who believes that they may have been abducted by their older sister, Elintra Fischer, 18, who is in association with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Elizabeth Roundy was a former member of the FLDS Church who left five years ago along with her children after gaining full custody of them in an 18-month court battle against her ex-husband, Nephi Fischer.
The family relocated to Monteview and were living together until the tragic disappearance that the Jefferson County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Office believes occurred somewhere between the hours of 18 to 20 PM, in a vehicle that is believed to be transporting them from Monteview to Trenton, Utah, where they previously resided.
Elizabeth Roundy’s fear stems from her belief that the abduction is in connection with “revelations” from the imprisoned president of the FLDS Church, Warren Jeffs, who called for children of ex-members to return to the fold. The Idaho State Police issued an Amber Alert for the two teens on June 24th. The Uvalde Foundation for Kids engaged in a multi-state ground search for 10 days across Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.
However, as of July 3rd, the search from this foundation has ended because of new information that suggests the teens are no longer being transported and instead most likely reside in one area along with members of the FLDS.
A resident of Jefferson county who wishes to remain anonymous commented on the area’s response and lack of updates, “So far it has been scarily way too quiet, nothing found yet. This much silence is never a good thing”
The search continues for Allen and Rachelle Fischer. Anybody with information about their whereabouts is asked to contact the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at (208) 745-9210.
Day turned into night– Your warm embrace suddenly turned cold, And never saw the shadow of the sun
Until forever ended, You were my safe place, Calm in a noisy world, The harbor where my heart Rested;
You were home, Not four walls, a roof and doors, But arms that soothed, Eyes that saw everything, like window glass, never judged, A voice that sang love songs, Legs that never walked away.
But now, Now, the silence screams, louder than a music hall, Drowning out a thunderstorm; Our laughter– once song– Echoes in my ears; Even if I tried to forget, I couldn’t, I danced to the tune.
Every morning, I wake up to the ache, of remembering you’re no longer here. No longer the home that brings peace, joy, and hope. No longer the future so bright. Losing you feels like A wound that won’t heal. Maybe it will– tomorrow, or someday.
Now I’m left picking up pieces of a forever that promised to stay forever Just maybe, My love remains, quiet, and invisible,
But still burning softly, in those warm corners of my soul. It will remain till it fades away, forever.
New Year’s resolutions. Weight loss journeys. Fitness kicks. Meditation. Everyone has a reason for wanting to exercise, whether they’re driven by motives of result or satisfaction, but those just starting out may need a tactic to maintain motivation from week to week.
I was at one time one of those people, unable to muster the willpower to commit to any exercise routine. Many attempts were short-lived.
Then one day, after years of trying and failing to make any exercise stick, I was introduced to what would eventually become one of my greatest obsessions — parkrun.
Welcome to parkrun
Saturday no longer exists outside of parkrun. Saturday is parkrun day.
Parkrun is a collective network of five kilometer runs, taking place every Saturday at 9am in hundreds of locations across the UK and other countries around the world. Each event is free to attend, run by community-based volunteers, and the results for each attending runner are calculated and released via parkrun’s website and their app.
As of April 2025, 23 countries are actively hosting parkrun events, with over 2,000 individual parkrun locations and over nine million registered users. It’s a whopping community – one, and that played a massive part in immediately catching my interest.
A social outing that includes movement instead of a solitary jaunt at the gym? Sign me up.
Humble beginnings
It began with a social media post. Rather, it began with an onslaught of posts from a friend of mine and my dad’s — Caroline.
Caroline was a volunteer at her local course in Northampton, welcoming first timers and showing them the ropes. She also had a penchant for bombarding social media with constant encouragementcalls for new runners.
On a whim, my dad and I finally decided to try our first parkrun at ourthe local park to see what all the fuss was about. Maybe Caroline was onto something.
It was New Year’s Eve in 2022, and winter that year was a cold one.
To give you a better understanding of my utter lack of experience with running, I stupidly decided to rock up wearing a pair of’ll share with you my outfit of choice for that day — jeans and a button-down shirt. I was, to say the least, ill-equipped to run.
My dad, meanwhile, had tried on several occasions to get into the unrelated “Couch to 5K” program in his own time. Try as he might, the process never seemed to stick.
I’m not sure what madness compelled ushim to finally answer Caroline’s frequent bids for running, but he did.
Despite the frigid temperatures and our minimallack of running experience, we resolved to have fun at the very leastthat day. As it turned out, that’s exactly what parkrun catered to.
We were immediately struck by a sense of camaraderie — more than 200 people had dragged themselves out of bed on this festive day, each of them linked by the same, slightly insane purpose of running a 5k before 10am. Everyone was friendly and open to chatting about their parkrun journeys; some runners had even travelled from overseas just to be a part of a different parkrun group.
Imagine travelling the world just to do a 5k with a group of people you’ve never met before…… That’s super inspiring.
The volunteers leadingrunning the event were supportive, assuring us that runners of all levels would be treated equally. We discovered later that one of the mandatory volunteer roles includes “tail walkers,” whose job is to walk along with the back of the crowd to ensure no one finishes in last position. That was reassuring. Equally, runners were encouraged to bring dogs and young kids along, provided they stayed within reach of their respective adults. There was no concern from my dad or me on falling behind or looking out of place. The sentiment was very much, “We’ve all been beginners at some point.”
Image courtesy of Tara Glaser on Unsplash
Accountability buddies
Our first parkrun certainly wasn’t our fastest, with both of us clocking in around the 40-minute mark. We noted how gratifying it was to run alongside like-minded people — the rush of racing from a starting gate in a stampede. Everyone held each other accountable to achieve only the best that could be managed on that day.;
Tthere was no competition with each other, or even past personal records.
If we slowed to a walk, those overtaking would spur us along to keep us moving. The marshals around the course would cheer as we arrived at every checkpoint. Truly, witnessing the support network was incomparable.
Fitness tourism
Once I returned to university in 2023, I started clocking regular parkruns with my good friend John (who was something of a parkrun buff already). Through our frequent outings, I learned even more about the parkrun lifestyle.
Courses are run on a variety of terrains — parks, forests, trails, promenades, beaches, hills, and wherever else permissions can be granted. The range of difficulties and experiences has given rise to a phenomenon called “parkrun tourism.”
Many runners set personal challenges — for example, completing a parkrun starting with every available letter of the alphabet, necessitating trips to countries such as Poland or the Netherlands to knock off tricky letters such as “Z.” UK-based parkrunners might try to complete at least one course in each of the major regions of the United Kingdom. John is one parkrun away from completing all the current 65 courses in the Greater London area, an achievement aptly named “LonDone”.
I’m only at a measly 22.
(Image courtesy of Sherise Van Dyk on Unsplash)
Transformation
I’d always been interested in running throughout school and university, but something kept holding me back. Perhaps I felt too shy to demonstrate such a level of exertion in public, or maybe I had a stigma that I was more of a sprinter and could never build up my endurance.
Parkrun changed all of that. The community spirit is transformative — and one of the highlights of my week. Almost three years later, I’m 80 parkruns down and achieving sub-23-minute times regularly. I’ve started completing runs twice more in the week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My fitness and happiness levels have improved tenfold; as a writer, it’s easy to sink into ideas without coming up for air, and running has become my tactic for modulating that burnout. I hope to continue exploring new parkruns and achieving milestones far into the future.
In searching for a new fitness regimeway to commit to consistent exercise, I initially saw parkrun as a starting point.
Looking back now, starting was the easiest part for me.
Like most toddlers in the kitchen, my daughter Naanie (also Hayat, my munchkin) is very tactile and loves the concept of eating her art project. Still, she has my very close supervision since her dexterity and motor skills are still developing. She does the following tasks with minimal assistance: picking fresh herb leaves off stems and ripping them into small pieces, tearing up lettuce, brushing (or “painting”) oil with a pastry brush, using the rolling pin for dough or puff pastry, squeezing water out of thawed spinach, stirring, and mashing.
I give her close supervision when it comes to grating and peeling, but no chopping vegetables and herbs with a knife.
When she was 3
She broke plenty of eggs one time. “Naanie, what are you going to do with these eggs?“ — “I want to bake cakes.” So, telling my mom the story of what happened in the kitchen, she brought her grandchild a 64-piece toy kitchen set … from Egypt.
When she was 4
“Ammie,” the name she addresses me with, “can I cook with you?”
When she was 6
My now 6-year-old had expressed a few times that she wanted to learn to cook. Over the years, I’ve had her help here and there, but one day last Ramadan she asked if she could help me cook “everything“ for the iftar, our evening meal breaking fast.
“Sure Hayat.”
My daughter thought it was such fun that she ran and grabbed art supplies and made menus. Her dad came home to a set table with all this and more:
Mains
Sides
Also …
Sandwiches
Yam balls
Pita
Meat pie
Potato balls
Naan
Chicken pie
Mixed potatoes
Croissants
Shepherd’s pie
Samosa
Popcorn
Spaghetti Bolognese
French fries
Juices
Couscous
Tender rice
Smoothies
Dashishi
Multicolored rice
Tuwo (corn dumplings)
From that day on, every evening we do have a blast! We begin to cook and do the kitchen chores together more regularly.
Naanie and I plan meals together. She’s included in the whole process from finding the recipes to purchasing and gathering the ingredients, plus researching for various cuisines on the internet. Followed by actually making the meal and creating the ambience. It must be the world chef in us, as I love the energy in the warm atmosphere.
We learn a few words for our meals, to try and incorporate them into our dinner conversation. Learning and living, plus cooking and eating. Munchkin makes menus and creates a restaurant name: Purple Hearts 💜.
We’ve found that this time together is truly fun, and we laugh throughout the work. Cooking can be an escape, and my daughter often comments on how relaxing it is. I would have never known that about her had I not allowed her to help. That said, it does take more of my time and patience to oversee her doing the tasks, and not twitching every time there’s a spill.
If she can cook, so can he
Her dad simply adores these evenings. He has commented multiple times on how special he feels coming home to a surprise feast from his girls. Now he also includes her when he cooks. Cooking has become a family activity, and we all get involved.
Our meals are made with love, as my daughter often says.
For me, I really do like to keep a clean kitchen, so I clean as I go. Therefore, before allowing my daughter to join in, I shared with her how cooking looks in our house, so that I wouldn’t react negatively. If she spills some sauce, or dribbles some mix, she now wipes it up immediately saying to herself, “we clean as we go,” and then there’s no frustration. Spills and accidents happen, but she’s proactive about cleaning it up and I like that. It makes me more likely to want to include her again. We make a good team, and I can honestly say it’s one of our favorite activities to do together now. We even have matching aprons! Who would have thought!? It all started on a whim, but it’s become a fun tradition in our home.
Teaching in a school and pay lags are forever associated. I am an education officer serving as a mathematics teacher in one of the government high schools here in Nigeria.
Between a rock and a hard place
(Image courtesy of diana via pexels)
As a government school teacher in my country, you cannot survive financially without a side income.
Starting a chain of tuition and coaching centers could be a good solution for a teacher, especially for a mathematics teacher. Ironically, if you want to go professional by establishing coaching centers for external exam candidates, you would have to be corrupt to make money out of it. No student would patronize centers where exam malpractices are forbidden.
Another option for poorly paid teachers to cope financially is to run other parallel businesses alongside their teaching profession. Although this option is unprofessional, it’s always preferred by teachers like me who innately hate cheating.
I joined a government school and started my own business with the small amount of money I had saved from my years of working with private schools. Unfortunately, not even a year passed and my business crumbled. Insufficient starting capital. Evacuating the rented shop was tough, but I had to.
That capital?
(Image courtesy of Muhammad Taha Ibrahim via pexels)
It hit hard on me, but the idea of reorganizing the business never left me. All I needed was capital! Where to raise it though, the very thought haunted me. Nobody around whom I knew would lend me anything. Not even a small sum, let alone the big capital I was looking for. I was now subsisting on my salary alone, adding to my financial challenges.
I did not let myself down. I worked hard looking for ways to secure the backbone of my dead business. I wanted to revive it and needed to buy an electric generator.
One of those desperate days, my wife brought home the information that her sister wanted to sell her electric generator at a discounted price, but I couldn’t afford even one-tenth the price she quoted. I looked at her with dejected hope. She knew the extent of my poverty. We were helpless.
Texting my plea
(Image courtesy of Kaboompics.com via pexels)
Instead of submitting to my fate, I started thinking of ways to get money to secure the facility. My mind just landed on a friend of mine who studied with me at a polytechnic school, now a lecturer at the British University of Bahrain. I was hesitant, but I was in need. A very close and helpful friend I felt I could quickly reach out to. I didn’t want any opportunity to slip out of my hands.
How I would put it to him was another problem. I intended to ask for a loan from him. But could I borrow such a large sum from someone who hasn’t been in Nigeria with me to see whether I’m lying or telling the truth? I just gave it a try through a voice note. I was scared of talking to him directly and dreaded answering his questions. I opted to send it at night, believing that I would gain the courage to see his response by the time he saw the message in the morning. Amazingly, the next morning, I saw a bank alert message of exactly the amount I requested. I immediately checked my WhatsApp, my friend’s reply to the voice note said that I should only refund seventy percent of the money while the remaining thirty percent should be taken as a gift.
The message left me speechless and with confused emotions. I expressed great gratitude to him for rendering me such an enormous favor, especially during my dire need, and even without confirming the truth of my words. Thank God, I was able to buy the generator.
The next hurdle to cross was to be able to pay back the loan in an installment of seven months, as my lender stated. I tried hard not to skip any of the seven consecutive months of payback. My friend was not here with me in Nigeria to pressurize me to pay back the monthly installments on time. I did not want to let down his trust in me.
Trust refinanced
(Image Courtesy of nappy via pexels)
In the course of the loan period, a lot of my friends and relations who used to pity my financial condition advised me to stop paying it back. Of course, the money would have helped me and my family. They pestered me that my not paying back the money would not affect my friend, financially. After all, he was a lecturer receiving a robust salary from work. I turned a deaf ear to all the ill advice.
To my surprise, it was not long before I reaped the reward of keeping my promise. This was the month after the seventh month I had cleared the electric generator loan, my lecturer friend in Bahrain called me, first to thank me for returning the borrowed money, and second to take an estimate of executing my business plan — the one I had not followed through because of financial constraints.
As a Nigerian himself, he knew I couldn’t depend solely on the government’s ridiculous salaries for teachers. Impressed by my trustworthiness, he promised to lend me money again for my business. He even told me bluntly that he had done similar favors to so many people who happened to be his friends like me, but none of them reciprocated his kind gestures the way I did.
It was then that I realized it really, really pays to be honest, and that honesty pays well. He gave me a loan again. This time to restart my dead business, He asked me to run the business for four months before starting to pay back the capital at a very convenient installment rate of 18 months. I returned everything. Last month I sent the last one.
Doing the math for my future
(Image courtesy of Safari Consoler via pexels)
Now, I have been able to achieve a lot of things from my resuscitated business — courtesy of my lecturer friend. I’m not even the only one benefitting from this reward for my trustworthiness. Two of my friends are now working with me running the business.
Due to the attachment I have for teaching, I continue to teach. However, I intend to leave the country in order to receive a salary commensurate with what I have always offered in schools as a responsible and veteran mathematics teacher.
Love. It’s an enduringly weird and fickle thing. It can lift you up and strike you down in grandiose ways. Sometimes, it’s practically Shakespearean.
Most of the time? Love is just confusing.
First sight
I first met her at university – let’s call her Rose.
She was one academic year below me but three months older. Her hair was that ephemeral dimension between blonde and brown. Her dress sense continuously surprised me – shades of bohemian with thick, colourful jumpers, home-knitted cardigans and crop-tops, and stunning, flapper-style dresses.
Most striking, however, was her wit, her timing, and her inability to take any group photo seriously. She was desperately funny, a maestro of sarcasm and deadpan, not to mention her insane musical talents.
She was so… irreversibly herself.
Lying below the surface
In my third year, I spent an increasing amount of time with Rose. We performed together, crewed shows, attended nights out… So much so that she became an integral part of my core friendship group, which kept us tightly in contact until graduation.
Our summer together in 2023 was idyllic. Both of us had endless time on our hands now that classes were dismissed, and we all lived in relative proximity. Every other day we’d be round someone’s house playing video games, board games, or “hide and seek in the dark with objects” (not as kinky as it sounds). We’d be swimming in the Thames near Englefield, taking trips to Thorpe Park, kicking about on the university green.
I never realized how much it would hurt when Rose was the first to travel back home.
Detachment
In July, I graduated. Soon after, I’d settled in London for my Master’s degree and my daily routines took on a new, intense focus.
By December, I was struggling hard with detachment. Sounds silly now, but I’d assured myself that the finest hours of my life had come and gone. I was procrastinating endlessly, dwelling on memories and choices that couldn’t be reversed. My productivity was at an all-time low. Throughout this malaise, I realised one face was cropping up in my imagination more significantly than any other. Feelings I’d long since suppressed started to make sense.
Suddenly, I’d developed an unquestionable, irrevocable crush on Rose.
Collision
What was I thinking? Rose was still completing her third undergraduate year. Any potential relationship would be destined to be long-distance, even if she felt the same way. We were running in different circles now. Plus, I came to realize that we’d never spent any one-on-one time together outside of our friendship group. We could be completely incompatible. There were so many obstacles… but I had to try.
Thus, in January of 2024, Rose and I collided on the streets of Windsor for a delightfully sunny afternoon hangout. We had a gorgeous pan-Asian meal at Banana Tree; reminisced on university memories, laughing anew at inside jokes; took a long walk on the Long Walk as the sun came into rest; caught up on dream musical theatre roles. The synergy was pouring forth. Everything felt easy. Freshly exciting.
So, I confessed to her.
I can look back on it now, say it was too awkward, too convoluted, I didn’t use the right tone but Rose always knew how to make a situation comfortable. She said I was a dearly special friend but that she wasn’t in the right mindset for a relationship at that moment. It was an elegant, compassionate refusal.
That was that. Job done. Feelings addressed. Everything was set in order. Or, at least, that’s what I hoped for at first.
Who was I kidding? I couldn’t let Rose go so easily.
When stepping back feels impossible
I imagine most of us would give anything to crawl into someone’s mind and see a situation differently. I certainly could have cleared some things up in this case. Alas, I latched on to any hope I could find. It wasn’t a “no,” I kept telling myself. “Not yet,” maybe.
Rose probably needs time to rearrange her own feelings. It hasn’t been too long since she ended her last relationship. Yeah, that’s probably impacting things.
I continued to see Rose as much as possible. I would over analyze the tiniest interactions, searching for heightened affection – for instance, when Rose hugged me not once but twice the first time we saw each other again (after all, no one else got two hugs, so far as I could see). Or when she started joking about me with her mum following her end-of-year performance. Clearly, I was the butt of some inside family joke and that excited me beyond words.
Simultaneously, there was distance between us. Rose could hardly hold my gaze if I was talking to her. I initiated almost all of our conversations. Messages I sent would sometimes linger for several weeks before getting a response.
In hindsight, the mystery was the most attractive part – the curiosity of sourcing a reaction. Wanting to uncover potential unsaid feelings. Wanting my idea of Rose to align with the real person.
Of course, it was only the idea that I loved romantically. The idea was bountiful when the reality was not. Ultimately, I had to let go of this ethereal version of Rose I’d formed in my mind. But how do I break up with something that doesn’t exist?
(Image courtesy of Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash)
Pondership
This was the word I kept using when talking about Rose with friends – a “pondership.” There’s a lingering attachment phase when a confession has been rejected. Not quite a friendship, not quite a romance: something in-between, something confusing. An unknown state. A Schrödinger’s relationship, if you will.
The more I thought about this term, the more I realized it could help me. I started pondering an entire relationship with this fake Rose I’d created, from the outset of dating to an eventual separation. The purpose of this wasn’t to live in any sort of fantasy. Really, it was quite logical. I specifically looked for rough patches, scavenging for drawbacks and dissuasions. I evaluated where I wanted to be with my life and routines, weighing these against the progress Rose was making.
Steadily, something started to shift. I was able to attach negatives to romantic involvement, though Rose and I were far from dating. I was able to step back gradually, separate at my own pace, and respect Rose’s boundaries.
I fell out of love. In that process, I realized – we were growing up. I think the major reason I fell for Rose was to hold on to my university days, those long nights in the summer and the cocoon of a moment that felt transcendental.
Moving on
Everyone has a first love. Not your first partner, not your first physical experience. The first person you obsess over. Lose sleep over. The person who destroys your productivity with intrusive thoughts, who makes you want to change who you are as an individual, to be better and more complete as a person.
Rose was mine.
Rejection sucks – let’s be perfectly honest. When everything aligns in your head, any interruption becomes such a destructive feeling, so be kind to yourself. Give time to that pondership phase but never lose yourself in it. However impossible it may feel to step back from the idea of perfection, it is possible to crack holes in that façade with enough discipline. Everyone’s process will vary but the sentiment remains the same:
Love is confusing. Definitely a tad Shakespearean. And it’s also one of life’s greatest lessons.
I saw your fingers twitch, While your phone was in your pocket. You talked about the news, and that Artist in Phoenix you keep seeing Everywhere, now that you are on TikTok;
The clock keeping ticking, as I wait for You to arrive; I have not seen you much– I know you cry a lot When you text me, instead of calling; We used to talk for hours, Back at the cabin up in Maine, The one with red clover out front, Seafoam shutters– I remember Watching you, watching the world–
