Name: Abraham Oluwasegun Adegoke
School Attended: University of Lagos
Course Studied: Mass Communication
State of deployment: Abia State
Initial reaction to posting: Indifferent mostly although I would have preferred somewhere closer to Lagos at the time.
Camping experience: Good enough, generally
a)Happy moments: Working at the Orientation Broadcast Service was the bomb for me. I did loads of writing and editing. It meant I could stay up way past night out time on a few occassions and I kinda enjoyed that. And getting to listen to stuff I had written being read on the parade ground was a thrill. I loved the early morning drills too!
b)Boring/sad moments: Those long, never-ending lectures were downright boring. Sad? None that I can think of.
c)Funny moments: I had loads of that in my dormitory. Picture a scenario where you have about four or five natives of Oyo state with strong accent gisting and sometimes 'yabbing' (a random, unlucky fellow) in Yoruba. And that's on one end of the hall. The other end had guys from the south-south, themselves funny characters, who most times got into it with the Oyo peeps because of the language limitations. The result: downright explosive nights that extended well till midnight sometimes. You just couldn't get to sleep when those guys were in groove, that was frustrating atimes though.
Place of Primary Assignment: It's been an experience indeed. I was posted to a private secondary school. In a way, I was looking forward to the job. Afterall, I had not done any formal academic teaching job until then. But, what I met there was downright depressing. Majority of the students were extremely poor. As poor as an SS 3 student not being able to read properly. And I was given the unfortunate task of teaching Literature-in-English to students like that! Of course, that was just a reflection of the school's standard. Here, students don't fail. Honestly, it took me a couple of weeks to shake off my depression. I've been teaching English and Lit-in-English and I've enjoyed connecting with some of the kids. I've been frustrated too by the depth of ignorance some of them possess. Most of all, I've enjoyed those times I succeeded in helping some of them understand a lesson...what blissful times those were!
CDS group: Editorial/Press group. If I had a choice, I wouldn't have chosen the press group. I had been doing press-related work for over 6 years at the time and I wanted to try something else. But that wasn't to be, I ended up in the Press group. Anyway, I ended up talking too much, quite uncharacteristically, at the meetings. At least I talked enough to have to pull a stunt to avoid being made president of the group. Don't ask me why.
Accommodation (How easy was it to get a place): My employer had that covered. He got somewhere better than I had expected.
Cost of living: Just slightly lower than it is in Lagos.
One year service, is it worth it?: I think so although there were times I wished it were over and done with. I'm sure it's gonna fit into a larger picture.
Final words!!! You would have to wait a couple of decades to get those.
Congrats to 2015 Batch A on their swearing-in ceremony today. Meanwhile the countdown is still on.....#56 days to go.
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