Crossover story: the real world of a recent graduate.

For reasons i do not know, but days ago, i had this unexplainable feeling to write about my experience as a recent graduate awaiting her NYSC mobilization. Maybe i felt the need to tell my story and free my illusioned view of being a graduate. Or i felt that it is a sort of warning to my juniors still in university, for them not to have a built up elusive life after school. It maybe because i felt there must be others in my shoes who are not willing to write their stories but who are dying to have their stories heard.

But like i said, it is an unexplainable urge to add a bit of my current experience to my readers.

Last year i wrote my last exam for my B.sc programme, before then, many days before the exam, i used it in planning, fantasizing, adding final touches to my grand life as a graduate. So you can imagine the joy i exhaled the day i wrote my last paper. Imagine the greater joy i felt defending my project around November last year. Finally, early this year, imagine the joy of a girl wearing an army green convocation gown on top of her blue gown, her matching green cape draping off her shoulder and a choir-like cap on top a Brazilian weave-on she got as a graduation gift from her sister and a red shoe she bought a day to her convocation - another gift from her sister, a sort of i-am-sorry-that-i-can't-make-it-to-your-convocation gift, marching with her mates in the convocation procession. Yea, that was me on that day. Though my parents were not there but the joy of graduating usurped that emptiness i am supposed to feel.

Now fast forward a month later, after the convocation day. I had my first experience of YOU'RE NOW A GRADUATE from my parents. Due to some reasons, i was still in school and yet to acclimatize with my new found crossover. As usual, i requested for some welfare money from my mom. Usually, the amount given to me is  a little higher than the ones given to a sibling that is same school with me. But that day, reversal became the order of the day.

Gradually, the whole message began to sink in. Since i wasn't done with what kept me in school and the weeks began to graduate to months, i knew it was time to go solo. Look for how to earn money. I know i am painting an image of an ajebuttered girl, but, the truth is that before now, i had never done a job that in true sense of it will mean that i am employed. My writing has always fetched me stipends from time to time, but it was not enough to say that i am working. The works i have done in the past were more  of charity and my different passions.

The first thing was writing a CV. Hehehehe, it was a case on its own. You see, i like preparing myself or at least appear prepared. Maybe that was the reason i took on different extra-curricular seminars that spoke about life after school. I remember in my second year, after attending one of the seminars and i heard how a girl secured an  employment in her final year, i was inspired to write my first CV. Somehow, through the years, i preserved it; on this day of cv writing, i opened my system and dug it out. Menh, it was really looking plain,  outdated. Just seeing it made me to realize that i have really grown. My problem became how to pen that "growness" on the cv - updating it. It some undoing and determination but some days later, it appeared better.

Second process was knowing who really needed an employee. I began to meet friends, began singing it that i was in need of job. Truth is till today, i am yet to get a manageable paying job. It was at this period that reality became my new sight. The worst is you can't even call anybody. I mean, there is this universal assumption that immediately you're christened a Super-lioness, you now become a giver instantly. Sometimes, my younger siblings comes around and look at you like a banker or oil company employee; do i blame them? No. You're already a graduate, you need to start producing and not whinning. I had the same notion as of last year. I also had so many plans, but the truth is this: YOU NEED MONEY to execute them.

I am also an advocate of get the skills first while waiting for the money. Maybe, that is what i am currently doing. Getting prepared more for my plans, but another painful part is YOU NEED MONEY to survive.

Now, something else is interesting here. Well, let's say not all graduate get to experience it. Now, 99percent of time, you're broke. I am no different. But your body says a different a story. An average Nigerian will assess your body whenever you say that you're broke, you need a job. I don't know, but it seems your body mass gives credence to your complaint. The slimmer you appear, the more believable your story becomes, but if you appear to be getting fatter, it looses credence.

Well, i have this body that shapens itself when i am in extreme stress but grows bigger if i am out of the stressed situation.
So let's say it is a double tragedy for me because while i am whinning and telling the whole world i need a good paying job, my body, unfortunately, says the opposite. That is the dilemma of being a Nigerian recent graduate. You gotta starve to look like you need money or a job.

So, that is my little experience in my recent crossover to graduate. Hunger is real, being broke is real. But i believe determination prevails. And keep the dreams real.