abim24

When I got my first admission to study Computer Science, I didn’t really research the course deeply. I had already picked an interest in Artificial Intelligence, so I felt I would figure everything out along the way. While I was still at home, my secondary school mathematics teacher sent me some Artificial Intelligence PDFs. But you know the student mindset I told myself, there’s time. I believed that once I got to school, everything would make sense. Before all the AI talk, I was always curious about how websites were created. At some point, I even believed you had to be part of the Illuminati to build websites. I kept seeing posts about Mark and Elon, and even though I didn’t know how true it was, I believed it back then. I don’t anymore. When I finally got to school, I started hearing people talk about coding. I remember asking myself, what is coding? That question was what pulled me into web development. I started researching, asking “stupid” questions, making friends with the top programmers in my department, and even interrogating people just to understand syntax and programming terms. That was when I began hearing names like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Then Python, C, C++, C#, Java, Swift, Fortran, COBOL, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, Rust, Solidity, Move, QBasic, Go… and many more. Asking questions and doing research opened my eyes. I didn’t know everything, but I was learning. Today, I have an appreciable knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Rust, TypeScript, C, C++, and Java. And honestly, learning new things is fun.When I got my first admission to study Computer Science, I didn’t really research the course deeply. I had already picked an interest in Artificial Intelligence, so I felt I would figure everything out along the way. While I was still at home, my secondary school mathematics teacher sent me some Artificial Intelligence PDFs. But you know the student mindset I told myself, there’s time. I believed that once I got to school, everything would make sense. Before all the AI talk, I was always curious about how websites were created. At some point, I even believed you had to be part of the Illuminati to build websites. I kept seeing posts about Mark and Elon, and even though I didn’t know how true it was, I believed it back then. I don’t anymore. When I finally got to school, I started hearing people talk about coding. I remember asking myself, what is coding? That question was what pulled me into web development. I started researching, asking “stupid” questions, making friends with the top programmers in my department, and even interrogating people just to understand syntax and programming terms. That was when I began hearing names like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Then Python, C, C++, C#, Java, Swift, Fortran, COBOL, Kotlin, Flutter, React Native, Rust, Solidity, Move, QBasic, Go… and many more. Asking questions and doing research opened my eyes. I didn’t know everything, but I was learning. Today, I have an appreciable knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, Rust, TypeScript, C, C++, and Java. And honestly, learning new things is fun.

Not Yet My Time After the school switch, my dad said I would have to be going to school from home until he could get money to rent a place closer to campus. From my house to school wasn’t very far, but with the heavy hold-up, it was always stressful. Normally, I take a taxi from my school route every day. This particular day was a Tuesday. I was very tired, and the traffic was much worse than usual. It was during Ramadan period, last year March. They were renewing the road from Abuja to my state capital, so the construction workers had blocked one lane. That alone made the traffic unbearable. When I got close to my bus stop, the road became free, so I took a tricycle to my junction. When I dropped, I noticed something strange the tricycle driver had used the lane they were still working on. Not just tricycles, other cars were also using that lane. I crossed the first lane safely. While crossing the second lane, I made one mistake I didn’t check left and right. I only checked the right side and entered the road with the mindset that once the tricycle coming from that direction passed, I would cross. I was walking slowly. The next thing I heard was people shouting. Before I could fully understand what was happening, a speeding truck was coming from my left. I froze immediately. At that moment, I started praying because I believed I would die that day. Then something hit me. I told myself, I can’t let this truck hit me. If it hits me, how will my parents recognise my body? My mum won’t bid farewell to her daughter. My dad will cry. Everything rushed through my head at once. The only option I had was to run forward and let the tricycle hit me instead. If I tried to go back, I wouldn’t make it. I started running and jumping. I remember flying and hitting the tricycle glass. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. People were around me. I could hear them talking, but in my head I thought, I’m already dead. They say dead people can hear sounds. Then I realised I could open my eyes. I stood up immediately and ran home. By the time I got there, someone had already told my dad that he almost lost his daughter that day. From that experience, I remembered a quote from Emotional Intelligence 2 where the author said you have the choice to make things work out for you. If not for African myths and religious beliefs, I would have said you can fight death especially when it’s not yet your time. Many young people are no more today, not because they had no chance, but because they didn’t resist when they could. That day, I did. And it wasn’t yet my time.