Featured post

About Radiant's blog

The blogging sphere has crowded up very quickly in the past decade and it even looks like YouTube is taking over. Starting a blog in 2021 se...

Friday 20 January 2017

Exam Shock

We had our "Epidemiology and Basic Statistics" exam of 20 units load last week. You could tell from everyone's face after the exam that they didn't have it rosy. 3hrs and 2 papers. 1 for Epidemiology, one for Basic stats. 2 hrs into the exam, someone got up and submitted. I had barely started the second paper by then.  
I spent the whole of my Christmas break writing an essay for a 10 unit course. I had thought I would finish on time so as to prepare for this exam during the break but the essay proved quite difficult. Thank God I finally got it off my desk on 5th January when we handed it in. I thought I had 1 week to then prepare for this exam but I was wrong. I had only 4 days. I hadn't factored in the fact that we still had our regular lectures running. I couldn't afford to miss lectures for this exam. In fact, I had underestimated it. In my mind I felt like, "is it not stats?". I thought I was pretty much okay in Stats and I only needed to brush up Epidemiology. So I started reading. It was while reading, I discovered there were take home practicals for many sessions that I never even knew existed not to talk of doing them. We had 27 sessions to read through. On Sunday, I was on the 5th session, Monday I had gotten to 10th session. I had lectures Tuesday morning. Tuesday night (eve of exam) I abandoned the lecture notes 'cause there was no way I was going to cover the remaining before the exam in the morning. Instead I decided to go through the lecture slides. It was easier to just scan through the bullet points even though they had less explanation. I ran through the slides for the remaining 17 sessions. That night I also practiced the Epidemiology past question and only looked at the solutions to the Stats past question (there was no time to practice).  
Then came the D-day.  
I started with Epidemiology 'cause I thought I needed more time for it since it had a lot to do with short essays. By 1 hr 20mins I switched to Stats. Oh boy. The painful part was seeing questions I recognized from the lecture slides I had gone through the previous night but not being able to answer adequately as I knew little of what they were about. (The danger of power point)  
Pens up! And I was still scribbling. Reluctantly I dropped my pen, and submitted my paper. Looked across the room and the gloom was palpable. Someone even asked when the resit exam would be. I asked the one who had submitted his paper so early how it was and he said he had to submit because he couldn't find the things he had read in there. 
Those including me that had courage to recall the questions were discouraged by the answers they got from peers. So we stopped asking.  
I asked my classmate, "if Basic Stats is like this, how would Advanced Stats be?. "O you're doing Advanced Stats?". You could see how relieved she was that she didn't choose Advanced Stats optional module for next semester. Across the room, you could just hear people say, "all I want is just to pass". "Let me just hit 50 and I'm fine". "I cannot repeat this exam". It sounded ridiculous that people were considering failing. Not that it was not tough, but I didn't think anyone of us could get below 50. But I could understand that it was the intensity of the unexpected difficulty that made them consider failing the course. 
Praise God! The result came out today, I didn't only pass, I made a distinction. 
©Radiant~ January 2017

To say "Jesus" or not


She asked me, "How are you able to do all these - this (referring to my blog that I had just shown her), your music, and academics and yet you're so energic every time?". She was asking, like many people have asked, how I'm able to have it all together considering the diverse things I've got my hands into. Usually, I just smile this question away, but her case was different. She was persistent. She really wanted to know.  
It occurred to me that this could be an opportunity to share my faith with her. But I didn't want to throw it in her face. I wanted it to come out more naturally.  
"How do you do it? You know you're a role model", she was still probing me for answers. The testimonies of those that would say "Jesus" at this point came to mind. But it didn't feel quite natural to say it just like that. Like I needed to lead her to Jesus, right? not throw the name Jesus at her. I thought of saying God but instead said,  " Emmm.. it's grace". Feeling the ambiguity of my response, I promptly added, "God's grace".  
"God?", she was quite surprised. "Like is it your beliefs...?"
"My faith. I'm a Christian" 
She seemed to begin to understand. 
I asked, " are you a Christian?"
"No I'm Muslim." 
I smiled. "Ok. Like people from **** (her country) are mostly Muslim right?" 
"Well, we have different religions. We have Islam, Christians, even Aramaic, the origin of Christians... But what is practiced is different from what true Islam is. True Islam treats women equal..." 
Surprised to hear that, I was quick to say, "Really?, I thought Islam subjugated women" 
"True Islam is what I was brought up with and taught. That men and women have equal rights. They have equal access to education." 
"I thought Islam was the Hijab, pray 5 times a day..." 
"It is practiced differently in different places. We believe in God and the prophet". 
"Have you been to the mosque since you came to UK?" 
"No. I didn't go to mosque when I was in ****. Mosque is for men...There is a difference between what is written and what is practiced. You see people bombing themselves". 
"Why do they do that?" 
"There are extremists in every religion. Even in Christianity in ****". 
"Christianity is different", I said, "It is not a religion". 
"I know. It is a lifestyle", she replied, "true Islam is a lifestyle". 
At this point our break was over and we got back to our class work.  
(The words of this conversation might not have been written verbatim but this captures the essence of what was discussed.) 
Reflecting on this: 
Is it possible that I missed a great opportunity to witness Jesus to her? Here she was, really desperate to know. The opportunity was right there at my feet. I should have said Jesus and left the Holy Spirit to work the rest in her life. I was logically reasoning how mentioning Jesus would lead her to Christ. Or maybe I was ashamed of mentioning the name Jesus to her in class. Or maybe afraid of being seen as witnessing (like depicted in the movie - God's not dead 2). 
But why should I be ashamed of Christ? He said if I am ashamed of Him then He will be ashamed of me before the Father on the last day (Luke 9:26). Why should I be afraid to give life to people? If I believe Jesus is really the reason for my energy, why don't I want to share Him? If He is the author and source of life, and here is someone looking for life, why would I hoard that knowledge? This is about sharing truth, not about a religious exercise of evangelism.  
Dear Lord, please give me a second chance.
And this time help me not to blow it. 
©Radiant~ January 2017

Friday 6 January 2017

New Track By Radiant- Superman


My latest track, Superman is OUT!

It is available for preview, streaming and/or purchase via the following links:

On my website:

www.radiant.ng/superman

On Amazon MP3:
http://amzn.to/2iiXgeu

On eMusic:
http://bit.ly/2hxY3aF

On Google Play:
http://bit.ly/2hDGAOj

 

Thanks for your support. I will really appreciate your feedback.

Happy new year!