Crash Reading: The Untold Story of Jerome

 

By Akinreti Taiwo Comfort 

Under the bustling and hustling sun of  Obafemi Awolowo University are the chaotic sea of course materials, piled-up PDFs, cumbersome notebooks, and unread papers. “Everyone must survive”, the students always say. However, the more they try to survive without committing the required effort, the soothing it becomes to the hears - The tale of Downfall and Academic doom.

 In the centre of this, there is Jerome, a courageous soul who believed he could conquer an entire semester’s worth of academic work in a single sitting a few days before the exams. He is a master of crash reading - an act described as a literary adrenaline rush with an experience where the pages turn faster than your heartbeats and sweep you away on a whirlwind adventure, leaving no time for a pause or breath.

During the rain semester, Jerome’s tale unfolded, marked by a whirlwind of extracurricular pursuits that left him adrift in time. Caught off guard by impromptu tests and drowned in a sea of setbacks, he yearned for redemption through the ultimate challenge - Exams. He believed it is the only option left for him to regain his lost enthusiasm. 

Armed with determination, he set out on a race against the clock, facing a mountain of 250 slides and five weighty tomes, each recommended for a different 3-unit course. Fueling his late-night escapades with energy drinks and relying on caffeine’s enchanting grip to defy sleep, Jerome fought to read his way out of the impending abyss of failure.

From Awo Café’s restless evenings to the iconic Oduduwa Lecture Theater, and “crashing” lessons in various rooms of the Admin extension are just a few examples of his sojourn in avoiding failure. Jerome believed he's prepared for the exam even though the day has already passed and his head is nearly bursting from studying and mental instability. 

The dawn of reality finally hit Jerome in the exam room; the fully air-conditioned lecture room was unable to calm his body temperature. He continued to skim and scan through his overloaded mind, but he was only able to retain about 50% of what he had read. Other students in the test room were similarly situated to Jerome and were reaping the results of their activities, but failure is never intentional; rather, one’s actions call for it.