The sick dress and unnecessary but insane leather gloves I wore to the dinner my parents had for me to celebrate my being Called to the Bar
Barrister So Special
I was afraid my blogville visa might have expired, I haven't blogged in sooo long. So much has been going on you wouldn't believe, so here's a quick rundown:
1) I had a fab fab holiday, stocked up on baffs to wow them in the workplace
2) Got my result, Blogville's very own 3WP made a 2:1 or 2nd Class Upper to be more formal. *my cup runneth over*
3) Fell in love
4) Started NYSC and experienced the strangeness of my country Nigeria when all female corpers were forced to take mandatory pregnancy tests. (i have to digress, the experience was too fantastic to just gloss over) Got to camp in Iyana Ipaja in Lagos and was told that before I start registering I have to take a pregnancy test. So I and my friend Ediri were like no biggie, lets go find a lab, "no uh" says the NYSC official "you take the test here in camp". So we were like cool, "where?". The dude now points to this impossibly long line where you can't even tell whats going on up ahead. So we joined the line and stood under the blazing sun for exactly 2hours and 36 minutes (i kid you not). Getting to the front of the line I was confronted by Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen in Nigerian form, I was given this little, dinky plastic bottle and sent to some kind of sunken patch of grass. My modesty was being protected by tattered hospital screens and piles of matresses, there were now these 3 'nurses' sat there watching all the girls pee. We had to squat (need I remind you that this is all taking place outside) over the plastic bottles and pee in them in full view of the 'nurses'. They were there to make sure we didnt substitute non-preggers pee for preggers pee because married women are not allowed to take part in NYSC. So each 'nurse ' was assigned to a girl and she'd bend down until she was in full view of your privates and from time to time yell out "open am well, make i see the piss". It was a miracle that I was even able to perform under such circustances. Anti-bacterial hand wash and sanitizers were in hot demand that day.
5) Got an exeat from camp and took off for Abuja for my call to bar. Call Week was the bunzest, there were parties every night, I and my friends partied like it was 1999, too effing mad! Had my own dinner and after party on the 6th after my Call.
6) Got Called to the Bar, it might be a bit sappy but I swear I got goosebumps when the Chairman of the Body of Benchers said "I now formally invite you all and severally to the Nigeiran Bar, you may now put on your wigs", or some ish like that.
7) Came back to Lagos, went to camp the next day. Escaped from camp that same night around 11pm under the cover of darkness wearing hastily purchased 'okrika' clothes (which I bought for N500). I couldn't escape in my clothes or the NYSC kit because I'd be caught, so I was told to dress like the market women that work in the mammy market, bathroom slippers and all then maybe I could get through the gates. I and Ediri deserved Oscars that night because we played our mammy market role to the hilt, we even threw out some choice Yoruba phrases as we passed the soldiers.
8) Fell out of love
9) Managed to finally acquire exeats so I'm now free to go in and out of camp as i plese, no more subterfuge. Youth service is not for the faint of heart.
So that's been all so far, hegziting non?
