Jean Goulbourne, Contributor

There was that time one Sunday night in February when I sat in my tiny room and reviewed my life at 21, and wondered if it was not better to lie in a mouldy grave and stare through the tombstone up there at the sky. Chapel had just finished and I had walked back to my room in the hall after listening to a hearty sermon about the afterlife and the things that were there for all of us who truly believed. I truly believed, still do; in fact, it was because of my belief and sincere love of God that I wanted so badly to lie in a tombstone and look up at the sky till the day of judgement, when I would see Him in person and ask of Him just why He had sent me there.

Life was not sweet on campus, and I thought, with my semi-innocent mind, that if this was life out there as well, then I would prefer to lie in a tomb and look at the stars till the day of judgement.

Once again, I had been cursed. There were these young hoodlums who tormented me, and on the way down to the chapel they had slowed their fast car to shout abuse.

"Hey, gal, you! You a' worship dead god!"

"Pretty gal, you nah talk to we? You think dead god going married you?"

What had my mother taught me all my young life? "Walk tall," she had said, an I wanted to cry my heart out, I walked tall that Sunday evening, as I did on all the other occasions when they had tormented me. Mockery had become a part of my life and I had no one to tell my trials to, except at night when I spoke earnestly to the God of my belief.

I wrote that essay my way because I had always admired the man Napoleon. I didn't regard him as the infidel so many people thought he was. I read the books prescribed by my history lecturer (who was Polish) and thought I would go against the grain and treat Napoleon as a thinker, a reformer and almost a hero. I presented my essay and went away to read on the other topics till the day the Polish lecturer brought the essays back to be returned and commented on. I noticed that she handed out all the essays except mine, and I was puzzled. Hadn't I handed in an essay? Had she lost it?

Then she gave a nasty grin and held it up.

"Let me read this to you," she said.

I felt a shiver go through me. What had I done wrong?

What followed was a time of ridicule: She read the essay like someone reading a Bible written by Satan himself. I did not cry, even though my fellow classmates had a time of it, joking and laughing and having fun.

After she was finished, I took the essay, looked at the amazingly low grade, and placed it carefully in my folder. I would preserve this mess. This was history in the making. I had dared to defy a lecturer on the campus and to think for myself. I had dared to question authority and come to my own conclusions. I had dared to be different.

At the end of the class I rose with dignity and walked through the door. She looked at me from under her eyelids just before I left her room. I swore that I wouldnot conform. I had come to this place to think and be myself. Who learns and contributes best? Those who think for themselves or those who read and regurgitate in their own words what is already believed?

North American history classes were a muddle. I couldn't understand causes and effects as the texts I read did not give a time line. Instead, each text dealt with a different topic. I decided to go to my tutor to ask if I could find a text that had what I needed.

He was in his office when I knocked. I went in and asked him if there was any available text that dealt with all or most of the topics which would give me an idea as to the whys and wherefores. I wondered briefly about his smile as he told me there was no such text, and then I left.

Next class we all sat and waited for the tutor to begin. He grinned as he looked over at me in a corner of the room.

"Guess what, students," he said, pointing to me, "she came and asked for a text that would explain everything. We all know there is no such text. You know what I mean."

The room went still. I would feel the anger in my fellow students. After class I asked a friend what he meant by 'You know what I mean.'

"You don't know?" she asked me.

"No. What did he mean?"

"He means you are running after him."

Anger swept through me like a roaring river during a hurricane

"If that's the case," I said, "if that's what this campus is all about, I will go home to my father. He has land. I will go back and start a piggery. At least that won't be a waste of time."

After that incident I fell into a stupor of confusion, boredom and frustration. I couldn't go home. I had no capital and no knowledge of pigs. After all these years I have realised that life outside of that insular campus has had far more to teach than life within it. And I am happy I didn't become an intellectual who stuck around that campus to become one of the fossils that so many others now are.

END

- Jean Goulbourne