First of all: Introduction

Day zero, pre scene: So this is something I’ve planned on doing for so long, I mean for actually a long time but as we always have it, my procrastination wins almost every time, I can swear (if I usually swear but which I don’t) that I don’t do these things intentionally neither will I say it is a good thing (probably another reason you don’t want to be like me), but glad to be finally here and writing this, so here goes nothing

Act one, scene one: If you’re just scrolling down here, you’re probably wondering what this article is about, or if it’s because you have a high opinion of me (Ooops!! that’s frightening) and curious what this article is about, I hope I can stroke your curiosity even a bit further, but stay with me (Like the song i’m listening to as I’m writing this says, oops!! I think the song is “Stand by me” instead, but even though, link).

In a couple of days, I’ll be graduating college, a tumultuous journey of five turned seven years, but today is not the day to rant about that, I just think it is important to document myself in time and space the best way I do, through writing and this is why we are here. But before that, I think it is important to give you the proper context of who I am for those who don’t know me and just a little synopsis of where I am coming from, hence the title of this first (of the many to come), First of all, Introduction (If you grew up in the southwestern part of Nigeria in 2010s, this will definitely ring a bell in your ear).

After all said and done, my name is Marvellous OLUWAMAYOWA Ajala. Like the name implies, you can easily guess I’m marvellous, if you don’t believe, you can ask Israa (my Sudanese friend) who calls me Awesome, because why not? I am awesome. As a Nigerian who grew up and has lived all his life in Nigeria, I was kind of used to hearing people being named Marvellous, Precious, Success, Faithfulness, until i was in the camp of some Sudanese and they asked what my name is, going by my usual line “I’m Marvellous” and their response shocked me. They were like “yeah, we can see you’re marvellous but what is actually your name?” They didn't believe any one could be named Marvellous and that was when it dawned on me that maybe the name isn’t as much as a common and normal occurrence as I thought it was. That said, I’m a Nigerian from a small town in the south western region of the country, Ogbomoso, (the land of valiant men and warriors, given my look, you must already see that) and I’m proper Yoruba man.

Given the context that I’ll be finishing in a couple of days, I don’t know how to best describe this next part but I’ll try. I’m currently a final year undergrad student of the University of First choice and nation’s pride (so much fugazzi for a school that won’t provide you light for about 4 days while you’re even writing exam, shame!!!) but you get the gist, University of Lagos studying pharmacy and nope!!!! My desire to study pharmacy wasn’t because of any reason to find cure to cancer or anything you might call it.

A little context: Where I’m from, you somewhat decide your life career in some elementary form of it when you’re about thirteen/fourteen, by this time you’re going into the second phase of your secondary school education and you have to make a choice, join art class if your life ambition is to be a lawyer, commercial class if you want to be an accountant or science class if you want to be a doctor or an engineer, that’s all the options that exist for African parents, anything inbetween is the either your fault for not getting the predetermined score in Jamb (organisation that process entrance into tertiary institutions in Nigeria) or your village people who made sure that your school of choice didn’t give you your course of choice. Did I also mention that the choice of schools are limited, it’s basically Unilag and others. For vast majority of people, it’s actually just the others, they believe the admission process into Unilag is too stringent that they won’t make it through, basically self discrimination, (smirks in dismay) but not really their choice sha, in a country of the blind, the one-eyed man is the king is the story of tertiary institutions in Nigeria (if you ask me, ati unilag and others o, shit!!!)

So as I was saying, I didn’t study pharmacy because I had any great urge or desire of finding cure to diabetes (though that is what I’m doing now), it was basically an elimination process, lol. For one, I knew I didn't like medicine given that, that sort-of is the default expectation, the smartest people especially if you’re in science class should go study medicine, anything less is a waste of brilliance (looool) to many of our parents and teachers back then, but I knew that definitely isn’t for me, first I dislike the sight of blood, I dislike injections and I don’t like the sight of injuries and deformities also in what I’ve come to know as my phobia for blood, injury and injection, BII (I couldn't believe my eyes too when I learnt that it is a real phobia). But it doesn’t stop there, I don’t like the smell or look of hospitals and my body react violently when I’m very close proximity to pregnant women (not my fault, I promise), I was just sure that path isn’t for me, the problem then was, what then? Given my love for maths and physics, I thought “oh!! Maybe Engineering”, well, given my knowledge at that point, I couldn’t find any that satisfied my curiosity out of civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical and co. Maybe if I had known of something like systems engineering or if Unilag was offering biomedical engineering at that time, I would have picked one of the two, but sadly, I didn’t. So out of the choice of a medical or engineering course, engineering was out of it, back to medical. At this point, I had a bad perception of other medical courses as sort of assistant to the doctor (PS: This view is very wrong and incorrect, every medical course are some sort of expert in their domain), so I wanted something a bit independent and alas, pharmacy popped up.

Given the time that has passed and the different forms of shege (nigerian term for chaos or problem) that I have faced, COVID, over 18 months of industrial strike action and academic stagnation, my desire to be a pharmacist has waned significantly, but not my curiosity about drugs nor the choice to make significant contributions to the society I find myself, now I’m most interested in the power of technology, specifically artificial intelligence and how it can power healthcare and drug discovery primarily for African context and continent, so now, I primarily consider myself some sort of ML engineer cum turn researcher with focus on healthcare and drug discovery (sorry, I’ve seen too much shege for this degree to just waste like that) but I’m actually good at what I do and I can promise you, it’s not fugazzi.

But beyond what I’m studying/doing, I think there are more interesting things about me. For one, I’m a huge lover of knowledge. At first I thought maybe it’s books I love but sadly I haven’t completed any book this year (or maybe last year too) except for technical textbooks about machine learning et al but that hasn’t derailed my quest for knowledge, I can’t count how many short articles, newletter issue and podcasts I’ve listened to within the same frame of time. I think it has major impact on things I’ve done in the last couple of years. First, my choice to join the university debate team, given it ties to another thing I really enjoy, great conversations, chats and discussions about literally anything, but beyond the conversations, there’s so much knowledge and critical thinking involved in the type of debate (British parliamentary) that I just couldn’t miss out of that fun, rigorous but fun and worthwhile. (Fun fact, I think debate is that one thing thing I really enjoy but never got really good at, or one of many, sorry to you if you think I’m good, I know the bar is on the ground *laughs* but dearies, I don’t make that cut). This is another reason while I sort of struggled in pharmacy school, the pedagogy style and system there does not promote critical thinking, creativity and “knowledge-synthesis” but rather mindless cramming. I knew I was in for a long haul when the first test I wrote in the faculty, a lecturer literary lifted a portion from her note and inserted it as one of the test questions as a fill in the gap, if you didn't write it the exact way she dictated the note, you will and have missed it. The system doesn’t reward going the extra mile to make up of the bad delivery of the lecture, yearning to know more and just building up your knowledge base about the topics you’ve been taught but rather your ability to reproduce the lecture notes word for word during exams, anything less or more doesn’t cut it. Given the volume of work coursework and lab work involved in pharmacy school, it just wasn’t a worthwhile investment, so do the basic, pass and keep it moving. But this is something I’m most grateful for technology for, while pharmacy school couldn’t stand in the gap, it helped me preserve this curiosity and inquisitiveness.

Also, I think I’m effortlessly funny these days, which is interesting because I wasn’t say 2 years ago. I think the long timeframe of my-repressed-fun-self just make it hard for me to not be funny anymore and this means that my first reaction to everything is to laugh it. In some ways, it’s a good way of keeping sane in a country where the cost of a couple therapy sessions will send me back to the farm in the village, so like another Nigerian phrase, “if I no laugh, I fit crase o” (I can lose my mind if I don’t laugh) but I think it’s generally a good thing, that’s one less barrier people need to overcome to approach me and most people generally just have a good perception of me (not like I care otherwise though but just feel good).

I think the other thing to note about me is that in some ways, I feel like I’m a Schrodinger’s cat. I think generally I have great work rate(quite hypothetical that I’m the one giving this testimonial for myself), but for real, I do have great work-rate, sometimes I shock myself even (if you don’t believe, ask my friends or those who know me a bit) but in the same vein, it can feel like I’m not doing anything or even the laziest person on earth. So in a very funny way, i tend to maintain the vibe, energy and ethic of someone who is very diligent, focussed and determined and I manage to maintain the energy and flair of someone who just don’t care nor give a damn, I wish I had the words to better describe this but I think this is the best I can do at the moment.

Lights out: Exactly why I have issues writing these type of articles these days, it’s somewhat scary for me to try dive into my head and memory because who knows what I might find their and getting out might be a challenge, I guess I’ll rest my horns here for now. So like the Yoruba say “Odaabo” (until you return again), let’s hope it’s a see you soon and… thanks for reading up to this point, what can I say? You’re the real Idan.