My mom’s blue scarf (What childhood taught me about personal identity)

I had to deliver the speech below at a TEDx Bates College event. Enjoy.

I like to think of myself as a storyteller and a musician. I haven’t been called much of the later and perhaps I shouldn’t make my debut on a stage this big, so I’d tell you a story.

I have been called many things. A student, a friend, a brother, a son, a genius, an idiot… I answer to a lot of these names due to the very specific roles I played or will be playing. But there’s one I’m still getting used to, the name that readily falls out my mouth when asked to introduce myself. Akachukwu. Predictably, you don’t ask what that means. Mostly likely, you’re not sure and sometimes, I am not sure either. So I skip to I’m a Nigerian, student of Bates College,

This Fuji Thing

Christmas 2006: Flight into Egypt cartoon (Photo credit: DUCKMARX)

Preface: Here I attempt to answer most common questions I continue to receive about getting into US Colleges and Universities. Sorry I may entertain you with many deviations. Tip: there’s a Q&A section.

I was excited about coming home to Nigeria for the summer, but I believe my American friends were even more excited. Many would ask, “are you excited [about going home]?,” hoping I would squeal for joy and wipe a few tears off my eyes. Often times I just say ‘yeah.’ This hampers their already planned ‘aww’ (which I dread), or any further talk about my cat or siblings, and testing my ineptitude at talking about other exciting things which do not exist. Of course I am excited to meet my family of seven again and play shirtless barefoot soccer in the mud. I’m excited to eat mummy’s food again, dance in church again, to 

Seeing at the Speed of Light

Last week’s Physics lessons were really interesting, even to Someone Like Me with no genuine interest in Physics. We have talked about so much Relativity, and in a way, that throws a lot of insight on the fact that the world we see, is more complicated than the world we live in. Scientists discovered that nothing travels faster than Light at approximately 3.0 * 10^8 m/s, though there’s some modern discovery about neutrinos travelling faster (update: yay, they’ve been proven wrong), but let’s just talk about Light.