By: Favour Bamijoko 

With little to no holiday between last semester — with its daunting facets on all sides — and the commencement of a new semester, as students, we can barely say we are enthusiastic about resumption. The emotional baggage from last semester that many bear has enough potential to crush any delight about resuming. You can feel yourself resigning from almost every activity, both curricular and social activities. This is not to mention the weakening impact of sociopolitical problems embattling the country at large from which we collectively suffer. The stress, and challenges we face are as fresh and palpable as they have ever been.

As students, particularly, as Nigerian students, our challenges are many. They are ever-increasing, and made more acute by the lack of things that should ordinarily be basic. Day-to-day is a struggle for water, light, for subsistence, for the chance to be heard and to exist. Recently, living has become an extended struggle for existence. And, quite evidently, living, without deliberate efforts to add colour to the canvas of one’s life, has almost become a lackluster achromatic existence.

It therefore amounts to a form of double-jeopardy for us to live — within our environmental context — without intentionally creating channels of happiness through the forms of entertainment, for oneself. To journey through this desert without forming your own oasis of entertainment. Many scientific research and studies have highlighted the importance of entertaining oneself within unpleasant, or demanding periods.

From reducing stress and anxiety to enhancing creativity, and socio-cultural developments, the importance of our engagement with forms of entertainment and arts such as attending concerts and live shows, going to the cinema, engaging in tourism, visiting museums and art galleries cannot be overemphasized or classified as luxuries beyond our occasional reach. This, of course, is not to be oblivious or insensitive to the onslaught of inflation in the country.

This, on the other hand, is a charge, a manifesto to us, reminding us that if we must live — and yes, we will — we must make it worthwhile. Making it worthwhile would thus require poking holes of delight or excitement, through the seemingly drabby blanket with which life encloses our existence. Doing this comes in many forms — in the mundane, the spectacular, the seemingly “low-budget”, the exotic, the trivial, the significant.

Take a walk to Awba Dam. Watch the cattle egrets return at twilight with marvels in their immaculate feathers. Sit out in love garden, observe the crew of dancers dancing away with every beat of the music blaring from their speakers. Spend Thursday evenings at Drapers Hall with the Thursday Film Series. Learn the melody of Nature at Botanical garden.

But beyond the borders of the University, go into the township of Ibadan, with its many socio-cultural edifices and ancient ambience, its composed bars, numerous outlets and vast road networks. Ice n Cream, dutifully waiting opposite the school, is ever-ready with open arms to receive you. You could go into Ventura complex, and watch cinematic movies, play virtual reality games and do a couple of other things.

Take a cab to the contemporary district of Bodija and slot yourself into any catchy restaurant, by day, or any bar by night, when Bodija is most kaleidoscopic. For arts and culture, you could move on to New Culture Studio, Odu’a Museum, or the National Museum of Unity, Aleshinloye. The galleries, on the other hand, are numerous and equally ready for your awe. For a proud city like Ibadan, the means of entertainment are endless — boat riding at Eleyele River, skating at Adamasingba, archery at Awolowo way, polo at the recreational centre, Ibadan, golf at the golf club.

Whether it is through late-night experiences, visiting museums, or discovering a new fancy, the goal is to entertain yourself, and to resist the many challenges that beset us. It is essential. This semester, interspace your schedule with refreshing endeavours. There is perhaps no better note upon which to end this other than with the lines from the poem of the Pulitzer Prize winner and romantic poet, Mary Oliver, Wild Geese. It reads — whoever you are, no matter how lonely (or busy), the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting, over and over announcing your place, in the family of things.