Pen and Paper.

For the second quarter in school, we were tasked to read and digest the play Oedipus. Before reading the whole selection, I was already looking forward to the part where Oedipus falls in love with his mother because eras ago, we have already discussed the psychological disorder called Oedipus complex. You have to be happy for me because I had an idea of what would happen. During the first quarter, we discussed Homer's The Iliad and while my classmates were graceful enough to know at least three-fourths of the gods and goddesses plus whatever corresponding noun they are ruling, I had no single drop of knowledge aside from Hades was from the underworld and Zeus carried a lightning rod of some sort. Too bad the Holy Trinity, a major ingredient in my family's native education system, was unique to Homer. No salvation for him and I then.

Back to Oedipus. My teacher cleverly devised a procedure to pressure us to get into our handouts. You are grouped into packs of 4 and your follow-up quiz scores will be averaged. Meaning, if you have the lowest point in your group, you just destroyed a part of the future of your classmates. My group mates' memory dwarf my aged brain. First quiz, 2 got 13 out of 15 while one got 16 out of 15, using the bonus points to rise above us all. I got 12 and that meant I just tainted their grades.

I admit whole-heartedly that I have memory rivaling only that of chimpanzees. My peers can memorize a poem overnight while it would take me at least 3 days to confidently recite a stanza from memory. When God was distributing memory centers, I lined in with the goldfishes. I'm a sad excuse for a human.

To add to the bad news, I really love the subject and classic literature is beautiful but it becomes a burden when you can barely memorize two names and easily get confused where all the e's and h's go. I can cite several instances when I go berserk over finding out that a character just married his cousin, only to find out later that Timmy and Jim were two different characters. I'm afraid to try memory enhancers because I have this fear of all medications that concern the brain - except caffeine. All because other brain medications include cocaine and the herbal, Mary Jane.

In all efforts to try and help my group mates fulfill their dreams of graduating as scholars and to help me train my brain into becoming a more organized memory bin, I started to take down notes. I confess, I am a technophilic. If only my laptop was lighter than my Physics book and it didn't need constant recharging, my pens and notebooks should have been shipped to schools in Nigeria to benefit those who need it more. Just to make sure that I can have ten minutes of pure school work, I slammed my head into my notebook with a ballpen in hand  and started taking notes. The results are pictured above - yes, my handwriting, although un-oiled, isn't that repulsive. I actually love my hand writing. I just learned trying to make it look less trashy when I was in first year high school. There was a time when I felt so depressed that I let my good friends do my assignments in writing in Grade 3 and to make up for all the sins I committed against my writing teacher, I asked a scribe to write me all the letters in the alphabet, capitals alongside lowercase. It became a guide and every free time became practice hours. After a few months, 25% of the population can already understand my penmanship.

I wrote using pen and paper and listed hard to spell names of Greeks. I should get a good score tomorrow, if not, see you in defeat.