It was rather a normal autumn morning on the 3rd of October 2006, that i walked into the 3rd floor of Pilkington Library building of Loughborough University, this is will be where i will be spending most part of my time for the next 12months as a post graduate student of Information and Knowledge Management of this great University.
Well, just like me, most of the students were coming into the building for the first time and we all queued up to collect our welcome pack. Finding my department and locating my classmates was such an easy task for me, well it should be, from my undergraduate experience at Abia State University where one had to spend nothing less two weeks to complete registration as a fresh student (which include constant working up and down from Admin block to faculty block, to education block, GST unit etc..). Here all i needed to do was to locate the Pilkington building on the university map (which was sent to me two weeks before i left the country) and then make my way from the hostel to the building.
On getting to the third floor of the building which is the Information Science department i simply queued up with my fellow freshers to collect my own welcome pack (which has been clearly labelled with my name and course of study). the next step was to enter the lecture hall to receive briefing from the HOD and other staff and officials of the University, this is called 'orientation course'.
As long as and as boring as the orientation was, the information acquired from the sessions were all i needed to not just settle down but get through the whole one year i spent at Loughborough University.
Ok!!, The Post graduate students of Information Science Department were approximately 50 students all from different countries mainly China, Taiwan, Bangledish, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Brazil, India, United States, Russia, Israel etc, and ofcourse i was not just the only Nigerian but the only 'African' in the set.
All the lecturers or Academic staff (as they are called) introduced themselves and informed us of when we are likely to meet them in the cause of our one year sojourn in the university.
Our encounter with Dr Ann O'Brien remains memorable as this was the first person that gave us our first written assignment commonly known as Course work without any lecture preceding the course work. The aim of the course work according to Ann was to help the lecturers understand our background and assess if some of us needed extra coaching in order to catch up with the course, it was advisable for all of us to do the course work but it was not mandatory as it carried only 10% credit load of another module.
We were to argue 'for' or 'against' the topic: "Should information management professional encourage blogging (weblog) as part of professional activities?'
Before Ann left the class that day i had already made up my mind that i was going to concentrate all my energy on the remaining 90% of the module. Why waste my time trying to figure out the meaning of blogging or weblog?. The only thing closest to weblog that i knew was the famous "Hi5", "facebook" was not even popular at that time. Did i mention that we had one week to turn in the course work.
Fews days had gone by and i had not thought about the course work, meanwhile some of my mates where already done with theirs.
Kate (not real name) my Taiwanese classmate who i met on my first day in school approached me to know if i was amongt the league of those that have already handed in their course work, she hopes to hand in her own on the last day. When i told her that i was not ready to waste my energy on a topic i barely know so little about, Kate was so amazed, "You mean you dont know blog?", You mean you don't even have your own blog?" You mean you don't even visit other people's blog?" Kate kept quizzing me. In her own words she said "This is the most stupid thing i have ever heard" Chidi you are the most stupid person i have ever seen. She was not being rude or insulting, but Kate did not find it easy expressing herself in English, so she just says it without thinking about it, just to let the words go.
"Come! come!!, Chidi,!! follow me and come!! and I show you" I followed Kate back to the information lab and we logged into one of the computers and into the internet, she showed me her personal blog, other people's blogs and different blogs, Kate's blog was mainly pictures of events.
Just about three days to go, i changed my mind and decided to write the course work, i did research on bloggers, professional blogs, social blogs, political blogs, personal blogs. I also found out that many people have been rewarded for their blogs while some other people have got into trouble due to what they said on their blogs. Armed with this i submitted my course work before the deadline on the last day of submission.
It has been two weeks since submission of the course work and result is out. Kate walked up to me again with beaming smile all over her face. "Chidi the result is out and i had a C, I pass, I pass well, C is good, she said.
Have you checked your mail? Did you see your result? Did you pass? she quizzed me in her normal manner, I looked at Kate and thanked her for explaining weblog to me and showing me her blog, and ofcourse for letting me know how stupid it is not to have a blog. lol.....(but am from Naija, internet was not that common). Yes, I answered, her, I have seen my result and i had an 'A' 75%.
Well, so that was my first encounter and knowledge of blog, but believe me since then i have done nothing relating to blog. ok apart from facebook and twitter (i dare to stay).
Dear Friends welcome to my first real time blogging, and with this comes many more that will follow. My blog will discuss politics, relationships, religion, education and personal experience. Please feel free to comment.
And ofcourse dont forget to visit us on http://www.wakapedianija.com/ for those interesting personal blog experience.
ndewo nu...MAZZY!!!
