20-year-old university student Maliyah Tijjani is independent and fierce, yet damaged. She's been damaged for many years of her life and she is trying her best not to bring her past traumas into her new profound freedom. She avoids dating to maintai...
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My confidence was on a million today. I had bombed my presentation in economics. I made my entire presentation based on the different diasporas in African culture and how they have been influencing economic activity since the Slave Trade.
My white male professor couldn't fail me, and if he did, he was racist. Not only was I an excellent presenter, but my presentation was well-detailed, concise, and exceeded the criteria's expectations.
I even wore my wax tube top, placing extra fabric underneath the rips of my jeans, all for my culture.
I began walking to the dining hall to meet up with Faevi. She was waiting for me in front, I quickly hugged her and we walked in together.
She began talking about how difficult her physics class was.
"I just don't understand how electromagnetism and projectile motion have anything to do with saving a life," she whined.
"Girl please don't put those concepts in my head. That shit makes me think and I hate thinking" I replied.
I remember wanting to be an anesthesiologist when I was younger. As I got older and realized how intense medical school was, I quickly withdrew my decision. It didn't fit my personality at all.
In all honesty, I had wanted to become a doctor to please my parents, since anything else I did failed to make them happy.
Then, I realized it was literally my life. Not theirs. I would be the one living unhappily with a job I didn't want. Not them.
Ma was surprisingly supportive of my career pathway-change, however, my father wasn't. I even tried telling him I had no interest in going into medicine, plus medical school was too expensive and I wouldn't want to invest in that, and he said he'd pay for everything. Sheesh.
He still thinks I'm on a pre-med track. He's a whole continent away. He'll be mad when he finds out, but oh well. It was my life. Not his.
The worst he could do was block me and cut me off. And I hope it wasn't that deep.
Faevi and I got our food and were now sitting at one of the many booths in the dining hall.
We sat in front of each other, space available on each side. It was early on in the day though, so the dining hall was mostly empty.
Several of her acquaintances had come and spoke to her, some completely ignoring my presence while others said hey to me too.
Faevi was friendly. She was the extroverted friend who was apart of eight different friend groups, while I barely had two friends. I knew the real her though.
To her parents and her peers, she was this high-spirited, overachieving rich good girl. To me, she was the psychedelic friend who dealt with her trauma by spending her parent's money, while trying to live up to her parent's legacy.
