What’s the difference between a B.A. Student and a pizza? I remember the joke as clearly as if it was told to me just now. It was in my third year at campus that I heard it. Apparently it was those Law students that went spreading this little jest about us Humanities students, and I must admit that I did have a good laugh when they said ‘a pizza can feed a family!’. At the heart of it, it was one of those mean, innocent little jokes that define the immaturity that is being a student. For me, however, this joke gave me a huge leap of maturity that took me back to something I should have learned many years before, when I was in high school.
The story has two main characters: First, there was me. A teenager. Obnoxious and self-centred. Right through my schooling career, I was always somewhere on top of my class. In fact, I was always the almost perfect student; did most of my Science stream subjects on higher grade, ended fifth out of 120 candidates in Matric, Head Boy. I was prodigy, and believed that if I could do it, who couldn`t? Right?
And then there was my friend, Megan, who did very few of her General stream subjects on higher grade. In fact, according to me at the time, her subject choices were a joke in itself. I mean, for one, she did Dance. Is that even worthy of being called a subject? Why would you want to waste brain cells on that?
One day she asked me to help her study for her Dance paper. I felt really irritated, and more so because she was struggling to memorise simple things like the positions of the bones in the foot...seriously? For me, that was it. That was the day I told her that she was stressing about things that are too easy to bat an eye about. That I did all my subjects on higher grade. That I didn’t complain half as much as her about my work. That If I can do it, why couldn’t she?
Years later, I`ve come to realise that ‘a pizza can feed a family’ was just the Universe`s way of saying to me ‘Karma`s a bitch’. When we are up there on our hill houses, looking down at the lives of people ‘down below’, we usually think that they have it way too easy and that they are not working hard enough to get to ‘the top, where we are’. Our shoes become way too comfortable for us and we never think of trying on something different and seeing whether we could fit into someone else`s pair.
Initially I didn`t want to attend UWC. I didn`t even apply there at first. The only two places for me would either be Stellenbosch or UCT. Indeed I only made a full application to Stellenbosch, and was prepared to become an ‘All Powerful’ Matie up until 2 weeks before the start of Orientation, which was when my parents first laid eyes on the quotation of fees.
That piece of paper was all it took to place me at the bottom of the pile; No Stellenbosch, No Science career. I was right in the position that I most loathed. But it wasn’t all that bad, hey, at least I was at a University and I was studying towards a degree. I was content until I heard that joke. Those Law students. I have a lot to thank them for.
Muslims have a prayer that we say when we look in the mirror. It goes ‘Oh Lord, you have beautified my body, so beautify my character as well’. For me the idea that God works in mysterious ways didn`t ring truer than it does to me right now.
With all the late nights I spent perfecting essays, I wonder at how many Law students could try and do three years of B.A. I know now that being at the bottom of the pack isn`t the walk in the park that the upper crust make it to be. I`m sure most attorneys earn truckloads more than humanities graduates, but that does not make us less relevant. Whether you are a Writer, Lawyer, Housewife or Street Sweeper, everyone`s contribution to the human race is a worthwhile one. We only realize this when things fall out of place. It was the Counting Crows who sang ‘You don`t know what you got till it’s gone’.
I guess the scariest part of it is that the higher up we are, the less we think it is likely for us to fall. But it is always the tallest trees that fall the hardest.
