Intellectual Soup Arese Ediae

My hesitations fell away as I rose to speak, a singular voice of dissent in a plane of stony silence. I spoke of the Oedipus Complex, but I can hardly recall how the words I spoke were related to the ongoing English lesson. When I sank into my seat, breathless, a classmate turned to me with a wary look in her eye. "Do you want to become a professor in the future?"

"Of course!" I grinned.

To weeks later, I professed my desire to become a nuclear physicist after a Chemistry Lesson that had explored the energy potentials of sub-Saharan Africa.

"Just like Marie Curie." I whispered into the ear of my best friend, Temi. She nodded approvingly. I liked Temi because when I later declared-after a dramatic monologue performance of ‘ Contentment ’ by

Oliver Wendell Holmes-that I wanted to hone my oratory skills, she was most encouraging. My mother was certainly perplexed about my transient, "shallow" interests. She urged me to stick to a single discipline for a Jack (Jane) of all trades was a master (mistress? ) of none. I considered the practicality of this approach but I was certain that the world was a soup; ingredients perfectly blended but unique in their respective flavours.

My teachers were certainty perplexed about the soup...