Apparently, crickets have ears on their knees...

                                                    

I was happy today. Happy, just happy. I experience many types of happiness, but the one I like most is the kind that lingers. It has an aftertaste I can still relish even when the cause is long gone. Or maybe they are happy memories, yes, that is the word.

And today I think I was conscious when I made one. You might be tempted to judge and say, “Oh, what a trivial thing to hang on to.” But in a life where joy is thrifty, this is huge.

So let me tell you what it is. I do not think you care for me justifying its grandeur or its smallness, so here goes.

I am taking this class. It is challenging, so challenging that there is no grade for it. I think the professor realized the highest might forever be a B, though students here are full of surprises. You whine together about being lost in class, and then they audaciously get 90s. Where is the solidarity in our confusion?

The class is on neural systems. It is meant to make you think like a neuroscientist, and boy, it is not easy to think like one. The content is not bad: we learn about the visual system, how we code for sound, how we maintain our sense of self in space (proprioception). You could learn this too, or try. The issue, the conundrum, lies in the testing.

In class, we study the human auditory system; on the test, we get questions about how crickets have ears on their knees. I wish I were joking. This way of testing is called “application.” It forces you not just to remember but to reflect and apply that information to a new organism or system. Ladies and gentlemen, I am surviving. There are days even my own answers surprise me.

So where does the joy fit in?

We were in class, and it is a flipped one, so all we do is group work. That day, the topic was the vestibular system. We were supposed to analyze how the vestibulo-ocular reflex manifests in ice skaters. Like, what does that even have to do with me?

Then one member said, “Oh please, let’s not open those questions!”

I should have said, “What are you saying? We have to work on this! I am relying on you to help me understand!”

But deep down, I was ecstatic. Finally, here was a human like me, someone who shared the urge to just frolic and do nothing. And in that moment, I think I found my people.

We did nothing but talk about the experience of riding a one-humped camel versus a two-humped one. I even got to share that I have ridden a camel before. I only hope they do not think I am one of those Africans who claim to have raised lions as pets. And you know they really can't argue with me, kwani walikuwepo? 

And that is why I was happy.

Now, of course, the responsibility of going through those questions alone rests on me. And as I write this, I am trying to avoid them. Remember me in your prayers as I prepare for my midterms.