The rest of my time in the UK was somewhat fun. After all the mental stress, I knew I deserved a little fun. It was finally time to go back to my home country and I was a bit confident I had done my best this time around. Waiting for those 15 days felt like a year and then the day finally came.
It was a regular day but I had planned to go to my brother’s place for the weekend. I had packed a small bag earlier getting ready to leave. I was terribly anxious and jittery. As the time to check drew closer, the palpitations I had earlier began to worsen. I sat down in the kitchen looking at my phone. I finally decided to check it. I watched as my page loaded gradually before the results came staring right at me. I looked at the numbers, not knowing how to express myself with what I was looking at. A 9 in both reading and listening, an 8 in speaking and behold a 6.5 in writing. In that little moment, I felt numb, then pain, then anger and then numb again. A lot of questions running through my mind; how? Why? This is a great result, but why 6.5? I silently stood up, carried my backpack and left for my brother’s place. The day became like a smokey veil hovering over my consciousness. It was most definitely a very sad weekend.
The weekend came to an end and I headed back to my parents’ house. My mum had called earlier while I was away and had instantly known something was wrong with my tone. (God bless mothers). I decided to come clean with what had happened. I had thought she would be unhappy or say something funny but she didn’t. I couldn’t believe how calm and optimistic she was. I told her I had lost all hope and I wasn’t going to write it again, I told her I would apply for a masters programme instead and then possibly plan for the plab journey while doing the masters. She said,
NO NO NO, you can apply for your masters if you want but you are definitely not giving up on this now. You children are always so used to succeeding, you forget failure is a part of life and it means nothing unless you let it weigh you down. Now, tell me a way forward and stop being sad cause I know God will make it happen for you’
In that moment, I still really didn’t understand those words but it made me feel better that she was still very much supportive. So I cleared my head a little bit and thought about remarking the writing section. We took that step but the score wasn’t still increased. I still went ahead to apply for my masters programme and also finally came to terms that I was going to write IELTS a 3rd time with a different organising body this time. I booked the exam for January 2019.
Afroplab 