If only I knew.
I hurriedly packed my bags that morning in a bid to reach school in time to meet up with my Head of department (HOD). My HOD is a very busy woman, rightly so, and she was also assigned as my project supervisor. Getting an audience with this amazing woman is usually a battle and that morning, I woke up ready to win this particular battle because I desperately needed my project’s proposal to be corrected and approved.
I left my house shortly after preparing and my first stop was at the school’s printing press. My plan was to print out my proposal and submit it to my supervisor so I printed it out and then proceeded to wait in one of the classrooms. I waited from around 8am in the morning to 5pm in the evening and this amazing woman who promised us she would be on campus was nowhere to be found. I was so upset because I literally put everything on hold just to wait for my supervisor that day.
The next day, she promised once again that she would be in school and that we should just print out three copies of the project using the format that was dropped earlier on the general group. Judging from what happened the previous day, I didn't want to rush to school. The idea to send my project to a friend who was already in school came and that was what I did. The friend agreed to print and hardbind three copies of my project at a reliable place and I had no reasons to distrust him so I sent him the money.
I went to school a few hours later, met up with this friend who also had the same supervisor as myself and we began searching for our supervisor. While walking around campus, we met a few of our colleagues who had gone far with their projects and after I asked to see their copies, my heart shattered into a million pieces.
They all used “quarto paper” to print their projects as demanded by the department and there I was, just discovering the phrase "quarto paper" after I had printed all my copies using A4 paper. I exchanged glances with the friend who helped my print over 500 copies of paper at 50 naira each and I knew I messed up. The cherry on the top was the fact that this friend didn't print out his own project when printing my own because he wasn't done with his project as at that morning. So, to sum it all up, I had made a terribly expensive mistake and I was alone in it.
Again, I had already paid for this mistake and the person who printed it wasn’t trying to help in any way. If only I had come earlier and done the printing myself, I probably would have done the right thing. Probably.
I was frustrated but no one was to blame but myself. After gathering enough information, I finally went to do the right thing by myself and luckily, there was no mistake this time. However, whenever I remember the large amount of money I wastedspent in the span of two days, my heart flutters a bit. Yes, this mistake was mine to bear and yes, I learnt my lesson.
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