My Discovery of the Essential 2p's...

Spending over 13 hours in the laboratory last Friday taught me two essential things in life I now call the 2p’s; patience and persistence. I realised that I had been lying to myself all along as being the patient type and also someone who kept pressing on. Truth is, I run away from challenges and give myself the excuse that it looks like God is giving me a sign to look elsewhere.

I was in the lab trying to turn a thick pudding into a less viscous and a flowing beverage by the addition of enzymes but anytime I added the enzyme to the pudding, it made the pudding very watery and was therefore unacceptable. This meant I had to prepare another pudding and add the enzyme and wait for an extra 40 minutes to make it work only for it to turn out watery again. I must admit that I was really angry, frustrated, confused and hungry. All I had in my stomach was the breakfast I took which I couldn’t even finish because I was running late for the lab. That was unacceptable, not forgetting the time I had to spend on blending a full bucket of tiger nuts and extracting its juice all alone. Recording every detail of the work was also another thing I never had to forget. Hell in the lab! I nearly gave up after working for 160 minutes and on the third sample without getting any results. Suddenly something struck me; I could hear someone telling me to press on because I have nowhere to run to this time. “You either do this work or you don’t graduate” was what I could hear. The thought of not graduating if the work is not done made me feel butterflies in my stomach suddenly, I felt weak at that moment and very much confused but I remember something strange I did; I spoke to the tiger nut pudding. “I will make you work, you can’t let me down” was all I said and I was set for a whole new procedure. I tried again but this time round, I changed the time range from 40 minutes to 30 minutes. The end result was worse! You should’ve seen me at that moment; I was going bananas in the lab and to tell you the time it was 7:15pm, no food in my stomach. Hmm, the thought of it even makes me tear up. I was so done with this experiment and now was the time to look for a plan B; a story to tell me supervisor since I didn’t want him to see me as a failure or someone less. I sat on a lab stool idle for close to 20 minutes just thinking of an excuse but anytime I thought of one, a likely question to be asked by my supervisor popped up. Then I had an idea! I decided to do the work again using an alternative method but that would take an extra 1hour and 10minutes. I was devastated, waiting for another 70 minutes seemed impossible to me, my legs were shaking, my lips were dry and I was hungry but I was determined to get some results. I got up with my last strength and got on the job, I did it with all my might and lo and behold! It didn’t work, funny huh? Now, I just stood there laughing, I was laughing out loud not knowing what I was laughing at. I bet someone would think I had gone crazy and to admit I thought that too. Then my angel appeared, how? A professor leaving his office opened the doors of the lab when he noticed the lights were on to see who was there. When he set his eyes on me, he just smiled and said, “Research is not for the lazy but it is for the person who is determined to see a change.” He looked at the sheets I recorded my values on and said, “what you are doing is absolute torture, if you can’t get results go home”.Ok, so an excuse to stop working, I thought.  As I was cleaning the apparatus and discarding my samples after an unsuccessful work, I found out something. I just had to do a plus or minus calculation of the enzyme to water ratio, that meant I had to do some serial dilutions and bam! It worked like magic! How I wish you were there to see how I danced. I was screaming like a lady who had been given a diamond ring by her lover. Aww, now the tears I held on begun to flow freely but this time it was out of joy. I could never stop praising the Lord for the new thing He has taught me. For one night in the past weeks, I slept well not thinking of tiger nuts.

Fact is, I’ve learnt many things from what I went through on Friday. I now understand why people say everyday is a new life experience. I’m now a happy girl who can’t wait to show her values obtained and graphs to her supervisor. Indeed, patience and persistence are all you need when things seem impossible. People say patience is a virtue but I now say patience and persistence are amazing virtues.

If these two virtues wouldn’t kill, why not make them a part of your life? Well, they’re a part of my life now and they are here to stay. I know that for sure!