BEING IN A CHOIR WAS THE BEST PART OF MY UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE.

While at the university, I spent Tuesday and Saturday evenings at choir rehearsals. I was a member of the New Sweeter than Honey Choir, NSTHC. In my time at the University of Ibadan, that name was synonymous with untouchable musical excellence. Crowds roared whenever the name was announced for a performance.

I too was mesmerized the first time I heard NSTHC perform. I had never heard people sing the way those choristers sang. I auditioned and joined the choir in my second semester of Uni.

Rehearsals were held behind the student union building. Many times that place stank because as people often explained a toilet pipe had burst and smell kept oozing from the suck away. But the stench didn't stop us. In fact, it was usually grounds for dry jokes about the stench making us add weight. Maybe it was just the gases we inhaled that made us laugh, who knows?

Even though many of us were not close friends outside of the choir, during rehearsals we were like little kids.

Of course, the choir rehearsals were not all unicorns and rainbows. Sometimes the ish got serious. The director would scream when we were not singing our notes correctly. Sighs, he always brought thunder! And Sometimes we had to rehearse overnight. Err, don't forget that I was a pharmacy student in one of the toughest schools in Nigeria.

Anyway, recently I came across an album we had produced for one of our concerts and it made me smile a lot. This album is a decade old and even though we didn't know it then, we had done something remarkable. Listening to the album brought back many good memories.

I have known for a very long time that experiences matter. You can buy yourself a precious and expensive present, but eventually, your present becomes like the rest of the things we buy hoping to fill a void. It will be replaced by something newer and shinier.

Experiences, on the other hand, are golden. I know for sure that good memories bring us joy whenever we remember them.

So, If I could leave you with a message, it would be this: gather experience. Share your life with people that love you and push the boundaries of what is possible in your life. To quote Maya Angelou: "People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

-Tobi Amokeodo