Friends with a whiz kid

Once in a while, we do come across some kids who amaze us with their intellect and when I say intellect, I don't just mean being able to solve complex mathematics equations but also things like being proficient in English, solving riddles, playing chess, and so on. For example, I saw a video of a 2-year-old boy playing the popular video game; Call of Duty Mobile, and he played it better than most adults. A 2-year-old expertly controlling the game and popping people, meanwhile, I was still eating sand at that age 😂

But that doesn't mean I wasn't an intelligent kid myself, I was at the top of most of my classes in primary and secondary school but things changed in secondary school when the fire nation attacked...just kidding, things changed when some new kid showed up but I will get to that story later. I loved reading a lot back then and I consumed any material I could find which included a dictionary. But these days, I can't even read two paragraphs of a book without dosing off, technology has changed a lot of things but the kids we have today have quickly adapted to it.

Honestly, I haven't met a lot of academically exceptional kids recently and that's probably because someone I met over 12 years ago has raised the bar so high that I haven't met anyone that has reached that level till today. I know there are other people more intelligent than him but I haven't had an encounter or interacted with such persons, so for now this guy is the number one for me. His name is Athanasius (even the name sounds critical 😂) but we call him Athani for short.

Back in high school, I believed I was the most intelligent student in my class and that's evident in the fact that I always topped the class in every exam until this guy came. I immediately knew he was a threat from the way he answered questions in class, even providing answers to questions none of us knew. The result for that session was released and I fell to second place, Athani became the new topper. I still thought I was on the same level with him but what eventually humbled me was when this guy went to a national mathematics competition and won (Cowbell mathematics competition).

He won the competition two years in a row and also won a state physics competition. I eventually accepted that this guy is the most intelligent person I have ever met and I became friends with him which benefitted me a lot because he helped me improve my physics. The funny thing is that I am way older than him, this is someone who got into the university at the age of 14 to study mechanical engineering and still graduated with a first class. From what he told me back then, he skipped two classes and that was why he ended up in the same class with me.

He was so intelligent that the principal in his former school moved him to a higher class and he still dominated there. I remember how we were in SS2 but he was already taking classes with SS3 students, this guy was ahead of the rest of us. Anytime I want to talk about the story of an intelligent person, I always use Athani's story because I haven't come across anybody more intelligent than him. He graduated high school at the age of 14, which means he was 12 years old when he was giving me nightmares 😂 That experience with him made me realize that in this life, no matter how intelligent you are, there is always someone more intelligent than you

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