Thoughts, actions and major events of 2020!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

A disclaimer,so much will be revealed here, please let’s focus on the positives… (or so )

First, it was an eventful year, with its ups and down, and the only yearly goal I started and accomplished was being more than 90% independent, I learnt and became better at React and React Native, started NodeJS and stopped cutting!

Education

Started this year with a battle to make sure my GPA stays on or above 4.2 atleeast and for the greater part I did that and succeeded, well before ASUU asked us to go home (LOL).

Career

About this, this year i made a conscious switch to learn more of the backend, and while i’m probably not an expert on NodeJS, I’ve been able to build a couple of projects using the runtime, I recently started learning a thing or two on Golang, thanks to advice from Jude (took a lot to finally call him by his name lol), and it’s been worth it! This year I learnt about some new tools (nuxtjs, nodejs/expressjs, netlify and some of its functions) during the lockdown and improved on my existing skills (React, Next and technical writing!). A big thank you to Prosper and Jude for always answering my weird questions on coding and to Richard for video calls when React decides to frustrate me, To more folks who in one way or another supported my growth, I’m grateful and will do more next year!

Technical Writing

Well this year I started writing for companies: Smashing Magazine and LogRocket. I remember writing an article on my thoughts then and thanks to Mr Kingsley Silas, I was able to get into Smashing Magazine!

I got into LogRocket the second time after getting aired the first time, A big thank you to Kvng Zeez for supporting me to apply a second time and advice on stuff when I had questions. Thankfully I’ve been able to support myself and family with money from technical articles, with advice from articles, I’ve been able to invest and focus solely on learning and building, only taking gigs to perfect my knowledge.

Mental Health

Last year I failed a course in school, it was a bad time for me and my family financially so I skipped some manuals, only getting the compulsory ones, well imagine my shock when a lecturer told me if I didn’t do the manual then it was automatically an F, Well results came out and there it was, an F, Tried talking to my course adviser and was told although I had a score enough for a B in the exams, I get an F cos of the manuals.

That was the beginning my battle with my mental health, I probably failed to handle the situation well and that let to cutting, and a number of suicide attempts etc, long story short, its been a tough year for me mentally but I’m getting there…

Special thanks to Jude, Azeez and Mr Kelechi for always been there during my episodes

FriEnds

I made a number of friends this year, from Twitter and my school’s DSC chapter.

Azeez helped me apply to LogRocket, edit my articles and well drop financial and stock advices, now its questions on languages and more stocks lol.

Jude, omo i dunno he’s way beyond older but i consider him more than a friend, betwen senior brother, mentor and friend lol, always answering questions and dropping snippets of wisdom.

Presh also came through this year too…

next year?

I don’t know, but the mantra is to be better! and do more! Above all, work with Jude on something in production will be lit! for me…