Year 2020 in Review: I dared

7 min readDec 30, 2020

This article is written in mind that my family won’t read this. In here contains facts and adventures my family didn’t know happened or is the truth. So, I’m up for adoption if I get disowned.

So first things first, OMO! I started with yearly goals and well, to be honest, I didn’t accomplish anything inside. I didn’t do any creative writing, I didn’t learn Golang(I don’t think I will be soon) I only learnt Vue and I didn’t hit the 4.50+ GPA for school(Not my fault, ASUU fall out!). So what the f**k did I do this year?

But I became a fine girl sha, I think so.

LMAOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

We all can admit this year was all sort of madness for everyone. But also for me, it was that year. You know that year where your pastor told you will be your year like every 31st December like he has done the previous years. Well, my pastor was right, oh wait I no go church(make this a habit?).

The year started with me falling sick to the point I consider death a good thing. Well that was when I had a medical report to prove I have an ulcer, it has always been suspected, but there was it in papers. Then I discovered I can be momentarily blind, curse my light brown eyes. Omo! Mad oo!

Last year, I met Samson Goddy and We had a talk, after that, I decided on going into web, and dive more into Open Source.

I was a DS and ML person at that time. The goal was to learn web for sustainability and then head back to DS and ML(Is that still the goal?). After that, I planned I was going to go to the main OSCA Festival that was hosted this year February in Lagos.

Come February, I told my uncle I had plans of going to Lagos, I was aired, told to sit down, why? my mum’s only child can’t be on an 8+ hours trip on the road with national insecurity rising. With my whole hope drained, I tweeted this

Then one of my friends, Marvin Ogah, asked why, and we came up with a plan. And that was how I came for OSCA Festival.

After the event, I met amazing people I had just admired from twitter and people I never knew existed, and these people and this event went forward to shape my life this year.

Coming back from OSCAFest, I continued my Django(and Flask) learning, then the ASUU strike happened. Then I moved to Port Harcourt to stay with my Aunt and Mom.

ASUU which was also championed after with COVID enabled achieve my learning goals faster. I spent day and night learning while trying to raise money for a better laptop and get a job. I was trying to get a Mac and a better phone. I met friends who helped contribute. Then something happened.

At that moment, my aunt house was becoming unwelcoming to my mom and me. Although I could go back to my guardian’s house in Uyo, there’s my mom. And for other reasons, the best solution was getting a house. I didn’t know how I could save up for an apartment in Uyo but then I use part of my laptop money, got a smaller laptop, and had my financial advisor(Seun Adebeye) and my career advisor(Osa Gbemileke) add up to it. I left for Uyo, got an apartment and then I moved in with my mom. Yes, I’m still eating “Mommy thank you”.

While I was still in Port Harcourt, I came across Bitnob’s tweet in search for an SM for the company, and I ended up applying for backend internship role. Long story short, I’m currently a full-time employee at Bitnob.

I also got into Google Summer of Docs, working for my favourite tool, Django.

A month later, I started learning Vue, got a freelance job from a friend and bought a small phone after my old phone died on me. Also, I applied for SheCodeAfrica Uyo Lead, and I got it!!!!

Gave my first talk, omo I was shaking!

Most importantly, this year, everything I wanted, I dared to have it. Did I fail at most? Yes, but I attempted it. I dreamt and wished of it, and I did it.

It’s important to note that I didn’t do these on my own, I had my friends backing me at every step I made. Shout to the following people: Nenye Precious, Marvin Ogah, Osa Gbemileke, Seun Adebeye, Sultan, Sogide, Nedy, Nenye Mba, Ugonna, Zainab, Obiwanne, Sheddy, Edmund, Madu Victor, Korede, Flamez,Onyinye, Azeez, Shalvah, Ellie, Raphael, Yoma, Cozzbie, Chukwuma, Somto, Sylvia, Favour, Wisdom Ghost, Edeediong, and Briggs. And my Boss, Bernard, thanks for letting me growing under you, and to my colleagues at work, you’re the best!

To my family, who shouldn’t be reading this, thank you. Special mentions to Mom, Iyaa, Dr Bethels, Uncle Davidson, Dr Godson, Dr Comfort, and Mrs Chioma Esther.

Summary

Epp my life, please.

Writing

I also got started in Technical Writing after being pushed by Obiwanne.

Published 4 articles:

Personal Milestones

I discovered I could be that bitch and aunt your mom warned you about when growing up. I’ve always had this impression, I wasn’t good at anything. Of course, I was smart, but I never put any effort to harness it. So I grew up with the knowledge I wasn’t fine, smart, or whatever it was.

But this year, I discovered