Okay peer pressure finally got me so I really have to do this for the culture and I haven’t written an article in like a century ffs of course I’m nervous… *cut.. cut…. delete this*
Well well, look who’s here to share a little portion of these jargons in my head. Have a seat, grab some popcorn, it’s once upon a time in a *insert whatever you think I am*’s life.
January!
Memories, pheww. I started the new year feeling fly. School’s about to resume and Collins is now Kadet.
It was the 17th and I still hadn’t gone back to school because I needed to complete this wordpress gig I was working on. (what’s wrong with this guy, who does that).
Wordpress? Yeah, I used to be a blogger in the early months of 2019 before I figured I could make money creating blogs for other people as well. I moved from creating blogs to creating basic websites and started making some little money for myself in the latter part of 2019.
I crossed over to 2020 with a lot of positive energy and hopes of finally having a taste of the good life cus I had a skill + I can stop depending on my parents for money + No more soaking garri for days + I was in a situationship with this sleek chick and she gives me so much happiness (yayyyy!! I’d finally leave the single life for y’all lmaoooooowhatafoolishboy).
Ohh yeah, how on earth did I forget this part… I started taking JavaScript lessons from freecodecamp!
Febuary
Big boy is back in school with a loaded account (N50k lmaoooo). I funded my resumption myself and it felt so good.
I got to school with a strong resolve to correct my biggest mistake from last year: Faling 5 courses because I decided to “it is what it is” my way through exams.
I decided I’ll get as many As in the new semester exams by hook or by crook (while keeping up with my JavaScript lessons of course).
I got another wordpress gig at the closing part of January so my account got beefed up again (Omg N70k in the bank, I think it’s time to name myself sinzuu).
March
One thing led to another and sleek chick left me in the mud. I was heartbroken for like a week, my friends started asking me if someone died.
Good thing is, I now had more time for my JavaScript lessons (It’s a lie oh, I’m just using this one as a cover up lmaooo). Well, good thing or not, that was the last talking stage left in me and I said cheers to being a hoe.
So while all this drama was going on, I completed my freecodecamp intro to JavaScript and moved on to html/css. I speed through angela yu’s web dev course and it seemed like I already knew all what she was going to teach.
Css was the only thing I didn’t get much understanding of from angela yu’s course but heyyy, that doesn’t matter, here’s a covid 19 landing page I built with the popular backend developers supreme savior - Bootstrap!
It was my first ever web page I built with code on my own and I was so proud of it because… oh sh*it… wait a minute… Corona Virus! Yeah so covid 19 came for trouble and it inspired my first ever web project. (Awww, clap clap clap, he’s a good boy and wants to save the world with a webpage, how cute lmaooo).
April
My birth month! I’ll no longer be a teen after this month ends (wait, wtf, bruh chile, I only turned 19 last year and haven’t enjoyed my teenship and I’m still, someone pause this thing please).
Okay, let’s get serious… so I figured I knew nothing in JavaScript yet and Runor introduced me to this brad traversy’s course “Modern JavaScript from the beginning”. I fell in love with this course and lucky me, lockdown just started, school has been dismissed and I was all alone in my house in school so I had all the time in the world.
May
Am I getting fat? Okay I promise this will be my last bottle of nutri milk.
I started living the lazy life, my day was Tutorials — Food — Drinks — Code — Twitter — Sleep.
Well, I finally completed Traversy’s course and was ready to build projects!
Oh no what’s happening here boy, why am I seeing “important!” all over your css codes?
This was when it hit me that I didn’t know sh*t in css. I opened dribbble and saw mad designs and was like “I can’t even make the header of any of these designs”
So I told myself, I’m going to learn css to the point where I’ll be able to implement any f*cking design that is brought before me. So I started with the responsive web design course on freecodecamp.
While I was at this, I got my first reward for being a techie. A tech CEO who I have never met sent me a thousand dollars for a new laptop (omoo!!! Is this how kind tech people are? I’m going to make sure I become world class at this thing!). I told my mum about it and she called my big sis to make sure I haven’t gotten into internet scam.
June
I was almost done with that freecodecamp course and I built a couple of projects. I wasn’t in a hurry to start learning a framework, I was so confident in my vanilla js skills, i had fun writing vanilla js.
So I heard about this HNG internship thing and I applied and got accepted.
HNG was fun filled, thrilling, suspense, exhausting, name it all! I went from completing my first JavaScript console.log task to pulling a bold stunt which made me become team lead then leading my team to defeat the most elite team in the whole workspace, It was thrilling, from coding web pages to distributing duties, checking up on group heads, spending the whole night on excel sheets, reviewing code and merging PRs, bruh! It was fun.
July
HNG was a competitive internship so people had to go home every week but not me, I made it to the finals, made a lot of friends (or would I say, acquaintances *inserts Daenerys meme here), got involved in big projects, understood git/version control to a good extent. I was like one of the best frontend devs on the internship (even tho I knew nothing).
August
Okay, HNG internship is over, we’re ready to go out and shoot our shots at job opportunities. Ohh well, I didn’t have to shoot anything, A friend I met through playing Call Of Duty Mobile introduced me to another friend who is building a gaming platform. They needed a frontend developer!
I got my first ever tech job, I was so excited cus the design was madddd and complicated asf!!! It made me wet, I almost had orgasms.
I had to learn react because the job required it, I picked up react in like two weeks and built my portfolio. My employers were impressed.
So I started earning my first ever 5 figure salary (disappointed? :) Chile I’m not blown yet).
September
I was still enjoying my job, got some side gigs too but the year took an unexpected turn. I started questioning what I knew, started building self doubt, I started getting worried for everything.
I wasn’t happy but I wasn’t sad either… I was just there, existing…
I saw myself drifting away, away from the tech community, away from my friends, away from everything.
Oops, do you need some more popped corn? :)
October
I left school and came back to my fathers house in lagos. I came back with some money I saved, but as the saying goes, “problem no dey finish”. I was spending more than I did in school, I realized my earnings were not enough to take care of me and my siblings. It also dawned on me that I was a first son (walahi, I never thought of this before now).
My black tax was/is plenty (opor)!
I had to take a lot of side gigs, even when I knew I couldn’t deliver them in time just because I needed the money.
Then good/bad news came…I lost my job (temporally). Good news was, I now had tome to complete my side gigs, bad news is, I no longer had a steady source of income.
Welp! I became more active on twitter (I didn’t use to have much time before). I met a lot of folks outside of tech twitter, Damola, Naemi and the gang.
November
I made my first big boy purchase, gifted myself an iphone. Their daddies! Twitter for iphone! I was excited about it, but it didn’t last long…
Anxiety, self doubt, overthinking, bruh, I was on the fast lane to break down. My social battery was almost exhausted too.
I was withdrawn from everyone, even my online best friend princess wasn’t so much aware of what was going on with me.
Talking to my big sister helped a little and petra too was always there to keep me heads up.
December
I crashed.
I hit an all time low, it was too much, I wanted to run away from everything. I decided to stay away from social media and kept conversations at the barest minimum.
I also went out on strolls a couple of times with some old classmates. One day I got back from one of these strolls and wondered why my life was in a mess, I wondered why I couldn’t enjoy what I get from my work like other kids. I hated my life, I was working my ass off but nothing to show for it.
It was the height of it that night, I cried for the first time in like 3 years (*everything I wanted by Billie Eilish starts playing…)
I had to write code while sobbing all through the night cus I had two deadlines overdue.
I wouldn’t say I was depressed but It was almost that bad. I figured I needed therapy, but I couldn’t afford it so talking with Petra was my mini therapy.
I finally found myself enough emotional strength to get back to social media.
Well welll, I guess that’s all for each month, Sorry for taking your time, I can be a talkative sometimes, just hang on a little more.
Wins
- Got into tech
- Got to the finals of a competitive internship even as a beginner
- Got my first ever tech job
- Got to work with clients in Europe and America
- Made sure my family didn’t feel the heat of lockdown
- Made a few million naira (Was all in bits and never had a million as a whole so I wouldn’t say I made my first million yet).
- Got myself a new laptop and a new phone.
- Adopted the saving culture and saved a lot more than I have ever done on my PiggyVest
- Multiplied my annual income from 2019 (the first year I started earning my own money) by over 500%
Flops
- Was stagnant in learning after I got my first job
- Pushed a lot of friends/potential friends away
- Missed out on a lot of opportunities because I never tried
- Performed really bad at an interview, the interviewer literally ran away and never reached out again.
- Didn’t write technical articles like I planned to
- Did a lot of copy and paste code fixes which I’m not proud of
- Got so lazy with learning in the second half of the year, I didn’t learn any new thing for the sake of knowledge, it was always because the job I was working on needed it
- Failed to apply for jobs I was sure I qualified for
- Got Addicted to soft drinks
- Spent money carelessly
Summary
2020 started on a high note but didn’t end so well for me, I missed out on a lot of opportunities because I never shot my shot (even after all the motivation Karen gave me), realized the responsibilities I had to carry but I’m really optimistic about next year!