2021 For Me - My year in review

Table of contents

Overview

There's a whole lot to talk about if I were to go in detail about all that 2021 came to do in my life. But I’m grateful I have seen the end of the year with my family and friends, no lives lost and no one's in a critical health situation right now. Thanks to my loving father in heaven for grace🙏🏽.

It's been a ride and let's see what the good and bad sides of the journey felt like.

The Good:

  • I Got admitted into UNILAG for my Bachelor's degree program in Industrial Mathematics.
  • Turned 18😎, yh I'm now an adult😂
  • Went deeper into web development with NodeJS - some kind of mastery🚀
  • Happy to say I got my first ever internship and job as a software engineer(Backend).
  • Got to explore a whole lot of new things this year - Web development, data science, and embedded stuffs with C++, picked up new languages: python, MATLAB and Golang.
  • C++ earned me money for the first time since 3 years into it.
  • Nailed my first 6 figure contract - doing 7 and 8 figures in 2022 by God's grace.
  • I earned money from every single skill I have, from design, to programming and to music - I did it in all of them 😎🚀
  • Got a certificate in Data Analytics after completing the KPMG virtual internship.
  • Got a technical writer badge from the Penmen bootcamp.
  • Became a section.io EngEd member
  • Got into cryptocurrency, didn't take it seriously until recently though.
  • Got into Cloud engineering and DevOps.
  • Attended lots of events this year, including DevFest Lagos for the first time - I'm happy about this cos my last time at a physical event was in early 2020.
  • Joined many communities and grew my network by 100X what it felt like in 2020
  • I met so many influential people in tech, yeah many of them.💯
  • Happy I impacted many tech newbies and even helped some through the process of landing their first gigs. Can only be the work of my God.
  • Lastly I was a multi-billionaire for 15 minutes this year too, the crypto glitch felt good😅😅😅

The Bad:

Funny how it might seem like the year was full of wins only. “Omo” I saw “pepper” this year🥺😂. Let's reflect on a few of the losses:

  • Started the new year with plans, but “SAPA”(according to my Nigerian folks - meaning, "utter brokeness") came for me. Phone got broken for about 1 month.
  • Got a lot of rejections - they didn't even consider it's a new year😭😂
  • Things went crazier when I was robbed😭. I thought that was the end for me cos, 2 damn laptops bruhh🥺
  • Got into so many bad debts, still settling the remaining few of them. God help me🙏🏽
  • I lost a lot of money😬! - I even got scammed despite all the trouble😭😅
  • Phone got spoilt again, this time I lost a whole lot of money from gigs I missed out on, came back online to see how many people reached out - Again I thought it was the end.
  • I must emphasize that “SAPA” really did knockouts on me this year, the PC I've been managing for work since the main one got stolen, also got damaged last month - I hope God comes through for me this January.
  • I won't forget that MLH didn't deliver my LHD share swags😒, that's one of the L’s too.
  • Also missed out on so many hackathons and opportunities just because my laptop would disgrace me - it's better I stayed on my own pls😅

I'll just stop there, cos...why not?! Let's stay heads up and keep going. 2022 is here already, with greater dreams, bigger goals some of which include:

  • Get closer to God
  • Get good grades in school
  • Get more serious with technical writing and earn from it
  • Contribute to as many open source projects as possible
  • Become a better competitive programmer
  • Do a lot more developer community work
  • Get a new laptop - Macbook pro 2021 won't be bad tho😉
  • Make a lot more money - 80X my current income makes some sense too.
  • Get more into cryptocurrency
  • Master DevOps as an area of specialization
  • Get a new job, with a foreign company
  • Explore more web3.0 and other blockchain technologies
  • Go deeper in Golang
  • Maybe I'll find love too🤥😅

May God be with me through the journey.

Special thanks to every developer friend of mine out there, my bosses, communities, and “supposed mentees” “cos I no know anything, una call me mentor 😪”. I love you all, let’s do more in the new year🚀.