My year 2020 in Review: Hard Work Paid
Today happens to be the last day(Day 366) of 2020 and a very perfect day to recount God’s Faithfulness. 2020 could be seen as one of the toughest years for people all over the world, especially Nigerians from the ASUU strike to the deadly Covid 19 Pandemic and in between the Nationwide ENDSARS protest but funny enough it happened to become one of my best years on earth.
I started the year 2020 as usual by setting so many goals after attending a crossover service of which I was able to achieve most of them.
One of the best things that happened to me was being able to attend one of the biggest Africa Tech events of 2020 (Open Source Festival 2020) in February and it defined my year. I met so many great minds, I heard top-notch information from great speakers at the event, It was painful I did not hear that info in 2019.
Funny enough, I never wanted to attend because a ticket was needed (paid) plus considering accommodation, traveling from school, and lots more expenses but I ended up spending nothing but rather earning more than I spent.
In January, I got about 3 WordPress gigs… I decided to save a certain amount (more than enough) for the event because I was very sure nobody would give me the money.
I am the only son of my dad and he always feared whenever I told him stuff like that owing to the fact he never knew who I was going to stay with.
I had my money ready. Gave a friend to keep for me to avoid …..
On a certain day I was on Twitter reading updates about the event then all of a sudden I came across a tweet by Nader Dabit sponsoring the first 50 people to comment below his tweet with free tickets for the event. Omoooooo…
I saw the tweet immediately he tweeted, I commented alongside my friend Asaolu Elijah.
We won the free ticket which gave us more vibes to attend the event since we were two. I contacted a boss in Lagos( Barineka ) and funny enough his house was close to the event venue.
Before we went to the event OSCA released a form for people to fill if they would be needing any form of assistance to attend the event. I filled the form and got an alert of 10k after the event which sustained me so as not to go broke after the event.
That was how I skipped two days of school lecture to attend the event as if I knew school wasn’t going to be serious this year.
At the event, so many speakers spoke about open source, opportunities in open source, technical writing, and lots more.
I went back to school loaded with so many goodies, info, and lots more then God blessed us/me with the Asuu strike. Omoooo it was a blessing in disguise.
Note: Omoo respect tech events, I took some money thinking I was going to be buying food in restaurants but mehnnnn.. We were fed like no tomorrow…to the point that we were begged to take extra plates home…
I started learning to code in 2018 during my 100 level days. It was slow but steady due to school work and other necessary constraints. It looked like it was going to take a long time to make an income from the whole coding stuff but the event exposed me to so many things.
During the strike…
I wanted to pick a stack and stick there, I spoke to Boss Juwon and then I decided to stick to being a frontend developer. He said something about you being able to convert any kind of UI to codes( that was when I knew CSS was not a joke).
I started watching tutorials mehnnn.. So many sleepless nights.. I just wanted to be good. It was not easy at first but at a point, I discovered I was getting better…. OMO that feeling when you start projects from scratch… I redesigned my portfolio from scratch several times and even got some gigs.
At a point I felt I was good enough to start learning a framework, I bought an Angular course… OMO Angular bounced me back to JavaScript. I started learning JS again and then at a point I knew I was good.
Decided not to learn angular again and now learned VUE and some of its JamStacks like Nuxt & Gridsome.
I recently started rebuilding my portfolio with Gridsome and would purchase a domain soon so as to start publishing top-notch content in the year 2021.
On a certain night…
I came across a tweet by brutha_
I have always loved writing
but never knew I could earn from it until I came across this tweet where coder_blvk answered so many questions and also mentioned some platforms that paid writers to write for them.
That was one of the best info I go in 2020, I applied to write on Logrocket and within the space of 4 months, 3 of my articles have been published with some still being edited.
- Web animations with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- 5 CSS pseudo-elements you never knew existed
- What’s new in npm v7?
I also got in talks with Obinwanne that I wanted to write for Smashing Magazine of which recently got approved.
Got a new laptop…
My Uncle promised me a laptop as a result of my excellent grades in school and also how fast I have grown in tech sometime in Febuary, but as a result of the whole lockdown I was unable to get the laptop until sometime in December. It was one of the major breakthrough of 2020.
Reached 6 figures…
Omoooo…. It was one of the goals I set for 2020, when the year started it never seemed realistic but all Glory to God, I repeat all Glory to God, I smashed the goal.
So many rejections…
Though the year was awesome but in the midst of it all there were lots of frustrations, rejections, pains but there was always a reason to move on.
I applied for Google Season of Docs, worked very hard so as to be selected but wasn’t selected. I applied to be the DSC lead of my institution but as God would have it, my Paddy got it ahead of me of which I am giving him my 101% assistance. I applied for so many gigs, some were approved and many were rejected but through it all God has been faithful.
Thank You…
A very Big Thank You to all those who made my 2020 great, all those that spoke at the OSCA Festival, Asaolu Elijah, My parents, siblings, uncles, aunties, and all loved ones.
Please…
Thanks for reading, please follow me on Twitter and stay in touch. Also, chat up. Thanks.
