Hello guys and welcome to my youtube channel 😂😂😂😂 .. Yo! What's good fam? It's that time of the year again, actually, the third time doing this review thingy, but this time around it's even more interesting, a lot of interesting actions generally, ups and downs choke, more of the good part.
So, in case you are in a hurry to read through I suggest you plan another time/day to come back here with your popcorn and Hennessy. Now, for those who are ready for some undiluted content, get your seat belt crossed, it's about to be a long ride because I'm about to tell a story that has never been told 😌.
For a while, I've been contemplating writing things and just needed a valid reason. I'm certain I might not be able to capture every single thing that happened this year, so this is me giving it a shot and putting my brain to the test.
Flashback to 2021
Last year was a good one and had a good number of achievements and all whatnot, you can check out my 2021 review here so I won't repeat them here. Skipping to the good part, I made a few goals for myself regarding the year 2022 and it's quite interesting how much I was able to check on that list, I say interesting because the moment that article got published was the last time I checked it consciously to look through what I had planned for the new year and create a road map for myself.
Quite an interesting list all around money and web3, and you know web3 is all about the money not literally, so it's safe to create a formula for this purpose Money === Web3. I'm happy for the much I was able to achieve excluding the blockchain course and attending Davido's concert. About the blockchain course, I had made reasonable progress and this reviewer just kept making life hard for me, or was it just me and my poor writing skills? Anyway, I got paid for trying to make sense and also sincerely wished the course went live. About Davido's concert, omoh! I did not really take that too serious but remember trying to check and enquire about his concerts in Lagos, but later found one in Ghana on the 31st of December. I love you OBO but my parents would kill me 😂, missing cross-over service for what?.
How it Started
Just like many, kicked off the year in church while attending a cross-over service in a different parish for the first time in years. Something quite spectacular about this service, boy oh boy! I prayed 💀. Wasn't sure why but it was different and intense, felt like the likes of those who attend mountain of fire church without screaming "fire fire fire". After the whole prayer thing, this confidence showed up and the thought of "this is my year" kept running from that day onwards. 2022 Shall we?
For each month in the year, I'll talk about a few highlights and end it with a photo to crown it all up. Ready? Go!
Jan 2022.
One of my goals for the new year was to fully transition into the web3 space. I made intentional moves by improving myself technically in preparation for what was to come. I figured it was time to move on from my current role as a front-end engineer because I personally believed I had made significant impacts and played important roles for the three years spent. For two reasons I was so down to leaving, one which was the salary pay, and secondly, I got so engrossed with blockchain technology.
Two months before 2022, I started job hunting for web3 roles via LinkedIn, and even with the normal rejections, I was able to land two different roles, part-time and contract work. The funny thing about the contract role was, I didn't realize it was a contract role till a few months later 😂, one of those companies that hire without the need for a signed agreement. You can check my LinkedIn for more details on the two roles.
Feb 2022
Love is in the air, wahlauuur! This month, I started making plans to purchase one fine Lexus like that, as a birthday gift for myself, but a few talks and bad dreams about this idea made it die off. I think this was the month where we had that heartbreak song that says " break up na national cake e go touch everybody " 🫣.
A few days into the month, while on blockchain salary, I randomly stepped into a shop at the mall in Owerri and made my first apple product purchase after forming that I don't like them. I think part of the reason was that a friend of mine needed my help to make a phone purchase for his girl for valentines day then I also had a bulk of cash at hand that same day and decided to let go of a few on a new phone, I guess the iPhone was my valentines gift to myself from myself.
If you are a student of FUTO, you'll understand the struggles of getting a reasonable internet speed, for this purpose I had exhausted all options to get good internet and the last on my mind was to get a network booster, which I later did and only worked on the first day of installation, this has to be one hell of an annoying purchase.
Lastly, I finally graduated from 6 months of blockchain training with Emurgo academy thanks to ABCD (African Blochain center for developers). Fun fact; I was given the opportunity to work on the front end of their website.
March 2022
My birth month, and have never been so excited about this year's celebration. As usual, had my cake done by a very good friend of mine, Faith. She's been doing this since 2020 and is good at what she does, so if you need her cake services leave a comment and I'll find a way to link you up.
My birthday is on the 5th of March, and for this, I made sure it was a little different by taking my first studio picture and then trying to get myself a reasonable birthday present.
Oh, yea, I paid for food and drinks for friends and we had a crazy party that night. My initial plan was to actually just disguise and share money on the streets as a way of showing love but could not get hold of neat naira notes before my birthday. So instead, during the late-night party, I decided to let go of some dollar notes and a few naira note to spray while we all danced to loud music. I personally had fun for the day and was close to attempting a ridiculous giveaway for my WhatsApp contacts( around 2M) , and no I was not high at all, thank God for the gift of sense.
As usual, received warm wishes and a few gifts but one which made good sense was a framed photo of myself by Elvis and Tobe. After setting my eyes on this frame, I fell in love with the whole concept of framing people's photos. But please if you are to frame somebody, use a fine picture abeg. The whole concept and design put into making the frame was what made it unique, had this shine shine thing on it and I loved it.
Not to forget, I interviewed with x-team for some senior blockchain role and got served a chilled breakfast when I felt it was all settled.
ASUU Strike 2022 😂 was also a thing that began this month.
It was an interesting month indeed, can't say it all here.
April 2022
I got back home because of the ASUU strike (which started the previous month) to escape debit alert and bad network too. For the first time, I visited a spa to begin my skincare journey but nothing prepared me for the pain, I came out with a face looking rather swollen 😂. This month came with its difficulties at work because I was trying to balance organizing an event which took plenty of my time and work too.
While scrolling Twitter, I came across a blockchain event happening in Enugu, I didn't want to be in the crowd and that was how I reached out to Uche to co-organize that event, and our friendship began, cool story.
Remember this song, "Show me a jigga lemme see, and let me see a woman that he is with", remixed with mayorkun ? Yea, it was this month too, feeling old? 🫣 I almost attempted to shame myself again by participating in that dance challenge, it was indeed an addictive jam and was all over ticktok.
Public servants attempted to stress me while trying to make changes to my NIN credentials, but money stopped the nonsense. I started making plans to renew my passport this month.
May 2022
Because of the love I have for drones, I figured it would be a nice addition to my gadget collection. I always admired the way that baby moves so quickly and high. A few people advised me not to get the drone from jumia, but because I've got a coconut head, I went ahead to make the order together with a terrible HD camera.
12th May was the day to pick up my items, I went to the pickup station myself after it could not be delivered to my doorstep for some silly reasons. Got to the pickup station and it was my turn to claim my order, I was excited to see my baby drone. On receiving the items, the box containing the drone felt really light and I did not want to believe what I was thinking, I took it all to the car and went back home.
Finally, I unboxed the drone, and looking at the inferior parts it came with, I immediately knew that was a red flag, how could this thing possibly fly, I asked myself. Oh well, I thought it might not be that bad and went ahead to fix the parts together piece by piece till I was done. The drone looked like a bad guy already, and I turned on the camera, sad to say but this stuff had one of the worst pixels I've seen, redmi phones have better cameras. I ignored the camera and took it out to perform a flight test together with my little cousin.
Feeling like a drone pilot already, I made the first attempt to make the drone take off and it seemed like every control was the direct opposite and this stuff could not fly above my knees, I was mad at that point. Guess who was excited? My little cousin was amazed by the ability of that shit to at least try to get up from the ground, girl was having the time of her life and then there was me on the other end thinking of how to return this piece of a joke.
Others
Attended my first tech meetup in Enugu, it was a flutter developer meetup. I Met Mrs. Cynthia Peter and Sage for the first time physically.
25th May, I had the privilege to meet up with Ayo who was a speaker at the polygon Guild event in Enugu. Two days later, I also met Big Joe who also was a speaker.
May 27th was a Friday, end-of-the-month party at Xend finance and I was in attendance together with organizers & Speakers for the Polygon Guild event.
Polygon Guild Enugu had its maiden event on the 28th of May, 2022. It was a big one, with amazing techies around.
June 2022
Back to work after I had almost messed up by not informing my colleagues about my unavailability due to my commitment to organizing Polygon Guild last month. Another Big Tech event was about to hit Enugu again; The Binance BCAT event is one I'll love to refer to as a "tech concert", reasons because it featured celebrities like Dan dizzy and Alex Ekubo, with over 4000 in attendance.
I personally did not want to get involved with organizing because of work, and my goal for this event was to get away with as many swags as possible together with IK, my guy. Before the main BCAT event, there was another mini event that happened to be the reason why I own a wicrypt device, got that baby for free, and this was the beginning of my swag hunt and it felt good.
June got me a connection with Ernest, "onyeoma" at boundless pay. We started talking after I informed him of my intentions to fly to Lagos for a blockchain event just to perform some Ticktok wonders, he felt it was a good idea and this was the beginning of my preparation for another web3 event called "Blockchain Vibes Lagos".
Others
Purchased a MacBook
Attempted to do a pedicure for the first time, which turned out to be the last time because this left me with a serious injury.
Finally got my international passport in preparation for my trip to Dubai for the world cup with my friends and somebody's daughter.
July 2022
The Blockchain vibes event was drawing closer and had to book flights to Lagos and the cost felt like I should just use Peace Mass instead of air peace.
God no go shame me, on the 8th of July, I was excited and already packed my bag the previous day. Like any Lagos flight, you'll most likely see one celebrity, in my case, it was Yul Edochie sitting comfortably in business class while I walked past shamelessly to economy class.
The flight was smooth and got to Lagos to meet heavy rain which almost got my Mac spoilt. The cost of transportation from the airport to my Airbnb on the island reminded me of the reasons why I will not pitch my tent in Lagos.
Speaking of my Airbnb, it is a true definition of beauty. You know when people do "what you ordered vs what you got" and what you got was terrible, well this wasn't my case, the environment on the inside out felt it was made just for me.
A few days before 23rd Jul, Uche called me and needed me to show up for a wedding engagement which he tried to deny wasn't for him.
Others
Attended Blockchain Vibes Lagos on the 9th of Jul, and was it worth it? It's either a yes or No, so No.
Visited Landmark beach to compensate for the disappointment the previous day.
Got back to Enugu and attended Google I/O.
I registered for my PVC
August 2022
August felt like my breakthrough month regarding my skincare routine, felt like this was finally making sense after all. This same month I got the information about the Dubai visa ban on Nigerians and my plans to make the trip was immediately ruined, but the money was saved.
I started working on an idea of mine, called this "Kira", Kira is a WhatsApp bot that provides automated buying and selling of goods and services without the need for a web or mobile app. Because of this, I created and registered a parent company together with Chibueze and Anderson, called Vendbase.
On a sad note and for some reason, my employers could not pay salaries anymore due to bankruptcy, this gave rise to thoughts of moving to a new place where I'll be challenged beyond what I already know and get better pay as well. I began job hunting through Linkedin and other web3 career listing platforms.
Others
- Had my first virtual speaking engagement hosted by mara.
Sept 2022
Have you ever anticipated rejection emails? Well, this was my mindset because of the way I submitted my applications in bulk and most times without reading job requirements; I was desperate, tired, and on the verge of just giving up on job hunting. Coupled with the fact that companies were laying off workers in large numbers, how do I even tell my mum I'm trying to compete with someone who just left Google or Microsoft? 😂 I realized this and kept using this as an excuse for the massive rejection emails.
A few days into the month, Apple released the iPhone 14 series and other amazing gadgets and it felt like a good time to appreciate the hard work they had put in and purchase a second iPhone. The main reason behind the purchase was my constant nagging about how small my initial device was compared to my palm size, as usual, I randomly stepped into a dealer's shop and performed magic.
I got invited to speak at GDG Enugu Code jam, on "The fun side of Coding, Creative Problem solving". If you asked me what transpired on that virtual call, I shamed myself but na only me notice am. I really didn't have time to think deeply about the topic and the timing too was not the best for me because I was on some mini vacation outside Enugu during that period and had plans to just chill and do less brain work.
About the vacation, I traveled to Owerri and spent most of my days indoors at BonTripod Hotel. If you are looking for a very nice environment and got the money to spend, bon tripod hotel is a place to try out.
Just before the month ended, I started working on Bonpay, which is a crypto payment framework for accepting payments on your existing apps in crypto or NFT. I'm currently looking for designers to jump on this project to create a landing page for this in the spirit of open source. Check out a demo here.
Oct 2022
To start the month with bliss, Uche got married to his baby on the 8th of Oct where I served as not just a hot kid but a shameless & humble pilot for his baby.
Still semi-jobless, ASUU decided to call off the 8-months strike without collecting payment, DumbFucks! I'm sorry but hear me out, why would you do shakara and still trip? why? mtcheww .... I wasn't entirely happy with the news because my goal to resume school working in a new web3 role looked far-fetched.
On the 5th of Oct, I finally completed the bonPay project in two weeks and it was ready for production use, it shipped with a web and react SDK. Yay!! Felt like codemon again.🫣
Back to the whole job hunting thing, I realized sending applications were no longer working and decided to make use of my network. Reached out to my boss, mentor, and CEO of xend finance informing him about my difficulties and need for a new role, he requested what I looked for in a role which I sent in immediately, and after three days he informed me about a possible role coming from a friend of his.
The next Saturday morning, I got a call from Sir Eke who's the CEO of risevest, and spoke for about 20 mins, there and then was the end of my job hunting. Let me re-phrase something sir Eke said during the call, he said "Feel free to end your job hunting", and this was how I resumed a Senior Blockchain engineering role without any interviews or DSA tests, I also was able to resume school the happiest and most recent employee at assetBase.
Others
Got accepted into the Master track of the Polygon African Bootcamp
Selected to advocate for blockchain adoption as a Mara Campus Campus in FUTO.
My eyesight got bad and visited a clinic for a checkup and expensive test just to be given an eye drop to go home with and return next year.
Nov 2022
On the 1st of Nov, we lost my own son, ifeanyi Adeleke 😩. How could such a bad thing happen to my own Davido, he's such a good man for God's sake nau!
Back to school, feeling all pumped up and ready to finally finish a 5-year course turned almost 7 years. I resumed on the 4th of Nov and Immediately remembered how terrible my network would get and how many debit alert I would be getting during this period.
A few days after the resumption, Chidera invited me to meet with the core-team members of the GDSC community on campus and that exactly was something I had in mind, reason because I admired the team spirit and needed the same type of energy for the Mara developer community.
Everyone on that team felt normal, just one person's character stood out, not for bad though. Amarachi pulled up late, and even though she apologized, I was so certain e no really concern her, this move and more made me pick interest to know what was inside the girl's head, but sha na just first impression, nothing much 😂. Although she didn't get to be a campus captain, I made sure she was part of the team.
During the meeting, I did some motivational talks and finally was able to refer a few persons as Mara campus captains, Cisca and Chidera emerged captains thereafter.
Register to join Mara on Campus
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRTJsg-zZX3WAuMhA5eKy7jsLSi2JbHr6JOyEUWDaZgx-kRQ/viewform
As a way to show fan love, I mounted a frame of my fav artist just side by side with my own picture frame on my wall, at some point it felt like we had some resemblance but no, it's just my brain playing with me.
Later into the month, specifically on the 21st of Nov, I had my first project defense and it was a success even though I did not have my project ready beforehand.
Others
Spoke at a Twitter Space hosted by sendchamp
Preparations for Mara developer Campus Club meetup started.
Final year exams started on the 28th of Nov.
Dec 2022
Finally, we are here! Exams, Events, Debits, etc. It was just a lot and remember I still got work to do ooh! Spotify sent in my wrap for the year and I only wondered why Davido did not make number one on my Top Fav Artists, he's number one in my heart always.
GDG Owerri DevFest was on the 10th of Dec and even though I wasn't ready to make any technical presentations, I still ended up taking up the role of " Minister of Enjoyment" and this meant I was going to lose money to make people happy, well played Joy. Thanks to Chidera and the upper echelons at Google, we were able to transport a good number of students in FUTO, to and fro.
The following day was my fellowship send forth, I attend RCF on campus once once 😂. I left the fellowship with just one friend; Do You remember Faith from the month of March? She's one big aunty in whom I'm well pleased, patronize her.
With an amazing team, together we successfully organized an info session for the Mara Developer Campus Club on the 17th of Dec, and the event was graced by the presence of both Idris and Paloma who are both Dev Rel and Dev Advocate at mara, respectively. Later that day, I attended a picnic organized by my departmental-level mates because I needed to taste chicken.
Others
9th of Dec, I wrote my last final year exams.
Got a Christmas package from sendchamp.
Conclusion
I'm eternally grateful to God for the gift of men and for constantly directing my steps in the right direction. I had a wonderful 2022, hope you did too.
Shout Out
To you! Yes, you. For taking out time to read this long article. And to my baby, who's my baby? 😂
Did you get something out of this article? Let me know in the comment section, I'll be happy you did.
Plans for 2023
Support more people in the web3 Space with my full chest.
Attempt to contribute to the go-ethereum project.
Move to a new apartment.
Catch more flights.
Improve my technical competence.
Attempt building a startup.
Make more meaningful connections.