2023

last year, I was poor, became broke, and now I'm preaching the gospel of pepper.

There's no light, as I write this to you. It feels like a skit, no? Yeah no kidding, it feels way more than a skit to me too. On a normal day, I won't even be able to complete this paragraph.

Okay okay… let's continue before I lose my train of thought. If you stick with me till the end… perhaps, you will be able to piece them together, perhaps not.

July 21st, 2023 was when I thought of this title actually. “2023 — outside the four walls of a classroom”. Weird? Maybe not. It is also the reason I chose the cover image for this review. We had just concluded our final exams, and my stay in the wilderness was coming to an end.

Oh! What Joy! At least that was what I thought. The series of events after that picture were, yunno, Lol! I wrote a bit about that adventure in my 2022 review: 2022 — you evasive psycho!.

Let's leave that for now, shall we? The past is in the past. Inasmuch as it shapes the series of events that follow, it still has to be left there — in the past.

Aha! A breath of fresh air.

If I were to summarize 2023 in a couple of words/phrases, it'll be "opensource, tons of shege (pronounced sheygey, in case you're reading this from anywhere, except Nigeria), losing my shit, and then opensource again".

I read my 2022 review before deciding to write this, and the last sentence I wrote there is somewhat similar to this:

Next year is for the thefts I have saved for later and massive optimization in solitude

This resolve kept me going for a while, then Sapa came into the story, stayed for a while, I drove the psycho away, but It still managed to find its way back — a tenacious bastard!

It was also among the contributing factors to how much I've grown since the beginning of 2023 up till this moment as I write this to you, in the dark.

On being privileged

Despite Sapa's looming, I still consider myself privileged, the things I'm able to do with the little I have, the opportunities I've gotten... Nahhh, it calms me down whenever I begin to think I'm the only one going through a shit ton of crap and I give thanks — sometimes.

2023 felt fresh, I was already back home at my parents'. The first few weeks were enjoyable, steady light, I could do all I wanted, learning went on smoothly, and my worries of waking up and rushing to one lecture hall were over.

But... the end of such events suddenly became nigh when discussions around National Service started coming up. A venture I had already ruled out of my mind for the year, I had this plan, well, I and the boys did. One that negates our participation in that program for the year or so.

The idea was for us to hone and become so good at our craft. Like soooo good! But, I guess Parents have their own way of winning when it comes to arguments like this. Don't even get me started.

I guess, it was because I knew how the argument was going to end — with me losing of course — that I decided to run away under the guise of "Papa and Mama, I want to go and do my clearance at school".

Me wey don get my own plan!

Long story short, I ran away from Lagos, dem no pursue me for house o, na me carry my big head komot.

Staring straight into the eyes of Sapa

I had already discussed with Ewedu and Idee about staying at their apartment in Ilorin since they were not occupying it anymore, and their rent was still valid till the end of the year or so.

Spoke with Theo, and we both raised cash to pay the balance remaining for that year. All these (planning) happened by the end of February through March. When March started to draw its curtains, I started packing the stuff I'd need to travel with.

While all this was happening, Ionware's wedding was around the corner. Time traveling back to the beginning of the Year and early February, I had no idea how I was going to attend, I just knew I mustn't miss it.

Ionware played a colossal role in the growth I've experienced from the get-go, way back since our early days in the wilderness. My attendance was a must. Think of it as a way of me honoring him.

Thankfully, I had done some good work in the Remotion project on GitHub. I already started contributing to the project at the beginning of the year, and I was already getting familiar with the codebase.

Documentation wasn't entirely lacking, but I used the experience I got from Writing Technical articles throughout 2021 and 2022 to improve or add some tutorials on how to use the Project.

Time went by and I started making tiny changes to the core of Remotion. One that I am very proud of is the integration of Rive animations into Remotion.

Jonny Burger was very supportive during this stage of my journey. He was always there to answer my questions and provide feedback where necessary. Oftentimes, I'd be rewarded for my efforts with a couple of bucks via the Algora.io OSS bounty platform.

The cash I made from doing this was what funded my trip to and from the wedding, and every other thing one would need as the friend of the groom, yunno?

Got back from the wedding to where I'd be staying in Ilorin, and then the real Sapapocalypse began. Fortunately, Theo joined me a couple of days later.

Man brought goodies from Lagos, and we basked in foodstuff for the first couple of weeks, maybe a month. "then everything changed when the fire nation attacked". Of course, the Fire nation is Sapa, keep up, please.

The funny thing I forgot to mention was that I already have this high expectation of Ilorin, the town. As per where we schooled was in the wilderness, 28km away from civilization.

One thing I hoped I wouldn't have to worry about was the power supply, but alas, it was the same story. Worst case, where we stayed — Tanke Oke-odo — was even way terrible than the wilderness, they hardly ever get power supply.

At first, I didn't budge, because we already moved our Gen from school down there and the price of fuel was still manageable compared to the shite we have now.

Not until the Gen started to behave like a werey, it brought us down from our proverbial high horses. Eventually, it decided that its time was up, and it was time to go to the great beyond.

With no means of Power supply, we had to place our progress into the hands of "The Neps" — as some folks on Twitter fondly call them — and they didn't disappoint. They made sure we were always in the dark, literally. Awon werey!

The painful thing about staying at that place was that it is a school environment, and the students were expected to perform at their best. I mean, how do you expect students to do that when they don't even have the basic amenities to do so?

But, that doesn't stop those who still excel from doing so. I'm just saying, it could have been better. But, alas, it is what it is.

Thinking of this now I remember the saving grace I and Theo had was the fact that we had a church — MICC, that's the name — close by, and they had a very big generator. We'd always go there to charge our devices and do some work.

Since the church is situated in a location densely populated with students they have these "night classes" organized for the students, so they can have access to power supply to prepare for their exams and whatnot.

We'd go there almost thrice in a week or so from 9 PM till 5 AM the next morning, writing code, learning, and doing other stuff.

Doing free work and learning a shit ton!

While all these went on, I was still working on Gitsecure, building the base components, layouts, and whatnot of what you see now. I remember Daniel reaching out to me on Twitter, asking if I'd be interested in working on a project with him.

This was somewhat related to the contribution I made to Pipeops' Documentation and in turn, birthed this npm package. We had a couple of meetings, and I think the number one thing that sold me on the project was the UI being in dark mode by default and the fact that it is a developer tool.

I was already getting my interests piqued in the devtooling ecosystem and that was just enough for me to go all in. I was to build the UI alongside a couple of other awesome folks who unleashed their magic in the project.

To be honest, I had no idea how I was going to pull off what I was seeing in the UI designs. I had not done or built something this large before, at least that's what I thought. But, I was hellbent on doing it and doing it well. The first few weeks of contributing to the product. I just dey cook beans.

I was pushing and fixing bugs that I created by myself. I felt ashamed, lmao! I'm glad I didn't relent though. I remember sleeping on the Docs of ChakraUI, and then I started to get the hang of it. Before Gitsecure, I had never used ChakraUI before, so it was a new experience for me.

I learned so much during this phase. Hell! I'm still learning.

Super proud of how I was able to establish this mental model around how UI state shouldn't all the time depend heavily on external state management tools outside the local state of React. I went on to write an article about it, and I'm glad it was well received.

Lmao! Reflecting on these events now I remember there was a point in time when I had to go over to Selomomo's place at Taiwo, Ilorin, so I could have access to power a couple of times. But, that's in the past now, isn't it?

I'm glad of how far we've come. Heck! Gitsecure got accepted into Founder University. That's a huge validation for me, and I'm glad I was part of the people who pulled it off.

Moving a bit far North

There isn't much to say here, just that I went to an entirely new place, met new people from different parts of the country, and disconnected from the "Tech" bubble which felt really nice. I hope to do more of this in the future. But I have to be unbelievably liquid first.

Eventually, I had to leave that place as I may not be able to thrive there. I'm not saying I'm not capable of doing so, but I just don't want to. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I hope you get the gist, you wouldn't sha. Jsyk.

One thing I'm glad I did during this period was purchasing Nadia Makarevich's Advanced React book. I had been eyeing it for a while, I've always wanted to understand the inner-workings of React, and I'm glad she agreed to give me a discount code. Nigeria almost happened to me, with the stupid fluctuating exchange rate.

Now, I'm a bit far West, far from home. I love the solitude and a tad bit of serendipity this place brings.

A beam of light, turmoils, and sprinkles of dejection

I guess part of the reason why I decided to embark on the Gitsecure journey was so I could have a solid Project in my portfolio, and learn so much about this field, that when I eventually start leaving this pond into the ocean, I'd be able to swim with the big fishes.

During this period, I was referred by Taiwo for a project that required me to migrate the UI of a particular Project from TailwindCSS to ChakraUI. I was super excited about this because I was going to be paid for it.

I got on a call with the owner and came to an agreement. After taking a look at the project, I realized it was quite large and what I'll be receiving as payment was not going to be enough. I had to renegotiate the price, and we came to another agreement.

Man was like... ermm lemme just add this so so so amount to what I've paid you before (because we've been going back and forth over the pricing for the service.) So you'd be comfortable working on this, without getting the "how much am I even being paid for this" feeling.

I was even down to work on it like that as time went on, him fit just balanced me. Next day wey I go buy chicken feed for market... alat drop. Mo kigbe Jesu!! (I screamed "Jesus!!")

Man went on to even say... "I've seen your code... and I know you write production-ready stuff per the work you did at Gitsecure". The response I had in my head was "baba no dey whine me jare! Me wey dey cook beans?"

Bruhh!! Even me sef. I neva believe myself reach dis level before. Need to do moreeee!!

A little while after I wrapped up with that project, my PC went into castigation mode with me.

The Keyboard stopped functioning. I opened it as usual and tried doing some weird rubbish that I had no idea of, all in the name of troubleshooting. It would always overheat and shut down constantly.

Took it to my boss' (where I had learned "computer engineering"/laptop repairs before going to UNI). To be honest, I was even ashamed to take it there. Because c'mon!! four-year-old lappii... na so Sapa catch person reach? 🥲

We tried replacing the keyboard... it ended up not working o. Omor! I couldn't even cry. I knew deep down that the PC itself had tried. It needs to rest. But, did I allow it? No. I went and bought an external keyboard. Because these projects won't complete themselves ngl!

I'm honestly thankful to God for that project I was referred to. Na there I take see money buy that keyboard around 4K or so, then. Bruhh! I wasn't having any damn money on me. How I wan take do am? Lmao!

But, baba God na sure gee! E dey always deliver. Na me dey always fuck up for this relationship wey me and am get.

Late October, I rejected a particular side gig because it didn't align with the timeline of my schedule during that period. I don't want anything that'll give me unnecessary headaches, walahi!

Lol! Bye-bye to my plans of getting a new PC. "But e sure me die say God go run anoda level." At least, that's what I wrote down in my notebook. I had no idea how it would happen.

Almost every day in the month of November, I screamed "FML" internally. Teach elementary physics, biology, and basic science to kids during the day, come back in the evening, and write code till night. Rinse and repeat.

To be frank? November was the most shittiest of all months in 2023. Thankful for Precious, Ewedu and the boys.

I remember being in "grief mode". I had developed this sudden affinity with the book of Job, to the point that when I read it, I'd always smile for no exact reason. I guess it was because I could relate to the story.

Who is speaking on your behalf?

I stopped applying to open roles when the rejection emails were becoming too much. I had to take a break from it. I was already getting tired of the whole process. I had to focus on other things — become extremely good at what I do before I start applying again.

At best, even if I don't apply, I should be able to get a referral from someone who knows me and what I'm capable of.

I attended Devfest Ibadan, and a glimmer was in hindsight. I was finally able to meet Joshua in person. We've known each other since the early days of Start.ng and HNGi6.

Stayed over at his place a day before the event, since I was to speak there. To cut the long story short, at the end of the conversation we had, Man was like: "You'll get a new PC by January. Do you believe?". At first, I was like "shey my guy don dey turn pastor ni abi wetin be dis sef".

I had this faint feeling of doubt, but I said yes. I had no idea how it was going to happen, but I believed. Not like I had any other choice, lmao! Wahala for who no believe.

Fast forward to this moment, I'm better than I was last year, and it's all thanks to the folks who spoke and are still speaking on my behalf. I'm grateful for you all.

Curtains

28th December, I Had a chat with a particular co-founder, and one comment I found pleasing was this: "For someone who's just out of school, you've done so much"

Little did he know that all of this is a culmination of the work and constant showing up I've put in since 2017/18. I'm glad I didn't stop learning. I'm glad I didn't stop building. I'm glad I didn't stop writing. I'm glad I didn't stop sharing.

This year, I'm going with the mindset that my road would be rough — as Tai Solarin puts it — but I'll pull through, I always do.

2024; New year, ~~new me~~, new pepper 🌶