Mercy Ikpe

2020: I lived

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Mercy Ikpe
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3 min read

Most memorable act

  • Went on EndSars street protest
  • Did massive retweets of EndSars tweets

Travel - Some notable places I visited

Port Harcourt, Lagos, Abeokuta, Ilora, Oyo LGA, Uyo, Eket, Ibaka, Oron

Work

I worked on 6 live projects (frontend) Gabomin, Neveranafterthough, Plexus, Ladda, Dryva, Kingsleyomin I resumed work at AltaLabs on 4th January and resigned 21st December

  • Left KodeHauz, after working for 18 months
  • Left KompleteCare - worked for 3 months

Honourable mention

  • Surprised Ola with a welcome to Uyo hangout.
  • I, David and Daniel surprised Martins on his birthday, we bought him a boot. Martins is a footballer and boots are a treat for him.

Things I failed to complete

  • Frontend course educative.io - It got too much, I completed 60% of the course then my school work became tedious, school project, full-time work, I felt overwhelmed and had to let go.

  • CS50 - I did not have money enough for data subscriptions so could not follow through, I stopped after 2 weeks.

  • Outreachy - I did not submit my final project after making it through the initial stage application, majorly because I could not contribute to any of the listed projects, so I did not have anything to submit.

  • She Code Africa Vue Frontend Internship (I reconciled with Justine Obi, he was a mentor on the platform and was assigned to mentor me, we reconciled our difference and became friends again).

Family

Bit by bits, peace was restored among our extended family.

Education

I completed my HND program in Computer Science, December 22nd. image.png

Love

I introduced Ola to my family, visited Ola's family at Ilora, Oyo State.

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By the end of 2020, I got off numerous commitments and now in control of my time and space. I feel light

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Most difficult situation

  • Doubling full-time work and full-time school. I was paying my bills and had to work for it.
  • One of my brothers was behind bar on account of an assault, he was bailed after about a month in detention, 4 months later, the case is still in court, we've been to the court sitting about 5 times since October, the case keeps getting adjourned. My mother was broken, well, it's all in the past now.

Lessons I learnt in 2020

It is better to get a good-paying job and focus on just that one than to double jobs and lose your peace. Aside from the money that comes in from different paying source, you lose your time and have to sacrifice your health to stay awake and work on other demanding jobs.

Love: I started 2020 with Ola and finished with Ola. The guy and the girl are equal, Ola made this clear to me, my culture had a part to play in the miscommunication here, we are taught as girls to be in service to the guy, clean, cook, do laundry, dishes, serve the man while no one takes care of you, so in our early days of friendship, I struggled with having to treat this guy as my equal, Ola was not comfortable with me giving me preferential treatment at the expense of myself. At first, it was a struggle, it felt like He was rejecting my kind gesture, but eventually, I got to admit am not in his life to serve him. We are here to serve ourselves. Yes, I've experience Love.

This article is also published on my site

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