2018 life update

Wow, where has the time gone? Every month, I promise myself that “Today is the day I will blog” but it never happens. Well let somebody shout hallelujah because I am finally doing it. Here’s a life update on my 2018 so far. On January 1st 2018, I rang in the new year with hundreds of young adults at CCO’s Rise Up in Ottawa. Here’s a photo of my friends and my biggest fan,lol at the New Year’s Eve banquet

After the midnight countdown and new years greetings, we had praise and worship. All I remember is crying through all the songs and praying for the new year. Happy tears, tears of confusion, gratefulness, anticipation… a lot of emotions rolled up. I had great plans for 2018 as in I would graduate but after that I had no idea what would happen. So I prayed a lot for direction. The conference ended around noon that January 1st and I followed the Rise up bus to Toronto. I had a chance to meet my girl Aisha after so long, then I flew back to Vancouver. On the bus home, my tablet fell and cracked. Pre- 2018 FT would have started panicking saying “Heiiii this is a bad sign, my 2018 is going to be so messed up” but 2018 FT, shrugged it off and told the tablet to die if it wants to die and stop this unnecessary drama. It was then I knew that I had arrived 🙂

Back in September 2017, I had accepted two job offers for the school year: a residence community advisor position and a social media assistant position with a scholarship NGO on campus. The NGO was looking to update their alumnae database and their social media. I was being paid to do what I do best 🙂 Basically, it was my dream job!! When I resumed work at the NGO in January, I was told that the person working on a higher priority project had quit to focus on her last semester in school. So, I had to take over that project (because it was me that didn’t want to excel and focus on my own last semester). To be honest, I didn’t like the new project and since I was taking fifteen credits (nine credits is considered full time studies at my school) and still working as a residence community advisor, I decided to quit that job. As I was getting ready to talk to my employer about quitting, I got news that a friend of mine was getting married in Nigeria. I love weddings and I love my friend, so I decided that I would attend that wedding live and direct and not via pictures. My dad’s response when i asked him to sponsor my ticket was “Did I invite you?” So it fell on me to pay for my ticket. And that was how I decided to stay on the adulting express train of choosing to work for money over job satisfaction (To be fair, my boss and the work environment was absolutely amazing… I just found the job duties boring). From January to March, it was a cycle of school, work, cooking over the weekend and tensioning  my family with pictures via whatsapp, and an event/ hangout here and there, because all work and no play makes FT a dull girl. I also got my first newspaper publication in the BC Catholic, whoop whoop.

 

On April first, I slipped and fell. In fact, that fall made me reflect so much on life that it deserves a post of it’s own. Anyways, due to the fall, I wasn’t able to do the job again because my hand was sore for weeks. I later found out that it was because my bone was fractured. Remember how I mentioned my boss was amazing, I still got paid for the time I wasn’t at work. In addition, the fall also made me submit my last undergraduate paper which I had great plans for, two days late. Thankfully, I had a doctor’s note and I wasn’t penalized and still ended up with an A in the course. Long and short of the story is that Spring 2018 was my last and most stressful undergraduate semester but by God’s grace I survived and I made it to the Dean’s Honour Roll, let somebody shout hallelujah. Since, I’m such a nerd, the week after school ended, I attended a research conference on HIV which was an answered prayer. It was an amazing experience filled with great lessons and people. The only thing is that it’s looking like I might have to move to Toronto to do work that I’m passionate about. I don’t want to leave Vancouver so we’ll see how that goes.

After that I went to Calgary for about a week for personal reasons and I was able to catch up with Seyitan who I love so much. Then a few days after I returned to Vancouver, Sheena gifted me a road trip to Seattle with J. We got back past midnight and by that evening, I was on a flight home to Lagos. I had earlier planned to do a Health related internship anywhere in Nigeria, then my dad had a health scare. If you know me, you would know that my dad means the world to me. I have written about my dad here: https://thisgirlcalledft.com/2015/03/19/♪♪be-a-man♪♪/

At that point, I decided that no internship was worthwhile as opposed to spending time with my dad. So, I suspended my internship search and I don’t understand how but my summer has flown by. Over the summer months,  I got to catch up with some of my favourite people in the world and just chill, which was quite out of character for me but very much needed. I also got to attend my friend’s beautiful wedding and along with my family, throw my dad a surprise 60th birthday party. Ideally I should update this post and add more pictures, so please keep an eye out 🙂

Currently, I’m preparing to go back to Vancouver for graduation on October 4th and life is very good. Ever since I watched the movie “War room” I have wanted a prayer wall. Since my home is still quite dynamic, I decided to substitute with a prayer board and I wrote a list back in February. A lot of the prayer requests are continuous eg peace and joy. but I’m happy to say that for the most part, our prayers have been answered. Praise God!

PS. I love to pray for my friends so feel free to let me know your prayer requests. Also I have this weird feeling about all my dreams coming to pass and wondering if it all too good to be true. So, if you could please pray for me too, that would be amazing. Thank you so much and God bless.

Peace, Love and Joy,
Fehintola