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A RECAP OF YEAR 2020

The year 2020 is one of its kind in a century. It is a rollercoaster, they are itemized under the good, the “in-betweens” and the ugly.. World shifting events has been experienced in this year. Every year typically has a few defining moments, but 2020 has a whole lot.

The year 2020 has had its fair share of epoch making events which cannot be erased from the annals of history.

THE GOOD

November 7: Joe Biden becomes the United States President Elect. He clinched the party’s nomination in June and Kamala Harris, his Vice, was chosen on August 11. The election recorded the highest voter turnout in 120 years and Joe Biden’s electoral victory makes him the 46th President of the United States of America.

February 9: Bong Joon Ho won Academy awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film for his movie, Parasite

February 9: Brad Pitt, American actor and film producer also won his first Oscar for his film, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

2nd July: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) named its Washington headquarters after Mary Jackson, its first female Black Engineer.

29th July: Netflix added seven classic Black TV shows to their platform, namely: Moesha, The Game S1-3, Sister Sister, Girlfriends, The Parkers, Half and Half and One on One. Lady Gaga and Carly Rae Jepsen also released new singles.

July 31: Beyonce also released her album, “Black is King”

THE IN-BETWEENS

January 7: The world health organization notified the world of SARS-COV-2 (also known as Corona Virus) Corona Virus originated in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China. The year 2020 witnessed the rapid spread of the Corona Virus Pandemic to 196 countries. As at March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) upgraded the status of the novel COVID-19 from an epidemic to a pandemic.

January 8: Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down from their duties as senior royals of the Buckingham Palace in a bid to becoming financially independent.

January 11: The United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union.

February 5: Donald Trump of America was acquitted by the United States’ Senate in an impeachment trial. The trial began on January 16 and it bordered on abuse of power and the obstruction of Congress.

Among Us a mobile game from 2018 suddenly boosted its popularity and became not only a greta streaming platform but a political platform as well.

Kanye west has issues with everything and begins tweeting. Kim Kardashian apoligizes claiming it was due to his bipolar disorer

Cyberpunk 2077, a game that has been on the hype train from 2013, came out and was a cluster of ugs so much so that playstation removed it from the store.

Tiger King came out and people were heaily obsessed with it.

Streaming services saw a whole new high because of lockdowns. Gaming consoles also sold a lot during this period.

Tiktok became he most downoaded and used social app and also had its problems as Donald Trump planned on ban it it due to supposed breach of information to china.

Ellen Degeneres a most known witty talk show killed her career as people began to call her out for her toxic management of staff.

Pictures of UFOs began to surface with no clear expalnaion for it from the Pentagon.

Mysterious Monoliths are being found round the world. The first was spotted in the utah desert. No one knows where they are from.

People began fighting oer tissue papers and cleaning materials. Pasta and flour started vanishing from shelves. Tissue paper was also the most searched thing until it was beaten by the ps5.

New cpus from AMD, Graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia came out. Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles also came out. All these were bought by scalpers and sold at ridiculously high prices. It was so drastic that the british governemnt decided to act on it.

Murder Hornets began to surface around America and quickly disappeared.

For the first time in 10 years, Marvel did not release a movie as it had to postpone all of its movies.

Star Wars finall came out on top with its new series, The Mandalorian

Kanye West surprisingly ran for president of America. He was endorsed by chance the rapper and elon musk as well.

Kanye West also got Kim Kadashian a holograph of her father saying he’s proud of her for her birthday.

Chris Evans, Captain America, leaked his own nude accidentally.

Kim Jong-un, Leader of north korea, faked his own death to fish out people in his government against him. His sister was rumoured to lead an this sure enough sparked some memes.

People really believed 5g Antennas were causing coronavirus.

EVERYTHING WAS CAKE!!!

Twitter got hacked as every verified account started scamming people. Donald trump also got hacked as someone guessed his password which not surprising was MAGA2020.

Chris Delia was accused of sexual harrassment.

Shia Lebouf was accused of Sexual Battery.

Vin Diesel released a song which was actually not bad.

THE UGLY

It is noteworthy that China recorded its first death from Corona Virus on January 11 while United States recorded its first case on January 20. Italy was the first country to implement a nationwide lockdown on March 10. The pandemic that caused the lives of millions of people. The Covid 19 sets and placed questions in the minds of scientists, professors, medical practioners and all. The pandemic led to lockdown in all the States of the world, this led to massive employment and business closure.

January 2: Bush fires threaten tens of millions of acres and one billion animals in New South Wales in Australia prompting the call of a state of emergency by premier Gladys Berejiklian.

January 8: Ukranian 737-800 plane crashes in Tehran, Iran killing all the 176 passengers on board.

February 24: Hollywood Producer, Harvey Weinstein is found guilty of third-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual act.

March 16: Owing to fears from the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Stocks (The Dow) took a major plunge, falling 2, 997 points, the largest drop since 1987.

March 24: The 2020 Tokyo summer Olympics postponed until July 23, 2021 owing to COVID19 outbreak.

25th May: George Floyd, an African American was killed during an arrest after a store clerk alleged that he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. Police-involved killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and BreonnaTaylor sparked protests under the banner of “Black Lives Matter” to demand an end to police brutality and racial injustice. More protests were witnessed in August when Jacob Blake, a 29 year old was paralyzed from the waist down after shooting by a Wisconsin police officer.

July 15: A group allegedly spearheaded by a Florida twin hacked the Twitter accounts of prominent business figures and politicians including Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Kanye West, in a bit coin scam. At least 130 accounts were affected.

August 4: A massive explosion erupts in Beirut, Capital of Lebanon after the accidental detonation of 2, 750 tons of ammonium nitrate. This led to the death of 190 people.

Mid-August: Deadly wild fires erupted in the United States, spreading from California to Washington state and burning millions of acres and displacing hundreds of thousands.

October 2: United States President, Donald Trump diagnosed of COVID-19. He was immediately hospitalized at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and discharged after three days.

Nashville had a suciide bomb Orchestrated by Anthony Q Werner even though police was tipped by his girfriend a year ago.

Hong Kong continued its protests to not be consumed by china.

There were locust swarms in Africa.

Nigeria began multiple protests against its special anti robbery squad SARS as it had been abusing its power on civilians. It spanned multiple days and people got killed in it. It hs since reduced but it is not gone yet.

Donald Trump praised a Doctor who believed there were demons in sperm and coronavirus was not real. Donal Trump also caimed the virus could go by drinking bleach.

THE UGLY: DEATH OF PROMINENT PERSONALITIES

Famous basketball player, Kobe Bryant and his 16 year old daughter, Gianna, died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.

January 2: Death of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraq’s Commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhanidis in a United States airstrike in Baghdad airport. This sparked a lot of world war 3 memes on twitter.

January 8: Iran retaliated on January 8 bylaunching ballistic missiles at two military bases in Iraq, causing traumatic brain injuries to 100 American soldiers.

August 28: Chadwick Boseman, “Black Panther”actor died at age 43 after a four-year battle with cancer.

September 18: United State Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at 87 years. She was a relentless trail blazer for gender equality.

October 6: Eddie Van Halen, a rock legend and iconic guitarist died at 65 from mouth cancer.

In conclusion, the saying that in every bad there is an inherent good, even though 2020 was of ups and downs, the most important is the realization of the importance of relationships.

MY IDENTITY YOUR IDENTITY

2 Replies

I have spent the year 2020 asking myself who I really am, who I want to be and understanding my Identiy. At some point in my life I felt very confused and distressed, not finding my thing in life, not understanding my hobbies. Life was super exhausting. I asked myself questions like; who am I? what do I want? what do I enjoy doing? At crucial times in our lives, it is normal to ask ourselves who we really are.

We all have different identities. Sometimes, this identity does not fit into what friends, family and colleague are comfortable with but guess what, it is your Identity. I believe it should be accepted my whomever is interested in associating themselves with you . Sometimes we fail to accept who we really are, however, coming to terms with oneself starts from understanding your identity and believing in your Identity.

The next question is what is my identity and what is your identity ?

Identities are our unique character traits which includes our individuality, beliefs, expressions, qualities, gender, ethnicity, and so on. I believe we all have mutiple identities, my personal identity is how I relate with the world, my capabilities and my reputation. Personal identities are modelled according to our vision and mission, how the mind directs us and our perspectives towards certain issues. Moreso, most people have a different identity at work and struggle with fitting into certain categories or people either because they want to impress or they feel intimidated. Using myself as an example, I used to struggle with similar situation when i moved to the United Kingdom for my masters degree, I tried communicating with a british accent and sometimes I did not ask questions in the presence of my colleagues. Instead, I send an email to the lecturer to ask my questions. This is because I was skeptical about the lecturer not understanding my english properly.

Honestly, we just have to be confident with our identity, stay true to who we are and change will always take place when necessary as life is not static. Another example is at the work place, I remember a friend of mine whom I worked with in Nigeria, she was a totally dfferent person at work , extremely nice and polite but outside of work she was a nasty rude lady who did not care about what people think about her. Her person at work was completely differentt from that outside of work. It was almost like she was pretending at work to not be the rude person she always was. Clearly by switching personas, it was evident that she was not true too her identity. There was never a claim that one’s identity (mostly character here) would always be positive. A person can also have an identity which is more on the negative side but that is a topic for another time.

A lot of people have conflict in identifying their identity thereby having multiple identities but I presume we should be able to fill the gap at least to a reasonabe extent and come to terms with who we are. Allowing people to accept you and believe you for whom you are, allowing yourself grow and pursuing your dreams.

HOW TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF

Reflect on opinions and views from family, friends, colleagues and any other persons you believe will have a valid contribution or feedback about yourself. This reflection process will help you understand your personality better.
Identifyinig where you want to be can be a key to identifying who you are. I once felt that when I have a family, a house and a car then I would be fulfilled. I did not realise I was only deceiving myself with those thoughts as Identifying what more I could achieve for myself and do for the world made me realize that much more about myself.
Understand/Identify your personality and interests, especially the ones you really want to develop. Also, identify new interests that you do not know how to start but are interested in.
Know your place in the world. Your identity can be defined by things you have been subjected to such as loss, oppresssion, violence or the likes. You should have a way to come out of that situation to remove negative impacts and stand up for people in such situations.
Embrace rejections. People may not accept you for who you are. Be ready to face this in life. This should not sway you from being the person you want to be. Be ready to face rejections but always remember to persevere.

Accepting my identity is one thing I am glad about. I feel like I have understood a bit more of who I really am and what I really want.

You can bury your identity deep down but its never really gone. Lost identities can and will always resurface.

Feel free to share your thoughts about your identity and you can get in touch with me here.

Do not forget to subcribe to this blog xx.

YOU SHOULD SMILE MORE

4 Replies

GIVE A SMILE TO SOMEONE.

Hey lovelies, I was having a chat with a friend who was lamenting about how frustrating life can be and why he doesn’t smile. He asked me why I smile often regardless of my situation, then I made him realize I have reasons to smile despite the situation.

I understand that in life we all face obstacles and feel that we do not have reasons to smile but I tell you today that regardless of how bad your situation is, you have a reason to smile. Even though sometimes you must seek out this reason within. Life will always give us reasons to be sad but we can always rise above it maybe not immediately but surely. We should try our best to find a reason to clutch that which gives us hope because where there is hope, there is life. “Hope is what we fight with when all else is lost”- Pandora, God of War 3.(Yeah, I know its a video game)

I will be listing out 6 main reasons why I smile with the intention of this helping you find a reason to smile

I smile because I am beautifully made.
I smile when I am able to put a smile on someone elses’s face.
I smile when someone gets me up upset and I do not want to react negatively. It helps calm me down.
I smile when I remember I am a blessing to my parents and many others.
I smile because it is healthy and relieves stress. When you smile, endorphins are released which help as a pain reliever and anti-depressant.
Smiling could just make someone else’s day.

There are 1001 reasons to smile. Depression may hold us down, but we should try our best to stand back on our feet and find a different solution to whatever obstacles we are passing through.

Sometimes we express our problems by frowning or being harsh to other people. I am guilty of this as well but I realised that it is never a solution to the problem. Instead you are leaking sadness into other lives as well.

I hope I have been able to put a smile on your face or brighten your mood with this write-up. If you will like to have a conversation with me, you can drop an email and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Make sure you put a smile on someone’s face.

Have a lovely day ahead.

YOUR GREATEST ENEMY IS YOUR MIND

Ways to stop being your enemy

Limit your regrets: I wish that this had happened..
Feeling disappointed or guilty when you don’t need to be.
Say good words to yourself, be optimistic.
Understanding that no one is perfect and should never judge yourself too harshly.
Try to be content. You might not have it all but you have something and should be happy with what you have.
Cut yourself some slack. You could already be doing an amazing job.

Thanks for stopping by. Kindly encourage someone else by sharing this article. We never know who needs this words of encouragement.

I will like to know your thoughts on becoming a better friend to yourself.

MY EXPERIENCE FROM ‘COVID-19’

9 Replies

^{What happens when life gets hard?}

This is a question I have severally asked myself during this pandemic as It’s been more than two-months since key day activities that will get me closer to my personal & professional goals have been paused. This also has a negative effect on my psychological, financial, emotional and social wellbeing. There is nothing as devastating as seeing my plans for 2020 become unrealistic. For example, I had a trip planned out to visit my family in early April as well as developing key contact in Nigeria for my field research regarding child’s right in Nigeria. Sadly, the current pandemic has interrupted my plan, making me going back to the drawing board to reconstruct my plans for the 2020. I have no other reason than to accept that this has been one of the worst period of my years, which keeps me wondering if 2020 is going to start all over again (LOL).

Having said that, I believe it is wise to make the best we can out of bad situation. I have been able to learn several things from the pandemic and I would like to share key take-out this life changing event has taught me.

Positive take-out

Identifying my self-worth: During this pandemic situation, I have realized how much I can make of myself. I appreciate myself more as I am literally living without any form of physical social contact with people. Thanks to technology as it connects people from different part of the world through mobile phones, texting and video applications. I have learnt to believe more in myself and my capacity to handle difficult times.
Investing time in passion: I have an interest in photography and content creation. I try as much as possible to give time to this interest especially on my Instagram handlehttps://www.instagram.com/tobioyefeso/. However, meeting the demands of my interest clashes with my academic and career pursuit. Thanks to COVID-19, it is not entirely a period of crisis because I have been able to invest more time into building up my passion and creating contents as this post and some other posts on this blog. Hopefully, I should create time for this passion when the pandemic is over and life goes back on the fast lane.
Cherishing family and friends: Before the pandemic, I showed little concern about the welfare of those around me especially family and friends. I barely make and receive calls, work and school made it almost impossible to respond to text messages. For instance, I have family members in the United Kingdom and I have not seen the since I began my Postgrad program. The pandemic almost made me disregard the importance of family and friends. Again, the pandemic is a blessing (not in the natural sense of a blessing) because I have become very close to the wellbeing of my family and friends. The daily updates on death from the virus makes me appreciate that family is everything and can do little without them, since my family and friends gives me the support I need at this important time of my life.
Patience: It is a key take-out learnt in this time. Sometimes, all I need is a moment to relax and breath and let things happen at the appropriate time. Since I am only a human being with goals and plans for my life, I can barely identify when a time is appropriate. The pandemic has taught me to sit and do things calmly. For instance, I have been waiting for my confirmation letter for my primary data collection and waiting for job vacancies (LOL). Right now, all I have to do is to be calm and wait. Hoping that good fortune meets my hardwork.

Negative take-out

Depression: This almost messed me up during this period and the reason was built around fear and uncertainty. As a young lady, I have my life planned out with key milestones that would help me define success. There was a time I was very sick and in so much pain but I was scared to call an ambulance. The whole sickness, isolation, financial constraints, academic difficulties almost got me thinking about what exactly life is all about. All I believed and hoped for was God’s Intervention. Having said that, I had to stand up and fight against negative thoughts that will deter me from seeing a brighter future ahead.
Procrastination: This devils tool has made me delay in performing certain activities that are would improve my career and academic goal post COVID-19. In February I was meant to conclude on my research structure but I felt lazy about the process because I felt I could do it after my holiday in March. The pandemic came and took the world by surprise, which constrained me from making key progress on my research. Therefore, this pandemic has taught me to get done with things as quick as possible as time is limited.
Poor financial planning: I assume no one had a plan, especially a financial one to manage this pandemic. Like you, I was taking unawares and i wished I had more savings to suit my bills through the pandemic. This has taught me how important it is to save for the future. Going forward, I will factor in unforeseen circumstances in my savings and investments. I think you should too.
Health and Fitness: Everyone needs to be healthy in order to pursue their goals and carry out plans they have set for themselves. In my case, I wanted to do more exercise to stay fit physically and mentally. It has been difficult to follow my exercise routines in order to maintain proper body fitness. The reason is closely related to procrastination and my ability to strictly watch my diet. However, the place of physical exercise is important for me and you. All I can do is hope that my body weight does not increase but guess what, hope is never a strategy.

Having said all these, I presume life will not be the same for a lot of us but we need to get ready for post COVID-19.

Thanks for taking out time to learn from my experience. I would love it if you can share your experience from this pandemic in the comment section.

xoxo ;-).

A VOICE TO BE HEARD

Educate, Advocate, Inspire, Lifestyle