The year ends in November, December is basically a send-off party

November came with harmattan and with it my favorite wildflower. The Bidens Baumii (a name which I googled for the purpose of this review 🫣) has always been, to me, the marker to signify the beginning of the harmattan season. It appears almost overnight, tall shrubs with yellow petals that remind you of the long lost cousin of a sunflower. Growing up, November and December were always traveling times and so this flower always reminds me of road trips and the questions I always had that my dad never got tired of answering.

November started with GTbank holding my funds in limbo 🤦🏾‍♀️. It took 3 complaints and 2 weeks to get it back. I'm definitely advising people against opening an account there. On the topic of funds, I noticed 100 naira bills have been a little bit scarce which makes for very annoying commutes sometimes.

I got added into a friend's open source project, Ahnlich and it was fun remembering my first love (Python) and relearning all the things that have changed. The project brings vector database and artificial intelligence powered semantic search abilities closer to you. I was tasked with creating a python example that implemented a book search feature. I'm also currently working on a simple webpage for the announcement. It's been quite fun and interesting though I think I'd need someone with a better eye for design to look through it.

One of the reasons it takes longer to write these reviews is because I have to write it and have to push each md file always. 2025 will have me hopefully creating an easier way to update on the go. Since I'd need to learn backend for my project, why not create something to make my life easier 🤷🏾‍♀️. I have made considerable progress on my masters project but it's still far from the actual work. I still need my system design and methodology approved before I can start actual development. I still don't know what pushed me into a blockchain project but this curiosity should hopefully not kill the cat 🫠. I still have my seminar paper to submit too and I'm hoping to submit that before the end of the year, In sha Allah.

As it is the end of the year, my social life has peaked. A friend's wedding started my social butterfly season and I used all that energy to glam up for it. It was great meeting friends I haven't seen in ages and just letting go after being a hermit. I also had a great time at a secondary school reunion. It was wonderful seeing how much we've changed and still kept certain aspects of our personalities. I attended devfest abuja and connected once again with more friends. I didn't make any new friends this year. I tried reading my pending book while waiting for the event to start but I quickly realized I would definitely prefer crying in private (it's a really sad book).

I had a random conversation with a friend that kept me thinking about things I might not have any business thinking about but it's no biggie since I have various weird thoughts all the time in my constant struggle trying to be a normal functioning member of society. Mysterious, I know 😌. Though I would say that delulu thoughts are a welcome change for me because I don't think I knew I was capable of certain emotions until someone came with a troubleshooting blueprint of my heart and mind (no I'm not insinuating romance 🥲).

Thinking back, It's just wonderful how random things trigger long thoughts. Seeing the Bidens Baumii shrubs by the roadside, at the top of hills or among the weeds that grow in abandoned buildings almost everyday, I realize how there's a bit of yellow spread across my childhood. It's peculiar to be nostalgic about a color but I found myself remembering the trumpet flower (Thevetia Peruviana) which my grandma taught how to get it's nectar, the yellow pride of Barbados flower we had growing by my parents window, sponge bob, the squishy bob the builder’s yellow hat from a school bag I once had and the yellow cassette tape of the first book I ever read called “The lions glasses” (I can barely remember the story but it captivated me as a kid).

November was a very busy month for me but there were those pockets of nostalgia and realization of how fast time moves that made me think, “if I'm looking at Cookie and Muffin like they grow too fast anytime I look away for too long, I wonder how my parents are looking at me.”. it makes perfect sense now though how YELLOW CAN BE JOYOUS AND A WARNING at the same time.