What doesn't kill you tries again tomorrow until you kill it

Ladies, Gentlemen and random individuals, in October we were outside, me, myself and I and as it was the type of outside that I enjoyed. I self inflicted outside. October had 5 Saturdays and I was outside for 4 of them including the Fridays of two of those Saturdays. Devfest season started in October and I went for three.

The first week (more accurately the first 10 days) of October was all for wrapping up bootcamp and preparations for the closing ceremony which was great btw. My kids killed it and I loved it. I know people always claim that gen Z are hard to deal with but personally, I rarely have issues with them but I know people will argue that I'm technically gen Z too but that's not today's argument. My participants were cool and great and they listened well. I have hundreds of pictures from the closing ceremony with them. The first 10 days crawled into the next week.

I started that week with a date with the SD girlies and we painted questionable babies and women and flowers and had fun just laughing at our artistic skills or lack thereof. As I am writing this, I'm remembering I stained my abaya with paint and I didn't even bother to check if it went out 😂. Hopefully, I'm not surprised the next time I take it out to wear.

A few days after I took a tiring trip to Minna. tiring because the roads are 50% bad and you end up getting thrown around the car and bumping into stuff. Nevertheless, I have come to realize that, "There will always be a soft spot for the city you grew up in". That's the relationship I have with Minna. Regardless of how the journey went, once I get to chanchaga, I can't help but smile a little. I always feel tempted to visit my childhood home but I know other people live there now and I shall not impose an awkward encounter on myself.

Well, I was in Minna and I attended the pre-devfest event and also the main event. It's interesting to see a wave of fresh faces that are enthusiastic about the community and all that it represents. It's worth mentioning that Minna was hot and the sun burnt worse than Abuja or Suleja. It even made me wonder how I spent my whole childhood and adolescent years there or maybe climate change? Devfest was fun though.

The next week (Sunday), I was back in Suleja preparing for a trip to Maiduguri, yes, you read right, Maidiuguri and I'll tell you right off the bat, drop the stereotypes at the door because it's such a lovely city. The first thing I noticed was the heat, I complained about this everyday 😂 because if I thought Minna was hot, this was wayyy worse, even the wind blew hot. Next was the bicycles, it was so interesting and cute, especially the school kids. I spent three days in Maiduguri and our host really made it activity-filled and I fully immersed myself in tourist mode. I flew a kite btw 🙃. We went to Mai Deribe's house and that was a work of art. If it's still amazing to us now even while being poorly maintained, I wonder what the people that saw it in all its original glory felt. People were rich sha. I also kept wondering if he had kids, I mean obviously he did but what happened to them? but I still haven't researched it. Maiduguri was fun but by the 25th, I was already questioning my life choices 🥹. Another thing I kept thinking of was how I thought the week with the yellow flowers grew everywhere in the north but apparently it only grow in north central because I saw a few before the trip but none at all at Maiduguri

I still got off my bed and ended October with devfest Abuja, bringing it to a total of 3 devfests for the year. I don't plan on attending any more. Devfest Abuja was good but I fear I wasn't as enthusiastic as the rest because I was already checking out of October. I met up with people I see anually (i.e only at devfest Abuja) and made a few (2 👀) new connections.

That pretty much wraps up October. It was a month spent socially and loving at least 80% of it and that's a huge win. There was no introverted DeeDee this month. I made two new Friends that I'm certain will stick and a few more acquaintances that definitely won't be strangers when I see them next. I don't know if I'll keep up this momentum for the third "ember" month but as far as the second one is concerned I was a social butterfly.