For March, I'm holding on to hope so much.

This week was a blur, apart from Monday, I honestly can't remember anything else from this week. It's almost like it was Sunday, Monday, and then tuesdaywednesdaythursdayfriday, and now, Saturday.

I had one of the worst anxiety attacks I've ever had on Sunday, infact, I’ve already declared last Sunday as one of the worst days of my life so far. I was so anxious, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't relax, and I couldn't just do anything else apart from think about my exams and read, and even when I was so tired, it was almost like if I just close my eyes for one minute, I will oversleep and then it will be Monday.

I had two exams to write on Monday, one of them was in the morning and then the other in the afternoon. It was a lot, and I couldn't make myself stop thinking about it. Anyhoo, on one hand, the exams were easy, and on another hand, I made mistakes—I did that thing where you check the notes and see if your answers were correct. It's so sad and it launched me straight into my “Grace, why are you the way you are” phase.

Sometimes, it's difficult to not feel anger towards my own self or worse, hate myself, because I always seem to mess things up by myself. Things that I really want.

I feel like I've really exhausted myself now from thinking about the exams and writing the exams, and the worst part is, I keep thinking it probably wasn't enough. I've said something before about how I can actually give this faculty my blood and sweat and they will still tell me it's not enough, that's exactly how I feel now.

The results are not yet out, they will probably be out next week, so if you don't hear from me next week, just know the worst has happened, lmao. The worst being that I do not pass my exams. I've just been saying “God, help me, please” every 2 hours.

I don't even think I'm being pessimistic, I'm just tired. We're supposed to start lectures next week, but I'm not exactly looking forward to it either. I'm not looking forward to having discussions about the results or hearing from lecturers about what they think the results might look like or who should/should not be in a particular class. Infact, I'm not even looking forward to learning or starting a new semester.

I honestly wish you can cure anxiety, like you can take something and it just goes away. It makes me really sad. I've been on edge and so anxious throughout this week, it gives me a headache. It's so sad because “Grace, please stop thinking about it and be in the present”, but no, I keep thinking about it, and I don't even want to! But I just keep doing it.

Someone told me that I don't know how to relax, and I think it's true, I'm always thinking about something bad that might happen, and I keep playing it in my mind over and over. These days, I've been practising unclenching my teeth whenever I become conscious of the fact that I've been clenching it as a way of reminding myself to relax.

I don't really have anything nice to say this week, it was just a tiring and uninteresting week. It's a miracle that I still manage to show up in the places I show up, I'm a superstar true true, but sadly, I'm not sure how much resilience I have in me anymore. I'm tired and once again, I've put everything I have into something, fingers crossed, it wasn't for nothing.

This week I made progress with Anne Of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. I read it every evening this week (from Tuesday evening sha), and when I started, I was at 48%. I'm currently at 71% and I'll probably finish it before I send this newsletter out. Probably! Also, I think someone died, I don't know, but it's making me scared of reading it. Anne Shirley exhausts me, tbvh. I want to say more, but I'll keep it till I'm done and I'm writing the review.

I also made progress with Breasts And Eggs by Mieko Kawakami. It looks like it's getting interesting, but there are so many things I don't get, but again, I'll leave that till the review.

The book is in two parts and the first part, which signifies the Breasts part, is talking about the FMC sister's obsession with breast surgery, and the Eggs part (the second part) is talking about artificial insemination and having children. The FMC doesn't enjoy having sex, so the idea of doing that to have children is scary for her, but it's so funny to me because there's really no real reason why she wants a child, but she's seriously considering it because it's an option (?). I don't get it, but maybe when I'm done, it will become clearer.

I started Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn this week and DNF it, I found the book really boring and while reading it, it reminded me of why I didn't want to pick it up in the first place. Colin irritated me so much.

I lost my shit and decided to drop the book when Penelope did something that I thought was really out of character for her, it was just so stupid, and that was how they were supposed to fall in love? What kind of story is that?!

Also, he kept going on and on about how he never seemed to notice Penelope until now which begs the question, so what changed about her?! It was honestly just giving “she’s the only one that understands me”, and when it comes to men, I really can't take that.

I know this is just the time the book was set in, but I honestly couldn't just shake off the whole parading girls about just so someone would pick them and get married to them before they “expire”. It was tiring, I couldn't do it.

The only book I finished this week was Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde which was a re-read, but it was splendid as usual. I started it in January.

Apart from Romancing Mister Bridgerton, another book I picked up and DNF was The Spare Room by Laura Starkey, the MMC annoyed me and he didn't even speak. Like, I'm not sure if that was supposed to be hot, but the first 5 times the MMC interacted with the FMC, he didn't speak, even when she spoke to him.

At some point, I started wondering if the MMC was supposed to be dumb and they didn't mention it in the synopsis. And oh boy, a lot happened in the first 17% of the book and this book was 326 (or so) pages, and the a lot wasn't a “oh, wow, I'm in for a ride” a lot, it was a “this is way too much information for me at this point” a lot. I just couldn't do it.

All in all, I read 10 books in February, I posted my wrap up both on Instagram and on my blog, do check it out, and that brought my 2024 reading goal to 22/100 books (🥳).

Concerning the TBR list, I'm still going strong. I'll probably check everything this month, we'll see how it goes.

I'm really excited to read Lessons In Chemistry and So Let Them Burn, but I'll try to go through the list accordingly. Anyhoo, what are you currently reading? What did you read last week? Let me know by sending a reply x.

I kinda started reading this manga, too. It looks funny, I'll give the deets next week. I'm wondering if I should go back to reading My Roommate Is A Gumiho, but it has been going on for a while and I keep asking myself, “WHAT ARE THEY STILL DOING?!”, ohmigosh.

This week, I read Tres’ newsletter for reaching 5,000 subscribers, and it inspired me a lot. There's the part where she talked about how most of the time you don't need to have a super elaborate plan on what you want to do concerning something before you start. Sometimes, you know enough to just start at that level, and wait for the pieces to fall in place eventually, sometimes the purpose fattens up, acquires shape, and finds you while you're already in your way.

The only thing I know about this newsletter is that I want to write. I want to write about myself, my experiences, and books I read. Also, connect with people. Anything apart from that, I honestly don't know. Will I ever make money from it? Yes, I'm sure. But how? I don't know, and I don't like to think about it so much, because tbvh, that's not exactly the point (I mean, of course I want to make money, but that wasn't what I had in mind when I started, if this makes sense).

Consistency can mean various frequencies at various points of the project. At some point, it can mean posting 2 times a year and at some point, it can mean posting every week. It's honestly up to you and what you think you need and can work with.

Right now, I'm working on posting every week. I'm trying to see something, and I also like the idea of unwinding at the end of the week, like giving a recap of my week using the newsletter.

Now, this one. Tbvh, sometimes I think about the fact that I can't write the newsletter a certain way, for instance, Oríadé's newsletter, there's usually a theme and whatever he writes is usually centered around it, but sigh, no matter how much I try, that is not me and I can't do that. I hate giving advice, I'd rather talk about my own experiences and you take what you want from it, if this makes sense. No matter what, your people will find you, all you have to do is keep writing and showing up.

This particular comment did something to me because I honestly used to worry that I wasn't making sense (sometimes) to other people, but it felt really nice to know that people actually resonated with it and the format it comes.

This one is so true, most of the time when I talk about the things I talk about on here, it's usually as a result of something I experienced/experiencing, or maybe something I saw. I kid you not, I don't plan for the newsletters. Like, I know I would send out something on a particular day, but I usually don't know what that thing will be, it's when I settle down to write and I start talking about the week that it starts coming to me. It's exactly why it's impossible to plan for the newsletter content. What is a content calendar? There's only so much my neurodivergent brain can take, please.

You can read Tres’ newsletter here. This is where I add that she's also one of my favourite creators.

I made an emotional support afrobeats playlist, it's mostly me just adding my favourite afrobeats songs to the playlists and just building it from there.

I recently just realised that I listen to afrobeats a lot, a lot more than I actually thought. Shocking! It was when I saw Davido and Asake on my Spotify Wrapped two times in a row that I realised that “wow, wow, I actually listen to these people a lot”.

I won't share the link to the playlist sha, because it's only for me, but this is your sign to make emotional support playlists.

According to Receiptify (which is according to my Spotify stats), these are my most played songs for last month. I was expecting Mind Over Matter by Young The Giant to be at the top, but do you see what I was saying earlier?! Afrobeats! Ohmigosh.

Concerning the first song, I woke up one morning and decided that I was just going to listen to that song throughout the day—I was going through a lot. I actually like the song a lot.

And no Taylor Swift?! I have failed her. I need to send myself into the forest now.

But somehow, she was my most played artist. Is this correct? Am I missing something? On one hand, I think I understand it, but on the other hand, I'm not sure. Anyhoo, I'll turn it around when the new album comes out. I feel like I'll enjoy the new album at all. It looks a lot like Folklore, and Folklore should be one of my top 5 albums by Taylor Swift.

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That's all for this week, while writing the first draft for this mail, I literally went “omo, wetin I dey talk”, but I'm glad I was able to shape this into something that makes sense.

I hope you have a fun-filled March and have lots of joy filled moments. For March, I'm holding on so much to hope. There's this quote that's coming to mind, and the ironic part is, I used it last year when I was in this exact situation.

Till next week x. 💜

Also, check out my interview with Evaleni Lawson, she called me a “futuristic phenom”. 🤭