Week 01: This year, present your best self and your best work always. Na who wear cloth dem dey carry go Mr Biggs.

Regular programming.

Hi, guys. Happy new year! I hope you had a wonderful end of the year celebration and you got enough rest. If you're already back to work, I'm so sorry, one day e go better.

I didn't plan to send out the newsletter so early in the year, but I was terribly bored, and I thought, why not? Who's going to check me? Nobody.

I think I'm having a little issue with my eyes, I want to say my eyesight is getting worse, but God forbid, in Jesus' name. It feels weird whenever I'm not wearing my glasses. There's this weird pressure and it keeps going out of focus, so I have to “adjust” it so I can see clearly again—‘it’ being my eyes.

I don't know if I'm just zoning out regularly or I actually can't see, I don't even know anymore. Also, it hurts a little and it makes me want to just close my eyes every now and then, like I want to sleep, but I don't. If it gets worse (lmao, what is ‘worse’ supposed to look like?), I'll go and get it checked at the hospital.

All I do these days is sleep, eat, and read books. I need something to stimulate my brain, but I told myself I wouldn't engage in any major projects this year because of school.

Speaking of school, this is supposed to be my final year—500 level—and I want to just focus on that and try my best since it's the last year. I can't wait to say I'm done. It has been exhausting.

Editing this now and I just want to say that this is literally impossible because I get bored easily and I always need something to stimulate my brain. I did say I was going to have fun this year though.

If you know anyone who's planning on studying Pharmacy in the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Nigeria. Tell them not to do it, they should only do it if they hate themselves. Actually, discourage them if they plan on studying it in any federal university in Nigeria.

I noticed that whenever I take a break from writing this newsletter and come back, I struggle with writing again. I start overthinking what I want to say or what I should say. So, in my head, I think I'm struggling with writing this, I just need to get back into my usual routine, and then, I'll get my flow back.

Anyways, sometime last month, a company (not a Nigerian company) reached out to me. I've been seeing them around in other creators' posts and videos, and up until that moment, I didn't think I had gotten to the point where brands would want to work with me (yet).

The entire experience opened my eyes and for the first few minutes after I saw the email, I didn't want to respond because it felt like a joke, but at some point, I was just like, “whatever” and I responded.

Even though it doesn't work out, it somehow opened my eyes to the fact that people are seeing you and your work, you just need to keep showing up as much as you can. Also, you're not as small as you think.

It's even more funny because it was through the blog, I'm not even where I want to be with the blog (or even anywhere, generally) and this is already happening, so imagine if I just keep doing what I'm doing (and improving)? It was an interesting experience, in the sense that it opened my mind.

So, whatever you're doing this year, do it well and show up consistently—you'll also have to define what consistency means to you. Please, don't do any 30 day challenge without any proper planning. If you're like me, that's the fastest way to burnout.

With such challenges, I think the key thing is strategy and planning. I know people say don't think about it too much and just do it, but you'll have to think about the basics, at least, so you'll be able to achieve what you want to achieve. You don't want to reach the end of the challenge and feel like nothing changed. There's also the fact that the reward won't come immediately, you have to be patient, too.

Just do good work this year and show up, like someone said,

Books.

Last year, I set a goal for 100 books and met the goal. I read 101 books. It was an interesting experience as always and the thing that comes with setting book goals as high as that is the fact that you're always on the lookout for books to read. This year though, I set a reading goal for 50 books.

If you're looking for an app to track your reading, you should use Storygraph, it's the app I'm currently using and it's where the screenshots are from.

Aside from the reading goal, another goal I set for myself is to read a nonfiction book every month (so, 12 books in a year) and I created a challenge on the Storygraph app. You can check it out here, I will try to add more books to the challenge page, so you'll have recommendations/books to pick from when you want to.

Currently, I'm reading It's Not Hysteria (everything you need to know about your reproductive health, but were never told) by Karen Tang, MD, MPH.

It reads like an anatomy textbook, but at the same time, it's quite interesting. I love the way the author explains the concepts. I'm on chapter 6 where the main topic is ‘polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)’. Before now, I'd already read about fibroids and endometriosis and adenomyosis in the previous chapters.

I wasn't supposed to start the book now because I wanted to read it with you guys from next week and then we share what stood out to us, but it still doesn't matter.

Something I've already learned while reading the book is that cervical pap smears have nothing to do with pap. I don't know if this is something everyone else knew (or assumed) already, but I was so shocked when I found out.

This is why you should read books, guys. I probably wouldn't have known this without reading this book, I would have just kept on living in my little ignorant bubble. I really thought they smeared pap on the cervix.

The book is about 398 pages and I plan on reading 80 pages every week, so I don't overwhelm myself with lots of information and get tired of the book.

Away from nonfiction, another book I'm currently reading is Fire by John Boyne, I'm 52% in and when I'm done with the book, it's going to be my first book of the year.

I don't feel so strongly about the book, it's interesting enough, but sometimes, I think the author is failing to get to a certain depth with the book, and so it makes the experiences being described surface level, even though it's actually ‘deep’ and serious.

That's all for the books I'm reading. Please, let me know what you're currently reading and any reading goal you set for yourself this year.

Articles, blog posts, and essays.

🌻 156. Your boyfriend might not love you at the pace you love him.

I can't remember much from this article, because I didn't think I was going to write this newsletter, so I didn't write anything down apart from an excerpt from the newsletter, but I think the only thing I would say is that relationship advice is not ‘one size fits all’.

On one hand, you should ask questions about relationships and seek advice if you're confused, but on the other hand, you're the one in the relationship and you're your own person, you know what's working for you (and both of you).

When I read it, I felt what the author was describing looked like a lapse in communication, but if it didn't seem that way to her and she was okay with that dynamic, I can't really say anything.

I would really like to know what you think, so if you read it, don't hesitate to send me a mail or a DM on Instagram.

Excerpts:

“we were two different people living our own individual lives who were deciding to share them together. But that it was crucial that we never blend into becoming the same person or abandoning our individual selves to become one.”

🌻 2025 is for the brave (on the courage to try and to keep trying).

It's a post from Ore, so why not? Also, the concept of ‘just trying’ stood out to me, because it was what made me keep going last year and it was basically what I kept telling myself, “just try, Grace. let it not be said that you didn’t try”.

Excerpts:

“Therefore, for the next phase of my life, my word is “try”. There is a beautiful life to be built and it requires much effort, fearful as I am of futile effort. Let it be that the world is unfair. That my efforts were not met with commensurate results. But let it not be that I did not try.”

That's all for this week's newsletter. I hope you enjoyed reading this and I look forward to hearing from you.

Gather round.

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Bye x.