A Series of Unreal Parallels

From being discontinued to a six-month sprint in a software development bootcamp
to a six month stint at a startup as a software engineer and back to university.

The last four years have been such a haze, I feel like I’m watching myself
in from the third person pov.

Around this time in 2016, I was a week or two from closing my highschool
chapter. I was dealing with the madness that was Matiangi’s KCSE exam😒.
Fast forward a few weeks later the results are out and I’ve got my B-
In my head I’m like meeh, I wasn’t really studying so this was a good enough
grade.

I was placed in CUEA, to pursue BACHELOR OF ARTS (SOCIAL WORK)
I kid you not 😂😂. Actually, if you google “Adrian Murage”, on the second
page of the results you should find a PDF with that info. But I wasn’t planning
on showing up a single day there. I had my head and heart set on engineering.
I told my parents I wanted to pursue Mechatronic Engineering and they
accepted. To JKUAT I went.

Parallel no.1 CUEA vs JKUAT.

This particular one I never really think about because I never considered the CUEA
path.

I was in JKUAT for exactly one year. 2017 September to 2018 September.
I spent a majority of this period in my bedsitter sleeping, not having much
to do. Missing classes and exams😂 and enjoying my time with Winnie.
Yeah, there’s almost always a girl in my life, I’m smooth like that 😂.
Eventually, my slopiness caught up with me, and as my classmates got their
end of year results, I got my discontinuation letter.

The terms of my discontinuation were that I was to spend a year out of
school covering my course content, then I would retake my exams and if
I did well I would be allowed to continue to my second year.

So I had a year with not much to do. My dad asked me to find something to
do, because there was no way I was going to sit in the house for a whole year.

At first, ya boy wanted to take music classes, vocal and guitar classes to be
specific. You should have seen the look on my dad’s face when I told him this😂
He was convinced I had completely lost it. I was discontinued from university
and still had the audacity to suggest music ???😂

He sternly ordered me to go use the brain he gave me and find something that would
complement my degree when I eventually went back to school.
I settled on programming and signed up for Moringa School.

My father made it clear that Moringa school was my redemption. If I didn’t
excel, I would have to figure life out on my own from that point on.

Parallel no.2 Moringa vs JKUAT

This one I think about A LOT. I feel like this was a definitive parallel.
The person I am today would be very different if I excelled in JKUAT.
This blog would not exist, I wouldn’t know how to program and I
would not have a source of income. Only to mention a few.
I would be a shadow of my current self.

February 2019 to July 2019, I studied late nights and early mornings.
I would be up at 4 am out of the house at 5 am in Moringa by 6 am.
Study/nap till 8 am when we had our daily standup.
Study and code till 7/8 pm sometimes 9 pm. Get home between 9 pm
and 11 pm. Code till 12 pm and sleep.

I graduated on June 28th and I had an almost perfect score. I had proved to
myself and my father that I could make something of myself.
Over this period, I had become convinced that I no longer needed a
degree and I had made a conclusive decision to not go back to JKUAT
that chapter for me was closed.

I had no idea where I would get a job, but I knew I wanted work and not
school. I convinced myself and my parents.

Parallel no.3 Employment vs JKUAT

This one was a no brainer I had become job-ready in 6 months.
Something I knew I would never become in JKUAT even if I went back
and completed my 5-year degree.

A week later, I got this email and everything fell into place.

Crazy right?
One of my lucky days for sure. “Luck” being a topic for another day.

A few rounds of interviews later and I got the job! I was super excited
and it showed😂. I got to the office first and left last. I was taking photos
left right and center and I loved every second of it. And I was getting paid too!

If you interacted with me then you know for sure that I couldn’t finish
a sentence without “my job” or “my office” or “my workmates”.
I was so annoying, but could you blame me? I was validated on a heavenly level
I took a risk and it paid off, big time.

In the six months I was there I had earned back the amount my parents spent
on tuition and upkeep while I was in moringa, about $2500 and some change.
I was earning $550 a month. I had no bearing on the value of saving so
apart from the amount I used on transport and to buy a few things
I quite literally ate the balance. I went to all the places I had never been to
I watched my first movie in a theater, I went ice skating, I ate KFC among other things.

I had zero responsibilities, I could afford it with negligible consequence.
I also relaxed, started getting to the office at 11 am and leaving at 4 pm.
I was comfortable, I could do all my work for the week in a day and spend
the rest doing silly things.

After six months they had enough of me and my consultancy contract
was brought to an end. My life stopped.

After the shit hole that was dealing with the feelings that followed
I decided I was better off going back to school.

Parallel no.4 Employment vs University

This particular one I’m still figuring out, I have since joined university again
and found a way to make $1000 a month, double the amount I made at the job
as I try to become a competent Computer Scientist.
Everything is still blurry but I’m taking it one day at a time.

The point of this whole post…
To share where I am and how I got here.

And to tell you that there isn’t one path to where you’re going
and building the habits and skills needed to get there is more
beneficial than obsessing over the details of the specific path
you take. For me, it was a mix of toil and serendipity.

But if I wasn’t in motion, none of these things would have happend
Pick a direction and start moving. Life will adjust your trajectory
accordingly.