BLOCKTRADES/WRITERS BLOCK WRITE YOUR OWN TICKET GIVEAWAY (MY ENTRY)

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011…

I was sweating profusely in the air conditioned room. The lady sitting at my right hand side was tensed, she had reduced her typing speed on the keyboard. I was relieved when I noticed the guy at my left hand side had stopped typing too. The three of us had gone through several stages to get a job in the firm, we were chosen out of many. You could tell how happy I was when I was called for the last stage, the stress was too much for a teenager looking to find something doing after high school.

The task was to write on “why we wanted to work with them”. I was very young with no experience, all I knew was the Physics and Mathematics I learnt from high school, I never knew there was a way to answer that. We were given forty minutes, I finished mine in five. My answer was short and concise, just thirteen words. I concluded I wouldn’t get the job when I noticed the other two applicants had been typing for over thirty minutes.

I believe my sincerity got me the job, perhaps the other applicants didn’t write what they wanted to read, and they had no choice than to settle for me. Here I am again seven years later, with an opportunity to go where I’ve been dreaming to go. And I’m faced with a similar question, why I want to go?

I’m definitely not submitting a thirteen words entry. My story up there was just to reveal how remarkable today is to me.

_{Somewhere in Krakow, Poland. Image credit: Pixabay}

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Sport analyst, Writer, Programmer.

You should see that when you visit my blog, that’s all I could provide in the “about me” field. That young naive boy had grown to become all these. Although the firm I was employed to do then was good enough, the pay was attractive but I had bigger dreams. I wanted to become a mechanical engineer, going to college was the next thing I looked forward too. I gained admission into the university towards the end of that year but I was given my second-choice course. Today, I’m a computer scientist not an engineer, and I’m proud to be one.

One closer look at my working profile, you would qualify me as “boring”. All the friends I’ve worked with always wants to talk about a bug they tried fixing the previous day, a new function (code) they discovered or a project they are working on. That’s what you get when you have programmers as friends, and when we decide to have some time out in an entry or a cinema, other discussions are still minimal, we still end up talking about codes. I guess I’m exaggerating here, there are coders who are fun to be with and I’m one of them.

I never intended to have so much codes in my head so I stick to front-end programming, I build the car and my friends determines how the car works. That’s basically what I do aside blogging, designing mobile and web applications has been fun. I watch and play football too and I could argue all day on sports. I decided to add that to my profile too, I write on football especially.

I came across Steemit on a social media platform, I only write for fun and someone advised I registered. According to him, Steemit would bring out the best in me. He wasn’t wrong, I’ve been applying all my skills here and I could tell how much I’d improved. I’ve met a lot of people and this platform is my next home.

Far back in February when I registered, things weren’t easy as he portrayed. I continued anyway and one community welcomed me immediately, @Steemiansarena. I grew with them and became an administrator in the community. Steemiansarena is a project made for newbies, we welcome and tutor them on the dos and don’ts of the platform. The blog might be messy and scanty now, but it’s still pretty much active on the WhatsApp and the discord group.

My ambition to learn more and meet with more people made me discover Airhawk-Project. This is another community uniting Steemians, I learnt so much here and my writing skills improved. I’m also one of the moderators on their discord server.

Steemit is now part of my day-to-day activities. If I’m not here writing or relating with people, I would be on my deck working on a project for a client. I’m a freelancer, Fiverr is also a place I seek for job too. I’ve incorporated Steemit to my working profile. My programming and designing knowledge has been useful here too, I’m a space force member on Steemjet and I’m currently working on a fan page for them. I get to do what I do in the real world here, meeting new people, seeing new innovations and projects has been awesome, writing and tutoring newbies is now part of me. I should be grateful I found this platform. The fact that there’s a reward (steem) for everything makes it great.

Steemit is now part of me.

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This is the first Steemfest I would experience, I’ve been to some meet-ups in my country and I could tell how interesting it was. How about a meet-up where Steemians from different part of the world would be? That would be mind-blowing I thought, and I’ve always fantasized being there. Poland is quite far, I would need lots of Steem and enough cash to be there, that’s one challenge I have. An opportunity to contest for the ticket is something I couldn’t miss.

I will like to connect with other Steemians from other parts of the world, I will like to meet the people I’ve chatted with online and I’ll like to see those awesome Steemians that keeps getting me glued on their blog. Being a Nigerian that has never left his country, gong to Steemfest will be big step.

How would my presence improve the Steemiverse and my world?

I’m among the few that wants to attend in the communities I belong to. There are lots of projects we would love to accomplish, I’m personally working on something big. I’ve been learning about the blockchain and my programming skills hasn’t been at that level yet. My first goal would be getting people to see how the project would affect the Steemiverse positively and getting people to work with.

That feeling when you finally left your country to another country just to seek knowledge and have fun, that’s something I’m looking forward too and it’s a big contribution to my world.

I guess it’s high time I revealed the face behind @afolwalex.

_{I took this on a Sunday afternoon.}

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This is my entry to the Steemfest ticket contest. You can also participate if you are quick enough. I hope I touched everything needed to pass through this stage.

Big thanks to @blocktrades, @thewritersblock and @anomadsoul for this wonderful opportunity.

Until next time….

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@afolwalex writes.

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