Random things I did in March

I guess it’s too late to say welcome to April, but is it too late to welcome you to Q2? I don’t think it is.

So, welcome to the 2nd quarter of 2024!!!

2024 has been flying rather quickly, I must say. It’s been exciting, challenging, interesting, and fun so far. I’m definitely not here to hound you about what you’ve achieved or progress with your goals or the likes. I know the pressure that sometimes comes with a new month, a new quarter, with respect to your goals, especially if you’re operating on the 12 week year principle or something similar. While goals are important, I don’t think you need yet another article to ask you about that. 

For a change, I decided to switch things up and have a rather lighthearted piece for this month. In this brief article, I’ll be sharing seven random things I did in the month of March. My friend sent this idea to me last month and I totally decided to jump on the idea, because March was such an interesting and different month for me recently. 

So here we go…

7 random things I did in March

1. Swim school: My friend convinced me to finally learn how to swim properly so I decided to start swimming lessons. Five classes in, I’m so glad I listened to her. I feel a lot more comfortable and confident in the water, I feel stronger, more powerful, and energized to take on more water adventures when I travel 🤭😉😂. Going to my swimming lessons every week is also very relaxing. I really look forward to immersing myself in the water, learning the new skills, and pushing myself a lot. 
2. Travel: I don’t think this is surprising or totally random because I planned for this, but this was another interesting part of March for me. It was a brief extended weekend trip to Oregon, but I had a great time.
3. Hosted my friend and my sister: This was one of the major highlights for me. Not only did I get to host my friend who visited me from California, a few weeks after that visit, I hosted my sister who visited from Canada. It was extremely nice because this was the first time I was hosting them at my home since I moved. We did a lot of exploring, and I’m glad we had a good time—Seattle weather was sunny 80% of the time, surprisingly. I had to juggle hosting with work, and while that was a bit stressful, I have no regrets. I had a great time and I’m really grateful that they decided to take the trip to come spend some time with me.
4. Volunteered in-person with an organization: This was another highlight for me last month. I volunteered with the Birthday Dreams organization – a non-profit that organizes group birthday parties for homeless children. The volunteer activity was to design and pack goody bags for these birthday parties and it was such a lovely event, hanging out with my colleagues, having mothers on the team share their experiences organizing birthday parties for their kids, and everyone just bonding over a shared cause. I’m so glad I could give my time and it is definitely something I’ll be doing again. 
5. Spoke at an IWD event: With March being International Women’s month, there were a lot of events celebrating women and inspiring women. This is a campaign that the WomenTechMakers (WTM) organization takes very seriously and encourages its ambassadors to organize and participate in these events. In the month of March, I was privileged to be hosted by a fellow WTM ambassador, Oyoenisai Andrew-Essien, on her LinkedIn audio event titled, Breaking Barriers to Inspire Inclusion. During the event, I discussed finding your place in the workplace and shared my journey getting started in tech, discovering data science, and relocating to the US for grad school. 
6. Explored Seattle in the spring: The Pacific NorthWest (PNW) is known for its beautiful spring, especially the cherry blossoms. I got to experience this for the first time and it was really beautiful. I love being a tourist and exploring places, but this is something I don’t get a chance to do much in the city I live because I usually just want to rest at home after all my travels and work. However, I got to do a lot of Seattle-exploring this March and it was oh so beautiful.
   
   
   
   I could write an article later this year about things to do in Seattle in the Spring / Summer; please let me know if this is something you’d be interested in reading.
7. Went to cheer for my friend in her marathon: Speaking about cherry blossoms, my friend ran a Cherry-blossom full marathon here in Seattle. This is the final random thing I did in March that I’ll be sharing in this article. While I didn’t run, it was so exciting and amazing to be at the finish line waiting, cheering, and clapping for all the runners as they crossed the finish line. It was so beautiful to see all the emotions from the runners and their loved ones who came to cheer, listen to their recap of the run afterwards, evaluate their performances, and also see the pride in their eyes when they get their medal. 

Conclusion

Writing this article actually caused me to pause and recount my month from a leisure point of view and I loved it. I hope you can also take a quick break to think of all the random things (outside of work, goals, school, etc.) that you’ve done recently and appreciate how beautiful, interesting, and diverse life could get.

I hope this also encourages you to do more random things, say yes more, jump on more adventures, and take more risks (read as calculated risks), no matter how small they might seem.

As usual, if you have any suggestions, comments, questions, or article ideas, please drop a comment below or send an email to: contactaniekan at gmail dot com. 

Thank you for reading.

Aniekan

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