Thank you!

Happy new year!!!

2017, just like every other year, had its ups and downs for me, and for everyone else, I suppose. I like to concentrate on the positives. That is not to say that I bury my head in the sand, ignore the negatives and pretend that they never happened, no. I believe there is always something to be gained (more like learnt) from every situation, no matter how bad and/or impossible it might seem.

With that in mind, this is me saying I'm grateful for 2017, everybody and everything it brought me. The one aim I wake up with every morning is to become happier and better than I was the past day, the past month, the past year e.t.c. I am very positive that 2017 has left me better and happier(despite Mike Dean's best last munute efforts 😂) than 2016 did.

I'm grateful for my family and friends who love me, care for me even though they don't always understand me and my ways. A lot of people my age face a lot of pressure from family and friends to do things like get married, have kids buy cars or houses or other such pressures, just because other people are doing it. I feel blessed to have family and friends who very rarely put that pressure on me.

I'm grateful for my job, my colleagues and the opportunities they have brought and continues to bring, grateful for the things I've learnt and continue to learn as a result.

I'm grateful for the people who do their best to make me feel welcomed and happy even when I'm the only black person in the room or we barely have a language we speak in common. I'm grateful for the people who make an effort to engage with me even when we have so much cultural differences that it is difficult to find a conversation topic.

I'm grateful to the people who take their time to explain things I don't understand to me, the people who teach me their languages and cultures. Thank you for your patience.

I am grateful for the people who look out for me, even those I dont know. Grateful for the people who still make out time to advice me, even though I sometimes do the exact opposite of what they say (haha), end up down sh!t creek without a paddle and come back to them for even more advice.

I am grateful that I'm part of the Arsenal family. I have learnt a lot about life and met some really beautiful and excellent people as result of following The Arsenal. It really does go beyond football.

I'm grateful for a lot of people/things. There simply isn' enough paragraphs in the world to write about them and how they better my life. Special mentions to people like John Boyega, Chadwick Boseman, Ella, Aaron Ramsey, Seamber, Fums, and Arsene Wenger who inspired me, specially in 2017, in many different ways, from a distance just by living their lives.

I have now made the mistake of naming names and will, no doubt, forget to mention some people. Bare with me. Remember I'm still learning this life thing and still mostly suck at at it. Especially the way normal people do it.

Thank you all!

What do I want in 2018? To be happier and better than I was in 2017.

P.S. thank you all, once again, Carmen, Carolina, Eloisa, David, Pascal, Marianela, Maria Geovanna, Maria Angeles, Clinton, Bede and Easy E. You all in one way or the other and to varying degrees made sure I had one of the best summers ever, sometimes without even knowing it.