birthday – CANDID SHAR'N

birthday check-in: so how was being 27?

September 5, 2025 QueenJoy

[this post is a much later than usual because well… life. but i will still write it as though i am posting it on the day i am supposed to hehe. this post is also much more disorganised than previous posts because… life. sorry :/]

“the years get shorter and the days get longer.” apparently this is what new parents say/experience, but i’d also like to suggest that the same is true for the ph.d. program. so far, in my experience, first year = best year, if only for the reason that there are little to no expectations on you. now, in my third year, what i do is admittedly more fun (research) but it also carries far more expectations, and now my whole life just revolves around it.

anyhoo… how have the last 365 days been? well… it’s been a blur of a year! so much has happened, it feels like a lifetime of events, and yet 27 just felt… right! i passed a lot of milestones in my life, i met some wonderful people, i had some great personal accomplishments. i travelled and spent time with my loved ones, and looking back, in a way i feel like i was born to be 27. that’s over now, but we can still look back! so let’s!

Celebrating 27 years of life!

the year (obviously) started off with my birthday. i took myself to urban farmer, a restaurant in the logan square area of philly, to honour my solo birthday brunch tradition and suffice it to say, i will not be going back there. well, i’ll say a little more: my server was fairly unfriendly, and the restaurant did not take apple pay, so i had to awkwardly ask to leave and come back with cash, and ofc like the total weirdo i felt like in that moment, i chose to leave my water bottle as a sign of good faith that i was coming back! in hindsight, major LOL! i also almost swallowed a bug on my way to the restaurant – i should have taken that as a bad omen and gone elsewhere! nonetheless…

me at my birthday brunch! yay to turning 27!

my birthday meal… ofc i got the lox benny!

my birthday gifts from my twin girls ❤ (these hairbands have become a daily staple for me in year #29).

the following day i got to celebrate my birthday jointly with one of my favourite penn people, my cohort mate, jeffrey! our birthdays are just two days apart so our annual discussion is always how we will handle our birthday celebration(s). i truly appreciate all my office folk for making me and everyone else feel seen on our birthdays each year – a wonderful tradition!

my mango coconut cake from paris baguette

celebrating mine and jeffrey’s birthdays in the office

i also had a second birthday celebration in the last 365 days – just a few days ago in the office since i’d be away in zim for my actual birthday. again, thanks you guys!

Running Journey

if these are the only two options then i guess i’ve chosen?

next up was the broad st run on sunday, may 5^th! this remains one of the things i am most proud of accomplishing up to this point in my life. as i discussed in my post last year, i grew up detesting running, particularly long-distance running, but after slowing down and choosing to listen to my body better, i discovered that this was an activity i could actually enjoy and at the time of last year’s post, i was training for the broad st run – a 10 mile (16km) run down a street named broad st in philly. and friends, i did it!! plus i did it faster than i could have imagined – that race day adrenaline is too real! i completed the race in what i had dubbed “Wow-how-is-that-even-possible pace”!

05.05 arriving at the race just before 8AM. the race officially starts at 07:30AM, but i knew my corral would only get going at around 8:15AM so i intentionally arrived a bit late.

05.05 pre-race picture with irina, former phd-mate, now professor at nyu ❤ an inspiration of a person!

05.05 10 miles of non-stop running later!

05.05 ofc the workout didn’t happen unless the watch recorded it!

i started training for the following year’s race (2025) early in january but then realised i’d not be around to take part this year (sadly!!). as i write this portion of the post, i am currently in transit in nairobi waiting on my connecting flight to zimbabwe which has been delayed 2 hours (but i got upgraded to business class for this last portion of my trip, so yay!). the race is in a few days, but i will still be home in zim then.

04.27 me at the airport in nairobi as i wrote this portion of the post

anyhoo… i am still running! inspired by my friend, chisom, i have recently been trying to get myself onto a regular workout schedule, which generally means running shorter distances (2-4 miles at a go) otherwise i’ll skip because either 1) i’m too tired, or 2) i don’t have the time. so far, i have been running three times a week and doing strength training twice a week. the latter has been a major help with my knee issues! i have been doing a great job this semester of going to bed and waking up early (well, earlier than before) and the new workout regime really helps!

Ph.D. Life

it honestly feels odd to dedicate a section to the ph.d. since in reality the ph.d. feels like my whole entire life. anyhoo…

less than a week after the broad st run came my prelim exam! this is a comprehensive ph.d. exam that is meant to determine whether you have acquired enough knowledge and skill to transition from being a ph.d. student, who just takes classes mostly, to a ph.d. candidate who is working towards becoming an independent thinker and researcher (y’all early may was no joke for me, haha). i took what is potentially the final exam i’ll ever need to take, and the longest (a five-day exam), and i am so so grateful to say i fully passed!! truly a huge blessing. i was so unsure about how i did that i procrastinated getting my results (by just a day) until after a planned event (phd poker night) i was looking forward to – i did not want to ruin the event for myself if it turned out that i had not done well. but praise God, all was well! i immediately changed my email signature from “ph.d. student” to “ph.d. candidate” when i got the news – i was REALLY looking forward to that!

05.16 our traditional end of the school year picture, taken a few days after we had finished taking the prelim

05.21 me at poker night, avoiding learning about my prelim results despite wayne, poker night host, knowing what they were

overall may was great, but also sad because i said goodbye to my wonderful wonderful friend, adriano, who had been a visiting ph.d. student in our department for the academic year and was heading back home to italy. yes, tears were shed at our last encounter. i miss you a lot, my friend!

05.17 me and adriano attending irina, sergey, james, and nate’s graduation

05.30 our last day together ❤ i was carrying so much food from adriano’s kitchen on my scooter ride home lol

soon after my prelim exam i started heavy preparation for the summer class i would be teaching! yes, you read that right. TEACHING! me! teaching a whole undergraduate course at Wharton as the instructor! all these kids were calling me professor kwinjo, a title i have not earned yet, and you know what? i ate it up!! while much more exhausting than i expected, it was very fulfilling and affirmed my chosen career path. i did, however, learn that i need to draw firm boundaries in protecting my time. i spent way too long in unofficial office hours with my students. nonetheless, i loved my teaching experience.

i spent the second half of the summer (and the rest of the calendar year, to be honest) playing catch up on my summer paper which i ought to have started in may, but i was teaching. i enjoyed working on the project, but it ultimately did not yield the results i was expecting, as is typical of academic research.

08.28 jeffrey, cindy, and i’s traditional first day of school picture

i do not look back particularly fondly at the fall semester, unfortunately. while i enjoyed working on my summer paper, i did get started on it late (late june rather than may) due to my teaching commitments, and even after i got started on it, the results i found did not match my prior expectations, which felt like a punch to the gut. that semester was honestly tough. there were nights i pulled all-nighters, multiple instances where i went days on end without directly interacting with another human being, i cried many many times, sometimes out of stress and frustration, other times because i just needed to let pent up emotions out, i had conversations with some people which i think were meant to be constructive but only instilled in me a strong sense of self-doubt, something i am still working through, etc. etc. etc.. all this to say, not a great semester. i was incredibly stressed, and while the presentation ultimately went well (praise God), unfortunately, the future of the project remains uncertain.

Family

as summer was nearing its end, i spent three weeks in august in canada with some of my fav people – my two nieces, my sisters-in-love, my brother and friends! i also had the joy to form some new friendships while there and it was just a fun time! we hiked, we ran, we ate, we drank, we danced, we played, we sang, etc. etc. etc. i worked, haha.

04.03 trip to cape spear! someone from nl correct me if i spelt that wrong… ty!

08.07 the regatta was a go!! doing one of the things i love most: lying down on an empty road

i went back to the u.s. for the aforementioned tough semester, BUT, at the conclusion of it, after i presented my paper and the semester ended, i had the joy of travelling to the uk to be with even more people i love! this time, i stayed at sheu and tate’s house with their babies mels and boss mike – i had a wonderful time! the four of them are phenomenal hosts. 5/5-star superhosts, if they were on airbnb.

i also got to spend a few nights at my sister’s house with her kids and just bond more with the girls.

we celebrated christmas at tate and sheu’s with all the uk family joining (except my little sister, princess, who had to work throughout the holidays such that i did not get to see her at all 😢) and had a chaotic gift giving and reveal. i actually read up on this and it seems people have very differing opinions on it – i prefer when each person opens one gift at a time. it feels much more personal and less “transactional.” other people feel that this wastes time and can cause awkwardness, in which case it’s better to have everyone “collect” all their gifts and everyone open everything simultaneously. we did the latter this christmas, and wow, pandemonium! the kids loved it tho!

12.25 *everybody* got up to dance on christmas day

12.26 twin boys + big brother playing with their christmas toys

12.26 more beautiful kiddos loving enjoying those christmas gifts. these two babies *LOVE* each other its the sweetest thing ever

12.25 nap time for michelle after a day of non-stop dancing, playing, and eating.

12.25 the spread that had been eaten! Tate, you are a masterchef!

we had a second christmas party kwamai vatate in harlow where i met many of her relatives i had not met before and also reconnected with some i had met during the season of their wedding. we had a good time, and this only continued to affirm my love and appreciation of extended family – definitely one of the things i love most about being african! the day of the second christmas party was also my sister’s birthday, and the girls and i got together to do something small for her. we love you, chi!

unfortunately, we had a case of the norovirus going around among the babies and they each had their time of illness, with the duration and severity varying significantly across all the kids. the adults, on the other hand, got some form of cold/flu that just wouldn’t go away. mine stayed with me until 2 or 3 weeks after christmas.

tate, sheu, the kids, and i spent new year’s eve at home just relaxing, having some nando’s. we prayed as we entered the new year, then watched the neighboured fireworks, which mels was deathly terrified of. she reminded me of myself – i was also terrified of fireworks when i was her age. chido (my sister) and her girls came to spend my last day in town with me and we had a fun time.

i travelled back to the us the on january 02 so i could attend a ph.d. consortium at the university of north carolina, chapel hill which was scheduled to start on the 6^th. i did not see much of the state, but what i saw was beautiful – there were so many tall trees i was honestly mesmerised. maybe i’ve been doing this city life thing for a bit too long…

01.05 arriving in raleigh, nc. i thought this was so pretty!

01.07 loved seeing these flags next to each other on campus hehe

the spring semester has been work work work. i’ve had my third-year review which did not go great, but not as terribly as i expected. i’ve explored what feels like 3 million possibilities for a dissertation topic (but i think in reality the count is two or three). i’ve started two new projects with faculty members as co-authors. i have cried over work that was done. i have cried over work that was yet to be done. takeaway is… i have cried a lot.

i and my entire family received one of the biggest gifts just over a month ago – my brother and sister-in-love welcomed two new little ones – a boy and a girl, and it is impossible for me to exaggerate how overjoyed we are. the babies are absolutely stunning and so precious to just stare at. mommy and babies are all well, so we are very grateful for that, too.

my grandma, my mom, and i meeting the babies!

Living, Laughing, and Loving

i re-ignited my happy girl summer dates in the summer of 2024! i went on dates with two guys and hit it off with the first one. we went on fun dates for a few weeks but ultimately that did not work out… and another one bites the dust (sang in sia’s voice). nonetheless, i had a great time and he made the summer much more enjoyable and memorable!

and then… i moved! i now have my own apartment, y’all, and i absolutely love it! i have learned a lot about myself in living on my own and i look forward to learning more and to continuing to welcome people into my space – for me, it cannot be a home unless i do so. so, if i ever invite you to my place, i mean it sincerely!

07.19 hello new apartment, where all the rooms are MINE!

07.19 assembling furniture, one of my simple joys

as i mentioned before, my fall semester was pretty much a disaster. however, there was a bright spark in the semester: thanksgiving! i hosted a zim dinner, which was attended by 2 zim boys and 4 arundel girls, myself included. the girls spent two nights at my place and i can only describe that visit as healing. as mentioned above, i was drowning in my own world of stress, but i committed myself to just rest when the girls were around, and i could not have rested in better company. theresa, rutendo, and ropa, from the bottom of my heart – thank you so much for allowing me to host you all for thanksgiving. your visit did a lot for my emotional and physical health.

11.29 dinner crew (+ fungai & rukudzo who are not pictured because, well… this was a girls’ photo)

11.29 the dinner. all four of us can cook… but Ropa is miles ahead! my future nieces and nephews are so blessed!

11.29 my contribution to the thanksgiving spread: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

11.30 being girls in a makeup shop. guess which two felt right at home in this store and which two were just being silly

11.30 hint #1 to the caption in the previous picture

11.30 then we went to play putt putt!!! once again, Ropa proved her dominance over us!

while in the uk in december, i took a day trip to go and honour a tradition i started in 2023: each time i am in the uk, i must go and watch a theatre show on the west end in london. bella, one of our first year ph.d. students, also happened to be vacationing in london at the time so we spent the day together and went to watch agatha christie’s “the mousetrap.” i got us the cheapest seats possible without obstructed view, and while we could see the show perfectly, the seats in that theatre were easily the most uncomfortable theatre seats i have ever been in and i hope i never experience anything similar or worse. after the show we took a walk around covent garden and then said goodbye!

12.20 i went to london… beybeh! to see my [show]… beybeh!

i got back to the u.s. pretty much immediately after the new year to find that we were experiencing the coldest days of the season in philly, and guess what? i got home to find my apartment with no power, and yes, the building uses electricity for heat. when the power was eventually restored, about 36 or so hours later, the heat on my side of the building wasn’t working, and that lasted for maybe another five days. thankfully, i had a space heater to get me through, but i was so close to getting myself a hotel room the night when we had no electricity. in the end, i was too cheap to do so.

in the spirit of getting myself of out my all work and no play routine, i have started a new tradition where i attend one show or event each month. in january, i went to watch a live production of driving miss daisy (loved it!). in february, i watched noel hayward’s hay fever (it was alright). in march, chisom and i went to watch the new live action snow white (i really enjoyed it!), and in april i watched dreamgirls. given that i am trying to revive happy girl summers and be more social in that way, i doubt this tradition will continue into the summer, but i will definitely pick it back up in the fall!

11.12 november show at the academy of music

01.31 january show: the set of driving miss daisy at the walnut st theater

02.28 february show at the walnut st theater

04.11 april show!!!! i can never get enough of this one! also at the walnut

Reflections

as i look back on the year that was, i am humbled by God’s love for me. as i have stated in this post, this has been an academically trying year for me, but at the same time i have loved being 27. truly it’s the people that make these tough times bearable, and even enjoyable! i am incredibly grateful for all my family members (as usual), to my friends who make me feel seen and laughed, and even make me laugh when i feel like i am drowning, and to my ph.d. friends without whom i don’t even know how i would be surviving this phd journey. i also just want to make special mention of my mother who has listened to me vent on so many phone calls and has just been a beacon of encouragement, always, even when we disagree – i love you, mom.

as i am writing this portion of the post, i am sitting on my bed at home in zimbabwe, with a beautiful overnight downpour of rain in the background, excited to have the chance to celebrate my birthday at home in zimbabwe for the first time since i left home for college in 2016. i am so grateful to be around my family, and i am looking forward to having a little celebration with them soon. the celebration will also help me see as many people as i can while i am here!

i look forward to carrying lots of bags of yummy zim treats like chompkins and spar-letta drinks when i head back to school soon. while the climate has been fairly fearful among international students and uncertain in academia, i am reminded (especially by my mother) to not dwell on the things i cannot control and trust that there is a God who knows and cares for me, and whose care over me is not diminished by my environment.

the next chapter is 28, an age that i have looked forward to since i was a small child, the second and final year in my “age of 28.” i look forward to what God has in store for me, both planned and unplanned. i have seen the scope and depth of my faith stretched in the last two to three years, and i expect 28 to be no-different. by the time i write my next birthday post, my dissertation should be about 80-90% figured out and fleshed out and written, etc., and just the thought of that excites me so much. it is also a huge reminder of how time flies. i also look forward to 28 as two of my really good friends from college will be tying the knot with their chosen ones. i am excited to celebrate the love they have found with them <3.

cheers to the end of the 28^th year and the beginning of the 29^th!

Lots of random pictures

05.19 my little girl’s little brother graduates ❤

05.25 mets game with my boys. they both will be married by the time my next birthday check in comes along!

05.25 and these are their beautiful partners! this was post-lunch at a nepalese restaurant

05.25 i wish i could remember what i was gasping at while anthony & subrina were being all cute with their selfies

06.07 summer zim get together organised by maud (thanks, girl!)

06.07 then one of my babies was prescribed glasses… these kids are just so adorable! p.s. these are the sweethearts who gave me the birthday gift featured very early on in this post ❤

06.14 on my way to boston for an nber workshop. my absolute fav thing to see from a plane: meandering rivers!

06.15 WNDR museum in boston. this had us all in tears laughing! that’s me, btw

06.15 and here are phyllis and joe having very different experiences of the same light show

06.26 that time everyone thought i was pregnant… y’all i’m not about to put a pee stick that close to my face. i had covid.

07.05 then there was the time when lauren got married!!!! she cried and had us all crying during their vows

07.05 she also gave us an excuse to have a mini living water reunion ❤

07.08 and then i saw my baby!! i was this gorgeous lady’s mentor back when she was in high school! now she’s the mentor and has her own mentee-babies!

07.12 my sweet little sister, sarah, graduated!! congratulations, miss say say 101!

07.12 and the big brothers did not disappoint!

07.12 they flew all the way to the netherlands to be there for her ❤

08.25 i’ve been doing this thing where i buy myself flowers and keep a fresh bouquet in my apartment all the time. lilies are some of my favourites because they are the gift that keeps giving. each flower blooms at its own time, and so the bunch can last up to two weeks! unfortunately, they are very pollen heavy, which has been a problem for me at times.

08.25 back to school dinner at grace’s where we each had to dress as what, as kids, we wanted to be when we grew up. no one dressed up as a professor/researcher, yet we’re all ph.d. students…

09.07 the day i went out for a 3 mile run and ended up doing 7. i almost fainted walking into the trader joe’s lol, but then when i came out i saw this rainbow! the picture doesn’t show it, but it was a gorgeous double rainbow.

09.08 somebody please stop this little boy from growing so quickly, i can’t handle the cuteness

09.21 theresa’s birthday brunch. we went for paint and sip after and it was a blast. if anyone asks, i won.

09.28 jollof wars. i don’t mean to add fuel to the flames, but my personal favourite, BY FAR, was the ghanaian jollof…

11.14 i wanna say this was career day at school for the girls? idk. all i know for certain is they looked cute!

11.24 my first nba game – thanks, fungai!

12.10 department holiday party with my fellow soldiers in war ❤

12.31 a family that reacts the same to movies, stays together

01.13 that phone call where theresa ruined my love of eel by telling me i was eating the snakes of the sea, while i was eating eel.

02.09 we won the super bowl, y’all! go birds!

03.09 brunch in providence celebrating theresa’s baptism!

03.22 wharton 5k costume winners (obviously!) – the zoo! thanks, grace, for making this a thing ❤

04.14 meeting my new penn/zimbo little brother, abraham!

04.15 guess what my favourite season of the year is

the twins will cap this post off, because they deserve to close this off. they have truly been such an injection of life and joy into our family and we are all so excited that they are here! thank you, pk and tendie ❤

birthday check in: so how was being 26?

April 27, 2024April 28, 2024 QueenJoy

i feel like i normally start these by saying, “wow, time flies!” but let me tell you something, this year did *not* fly by! thankfully, i mean this (partly) in the best of ways possible. i have loved being 26! i have done so much, achieved so much personally, and seen more of the people i love in a period of 12 months than i have in a very long time – i am incredibly grateful for this last part!

Alright… let’s start with what i did to celebrate my 26th birthday last April. Firstly, as i mentioned in my previous birthday check-in, i went to watch a stand-up comedy show by Michael Rap (the guy who plays Phoebe’s cop boyfriend in Friends). I have since been told by a friend that Michael Rap is actually a pretty controversial figure and my response to that is pretty much “miss me with that politics” lol. i went to a show, i enjoyed it. i do not know any of this guy’s politics and honestly, i am not interested to know. life is too short for me to not interact with people whose political views i might not agree with – i refuse to add to the political polarisation.

The following morning I biked myself down to JG SkyHigh, the restaurant atop the Four Seasons, and had what I am hoping to turn into my traditional solo birthday brunch.

birthday croissant. Thank you JG SkyHigh!

After that I got myself some Too Good To Go cupcakes, picked up my Broad St Run regalia, then headed back to the office to practice with for Itay Goldstein’s exam with Jeffrey, Cindy, Sese and Chisom!

At some point before my actual birthday, we also celebrated my birthday in the office!

cake from office celebration! thanks phriends ❤

My biggest achievement over the last 365 days has been my running journey! I’ll dedicate a whole section to that and then give a rundown of how the rest of the year went in other aspects of my life!

Running Journey

The first big thing I did in year 27 was to participate (without training) in the Broad St Run – the largest 10 mile (16km) race in the US by participation. A lot of us in the accounting department signed up for the race but only a few us chose to brave it out as race day turned out to be cold and very rainy. I walked and ran the race, and I was so tired by the end, I could barely feel my legs on the train ride home.

04.30 leaving the train station to get to the race start

One of the things on my bucket list has always been to non-stop run a 5K, so following the Broad St Run (lol) I decided that I actually wanted to try this running thing out, and early in May I started going out for runs. My first run I believe was 1.96 miles, and I would walk one block, run the next and keep alternating like that. I eventually decided to see how far I could run without stopping and realised I could actually run the entire 1.96 miles. The key? Run super slowly! And that has been my method since. I have allowed my body to tell me how fast or slow to run. My only rule has been to never walk, and I have since fallen in love with my runs!

I split my summer time between England and Canada, and as soon as I arrived in England at the end of May that’s when I really started to build a running habit. Up to that point I had just been going on runs “when I felt like it,” but once I got to England I started going for (almost) daily evening runs, each about 1.5 miles. I gradually increased the distance as I explored the unfamiliar neighbourhoods until one day I found myself 2.5 miles into a run and decided to push an extra 0.6 miles, and I did it! On the evening of June 18 I ran my first ever 5K (3.11 miles)!! [insert applause audio lol!]. I carried on running while in the England as well as in Canada, and by the end of the summer I had run a 5K distance a total of four times, with my longest run being 4.10 miles.

I continued running once I was back at school but I definitely broke the habit and fell back into the “running when I feel like it” routine in the Fall of 2023. In January of this year I decided that I wanted to give the Broad St Run another try, and actually run the entire distance (10 miles) this time around – very ambitious for someone who had only run a max distance of 4 miles up to this point. I started following a training plan in February and I am happy to say that I am on track to run the 10 miles of the Broad St Run next weekend on Sunday, May 05.

I am incredibly incredibly proud to say that as of today, I have not only been able to check off my bucket list goal of running a 5K distance, but I have run a distance of at least 5K 35 times in the last year, with 6 of those 35 run being 10K+ distances! My longest run so far has been 9 miles – an achievement from last Saturday evening! Today was my final Saturday long-run before the race, and I managed to run my fastest 5K and 10K paces.

my excitement after my first 10K distance run!

The running journey has not been without hiccups, though. Once I started doing longer runs I started experiencing pain in my knees. At first I ignored it as my knees have always given me trouble, but I eventually decided to get help from a physical therapist. I have been in PT for about a month now and it’s amazing how helpful the small things I do there have been. My knee pain is gone and the PT has also addressed some other issues i’d been having through my running that I had been ignoring. It also helps that my physical therapist is incredibly cute!

My primary goal for the Broad St Run is to finish it without walking – I do not have reason to believe that this will be a problem since I ran 9 miles last weekend. Pace has not really been much of a concern for me. I am a slow runner, and finishing the run within some given time frame would just be the cherry on top of the cake – nice, but not necessary. Here’s what I’m thinking for the race:

Target pace (i.e., the pace of my practice runs):
– 02:00:00- 02:10:00 completion time, or
– 12- to 13-minute-miles.

I’d-feel-like-a-superstar pace:
– 01:55:00 – 01:59:59 completion time, or
– just under 12-minute-miles.

Wow-how-is-that-even-possible pace:
– 01:50:00 – 01:55:59 completion time, or
– 11- to 11.5-minute miles.

Send-help-i-have-probably-collapsed-from-overexertion pace:
– 01:40:00 – 01:49:59 completion time, or
– 10- to 11-minute miles.

Catch-me-in-the-emergency-room pace:
– anything less than 01:40:00 completion time, or
– faster than 10-minute miles

So that’s that for running. I am very excited for the Broad St Run coming up next Sunday and can’t wait to just experience it!

Now on to the rest of my life…

Family

As mentioned already, I was fortunate enough to spend the entire summer with my family in the UK and in Canada. My sister and I’s trips to the UK overlapped for a few days so I got to spend some time with her then and I was so grateful.

My cousin, Shami, and her husband, Auby’s, babies are growing and man do I love those kids. The Manhiri home feels like my own home and I am so grateful to Shami and Auby for always making me feel so welcome. I spent about six weeks living with Shami and Auby, babysitting the kids, and just falling more in love with them. Nolan is turning out to be a football superstar. He spends all his free time watching football, practicing with his friends outside, and while I was visiting he joined a junior training club! I look forward to having front row seats to Manchester City games in a decade or so. The twins… man those boys have my heart! They are so funny, because one moment they are playing and getting along well, and the next you hear a cry because one has literally bitten the other really bad and a fight has broken out, #boys. Little Michelle will steal your heart with her smile! She is ever smiling, the least fussy baby you will ever come across, and just a pleasure to spend time with. I also got to spend a good amount of time with Mhamha Manhiri and man, I just love that woman. She sets the bar so incredibly high for mother-in-laws… Shami is so lucky haha!

Okay, tell me with a straight face that you can resist that smile!

Mhamha Manhiri babysitting her grandkids

My cousin, Sheu and his wife, Tate, are also doing great – Michael is growing and him and I were finally able to establish a bond in my time in the UK. That little baby will not just smile at anyone haha, and I can’t express how happy I was when he finally gave me a smile and indulged me in my nonsensical attempts to make him smile and laugh! Melissa is just a superstar! I have never met a 3 year old with such perfectly developed grammar and whose vocabulary is so vast. Melissa is so emotionally intelligent, and mature beyond her three years. She is the best and most protective big sister to Michael and she is just a pleasure to have around you.

Everyone else is doing great lol – only the babies get dedicated space. Aside from the people I have already mentioned, in the UK I was able to spend time with Mhamha Mash, Daddy Mash, Daddy Manhiri, Tete Sharo, Regi, Pipi, and Tavo. I had such a wonderful time.

In June I took a three day trip to London – yay solo travel! This is something I had been wanting to do again since my first solo travel experience to Barcelona in 2018 had not gone so well. In 2018 I was still too unaware of (or maybe uncomfortable with) who I was, and honestly, way too broke, to enjoy the experience of travelling alone, but seeing as at least 2 of the 3 aforementioned problems had been somewhat resolved, I was excited to be a solo-traveller tourist in London. I stayed at an AirBnB in Canada Water and just lived my best tourist life during those three days.

so many bumble bees at Tower of London – i was so happy!

Trafalgar Square – if you have ever watched the Nigerian movie Ousofia goes to London then you know I just had to take a picture of Trafalgar Square. Views from the Big Bus.

vibing and eating before going to watch Book of Mormon

Post Book of Mormon feeling! Final night in London!

I was lucky enough to be on a boat tour when Tower Bridge got drawn! We got to watch the entire thing – it opened up all the way and closed back down.

Funny story: I have never really in my adult life been able to finish a serving of food in one seating, particularly food at a restaurant or other such place. I have generally attributed this to American food portions being too big, and so on my first evening in London I went out to get dinner before going for a show and decided that I would finish all my food at dinner. After all, I wasn’t in the US and the food portions in England are more reasonable, right? I ordered my food, pictures of food and me at dinner attached below, and started working on my meal. About half way through I felt full but encouraged myself to keep going, and surely enough, I finished my food! However, I cannot adequately explain to you how painful and uncomfortable walking to the train station was on such a full stomach! The pain was not worth the victory, I tell you. Since then I have decided to just accept that my eating habits are what they are. I eat incredibly slowly, and that is just how I am, lol.

the me, before i realised what i had pre-committed myself to.

Unfortunately my trip to the UK ended on a very bitter note as we experienced a loss in the family: Auby lost his baby brother Nyasha. It was just him and I at home when he received the phone call, and it was just a surreal moment seeing as Nyasha was in perfect health. The following month was incredibly difficult not just for the fact that a young, promising life was lost, but because of some logistical difficulties as Nyasha passed away while at school in the US. I personally never got the opportunity to meet Nyasha, but my heart still grieves for the pain that I witnessed and second-hand experienced in those final two weeks of my trip in the UK. Nothing prepares a family for such pain.

In July I travelled to Canada to spend five weeks with my brother, Peace, and unfortunately that trip also started off on a tough note as Tendai, my sister-in-law, lost a baby cousin, Tatenda. I met Tatenda at Peace and Tendi’s wedding in 2018 – she was a bridesmaid – and it was just unimaginable to think that she was gone. Even younger than Nyasha, Tatenda was in perfect health, her passing also a tragedy to the family.

The loss of Nyasha and Tatenda taught me to not take a single day of life for granted. I think it made me even more conscious of my eventual death one day, and while I want to be able to say that added some level of more appreciation for each day (it did), I cannot as it also added a sense of great sadness, especially in the weeks following these two tragedies. I think it is so easy to talk about death and accept it when we think of it as something happening to our abstract future selves, or to people who have been blessed enough to live full lives and die in/of old age, but when death strikes a young loved one who was yet to reach the prime of their life, it just is not so easy to accept.

The rest of the Canada trip was good! I got to spend a lot of time with my brother and some of his and Tendai’s best friends, Isaac and Ruva, and also spend a significant amount of time with more of their friends, Flo, Tsitsi, and Panashe, among others. Peace and I went whale-watching! That was so much fun!! I also got to spend time with and have some wonderful conversations with my oldest friend, Columbus (Coco). Coco and I were neighbours for about ten years since I was six years old, and being the only two kids our age in our neighbourhood, we spend a lot of time together growing up. Now he lives just a few minutes away from Peace and Tendi in Canada! Here are a bunch of pictures from my time in Canada:

At Rumbi’s birthday dinner – with my childhoodest friend!

I got screeched – guess I’m a Newfie now!

Taking a break during a walk with my Peace. Don’t tell him I said this, but my brother is a great photographer!

Post-tennis pic. Lesson learned: you really don’t want me as your doubles partner.

Playing cards while waiting for our dinner at the Dildo Brewing Co in Dildo, NL

This artist (Damian Folleth) was amazing! He was the live entertainment for the evening. And btw… we don’t know that photo-bomber on the ground, although he was very eager to dance with me during the evening.

Passing by to say happy birthday to Columbus!

One-on-one catch up brunch with my day one

Vibes… please don’t ask about my socks and sandals… I was having a day…

Catching up with an old friend that I had never actually met in person before!

Peace and Tendai came to visit us in New York over Thanksgiving and we had a blast! Here are some pictures from our adventures!

Post-dinner with Credence and family in New Jersey

My paternal grandmother turned 91 at the start of December, and while I was not able to attend the celebration, I felt the joy all the way from here. My grandmother is actually just remarkable. She is 91 and lives alone – she takes care of her house and has a mini farm in her yard that keeps her busy. She does not like hiring helping hands to help her plant, take care of, or harvest her crops – she wants to do it herself. Honestly my dad is the exact same way – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. While she lives in her house alone, one of her grandkids and that grandkid’s son (so my grandma’s great grandson) live close by and regularly check in on her and keep her company. My grandmother has three living children (two are late), ten grandchildren (ages ranging from 9 to 43), and thirteen great-grandchildren (ages ranging from 2 to 17)! Yes, those age ranges mean that we have a 17-year-old in our family who needs to call people younger than him “uncle”!

Mbuya Kwinjo’s 91st birthday celebration!

01.13 Mbuya Kwinjo and some of her great grandchildren

Mid-December I went home for the first time in two years and had a blast! The trip kicked off with Prim and Suka tying the knot at the wedding of the year – I don’t know that I have ever had as much fun at a wedding before. Everything was so beautiful and elegant, my little girls Mutsa, Rudo, and Maita were the best little flower girls you could imagine (and of course, they ran out of flowers before they had walked the entire aisle!). I danced and danced and met new people, talked to a lot of my sister’s in-law’s and just had a great time overall. Regi was also home for the wedding and I was happy to spend time with him. He was also glad to be home for the first time in 1.5 years! He, unfortunately, had to leave soon after the wedding (before Christmas) to go back to work.

01.16 me, mom and the newly weds at the wedding of the year!

Regi’s farewell dinner at Spurs, Sam Levy’s

We celebrated Christmas as the Kwinjo+ family at our house and it was a full house! In attendance was my mom, dad, Mbuya Kwinjo, Tete Glo, Mike, Adrian, Brian, Nikao, Meir, Corrina, Suka, Prim, Chido, Maita, Mutsa, Rudo, and Naju. We ate and ate and danced until we couldn’t go anymore. And then of course, Sharon Claus did her thing to close off the night. The kids were so happy!

Chido turned 30 and we, of course, celebrated!

Baby Sarah visited us in Harare for a night so I took her out for drinks to just chat and catch up!

with baby Sarah (Naju, and Chido) at Pariah State, Avondale

In January, Chido, Suka, Prim, Theresa and I made our way to Victoria Falls to visit the newest addition to our family: baby AJ! Major congratulations to Matida and Praise! AJ is just perfection! He looks like a blend of his dad and his mom’s baby sister, Sarah (sorry, Twinny haha!)! We also touristed away while in Vic Falls and did it all – from Boma to elephant encounter to sunrise cruise etc.

01.04 don’t say we didn’t tell you… tinobhururuka isu kuZimbabwe

01.04 ok, baby aj was not feeling this photo sessions

01.04 welcome to the smoke that thunders!

01.04 can’t tell you how many times she asked me not to do this in our pictures lol

01.05 but you know me… i do what i gotta do!

01.04 with the bestest big sister a girl could ask for

01.06 pre-boma pool chills at Insika Lodge

01.07 being introduced to the love of my life, Themba

01.07 it couldn’t be a trip home without doing a Zambezi photo op… except this time its by the Zambezi! #meta

01.08 never the right time to say goodbye

Soon after the trip to Vic Falls, my mom, Chido, myself, and the twins took an overnight trip to Chinhoyi to visit my aunt, Matida’s mom. Thanks to my dad for driving us there – the road trip was fun!

I got to spend time with all my girls – Maita, Mutsa, Rudo, Matipa, Ropa, Mumu, Prim, and Chido, and I just would not trade that month for anything!

The energy contained in this little body is unbelievable

01.13 Gogo Kwinjo trying desperately to organise her vazukuru to take just one picture

I travelled back to the US in January and there haven’t been many family updates since. I missed my connection from Nairobi to JFK, so I spent 24 hours in Kenya and explored a bit.

01.14 My favourite of my Nairobi galavanting excursions! Feeding giraffes at Giraffe Center.

I am hoping to spend about two weeks in Canada over the summer – unfortunately that’s about all that my schedule will allow me this time around.

Friends

Ahh, friendship! What a blessing!

Ropa graduated and she is now officially Dr Runesu, Pharm.D., Ph.D.! Oh my dear friend, I am so so incredibly proud of you – you are such a trooper and an inspiration!

I visited New Haven in May to attend the graduation of some of my FroCo kids – congratulations to my Joads Scholars who graduated! Covid made it so that not all could graduate yet, and while I am not sure if I will be able to attend the graduation of the rest of my Joads Scholars this coming May, I am still incredibly proud of every single one of them!

Some of my graduating and not-yet-graduating Joads Scholars!

One more Joads Scholar! I promise these kids really are younger than me!

Saying goodbye to Fikre while in New Haven. He’s now off in California pursuing his Ph.D.!

Nardos, Phyllis, Joe, and I travelled to Providence in May to celebrate Theresa’s graduation! I just have to flex this, y’all, but now we are all Ivy League grads!! my friend group >>, lol. Congratulations, There! I am always proud of you, my best friend!

The most chaotic brunch ever – day before graduation!

In September we took another trip to Boston to visit Phyllis and Sam on their home turfs! Phyllis is now a Ph.D. student at Harvard (let’s go Phillo) and she was kind enough to host Theresa, Joe, and I in her 1B1B – a superstar!

Just two weeks ago Eric came to visit me and his college friend Neil in Philly and it was so sweet of him! We went to watch an interactive stage performance of Nicholas Cage’s National Treasure, got ice cream, had dim sum in Chinatown, and played a card game called 99!

On my trip to London, I also made a new friend – Andie! We met at a SoFar Sounds concert and just hit it off!

Some more friends made during walking tour of London! The guy in the middle happens to be a Wharton alum!

Theresa and I spent a lot of time together in Zimbabwe – even travelled together to Vic Falls to meet Baby AJ! We spent New Years eve together at an AirBnB with some other friends and also went out for a bit.

While in Vic Falls I got to see Tari! It had been so long! She has been in Australia while I have been in the US, so seeing each other has been tough! She also happened to be visiting Vic Falls with her siblings at the same time!! What a blessing!

A lot of the friends stuff I also covered in the family section, so yeah… lol.

School and school-birthed friends

Woof, it’s been a heck of a time with school. I cannot believe that I am nearing the end of my second year in the PhD program, but I have to believe it: my preliminary exam is in two weeks time! That exam is also referred to as the comprehensive exam, depending on your school, and it’s basically the last exam you ever take. It’s the ultimate exam that decides whether you are ready or not to be considered a PhD candidate – do you know enough about the field and the way it operates to move into the dissertation phase of your program? For my department the prelim is made up of two sections (theory and empirical), and there are three possible outcomes for each section: full pass (yay), conditional pass (you did well but not well enough, so keep taking the accounting seminar for another year), or fail (keep taking the accounting seminar for a year and also retake the exam). I am obviously hoping and praying for a full pass, but I will gladly accept a conditional pass. Historically at least one person in each cohort (and our cohorts are 2-3 people each) has failed at least one part of the prelim and had to retake the exam.

I spent the summer of 2023 working on my first year summer paper. It was such a time sink because of the level of manual data collection I had to do, and at one point while in Canada I spent all day collecting data for one part of the study and I accidentally overwrote everything I had spent the day working on. I actually had to stop and cry, it was such a painful and frustrating experience, but then I picked myself up and carried on.

Jeffrey, Cindy, and I presented our papers in September and the presentations went well! None of us particularly bombed the questions and we all handled ourselves well! My advisor, Matt, and the Ph.D. coordinator, Luzi, decided that they wanted to join onto my project and so I have been working on that with them since! I felt so humbled by that because I personally did not really see what a future for the project looked like. A few days before I presented, one of the other Ph.D. students asked me if I thought I would keep working on the project after the presentation and my honest answer was that I didn’t know and I was leaning more towards a no. So Matt and Luzi’s interest was a huge deal for me!

Post First Year Summer Paper Presentation picture. Also doubling as our first day of class picture!

Ph.D. happy hours have continued going strong! We have been to many locations in Philly: Bok Bar, Butcher Bar, New Deck Tavern, Pace & Blossom, and Louie Louie to name a few off the top of my head.

Luzi (unknowingly) did me a huge favour by admitting Adriano as our visiting student this year! Adriano is like my BFF haha! Him and I are so similar in nature and we just jell well! His girlfriend is also just the sweetest person ever and I love hanging out with them both whenever she visits. Here are some pictures of the Ph.D. love!

03.09 The ultimate Ph.D. love – Jeffrey and Hazel’s wedding!

03.16 Vishrut, Grace and I at the Wharton 5K! No, we did not have to dress up. Yes, it was painful running in that. Yes, I am dressed as a pig, and yes, all the kids thought I was the easter bunny.

BeReal of me, Adriano and Elisa (Adriano’s girlfriend) after an afternoon of good vibes.

Party boat with Adriano and Irina! Sergey and James were also at the party!

First-year welcome lunch, sponsored by second-years

Sunset at first happy hour of the academic year

Haunted house at Eastern State Penitentiary

This cool display van at a comedy show location. Went to watch the show with Alex and Charlie.

Third years treat second years to dinner ❤

I am also back in therapy! I love my new therapist – we’ve only met four times so far but she has been a godsend, helping me looking at things from a different perspective. i tend to be very critical of myself when i reflect on my experiences and she has shown me ways in which i can extent grace to myself in some of those experiences.

Romance

This wasn’t really a thing in year 27, haha! I did not go on any dates at all. My closest brush with romance was an airport encounter with a boy that I thought was really cute! The whole thing was just so RomCom-esque and one my friends said “you should have just kept it going for the plot.”

So as I mentioned earlier, I missed my connection from Nairobi to JFK because my flight from Harare to Nairobi was delayed. The airline put us up in a hotel in Nairobi and I spent the time before the next flight (which was a late evening flight) just galavanting in Kenya. After all the galavanting, we headed back to the airport. Once I got to the airport, I got into the check-in line, but as soon as I got in the line I started second-guessing whether I needed to be there: we had already received our boarding passes the night before and my bags were already checked in. As I turned around to get out of the line, someone with a butt-load of luggage joined the line behind me, so I was stuck and couldn’t leave. Our eyes met briefly, that awkward our-eyes-just-met-so-I-just-mouth-hello-to-you kind of thing. But then he proceeded to make conversation with me, throwing lots of compliments my way haha. He was an attractive guy and clearly a good conversationalist, so we exchanged numbers and continued talking for the next couple of days. We had a handful of extremely long phone calls, but I had to call things, whatever they were, off after about two weeks – he had flaked on plans we’d made for the second time and I wasn’t here for it.

Aside from that, there’s been nothing really. I think one of the reasons why I was so happy to let go of Mr. Airport was because I have really been thinking a lot about what being a single woman for the rest of my life might look like and I am happy with that picture, so I am not really willing to put up with stuff that irks me just so I can be in a relationship. Nonetheless, after a lot of thought, I realise that while I would be very happy as a single woman, I would definitely prefer to have someone to share my life with.

That’s pretty much all in the romance department.

Conclusion and Random Pictures

Overall this 27th year of my life has been a wonderful time. There have been a lot of blessings and also a lot of pain, but I am incredibly grateful for all I have had the joy of experiencing. I am also grateful that God placed me in England at the time when tragedy struck so that I could be there as a support for my family.

This last week of being 26 has been one of the busiest and most stressful weeks of my Ph.D. experience, but I am grateful for this commitment I have made to myself to write this blog post each year. It gives me time to look back, reflect, and count my blessings.

I am incredibly excited for the next two years that I am about to begin – I call them the age of 28! They will be my 28th year of life and the year where I am 28 years old. I have always looked forward to these two years since I was a child for no logical reason, and so I am excited and feel grateful to be here!

Other pictures from throughout the year

views from my birthday brunch. spot 1) the city of philadelphia, and 2) me!

catching up with my little girl at Koffee?, New Haven

Brunch a-la-Swata in Providence! thanks for hosting me, girl ❤

chilling w Eric in Providence post-campus dance. thanks for inviting me!

Michael and Michelle, the love is not always well-received

this was my outfit for all three days in London – only outward change each day was the earrings and the colour of the top

Randomly ran into some high school mates at Paddington Station at the end of my London trip

My babies – off to watch big brother Nolan play in a football tournament

Is it too soon for me to go to school, Mhamha Pipi?

Baby Michelle in the blanket I spent the summer knitting for her

Sunset views on plane from Montreal to St John’s

Sargasso final tour – love you Maria and Thomas!

Tendie visits baby AJ soon after he is born – first one to visit!

that time i ordered six bananas and they instead delivered six bunches of bananas, New Haven

all i’m saying is, if one of my brothers marries you then this is what you should expect

Catching up with a dearly loved old friend at church! Congratulations, newly minted Mrs!

Celebrating Daddy Nigel’s birthday at St Elmo’s, Avondale

not my babies being old women vakagara paruvanze vachidya mabuns

mom was being a *fire* photographer this day

01.13 one of the greatest pleasures of being at home

04.08 eclipse day… peak ecplise time came was also peak cloud cover time… sigh

ending my last day of being 26 on a high note!

Just Food and Drinks

birthday check in: so how was being 25?

April 27, 2023April 28, 2023 QueenJoy

I can’t believe I’m writing one of these again. My previous birthday simultaneously feels like it was just yesterday and like it was ages ago. The former because time flies (!!!), a truth that becomes more evident the older you become, and the latter because my life has changed so much in the last 365 days.

The major change is that I moved to Philadelphia to start grad school, and i am shocked that my first year of that is (nearly) done already. We had our last officially scheduled class yesterday but as Ph.D. programs go, they don’t really care about the official schedule, so our last class is next week (our first class of the semester was also before the official start date of the semester). We also have finals next week. Here’s my first official day of class picture taken on August 30 with my cohort mates Jeffrey & Cindy, the best cohort mates ever!!

I’ll try and put down as much stuff as I can in this post, because it’s been a big year. (Side note: I am making the first draft of this post while I’m sitting in a comedy club waiting for Michael Rap(aport) to get on stage! He’s been in a bunch of movies and tv shows, but for all the Friends™️ superfans out there, he’s the guy who played Pheobe’s cop boyfriend back in season 4). Where to start with this year:

Well, I celebrated my 25th birthday surrounded by people I love in New Haven and here are some pictures from then:

04/30/2022 – post- birthday dinner dinner on the weekend! not pictured: Naima & Rose who’d left after dinner

The actual day of my birthday was a workday, but i wore a birthday sash all day and there was a predoc happy hour at the end of the day which was a great conincidence! On the weekend the sash was joined by a crown! Joe, Nardie, Phillo, and I made spam musubi at home in the afternoon then in the evening we had dinner at Via Gastro joined by Arthur, Eric, Kevin, Naima, & Rose, followed by post-dinner dinner at Yorkside! To my New Haven people, I just want to say I love you guys so much and I miss you all dearly.

And I got a new baby niece aaaaahh!! pics later in post! And also one of my best friends had a baby 😍😍 spot baby birdsall somewhere in this post 😉

And then 2 weeks later we had our make-up graduation! What a time!! Here are a few pictures from then:

05/13/2022 – Pauli Murray 2020 graduation dinner! #FroCoGroup

05/13/2022 – Commons dance party post-dinner! Dancing was *done*

05/14/2022 – Old Campus commencement ceremony! Spot baby Birdsall!!

05/14/2022 – the compulsory cap picture! Big 📸 cred to Phillo!! Don’t get me started on what happened with our official photographer…

05/14/2022 Album dropping soon . 📸Phillo

And here is my absolute favourite picture from that weekend with one of my absolute favourite people. this picture so accurately represents a big part of me and nardie’s relationship:

As predice go, the goal is to move on to doctoral programs and we had to say goodbye to Flint as he left to go to his fancy program at Stanford! After a week of lots of arepa-eating, this was our final evening together!

05/27/2022 (at 2:30AM!) – final hangout with Flint & Dana in José’s basement

05/27/2022 – too much love on this couch!

Then I went to the dentist for the first time in a while and found out i’d been doing poorly with taking care of my teeth since my last appointment. here’s one pic of me at the dentist.

i have not missed a single brush/day of flossing since that appointment!

Then in July my parents took their first trip to the US to see where I’ve been since moving away from home. We spent a week between New York, New Haven, and Philadelphia before making our way to Canada for two weeks. Here are US pics:

07/09/2022 – OISS – y’all i was making my parents take pics everywhere 😂

07/09/2022 – the bestest! dinner where my parents got to meet some of my best friends!

07/11/2022 – meeting family at the airport ❤️ off to canada!

Here are Canada pics:

07/12/2022 – big brother’s birthday dinner!

07/15/2022 – Tete + Mati giggle time at Middle Cove Beach

07/17/2022 – Baby Ropa’s baby confirmation day!

07/21/2022 – hike hike hike at Cape Spear, the easternmost point of North America!

Once I got back from Canada on July 24 it was pretty much time to get packing and get moving since I was starting Summer Math Camp at Penn on August 05, so that was a tumultuous time. I met my friend Eric’s family while I was helping him and his roommates (also my friends) move to their new place. Nardos, Joe, Sam, Phyllis and I had some good times eating and going to the beach just enjoying the last of our days together.

then august 03(??) was one of the saddest moments in me and nardie’s friendship. tears were shed, but i am happy to say we have seen each other since!

Then Philly happened! And it’s been a ride and a half. School has been so so challenging but in many ways rewarding, and I am just reminding myself that the goal is worth it, because I do need the reminders sometimes.

Not pictured here are the countless happy hours and dinners with my wonderful wonderful program-mates and friends over in the Accounting department. Best group of people ever!

I’m getting tired so i’m going to wrap this up… all in all i am incredibly grateful for the people that have been in my life this past year. SO MANY i did not get to mention in this post, but honestly, I am just so so grateful. My time in New Haven has been one of the most fulfilling times of my life and that’s all because of the people I met there through God’s grace.

Lots of pictures now, all with their own stories which I won’t bore you with 😝

Year 26 was awesome! Now it’s time for year 27 to begin! (omg saying that just terrified me) ah ha ha

What a time to be alive!

Other pics

06/01/2022 – impromptu trip to Newport, Rhode Island! At the Vanderbilt mansion (The Breakers)

06/01/2022 – impromptu trip to Newport, Rhode Island – behind Taylor Swift’s house! yes, that’s it!!

06/11/2022 – trip to Brown! missing Eric because of a COVID scare

06/25/2022 – Harry Potter store! #RIPHagrid

07/30/2022 – reflective dinner post day trip to somewhere on Long Island + Lighthouse boat tour!

07/31/2022 – Meeting Baby Adi Joy Birdsall 😍😍

08/06/2022 – Joe’s race across the sound day!

07/07/2022 – the day we saw Sean Kingston!

09/24/2022 – There’s birthday in Providence

10/07/2022 – that time i saw POTUS Joe Biden on the street

10/11/2022 – that time when my babies turned 4😱!?!?

11/26/2022 – When There visited me for thanksgiving ❤️

12/06/2022 – Department Christmas party #BestCohortEver

12/22/2022 – arriving in UK for Christmas and meeting angel baby Michelle! 😍😍😍

12/28/2022 – our 2022 UK babies Michael and Michelle 😍😍

04/01/2023 – Wharton 5K (which wasn’t really a 5K lol)

04/07/2023 – Friend-ster (Easter) 2023best NYC trip – saw Neil Patrick Harris and Andy Cohen within 30 minutes of each other in Brooklyn

04/08/2023 – yet another album dropping soon… only God knows what genre this could be 📸Muriel

04/23/2023 – Cindy’s concert!! What a star! 🌟 (this past weekend)

04/023/2023 – Sunday night dance party on a boat

So many memories, so much to be thankful for, and I think I want to conclude this post with one of my all time favourite Bible verses which always encourages me to be patient. I require lots of patience because 1) I am not a naturally patient person, and 2) I have yearned for so much in the last year that God has been faithful in reminding my heart to be still, wait, and know He is God.

“Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”
‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭2‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

birthday check in: so how was being 24?

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022 QueenJoy

another year has gone by. there have been ups and downs, but i have to say it has been a really good one.

first of all, quick update on the last birthday: i decided to bake my own cake and had a blast with it! It was a three-tier carrot cake and nardos did a lot of heavy lifting there. Just a few days later, i found out that sneaky nardos and joe had planned a whole surprise birthday party/dinner for me, complete with a second carrot cake and a bottle of a certain young lady’s favourite “elephant-juice”. so wonderful!

05/01/2021 the Claire’s cake with a wonderfully hilarious message on it

birthday drinks at Geronimo on the actual day of my birthday

A lot of my life has changed over the last 12 months. i have met incredible people and made great strides, both professionally and personally. i did a whole “happy girl summer” thing last summer where i met some lovely people, had plans with friends on most weekends, visited people, and i just let myself enjoy the warm weather.

09/18/2021 Alison Joy and I at Silin’s wedding! Alison Joy & Julie were the co-maids of honour

i went to two weddings over the summer and i was the maid-of-honour at the first one. I definitely cried watching my high school and college friend walk down the aisle. congratulations to both Mrs Sarah Birdsall and Mrs Silin Li!

08/14/2021 Arundel girls at the Bella Sera in Palestine, TX here for the one and only Sarah❤️❤️

i have also accumulated at least five burn scars from cooking/baking over the last year. Most are quite small, but the largest and oldest is about two and a half inches long and one inch wide – i’m quite fond of it. i baked lots of yummy things, from my first somewhat round batch of cookies, to nardos’ favourite, the pumpkin loaf, to most recently (this week actually!) my own favourite, the banana cake. speaking of the kitchen, i completed my vegetarian challenge, and had my first piece of chicken in a year on december 1 at bbq chicken on whitney ave.

i travelled to Zimbabwe for the first time since the pandemic began and i spent all of five and a half weeks weeks there. It was the first time my siblings and i had been in the same place since my brother’s wedding in 2018, and this time we had 3 new children in the family, with a second child on the way for my brother and his wife (and that baby is due in the next few days!).

12/26/2021 my favourite part is the closed eyes 😂. can you spot where the soon-to-be-borbaby is?

12/18/2021 everyone at mbuya kwinjo
(sadly i hadn’t arrived in zim yet)

i spent a few days with one of my absolute best friends and sister, Matida, who had recently gotten married! A whole Mrs now! I had not seen her in three years so it was such a blessing to just be in the same place with her, to share with each other in person how our lives were transforming and how God was just showing up for us!

10/23/2021 “Let all that you do be done in love”. So sad i couldn’t attend the wedding, but congratulations my love!

i also spent time with old friends at Lomagundi College, and sadly ended up attending a funeral service while there as one of the founding members of the school passed away. Lomagundi is a particularly important school in our family. my personal link to the school is that i tutored at Lomagundi back in 2016 in the time between finishing high school and starting college. i made some great friends while there and i continue to enjoy visiting them whenever i get the chance.

01/26/2022 a flower arrangement from Jack’s funeral. these are flame lilies, the national flower of Zimbabwe.

work-wise, i moved from my job as a research assistant at the Yale Child Study Center to a job (again) as a research assistant/Tobin Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Yale School of Management working for the accounting group.

07/20/2021 my last lab meeting in the Stover Lab at the Yale Child Study Center

i quickly learned that accounting research is something that appeals to me so much so that i applied to three Ph.D. programs in the field and was admitted into two of them. i am very excited and blessed to say that i will be moving to Philadelphia in the late summer to begin my Ph.D. in Accounting at Wharton, the Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. i feel very undeserving and humbled in many ways, and o continue to see the hand of God in the path that Love has carved for me.

my actual move has nothing to do with espn… this is just the first thing that popped up when i googled “yale upenn”

i have made really great friends with the other pre-docs i work with. Going into the office and seeing these faces on most days of the week has been so much fun. my bosses are also pretty incredible and i am saddened to be leaving in a few months.

12/10/2021 post secret-santa gift exchange w long live the kwin, notorious yin, josé bosé, medium rareric, and party arty

this last year i have also been confronted with and continue to work through many insecurities, again both professionally and personally, but i think through it all God is teaching me to run the race in front of me, to run my own race and trust God to land my feet on solid ground with each and every step. i really am growing more comfortable in my own skin and learning to acknowledge these insecurities but not let them hinder me from doing what i want to do or being where i need to be. i know this verse is largely referring to enduring in the faith but really i have found God encouraging me to keep on with the things in my life in general and i trust God to continue on with me as i conclude my 25^th year and start year #26.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV

year 25 has been great! i have laughed a lot, i have loved a lot, and i been loved so much by people very dear to my heart. i have grown more into my own skin, and i look forward continuing the journey of discovering who God has fashioned me to be. a LOT more has happened this year but i just can’t write it all here without making this post insufferably long. i will, however, do my regular shout outs to people. some names may be surprising to find here, but i have learned never to look back with regret at times/people in my life that in the season made me happy/smile! i’ll do slightly extended shout outs for a few people who have been constants in my daily life in the last year, so here we go:

first of all, shout out to Nardos, my best friend whom i have found home in. i am very deeply saddened that we will be going separate ways this year, but i know the distance will not dissolve our friendship. shout out to Phyllis – i know that regardless of where we go in life, even if we one day grow apart, you are someone i would quickly drop what i’m doing and show up for. you’re my sister. shout out to Joe – you are someone i have admired for a very long time and i wish so much joy for you in your life. your friendship over the years, especially the last two years has been very meaningful to me.

02/20/2022 trip to the mall with people i love, the three who have been most constant in my life these last few years

09/24/2021 oysters and friends! could we be any fancier 😝 (p.s. no, we were not in new zealand – just good old new york)

shout out to Theresa. girl. what a friend. we have been up, and man we have been down! but i am so grateful for your friendship. you are one of those few friends that i am certain know will be around to the end and i am so grateful for you. and thank you for introducing me to the enneagram! shout out to Mrs Birdsall!! Sarah, i feel so humbled, honoured, blessed for the ways in which you have just opened up your life to me. when we first met as little form 1s at Arundel i would have never imagined this is where we would be 12 years later. my mind can only wonder where life will take us another 12 years from now.

04/23/2022 Sarah and Beau’s very special triple threat party

04/15/2022 nardos & joe duel during our weekend trip to Sharon, CT.

02/13/2022 nardie and i stroll through a 5K in the winter! (we jogged the last 50m to run across the finish line)

okay. shout out to the office homies Kevin, José, Laura, Eric, Arthur, and Flint. Shout out to Roy, Isaac, Sam, Naima, Nabor, and Alison Joy. the Arundel girls Ropa, Paida & Tarisai. the dinner squad, Mohit, Eunice, Nadia! one of the bestest workmates and sweetest ever, Lou-Ann!! my family – my brother, my sister-in-love Tendai (thank you for loving me so much), my sister, my hubby Regi and most notably the babies!! all my cousins, aunts and uncles, my nieces and nephews – you guys hold my heart in a way no one else could ever. i am certain i am forgetting lots of people who have made the last year notable, but that’s not to say my heart is not grateful. it really is. alright…i am certain i am forgetting lots of people who have made the last year notable, but that’s not to say my heart is not grateful. it really is. alright…

05/29/2021 Arundel gals weekend at Tari’s!

03/01/2022 end of roy’s visit. nardie missed picture time *insert sad emoji*

y’all, i have a whole 25 years of life under my belt now! What a blessing! Cheers to many more fun, youthful, and Jesus-filled years!

now here are a bunch of other pictures i just wanted to include in this post

06/05/2021 arundel girls brunch at the chestnut café

07/17/2021 homemade chipotle saturday dinner, prepared by yours truly

07/21/2021 nardie and phyllis capturing a beautiful event for beau and sarah

08/01/2021 visiting alison joy and julie in their new apartment in new york

08/17/2021 the one time we actually won trivia at trinity 😂 🥈

09/24/2021 i don’t remember why we laughed at this moment, but i honestly have so many pictures like this with this girl

10/30/2021 i finally took up nardie on her offer to go climbing!

12/04/2021 joe and nardie’s joint birthday party. somebody pls tell me why they’re holding those biscuits like that 😂

01/02/2022 mazvikadei dam; isaac trying to teach me to skip rocks

01/02/2022 beautiful pack i picked up – holding a million years of history in my hand

01/04/2022 visiting mhamha mati in chinhoyi

01/20/2022 car ride with mutsa, bea, and dad. poor rudo akasara kumba akarara – you snooze you lose

02/14/2022 nardie and phyllis are the best valentines ever

03/04/2022 phyllis’ crossfit challenge #shedidit

03/16/2022 breakfast with audrey post my upenn visit days

04/15/2022 more of joe & nardie duelling

01/13/2022 me and my gogo ❤️❤️ mai vababa

12/26/2021 look at the smile! isn’t she lovely 😍

01/13/2022 murewa visit to see gogo with dad, tete, and my two boys

01/09/2022 my twin girls at daddy naju’s birthday kuparamount. little sister maita in mainini’s belly

02/12/2022 the girls meet baby sister maita (they’re absolutely obsessed with her)

i do not have a date for this picture, but as you can tell it is pretty cold. this is my grandfather, my father’s father. i know very little about him as i never got to meet him, but this picture makes me feel like i know at least a little

birthday check-in: so how was being 23?

April 27, 2021April 29, 2021 QueenJoy

Today I decided to take a 6.5 mile (10.5km) walk on the way back from a doctor’s appointment because I really enjoy taking walks, and as I was having at my walk I decided that once i got home I should maybe write some form of “last day of being 23” reflection post. But while I would have wanted to write a super reflective post, this will probably be more of a messy check-in post than anything else. So let’s look back a little on year #24, when I was a buzzing, quarantined 23-year-old:

I have pretty much spent every single day of the last year of my life with my great friend, Nardos. We started living together about 3 weeks before I turned 23 and with the exception of a weekend trip i recently took to go see my baby niece, we’ve spent every single day together. And guess what? We are not sick of each other! While we used to cook for each other on a daily basis, we have now switched to just having saturday dinners together instead ever since I became vegetarian. Honestly, I chose to mention Nardos first because she has been the most constant thing/person in my life over the last year.

But Nardos and I haven’t just been at this alone! No! How could I ever forget my i2020 girls, Maria and Phyllis!? While I got my first taste of living with good friends in my senior year of college, I learned how friends can really feel like home over the last 12 months. I honestly loved sitting in the living room and waiting to see which one of Nardos, Phyllis and Maria would walk in so I could just chat and laugh with them. And then there were Saturday dinners! I’m trying to remember how this great tradition began and I just can’t place it – I’m sure it has something to do with me wanting to make sure we kept Roy fed during this quarantine season and that just stuck! A full year later and we are going strong.

However, as most of my 24th year took part in 2020, the year wasn’t without its disappointments. Coming to college in 2016 I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t expect too much, but I thought that at the very least I would get to graduate, you know. So it was pretty dsappointng when that did not happen. My parents had just received their visas to travel to the US for my graduation when Yale shutdown everything and it hit that there was no chance of commencement taking place. I was so excited for my friends to meet my family – I was extra ready to show off my baby niece, Matipa! I was also super excited to show my family around my residential college, Pauli Murray, and especially to take them to our beautiful dining hall so they could get a taste of the delicious, delightful, delovely food that was keeping my jeans on nice and tight. I also really wanted to meet my friends’ families. But a big shout out to my dad <3, my bestie – chibhebhi changu Ropa, and the Newfie himself Columbus who all Zoomed in to watch me as I watched my virtual graduation on the living room tv! It was a funny arrangement but you three absolutely filled my heart and it meant so much to me <3. And we still celebrated!

Another c*vid-19 disappointment was that I did not get to have and perform a senior song with my acappella group, Living Water. Normally, during the intermission of the final concert of the year, the senors in the group will perform a song of their own choosing to the audience as a way of parting with the group and the school and I was super excited to do this :(. I also was stubbornly determined to go on our Spring Break tour to Seattle, even after it was officially cancelled. I boarded my plane to Washington state hoping to head to Seattle after a few days hanging with a friend who lives in Spokane, WA, but as c*vid dictated, Seattle never happened. I ended up cutting my Spokane trip short so I could travel back to New Haven. There were other disappointments and deep aches to the year, many of which are not my stories to tell, but I just want to say to my friends and loved ones whose hurt i shared somewhat in the last year, my heart was then and still is with you now.

The year didn’t also start off well for me. Aside from knowing that our graduation was not going to happen, I was also a fulltime rovha, 100% unemployed with no prospects ahead of me. I just kept getting one job rejection after another and I was at a point where I was thinking that maybe I should just go back to Zimbabwe, and that staying in the US was not in God’s plans for me. I remember not completely unpacking throughout the summer months as I was living with the i2020 girls because I did not know what the future held for me. It was such a tough time for me, and given that I had been accepted into a grad shcool program and rejected the offer I was beginning to wonder if I had made the wrong decision. And y’all don’t even know, my family carried me through it all. I just want to give, like, the biggest shout out right now to Tendai, my sister-in-love. Tendie, if you are reading this, I just want you to know that you were such a point of strength for me during those times (i’m tearing up just remembering). Thank you, both you and Peace, for making it a point to check in with me on a very regular basis, checking to see how I was doing and just chatting and laughing with me. Thank you so so much, I hope you know how much I love you. All I know is that takaitirwa nyasha naMwari cause haaa takagona kuroora! I’m also super grateful for my parents. I spent so much time on the phone with my mom and never got anything short of encouragement and prayer from her. God ended up working things out and your girl got employed and I finally stopped contributing to the number yemarovha!

Year 24 was also a year that was marked by a lot of conversations between me and God, with me just shooting all my questions to Him about my understanding of Him, who He really was, and what His character was like. In all honestly, a lot of these questions were from a place of questioning His character, and I was earnestly trying to decide not whether I loved God because I knew I did already, but whether I actually liked Him. This was a tough season for me, I shed so many tears in these conversations with Him as I was battling so much in my own mind. I ended up deciding to watch a sermon a day for Lent as a way to intentionally spend more time learning and hearing from God, and as he always does. God came through for me. The thing, the message, that really ended up rescuing me from my own mind was Joseph Prince’s message, the message of his ministry, which is to understand just how much I am loved by God. To place my identity and my hope not in my love for God, but in God’s love for me. I learned that while loving someone can change you, actually knowing and understanding that you are loved will transform you, and to be loved by The One who is Love itself? oof… I could write a whole post on this but i’ll spare you, and how about i just refer you to this wonderful sermon.

I became vegetarian in 2021 and I have been vegetarian for almost 4 full months now! Guys, I am *so* proud of myself. This year I also decided to take a few other strides related to my health, things that had always been on my “new year’s resolutions” but i had never actually managed to achieve. God has been so gracious and somehow things are working out a little more in that regard right now. I have read more books in the last 12 months than I think I have read in the last 10 years, lol. It’s not many, just more. I hadn’t been much of a reader before (I’m also proud to say that most of those books have been by Zimbabwean and other African authors!) but I’m doing better now. Follow me on goodreads if you are interested in nowing what i’ve been reading!

I have formed and deepened a lot of relationships and friendships over the last 12 months. One huge one was that I decided that I would intentionally try to get much closer with my mother, that I would actively involve her in a lot of my decisions, even if some of those conversations might be uncomfortable not just for me but for her too. I have learned that I have at times grossly underestimated how well this woman knows me and although I have always known she loves me very much, I am seeing it more and more clearly on a daily basis. As I get older and hopefully get closer to one day (in the fuuuture lol) becoming a mom myself, I am realising just how much my mother loves and cares for me. I know that her heart has been burdened even more than my own by some of my struggles and I know that her prayers have carried me through a lot of tough seasons.

And OMG! How could I forget! Candid Shar’n was born in year 24! And as a bonus, I’ll share this *never before seen* content, my original candid shar’n logo:

I laugh as I look at this because I remember how lovingly my housemates smiled at me when I showed them the logo. Honestly, these people were real homies! Ofc i ended up going with a different one, as you are already aware. I ended up trying a few more things and learning new computer programs so I could come up with the Candid Shar’n logo that you are familiar with today.

Honestly speaking, despite having to stay indoors most of the time, I have enjoyed my 24th year of life. Ever since graduating from college I have become more comfortable in my own skin, less threatened by people around me who do things better or faster, and just become more confident and relaxed in who I am, as I am. Don’t get me wrong, I know I am not perfect (being alone for so long in these quarantimes will lead you to reflect more and see yourself a little more clearly, blemishes and all included), but I am learning to live with my imperfections – to accept the things i cannot change and have the humility and courage to work on changing the things i can. One sign of growth for me has been learning to just show myself love and to do the things I enjoy doing more. I go on more walks now and I don’t try to force myself to run anymore because I just really do not enjoy running. I have also discovered that I enjoy cooking (on my own) and baking (alone or with others), and so instead of expecting someone to get or make me cake for my birthday this year, I will be baking my own cake (with the help of nardos <3) because why not? It’s my birthday so I’m going to do what I enjoy on the day!

Okay, let’s talk TV, because what else could have taken up all my time as an unemployed chica sitting through c*vid quarantimes. What memorable things did i watch in the last year: selling sunset, family guy, schitt’s creek, the matrix, friends (again and again), tangled (again and again and again and … you get it), 90 day fiance (!!! like, *all* the seasons, i’m embarassed), the bachelorette, the bachelor, lots of sermons, unwell, scrubs, himym (again). and i started playing kkh again (another pause of embarassment).

Even more important, a couple of shout outs to just some (but obviously not all) of the people who have made this last year incredible for me: Bhebhi Ropa, Cho, Nardos, Naima, Phillo, Joe D, Roy, Tendie, Peace, my Twinny Tida, my other twinny Tavo, Mommy, Pa, Chido, all three girls: Matipa, Mutsa, naRudo, Miss Geach, and everyone else I am blanking on rn. Thank you all for being such amazing friends and family, I’m too blessed.

Alright, so let’s look ahead a little: I’m excited for what’s coming next. Like, really excited, I’m shaking a little. I feel like God is opening doors for me and having me try out things that I otherwise would not have or things that I had not even thought of, things that were not even in my line of vision before. I also just have this feeling that something is about to shift in my life – it might be a grand shift, it might be a tiny one, i’m not sure. All I know is that I can feel deep inside me that something is different, and something is about to be even more different. In Christian-ese, we call these seasons – I feel a new season coming.

Okay, I think that’s enough for now. If you’ve gotten to this point in the post, wakapenga. Sando dzako! I’m excited to be 24! I remember turning 20 I was scared of becoming “an adult” but this time, I feel confident and excited. 24 is a big one, and with 8,765 days under my belt, I’m ready for it!

Sharon Joy, aka QueenJoy

P.S. have you figured out why i call myself QueenJoy? 10 points if you have!