My Personal Curriculum, Q2

Q2 Theme: Practice, Expression, and Life Outside the Desk

After a structured and academically focused Q1, Q2 is about a different kind of growth. This quarter centers on consistency, creativity, and real-life application.

Instead of focusing on new knowledge, I am focusing on maintaining and strengthening what I already know, while also creating space to step outside of my routine.

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Makeup Practice

This quarter, I am treating makeup as a skill that requires regular use to stay sharp. While I already have a strong foundation, I recognize that consistency is what keeps the skill intuitive and fluid.

My approach is simple. I will practice when I have time, especially on weekends, without pressure or perfection. Some sessions will be about recreating looks I already love, while others will be about experimenting and trying something new.

Success this quarter looks like staying consistent, feeling more confident in my execution, and reconnecting with makeup as a creative outlet.

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German Language Learning

In Q1, my learning was more structured. In Q2, I am shifting into immersion and real world engagement with the language.

I will continue learning German through a mix of listening, watching, and speaking. This includes watching YouTube vlogs with auto translated subtitles, listening to German language podcasts, and watching a German language movie.

I will also work with a language partner every two weeks. This is not a tutor, but a native or fluent speaker that I can speak with casually for an hour. The goal is to build comfort, improve listening, and speak more naturally.

Success this quarter is not perfection. It is about fluidity, confidence, and being able to engage with the language in a more natural way.

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Extracurricular: Volunteering

This is the most intentional part of my Q2 curriculum.

Every curriculum should have an extracurricular, and for this quarter, mine will take place outside of my usual environment. I plan to find a volunteer opportunity for May and June, ideally something community based or outdoors.

This is important to me because it shifts my focus outward. It allows me to contribute my time, connect with others, and experience something beyond work and personal development.

Success here is simple. Showing up, being present, and being helpful.

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Closing Reflection

Q2 is not about doing more. It is about doing things with more intention.

It is about maintaining skills, practicing consistently, engaging with learning in a more natural way, and making space for experiences outside of my usual routine.

This quarter feels lighter, but also more grounded.

Learning Outcomes from my Q1 Personal Curriculum

 This year, I decided to engage in a Q1 personal curriculum. The personal curriculum is meant to be 12 weeks, thus its progress being measured by the 12 weeks of Q1. 

The three main subject areas that comprised my personal curriculum was German learning, Global Mobility, and learning about Canada's immigration system. 

I'll go ahead to share my progress and the learning materials that assisted me in my learning in each of the 3 buckets. 

German Learning 

This was a bucket I wanted to continue, as I had been practicing my German language skills on/off since the end of last year. Making it a part of my Q1 personal curriculum definitely helped with consistently practicing. To be honest, I didn't achieve penultimate consistency levels (in this case, practicing it daily), but I was more consistent than the previous year, so that is progress in my book. 

I utilized a few things to help me this go- around, incorporating some medium from last year: 

Novel: I read a German novel - das doppelete Loetchen  - fun fact, the film the Parent Trap (1998) starring Lindsay Lohan originates from this 1949 German novel. Really cool for me, as Parent Trap was one of my favorite films growing up (and still a beloved comfort film for me for sure).

Vlogs: I watched German vlogs from a German lifestyle vlogger. I like watching vlogs regularly, mostly lifestyle vlogs, so it made sense to include this as part of the tools I use to engage in this bucket. Which brings me to my first pro tip: a low hanging fruit way to engage in your personal curriculum is to incorporate tools you already use in your learning or avenues to learn. If you already listen to podcasts for example and you want to learn about a certain historical period, seek out podcasts on that topic. If you watch Youtube videos regularly already, no need to switch up URL's for the sake of the personal curriculum - watch Youtube Videos. If you watch film regularly, find films related to the topic to watch etc. I could go on and on about so much medium - books, radio, X, Instagram - point is you can use all of these avenues to learn, especially if you were already using it for your entertainment in the first place. 

screenshot of the Youtuber I mostly watched, Fabienne Bethmann 

Still on YouTube, not only did I add closed caption German subtitles to the German vlogs I watched, I also added them to any video watched in English as well. Yes, YouTube provides the ability to auto-translate in your preferred language, captioning the video's dialogue in that specific preferred language. See the below photo for example. 

An Arise news video I watched with the captions auto translating to German 

Podcast: I found a German language podcasts (these were learning based, so dialogue was a bit slower). I didn't listen to as much of these as I could have simply because the ones I found were a bit more elementary for the language proficiency I had already attained, but if you are a beginner, this is actually great. 

All in all, I believe a bulk of my language learning came from watching the YouTube videos and reading the German book. To make the podcasting arm more effective, I will definitely seek out an advanced proficiency language podcast or podcast where German is fluently spoken. 

Which brings me to my next announcement: *drum roll please* I'll be continuing German Language learning into Q2! yay! Continuing YouTube vlogs (& auto-translated subtitles) but also including two major tools: the advanced language podcast, and a language partner. This quarter, I want to find a personal language partner online that I'll pay and we just get online and chat about things, in German. It won't be tutoring or language lessons, but just personal, 1:1 practice. I look forward to adding this speaking component into my German Language Q2 personal curriculum. 

Global Mobility Certification 

I started the WERC Global Mobility Course last year but never completed it nor did I take the exam. It's a 7 module course and based on their schedule, it is meant to take about 6 months. Thus, at the start of the year it was important for me to complete it. I was on module 3 by the time I put a pin on this certification at the end of the year, right before I traveled. Thus, from February after my birthday I picked up where I left off. 

By April 4, a few days after the end of Q1, I finished all seven courses (see the badges issued for completion below) and then April 14th, I completed the global mobility certification course. 

Cheers all around! I feel happy about my accomplishment. I shared it on LinkedIn, printed the certificate, and plan to hang up the certificate in my home. Soon come, after I get back from my cheeky Dallas weekender (I think the April 28 will be the "official/unofficial start to my Q2 personal curriculum because of how it's the day I get back from Dallas and it marks the start to getting back serious again lol - with goals etc)

A job well done, indeed. 

Canada Immigration

The final bucket was not started until literally a few days before the end of Q1, when I realized it was ending and I still had no understanding of how the Canadian Immigration process works. For what it's worth I just wanted a general overview. It's funny though, that even with all the cramming this is the lesson I remember the most, maybe because of how it is so similar to U.S. immigration and I consider myself a U.S. immigration specialist (basically, there are three different categories of Canadian immigration - work/school which provides express entry (mostly used), work permit after school and/or or points towards express entry/provincial entry, or sponsorship from an employer where the labor market is tested which is not as commonly used also nota bene that Quebec has its own provincial entry system and is not a party  to the express entry system; there's the family/reunification stream; and there's the humanitarian stream  interesting to note here that interest groups can sponsor your asylum even from you being outside Canada. 

A very interesting learning curriculum to say the least and I learned essentially that Canada's system is oriented around attracting talent to various provinces and the more delicious your profile is (based on points) the more likely you are to be able to relocate to Canada even without a job offer in hand. Oh, also points are accumulated by different things such as ties to Canada, education level, having worked for a Canadian employer, gone to a Canadian school, age, and English proficiency, amongst other things. While the word "draw" is the choice-word used when describing their selection system, Express Entry draws are not a lottery - the process is strictly merit-based. 

To put a nice and neat bow on this two-day crash course, I created a PDF booklet of Canada's Immigration System using Claude (for the content) and ChatGPT for the cover page here. 

It's a nice to have because I can refer to it at any time. 

To conclude my Q1 personal curriculum, I would say it was great motivator for me to finish up the global mobility course and to also continue my German learning (at best, in a structure way). I will definitely continue the German learning in the ways mentioned above. Learning about Canada's immigration also gives me foundational knowledge about concepts I see coming up on my LinkedIn (and other social media) feed relating to any updates to their program, etc. I can also provide foundational advice to clients regarding immigrating to Canada if there's any inquiry. 

 

Here's to a productive Q1, stay tuned for my Q2 personal curriculum. 

Funmi 

Angela Davis: Women, Culture , and Politics

March 2026, I read Angela Davis' Women Culture and Politics. It was really good. There were quite a few concepts & issues discussed that I want to note (I pretty much summarized them in my Notes app as I was reading and then fed to Claude to flesh out based on my already placed thoughts).

Without further ado, here goes. Enjoy! 

The Socialism-Feminism Connection

• Davis argues that feminism divorced from economic analysis is incomplete; you cannot liberate women without dismantling the material conditions that oppress them. She presents socialism not as a foreign ideology but as a practical framework for addressing the specific wounds of Black communities: chronic unemployment, healthcare gaps, income inequality, housing instability, and reproductive coercion. Davis is unambiguous about where she stands politically. Capitalism, in her view, is not a neutral backdrop to women's oppression; it is one of its root causes. The same system that extracts labor from workers extracts reproductive labor from women and extracts both from Black people simultaneously. At the intersection of race and gender, capitalism does double and triple damage. Socialism, for Davis, is not an abstract ideal but a concrete political answer to the compounding crises that Black women face precisely because no single-issue movement, whether feminist or civil rights, can dismantle a system that operates on multiple axes of exploitation at once
• The personal is not just political; it's also economic

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Global Solidarity vs. Mismatched Priorities

• Davis exposes a fundamental tension in the international women's movement: whose issues get to define "women's issues"? The White Woman's Burden dynamic plays out on a global stage. Western/white feminists tend to center issues like FGM, refugees, and "saving" women in the Global South. Black and Third World women's movements counter: what about unemployment, homelessness, mass incarceration, and infant mortality at home? This plays out concretely in two case studies:
•   UN Decade for Women: U.S. feminist priorities often reflected white middle-class concerns, leaving Black and poor women's crises sidelined
• • Egypt: Davis unpacks the contention over what Egyptian women themselves identify as their primary struggles vs. what Western feminists project onto them. The disconnect isn't just cultural; it's political and patronizing

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South Africa & Apartheid as a Women's Issue

• Davis connects apartheid directly to feminist struggle. Racial capitalism doesn't just oppress Black men; it devastates Black women, families, and reproductive life. She challenges the American women's movement to see South Africa not as a foreign cause but as an extension of the same fight against racial and economic domination

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Military Spending vs. Human Welfare: Then and Now

• Writing during the Vietnam War era, Davis makes a pointed argument: every dollar spent on military aggression is a dollar stolen from welfare, healthcare, education, and housing
• She essentially asks: what does "national security" mean to a Black mother who can't afford childcare or medical treatment? This argument hits differently in 2026. Watching the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" funnel historic sums into defense while gutting social safety nets, Davis's critique reads less like history and more like prophecy. She would not be surprised. She would be furious, and she'd be right.

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Art as Resistance: Music, Photography & Rupert Garcia

• The final chapter pivots to culture as a political weapon.Davis argues that art isn't decoration; it's documentation, preservation, and mobilization. Rupert Garcia becomes the anchor example: his life's work is defined by a singular mission to create human images that preserve awareness of racial and national heritages and honor collective struggles for freedom and dignity
• Garcia's photography refuses to let communities be erased, sanitized, or spectacularized; he insists on dignity. Music functions similarly in Davis's framework. Spirituals, blues, and protest songs serve as vessels of collective memory and survival

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The Through-Line: Cohesion vs. Fracture

• The book's quiet tragedy is the lack of solidarity, not because women don't share struggles, but because the movement keeps allowing racial and class hierarchies to reproduce themselves internally. Davis's call to action: genuine coalition requires centering the most marginalized, not the most comfortable. Until Black women's specific material conditions are treated as the feminist issue rather than a niche sub-issue, the movement remains fractured and therefore weakened.

Funmi 

Anything Good Can Wait

 That is what I told myself when I randomly woke up this morning in the middle of the night, scrolled through social media (quite briefly so as to not make it a habit to cut my sleep for the sake of socials), saw that Tems dropped a surprised EP and made a conscious decision to indulge at my own time, when I am most available. 

Anything Good Can Wait

 

This is a major deviation from 20-something year old me, willing to sacrifice my wellness for the sake of having a  first listen to a song as soon as it dropped at 11:59pm EST either because I was too excited about the project or because I, in true main character form, overestimated how much my opinion mattered on such content (most times it was a toxic mixture of both).

If it's that good, I'll consume & engage in it eventually. 

I plan to extend such a saying to other parts of my life. relationships, friendships, etc. 

Isaiah 60:22  

Funmi 

On Marriage and Making Money

 I read two books in the past two months, one on marriage and one on making money. Each brilliantly as good in their own respects, I felt it proper to write a few pointers of important concepts/thing learned from each that I don't want to forget anytime soon. 

I'll start with Earn What You're Really Worth by Brian Tracy and will then pivot to God is a Matchmaker by Derek Prince 

Earn What You're Really Worth by Brian Tracy 

• Contribute Value
• Personal knowledge and ability to apply it are your most valuable assets. 
• Where are the customers? What do people want to buy? Which businesses and industries are serving customers best? Which businesses are growing in this economy which are declining? 
• Become indispensable
• Learn what you need to learn
• Specialize in that area and become extremely knowledgeable in that area
• What activities have been most responsible for my success in life to date -utilizing such skills to realize future success. 
• Stay productive
• fish where the fish are
• what are your skills? What can I do well? What have I learned through education or experience that enables me to make a valuable contribution to my employer?
• What have I done well at various jobs in the past? What activities have been most successful in my work life today
• Contacts, Credibility, Competence
• Intelligence: ask intelligent questions; curiosity 
• Leadership Ability: take charge, volunteer for assignments, accept responsibility for achieving results in the required assignments
• Integrity, Likeability, Competence: getting the job done, Courage: taking risks, Inner Strength: perseverance in the face of adversity 
• Keys to Marketing Yourself 
• Specialization -what are my skills
• Differentiation - what to do to not only be different but better? 
• Segmentation - look at marketplace and see where to apply yourself 
• Concentration - focus and do a good job
• Top people are in constant learning mode. They are curious, interested and eager to absorb new knowledge. They are hungry to learn. 
• Develop a sense of urgency, fast tempo, bias for action. Do it Now. Do the easy things immediately (take an important phone call right now and deal with it) 
• Posteriority: discontinue lower value activities 
• Grooming is important 
• Be idea oriented at work 
• Continuous learning: podcasts, etc
• Learn how to learn
• speed and dependability
• networking, join professional organizations 

God is a Matchmaker by Derek Prince 

• The Gateway: offer your body to God as a living sacrifice 
• God gives his best to those who leave the choice to Him 
• Four areas to cultivate if you want to enter into God's plan for marriage: 
• attitude toward marriage
• attitude toward yourself 
• attitude toward other people 
• attitude toward your parents 
• Eight guidelines to follow
• walk in the light of God's word 
•  cultivate fellowship 
• be led by the Holy Spirit 
• guard your heart 
• be prepared to wait 
• be prepared for death and resurrection 
• seek the counsel of godly men and women 
• cultivate God's favor 
• 12 suggestions on women preparing for marriage
• be a helper 
• cultivate your relationship with the Lord 
• cultivate commitment and loyalty 
• cultivate your own self-esteem 
• be willing to learn 
•  be willing to serve 
• be willing to adjust to your husband's priorities 
• learn to pray and intercede for others 
• learn proper care of your body 
• observe the wife's behavior in exemplary marriages 
• Trust God. Be willing to wait. 
• Set your goals. establish your priorities 

• Don't overlook the role of parents in seeking a spouse 
• "And my confident response to young people today who desire ardently to marry, and who doubt God's love for them because they have no mate, is from Psalm 37:4: 'Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart' "

OK, one more inspiration I got is listening to Patricia Bright on Madame Joyce's podcast. A bonus, if you will. 

to be a millionaire you need to "see someone else (achieve it), not be jealous, be inspired, then take action" - Patricia Bright 

The action taking part resonates with me because I have two projects that I am working on this year that although a bit scary and cumbersome, I am committed to taking action on. I look forward to coming back to this post and seeing how far I've come since writing this, so help me God. 

Funmi 

Routines and Travel: a Kite Blog Post

 

Travel is one of life's greatest joys, but if you've worked hard to build a solid daily routine, the thought of disrupting it can feel like a necessary trade-off. The good news? It doesn't have to be. With a little intentionality, you can explore the world and keep your wellness habits intact. Here's how.

1. Anchor your routine to time blocks, not rigid schedules. 

The goal isn't to replicate your routine at home down to the minute, it's to preserve its spirit. Take running as an example. If you normally lace up at 6:30 AM, the real habit isn't the exact time, it's that you run in the morning. So on a holiday where sleeping in is part of the pleasure, a 9 AM run still counts. You're honoring the routine without letting perfectionism kill it.

And on the odd day where life genuinely gets in the way, an early 5 AM excursion, a packed schedule, a delayed flight, don't abandon ship entirely. A quick stretch, a short walk, or even a few minutes of mindful breathing is infinitely better than nothing. Then make it a point to get back on track the following day. The mindset shift here is simple but powerful: you're not working around your routine; you're building your schedule with your routine in mind.

2. Pack for your habits, not just your outfits. 

Your suitcase tells a story about your priorities. If running is non-negotiable, your running shoes aren't optional, they go in the bag before anything else. The same principle applies across the board.

A weekly pill organizer pre-loaded with your vitamins means you're never scrambling to remember what you've taken and when. A journal tucked into your carry-on means your writing practice survives even a transatlantic flight. Whatever your anchoring habits are, identify the tools they require and treat packing them as mandatory. When the physical items are with you, the routine has a fighting chance.

3. Use tools that keep you accountable. 

Willpower is finite, especially when you're in a new environment full of distractions and novelty. That's where simple accountability tools earn their keep. Set your alarm the night before so your morning run actually happens. Block out time in your calendar for your workout, your journaling session, or your wind-down routine and treat it like any other commitment on your trip. What gets scheduled gets done. 

4. Plan ahead with a solid itinerary.

Routines thrive on structure, and structure comes from planning. When you map out your days in advance, you can actively build your habits into the schedule rather than hoping they'll fit. You'll quickly spot the days that need flexibility and the ones where sticking close to your normal rhythm is very doable.

Speaking of planning ahead, Kite can help you build a smart travel itinerary in seconds, so you can spend less time organizing and more time actually enjoying the trip.

5. A little research goes a long way. 

If you juice daily, spend five minutes finding a juice bar near your hotel. If you follow a specific diet, pull up the menus of places you're interested in before you sit down and look for the iron-rich options, the plant-based dishes, the things that align with how you eat. If yoga is your anchor, search for a local studio and book a class. You might even discover a spot you love more than your one back home.

The point is: the resources to maintain your routine almost always exist wherever you're going. You just have to look for them before you land, not after you're already hungry and off schedule.

6. Communicate your needs on group trips. 

This one is underrated, especially for group travel. When you're coordinating with other people, your personal routine can easily get lost in the shuffle or worse, become a source of friction. The fix is simple: tell people upfront.

Let your travel companions know that you like to get a run in before the day kicks off, or that you need to swing by a specific spot on the way back to the hotel. They don't need to join you, they just need to know. It removes the guesswork, prevents awkward moments, and gives the group a chance to accommodate you without even thinking twice about it. On a group trip, communication isn't just courteous, it's what makes sticking to your routine actually possible.

Travel doesn't have to mean hitting pause on the habits that keep you feeling your best. With the right mindset and a bit of preparation, your routine can come right along for the ride.

My Problem with First-World Problems

I was sitting on a plane recently when the guy next to me started sniffling. Not a one-time thing, a rhythmic, relentless, every-thirty-seconds kind of sniffle. The kind that burrows into your brain and makes it impossible to think about anything else. I felt the frustration bubbling up, and my first instinct was to mentally draft a complaint blog it - My Problem with Flight Seatmates, if you will. Then I caught myself. Here I am, hurtling through the sky at 35,000 feet in a metal tube, and my biggest grievance is my neighbor's nose. That's when I realized that I was about to become the very thing I on average cannot stand: someone complaining about a "first world problem" (a first world problem is a minor inconvenience or frustration that only exists because of the relative comfort and privilege of living in a wealthy, developed country). 

And look, I get it. Annoyances are annoyances and dismissing them entirely with "people in other countries have it worse" has its own kind of hollow. But what actually gets under my skin isn't the complaint itself; rather it is the passivity and wallowing that comes with it. Here's the thing with first world problems: they almost always come packaged with first world solutions; we just don't look for them as hard as we look for someone to commiserate with.

Take my sniffle situation. The moment I stopped mentally complaining and started thinking, the answers were obvious. I put in my noise-cancelling headphones and the problem solved in about fifteen seconds. Other "solutions" for someone that gets irritated easily could have included outright buying a business class ticket knowing this dramatically reduces the number of people in your immediate orbit. Booking a window seat means you only have one neighbor instead of two. These aren't revolutionary insights; they're just things you notice when you're looking for a fix instead of a grievance.

This pattern plays out everywhere. One could complain that the coffee shop is too loud to work in, but you could find a quieter spot, invest in a good pair of headphones, or simply work from home (for those with the privilege of doing so). Your phone battery dies too quickly but there are portable chargers small enough to slip into a jacket pocket, and most of us have known about this problem long enough to have solved it ten times over. Traffic is terrible, but there's usually a podcast that makes it enjoyable, a route app that finds a better way, or a schedule adjustment that avoids the worst of it altogether. The gym is packed after work, but it's a ghost town at 6am or midday if you can swing it. Slow Wi-Fi is maddening but a quick router reset, a different spot in the house, or a call to your provider can often sort it out faster than the time you spent complaining about it in a group chat.

None of this is to say that systemic inconveniences don't deserve to be called out. Bad service, broken infrastructure, things that genuinely need fixing at a larger scale, those are worth raising. But the everyday friction that we turn into running complaints? Most of it has a workaround if we're willing to look. The gap between problem and solution is usually a lot shorter than the gap between problem and complaint.

And underneath all of it is something worth remembering: the fact that these are our problems at all is a form of privilege. Clean running water, reliable electricity, the ability to fly somewhere, access to coffee and fast food and streaming services and same-day delivery. These aren't defaults for most of the world. They're extraordinary by historical standards, and we've normalized them so thoroughly that we've started resenting them when they're slightly inconvenient.

So, the next time something minor derails your day, I think it's worth pausing on two things. First: is there a solution sitting right in front of me that I haven't bothered to try? And second: am I grateful enough for the world I'm operating in that this problem even exists? Most of the time, the answer to the first question is yes. And if you sit with the second question long enough, the complaint tends to lose most of its weight on its own.