What a year it has been, it's crazy to think back to the first post on this blog, which started it all. Since then, I've published a total of 31 posts, prepared for and survived my final exams, graduated from high school, finally joined the Hygraph team full-time, travelled to Berlin, the Bodensee, London, Sweden and New York. I was able to work on and release more tools and projects than I'd have ever imagined this time last year. And there are still so many things in the pipeline so that next year won't get boring either, quite the opposite. But for now, let's go back and see which moments defined 2019 for me.
📚 Getting school done, for good
One of the most significant things personally was finishing up school. Leaving the system that defined my life for the past 12 years, pretty much to the earliest point I can think back to, was a step that, I learned, would bring up mixed feelings. When you think about it, very few to no people will tell you about their experience when they finished school, maybe because it was that long ago or whatever else possible reasons might be. Instant benefits you get are obviously no more homework, no more exams and all the other things that you had to put time into. Most people will be happy to leave school behind, feeling liberated to follow their dreams, travel, relax. For me, it meant that I was able to pursue my plans of joining the company I had been working on for about a year, as well as having the time to work on personal projects.
After the graduation ceremony, school was officially done for, but I quickly realized that there might be more to leaving behind a place where I enjoyed the opportunity to socialize with peers sharing similar values and dreams: I exclusively relied on school for this purpose since I never joined sports clubs or other leisure activities where I could meet people, and that's probably my mistake. Even though having moved quite a few times throughout my childhood and thus rebuilding my social life more than once, this hit me.
Being a person who likes to spend time in good company, the only logical conclusion here is that I'll change things up in 2020 and dedicate a bigger chunk of my time into social activities. Let's continue with a more positive topic, I didn't want to bum you out.
🌎 Conferences, Meetups, Trips
Back in 2018, I didn't imagine I would be traveling even more often the following year. While I attended GraphQL Europe and RuhrJS, traveled to Amsterdam, Berlin, Edinburgh and Copenhagen, I felt like 2019 could perfectly hold up and never got boring. I was able to attend Prisma Day, GraphQL Conf (recap post), JAMstackconf London and GraphQL Day Bodensee and travel to stunning places like Sweden and New York. And while I'm not in favor of long-distance flights, I had a good time. Although I'm not sure whether I want to extend the number of journeys in the coming year, I'd love to get the opportunity to visit more places around the world, possibly Asia or America, once again, but that's just daydreaming for now.
🔧 Kubernetes, Go, new worlds to discover
When I thought I had seen it all at the end of 2018, I didn't think of tools I would be using on a daily basis, languages I'd be building products with and most importantly knowledge and experience I'd gain throughout 2019, and that's a good thing. I had the opportunity to acquire (not the monetary way) new skills and improve existing ones to a point where I'm confident in my craft once again, and especially confident that things will evolve again as well next year.
It's quite ironic that, although I'm trying to make this a tech blog, I spent more time talking about personal developments during the last year than about technical topics. But I guess that's what the other posts are for! And when it comes to writing about personal matters, it's a first for me to let my thoughts flow into a publicly-available place, and once more this means that I should continue doing it. With a list full of tasks for the next year I'm signing off until the next post or until the calendar turns to 2020.