January 🏠
My year started with a fresh new start in a new city (and well, country). After 18, almost uninterrupted, years living in Vienna, I moved to Berlin. Decluttering my apartment and starting something new was difficult, but also long overdue. Though I did keep my old job, something changed there too: After 2 years of working remotely and 6 months working from home (i.e. not from a co-working space), it felt great to be coming to an office again.
At the end of the month, CNC2018 kicked off and I started work on my new website; because accountability helps, I found myself an accountability buddy (thank you Finn Porter ❤).
February 📚
My February was fairly uneventful. I got obsessed with a single Fountains of Wayne song (“Hackensack”), dealt with move-related paperwork, read a few books (“Crash Override”, “Men explain things to me” and “Vom Ende der Einsamkeit”, among others), and mentored at Global Diversity CFP Day. I started going to Taekwondo training semi-regularly at a ‘new’ school, affiliated with my Taekwondo dojang back in Vienna.
I also started doing yoga at home again, and went on a lot of long walks with the dog.
March 🌳
I attended our first “intensive training weekend” at the dojang. Listened to “Infinite Love Songs” on repeat. Spent a lot of time outdoors, enjoying the early spring, all cold air and blue skies. I also spent what felt like millions of hours at IKEA to get new things for our apartment. Got bitten by a dog and made a new friend. Attended Enthusiasticon (for work, technically).
Finished reading “One of us” by Åsne Seierstad, which gave me all the feels and made me miss Norway like hell.
April 💬
April was very “socially intensive” and exhausting, in that I attended a lot of social events: birthday parties, lunches and dinners, meetings friends for coffee. I listened to a LOT of Nada Surf — one of my favourite bands — whom I saw perform that month at Huxleys. Needless to say, it was amazing. That same week, I also saw Jamie Stewart play at Roter Salon.
Took a week of PTO to prepare for a rough few weeks ahead (and spent it mostly working on a talk and binge-watching “Hello, My Twenties”). Looked at a lot of cherry trees in bloom, ate my first frozen yogurt of the season and registered as a stem cell donor in Germany.
May ✈️
Had a super low-key birthday (just me, significant other and dog hanging out at the park).
Flew to New York for Codeland, which is one of my all-time favourite conferences. Unfortunately my stay was really short—only a few days—but I still got to ride in a Tesla, have dinner with friends, eat a giant pizza slice, take a walk in my favourite place (the High Line), and train at one of our affiliated Taekwondo schools in the Bronx (a mere 45 min away from my hotel in Manhattan, yolo). I also had time for a little visit at the MoMA.
That month I also reminded myself to never book a meeting for the day I come back from an inter-continental flight (because jetlag can be brutal), and to never do conferences back to back. Unpacked my bag, packed my bag again, and flew to Vienna to give a talk at ReasonConf. Cried in my hotel room while going over my talk notes after reading the news about Scott Hutchison’s death.
I broke my 60+ meditation streak (because timezones), trained Taekwondo in 3 different countries within a single week, and was a guest on the Reasontown podcast (thanks Jared)!
June 🎶
The summer is mostly a blur, because work was ridiculously busy and intense (as well as emotionally draining somewhat). I attended CSSConf and JSConf EU and gave a small talk about our work at RGSoC at the community lounge.
I bought Snail Mail’s “Lush” the second it came out and listened to it all month. I also listened to a lot of Antony & the Johnsons, and discovered a comics bookstore in my neighbourhood that offers a lot of French graphic novels.
July 👟
I started running again after a long break (4 years). The experience of running with a dog was very different from running alone, so it took me a while to find a good route that worked for us both.
Read mostly graphic novels, and started a thread on twitter to share things about music.
August 🗓
My meeting calendar started getting out of control and at the beginning of every week, I’d eagerly start a countdown to the weekend.
Saw Zola Jesus live and it was magnificent as always. Flew to Vienna to see my family, deal with some apartment-related paperwork, and meet with friends. Saw a Vivian Maier exhibition, and listened to Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard’s “California Zephyr” on repeat.
I also got a new standing desk at home, which I love!
September 🌊
Took a full two weeks off (!!) for a staycation. Because life happens, I mostly spent that time on work (no comment), vet and doctor’s appointments, but my partner and I also went on a short two-day trip to a place outside of Berlin with our dog.
Started training Taekwondo three times a week instead of twice.
October 🚂
Mid-month, I celebrated 4 years of being smoke-free. I also got a new tattoo — a beautiful rendering of Eagle, the Lunar Module used on the Apollo 11 mission.
I travelled to the UK to give a talk at Open Source Summit in Edinburgh and to attend Sustain Summit in London. I spent time with my friends Kai and Finn, finally met their dog Nomi (secretly the only reason I went to Scotland in the first place), went for a run on a golf course, and had a lovely train ride from Edinburgh to London.
I joined the DailyUI challenge to improve my design skills, and recorded a podcast episode with Tim Smith.
November 📷
Started seriously training for my next Taekwondo exam, went to the Vivian Maier exhibition with some friends, and got new headshots. I attended Accessibility Club Conference and took a few days off after that. I listened to CHVRCHES and started reading “The Mars Room”.
I also finally made a clean break with my university because they wouldn’t let me graduate, and stopped paying university fees.
December 🥋
Through most of the autumn, but especially in November and December, the lack of natural sunlight and the late sunrise really started to get to me, making me tired and irritable. I got a wake-up light in the hopes it would help me get up early again in spite of the darkness outside.
I passed my Taekwondo exam and got my blue belt 💙
When I wasn’t listening to Christmas music, I was mostly listening to Austin Lucas’ “Immortal Americans” and Bright Eyes’ “Lifted”.
My year in numbers 📊
Because most people enjoy random data, here’s a little overview of some of my year in numbers:
👟 I went on 39 runs and ran a total of 164.82 km. 📚 I read 37 books: 31 in English, 3 in German, 2 in Italian, and 1 in French. See more about my year in books on Goodreads. 🎶 From February on, I listened to a total of 1,079 artists and songs from 1,517 different albums. This only includes digital music. I (sadly) only went to 5 concerts. 🙏🏼 I trained at my local dojang 93 times, for a total of ~190 hours, and walked an average of 12,770 steps per day. I also meditated on 321 days of the year.
Goodbye, 2018
However, not everything is quantifiable. While going over photos and memories of 2018, I realised that a lot of the things I’ll also remember aren’t in my overview above: I’m talking about the lovely meals with friends, impromptu coffee dates, really good conversations with colleagues, or walks in the forest with dog and dog friends. Or silly situations, like how badly I wanted a Christmas tree this year but we somehow ended up getting one at the last minute and buying a tree stand only to realise that the damn tree trunk was too thick to fit in there.
Overall, my 2018 was full of change, (met and unmet) expectations, small disappointments, and attempts to get my life sorted. I thought a lot about the kind of career and personal life I want, and tried to put it down on paper and give myself a nudge in the right direction.
Hello, 2019
I want to continue on that path in 2019, and allow myself more time for reflection. I want to have honest (and sometimes hard) conversations with people, say no more often, and take better care of my friendships. I also want to explore this new city I’m in a little more — by trying out all the things it has to offer and seeing new places.
And because I ultimately want to pursue and achieve honesty in all areas of my life: Here’s to an insightful and honest 2019!