My Year
Well, this is going to be an interesting recap.
We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. ...Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.
-William James
Well, this has certainly been an interesting year. I was trying to figure out how I was going to cover it all and the only thing that came to mind was: not chronologically. I can’t really recap this year month by month and do it justice. A lot has happened, it has been hectic, it has been a year of change and growth and discovery. And it has been such a gift. This is the year I decided that I would not waste a moment and put everything I have into projects and endeavors that I care about. Well, there’s been a lot of that. There’s still massive room for improvement, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been improving. One must always have perspective on what one has done, and I think a nice retrospective on the year is the best way to do it. But I suppose, there’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get into my year topic by topic.
1. Certifications
If you’ve followed stuff that I did this year, I think you know what I mean. Going back to January 1, 2023 I started the year off by getting a certification in Azure. And it only ramped up from there. I saw the certifications as a growth opportunity, like leveling up in an RPG. More specifically, Pokemon in this case (or cases I should say 😉).
But, yes, as with any achievement, each of these badges helped me level up my skills and get to a level where I wasn’t before. And like with any sort of leveling up system, I went after the one that could get me the most XP for my efforts, which were the GCP certifications, all of which I had the opportunity to take at the discounted price of $0 as opposed to the total of around $2200 it would have cost me otherwise. And when opportunity met desire well …
https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Cloud-Certified-Group/I-got-all-11-certifications/td-p/623721
That link becomes very important in the next part of the story, trust me. Also, it let me give a lot of my friends some nice mugs, which was great.
All of these achievements made me feel a lot better about myself. One of the things that really helped me out from amongst these was the AWS Community Builder title, that and the benefits that came with were great. The extent of the benefits really made me realize that there are genuine rewards to pursuing a more public facing career and really showing off my skills. Speaking of showing off my skills ….
2. My Book
Even typing out the words “my book” makes me happy. And it is going to be a great book! Some of you have had inkings about the book, but I’m happy to say at the moment that it is almost complete. I will have it done by the New Year and after a couple of reviews, it will be released very soon. This was a big bucket list item for me, and now I get to cross it off. Also, shout out to Packt Publishing and all of their team for helping make this possible.
3. Last 8 months in Nepal
I was more focused than ever in Nepal this year. I was applying for a Masters while working a full-time job, and beginning my book amongst other things. There were times in these months where I thought all of this workload would be a little too much, but I realized a little too much is exactly what I needed, I pushed myself to keep getting better and keep finding more opportunities and that came in handy the last 4 months in Sweden. But first, let’s wrap up this story.
3.1 Applying To Study In Sweden
I’ll be honest. Sweden was not my first choice, it wasn’t even in my top 5, or even in my mind until it was, right at the start of the year. But it is the best choice that I never made, and as I type here on my Swedish keyboard which contains delightful symbols such as ö, ø, Ä, Æ, Å, and ¤, I wonder to myself, ‘how did I ever get so lucky?’ Every time that I thought that I had encountered a bout of misfortune, it was all leading me down a better path once I saw that it was making me tougher and more determined than ever.
Once Sweden became a goal that I wanted to reach, I did whatever was possible to make that goal more reachable. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of overcoming of doubt and putting myself in uncomfortable situations, but all of that, and a little help from my friends let me succeed in this endeavour.
It was a crazy ride, but probably one of the most exciting things I did in my life, and probably the most rewarding. But, to open one chapter, one must close another. And I had to close a two-and-a-half year chapter of my life with Genese Solution.
3.2 Leaving Genese
This was quite the 8 months that I had with Genese regardless of the ending of my time there. I got certifications at a pace of over one a week, I got involved in the Products department for a while, I met newcomers at Genese (but forever professionals) like Bipu Ojha, Rojina Neupane and Diwas Giri: a man whom I learned a lot from, amongst countless others.
I met and said goodbye to a lot of old friends and colleagues and I learned the value of marketing yourself and your accomplishments. We also moved offices and I said goodbye to an office that was basically the first office I ever went to since I started working full-time during the pandemic.
But, everything must come to an end, and that was so for my time there. I worked there until the day before my flight to Sweden, finishing everything up just in time. My last day there felt like walking through a childhood home, where I had spent so much time, and grown and matured (hopefully not too much, though). Here are the last words I spoke at Genese:
And the next day, saying my goodbyes to everyone I could say goodbye to, I left on an adventure. And what an adventure it has been.
4. First 4 months in Sverige
Min svenska är fortfarande dålig, men jag är förbättras. But, yeah, it has been such an adventure coming to Sweden. I remember the first day I got here, the Uppsala University bus took us along this incredible countryside, unbelievable vistas. When I got to my apartmen, I stayed up till midnight and it was still sunny outside. Truly startling. But that was only the beginning of meeting new interesting people, trying new things and essentially finding myself in a completely uprooted situation where I didn’t know anyone and starting a new life.
4.1 The University
Uppsala University is a great learning institution, I have never found myself to more startled by the diversity of things that I have found here. You can be as little or as much involved as you want, you can spend 15 years here just studying and no one will cast judgement upon you. You are not discriminated based on gender, race, ability or anything else that people say should divide you. Instead diversity is celebrated and meeting diverse people here has been one of the great pleasures of my life. I have been involved in student unions, my own computer science department (DA-TA-VETARE!), as a teaching assistant, in student nations (institutions unique to Uppsala) and just going around joining random groups and parties and 3D printing and practically every form of nonsense that you can think of, and I have had a grand time.
4.2 Online Partner
Here’s where that link from before comes into play. Around early October this year, about a month after I posted bragging about my 11 certificates, a man named Fredrik Linnander messaged me saying he wanted to talk about a potential job offer that he may have for me. Now, I was deep into my job search at that moment and I had made possible 300 different applications for a variety of positions, some with positive feedback. But this one was interesting.
He invited me to the offices in Stockholm for Online Partner (where I am writing this article right now) and he told me that they could use a guy like me, who knows GCP inside and out. His vision for the company was amazing and I immediately felt like I had found the place I wanted to work.
There is a whole section about this that I have written in my book so I won’t go into too much detail here, but that was the moment I realized that fate had planned all this, that something was cooking and that all the work I put in, everything that I did had meaning, that I was living a meaningful life. And I cannot tell you how amazing that feeling is.
Since then, I have joined Online Partner and have been working here for a little over two months. It is a great job, and I have met some great people (shout out to Ivo, you’re probably reading this).
4.3 All of the other stuff
I started a podcast: Cooking with Cybergasse with my friend Tommy (here is the season finale, where we talk about more Uppsala stuff, it’s really fun):
I started a radio show (Jag känner inte) where I fumble around with the Swedish language while my friend Mikael watches on bemusedly:
Oh, and I also started going to the gym more regularly, that’s been nice.
Between all of this and the sittnings, Gasques, festivals, finishing my book and writing all of these articles and an overwhelming quantity of stuff to do, there has never been a dull day in Sweden, there have been days that have felt like months, but in a good way.
5. Conclusion
I have realized that packing this year, or even the highlights of this year into one blog is just about impossible. My favorite part has been the diversity of people that I have met and the experiences that I have felt. It has been one big rush, one gigantic race and I have never been more thrilled in my life.
What comes next? I have a vague idea, one that I will express in another blog in a couple of days. But for now … its a pretty good life and I am grateful for it.