October 2023: starting my 35th year

I had a free evening today and every intention to use it to write this recap, but then I got stuck on my phone and now it’s 21:15 and I don’t have much brain capacity left.

Things I’ve done for the first time

I’ve noticed a theme from last month repeating and thought it could be a good idea to try and find something I’ve done for the first time every month from now on.

I can think of at least two for October: acupuncture and going to a German sauna! Both were less painful than anticipated and quite pleasant experiences I’m looking forward to repeat (more the acupuncture than the sauna though).

I also used the excuse of Inktober to try and keep the habit of drawing every day for the first time, which worked well for one week, when there was a public holiday and I was home alone, but as soon as life got back to normal I really struggled to find the time and energy to spent 30-60 minutes drawing and ended up only completing 10 drawings. I didn’t follow the prompts, but made a board of Japanese store fronts on Pinterest to pick from as I’d like to get better at drawing architecture and these seemed like an interesting challenge.

35th year

I had my 34th birthday last week. Yay, that’s how I got to the German sauna, we went on a little weekend getaway to Bad Saarow and spent the day in thermal baths which was really nice but also tiring? So weird how relaxing can be exhausting at the same time.

Anyway, I always thought of the multiples of 5 as the “special birthdays”, so I wasn’t really paying much attention to this one, until my partner asked me that day:

“How do you want your 35th year of life to be like?”

🤯 I still don’t know the answer, but this really changed my perspective about it!

One thing I can already say is that, as the days got colder and darker in Berlin, I have decided this will be the first winter I won’t spend here. It was not an easy decision since my partner can’t come with me, but I’m going to Brazil for Christmas (for the first time in 6 years) and will work remotely from there until March! Scary but exciting!

Things I came across

I started reading Shape Up, by Ryan Singer, which was on my list since I started working as a developer, and was recently recommended to me as an alternative to Scrum. I’d love to try it out! We’re in the process of hiring a product manager for my team, so it feels like it could be an interesting experiment, but I’m a bit skeptical about how engaged people would actually be to make it work.

Dot by New Computer. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the whole generative AI ordeal, but this one got me curious. Maybe I’m being naïve to think this isn’t just more of the same, or maybe I’m just too tired of feeling like I have no control of my digital life.

A Brazilian designer created a system to visualise the German grammar! And she published it as a book, which I’m very curious to see if it actually helps me with my der/die/das struggle!

I finally got a copy of Thieves, by Lucie Bryon and damn, I love her style!

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Alrighty, it’s been 90 minutes and I need to sleep now. Until next month!

Written on a Wednesday in November, 2023