Year in Review 2016

As the memes go, 2016 sucked. Personally, I’m not so sure. It’s been a fun and happening year. I moved yet again, this time to Mumbai. Now, I’ve lived in 2 of 4 metro cities. Two more to go!

2016 Goals

Running and Cycling: Not only did I not meet my fairly ambitious goals, I did even worse than last year. Travel, moving cities, family emergencies, and pure laziness played their part here.

Learn C and JavaScript: Nope, no luck. I’ve barely had the time. I’m refining this goal as finishing “Learning C the Hard Way” book and its exercises.

Cut down servers: I cut down most of the unwanted servers I was running. I have one more round of cutting down to do and I should just have 1 server.

Studies: Finished one MOOC course finally. It’s called Learning how to Learn. It’s actually quite a brilliant course and I’d totally recommend it for everyone. I’ve had to unlearn my learning style quite a bit.

Accounting: Slightly better than last year, but still terrible. Mostly thanks to my life keeping me busy in terms of travel and life events.

Cooking: I’ve definitely become more confident at trying new things, but still not great at day-to-day cooking. I could do better.

Android Development: Thanks to lots of changes in my time, I’ve had to cut down things I’m doing simultaneously, so this had to go. As a lesson from this year, I’m taking this off my goals for now.

What did go well?

• I got married!
• I’ve stopped freelancing and I’ve started working at Red Hat on Gluster. It’s been the most amazing few months working with some great people.
• Ran two marathons. Did not hit my timing goals on either attempts, but I’m not too disappointed considering how much my performance went down and how I’ve brought it back up. I traveled to Berlin in Oct and I’m totally jealous of everyone who lives there. The city is such a gorgeous place to run. I learned how to run when I’m traveling!
• Spoke at a conference after a long time. After speaking at one of the HasGeek Conferences, this it the first time I spoke at any event.
• Met old friends and made new ones. During the trip to Berlin, I met old ex-colleagues after a long time and I made new ones after our move to Mumbai and during the trip to Berlin.
• I’ve read more non-fiction this year than in the past. I hope to continue this streak with recommendations from The Farnam Street Blog

Image credit: Carol Mitchell Mumbai Skyline (license)