Overview
For those that aren't on Twitter, there is a common tweet that goes out around this time of year where people do their best to sum up their year with a emoji led bulleted list. Here is mine for 2018:
- 📢 Spoke at 4 conferences
- 👨🏫 Taught at 3 conference workshops
- 🎙️ Appeared on 2 podcasts
- ✈️ Traveled to 11 different places
- 💼 Got an awesome new job
- 🏅 Became a Vue.js Community Partner
- 👩👩👦👦 Made incredible new friends
That said, let's do a deep dive shall we?
Speaking & Teaching
This was a big year for me as it was the one that I finally had my breakthrough and spoke at my first tech conference.*
* More on this later, but I must note that this was a difficult journey leading up to this point. It was not a magical overnight success in any way, shape or form.
You can find all my material online here at my Notist profile. As far as a quick rundown though:
Conferences
- VueConfUS
- DevFestDC
- VueLondon (attended)
- ConnectTech
- VueToronto
Workshops
- FluentConf (sole instructor)
- ConnectTech (teaching assistant)
- VueToronto (co-instructor)
Podcasts
Meetups
- RefreshDC
- Women Who Code DC
Travel
This year has been a ridiculous year as far as travel goes. In terms of placed that I traveled to:
- Los Angeles, CA
- San Jose, CA
- San Francisco, CA
- London, UK
- Toronto, CAN
- Orlando, FL
- New York City, NY
- New Orleans, LA
- Chicago, IL
- Atlanta, GA
- Maui, HI
Fun fact: I ended up flying so much that I ended up as an MVP for Alaska Airlines 😅.
My Job
2018 was a difficult year for me in this particular aspect. On one hand, it was a big year with a promotion, a lot of new responsibilities, and a new opportunity I could not have forseen. On the other hand, it was fraught with a lot of indecision regarding my own aspirations. If you had asked me in July 2018 whether or not I had any intention of leaving my old job, I would have told you with certainty that I was planning on staying for at least another year to two. After all, I had a lot that I wanted to do before I left. However, life is rarely so predictable and often throws you for a loop when you are most certain of things.
That said, circumstances changed and I was fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to join the Meltano team at GitLab! It's only been a few weeks, but it's been a lot of fun so far and will be sure to write more on it as time goes on.
Other Achievements
Other things that are worth noting in 2018 include:
- VueMeetups - an open-source initiative to centralize all Vue.js community meetups and events with a lot of collaboration from the community
- VueDC - a local meetup I helped to co-found in December 2017 that is still going strong and hosted over 15 events in 2018
- My Twitch Channel - It's still a work in progress, but I started streaming on Twitch! Still figuring out how to make it consistent and establish a pattern for content, but taking it one step at a time
- My Blog - Though not a major achievement, I'm glad that I was finally able to get my site up and running with a Vue powered engine and actually start writing again
What about 2019?
Though my head is still a little fuzzy from getting sick at the end of the year, here are some high level goals I want to achieve this year:
- 📝 Write a lot more
- 📹 Create more content (i.e., YouTube, tutorials, etc.)
- 👨💻 Improve my technical abilities so I can contribute to OSS projects
- 📚 Read a lot more books
It's weird, but 2019 seems like the year of preparation for what is to come in 2020. I can't tell you what's coming in 2020, but it seems like a big year and I have much to prepare for if I'm going to be ready for it.
With that said, wishing you all a great 2019. Cheers! 🥂
