As much as 2020 was a crazy year for all of us, 2021 was more of a gap year. Between crazy and crazier there stood 2021, putting the ground work for 2022. I thought it was too uneventful to be worthy of a blog post, and realized this would have been the only 2021 post. moT (shoutout!) as usual brought me back to the right path and expressed his interest in seeing this post online. Thanks, you’re the numero uno!
Planning for the future
My girlfriend and I finally started making concrete plans to leave for Germany. This decision has been in the back burner since we started living together. She never felt home in Italy and as much as I like Germany, my roots here are deep.
2020 was a big toll on us and the only way forward is across the border. She realized she cannot live here and I realized that I have really nothing to lose besides her.
I don’t know if my life will improve there, but I’m sure it won’t if I stay here.
The plan
My girlfriend left for a two months experiment in the summer and quickly found a decent job. The plan was then for me to learn German and find a job there, while we made arrangements to fly our cat to Cologne. I thought finding a job would be the easy part, but oh boy was I wrong.
The number of companies employing Haskell developers in Germany is very low, which I didn’t expect. The number of companies hiring full remote (within the border) is not that high either. It was so bleak I thought I needed to change stack, but once you taste Haskell is very hard to go back.
I maxed out on luck finding a great company with a Haskell team that was so crazy to want me on board. I start in February.
On the language side I’ve got my A2 certificate. This allows me to understand basic signs on the street, order at a restaurant, buy train tickets, read mangas and little more. I’m on my way towards B1 but the learning curve is steep.
The cat is fine by the way.
Doubts are shattered
What finally convinced me to leave Italy? I think a bit of resistance was the fact that I’ve never really traveled, especially alone. Joining the company I was working for meant exactly that. I had to travel and stay in Zurich for a week all by myself. This is something I had never done and scared me shitless. Once I did it, my perspective on traveling and being away from my village changed.
Another piece of resistance was the job situation. Italy gives us a lot of protection as employees and Milan has many opportunities for career growth. Ironically, it was again my former employer who made me realize how little those meant. I don’t want to harp too hard on them, the problems I’ve seen were the same I had seen before, it’s just getting boring.
Time at home
Time at home was, again, pretty hard. Not having my girlfriend around was hard, when the cat flew away it was significantly harder. I learned that I can turn into a sloth pretty quickly and need to make an effort not to.
Books of the year
As you know, I set myself a goal of reading 24 books in a year, and that’s a maximum! I want to read less and read better. This year I’ve finally read exactly 24 books.
I realized however how little that number means. I don’t think any of those books was particuarly deep or important. Most were German learning books, mangas, stuff like that. The best I’ve read is certainly Blame!. I’ve got so engrossed in its lore that I spent a few months discerning details and decrypting it. You can check out the (partial) result here https://sphaso.github.io/niheipedia/
Programming
@home: I’ve taken part in an Elixir hackaton in September. Outside of that very little was done besides preparing for interviews and solving HackerRank problems with former colleagues.
@work: My team worked on a big integration project that unfortunately failed. That took basically most of the year. A notable mention is that I’ve finally got the chance to meet the beast that is Kubernetes. I’m hardly an expert and definitely need to learn more about it, but I’m happy about the encounter.
Faith
I’m still very much confused. I’ve recently had the chance to participate in Mass while in Germany and feel that this is the right path. I don’t have a logical way to match what I feel and what I think, I’m giving it time.
What I expect from 2022
My expectations for 2021 were mostly met. I’ve painted from life, I’ve drawn a ton, I’ve visited Cologne. In particular I’ve visited the East Asian Art Museum that had a beautiful Yoshitoshi exhibition.
Programming for leisure hasn’t happened all that much.
For 2022 my main goal is to focus on work, learn German, integrate well into German society. Drawing and painting is simply a part of it. I cannot keep myself sane without it.
It’s hard to make more concrete plans or express desires when there’s so many unknowns, so I’ll need to leave it at that.