First week of 2016, lots to do, but what about 2015?
I’m still working remotely and this helped a lot from a logistic point of view: I relocated in France with my fiancee.
Writing
I started this blog and I’m putting a fair amount of energy into it, but the most important event is definitely the publication of my first book: RxJava Essentials (https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/rxjava-essentials). It was a big achievement for me. I’m very fond of the reactive approach and I have spent 2013 and 2014 talking to people, trying to help them overcoming their “fear” of this paradigm. But it was just “talking”. When Packt Publishing gave me the opportunity to “write” about Rx in a very similar way I was “talking” about Rx, I jumped on it.
Talking
I was very focused on the book and I completely missed the deadline for Droidcon Turin in April. I didn’t want to lose the chance to challenge myself and I arranged a quick barcamp session when I was there. First time talking to an unknown crowd: my “lizard-people-person” instinct kicked in and they almost had to put me down after one hour talking and showing code.
In June, I had my first Droidcon talk in Berlin:
I was super nervous, there were tons of people and when the staff started to add even more chairs for the audience… I almost freaked out! The talk went well, people enjoyed it and I had lots of feedback. I can proudly say that’s the most popular DroidconDE video, so far.
In November, I had my first Devoxx talk in Antwerp. Great experience! I wrote a post about it and you can check it out here: https://medium.com/@hamen/my-first-devoxx-fd82ee7d476c#.1iv2ynrzy
In December, I was in Krakow for my talk at the Droidcon, back in Poland after ten years. You can read my report here: https://medium.com/@hamen/back-in-krakow-for-the-droidcon-25f5b868a981#.v5oyznyg7
Conference after conference, I thought I would be less nervous. Not really. You are surely more confident, but you are still nervous, because you want to share knowledge, because you don’t want to disappoint people, because you care!
2016?
Well, the journey continues: more code, more books, more talks, more friends. See you there 😉