2023 Review

2023 was... exhausting. Technically, it still has a couple of hours left for me, but most of the world is there already so I'm making an exception.

In January I moved back from Europe after an exchange semester in Aachen, which was mostly great.

It was hard to part ways with the social circle I had in Aachen. I truly loved everyone and always felt I could rely on people. Also, my room was super small and cozy, and as an extreme minimalist in recovery, I surely appreciated that!

I spent the first weeks of January enjoying my last days in the Old World and decided to come back to Brazil from Amsterdam, mainly because I've been pretty into architecture and urbanism these past few years and Not Just Bikes made the Netherlands in general a Mecca for those interested in these topics.

Amsterdam was pretty great. Everyone was nice and exploring the city by myself felt refreshing, after mostly traveling with company. I like to walk fast and have a packed schedule.

Coming back from Schiphol, I spend until mid February in Campinas for my on-boarding period at Toradex. I'm not gonna lie, I did have a reverse culture shock coming back after some months outside the country (but also a culture shock itself, because I'm very much a southern man, which is extremely different than the rest of the country, in particular regarding to the public safety levels and general culture).

Anyway, the on-boarding went great and I'm glad I made the right call to join the company.

We're truly building some awesome stuff and I hold a more senior-ish role, which gives me flexibility - something I was truly missing from working as a research assistant.

One of the things I definitely miss from Germany is no overhead street wires. The view from my apartment in Campinas constantly reminded me of those :-P

But after a couple days (and some Brazilian food), I got quickly reminded about the nice and beautiful things we have here. Our nature is incredible, our people friendly and beer is as cheap as in Germany. I'm very thankful for these things.

Between the first three months of 2023, I was working on my thesis - feel free to check it out - until quite literally I was in the bus going back to Florianópolis where my girlfriend had gotten ourselves and apartment.

Quite. Literally. The "free Wi-Fi" was a lie.

By the way, the thesis presentation went pretty nice and I got the maximum grade.

Going back to living in Florianópolis felt conflicting. I've been living there since 2017 for university, and I quickly realized the city is just not for me.

If a sentence could describe the city, it would be "apparently wealthy". People try too damn hard all the time to live a Vice City kinda vibe, but the truth is, if you don't like going to the beach, it's not for you. Honestly, that's the only reason to put up with the insane prices (3000 BRL for a 2-bedroom apartment is not OK. And I was paying 200 EUR for my little room in Aachen, which was muuuuuchhh cozier!).

Some things in the Island of Santa Catarina are very nice, though (if you have enough money and time, and in hindsight, I might be too critical).

Work-wise, I was building a bunch of pipelines, learning more about the product/community, and generally getting involved whenever I could. I learned a metric ton about the Linux graphics stack, but it was the first time I really felt I was applying the knowledge I accumulated over the years. I think it was the most productive work year I've ever had and I genuinely love the people and the work I'm doing at the moment.

I also worked a lot on my presentation skills, even if it wasn't really needed at the time, I took the opportunities I had to talk to customers/other engineers and even travel to Brasília to present at MiniDebConf, just because I want to get better at it.

I miss my bright orange Vans :(

I wore them to exhaustion during my trips and always got nice comments about the pair.

I naturally snapped some architecturally-relevant shots in Brasília.

I don't like you, modernists, but I do respect you.

In the meantime, I was also able to continue being a foster home for kittens, and we had an awesome little fellow as a guest with us for a little while. I'm also thankful that I was able to do this, even though it did take a toll on my sometimes. It's a lot of responsibility.

Atum arrived as a skittish, lonely boy.

And ended up as a healthy, big silly adolescent.

In December, I had a tumultuous move to another city in the same state, Jaraguá do Sul. I was very eager to move, as you might have noticed from my coments about Florianópolis (Atum was adopted, by the way).

Jaraguá was colonized mainly by the Germans/Austrians/Alpine Italians, so it felt culturally closer to me than Florianópolis or Campinas. This may sound a bit strange, but I missed feeling like a belonged somewhere after such a long time feeling like a stranger and for some, literally a foreigner.

Also, I was finally able to have enough stability to start building my office, and look at my view!

This year I also started taking my mental health seriously. That means: trying to eat leaner, more exercise (look at my cool and cheap new bike, playing more video-games, reading more and generally trying to not go too obsessive-compulsive about things.

Being a lot around nature and just... not worrying too much has helped me tremendously.

I also started getting stuff. I was an extreme minimalist for one year, and 2023 hasn't been much different and it started to get tiring. Having a couch maybe isn't such a bad idea :D!

Plans for 2024 (well, kinda)

I always try to plan for the next six months, and I see no reason to not keep doing this. One year is a loooong time.

Here are some of the things I'll try very hard to do my best this year:

Technical stuff

Learn Rust for real: there are some applications I want to use Rust for and I'm done with C++.
Write more technical blog-posts: I have some ideas in the backlog. I'm aiming for at least 6 medium-complexity articles or 2 in-depth ones.
Prepare very very hard for my upcoming talk at Embedded World in April, in Nürnberg.
Learn way, way more about infrastructure, software reliability, and how I can help my juniors achieve their goals and be their best at what they want to do. I need to give something back to an industry that was really kind to me in terms of mentors.
Upstream more stuff and review patches faster.

Non-technical stuff

Bike at least 12-15km every day: I'd like to increase this number, if possible, but I'm being conservative.
Spend less time on social media: I need to stop infinite-scrolling. It's really not great for me, nor for anyone. Although it is a mechanism which I can keep in touch with people I love.
Keep in touch with people I love: I realized as I got older we need to put actual work into maintaining and nurturing relationships. I love some people in my life too much to simply let them go because I'm lazy.
Try to have a garden inside my apartment: a proper, nice one, like a little project!
Maybe get my driver's license? I feel conflicted about this one. I really hate driving, but it's kind of impossible when you're living in a state with mountains in between everything.
Keep reading: I read a book in a few hours in two sittings between yesterday and today and it feels GREAT!
Be more kind and understanding with people: everybody is going through something. The least I can do is remind myself of that.

Happy new year.

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