If you asked me how was 12022, my initial response would be that it was just another bland, unassuming year. But maybe that's not the whole truth, and I did manage to get some things done.
Starting out with the big life changes: changing the country I'm based out of (Netherlands to the UK), and along with it, 2 changes of employer (though no change in job title).
Moving from Amsterdam to London: it's busier, noisier, more expensive, and the supermarket groceries seem worse in quality, but at the same time it's much more alive, with there always being some event to go to, should you so choose. Overall, quite the place for me to passively absorb the life energy of a bustling city.
On switching jobs. I left my first job feeling "done": Our stuff was stable, there wasn't much more for our team to do without a giant slog through other team's stuff, and I felt the need for a change of pace. I left my second job feeling absolutely bored, with a somewhat dysfunctional team hamstrung by organizational issues, there wasn't much for me to do there.
On my current work. I think mixed might be a good way to put thing. It's larger, with much more momentumn behind every project, every decision. The company as a whole trying to be enterprise, but that mindset might not have permeated in to the lower ranks yet.
On open source: The Go project continues to be my main focus, with the recent grant they've given me being a very welcome surprise, and quite reassuring on how I was performing given the loose overall coordination. CNCF OpenTelemetry is another project I'm eyeing, though it remains to be seen how I'll adjust my participation level.
I went to 3 tech events this year: GopherCon UK, Kubernetes Community Days London, and a meetup hosted by Tailscale. What they say is quite true, you go to meet people, not for the content.
12022 started with the tail end of a trip to Italy. Then not much in traveling around besides the aforementioned move (shakes fist at visa applications), until an autumn trip to Turkey and Greece. Rounding off the year was a flight over to Lithuania to visit family, and more or less lay down on the sofa for 2 weeks.
That Greece trip additionally incurred the cost of a lost passport, much to my annoyance, more at having to replace some other documents in my wallet, but also triggering a trip in the coming year back to Taiwan. I'm quite gratefult that my company allows me to continue to work there for a short, 1 month trip.
In the intervening months, I've apparently attended 15 gigs, on record on another personal site. Some were... a choice, while others brought me pure energy and I wished I could see more of them. On that list is also a theatre show, to be honest, I went more to see the actress than the show itself, but an interesting experience nonetheless.
So it turns out, "did nothing" isn't quite nothing. Do I maybe still feel a bit empty? Is there something I should adjust to change that? I think I'll need more time to reflect on that.