Weeknotes 01/2022

Welcome back to my "week"notes 👋

It's been a while but I'm glad I'm picking up this habit again 🎉

Work

I have been with Elastic for three months now and I am finally feeling like I understand 90% of the abbreviations and names of systems 😅. My team is great and I found a good rhythm. Elastic is a fully distributed company and there are plenty of people in my org that are based in similar timezones.

In my direct team however, everybody apart from me is based in the US. This means I have very focused mornings and no meetings until the afternoon. Actually, my first meeting every day is a 20min meditation session at 2pm my time 🧘‍♂️. When my team mates wake up there's typically a block of meetings and then it's already the end of my day.

As part of my onboarding I attended virtual Elasticsearch training that lasted all of last week. It felt almost like going back to university 🏫. Everyday I brought my big thermos of tea, took plenty of notes and spent a lot of time in lab assignments.

Life

January has been pretty much just like every other January in Berlin. It's gray, cold and very windy 🥶

This weekend we planned our trips to two of the weddings we're attending this summer. Most of our friends moved their weddings to this year due to Covid which means it's going to be a wedding marathon for us. Some of the weddings are in Italy and we're planning to extend our stays for a couple days here and there to explore the country a bit 🇮🇹. Can't wait for summer to arrive!

Every other weekend or so, if the weather allows, we're going on long walks to explore cafés with friends ☕️🚶. I am keeping a list of my favorite cafés on Google Maps.

Entertainment

🍿 We just finished watching Superstore. The final season was shot last year so they were naturally talking a lot about Covid. Given that the show revolves around a team of supermarket employees it gave the whole topic another twist. It was one of the best seasons and sadly also the final one.

🍿 Speaking of final seasons: I've almost finished The Expanse and I don't want it to end 😭

📚 Over the holidays I finished another book by Walter Tevis: Mockingbird. Can definitely recommend it. Another Science Fiction novel and again with heavy parallels and critique of modern society and technology.

🔊 Which brings me to a podcast recommendation: Tech Won't Save Us. It looks at developments in tech and it's influences on our behavior and politics.

Song of the week

Another one of those songs that immediately trigger flow state for me: Max Cooper - Resynthesis.