2021 In Review
Here's your second installment of my year in review. Happy new year! 🥂
Alright everyone, welcome to my second installment of the year in review series where I summarize all the great things that happened to me in the past year.
The biggest things to happen
- Finished my god damn degree 🎓
- Took the first vacation I’ve had in 2 years. 🏝
- Finally bought my own motorcycle 🏍
- Advance in my field 👨🏽💻
Let’s get this degree
That’s right. Finally done with this degree. Have I learnt anything from it? Probably. Will it benefit me? It already has. Was it a waste of time? Yes, but I really needed this.
This year was especially challenging cause it was my last year of college and had a ton of theory and research based classes. Every report needed referencing and all that jazz. It was super new to me but in the end it worked out all good.
All my classes were still online so I never had to set foot in campus this whole year. But having to go to work during the day and then coming back home only to cram in assignments or daily tasks in the 90 minutes I get before class starts was not fun.
Some assignments were super tough and some were actually quite interesting. A Bio-Computing module I took this year got me really interested in that side of AI, and the process of calculated learning that a computer does kinda blew my mind.
I started freaking out about exams and worried about failing all my modules. It got so bad, some nights I couldn’t sleep. It affected my work and it showed for a few weeks. My sister helped me out by planning my days better to make sure I was able to revise all the content before exams started.
My final year coding project. Jeez. Truth be told, I did the whole thing in 3 days and spent a week writing the damned report. Submitted 20 seconds late, but that’s only a technicality cause the time on Moodle was wrong 😡.
It all turned out well. I passed all my modules, got a ridiculously large report done and now I’m just chilling. Nothing to do after coming back home from work. Is this what free time feels like? Feels foreign.
I really needed this vacation man
In October, after I submitted my final, I went off on a vacation with my sister and my brother-in-law. They took me on my first ever guesthouse experience and I really want to go back. Male’ life is so wack. Got in the sea. Went to places on a personal speed boat thing and got some really nice pictures while we were there.
I also went kayaking for the first and that was the only exercise I had all year. By the end of my journey, my arms wouldn’t move at all. The next morning wasn’t fun cause I could barely move.
I just wanna go back and sleep in that room. It was so nice. The bed was the highlight of the entire trip for me.
Acquired a mode of transportation
Got a 2021 Honda AirBlade 125cc. Came just in time for Ramadan cause I had to commute to my sisters place in Hulhumale’ for iftar. Easily gathered up the 1000 kilometers I needed before I needed to service it, and actually get to ride the thing fast.
Javaabu
2021 started off with projects continuing on from the previous year. I was working on Kiyeveni at the start of the year and moved onto other projects once I had finished my part of the projects.
Everyone was going to the office right up until the last day of Ramadan, when another lockdown thing happened in Male'. We went back to our work from home modes. I had bought a monitor and desktop peripherals couple months prior so I already have a work from home setup all ready to go.
The first project that I can remeber I did during this period was the Palanning Ministry Website. It was the first dual language website (English and Dhivehi) website I had made that enabled easy translations between posts.
After that I worked on some projects here and there doing some enhancements and upgrades on them. I mostly spent my time having to deal with bug fixes on the Planning Ministry website.
Javaabu also moved to a new office during this lockdown period, and once the lockdown got lifted in July, we all started working at the office again. The new office has an elevator! Big change for us cause we used to climb seven flights of stairs to go to work every day.
The project for developing the website for the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives came along I started work on it. My boss and I decided to write it up so that from now on, we can use the same code base to churn out other similar websites. Almost all government organizations or NGOs need the same website. Be able to write up news articles, make announcements, job postings and enable downloads just to name a few.
The HRCM project was mostly making the base that will be used for future projects. The Planning Ministry website and the HRCM website are almost identical, only difference being that the new code base is easily customizable now.
I don't even remember all the projects I worked on this year and I can't seem to keep count.
Promoted again
It's almost four years since I started working at Javaabu. I never expected that I would learn so much working as a software developer at Javaabu and it still blows my mind. I keep learning new stuff every day and now there are times where my colleagues come to me asking for help. It's a constant reminder to me that I've made it and become reliable in my line of work.
Javaabu makes sure to acknowledge the worth of all their employees and encourages us to surpass our limits all the time. Starting 1st January 2022, I am now a "✨ Senior Full Stack Developer ✨" at the company.
COVID?
I remember getting both of my vaccination shots this year. Is COVID still a thing?
Things are going quite well
2021 was a packed year. Having finished college takes away a huge weight off my shoulders and I can finally focus on personal projects more. Maybe 2022 is going to be the year I make and release a monetizable product. Work also gets better every day, and life in general is also amazing.
I guess I never say this but, alhamdhulillah for everything I guess.
Here's to a new year. 🥂
