It is almost time to part, 2017

I have never done a recap of my year before. But why not? The saddest part is that I do not remember a lot of things that happened, for instance, during 2016. It would be nice to have some memories for the future so I am adding them here this year. 2017 was definitely an amazing and full of events year so…

Here Are Some Highlights:

• I got engaged (yay!). Although me and Nicolas have been living together as a common-law for a while, we officially got engaged this September.
  Short FAQ here: 
  – When will be the wedding?
  – We don’t know yet; there is no definite plan so far but probably in at least a year.
  – Will I be invited?
  – Yes, if we like you.
• I got a new job of Happiness Engineer at Automattic , a company that powers more than 25% of Internet.
• We went to visit my parents and grandparents in Ukraine for two weeks with a short stop in Amsterdam (oh hai, Senff).
• Among work trips, I went for a week to Lisbon, Portugal and for our Grand Meetup in Vancouver.
• In the summer, we started running all together – me, Nicolas, and Sherlock – in the morning in the park by the river. I hated running before but I really enjoy it now and we are currently running at the gym since it is too cold outside 🙂
  I think I am so far in the best physical shape than I have been in for years.
• My French is much better than it was last year!
  I can write a basic letter in French and I order food and talk to people mostly in French when I need to get some basic service (but not when it involves something important e.g. talking to the doctor as I fear to be misunderstood).
• I got my Canadian driver’s license on the third attempt for the driving part. Driving a manual car makes me anxious so for me it was a small personal victory to pass an exam with it.
• I went to my first ever concert (yay!). It was to see Image Dragons on their Evolve tour which was pretty amazing!
• My ears are pierced now. Yes, I pierced my ears for the first time at 22; I know it is weird but who does not have weird things about them? And huge thanks to my parents for a gorgeous set of diamond earrings which I would probably never buy to myself.
• Another discovery of 2017 is meditation. I started meditating every day since September and I am seeing a positive impact of it on my life. It helps me to admit that I do feel anxiety and to deal with it by letting it go as any other feeling or emotion (I am using an app Calm for it. It is around 70CAD per year, but if you are meditating every day, it is worth the investment).
• I started working on a pretty exciting project called “Drawing On The Right Side of Brain”.  I am in the middle of the experiment and as soon as it is over, I will do a recap of my experience. So far it has been amazing and I started loving drawing.
• My parents moved to the Czech Republic, back to the historical homeland of my mum. I know it is tough for them right now since they are still adapting but I am so incredibly proud that they took this chance and risk at their age. It sets a great example for me to never stop hustling.
• We went for a vacation in St.Simon, a village in Quebec on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean where Nicolas’ grandparents have a cabin. It was nice to unplug for a week and have rest reading and spending time with family. By unplugging, I literally mean having no Internet connection.
• We made a small garden this year by planting our own tomatoes and cucumbers on our balcony. It was a small fun project for the summer that did not go super well but we tried 🙂
• I went for my first WordCamp in Montreal and Montreal Christmas dinner with my co-workers which was pretty cool!
• I also became a New Hire Support Rotations Wrangler at my work which gives me a chance to experiment with new roles within Automattic.
• My CSS skills are much better than at the beginning of this year thanks to an amazing CSS-fu master Mark Senff from I am learning tons of things.
• I met so many great people last year thanks to both my work and travel!
• Lastly, the top of my priorities for 2017 was to quit the job that I hated. And I did it as the first thing at the start of 2017.

And of course, my nerdy nature cannot end the post without mentioning…

Some Awesome Reads Of 2017:

• An absolute winner of 2017 is “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. I loved that book after 20 first pages (by the way, if you are reading all three parts, there is more than 1000 pages of it but it is so worth reading for any human).
• “Three Musketeers” by Alexander Dumas is a great story of friendship and dedication with some historical context. In general, I don’t like the books that involve a lot of history, but I enjoyed this one from the very first page.
• “Anne of Green Gables” and “Anne of Avonlea” by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a Canadian classic if you would like to know a bit more about Canadian literature.
• “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor E. Frankl is a very touching but at the same time inspiring story with some practical suggestions at the end.
• My inspiration to meditate started from “The Surrender Experiment” by Michael Singer. 
• A great story how difficult and at the same time rewarding the path to business success can be was written by Phil Knight, creator of Nike, in his book “Shoe Dog”.

C’est fini. Thank you for everything, 2017 and I am looking forward to what 2018 has prepared for us!