From 2019 Into 2020

A year of my life has passed and I would like to reflect and look back what happened. I somehow feel the need to let go form 2019 and already welcome some new things of 2020. The last twelve month were an intensive learning phase of test automation, pairing, learning languages and getting rejected at conferences. One thing I learned once more over the past twelve month was:

Failing and getting rejected over and over again is hard to take and can be very frustrating. But giving up on something which I love doing, was and never will be an option for me.

It is a déjà vu, all my life long I had to fight, work and learn hard in order to earn my successes. It belongs to me, it sticks with me, it's a part of me, I know it, life wants to teach me a lesson. May be because of some happenings in my earlier lives? I am not frustrated any longer from failing, I have learned to live and learn from it.

2019 - 11

Here the 11 highlights which stand out the most from the past year (they are not in any particular order):

1. I started learning the version control system Git. First I was very confused but the more I used it the more I got passioned about it. Today I am a Git fanboy who loves to teach and infect others with it.
2. In March this year I participated at the SoCraTes Conference Switzerland, where I did a session about my first steps and experiences with the version control System Git. The session wasn't that super good from my perspective, but it taught me a lot about myself and how I can improve my presentation and teaching style.
3. I applied for speaking at many software testing conferences. A lot of rejections and just one single success.
4. I started working on creating an online course.
5. I started doing pair programming (traditional and strong style pairing) at work. I worked constantly in pairs every day for a full month, which was an intensive an exhaustive time. Afterwards I reduced it to 2 days per week.
6. I wanted to facilitate a mob programming session with my team at work, but I never reached the point of actually doing it. My team mates blocked me and I finally blocked myself too.
7. I facilitated my first workshop all alone at a testing conference.
8. I started working on my first full-day tutorial.
9. I applied with two workshops at a developer conference for next year.
10. I continued relearning the Java programming language.
11. I relearned French at my (by now past) customer project.

2020 - 13

Next year, the following 13 cool new things are already waiting for me:

1. Beginning of January, I will start a new project and a new job as a Mobile App Test Automation Engineer / Mobile App Tester!
2. A bit later on, I will release my very first online course! So stay tuned!
3. In the middle of the year, I will facilitate my first full-day tutorial at a conference!
4. I hope to have the possibility to do more full-day tutorials and workshops at conferences during the year (a few papers to conferences are already out).
5. With my future new Mobile App Team, I would like to gain experiences in Mob Programming and facilitate my very first Mob!
6. With Sandra Kambo who I met at Let's Test SA, I would like to start a learning partnership all around Mobile App development and testing.
7. I want to learn the Mobile Test Automation framework appium.
8. With my learning Partner Parveen Kahn, I would like to learn heaps of new stuff in the testing worlds and give a pair talk with her about our learning journey at AgileTD 2020.
9. With the Power Learning Group, I would like to learn new fancy stuff, sharing experiences and finally meet all of these lovely human beings in person at a testing conference.
10. I want to face and pass the exam to become an Oracle Certified Professional, Java SE 11 Developer.
11. As writing is probably the most difficult thing for me, I want to try to release small blog posts more frequently.
12. I want to do more coding by using freecodecamp and codepen.
13. I want to learn to use the QWERTY keyboard, as I heard it is very convenient for coding.

Now I wish you all a happy new year and may healthiness and happiness be on your learning path! And don't forget:

It's a long way to the top if you wanna Rock 'N' Roll!

Live, Laugh, Love and Learn

Catch you later! Cheers