Week One

Nearly eight days ago I stopped working to have a break. I’ve been describing it as a “gap year”, because I’ve arranged my finances to last at least that long with some contingency. Also, I want to set a year as the anchor in my mind, so I don’t do what normally happens and take the first interesting-looking job that comes along. There’s a danger that I’ll be bored around a month from now and start interviewing again.

Honestly, after one week I feel better rested but not like I’ve made some fundamental life change. That’s partly because one of my first projects for this year is to complete an MSc in software engineering, so I’m still “a programmer” by trade to some extent. One goal for this year is to experience more of humanity than just programming.

I’ve taken some time out to do that which can be described (with capital letters, no less) as The Arts: visiting the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Library of Birmingham. And I turned my hand to graphic design to lay out a new “business” card, which I hope I’ll have to hand next week. I’m speaking at #pragmaconf in October and people there might want to know who I am.

In literature news, Goodreads tells me I read Snow Crash, Emotional Design, a Philip K Dick anthology and I started on the Salmon of Doubt. Add to that this month’s Linux Voice, Linux Format and CACM. A lot of reading, but things that programmer-me would have got around to anyway.

In home economics news, I did bake two loaves of plum bread (plums “sourced locally”, by which I mean they were scrumped from a tree up the road) which is something I haven’t had time to do in nearly a year.