This is a pretty long post. It details what happened to me over this past year.
tl;dr it started awesomely, ended in hardships, but I don’t care because nothing can keep me down <3
New years eve
At the very first seconds of 2013, I am with my friends down at Edsviken; the body of water near our apartment. Because of the water, we get a pretty good 360 view of all the fireworks going in northern Stockholm. While down there, we drink and celebrate and hug each other. When we get back to the apartment, I go to the bathroom. I look myself in the eyes in the mirror and laugh as I do when I am drunk but not too drunk. After my little laugh I have a sudden epiphany.
“I should work at Spotify.”
Little did I know that this year would later come to show me that that very thought would be the only New Years Resolution ever to actually come through. At the time, I mostly dismissed it, because I had a stable job that I liked, and as far as I knew, Spotify was kind of out of my league.
OP moves in
A week before New Years Eve, on Christmas Eve, my cousin Dala got a Christmas gift; Li, Sandra and I decided that we wanted him to live with us in our apartment. During 2012 he had broken up with his girlfriend, whom he shared an apartment with, and he had to move in back with his mother. He took us up on our offer, and on January 4th, he became a resident of this establishment.
We quickly started to go to the gym together. And, since our schedules could vary, we chose to do so in the morning. We went up at 5:30 AM, and were at the gym at about 6:00 AM. Then, we worked out for between 70 and 90 minutes, with a slight variation depending on how well we had slept the night before. We kept this up on a regular basis for almost three months, and I’ve never been as in shape before or since. We still go to the gym, but the last three months have been plagued by slight sicknesses that keeps us away.
Now, he might be a little shit that I regularly want to punch in the everywhere, but he is still my li’l bro. <3
I quit my job
In the beginning of February, Mancx/Coworks presented the news that the company was running out of money. Us developers had two choices; Either we continue our employment for the company but do consulting, or we quit. I took a leap of faith and chose the latter, slightly inspired by my accidental New Years Resolution.
In mid-to-late February, there was a Python Stockholm meetup. During it, I had a talk with Jyrki, one of the dudes I knew worked at Spotify. I explained my situation to him and said that I would like to apply for a position as a backend developer for Spotify. He said that he kicked me into the recruitment process. This started the six week long process that finally landed me at Spotify.
It was pretty stressful. There was a total of seven interviews (three remote and four on-site on the last day) and a code assignment. During all of these I had a heartbeat that could be used as a Power Metal double bass. Specially notable is probably the code assignment. I got it sent to me late during a Friday, whilst I was at a party. I did the assignment while one of the biggest hangovers of my life was tormenting me. I still did very good, IMO.
And it should be noted that I really took a leap of faith. I did not seek any other positions at all, mainly to keep my complete and total focus on Spotify. Had this not worked out, I would have been in a… tricky position to say the least, haha.
I quit Sandra
Late March Sandra and I had one of our final falling outs. I finally grew a pair and a spine and told her that living with her made me miserable and that I wanted her to move out. She did not approve, but she understood, and in the beginning of April she found her own apartment and moved out.
In late August we had our last falling out. She got me really fucking furious and I kinda flipped and told her that I can’t even talk to her anymore. It was like all the anger I never displayed finally emerged. And I can’t really have that. I am not an angry person, and whatever makes me madly furious has got to change.
I haven’t really talked to her since, and I’m not at all proud of how this ended. I think I will be able to talk to her again at some point, but that point has yet to come.
I start at Spotify
At the end of March, my very last day at Mancxworks was a short one. I was away for most of the day doing the on-site interview. After completing that and returning to the office, I mostly played ping-pong with my colleagues. 5:00PM came, and my last day ended. Three minutes later, I get a phone call from the man who was later going to be my manager. He told me that they had been discussing since I left, and they had decided that they wanted me on board. I replied something in the vein of “omfg r u srs omg”, and he assured me that he indeed was very srs omg.
We exchange a couple of details and decide on my salary (which was/is 50% higher than my then current one, shiet). Before we hang up, I ask if this is when I can start telling friends and family the news that I have a new job. He said yes. We hang up and as all the stress I had pent up for the last six weeks leave my mind, I let go of the biggest “YEEEEEEEEES!!!!!1” I ever have.
I then call my mothership and tell her that I have good news and bad news. I tell her that the bad news is that today was my last day at my current job. Without her even saying anything, I could almost feel her panic all the way from Norrköping. I then told her that it didn’t really matter, because my good news was that I just got a job at Spotify. And as I felt the panic just moments before, I also felt her relief when she realized that I was not in peril. We joke a bit and she tells me congratulations and I am so very happi. <3
I get back to my now past colleagues and I tell them the news. The rest of evening is mostly me being on Cloud 9, barely realizing what just happened.
I had my first day at Spotify the week after that, on April 6th. I remember getting a lot of stuff, an information overload, and about 50 new names to remember. I also remember going in to one of the bathrooms, freaking out and going “omgomgomg shitshitshit is this actually happening omfg”.
I go to Sweden Rock Festival
In early June, Sweden Rock is a yearly highlight for me. It’s one of the most relaxed festivals that my friends and I choose to develop drunken chaos at. The main highlight for me was to see Avantasia for the third time.
I think the main fun thing that happened was when I found a camp that had made an impromptu slip-n-slide. While I was coming back from the bathrooms, the people in the camp urged me to take a slide on it. I said that I would if they would just hold my bag. I take a leap and I throw myself towards it. While in the air, I realize from the smell that the impromptu-ness means that the “slip” part is soap. As I’m baffled by this, I forget to completely close my eyes upon landing, so my eyes are drenched in soap-soaked water.
As I emerge, I cannot see at all. I can’t even open my eyes. The pain literally locks my eyes shut. For about two minutes, I cannot see at all. I then stumble back to my camp, get laughed at, and then go to the emergency tents. I get Saline for my eyes and I drip as much and often as I can. For the duration of the festival, my eyes are so red that the bouncers to the stage areas didn’t wanna let me in since they thought I was higher than Snoop Dogg. Showing them the Saline and explaining always got me in though.
There is a fuck ugly photo taken of me during this period. Please note the eyeliner-induced unibrow. This is quite possibly the worst photograph of me of all time, haha.
I go to Bråvalla Festival
In late June, Bråvalla Festival was a new thing. The cool thing about it is that it is held in insanely close vicinity to my parents’ home. Like, the 200 meters kind of close. Because of this, me and 14 of my and my cousins friends were camping in my old back yard, in our own luxury camping.
I had a blast, and being able to sleep in an actual bed and take showers during a festival is gloriously awesome. My high points were Gogol Bordello, Hoffmaestro and PANG!, all which were really awesome.
We are already planning for next year, and I already have a ticket!
I go to Getaway Rock Festival
In mid August, Spotify held an internal competition with the prices being tickets to the Getaway Rock festival in Gävle. As it happened, I got one of them, so my Russian colleague Tony and I went on an adventure up to the northern forests. We got the tickets the same day the festival started, so we had to back, buy gear and get going pretty much immediately.
Almost as soon as we arrived, we were drenched in torrential rain and saw a lot of good bands, the most notable ones being System of a Down and Deep Purple. It was not as drunkenly chaotic as festivals tend to be, but it was still loads of fun.
A notable memory is also the shithead that played Taking the Hobbits to Isengard (Dance Remix) on repeat for about a million hours. There were times when we were all about to take him and his boombox to Isengard, indeed.
I start a blog and decide to change
Not even two days after I get home from Getaway, I decided that it was time for a change. I felt that I was wasting my time too much. So, I started this very blog. I also blocked a lot of sites that I spent a lot of time on and I dropped my following of all TV series except two exceptional ones; Criminal Minds and Modern Family. Community will get pardon once it’s on the air again.
Since then, I’ve blogged a fair bit, as can be seen on the link just above. As time progressed, I unblocked all of the sites except 4chan, because 4chan is a vile place. After being away from them for a while, I found better things to do with my time and my procrastination was lowered a lot. And I also realized that sometimes, you actually need some procrastination to relax.
wow very terminal doge
On October 1st, I push the very first commits of what would become my most popular project yet; doge. It is still the most stupid project I’ve ever undertaken, and yet it is the most popular by several magnitudes.
It didn’t happen immediately though. Mid October, I was at a party (which was also at the same place and same date as the anniversary of me meeting a very dear friend of mine for the first time). When I woke up in the morning and checked my laptop, I noted that I had 27 new emails from GitHub. I had gotten 10 pull requests with tons of comments, and almost 100 new stars. I was like omg wtf and basked in the glory of how Open Source is supposed to feel.
I still to this day do now know what happened during the night of that party that sparked the sudden popularity of my script. Some cool dude/dudette probably tweeted about it, and the social avalanche just started. Since then, it just never really stopped. doge recently hit 400 stars with no signs of stopping, and it recently even got semi-Windows support, haha.
Doge also in general came to flavor the rest of Q4 for me. Many people speak to me in doge, and I’ve had at least four people tell me that my use of doge-speak has led to a dangerous increase in it for them as well. I’ve even had a colleague send me a (normal) dog related link to me saying “oh I thought you would like this since you’re a dog person”. Just for the record, I’ve owned a total of 17 cats and for the better part of my life I had a crippling phobia of dogs. The phobia has become a lot better these days, but I’m still very much ac cat person, even though I am wow very doge.
Oh, and my name is a four-letter change to “Doge Shiberman”, haha.
The GitHub contribution spree
My first commit of doge also started something. A couple of days before doing that, I read a blog post about GitHub contributions and habits. It suggested doing something and pushing it to GitHub every single day. And I thought “hey, that actually sounds both doable and nice”.
And as such, I have now done almost three months of daily GitHub contributions. Even when hung over and/or sick, I’ve managed to do something. Granted, many of the things are contributions to my own projects and/or contributions to my dotfiles, but nevertheless I’ve had the discipline to do something every single day without cheating. This is something I am immensely proud of, and I will keep this going as good as I can.
The only thing that worries me is how I will do it when I go to the festivals of 2014. They are basically at least half a week of disconnected downtime, so I have to figure that out somehow. The goal is to hit the glorious 365 and have a full year of contributions.
I reconnect with Milla
In early-to-mid October I returned to Tisdagsölen (The Tuesday Beer). Tisdagsölen is a tradition which I inadvertently created years back (which is a story for another time…). They have been going strong going out for beers at a dive bar called Dovas weekly since 2010. I’ve barely been there at all, so I decided that “hey why not” and showed up there for a second initial appearance.
Also making her first appearance there was Milla. Milla and I got to know each other back in 2009, when I basically answered a classified about her looking for a new BFF. We became BFFs quite quickly, but we also fell out of contact. When we said hi once again in 2013, I think we hadn’t seen each other for at least three years.
Even quicker than the first time, we became BFFs again. So, now we see each other quite often and we spend our time… sober and proper, haha.
I become a pescetarian
On my 25th birthday on November 1st, I decided that I should quit eating meat. It has been great! Vegetarian food is awesome, and I’ve felt better about food than I have in a long time.
It should still be noted that I am a very pragmatic pescetarian. If I am sick, sad, tired and hungry and someone in the apartment makes lasagna, I will eat it. I also had a couple of meatballs during the Christmas dinners just because they are also deadly tasty. But, almost all of the time I keep to eating vegetables and fishies.
I attend my first Beth Hart concert
On November 9th, I do something I’ve never done before. I went to a concert alone. I went to see Beth Hart, a wonderful blues singer-songwriter I was introduced to during the summer by my Swiss friend Francesca. She sent me a video of her song Am I The One, and I was hooked for life once I heard the full power of Beths voice.
Do check the video out.
As I submerged myself in her music, I felt the joy of new music I had not felt for a very long time. I’ve spent the better part of the latter half of this year listening to her wonderful music, showcased very well by my Spotify Review.
Anyway, the concert was at Nalen, and it was nothing short of amazing. I’ve never seen any blues live (or anything like it, really) and it was so insanely cool. My favorite part was when she demanded from the band to play one of her songs (I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know) a lot slower than usual. She just went “No, slower” to the band a couple of times, and the passion of that song was increased tenfold.
Even before the concert, Beth was one of my favorite singers of all time. After the concert, she solidified her position there forever. I’m very much looking forward to when she returns so that I can experience this again.
I have an accident
On November 11th, I have an accident and my year turns darker.
The damage caused by the accident still haunts me and still keeps me awake at night. I’ve had six fits of sleep paralysis, which is extra horrible since getting out of results in a panic-like mode with a lot of adrenaline. Adrenaline is not really something that helps you fall asleep. Quite the opposite; every time I have a fit like that, I know that I won’t be able to sleep for at least three hours, which sucks balls.
I go on vacation
On December 9th I went on vacation to learn how to manage this. I had originally saved my vacation days for a larger vacation come summer 2014, but because of my irregularities in sleep I couldn’t really perform at work anyway. The lack of sleep has generally sent me into a bout of depression. Being insomniac fucking sucks and lowers your ability to focus on anything. And that needs to stop. It should also be noted that I really really don’t want any medication to be able to sleep.
Luckily, I’ve found things that work. Externally, two things work: Being slammed drunk and sleeping next to someone. No one needs to tell me that drinking to sleep is a bad idea, and it probably doesn’t come to anyones surprise that sleeping next to someone is one of the best feelings that exists.
Even more luckily, I’ve found two internal things that work as well. Both are kind of meditative, and they are basically relaxation exercises about breathing and letting go of all thoughts. They usually work, but they also make me a lot more prone of getting sleep paralysis. So while not perfect, they’ve let me sleep for a while, which is glorious. For a few days I’ve been able to remember what it feels like to not be tired to exhaustion all the time.
I win anyway
All in all, the bad things at the end of the year cannot keep me down. I’ll return to work come 2014, and I’ll be as awesome as I ever was. Sure, the circumstances have changed considerably, but I’ve tried being depressed and sad. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really something for me and I will never let that happen to me again.
I’m too good for that. <3
And yeah, I know 2013 was actually Year of The Snake in the Chinese Zodiac, but very whatevs, wow. :D
Now, it’s just left to see what 2014 has to give. <3