Hi! It’s been a while since my last post here, but I’m getting back to it. I have lots of drafts for new posts, but just can’t get myself to finish them.
In this post I just gonna reflect on some of my past, and announce some personal plans on 2017 – if you aren’t interested in that, just skip this post, I promise to post something more exiting soon.
The year 2016 was big for me – I’ve started working at UpWork, got some great experience working internationally, and overall made a huge progress professionally.
There’s still a lot of things to do – I know that I can do better, so I really want to become more disciplined and work more this year. I also have so much projects in my mind that I want to do – I hope I’ll finally be able to start on them this year.
About 6 months ago, I’ve spent quite some time to organize my life and work better. For this, I use a big variety of tools – I’ve installed on my private server such apps as a project manager, time tracker, personal MediaWiki and have set up my own email server + Roundcube + auto sync with my gmail accounts (mostly to use as email archive\backup and to check all my inboxes in one place).
I use all this quite intensively, and it really helps me to keep my head clear and focused on the actual tasks and projects, instead of trying to organize this all in my head.
Back in the years, in 2013, I’ve already tried something similar, by writing my own “organizing system” in Java with Swing for personal use (never released it to public) – but back then I went to far, trying too hard organizing myself – as a result, I’ve became pretty unhappy from the lack of freedom and gave up on the organizing at all for some years. But now I’m back and I know that it’s very important to be moderate in such things and always give yourself some relax time when planning.
What else happened in 2016? I’ve spent some time in the countryside, mostly in the summer. It was a great time when I used to work on my house at the mornings for a few hours, then relax for some time, then continue to work on some freelance projects, and relax more at the evenings by fireplace. It was a very balance life, and I was extremely productive during these days – both in fixing my house and in the work.
On a sad note – my old, awesome dog has died at the end of the May 2016. RIP, Santa – you was my best friend! Hope you’re in the dog heaven now.
At the Autumn and Winter 2016, I’ve spent some time trying to improve my 3D Modelling and Animation skills, once again.
From time to time, I just open Blender and start modelling something, or try to make some animations. This time, my biggest achievement was in the 3D model of an elven lady. Can’t post here a picture, sadly – I haven’t modeled clothes for her, yet!
And now, at 2017, I’ve started my January by looking for a place to move to. I’ve been thinking about changing my place of living for years, to be honest – but couldn’t gain enough courage, and also wanted to save some money before that. Now, though, I think that I’m finally ready.
I like the area around my countryside house, the local wilderness, nature. And my place in the Saint-Petersburg city isn’t bad either. But there’s quite a few things that really bothers me about living in Russia. I could go on for hours telling you about them! And it’s not about money. Maybe I’ll write about that here later – and maybe not, because I’d rather keep this place clear of too much negative.
But anyway – I’m working on moving out now. I was considering Poland and Bulgaria as my main candidates, but finally made my decision – and it is Bulgaria.
Why Bulgaria? Well, that’s another topic that deserves a whole separate post. But, just to name a few reasons – it has awesome climate and nature, its economy is extremely suited to international freelance, it’s in EU, and I do believe that it has bright future and could be a good investment or even a place to start my own business. We’ll see. It’s definitely not a bad place to live for a freelancer!
For now, I’ll be working on getting my residence permit there, learning a new language – and getting my new home, away from home.
So, as a summary – the year 2017 should be the year of more (and more serious) working, and a year of finding my new home.
Let’s hope that this plans will succeed!