This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing challenge: Retro’ing and Debugging 2024.
Photo by Stockcake
Table of Contents
- Whoa
- Smooth sailing
- Sinking into a sea of confusion
- A Silver Lighting in Bleak Skies
- Shoutouts
- Footnotes
Whoa
If I were asked to use a metaphor to describe my tech journey in 2024, it would be like Odysseus sinking in the deep ocean due to exhaustion from constantly battling sea monsters. Now before I start rambling, join me in reminiscing about the wins, losses, and musings about 2025.
Smooth sailing
There were so many wins that I experienced in 2024, but I had to pick a few, it would be the following:
Accomplishment #1: Becoming a writer for Pieces
My colleague @sophyia messaged me on X(Twitter) saying that she read some of my articles on freeCodeCamp, mentioned @get_pieces1, and thought I’d be a good fit for their content writing program. By working closely with the head of content, I gained deep knowledge about developing articles that are strategically optimized for search engines. Here are my favorite articles:
Accomplishment #2: Participating in RSOD
Over the summer I participated in Rocky Summer of Docs(RSOD)2. It’s where people win $200 for writing three-five tutorials for the GNOME Desktop section of the Rocky Linux’s documentation site. Here are few tutorials I have written:
Through this experience, I not only learned the power of Linux but also how to work with a virtual machine, something that can greatly serve me in the future.At this point, things were sailing smoothly. Little did I know that a big storm was about to hit.
Sinking into a sea of confusion
It was July, and I was just finishing writing my weekly tweet buildspace’s nights and weekends challenge. Then out of nowhere, I started feeling very sleepy. Me being the fighter, I thought I just need a little break from blogging, open source, job searching, and tweeting to be my energetic self. Well that little break turned into a long vacation for the rest of 2024. During that rest, I found myself feeling unmotivated to post or do anything related to open source and blogging. I even came to the sad realization that my dream to being a full time technical writer is not possible for me at this moment. 😢
A Silver Lighting in Bleak Skies
Since having my sad realization, I’ve been doing some soul searching an idea came to my head. I remember a close relative suggesting to pursue a career in IT and brushing it off because I didn’t think it would help me with becoming a technical writer. I decided to give it another shot this time around. So after doing some research on IT HelpDesk position, I jumped for joy! 🥹 This role has the skills that I can transfer in a full time technical writing position. I know there will be more tough seas ahead in making this shift but with persistence and faith, I’m determined to continue sailing! ⛵️ 😊
Shoutouts
Topic Sentence: As I always like to say, “There’s no u in group”. Here are some people I would like to thank for their help:
- Thank you @elliezub for being a great colleague, fellow technical writer, and creating awesome work about Pieces
- Thank you @anmolbaranwal for inspiring to a bit more adventurous with my blogging! 😊
- Merci beaucoup @thomasbnt for being an awesome coding buddy! 😊
If you want to stay updated on my journey, follow me on Dev.to and check out my other social links below 👇:
📝 Check out my other content on Hashnode
🫱🏾🫲🏻 Connect with me on Linkedin
Footnotes
-
Pieces is an awesome AI tool that improves your development workflow. It’s like having a coding AI best friend. 😊 If you want to learn more about it, check out my review ↩
-
Rocky Linux started this initiative after being inspired by Google Summer of Docs. Check out their websiteto learn more. ↩
Top comments (14)
That a awesome year! Congrats!
Thanks @thomasbnt! 😊
I really enjoyed reading this @cbid2. I feel we echo each other too, and you put it so wonderfully and creatively "Odysseus sinking in the deep ocean due to exhaustion from constantly battling sea." I feel you and I both connect on just going full-throttle ahead and pouring our heart into things.
I love how you were vulnerable to share that. I felt myself connecting to that after a marathon of a year of bootcamp, learning, and more.
So inspirational to see how you pushed through and gave self grace through rest, and still found many silver linings and wins. ❤️💕
Keep writing, Christine. Really, I enjoy your articles.
I'm pursuing a career and a masters in IT as well! Fingers crossed for what the year has to offer.
Ooh nice! :) Can you tell more about the Master’s program you’re in?
Yeah, it's a masters in Information and Telecommunications Engineering. Although, at the same time I'm undergoing Google's IT support certification.
What’s the name of the university you got the degree from?
Center for information and Telecommunications Engineering, University of Port Harcourt.
Keep writing, Christine! 🎉 You can also find many community programs that hire good writers.
Thanks Anmol! :) I’ve applied to some but they don’t seem to provide experience in working with documentation, which is what most technical writing job postings look for in candidates.
You had an awesome year, keep growing 🎊 congratulations
Thanks to you! 😊
Wishing you the best this year despite the storms at sea :)
Everything will work out for good.
Thanks Abigail! 😊 🫂