weeknotes

weeknotes for w/c 09/09/24

what happened on the week beginning 9th september 2024?

a bit of a late update, as I got home from Portsmouth late on Sunday evening and was absolutely shattered!

  • on Monday, my probation got extended (as i started to expect)
    • i initially felt angry, upset and exhausted, and that i was left in the lurch and couldn't do anything i’d like for the next three months.
    • thinking over it, i'm still frustrated.
    • i understand the reasoning behind it. my manager and immediate team would like to work with me to improve where i need to, otherwise they wouldn’t extend it.
    • the review packet i've received was fair and balanced, in my mind.
    • part of it is down to having a rocky start and failing to deliver a complex and esoteric first project during my first three months. i was heavily blocked by others’ work.
    • it’s really knocked my confidence, ran it past the group chat and they helped me bounce back.
  • finally made some headway on getting my first project resolved this week, will hopefully continue to make progress next Monday 
    • got a large batch process kicked off (in staging lol) on Monday
    • started the same batch process on Friday to take advantage of the weekend
    • the Pareto principle is real, a significant amount of effort will be put into resolving a disproportionately small number of edge cases
    • looking forward to most likely wrapping everything up this coming week
  • continued therapy on Tuesday, it’s going well
  • i didn’t manage to secure tickets to Prom 69 on Wednesday evening, but i'll listen another time
  • the one morning I decided to get ~0830 to work, I got blocked a shit ton 
    • i also got blocked by failing tests on master three times
  • wasn’t feeling to great on Wednesday evening, so trudged out to a Sentry 100K Drops event in London
    • participated in a pretty fun treasure hunt. didn't win the grand prize, but didn't want it anyway!
    • got a hoodie, top, won a baseball cap and did karaoke
    • met a couple of cool engineers
  • visited a friend of mine in Portsmouth from Friday to Sunday, came back home on Sunday evening, I was shattered
    • binged Helluva Boss, which, in my mind, is much better than Hazbin Hotel
    • missed out on a friend’s housewarming in London on Saturday night, but i'll catch up with them sometime next week
  • started listening to Måneskin's RUSH! it’s a solid, funky rock album thus far. almost every song is brilliant.
    • reminds me heavily of Typhoon by Royal Blood
  • TfL cyberattack has been a real pain, i can’t claim any travel refunds
  • Spanish learning seriously slowed down, as i’ve been so busy fighting to get work stuff over the line. i’d like to pick it up a little more next week.
  • added Transformer newsletter to my RSS reader, it looks like an interesting publication
  • started planning a handful of blog posts
    • my computer setup, including home-lab, laptop, audio system and such
    • a project for music visualisation using quantised album art (written in Rust!)
    • a project to (partly) automate weeknotes, by enriching with extra information about books, music, movies
  • i desperately need to wash some clothes next week
  • next week is packed, and i'm slightly dreading it

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