What’s My Life Like? (Jan-Jun, 2016)
This was supposed to be a half yearly thing.
I mean, when I planned to continue my blog, I made a pact with myself, that I would definitely write, at the very least, two blogs a year, describing what’s happened in the last few (or six) months. This was supposed to be a ‘thing’ for me. But here I am, one month behind schedule. So, what’s up with my life?
Left Facebook
Dude, not a job at Facebook, but the social-networking platform!!
As I promised myself, I reduced my interaction on Facebook to a bare minimum. This was not just a ‘hipster cool’ thing for me, I promised myself that. Because the more I was in Facebook, the more I was in a mixed state of tension-worry-disgust. I have always tried to leave things behind that adds no value in my life, worries me a lot and that I have no control over. Just think of an example, just think of “Shaman songs of Amazon Rain-forest”. What do you think of them? Do you like them? Do you get frustrated when the new generation changes the tune in a new way? What? Don’t mean anything to you? But everyone’s so hyped about it. And you still don’t care?
Then why do this keep popping on your Facebook Home Page?
I’ve tried to use Twitter as some sort of Nicotine patch, to help me recover from addiction to Facebook. Turned out it was not a nicotine patch, just “another pointless thing in my life”. Then I left it again. Finally I found peace in Quora. Oh, how much I love spending time in Quora. God bless Quora, it’s dev team and it’s vast user-base!!
Anyhow, what was I saying? Oh yes, my life for the last six months. Let’s see. I got married!!
Got Married
In February, my family directly approached love of my life and asked about what’s our plan. Now, this was a bit unusual! For my parents, I was this boy who just loved playing video games in his pajamas for the last 25 years. It was hard enough for them to accept me as a grown-up and think about my marriage. Yet they thought of my future, how much I have grown up, accepted my relation and approached her directly. Have I ever told anywhere how much I love my family and how much proud I am for them??!! I was mentally ready to fight with my family on this topic. And then, within two months, I got married. Woohoo!
Now, getting excited about married and getting married might seem a bit dull to some of you guys, but then, hey, I don’t give a shit!! I have a very healthy family life and I am happy for it.
Released The Very First App Of My Life
Last year in October, I joined a startup tech company called Harriken.com Limited.
I won’t discuss here much about Harriken, because I intend to write a different blog for that (Life at a Start-up). In short, Harriken is a restaurant discovery platform in Dhaka, currently focused on Mobile Platform (Android and iOS), and soon to be available on the web too. I, along with one of my (ex-)colleague, completed and released the Android version of the app. You can find the app here.
This was an amazing experience! I’ve never felt so much alive!! As some of you know, I have completed my B.Sc. in EEE (Electrical and Electronics Engineering), but I have been obsessing over Android for the last two years of my academic life. Despite knowing Java properly, I decided to go for Android Development.
And when the app was finally released, no one was happier than me! (Well, not actually no one, my CEO was happier than me :D :D)
Got Promoted
Soon after the app was released, I was promoted to the rank of Android Lead in my company.
This might seem not so important, but this was for me! I never thought of myself developing a career on Development sector, and yet here I was, as Android Lead, in a not-so-famous start-up company.
It’s not the promotion that made me happy, but it was the acknowledgement, the recognition of my hard work for the last 6–7 months.
Undergrad Thesis Paper Published In Journal
Now, this is not something I should be bragging about, cause I didn’t do much in publishing them. My thesis partner, lab partner and dear friend, Rasel took the pain of submitting, following up and finally publishing the undergrad thesis we completed in a journal. You can find the journal here. Now that’s not much, but that’s something!
Learnt A Lot
Starting from my joining at the company, I have learnt a lot, and I mean it, A LOT. I started as a dumb dev, who didn’t know how to debug the code properly.
And in 6–7 months, I ended up building a full Android app, integrating Social Networking Platforms. I used Google APIs as well as Firebase APIs. I had zero idea about PHP, and then I learnt PHP, finally I helped create RESTful APIs in PHP, sometimes with, sometimes without frameworks. I learnt work in both Git and SVN. I worked in projects built in Code Igniter. I learnt to scrap websites in Python. I learnt to develop web apps in Django for my personal interest. I learnt to create test cases for APIs using Python. I automate a lot of my regular stuff in Python.
I spent restless nights browsing through the documentation in Amazon AWS. I learnt to set up a server in Amazon AWS with EC2, RDS and S3. I learnt to set up and maintain the servers.
I started my personal fun projects. I registered domains, I set up servers in DigitalOcean. Check out HaHaPoGe. It’s coming sooner than you think!!
I got a wedding gift from my loving wife, a Raspberry Pi 3. I have set up over 5–6 OSs in Rasp Pi. I have done some awesome projects in it that I would love to share in a separate blog. I have picked up blogging. I watched great movies, learnt a lot from them too. I spend daily over 45mins in Quora, my constant source of real-life knowledge.
I am in a constant mode of learning. I learn what I want to learn, I create apps that I have always wanted to create, and on top of that, I get paid for it! What??!! Seems magical, right?
Life has never been this wonderful before!! Hopefully there would be a lot to add to this after the next six months. And now, I’m back to the cave. Adios.
