Hello and welcome to this month's status update. After two almost back-to-back posts last month I've been a little quiet, so let's go into why.
Employment #
So, the short version is, I quit my current job. It's been very stressful and exhausting due to a variety of factors I won't get into. Since announcing my resignation, I've also been having to essentially pull double-time to ensure a peaceful transition. My last day is set to be May 12th, and I'm expecting for the workload to drop significantly after next week, for "France during May" reasons.
In case you're worried, I've already signed my next contract. I'll be working as a Cybersecurity Architect for at least the short-term future. I'm expecting the workload to be much lower relative to being an Engineering Director, which should give me plenty of opportunities to take it easy and recover. :) Another thing that helps is that I'll have a ~2 week break between this contract ending and the beginning of that other one.
Emacs #
Something most people don't know about me is I'm really bad at resting. Like, really bad. I don't know how to do it, in fact.
Well ok that last bit is a lie, I've started to learn a little bit on how. One of the things that helps me reset is a lengthy gaming session in a fairly familiar game. A comfort game if you will, like one I know inside and out like Dark Souls 1.
However, there's a second one, which has the advantage of not needing as much time, or at least being more amenable to smaller chunks at a time... That alternative approach is learning something new! I honestly didn't know my brain was quite like this, but it does seem to work that way.
On that note, I've been learning to use Emacs! There's a couple of reasons for it, of course, besides just taking a break. The biggest one of note is simple: I like having informed opinions. It's impossible to form an informed opinion on Emacs without using it.
I've previously tried it very quickly in the form of Doom Emacs (so evil mode), but I really didn't like it. The current attempt is running on Devil mode (after trying and disliking God mode) and it's honestly going quite well! A lot of the things people talk about being great with Emacs I don't care about though, the biggest one being org-mode. It's just not what I want!
Regardless, the plan is to ramp up my usage and spend all of June working exclusively in Emacs. This post is written entirely in it, using markdown-mode, and EWW to live-preview.
Nabel #
Yeah so basically I haven't touched it since last time you've heard about it. See "Employment" as to why that might be. Once I've had a second to breathe I'll get back to it and try to just get something published even if I'm not happy with its state. I hate publishing things with a "WIP" in the README but honestly? I should get better at doing it, lmao.