Time for a yearly summary. I’ve started 2018 with a three weak vacation in Thailand. I’ve disconnected my work email, deleted Slack and didn’t do any writing or coding. So, this summary comes a bit later than usual.

Here’s what happened in 2017, in no particular order:

• Read 14882 pages across 46 books. That’s the highest number of books and pages, since I’ve started using Goodreads, eclipsing the previous highs of 9236 and 29. The numbers themselves are not that important. What they represent is more important. I’ve enjoyed reading even more. I’ll highlight 3 of the books I’ve read.
  • Caliban’s War is book of The Expanse science fiction series. I’ve consumed most of the series in 2017. It’s a wonderfully built world, with interesting main characters and a juicy plot.
  • Wooden on Leadership is an incredible book on leadership. As most people in Lithuania, I’m also know basketball pretty well, which added to the enjoyment of reading.
  • When Breath Becomes Air was very hard to read. Not because it’s bad. Because the sadness overwhelmed me more than a couple of times. A beautiful and compelling book about death… And life.

• I continued having amazing opportunities to grow as a speaker. I did five different talks (three of them - new talks) at NDC London, Topconf Linz, CodeAcademy Kids Summer Camp, Agile Tour Kaunas, Velocity London, Build Stuff Vilnius and Topconf Tallinn.

• Last year, I wrote that we went through a couple of big changes at Vinted. They were very painful. I’m happy to say that in September, we reached a major milestone - we’ve become self-sustainable while still growing really fast.

• I’ve started learning how to cook. To help me, I’ve bought The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. I’m reading it chapter by chapter. I try out most recipes and share publicly what I learn. It’s been going great! For the first time in my life, I love spending time preparing food. Cooking became fun.

• The favorite conference I attended - The Lead Developer. If you have the time to watch one talk, watch this one: The Original Skunk Works – Nickolas Means.

• I learned Go with the help of exercism.

• I survived a breakup. It was difficult. I’m in a happy relationship right now.

• I pressed on the whole 2018 without going on a long vacation. Bad idea. I was running on fumes the last couple of months.

• I wrote the most words on this blog ever. Almost 5000. Which is not that impressive, but I hope to convert that into a trend.

My 2018 are off to a good start. The rest is up to me.