Looking back, 2023 wasn’t a bad year at all. There are many events that I’m happy about and that I want to log and many moments I want to remember.
Habits
As a smoker for 17 years who tried all possible quitting methods, such as nicotine gums, e-cigarettes/vapors, and varenicline medicines (chantix®/champix®, etc.), I finally stopped smoking. It’s hard to explain where I got the motivation from, but one day I decided not to smoke and I’ve not smoked since then. While I quit smoking, I also quit synthetic sugar at the same time, and I believe this really helped with my quitting process. Combining to quit these two habits worked for me as my cravings were mainly about synthetic sugar, instead of nicotine.
‘Days Since’ on App Store by ‘A Couple of Friends OOD’
After quitting smoking, the biggest fear I had was going out with friends, losing sobriety, and smoking again. Since then I tested this multiple times and I’m confident that I’m not going back to smoking when drinking, and/or partying hard!
Concerts
One of the biggest advantages of living in a metropolis is being able to go to concerts of the artists you love. This year I had the chance to listen to many artists I love live, such as Warhaus, Jay Jay Johanson, Asaf Avidan, and so on.
Jay-Jay Johanson at silent green Kulturquartier
Even though I enjoyed all these concerts, Asaf Avidan at Admiralspalast had a special place in my heart and I will definitely keep looking for better seats next year.
Trips
I had a few flights and road trips this year. Spending May in Turkey with family and next to the sea was totally refreshing. Then Corfu/Greece in June, and Amsterdam in July were great distractions. I also had my very first camping experience in Germany, near Waldreich (40km to Frankfurt an der Oder) with some friends in August. In October, we had another road trip to Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bonn, Koblenz, Braubach, and Boppard, which was again quite fun.
Corfu / Greece
Then I had the chance to end the year with another road trip to Italy, this time to Verona, Bologna, and Florence. Combining Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and spending 11 days on the road in the Northern part of Italy was very fun. Also, we welcomed the New Year in Florence, which was a magnificent experience and a great escape from Berlin’s New Year fireworks madness.
Sadly, I couldn’t have any trips outside of the EU this year, as I changed jobs and the probation period was a total hustle and bustle.
Exhibitions
I’ve been to various exhibitions and got to know many artists this year. As it will be an exhaustive list, I will only stick to the highlights and hidden gems. The hidden gem of the year for me was Dagie Brundert.
Dagie records her work using a Nizo Super 8 camera, yet, the way she caught me was the positive, childish, and cherished mood that she and her exhibition were able to transmit to us. Dagie has definitely a different way of thinking and is a unique personality that I would want to know more deeply.
Elections
In March Turkey had country-wide elections, and Erdogan won again. It’s been 21 years (since 2002) since his party is leading the elections. I voted many times, and against him all the time, yet still had the hope that the opposition could win one day - until this election.
Oylar TKP’ye (Votes for the ‘Communist Party of Turkey’) sign on Berlin streets
Career
Delivery Hero (Ticker: DHER)
In February, I made the decision to leave Cobalt after 1 year and 6 months and join Delivery Hero. I’m glad to have the Cobalt experience, as I had an amazing team full of talented people there, and I had the chance to work with US-based colleagues and learn that market.
However, I had enough reasons lined up when I quit, the most notable ones were; being more and more pessimistic about the future of the company, disagreeing with the proceduralist promotions in engineering, and losing my faith in the product we were building. This decision turned out quite accurate as the company did three rounds of layoffs after I left.
I’m glad that I landed on Delivery Hero as it satisfied all my expectations so far. Actually, the position turned out even better after the organization restructuring as I had the chance to lead the Configuration and Secrets Management efforts where I could combine various disciplines, such as Software Engineering, Security Engineering, and Systems Engineering. In September I was presented with a stretch opportunity where I had the chance to lead a sub-domain that consisted of two squads, including my original team. Therefore, I can say that 2023 was a positive year as well career-wise.
Looking forward to seeing what 2024 will bring!