Writing Here Again

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My wife is curious about what I’m up to day to day. I’ve had a little free time lately, so I started writing here again. I’d also like it to help me change something, just a little.

When I joined my current company, I planned to stay for two and a half years and use it as a stepping stone to the next job. Later, finding another job seemed harder, and I stayed.

I can’t blame it all on the market, though. I’d grown comfortable and wasn’t sure I could find anything better.

I used to be particular about clean code. If something looked wrong, I wanted to rewrite it. Now there is always another feature to ship, and the system is already complicated. Many refactors would satisfy me without helping the business, and might break something that currently works.

So I work with the old code and finish the feature first. Put less politely, I now add to the sort of mess I used to complain about.

I still play a lot of games after work. At first it helped me put work aside; later, playing with my wife was simply fun. I like having that time together. Evenings don’t have to be filled with more code and studying.

Outside work and games, though, I rarely take up something new just because I’m curious anymore. In college, I wanted to try new things and was happy to spend time figuring them out, without anyone asking me to.

Now, much of what I learn begins with a requirement at work. Once the feature is done, I close the laptop and leave the rest alone. Sometimes it feels as if most of what I know was learned years ago. I don’t like that feeling.

Writing might give me a small nudge. If I want to write about something, I’ll go and try it. The parts I haven’t understood tend to show up when I try to explain them, so I have to go back and look again.

Ashita is Japanese for “tomorrow.” I put a lot of things off until tomorrow, so I gave the blog the same name. This time, I’ll start by writing here again.