As I’ve mentioned before, I really love story-driven games and playing on consoles. Over time, I’ve put together a pretty nice setup. Lately, I’ve been playing mostly on Xbox and Switch, though I also have a PS4. As for the PS5? Not really interested right now. I’ll wait until there’s an exclusive game that really grabs my attention. For now, I’m happy with what I’ve got.

main consoles

• Xbox -> Most often used, I like Game Pass.
• Switch -> For exclusive games like The Legend of Zelda.
• PS4 -> For exclusive games like The Last of Us.

Recently, I played It Takes Two on Xbox, and I absolutely loved it! The story is great, the gameplay is fun, and it’s just really well made for a two-player game. You can tell they put a lot of thought into making it enjoyable and natural to play. Definitely one of the best games I’ve played in a while.

On Switch, I’m playing Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. It’s pretty cool, but I really don’t like the fight logic—it kills the flow every time I run into an enemy. Not sure if I’ll ever finish it, same with The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The map is so big and complicated that I haven’t really gotten into the flow yet even though I really enjoyed the first one, but I’ll definitely give it another try sometime.

Also, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is cool like the first one. And I just downloaded Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which I’m excited about, though first-person view isn’t really my favorite.

nostalgia

I grew up playing Atari and PS1 games, so I have a lot of nostalgia for old-school gaming. I already have a few retro things, but my dream is to get a PS1 (should be slim), a GameCube (should be purple), and an old-school CRT TV to set up a proper retro gaming area. Until then, I’ve been using emulators, and they’ve been great.

I first started using emulators for Atari, but I’ve recently discovered emulators for PS1 and GameCube, and they’ve been a game-changer. Here’s what I use:

• Atari -> OpenEmu
• PS1 -> DuckStation
• GameCube -> Dolphin

These emulators work great for playing my favorite old games. I connected a controller, and using a projector for a better screen experience. It works like a charm.

favorite childhood games

Here are some of the games that take me right back to my childhood:

• Atari: The Flintstones - The Surprise at Dinosaur Peak, Circus Charlie, Adventure Island, Battle City. Remembering staying awake until the morning playing all with my cousins.
• PS1: Looney Tunes: Sheep Raider, Disney's Hercules, Disney's Tarzan.

I did not have GameCube but Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem is on the list for that.

I’m a really nostalgic person and a big fan of the ‘90s and early ‘00s. I don’t really like how fast everything moves now, especially with social media. I love slowing down, really getting into a game, and feeling like a kid again. Playing these old games brings back that feeling.

what’s next?

For newer games, after It Takes Two, I’m really looking forward to Split Fiction coming soon from the same studio—it looks awesome! But until then, I’ll be sticking with retro gaming. Time to enjoy some classics.

"Life is not about faith or
obsessing about the future, whether
with hope or anxiety.
It's about simply existing,
with courage, honesty and authenticity.
The philosophers seem to believe that
‘What is the meaning of life?’
is a silly question.
There is no objective meaning to,
no extrinsic purpose of,
and no legitimate transcendence
from the human condition.
The most meaningful
experience starts with
facing this meaninglessness courageously."

It went pretty well with the whole 24 hours that you can spare for yourself but at one point it led to burnout too. I really did not want to look at my computer at all and I started to have severe stomach pains. I knew I needed something new to freshen my view on everything and I decided to give myself a chance for moving abroad which has been on my list to do at some point and it would also make other things going on in my life at the time a lot easier.

Moving abroad was something I tried a few years ago but it did not work at the time, now probably would have been a better time since I have enough seniority I felt. I filtered cities to Berlin and Amsterdam and got some offers in both eventually. I have been to both cities before and I have many friends in Amsterdam but for some reason, Berlin spoke to my soul more and I also liked my employer a lot. It is a digital health application for digestive issues, has lovely people, and is pretty flexible with remote working. The motives were already there for me after having painful times with my stomach and craving for flexibility since I feel more productive in that way. I also decided to keep the company I formed in Turkey on the side and I accepted their offer and started the relocation process.

These are the notes that I have taken along the way and they might be helpful for the ones who consider relocation to Germany/Berlin specifically.

Things to do before going to Berlin;

[✅] Find a job and get a signed contract.

I had an unlimited contract from my employer as a Senior Frontend Engineer.

For Blue Card eligibility, you should secure a salary of more than 56,400 euros/year gross if you are an engineer. (In 2022. This limit changes each year for different professions. You can check the latest amount from your local embassy.)

[✅] Apply for a national visa in the local embassy for Blue Card. It took around 10 days for me to receive the required visa which was valid for 6 months. It needs to be extended while arriving in Germany.

For Blue Card eligibility, you need to show a diploma that is seen as equivalent in Germany and proof of related professional experience if applicable. You can check your major and school eligibility from Anabin. For the school, you should see H+. For the major, you should see “entspricht” or “gleichwertig” which means equivalent.

[✅] (Optional) Decide on which neighborhood you want to live in.

In the beginning, you might not need to be that much picky since you will probably look for a short-term contract but still if you have a chance, why not look for a district that you likely love more? Go give this article a try about all you need to know about Berlin neighborhoods.

Cheaper/closer to the office alike options can also work as well. Who knows, maybe you will find it all in the first go. This step definitely helped me in finding the first apartment that I would likely enjoy while still not in Germany. I liked the neighborhood a lot after moving in/living for a while as well. I think it is really important to be able to have good first impressions of the city you will live in.

[✅] Apply for a rental apartment and get a signed contract. Confirm that you will get a Wohnungsgeberbestätigung**.

I was interested in furnished apartments. These services can be used;

• https://crocodilian.de*
• https://wunderflats.com
• https://coming-home.com

*I found my apartment from crocodilian.de and finalized everything and got my contract in a few days. I have made my contract initially for 4 months with an option to extend for a year. Just to see if I want to settle in or switch to another apartment later. In the end, I really liked it when I arrived and used my option to extend my contract for a year.

It is not possible for me to extend my contract by more than one year since it is a short-term rental, still in touch with the landlord and maybe it would be possible somehow for some other months but I started to look for other options just to be on the safe side. Therefore I need to find a permanent apartment eventually and it is something quite challenging here looks like. Let’s see.

Rents in the listings from these services are often the warm rents which include additional costs such as electricity, heating, internet, etc. You can check listing details just to be sure about what is included and what is not. You can additionally confirm if the fee for radio/tv*** is included.

[✅] **Get Wohnungsgeberbestätigung (the document you will need to register in Berlin/Anmeldung) from the landlord. You will need it for the apartment registration appointment.

[✅] Get an appointment for Anmeldung (apartment registration). It is better to save a spot in advance since you are obliged to register your new address within 14 days of moving in. Sometimes it might be hard to find available spots for quite a long time. You can book an appointment online here.

[✅] (Optional) Have Haftpflichtversicherung (liability insurance). It is better to have this insurance, it is around 4 euros per month.

These services can be used;

• https://feather-insurance.com (Switched to Feather and happy with the service so far.)

I do not recommend Getsafe anymore. Their claim and customer service was the worst for me.

[✅] Gather some sweets and little presents for your co-workers from your home country 🍬

[✅] It is time to go! Have a safe journey ✈️

Things to do after arriving in Berlin;

Willkommen! Now you have arrived in your new land.

[✅] Get a cell phone sim card. These services can be used;

I chose a pre-paid card from Telekom and bought it from a shopping store called REWE, then activated it. Since I am using my phone mostly for internet purposes and spending my time at home while working, I did not need a contract but anything could be chosen for different needs.

• https://telekom.de
• https://vodafone.de

[✅] Apply for a bank account.

I chose N26 since they have a really nice digital interface supporting English. I am using it for quite a while and it works pretty well.

• https://n26.com

There is something called Girocard in Germany and looks like some places only accept this card. It can be received from any national bank and requires a little bit more paperwork. You might also need to have this additionally at some point but it was not required for me so far. Be also prepared to have cash with you all the time since some places do not accept anything but cash which is pretty common.

[✅] ***Be aware of the fee for radio/tv (18,36 €/month — in 2022 — if you register in Berlin.) Sometimes it might already be included in the warm rent, in this case, there is nothing to do from your side, but if it is not included you mandatorily pay this fee -even if you do not use- your broadcasting TV.

There are two ways of paying this fee. By paying manually or giving them the authorization to receive this payment automatically from your account, called direct debit. First, you need to register your address -if it is not- through rundfunkbeitrag.de and get an id — Beitragsnummer, or they will find you anyway after official address registration and send a notice to your mailbox.

I chose the direct debit option since I did not want to handle it manually. If you choose this option you need to send a signed approval for automatic payment to their address. They send you the form and an empty envelope. You just need to send it signed back, and it is settled. The payment will be made automatically each month/3 months/year etc. depending on your choice.

[✅] Go to Anmeldung appointment.

I was a little bit nervous in this step thinking about if I would have a problem and could not communicate in English, but the lady there was so nice and helpful, had no problem with talking in English and the process took 10 minutes or so. Fingers crossed for a smooth process if you gather the all required documents.

You would also want to be already there at the time of your appointment. My appointment was at 12:37 and I just saw my number exactly at 12:37. The punctuality.

[✅] (Optional) Start to learn German! 🇩🇪 With the fact that it will help you have a smoother experience in general and all the cultural benefits, it is also beneficial if you are a holder of a Blue Card that you can apply for permanent residency;

• after 21 months if you can provide B1 level German
• after 33 months if you can provide A1 level German

I liked using Duolingo so far and also there is this channel Learn German on Youtube that I recommend A1 lessons for beginners as a good starting point. I am also considering registering for a language class during winter. Now I can ask where the salt is in supermarkets and the people there are so kind to understand.

[✅] Apply for extending your residency and get your residency card (Blue Card) when the expiration date of your visa approaches.

I started this process around April, after 3 months I started to work since I initially had a visa that covers me for 6 months. We did it a bit earlier while sending all documents via post because it was not possible to book an appointment online due to the high density of applications. It took me to get an appointment date until late July. Eventually, I ran out of my initial visa but I was informed that I was legally allowed to stay and continue with my residency in Germany until the appointment date is provided. The only caveat was that if I would have needed to leave the country during that time, I would have not been able to enter Germany back.

After having the appointment in the immigration office, they said it can take 4–6 weeks to receive the residency card and it exactly took 6 weeks for me. I’m not kidding. The due date was Sep 1st when I calculated after the appointment day, and they just delivered it to my mailbox on Sep 1st. The punctuality.

When you apply for Blue Card, its initial validation is likely for 4 years if you have an unlimited contract. I also got 4 years of validation but with only one drawback that I could not think of at all, the card itself is only valid until my passport’s validation date. That means instead of 2026, I got 2024, so I need to renew it in 2 years. I think it is not a big deal since I also consider applying for permanent residency after some months but still if I would have known it, I would have probably renewed my passport already before coming here. Just a friendly reminder.

And that’s it! After having my residency card, all initial processes are completed for my relocation to Germany. It has been 8 months and I really like it here so much already and I could not be happier with my choice of Berlin. Maybe I can talk about this experience in another post. Until that time if you think of moving somewhere new, I will not say it will be easy or not overwhelm you some time to time while trying to adapt to everything, but this is a hell of an experience and you can enjoy each bit of it after settling in once.

As always, just enjoy the ride.

Originally published on Medium.

I asked DALL·E to draw me an image for this post saying optimist nihilist enjoying life in mountains, digital art and did an amazing job as always! I've recently got my invitation there and it amazes me more each day.

Today I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed mentally and investigating the idea of nothing matters but actually anything can matter for you, aka. optimistic nihilism. I was an advocater of this idea for a while actually but I realized that I never watched this video itself from Kurzgesagt.

I loved it! and cannot be more in love with it's poetic side as well.

Human existence is scary and confusing. A few hundred thousand years ago, we became conscious and found ourselves in a strange place. It was filled with other beings. We could eat some; some could eat us. There was liquid stuff we could drink; things we could use to make more things. The daytime sky had a tiny yellow ball that warmed our skin. The night sky was filled with beautiful lights. This place was obviously made for us. Something was watching over us. We were home.

This made everything much less scary and confusing. But the older we got, the more we learned about the world and ourselves.

We learned that the twinkling lights are not shining beautifully for us, they just are. We learned that we're not at the center of what we now call the universe, and that it is much, much older than we thought. We learned that we're made of many little dead things, which make up bigger things that are not dead, for some reason, and that we're just another temporary stage in a history going back over a billion years. We learned, in awe, that we live on a moist speck of dust moving around a medium-sized star in a quiet region of one arm of an average galaxy, which is part of a galaxy group that we will never leave. And this group is only one of thousands that, together, make up a galaxy supercluster. But even our supercluster is only one in thousands that make up what we call the observable universe. The universe might be a million times bigger, but we will never know.

We can throw words around like two hundred million galaxies or trillions of stars or bazillions of planets, but all of these numbers mean nothing. Our brains can't comprehend these concepts. The universe is too big. There is too much of it. But size is not the most troubling concept we have to deal with: It's time, or, more precisely, the time we have. If you're lucky enough to live to one hundred, you have five thousand two hundred weeks at your disposal. If you're twenty-five now, then you have three thousand nine hundred weeks left. If you're going to die at seventy, then there are two thousand three hundred and forty weeks left - a lot of time, but also ... not really.

And then what? Your biological processes will break down, and the dynamic pattern that is you will stop being dynamic. It will dissolve until there is no you left. Some believe that there is a part of us we can't see or measure, but we have no way to find out, so this life might be it and we might end up dead forever.

This is less scary than it sounds, though. If you don't remember the 13.75 billion years that went by before you existed, Then the trillions and trillions and trillions of years that come after will pass in no time once you're gone. Close your eyes. Count to 1. That's how long forever feels. And as far as we know, in the end, the universe itself will die and nothing will ever change again.

Our videos induce existential dread in many people, and the last few minutes probably haven't helped. So, for once, we want to offer a different way of looking at these things: an unscientific, subjective point of view, the philosophy of Kurzgesagt, if you want. Please take it with a grain of salt; we don't know any more about human existence than you do.

We counter existential dread with optimistic nihilism. What do we mean by that?

Well, to summarize, it seems very unlikely that 200 trillion trillion stars have been made for us. In a way, it feels like the cruelest joke in existence has been played on us. We became self-aware only to realize this story is not about us. While it is great to know about electrons and the powerhouse of the cell, Science doesn't do a lot to make this less depressing. Okay, but so what?

You only get one shot at life, which is scary, but it also sets you free. If the universe ends in heat death, every humiliation you suffer in your life will be forgotten. Every mistake you made will not matter in the end. Every bad thing you did will be voided. If our life is all we get to experience, then it's the only thing that matters. If the universe has no principles, the only principles relevant are the ones we decide on. If the universe has no purpose, then we get to dictate what its purpose is.

Humans will most certainly cease to exist at some point, but before we do, we get to explore ourselves and the world around us. We get to experience feelings. We get to experience food, books, sunrises, and being with each other. The fact that we're even able to think about these things is already kind of incredible. It's easy to think of ourselves as separated from everything, but this is not true. We are as much the universe as a neutron star or a black hole or a nebula. Even better, actually, we are its thinking and feeling part: the centre organs of the universe.

We are truly free in a universe-sized playground, so we might as well aim to be happy and to build some kind of utopia in the stars. It's not as if we've found out everything there is to know We don't know why the rules of the universe are as they are, how life came into existence, what life is. We have no idea what consciousness is or if we are alone in the universe. But we can try to find some answers.

There are billions of stars to visit, diseases to cure, people to help, happy feelings to be experienced, and video games to finish. There is so much to do. So, wrapping up, you've probably used up a good chunk of the time available to you. If this is our one shot at life, there is no reason not to have fun and live as happy as possible. Bonus points if you made the life of other people better. More bonus points if you help build a galactic human empire.

Do the things that make you feel good. You get to decide whatever this means for you.

I have always been so interested in games up to a point but after the pandemic, my interest has significantly increased and I am simply in love with playing especially story-driven games. They are another level of experience to me but I also enjoy different types.

Here are some video and board games that I enjoyed playing a lot, and I will be adding new ones along the way.

video games 🎮

— ecstasy by crooked still

"We can’t change what's done, we can only move on." — table top by daniel lanois

board games 🀄️

— Modern Family, S3E9

I have recently started to watch Modern Family and it has been such an amazing show so far, I feel like it is just getting only better. When I finished watching this episode, it somehow touched my heart with this quote a lot. I always say, sometimes a quote that is all about. Amazing episode.

It is not about if I do not like my employer or not, on the contrary, I pretty much loved the culture of both companies that I have worked for in many aspects. I had a great income, and I learned a lot, especially about the entrepreneurial part lately which led me to this moment quicker than I thought maybe. Because I have always adored the idea of feeling ownership rather than the sense of having just tasks to complete at the end of the day.

—

Sometimes I have so many thoughts come together in my mind that I cannot properly focus on others, and it leads me to lose my inner peace in the long run. I lived it once in quite a depressive way and I am not keen on living it again anytime soon. I thought happiness was the answer for a while but my answer has changed over the past few years. I think inner peace is the answer because without it you just have a deep sadness growing inside even in the happiest times.

I have realized while working from home lately that I am very aware of what brings me joy even while working. I just love creating stuff with my whole heart, bootstrapping projects working end to end. I think the secret recipe for me here is that when I choose the time to spend on them.

I believe freedom mostly makes human beings more creative, at least I have a firm belief that it works like that for me. I can work hours and hours a day on something that I am passionate about because I do not feel like I am working at all, but on some days it is also okay not to feel this way. All individuals are different of course. Sometimes we might be more productive at different times of the day, in different places, or with more strict deadlines. It is all about knowing yourself and trying your best to find something that suits you the best.

This is the main reason why I am taking a break because these crawling ideas need to be tried and gone to have a clearer mind. I am taking a break because life can be too short to postpone things you want to do one day.

This one day might not come at all.

I am finally starting my little software and design — which are the things that I love the most when it comes to working on — a studio that focuses on bringing its own product ideas to life one at a time. I have some savings to cover my expenses for this break, but I do not know what the future holds, it can be good, but it can be bad in the end. Maybe I will like this lifestyle, or maybe not. Not always everything goes according to plan and life just happens eventually. But at least I will try it and see how it goes. I am open to changing my direction at any point since this break is also all about it. Having the freedom to spend your days as you wish, living in the moment as much as you can.

Therefore I think the matter here is if you can take all responsibility in any case. I am willing to take this risk and pretty excited about it.

Let’s see what the future holds, I hope by living it.

Originally published on Medium.

I have made it so far, even better than I guessed at that time. Nobody would imagine the time we are living these days anyway. I use Notion to track them all, but I also wanted to have a little space here to add the ones that made me feel somehow different than others.

"That even the ugliest of places can be beautiful, as long as you take the time to look. That it's okay to get lost, as long as you find your way back."

— mildred goes to war by carter burwell

— wiseman by frank ocean

"These dashes, represent the six billion years the planet has existed. Each dash represents 100 years. And this is supposed to represent the entire time us humans have been here. One hundred and fifty thousand years. That's it. I guess they were trying to remind us that that's what all our egos and selfobsession are worth."

— day one by hans zimmer

— the hanging tree by james newton howard, jennifer lawrence

— empty by ray lamontagne

"There is some comfort in the emptiness of the sea, no past, no future." — a way of life by hans zimmer

— a window to the past by john williams

— itsumo nando demo by erutan

— a gift of a thistle by james horner

— shape of my heart by sting

I knew it is very helpful to practice what you learn on something that you are interested in, and I have been passionate about the idea of bucket lists for a while, visualizing things in general, and maps all the time! That was already enough for me to give this a try and after 52 days of working partially, here is the MVP of Bucketmap and its building process.

This project contains 3 parts;

1. client

The client is the web interface you see when you type bucketmap.netlify.app. I started with the baby steps and in 24 hours, I have come up with the very first version of it, you can also see it here. There is nothing fancy, I went with the first tools that I found, hardcoded mock JSON data, and tried to apply what I draw on the paper.

The tools I have chosen in the first place are changed in time, for example, I started to use Leaflet for the map but I realized it was getting a bit hard to customize it according to my needs at one point. Therefore I switched to Mapbox, and there are still things to complete on my side but I am happy with the way it has been so far.

Here are the final tools that I am currently using for the client.

What I used;

1. React for the frontend library
2. Mapbox to render the map, marker, and item popups
3. Netlify to deploy

2. panel

The panel is where I add and manage content for the client. It consists of the basic CRUD operations using GraphQL queries and mutations.

I am a big fan of using GraphQL with Apollo especially on the client-side. I have been using it not for a long time, but I already liked how it is easy to use and maintain in the codebase. It reduces the complexity of the app and I believe it will evolve rapidly in the near future.

What I used;

1. React for the frontend library
2. Ant Design components for the UI
3. Netlify to deploy

3. service

Although GraphQL reduces complexity on the client-side, it slightly increases the complexity of the backend, but I promise it is for a good cause.

With that, I have a structured and well-documented API even from the very beginning, and the client can easily request what it exactly needs, nothing less, nothing more. I simply love this approach and I am more than okay to think ahead a bit more while designing the backend.

What I used;

1. GraphQL Yoga for API server
2. PostgreSQL & Prisma for database and ORM
3. Prisma Cloud and Heroku to deploy

And yes, that is all. I use the panel to create content, it sends a request to the service, and finally, everything is listed on a map on the client. There might be many things to improve, and also there are missing points to add but for an MVP, I thought this workflow would just work.

what did it cost?

I am currently using the free tiers of all the services that I need, they are limited in some points but it is enough to see how things work together and bring the whole idea online on the internet. I only spent $13 on the custom domain back then, but I would have even not done that while preferring a subdomain of free providers now like Netlify, Heroku, etc.

Services I use;

• Heroku to serve the service, aka backend and the database.

Heroku is the only option fully integrated with Prisma Cloud at the moment. It has a free tier and the only drawback here is that the server sleeps after 30 minutes of inactivity and takes around 7 seconds to start the service again. It could be avoided while upgrading to the Hobby plan ($7/month per service). More on pricing.

• Netlify to serve static sites like the client and the panel.

I preferred Netlify to Heroku here, because it is easier to have SSL support on the custom domain in my opinion, and you can have this feature even in your free tier. You need to upgrade your account for this on Heroku, but even when you upgrade it, I don’t think it was easy as Netlify.

Having a total upgrade chance for multiple sites is also a plus here with the Pro plan. ($45 /month). I really like Netlify to serve static sites, I am also using it for my personal site in the free tier for a while and I haven’t seen any drawbacks so far. More on pricing.

• Mapbox for the map and geocoding API.

It offers 50.000 free map loads and 100.000 free requests on the API each month. More on pricing.

I might consider switching to premium offers at one point or using other services, but I think all current free offerings are more than enough for a little project to start with. Therefore, I can say that everything could be done for literally $0 to test things out for a while.

what I have learned?

I feel more confident using React which I started to learn roughly a year ago, I realized the progress in this one and it made me happy a lot. There are still many things to learn and practice, especially with GraphQL but I am keen on going forward.

For the first time, I completed a project in a bit more of a full-stack way. I mean, I never had a proper content management system for any previous projects of mine before. It is a big step for me.

I have seen the importance of starting small. I tried not to do any over-engineering or over-thinking. Okay maybe I might have pushed a bit harder on coding the item preview while creating a new item on the panel, but first, I learned how to manage local state using Apollo, and second, it looked awesome. It is all about balance I believe.

I don’t know how much this can go from here or will continue at all, but the important thing is I really enjoyed developing this little project in my free time, hustling on something that I enjoy that helped me to stay focused and feel productive when I have been unmotivated to do anything earlier.

I think there are many ideas waiting to come alive, especially for the ones who are able to stay home these days, we can just rest and watch Netflix all day long, but in some days we can also find that sparkling time to bring this one little idea to life, even just for fun, learning or who knows what it can bring to you in the long run.

#StayHome. There are lots of things to explore in the world, but not COVID-19. Just dream, be inspired and stay home for a while, for a better world.

Originally published on Medium.

"Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.

Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, according to how we spend it.

Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart."

I think I have never seen somewhere describing time that well before.

"There is some comfort in the emptiness of the sea, no past, no future."

The Last Samurai is one of the movies that I have watched with my father while I was little, and the only thing that I remember is that it was really impressive at that time. Therefore, I wanted to watch it again when I have heard a soundtrack from the movie, a way of life.

I think the Far East is one of the cultures that fascinates me the most. I have never been there, but the feeling I get even only from that sound is just simply amazing.

"Too many mind... no mind."

The movie itself is a masterpiece as well.

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for — and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool — for love — for your dream — for the adventure of being alive.”

— Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Hi, I’m Ebru.

This will be a story of my past few years and you will know me a little bit better than only me being a software engineer in the end, I promise.

When I was 18 years old and feeling a bit depressed I saw a movie, The Bucket List. It completely touched my heart and I created my own list following this. If you did not see the movie, I’d like to have you see it once. The concept here is that you list or at least think about all the things that you want to do before you die. But then I limited my list to a certain frame of time and I named it ’25 things to do before turning 25’.

I am 25 years, 2 months, and 7 days old now. I could not complete the list in time, to be honest, I did not want to after a while. 17 of them I completed in time though.

It was one of the biggest life-changing moments of my life when I created it. It was so exciting, the journey itself. I had fun, laughed a lot, experienced, failed, felt depressed some time to time again, and learned but most importantly I had seen all steps of growing along the way — I had seen the change in me as years passed.

I backpacked through Europe while it was my first time going abroad. I spent an exchange semester in Estonia and I had my most fun days there. I was a volunteer in a project in Sri Lanka for one and half months and I lived in a completely different culture than mine. It was truly amazing. I just love living in different cultures and hearing different stories from people there. Everyone has their own story to tell, you just need to listen.

I had a postcard collection that I have sent from my trips, received from friends, and even people from all around the world that I do not know in person. But I know them through their writings on the back of postcards. It is an indefinable feeling to read them.

I did a couple of other things that we can call ‘experience’. I always believed in experiences rather than having material things. I still do. It is an amazing way to discover yourself and the world you live in.

Then 25 has been coming. At one point I cannot know exactly when I started to feel less excited about the rest of the list. Because you know, they were the things that get me excited when I was 18. I have started to have other goals that I want to focus on and I did not want to spend my time on the things that I did not really feel about the way it was. I just embraced the change and started to go with the moments only.

I love new beginnings. I am a true -movie clichés lover-. Now I am at a point in my life where I feel a bit depressed again in a different way than at age 18 but I know that I do not need to have a list this time. I know the motivation here. I just want to live in the moment and remember the things that I did in the past 6 years with a smile on my face. I was living way too fast but I am definitely sure that I just want to slow down a bit from now on. Because sometimes everything comes with its own time no matter how hard you try, and it just happens to be the best time.

I am in love with coding since I was a little child. It is probably one of the things that I did not get bored with for years and years. I just simply love it and I really want to be the best version I can be as a software engineer. Therefore these days I enjoy spending my free time improving myself in this area rather than focusing on others as well. Because I always tried to do so many things at once and I finally realized it was getting exhausting and it is not something that I want to do anymore, at least for a while.

The second thing that is not changed in years is that I just love being in nature. I was thinking that I wanted to travel the world, like see many cities as I can. I was even planning to get a world tattoo on my 25th birthday, but no. I just simply love spending my time in nature, near a river in villages or forests somewhere new. In the end, yes I got a tattoo on my 25th birthday but not a world one… it is mountains, trees, and the sun.

I was also documenting this journey on my blog and Youtube channel, I know that it has touched many others’ lives and inspired them as well. I knew amazing people along the way even though we did not meet in person and it felt amazing to be able to reach them somehow. I always tried to get back at everyone, it was always nice to be able to know that you are helping but at some points again, it was not that possible like in the beginning. Because I am also not the person I was a few years ago, I just need some time to figure things out on my own.

I feel this would be like the end of your favorite tv show. You do not want it to end but on the other hand, you know that in a certain season it would be the best finale. I think it is now for me.

Therefore now this journey is over, it must be. But some ends come with a new beginning they say. I will be around and share my knowledge. It is always something that makes me happy, but it will probably not be in the same way that it has been. I will stay away from the traditional social media and only have here and probably my GitHub account active for a while. I hope I will decide on a new journey soon or maybe I will just go on living in the moment and this is the only thing that I need.

See you around.

ps. My personality type is ENFP-T and the beginning quote was all about.

Originally published on Medium.

It is okay to feel down sometimes. It was probably the biggest lesson that I have learned.

Dependency injection. I have come up to this term in a very strange way and I believe it will be a life-changing moment for my professional life. First of all, be aware of it and then please learn to apply it.

Try not to know everything, you simply cannot. Focus on one to two languages and be an expert at least in one of them. I am really curious about the whole software development cycle, therefore, I go with PHP and JavaScript in the first place.

…but in the meantime, be open to any languages or technologies because the world is evolving, we are evolving and an engineer would be able to adapt to anything when it comes to that I believe.

Frameworks are important, not only because of the re-inventing the wheel thing probably but anyway, Laravel is a good place to start.

Sometimes you might need to work on things that you do not want to for quite a long time and start to feel like it is a waste of time that you cannot improve yourself at all. It happens. Take a risk to change it or just be prepared for the consequences. Everything is a trade-off in the end and I am more confident about it than before.

Use some of your free time to learn and try new things like working on side projects maybe. I gave mobile development a try this year. I learned Swift and published a -kinda- complex app at the end of the year as a goal I have set for myself. It was a great experience. Now I want to try React Native for both iOS and Android.

If you want to go full-stack, getting into the modern HTML, CSS & JavaScript world is a must. Here comes React.js for me in the JS part.

Design patterns, SOLID principles… Be able to apply Object-Oriented principles in a really efficient way no matter what comes to the table.

Read ‘Clean Code & The Clean Coder’. Especially I am in love with The Clean Coder for improving soft skills. There are lots of awesome people out there to try to help and inspire you. Read more, go to meetups and coding events, involve more in the community. You would be surprised how much it might change your point of view.

Fail fast, fail early. I failed way too good. It was probably a very early step to take for me but really important to see my lack of knowledge in the kind of early phase. At least I have seen I was quite close to making it happen and now I know what exactly to improve to have a chance to achieve it in the next years. Otherwise, I would have literally no idea what I was missing.

Algorithms, data structures… it is important to think, communicate your ideas and solve problems considering efficiency and time complexity. HackerRank is a good place to give them a try. I also started a Github repo to try to challenge myself more about it.

System design. I loved it! Load balancers, caching systems… They must look kind of advanced topics but trust me, they do not need to be. You can start to learn and try to apply them in small projects just to get used to it. They are really essential when it comes to performance and optimization.

Learn to collaborate, collaboration is important. Everything looks better with friends even in the most hopeless times. Know to work alone but always be eager to build something together.

Udemy is always my best friend when it comes to learning something new. They might be books, reading codes, etc. for you. Just find the way of learning that suits you the best.

Continuous integration. Know about Travis CI, Jenkins, etc. to automate many processes like building pipelines to run tests for each commit.

Writing tests. Learn to mock classes, I mean really learn it, do not just copy-paste it. Learn how to write tests efficiently. TDD is on the top of my ‘to-really-learn-and-adapt-to-it’ list.

Learn how to store passwords securely and security practices in general. Authentication and authorization get a big portion of our daily lives on the internet and it must be our duty to protect personal information.

APIs, APIs everywhere… Give GraphQL a try, it looks like it is the future.

Build a portfolio website for yourself, GitHub account is also a must. Share your knowledge and try to give the community as much as you take and go even further.

Learn Docker and go serverless with the cloud. AWS, lambda functions…

The list goes and goes, but at the end of the day I think the most important thing is,

There are lots, lots of things to learn and will always be. Just enjoy the ride.

Happy coding!

Originally published on Medium.