What I’m doing now

Last updated March 10, 2025

📖 Read: The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig
(Still) Reading: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

Last time I updated this page, the days were getting cooler and a bit shorter; now the opposite is happening, which means I have survived my first winter in Spain, thanks mostly to loads of coffee and other hot drinks 😄. Also very important to this was taking a vacation and spending the holidays with my family in Lima, Perú, which meant lots of relaxation and bigger lots of delicious food, as well as meeting my friends over there.

Work continues to be manageable, and fortunately I have received good feedback on a recent performance review (b’-‘)b. The usual good points (my experience and techical knowledge) and the usual points for improvement (my communication skills could use a little adjustment). We are approaching an important deadline, which means the usual chaos associated with it, but I think we’re mostly on top of it so it won’t turn unmanageable.

Since last time, I’ve made two trips to Germany for work-related events, for which the German lessons I’m taking (offered by my company at no cost) have proven to be useful, if only to order coffee or ask “do you speak English?” 😄.
(Sprechen Sie Englisch?, if you’re wondering 😉)

In the hobby department, I’m happy to share that I have not only continued reading and baking, but I have also recently picked up drawing again, even if it’s only 5 minute doodles while my tea steeps; everything counts if it’s to keep up the practice 💪. And as I said before, maintaining this site also counts as a hobby: besides growing my collection of Open Tabs, I also made a list of my favorite things from 2025 here, and took part in the IndieWeb Blog Carnival of February 2026 with a post that gave me the reason to finally gather my thoughts around the recent wave of developments in generative AI, from two seemingly conflicting points of view; I gave it the title AI - the software engineer vs. the artist.

My quest to find some local friends has started to give its first results: I signed up for this meetup of people that get together to practice either English or Spanish, and it has turned out to be a nice way of socializing and meeting both locals and people from abroad that, as myself, find themselves in the fine city of Zaragoza.

And, speaking of the fine city of Zaragoza, now that it has been more than 6 months since I moved here, it has proven to be a nice place to live. Its weather can be a little rough, both in summer and in winter, and in occasion you have to be careful not to get blown away by the cierzo, but it has its charms, and no shortage of cultural events to enjoy.