Wiktoria Dalach

100 things that made my year (2023)

Wiktoria Dalach -
  1. Watching the Lord of the Rings. Listening to the audiobook and reading it for the first time. Tearing up after the Battle of the Helm's Deep.
  2. My family members survived all the medical procedures, and recovered well.
  3. Thinking about time and how I (mis)understand it.
  4. Trying out new things with collages and paint. Using washi tapes for the first time.
  5. Journaling. I wrote nearly 600 pages this year. Not as many as in 2022 but still I kept the habit of writing during not rarely chaotic weeks.
  6. Drawing maps of the trips I took. Learning 16 German Bundesländer.
  7. Writing more stories, memories, blogposts, sending it out and getting feedback.
  8. Poetry and code.
  9. Getting help from a coach. Organising my mind, defining values and needs helped me rethink what my energy is spent on.
  10. Speaking at RubyConf Australia and a Google Developers Group meetup in Melbourne. I couldn't fly there due to Covid but the miracles of today's technology made it possible for me to give talks and connect with people.
  11. 11 videos posted on Youtube! Being awkward in front of the camera, making mistakes.
  12. Solving hard sudoku more than once.
  13. Donatello at Gemäldegalerie.
  14. Berlinale. Seeing Kristen Stewart. Watching a couple of movies I would have never watched on Netflix.
  15. Connecting with new people who found me on Linkedin or youtube. Learning from them, getting inspired. Thank you!
  16. Eating Grünkohl for the first time.
  17. Being mentioned by Aga Naplocha in her newsletter.
  18. The second part of sabbatical.
  19. Tár. Going to the first screening possible. Being absolutely destroyed with the power of the filmmaking. Taking friends out to see it, and discussing it over a hot pie of pizza.
  20. Getting a wrong order delivered from my favourite restaurant, with much more delicious food.
  21. Michelle Yeoh getting the Oscar. Everything. Everywhere. All At Once. was the 70th point on my list last year.
  22. Friends. Laughs and cries. Long walks. Coffees. Lunches. Dinners. Movies watched together.
  23. Speaking at Pycon Berlin. Meeting PyLadies.
  24. Taking my niece to Warsaw, making a short movie about it. Seeing her discovering the world. Getting to spend time with other children in my family.
  25. Visiting Krakow repeatedly, meeting old friends and bumping into others.
  26. Getting a new job and quitting it.
  1. Going to an author's meeting with late Ewa Wanat, getting a dedication in a copy of her book. Seeing how she handles questions and talks about her work. She will be missed.
  2. My dog. His friendships with a tiny dog, and a dog of a size of a small horse. His strong opinions, grumpiness and conditional love.
  3. Getting more visual in the journal. Drawing, doodling, experimenting.
  4. Taking a train to Switzerland, watching how careless people can be with their devices. Admiring the views outside of the window.
  5. Visiting the friend I hadn't seen for too long. Meeting her kids. Laughing as we were in high-school again.
  6. Eurovision with friends. Filling out prepared score cards. Celebrating, singing, laughing. Blood and Glitter.
  7. Fisz Emade Tworzywo Ślady. Seeing them live.
  8. Visiting different places in Berlin. Marzahn, Lichtenberg, Baumschulenweg etc. Realising how little I know about this city.
  1. Giving a talk in my home town.
  2. Seeing Bitwa pod Grunwaldem for the first time with my bare eyes. Battle of Grunwald is a huge historical painting by Jan Matejko. The artwork is 4m x 10m, which means it has the surface of 40 square meters. I used to live in a apartment smaller than that.
  3. Warsaw. Oh Warsaw. I could write a love letter to this city. The presence of history moves me every time I visit. If I ever lived there, I would spend most of free time just walking around and taking pictures.
  4. Strawberries. Strawberry huts where one can buy a kilo or two.
  5. Long breakfasts on Sunday.
  6. Weekend at the Baltic Sea before the season. Empty beaches. Playing with the dog. Waves on my belly.
  7. Deutschlandticket.
  8. Moja ukochana i ja by Renata Lis. A beautiful queer memoire you will probably never read (because it is in Polish).
  9. The Ultimatum: Queer Love
  10. MC-ing Rails Girls Kraków. Reconnecting with the community. Witnessing an incredible talk by Natalia who attended the event 10 years earlier. Remembering the work we did with WebMuses, how impactful and meaningful it was.
  11. Zelda. Tears of the kingdom. Being probably a couple hours away from a carpal tunnel syndrome. I still have dreams about Link.
  12. Beyoncé concert in Köln. Experiencing her incredible talent. Crying from excitement during every third song. The dancers. Vogue. The horse.
  13. Watching Oppenheimer and Barbie on the same day.
  14. The Christopher Street Day weekend in Berlin. Feeling good about myself.
  15. Köln. Imagining moving to another city.
  16. The thought of how ridiculous the Kölner Dom must have looked in the middle ages, surrounded by regular-sized houses.
  17. The Spark Brothers.
  18. Asking for help. Receiving help. For example, when I wanted to have an interview for a German institution in German, and a friend of a friend's friend offered her time to ask me a couple of questions. Thank to her feedback, I landed a job.
  19. Shaved ice cream.
  20. Visiting the Pergamon Museum before it closed. Wondering how a 2600-year-old necklace from Babylon could be worn today.
  21. A boat trip around Berlin.
  22. Gosia Nowak's art.
  23. Speaking more German.
  24. Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
  25. Japanees cakes from a small café on the other side of the city.
  26. Watching Twilight for the first time.
  27. The STAR method.
  28. Do-Nothing days.
  29. Finding a hobby. Attending in-person watercolour classes. Meeting new people. Earning a friend.
  1. Visiting The Hague. Seeing the North Sea for the first time. How rough it was.
  2. Learning more about my brain. How it works, what it needs.
  3. Pizza Fridays.
  4. Crying while watching Royal Blue, and being comforted by my partner.
  5. Getting to know more queer people.
  6. Going to a book signing.
  7. Spontaneous movie nights.
  8. Queer Zinefest.
  9. Daniel Ryan Spalding's stand-up at Babylon.
  10. Celebrating the Hobbit Day with friends. Fortune-telling potatoes.
  11. Art Book Festival. How flexible medium paper is. Touching wonderful books.
  12. Showing my partner different parts of Krakow. Sipping lemonades at Massolit.
  13. Painting leaves and trees.
  14. Webinar on How to build bridges between Product and Security teams.
  15. Voting.
  16. Tig Notaro at Urania. My favourite stand-up comedian. Here's my favourite bit of her work.
  17. Being present for my family.
  18. Listening to the radio.
  1. Speaking at Infoshare Dev. Visiting Katowice and Gdynia. Seeing the Baltic Sea again so cold and changed by the late autumn.
  2. While we're at it, speaking at many conferences. Meeting great people, getting inspired. Visiting new places.
  3. Being interviewed on podcasts: Coffee and Code, and Evo Cyber Security (panel)
  4. Visiting libraries in different cities.
  5. Drinking more water.
  6. Mooncakes at Gärten der Welt. Walking around the lovely illuminated park.
  7. Reading more in Polish. Being surprised how easy it is to read in my language.
  8. Not only signing up for a gym membership but actually going to the gym. Moving, exercising, putting a suitcase on a shelf above my head easily.
  9. Becoming a Women Techmaker Ambassador.
  10. Nichts kommt zweimal vor – Marta Kijowska on Szymborska.
  11. Using my partner's name at Starbucks.
  12. My partner.
  13. La Traviata at Deutsche Oper just before the year end.
  14. Catching all fish in Animal Crossing.
  15. Getting another job.
  16. Pencil case.
  17. The 2023 Holiday Gift Guide.
  18. Finishing the first draft of my book. Keeping it a secret. Even now only a few people know.
  19. The Grapefruit by Iza Bułeczka.