It's been a year and half since I landed in Berlin. Tomorrow is my second silvester in Germany. I can already hear fire works. I got some wine for us. It looked like I wasn't the only one who wanted to do the last minute shopping of the year for tomorrow with some wine and champagne.

I finally built my blog, which I promised myself at the beginning of the year. I managed to keep it just one day before the deadline! So I decided to write my first article at the last day of the year. I have tons of stories to tell.

2019 changed my life. I was a paralegal at Patent Attorney's office. For me, an iphone was a device of texting and calling, a macbook was a device of storing pictures and watching movies. But this was changed. I joined a bootcamp and learnt how to code. Just a year ago, I didn't even know what HTML or CSS are. Now I am a backend engineer at startup in Berlin and I managed to build my own blog from scratch. Now it may sound 'wow' but the path to get here was a roller coaster.

It was certainly a huge challenge for me. I used to come home from bootcamp and told my husband that I cannot do it anymore, I want to quit. My brain was about to explode every single day. I only moved my hands all day but my entire body was exhaused at the end of the day. That's what happens when you use a part of your brain which was not used since you finished your school. But, I couldn't quit. I didn't quit. A few weeks after the graduation, I got a job offer.

But. There is a big 'but'. The first few months as a professional engineer was way harder than the bootcamp. From the day 1, I had to solve the issue of the software I've never seen before! I thought I finally got off the roller coaster but I happened to get on the another one! I probably understood quarter of what my colleagues were saying. But again, I didn't quit. I didn't quit reading, researching and finding the solution. After a year of coding, what I learnt is that it's ok not to know everything but there is always a solution to everything no matter how hard it may seems as long as you don't quit.

While my career path having a big drama, my personal life also had a big change. I got married. My husband is dutch. I am Japanese. And we are living in Germany. Under this super complicated situation, we managed to put an end to the endless paper work with a huge help from parents and we got married in Japan and Germany. Two down. One more to go (the Netherlands)!

I am so ready for 2020. When one door closes, another will open.

2020 may bring a lot of joy and happiness to you all!