Swapnil Acharya
This is not really a blog post. I wanted to write something and though have a bunch of things on my notes, I haven’t really had the effort to structure them and put them into a blog. Also, but because of Covid all around, I have been quite distracted with the news and news from people I know. So this post is basically a jot-down of things going around in my life and around me. It’s been quite some time I’ve written down something, so thought would like to give my thoughts some kind of structure to see what’s life been like.
As I write this on a Saturday afternoon, Nepal has seen 12,958 fresh COVID infections. 245 people have lost their lives and the situation to be honest is quite grim. The nation of Nepal really feels lacks of leadership and a plan. The political scenario has gone bad to worse where politicians have made it very clear what their priorities are. Unfortunately, the ravaging surge of COVID infection does not bother them as they’re all very busy playing their own games.
2021 feels like 2020 all over again. I honestly do not see any difference between the two. Last year, I was in this exact same position doing the exact same things. Same lockdowns, same entire family staying at home, same circumstances.
What really hurts to see how the worst affected countries like UK and the USA are getting back on their feet and doing alright and us, who did better than than them last time have failed miserably to contain the virus. In the next few months, they will be back to normal and we will still be scrambling to put ourselves together.
Okay, some good news then:
My “Learn UI Design” workshop is going on quite well. This session is something that feels much different than last time. I have restructured the content based on the feedback and I feel it has gotten better than last time: more precise, easy to digest length and more hands-on. There are way fewer participants; almost 1/3rd of what we had last time. While the group feels small, it has definitely been easier to get in touch with each of the participants and see how they’re doing. Also, I am loving the 1:1 outreach they do besides the Sunday’s lecture which I am sure has been helping them a lot. The participants this time are all very very motivated and excited to be a part of this. However, two of my participants have contracted COVID and I am hoping they’re able to recover quickly.
As you’re reading this, this whole blog is new. It is, because I’ve finally broken free from the OhoDomain mess and now it’s being hosted with Gurkha Host. I’ve gradually moved all my other stuff to Gurkha: these guys are reliable and speed is good. I’ve completed migration of both the hosting and domain, used WP Duplicator to bring everything here in one place. I was fearful I would lose configuration, database or any existing posts. Thankfully, everything worked out just fine. Also, the server feels much faster. Let me know if the pageload is faster at your end too.
Accessibility. Yes, though you may not be able to see it directly, I’ve refactored the whole blog theme, adding componentization to repeated elements and making sure the whole thing is accessible. It looks pretty good in terms of WCAG compliance; although I have made few compromises for the time being. I will hopefully fix them later but yea, this site should run well across all systems and situations.
Finally, pet project. I posted a couple of days ago in Linkedin about a tiny pet project I’ve been working on called SanoCircle. Things are really catching up and I’ve somehow been able to make more progress in the last 4 weeks compared to last 2 years which is incredible. I am not a developer and I don’t even know everything but I am learning as I go. The experience has been quite awesome and I hope I am able to keep my promise I made to myself about launching this this year. Hope 2021 will finally see SanoCircle come to life.
Alright, that’s about it. I am continuing to review assessments from my workshop participants during the weekends and will be pretty much entirely consumed with work for rest of the week. That’s how it has been. I am doing well and my family is well.
Hope it’s the same with you and your family. Please take care and stay safe. I will write a blog hopefully next time.
PS. The main image in this post is something I was drawing on Procreate the other day. It is basically a spaceship being sucked into a vortex. That’s how everything feels at the moment.
