# 2018: My year in review Published on Thursday, December 27, 2018 2017 had finished with a [talk at SydCSS](/content/talks/dot-all-2018/index.html) that got very positive feedback. I was amped up and full of ambition for the year 2018. How did it stack up? ## Starting with a bang 💥 New Year resolutions are fun. Most of the time, they’re out the window within a few weeks. In this case, one thing I **really** wanted to do was to produce an [egghead.io](https://egghead.io/) course on [TailwindCSS](https://tailwindcss.com/). The sooner the better. I committed early, and within the first two weeks of the year, I was done. My course was in queue for publishing. A few weeks later, there it was! [Build User Interfaces by Composing CSS Utility Classes with Tailwind](https://egghead.io/courses/build-user-interfaces-by-composing-css-utility-classes-with-tailwind). As I am writing this post, the course has been completed by **more than 400 people** and has **a rating of 4.6/5** based on 83 ratings! ## Building a team 💪 In March, I organised my first series of interviews, as we were hiring for a front-end developer position at [SocietyOne](https://societyone.com.au/). I was responsible for creating the job ad, promoting it, reviewing applicants, scheduling phone interviews, in-person interviews etc. I surprisingly _really_ enjoyed the whole process. I think I was pretty good at it too! A few applicants mentioned they found the whole procedure very friendly and well conducted. 🤗 In April, we hired a fantastic candidate, my now good friend [Verity Stothard](https://twitter.com/VerityStothard), who turned out to be a great fit! ## Berlin Bound! ✈️🍻 This is a big one for me. One of these _way out of the comfort zone_ things. On May 15th 2018, my good buddy [Andrew Welch](https://twitter.com/nystudio107) suggested I submitted a talk for the DotAll 2018 conference organised by the CraftCMS folks. The _Call For Speakers_ was closing in less than 24 hours. I giggled, and went back to work. > “Seriously, Simon. Submit a talk”, Andrew said. _Sure, why not_. So I put together a talk outline for a topic I have at heart: utility-first CSS. The next morning, I woke up to an e-mail titled _“Speaking at Dot All 2018”_. 😱😱😱 Just like that, I found myself embarking on an epic 40+ hour journey across the globe to Berlin! The CraftCMS community is special. It’s truly something else. I couldn’t wait to catch up with all these people I consider friends but have never met in real life. Slack buddies, twitter buddies, but no IRL buddies. Oh and my close friend, mentor, colleague, and the reason I submitted the talk in the first place: Andrew Welch. So, ummm.. I stepped on stage at an international conference and I nailed it! 😎 I had a blast! The conference was superb. Such a welcoming and interesting community. Everyone knows each other from Slack, but mingling in person was awesome. Uumm.. so [my talk](/content/talks/dot-all-2018/index.html) was scheduled to close day 1 of the conference. Sort of a mini keynote! :) It went extremely well and the discussions it sparked showed my presentation definitely hit a nerve. These few days in Berlin are a sure highlight of my year! ## Laracon AU 🇦🇺 Same talk, different community. _Home crowd_ here in Sydney. My second ever conference talk, and also my second in three weeks! Stepping on stage didn’t feel nearly as overwhelming as it did in Berlin. I had done it before, and although still very nervous, I knew I could do it again. This time, my talk was scheduled early in the morning. The second talk of the conference, right after the headline opening act: [Adam Wathan](https://twitter.com/adamwathan). Holy crap. Adam is _kind of a big deal_ in the Laravel community. He is also the author of [Tailwind CSS](https://tailwindcss.com/), a utility-first CSS framework I feature multiple times in my talk. It was both an honour and a fright to go right after Adam. The talk went well. I had some dreadful “clicker” hiccups that messed up the flow of my talk (timing, jokes..) but I am happy with how I delivered the talk overall. The [feedback from the audience](https://thermostat.io/p/1222e409/ce7aec33e98dbce4) was really positive too! Overall, another incredible conference. The talks were very interesting, but again my highlight was the people I met. Oh - hanging out with 3/4 of the Tailwind CSS crew was real fun! It’s awesome to spend some quality time with people that build software you use every day. I am a people person, and getting to know the fine folks behind Tailwind makes me appreciate the framework 10x more! ## B’ball Championship 🏀🏆 If I’m not writing code, I love playing basketball and surfing. When I moved to Sydney 4 years ago, I joined a rec league competition, it’s good fun! The team is awesome. We’re almost all dads. At 37, I am one of the youngest players on the team. But we whooped a bunch of athletic teams in their early 20s. We get in their heads and grind them out. And we’re the league champs! 💪 Love this team. As long as I live in Sydney, I’ll be playing with them! Years go by and I get slower, but I can still drain threes like there’s no tomorrow! 👌 Grand final champions! Ok ok, rec league div 3, but still! 😎 ## Landed a new job 🙌 To wrap things up - I have some exciting news: I will be joining [Thinkmill](https://thinkmill.com.au/) in January 2019. This should be really exciting, very much looking forward to this new chapter! ## Wrapping it up I am pretty pleased with myself and what I have accomplished in 2018. I am now wrapping up the year with my little family on a camping trip. See you all in 2019! ❤️ * * * I've teamed up with [Kent C. Dodds](https://twitter.com/kentcdodds) to teach Tailwind CSS (and more) as a partner instructor on the [Epic Web](https://www.epicweb.dev/workshops/pixel-perfect-figma-to-tailwind) platform! [Pro Tailwind](https://protailwind.com/) is an advanced-level course on Tailwind CSS, like multi-theme and multi-style component strategies. [Sign up today!](https://protailwind.com/)