Thanks for all the help #

This year was a blast: It started with the ever great FOSDEM in Brussels (see you there in 2013?), an invitation to GeeCon in Poznan (if you ever get an invitation to speak there - do accept, the organisers do an amazing job at that event). In summer we had Berlin Buzzwords in Berlin for the third time with 700 attendees (to retain the community feel to the conference we decided to limit tickets in 2013, so make sure you get your’s early). In autumn I changed my name and afterwards spent two amazing weeks in Sydney, only to attend Strata EU afterwards. Finally in December I was invited to go through the most amazing submissions for Hadoop Summit in Amsterdam 2013 (it was incredibly hard to pick and choose - thanks to Sean and Torsten for assisting me with that choice for the Hadoop Applied track.)

I think I would have gone mad if it hadn’t been for all the help from friends and family: A big hug to my husband for keeping me sane when ever times got a bit rough in terms of stuff in my calendar. Thanks for all your support throughout the year. Another huge hug to my family - in particular to my mom who early 2012 volunteered to take care of most of the local organisation of our wedding (we got married close to where I grew up) and put in several surprises that she “kept mum” about up to the very last second. Also everyone who helped fill your wedding magazine with content (and train my ma in dealing with all sorts of document formats containing that content in her mail box - me personally I was forbidden to even just touch her machine during the first nine months of 2012 ;) ).

Another thanks to David Obermann for a series of interesting talks at this year’s Apache Hadoop Get Together Berlin. It’s amazing to see the event continue to grow even after essentially stepping down from being the main organiser.

Speaking of events: Another Thank You to Julia Gemählich, Claudia Brückner and the whole Berlin Buzzwords team. This was the first year I reduced the time I put into the event considerably - it was the first year I could attend the conference and not be all too tired to enjoy at least some of the presentations. You did a great job! Also thanks to my colleagues over at Nokia who provided me with a day a week to get things done for Buzzwords. In the same context: A very big thank you to every one who helped turn Berlin Buzzwords into a welcoming event for everyone: Thanks to all speakers, sponsors and attendees. Looking forward to seeing you again next year.

Finally a really big Thanks to all the people who helped turn our wedding day and vacation afterwards into the great time it was: Thanks to our families, our friends (including but not limited to the best photographer and friend I’ve met so far, those who hosted us in Sydney, and the many people who provided us with information on where to go and what to do.)

There’s one thing though that bugged me by the end of this year: