- February felt like a useful bridge month with steady progress and setup for the rest of the year.
Development and work
I re-read The Rails 7 Way this month and got a lot more comfortable with Rails idioms again. Going back through it refreshed how Rails favors convention and how to balance that with maintainable architecture.
A big shift for me is how I use AI in workflows. I was intially stand-offish as I feel that if you don't use your brain you will lose it, and outsourcing the part of my work that makes me better at working is not a smart choice. However i'm making inroads on practical AI tooling (prompting, evaluation, review cycles) so I can move more into reviewer-style workflows, but I also want to keep the technical edge. That means I’m dialing up textbooks, chipped away at more core architecture topics, and practicing deeper code reviewing.
I'm attempting to aim for strong review/QA instincts and still solid hands-on technical fluency.
Japanese
Classes are still regular and consistent. I’ve been practicing interview-like conversations in Japanese with my teachers, and that practice is already making me less choppy and more confident when I need to explain ideas.
Family Life
We had house guests all month! It's been interesting as they have a child also. It's been a great chance for my son to learn how to share and deal with conflict. The family is really busy with work so luckily they aren't really in the way all week, and on weekends we can do things together which has been nice. Theyre staying here due to a rental fallout and will move to Sendai March 23.
Overall
February was quieter than a crash month, but I’m happy with the direction. I've been trying to add new things each month and maybe I fell short of that this month, but it was a lot of fun!