Why I Started This Blog

Background

I am a junior foreign worker who started my first professional career in Germany, and I have now been working for 15 months.

Looking back on the past year or so of living and working in Germany, it was quite overwhelming.

I wasn't fluent in English, yet I had to deal with unfamiliar work terminology and technologies at the same time. My head often felt overloaded with all the new information I had to absorb.

There was also a lot of stress and anxiety. Some of the people who joined the company at the same time as me had their probationary contracts terminated, and I also found myself thinking almost every day:

"Should I just give up and go back to Korea?"

But somehow, after getting through each day, 15 months have already passed.

Things feel much more natural at work now. I'm still far from being fluent in English, but at least I no longer have much trouble understanding conversations at work.

More importantly, I can feel that I've gradually built trust with my teammates. Compared to when I first arrived in Germany, I definitely feel more at ease now. Perhaps I've finally reached a period of stability.

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The Problem

But there was something strange.

Over the past 15 months, I had definitely learned a lot. I became more comfortable with my work, my English improved, and I gained experience with many different technologies. But when I asked myself, "What have I actually learned?", I realized that I couldn't clearly organize it in my head. Because I hadn't written any of it down.

My experience and familiarity with things were constantly growing, but I didn't feel like that knowledge was actually accumulating in a structured way. English was a good example.

The everyday words and expressions I hear frequently became familiar naturally, and I was able to use them without much thought.

However, when it came to advanced vocabulary or business English that requires deliberate study, I felt like I hadn't changed much compared to 15 months ago.

Technology was similar. Over time, I became increasingly familiar with the architecture and technologies used by my team.

I learned where and why certain things were used, and reading and modifying existing code became more natural. But being "familiar with something" and actually "understanding it" are two different things. At some point, if I want to design things myself and take full ownership of even a small part of a system, I need to go beyond familiarity and develop a deeper understanding of the technology. And I realized that writing things down is an important part of that process. When you try to explain something in writing, it becomes clear which parts you truly understand and which parts you don't.

So from now on, rather than stopping at simply knowing "how to use something," I want to keep digging until I can explain why it works the way it does.

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What I Will Write About

That's why I decided to run this blog and document the things I learn and experience in more detail.

My goal is not simply to store what I've studied, but to document the process of turning experiences into knowledge.

There are three main areas I want to write about.

English

I will write down expressions and words that I come across while living and working abroad.

Rather than simply writing down their definitions, I want to organize:

• In what situations they are used
• How they are actually expressed in real conversations
• How they differ from similar expressions

If I can look back at these posts someday and think,

"It took me quite a while just to understand this one expression."

I think that alone would make them worthwhile.

Technology

I will write about the technologies and concepts I encounter through my work. Rather than stopping at documenting how to use something, I want to keep asking:

"Why does this work this way?"

Whenever possible, I want to read the official documentation, run the code myself, and dig into the internal workings until I can explain what I've learned well enough for someone else to understand it. Even technologies that seem obvious to me today may raise new questions when I look at them again someday.

I want to avoid simply letting those questions pass and instead write them down one by one.

Life

I won't write only about technical topics. I also want to document the things I experience while living in Germany, the things I discover, the things I did well and the things I didn't, and the thoughts I had along the way. Perhaps these will be the posts I enjoy reading the most as time goes by. The things that feel obvious to me today may no longer feel obvious to me in the future.

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Closing

I want to write down what I learn, reflect on what I experience, and gradually grow through that process. I hope this blog becomes less of a place where I showcase impressive knowledge, and more of a place where I slowly build up the journey of one person learning and growing while living in Germany.

I hope today's notes become tomorrow's knowledge, and that the experiences I'm having now become something valuable when I look back on them someday.

Learn slowly, dig deeply, and keep writing.