Current tidings - October
My September was quite busy with traveling and college, so much that I didn't even get around to updating my /now page!
Meanwhile, October has been blessed with productive time at home: I've been repainting a hallway (in beautiful yellow), applying to jobs, contributing to Xee, writing blog articles, deploying a website (with Git!), attending OpenFest, and... playing Werewolf on IRC.
Life
I've started looking for a job! Ideally, I'd like to find something remote with flexible time, which would enable me to dedicate time to studying and to visit relatives across the country.
If you can use an experienced senior developer with a taste for Linux and open-source, I'm all ears!
Other than that, I'm still finishing up my Bachelor's in Computer Science at the Thomas Edison State University. Around half-way there, already; recently finished the TECEP tests in Microeconomics, Critical thinking, and Public speaking.
Programming
I did a whole week of streaming open-source bug fixes back at the start of July—featuring projects like Element, LibreOffice, and Peertube! You can find recaps on the blog, starting with BugsDoneQuick: Days 1-2. I'm still waiting on feedback for 2 LibreOffice patchsets, 3 Gwenview MRs that
Also, I've been contributing to Xee, a Rust library implementing XPath 3 and XSLT 3! Already implemented one missing XSLT feature, and I'm trying to approach the set of tests in a way that makes work as efficient as possible.
Reading (NEW!)
During September, I read through the whole of Jane Eyre, to see how it differs from the movies.
I'm currently reading On Writing Well by William Zinnser. With a highlighter, because it is my copy, and I get to customize it! 😁
![_Photo of paragraph from a book: On Writing Well is a craft book, and its principles haven't changed since it was written 30 years ago. [highlight starts] I don't know what still newer marvels will make writing twice as easy in the next 30 years. But I do know they won't make writing twice as good [highlight end]. That will still require plain old hard thinking--what E. B. White was doing in his boathouse--and the plain old tools of the English language. - William Zinsser, April 2006.](/now/image-2025-10-reading.jpg)
Writing
My writing time goes mostly for non-fiction articles on my blog, with nothing left for fiction. Still, I have an upcoming short story in article form!
Plus, I have a back-burner idea about a sci-fi academia novel/novella, but it's still far future—though after checking out the excellent Trigaea, I'm wondering if I could adapt the worldbuilding of it to an interactive novel? 🤔
Current projects
- #100DaysToOffload - An attempt at forcing myself to write 100 blog articles within an year. Started on April 18th; as of writing this update, up to my 29th post (so, 23 articles behind par, I'll have to ramp up content production a lot to meet the deadline!).
- Programming with Bojidar - My JavaScript programming course serving Bulgarian students weekly/biweekly.
- Xee - A modern XPath and XSLT implementation in Rust, to which I'm contributing parts of the XSLT stack.
- Project: World - A custom for-fun hobby programming language. Write-up yet to hit the blog! 😅
- Website maintenance - On-and-off maintaining a few Linux boxes for my programming course, for the Bulgarian Homeschooling Association, and for a group of friends.
- Job applications / job hunting.
- Aand, of course, college.
This page is also available as an Atom feed, inspired by Bryan Braum's /now page.