Diego Berrueta

(This is a reprint of the original post)

Usually, last year retrospectives are published as the year reaches its end. However, mine will appear today. It looks like an appropriate date, perhaps I'm still on time for Reyes Magos to know of my merits!

I've been busy working as a researcher, although I didn't post anything about my work in this blog (notable exception being my involvement in a W3C working group). Other milestones in the last twelve months were my first paper published in an international conference (other pieces will follow soon, I hope) and lots of presentations (some of them in public conferences or workshop meetings).

At the same time, I've started the long way to my PhD. During the first semester, I attended to some lessons, and since summer, I'm struggling with my research report. I've found an appealing idea, but progress so far is slow because my lack of time.

During the last year, I taught lessons on several topics, chiefly Semantic Web and XML. One of these lessons was part of a Summer Course of the University of Oviedo, and that was the first time (and the only one, up to now) that I taught in the University. I also advised two of my friends with their academic projects (one and two). Both developed superb projects, but the merit is theirs.

Fortunately, I had some leisure time. I enjoyed a few opportunities in the countryside and the mountains, and I read lots of books. I didn't travel a lot, but I went to Barcelona for the first time (coincidentally, I returned there some months later for business).

In the free software arena, I gave some talks (Nava, Gijón, Oviedo). I had the opportunity to spend some time with people like Xavi de Blas and Richard Stallman. I attended to the GUADEC 2006. Unfortunately, I cut down my involvement in AsturLiNUX, and said goodbye to the Zinc package in Debian (which is my fault, as I couldn't find the time to give proper maintenance to the software). On the other hand, I released a small library for Haskell and participated in the SWAML project.

Finally, some months ago I decided to write my blog entries in English. After this time, I think the experience is even better than I could imagine. Intensive use of English (not just in the blog, but also in my work, almost everyday) has led to some improvement of my skills, although I want to go further.