# Weeknotes 26–2021

> Building mobile apps, exploring Elasticsearch, some more time for reflection and a weekend getaway.

Published: 2021-07-05
Author: Anurag Banerjee (https://anuragbanerjee.com/)

- Building mobile apps is really cool! I’ve had the pleasure of working with my team on building one of them recently, been working with them for last the 4 months and now we are a couple of weeks away from the moment of truth. I thoroughly enjoy working on the complex challenge which requires you to bring all the individual elements — front-end (app), APIs, database and third-party services — together and seeing it all function in unison.
- It was a week of reflection as well. I do have a bit of anger issue it would appear. A lot of that is internal facing, self-targeted (this also fuels me to work harder) but at times this spills onto others around me — which I have to be more mindful about. While you can’t take your words away, you can always be frank and honest about things and apologize when required.
- Spent some experimenting with [Elasticsearch](https://www.elastic.co/enterprise-search) and [ElasticPress](https://www.elasticpress.io/) for one of the projects. Dabbled with it on localhost first (with Docker) and then upgraded it onto Amazon Elasticsearch Service which worked smoothly. Was pleasantly surprised the power of a plugin like ElasticPress and the value it adds to the community by it being free / open. While I would still prefer Algolia in most cases there is a time and place for something like this. I will play around with it a bit more in the future, definitely worth keeping this in your pocket.
- Travelled to Pune to meet up with my sister after almost 2 months of gap due to the travel restrictions and general safety. Also, the weather in Mumbai was getting really unbearable — so Pune was a welcome change. Spent time ordering in food, cooking some at home, then movie marathons and some Geoguessr!