Today is the first day of my second batch at the Recurse Centre.

My first batch was in the spring of 2015 and it was a life-changing experience, not just for all the things I learned (a lot), but also for all the wonderful people I’ve met during and after my time in NYC. RC completely changed the way I think about my career and personal relationships and has empowered me to be a better human on so many levels it’s hard to even put it all in words.

I’m currently in between jobs and the pandemic has made immigration matters a tad more complicated so my start date has been delayed, and while being indefinitely waiting on a work permit and being quarantined in a foreign country may be less than ideal, I can’t think of a better way of spending the next few (several?) weeks than returning to RC.

During my first batch, I struggled a lot with being public about my work and my ideas. Whether it was about writing a blog post, or giving a presentation, I couldn’t get over the little voice in my head telling me there wasn’t anything worth sharing. And what would I even write/talk about?

A lot has changed since then. I gave my first conference talk at PyData Amsterdam in 2016 and I’ve been doing increasingly more public speaking in the last couple of years. So when I applied for this batch I told myself (and the RC faculty, to be fair) that I’d make an effort to be more out there, no matter how imperfect the content might be.

This blog is an attempt at keeping myself accountable and also keeping track of my progress throught the batch. I won’t set a schedule, but I’m hoping to post consinstent updates as this new batch unfolds and I push the little voice out of my head.