new beginnings

I started this six-week programming retreat (RC, short for Recurse Center) today.

I'm planning a return to a software engineering career, and I'm soo excited about the role this retreat is playing in my transition 🤗

RC is all about connecting with the joy of programming. It's a self directed learning environment where you work on projects, but also collaborate and pair program with others. Everyone there is excited about programming and it shows.

I'm really grateful for RC because it's already starting to change how I see myself. First, I'm seeing myself as a programmer. For example, the people I introduced myself to today already see me as a programmer, not as a product manager. Second, I'm seeing myself as a programmer that is excited about programming. I'm able to geek out with programmers about how I find Ruby on Rails cool, and Clean Code, and Lisp, and shiny new web frameworks. Third, I'm seeing myself as a programmer that's curious about technical concepts. I'm so open - I find myself clicking on articles and links that are so fascinating to me right now yet I would have ignored in college, because I was so fixated on product.

Anyway, I'M SO EXCITED FOR TOMORROW! It's the first day in-person and it's gonna be super awesome.

I took some time to write down my goals for RC today:

My intangible goals:

1. Overcome impostor syndrome (no safer environment to do this in)
2. Connect with joy and curiosity of programming
3. Have a ton of fun, make a ton of friends and memories

My tangible goals:

1. Write a lot of code (ideally code at the edge of my abilities)

My interests right now:

• Web development, especially the Javascript-based stack
• Lisp

But very open to being nerd-sniped by all the interesting things others are working on :)