It has happened! The Fall 1 batch is all done…tears 😢.

Time for Fall 2 to take charge!

Overall

Although I expected this week to be super sad and terrible, it was actually really relaxing. I’ll definitely miss the Fall 1s, but I’m excited for a “fresh” start.

Emotional 😌

Blogging is hard
Prepare for meta feelings.

It’s currently Wednesday. I’ve had my ideas for this post laid out since Sunday but for some reason haven’t been able to bring it all together.

As the time has past, it’s become harder and harder to meld all the thoughts together. Which has made me work slower. Which has made things harder to come together.

Today I started feeling really frustrated by that and anxious about how much time blogging is taking. So I’m throwing this in here as a way to vent and allow my brain to reset. I don’t need to write this from the mind of Sunday Harold. Mind of Wednesday Harold will have to do.

Alright, that felt nice to admit 😅.

Moving towards more focus
Last week I started focusing more on work. I spent time in the quiet rooms rather than working in the main space where it’s hard to tune out all of RC.

Prioritizing my work has felt good. Previously I was jumping on every opportunity to help others, and it started getting exhausting. Putting my work first feels like subconsciously telling myself:

“Hey, your work matters.”

Glad you think so, self 😊.

Getting the good vibes out
One of the activities last week was writing “Niceties”. Nice messages to outgoing Recursers.

I had a lot of bottled up praise that I wanted to share. I had even considered private messaging nice thoughts to Recursers, but then worried whether that would be weird.

It gave me a sense of closure that I could share those thoughts with all the outgoing RCers.

I was surprised by how I felt after sharing those things. Letting others know my feelings is important to me, and I expect others to value receiving that information.

Some people thanked me afterwards for my niceties and that felt really good… knowing that they valued hearing my thoughts as much as I valued sharing them. Other people didn’t acknowledge it. It was as if whatever I had to say was just another “It was nice to meet you!”. That bothered me a bit.

I came to the realization that what does/doesn’t come back isn’t what matters. What matters is that I feel genuine around everyone.

Letting go of those expectations felt good.

Noticing more wonderful people
The last few weeks I’ve been focused on the most sociable people at RC. The ones who seemed to have the most drive to do things outside of RC.

Last week I stepped back from all the socializing. I mainly interacted with the people who were still chatting to me despite my drop in energy levels. It was interesting to see how that shifted who I interacted with.

I started to appreciate all the interesting people who aren’t necessarily sharing social events 24/7. I also realized how many people I really enjoy talking to despite never having really interacted outside of RC. That felt really lovely 🙂.

Less people to think about
I feel a sense of relief from having half the people leave. For 6 weeks I invested all I could into this large group.

Now that half of the batch has left, what happens next is out of my control. If we formed a connection, we’ll stay in touch. If not, we won’t. Detaching from outcomes is nice.

At the same time, there’s still a large group of wonderful people here. People who I can continue getting to know for another 6 weeks.

With the new people, I’ll feel a lot less pressure to know everyone.

Social 🕹

Evening Activities
A bunch of fun activities during the evenings:

• Halloween Parade: Giant parade full of music and costumes.
• Ethics Refactoring: Discussing the ethics behind certain software features and then refactoring them with the focus on another set of ethics.
• Concert: Saw Skylar Spence + Kero Kero Bonito.
• Cleaning Party: Deep clean of RC. (Never realized how grungy the walls were until I had the chance to magic eraser the crap out of them.)

Barcade Goodbye Party
On Thursday, there was a goodbye party for the F1s. The main event was drinks and arcade games at Barcade.

I’m not a big gamer, so I found that aspect to be a bit distracting. Would have been much happier at a cheaper, quieter location where people could just talk. Barcade was fairly pricey and loud.

Myself and a few others ended up running to some bars in the near vicinity that had cheaper drinks. That was a nice way to escape the mayhem and chat a bit more.

Coffee Runs
A few of us have become obsessed with Cafe Integral. As a result, there’s been nearly daily afternoon trips there. It’s been fun have a reoccurring coffee crew. ☕️

Intellectual 😪

Haskell-ing
During my 1-on-1, I talked about wanting to split my time between p5 and Haskell. After talking about that decision, we realized it would probably be better for me to focus on Haskell. I’m fairly comfortable with Javascript, whereas Haskell still makes my brain hurt.

Best to do what makes my brain hurt. 😬

By the end of the weekend I had 2 weeks of work done and was getting a better grasp of the language. It’s good to see progress.

Planning for W1
Over the course of my first 6 weeks at RC, I had a lot of meta RC talks with batch-mates. I’ve been really curious how all our experiences compare, and people’s suggestions for RC.

One of the events that really sets the tone for a batch is the first day. @ebb-tide and I got talking about what we would have changed about our first day and started planning events around those ideas.

Last week I got to see it all come together which was very rewarding. Extra credit to @ebb-tide for chasing people down and building a schedule. Was really happy with what came out 🙂.

Physical 🤒

Getting sick
Last week was a bit of the perfect storm:

• Weather started getting colder.
• Going to morning checkins became extra important (it was going to be my last checkins with F1).
• Numerous late night socials and a pressure to spend as much time with the F1s.

As a result, I got sick. But I just kept pushing through activities, because there would be time to rest when things calmed down. Ooops!

Still not feeling 100% 😢.

Walk in Central Park
Saturday I took the time to visit Central Park. It was a splendid day so I walked from one end to the other.

I love taking time to do these simple things. It feels like saying:

“Shut up brain. Today we’re having a no worries day!”

Doing things that aren’t “productive” but instead create time to reflect.

Should aim to have one of these a week.

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I’m surprisingly excited for the next half of the batch.

• I have a better understanding of what I want to work on. Those things will be more challenging.
• There will be new people to meet, but also a solid group of existing people.
• No longer being the new kids.
• Ownership of past traditions.

Before I felt spread thin. Halving the surface area that I’m spread over will be nice 🍞.

To second beginnings! 🍻

Thanks to @yuliaju for thoughts and encouragements on this blog post!