Now - March 2021

Coming up on a full year of quarantine this month. Taking the time to consider and reflect on what I really value in my work and my career as some forks in the road appear in front of me.

Excited about my new Twitch stream - blocking out time every week for public coding is something I’ve wanted for a while now, and after my annual re-read of Austin Kleon’s “Steal” trilogy, I finally bit the bullet and started the setup this past weekend. The first stream went shockingly well, and while I won’t get my hopes up about audience count (nor am I that motivated by it), I had a lot of fun and am resisting the urge to do it more frequently. I think I’ll try the “every Saturday at 8pm” schedule for at least a month, and if I find I can dedicate even more time I might try to add another evening that makes sense in my schedule longer term.

Feeling global more than local: I’ve been a little isolated from my local friend group with the Ontario lockdown and with moving further away from the downtown. In exchange, I’ve poured more energy into online communities and friend groups, and while I value greatly the new friends and the feeling of being connected globally, I miss basking in the easy camaraderie of being at the pub with the gang.

Along with the Twitch stream, I’m challenging myself to be more visible in the sports R community - thinking about chipping in some work on various projects such as the cfbscrapr package - and in the fantasy football community. I was interviewed recently for a newer publication, and I’m participating in an AMA with my favourite Discord community a bit later this month. Between being a little more visible there and on Twitch, I’m hoping to drive myself to do more and not let languish into an inactivity cycle.

Projects that seem to blip a little brighter for me this month include:

• finishing ESPN for ffscrapr with the help of Tony ElHabr
• tackling first a fantasypros package with my Twitch stream and then a Shiny rankings app that I’ve wanted for quite some time
• getting into a consistent routine and adding a few pieces to it at a time. One of these days I’ll figure out the knack of balancing efforts in my career, my social life, my physical self-care, and my hobbies.