Reflections on 2020

This year’s successes #

• I joined R4DS Slack Community and it’s been an amazing community to be part of - making many new friends, having fun learning new things to become a better R programmer, and helping others also get better by answering their questions.
• I’ve made many new friends through the TDM Dynasty server and through the offshoot Mafia server that came off of it.
• Getting out as a rowing coach this summer was awesome, no matter how much I disliked the admin-bits of it, because I got to see and hang out with my friends as if it was a normal year.
• Continuing to hang out and work on projects through DynastyProcess with Joe has been awesome - his friendship and support has been incredible throughout the year.

• Work has been fantastic as a source of stability and routine. I wrapped up the second version of the core project in November/December and have appreciated the time to learn and work through some forecasting and predictive analytics for the upcoming year - really looking forward to continuing my growth as a data scientist/analyst/developer there.
• DynastyProcess has quadrupled in size this year, going from an average of 10,000 unique monthly users to over 40,000 (as of October/November)!
• I can definitely credit the mobile-first calculator for a bulk of that popularity gain - it’s definitely much easier to use than before.

• I made the ffscrapr R package a reality this year, managing to get it to support three different fantasy football platforms AND putting it onto CRAN!
• I carved a pumpkin every week in October, and loved the meditative process that went with it.
• I completed every single Advent of Code puzzle on the day it came out, and learned a ton about efficient R programming.
• I made a bunch of cool new apps for DynastyProcess and taught myself the beginnings of ML.
• I rebuilt my computer with some upgraded parts, and have been enjoying the improvements in computing power!

Disappointments #

I’m disappointed about my weight gain over the pandemic, and the frequency at which I slumped into a depression and burnout. I can’t wait for 2021, vaccines, and a gradual return to normalcy.