Though week one was a blur, I'll count it as a success. I'm still ingesting a massive amount of new context, being dropped into a pool of very smart people who are all working and exploring interesting technology has been overwhelming. My two biggest wins from last week were:
- Actually getting started with leetcode problems. I've been able to iterate quickly on solving the problems, even if actually solving problems has been slow. I've solved two medium level leetcode problems and come agonizing close to two others in so many days.
- Getting this website up to date and adding Atom feeds and joining the RC blog aggregator.
Intentions I want to set and notes for the week include:
- Being public with notetaking, being okay just sharing, but not letting note taking become the final output. https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/notes-against-note-taking-systems
- Read The I in Internet by Jia Tolentino. Is this blog performance? Is attending the Recurse Center performative? https://docdrop.org/ocr/download/Tolentino-I-in-the-Internet-0ai0d_ocr.pdf
- Feeling a bit of imposter syndrome doing medium level leetcode problems. Some of the technical explanations harken back to my days in formal CS classes and while I have good intuitions on how to solve the problems, those intuitions have not been translating into full solutions. I think timeboxing, starting them, and getting close to solving them is good enough for now. Feeling connected to the version of my self that struggled in classes.
- The folks that have most impressed me are the ones who have a systemic way of sharing their output and experience around shipping small projects. Had a nice coffee walk with a fellow Recurser and they were discussing two sides of one coin of experiences at RC:
- being too social and not doing enough programming
- programming too much and not being social
- Both are valid ways to experience RC but my main takeaway is the programming should at RC should be "just for me" and rooted in joy and learning. Letting go of completing things is a necessary step in enjoying time at RC.