So, it has been a good five months since I last made a post on The Tidy Trekker. I can assure you that I am alive and kicking! Though I know I do not have any obligations or posting schedules, I would prefer not to go that long without posting anything at all. I know it’ll happen sometimes, but I love adding content here and interacting with others about it over on Twitter (you can follow me there if you haven’t already, it’s a good time! Lots of data, lots of memes, and lots of R stuff).
I just wanted to make a more low-key, short, and personal post to take a moment, stop, and say hello to any readers out there. How are you guys? How is the pandemic treating you on your end of the universe? Well, for me, it’s been an interesting challenge, and by “interesting” I mean kind of sucky.
I had a lot of challenges, setbacks, and downright painful things thrown at me this year. These things threw me off track for a bit. While I’m not ready to talk about everything, I can touch on a few things. My last Tidy Trekker post was in April. Around this time, I was finishing up my TarotreadR app for the Shiny contest this year. I actually just wrote up a post about that experience as it was the first Shiny app I ever made. You can read more about that here if you’d like.
During all of this, I was also hospitalized for a bit but then was able to go to Rochester (NY) for my birthday when I got out. When I got back, my efforts moved towards wrapping up some projects at work as I was preparing to leave the country in August for my wedding anniversary. While I was doing that, I finally landed a second job as a contracted Data Analyst (finally, some good stuff)!
I eventually got through work, and a whole bunch of other responsibilities, to finally receive my reward: an anniversary trip to Mexico. When I stepped foot onto the resort, I nearly wept. I was so grateful and privileged to be able to just escape everything for a bit given the year I’d been having.
But now vacation is over and I’m back in reality. Having the time away was really important for me to think about the next steps I’d like to consider for my career. Currently, I’m still in love with my position and have been learning so much and am so grateful for it. Moving forward, I’d like to focus more on a few things:
- Strengthening my knowledge of statistical methodology
- Working on improving the efficiency of my programming in general
- Getting familiar with Python and SQL
- Trying to complete a tiny ML project before the year is up
I plan to use The Tidy Trekker to document these endeavors, but given that I am starting a contracted position, I will have to play everything by ear of course.
How has your 2021 been so far? How’s life? Got any updates you want to share? Feel free to contact me directly! Respectful discourse is always welcomed!