2023, year in review

Disclaimer

I didn't review my article by someone else and I'm not a native English speaker, if there are mistakes, feel free to contact me and I will edit the article.

TL;DR

This year was incredible, I success to do things I can’t imagine do. I am very thankful for all the support I had this year, all the new amazing friends I have, all the opportunities I had.

My highlights for the year have been:

• Helps organizing the DjangoCon Europe
• All about Djangonaut Space program
• Do my first talk
• Change job
• Make friends all over the world
• Be elected for the DSF Board

Learning and improvements

I've learned a lot this year, by trying things, especially things I was really afraid of, and making mistakes of course. I think this year was a year of change for me.

I tried to be more close to what I really want. I changed job to a job where I do the technology I like the most with an impact on climate change.

I also learned by chatting with friends. I'm still not completely proud of my English level despite many people would say it's really fine but I guess it’s just a matter of being comfortable to say the correct words for the meaning I want.

I also met many people, I’m thankful they are all kind and lovely, thanks to the amazing Django community 💚 I’m very proud of the team of Djangonaut Space, we achieve something really nice and we have built a great relationship together. I realized by that I’m really good at connecting people to each other.

I hope to be able to continue to grow, improve and welcome people to the Django community and met other friends from all over the world.

Conferences

I've organized the DjangoCon Europe this year, it was a great experience for me. I wrote on this, and I’m really excited to the next edition in Vigo! I think this time I will only attend to be able to see more my friends and exchange with people, especially as I’m part of the DSF board, get feedback and build the future.

I've also attended to DjangoCon US, it was very nice but I didn’t attend so long due to timezone. I hope to be able to attend in 2024, I might have a chance to come 🤞🏽

Djangonaut Space

If someone would have told me that I would co-create this project and we will get the Malcolm Tredinnick Award for that I wouldn't trust this person hahaha.

I'm really happy for we have achieved and the team we create. Now, I consider all of them as my friends and the thing which is amazing is when we saw each other in real life, it's like we know us like we are friends since years but this is the first time we are seeing each other not in front of the computer.

We are really trying our best to make Djangonaut Space a good project. I hope this project will help a lot of Djangonauts to contribute and skyrocket their contributions 🚀

The funny thing is sometimes I think I should follow our program for myself hahaha. I really would like to improve my skills in 2024.

Professional career

Talking about improving my skills, I changed job to challenge myself and not staying in my comfort zone. This is clearly not easy and I have the impostor syndrome that's hard to get rid of, but I keep going and trying to improve and be not too hard with myself.

Despite that, I’m happy I have changed job, I have discovered a lot and still learning. I have also learned about myself with those experiences, for example, I think I’m good at help push something forward.

I’m also really thankful of all the open source work and opportunities I have been given. I know that this has an impact in the community but also in my career. There is the feeling like some people have, not doing enough - yeah I know, this can be weird as someone who already doing a lot of things - and want to do more but I’m trying to keep a good balance with volunteering and rest. If you have the same feeling, don't forget that, time for yourself is important too.

Talk and volunteering

I guess this is my best year for volunteering. I've volunteered for 2 DjangoCons, I help on Djangonaut Space organization, contribute and maintain Django code and accessibility, and organize Django Paris meetup. I wouldn't have imagined doing all this at the start of the year, but I think I have a strong appetite for doing things when nobody else wants to do them - am I weird?

Anyway, I’m really proud to have contribute to all of this work, the result is great and I’ve learned a lot with these experiences. I made new friends and enjoyed seeing old friends. I'll do my best to keep working on all these issues.

Moreover, I have given a talk for PyLadiesCon about how to create a mentorship program. If you know me, you already know that I’m really not confident talking in public, even less if it’s in English. A wise friend told me you have to practice to be more comfortable - Thank you Tim Schilling. So I’m trying even if I still find that scary hahaha. If you are thinking to do that one day, just try. Maybe you will discover you are an amazing speaker 😄

As I was saying before, I've tried many things this year, including run for the DSF board. This is something I really didn't planned to do to be honest. Many friends have helped me to consider it and why I should do it. Thank you if you helped me in my decision and/or if you have voted for this election. There were amazing candidates and I'm very honored to be one of the DSF's representative on the board of directors. I'm still figuring out how it works and how to help correctly. I'm thinking of doing blog posts on this at some point to share with you.

Friends and support

I have met so many people this year, I'm really thankful to had the opportunities to see some of them in real life during conferences or meetups. The thing I like the most in tech community is the friends that you have virtually are real friendships. I have the chance to have friends all over the world with my experiences. I had support from some of them, I also gave support to others. Have fun virtually or in real life in some place. This is really nice and I love the community for that. Thank you if you have contribute to my success or support me in my failure, I hope to have learned all the lesson to do better in 2024.

Reminder to myself

2023 I tried things I didn’t think I would have done. I have many goals in mind and big to-do list for 2024 but I'm confident, I'm sure I will not able to do everything but it's listed somewhere to make progress in it. I think this new year will be a good one and I hope the best for you if you are still reading this.

Piece of advice to tell for this new year:

• Keep being organized
• Keep trying, making mistakes is not that bad
• Practice is important to be good at something
• Something that you might think it’s stupid might be helpful for someone else
• Don’t be afraid to ask
• Keep your goals in mind and the rest too