Thoughts after attending my first PyCon
A few months ago, I was waiting outside of the Free State Brewery to meet my friend Adam for lunch. It was going to be one of the last times I got to eat there before my move to the East Coast. While burrowing into my phone while I waited, I heard a “Hey Julia” and looked up to see Jacob, Frank and Jeff. We caught up for a bit and then the subject of attending PyCon came up.
“Why would I go?”, I said, “I mostly do front-endy kind of stuff.”
“Are you kidding?”, said Jacob, “There is going to be tons of good talk and things for you. You need to go. Seriously.”
I am so glad I listened to him.
I checked out the conference schedule and immediately saw quite a few talks I was super interested in going to! Idan Gazit’s two talks were especially enlightening and motivating for me.
A lot of my old co-workers from Mediaphormedia were there and we got to have a mini reunion in the conference hotel lobby. It was so great to see everyone, catch up on the awesome projects everyone is working on and what exciting ones are in store for the future.
I was also completely amazed to see the female attendance in the crowd. It was very cool and am proud to be part of a community who is in such support of women in tech.
Then, I surprised myself. I decided at the last minute to sign up for a lightning talk. I’m not a huge fan of public speaking, but had something I felt I wanted to share with the rest of the community. Something that might be helpful to someone in the crowd. Little did I know, that my little lightning talk was being recorded and streamed live through internet. My entire family was able to watch and cheer me on! How amazing is that? Greatly amazing. Very great indeed.
So now, sitting in the airport, I find myself thinking about all of these things and where to go from here. I only have one answer to give you.
Let’s make some cool shit.