The Datacamp Blues

 

i felt my eyes start to water with relief.

chapter 2 had taken me almost 3 weeks to finish. i had parceled it out in sporadic study breaks that only lasted for 15 minutes. i’d lose focus, get frustrated, and swim back to scrolling. i’d cut the music and stream a random youtube video.

my mind was on overload. it was screaming under the weight of too much information. and the inconsistency bothered me most of all.

i wanted to be a glossy example, like those seamless vloggers who depict their 5pm-9pm post-work hustles. but i wasn’t seamless. my handwriting was too messy, my notes weren’t color-coded, and all the highlighters i bought had dried up.

i haven’t had a functioning PC with Microsoft Office in almost 4 years. i was still fumbling my way through all the software, still rummaging through the dregs of my muscle memory, trying to remember how to navigate Excel. i’d click through a sequence and then in the next exercise, i’d forget how i got there entirely. all the confusion and self-doubt slowed me down.

re-watching the instructional videos over and over slowed me down too. i’d pause them every 30 seconds and take notes. i’d rewind them and take screenshots for my private Trello board. 5 minutes eventually grew into 20 minutes. i’d get to the quiz section of the module and my brain would feel wrung out, like it had been vacuum packed and sealed up tight. no oxygen could revive it, no matter how many calming box breaths i took.

i’d step away from my laptop for the day and promise to come back to the questions the next day. but because the content was so sprawling, it was very hard for me to retain the information and so when the next day came, i’d find myself spending more and more time reviewing the information before i felt comfortable tackling the quiz. and then i’d land back in the same place: with my brain in overload mode.

on days when learning data analytics felt like a hefty burden, i’d remember that i could still control the size of my bites. when 20 minutes felt too overwhelming, i’d scale back and only study for 15. if that felt too much, i’d do 10 minutes of work. on some days, i’d only work for 5 minutes.

chapter 2 took me more hours than i can count. but when i finally finished the last module, i flopped on my bed with a huge sigh. i spread my arms and legs wide like a starfish and just watched my breathing. my laptop still sat open with the “GOOD JOB! You have finished Chapter 2” banner emblazoned across it. the peaceful piano music I studied with still trickled out of my speakers.

one step is still movement on the staircase, i reminded myself. today, one step is enough.

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