I quit my job in June 2021. I've been keeping weekly updates here [1]. Long story short it's been great so far. I went to Brazil and met my partner's (now fianc

I quit my job in June 2021. I've been keeping weekly updates here [1]. Long story short it's been great so far. I went to Brazil and met my partner's (now fiancée) family. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes. [+++] I made decent progress on projects that I have been kicking around for YEARS, including Bookwork Club [2] and my grandpa's autobiography [3]. I have read 14 books, including Thinking In Bets which led me to get much more systematic about thinking probabilistically. I am almost done with a Python class which will enable me to finally earn an Associate's in CS that I started literally 10 years ago. I had time to go into rabbitholes to build tools that allow me to get more systematic with my investing/trading/speculating. I got to make some new connections and work in a completely new space when I did a 1-month contract working on Corrily's docs. Right now I'm planning out our mid-January wedding. Yes it's kind of close but on the other hand it's not like I'm trying to juggle this wedding planning with a job. In Feb/March I'll probably go back on the market and hopefully won't struggle too much to land a new decent job! This comment has just been a stream-of-conscious reflection on "things" I did but I also want to emphasize that it has been rejuvenating and healing to not deal with the low-level constant stress of deadlines, interpersonal conflicts, strategy ambiguity, etc. that is pretty natural in the software industry. You can read my sabbatical manifesto at [4]. In that post I really tried to document all my thinking about why I was taking this risk. [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical [+++] In case you don't get the reference and think I'm a crazy person, this is a quote from Blade Runner. As I wrote this comment I was reminded of Roy and couldn't resist throwing that in. Just having some fun... sabbatical will do that to you! ;) [2] https://bookworm.club https://bookworm.club [3] https://tony.basqu.es https://tony.basqu.es [4] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue