I am slowly getting to a month since I started my outreachy internship and to say it has been a roller coaster will be saying the least.

I started this program with a lot of unknowns and even more unknowns that I did not know I did not know. I learnt about markdown prior to this experience, I always wondered how it was done. How articles had those extra things that made them easy to read and comprehend.

One of the many days where I had reached a roadblock, I reached out to my mentor about it and sent him a block of my code. He then mentioned markdown and said I should use it to write my questions.

I started looking at articles about it and use cases. In that process, I learnt about different ways of writing. This led me to join a project in my company that involved converting our docs from markdown to asciidoc. This experience has been so exciting.

Being optimistic and ready to learn helped me. At some point I felt very overwhelmed by everything I had to learn. In meetings, I would hold my breathe while listening to others talk wondering if I actually deserve to be in the position I am.

Every morning when I pick up my laptop to work, I take deep breaths and tell myself, ‘even if I fail, I’ll fall forward’. When faced with herculean tasks, I tell myself, ‘I can do hard things’.

I am still learning how to ask questions, however I will tell anyone asking questions, be clear about what exactly you need help in. What you were doing, what you wanted the outcome to be and what the outcome was. Everyone is extra friendly and helpful in Open Source and even if they can nit help you, they will guide you to find solutions.

I do not think anyone has it all the way together in tech. I think everyone wakes up and decides to try again.

Remember, you can do hard things.