Notes from the road.

1. Entry №01

   Reflection

   Why I'm writing this down

   This isn't a portfolio. It's a record. I want a place that holds the truth of what becoming a data analyst actually looked like — so when I forget, I can come back and remember.

   If anyone walking a similar road stumbles onto it, even better.

2. Entry №02

   Origin

   The conversation that changed the direction

   January 9, 2026. A conversation with my brother-in-law. He listened to me talk about market analysis in crypto and said, almost in passing, that I was already doing the thing data analysts do — problem-solving, pattern recognition, asking what the numbers actually mean.

   I sat with it for a while. Then I opened a browser and looked up SQL.

3. Entry №03

   Craft

   Falling for SQL

   I expected SQL to feel like a tool. Instead it felt like a language for expressing questions. You think clearly, you get clear answers back. You think sloppily, the database is honest with you.

   I think that's what I love about it. It rewards precision.

4. Entry №04

   Struggle

   Power outages, fuel, and stubbornness

   Some weeks the lesson isn't a SQL window function. The lesson is figuring out how to keep learning when the power has been out for hours and the cost of fuel is on your mind.

   I'm not romanticizing it. It's hard. But I keep showing up, and somehow that has become its own skill.

5. Entry №05

   Craft

   Power BI starts to click

   There was a stretch where DAX felt like another language I had no business trying to speak. Then one evening a measure I'd been struggling with simply worked, and the report told me something I hadn't seen before.

   I sat back and realized: this is the job. This small moment, repeated.

6. Entry №06

   Milestone

   April 2026 — the internship

   I secured a data analytics internship. The first day, I was nervous in a way I hadn't been since university. By the end of the week I'd done real work on real data.

   It hasn't fixed the doubt — I don't think anything fully does — but it has given the doubt less room to operate.

7. Entry №07

   Struggle

   4 a.m. and the question of whether it's worth it

   There are nights I stay up practicing until 4 a.m. and ask myself, plainly, whether any of this will pay off. I don't always have a clean answer.

   What I have is the belief that I can become a successful data analyst, and the memory of where I started. Most nights, that's enough.

More entries will appear here as the journey continues.