"How it felt to be accepted to GSoC 2018"

The moment I found out I was accepted into the Google Summer of Code 2018 program on Monday, April 23rd was unexpected. Not becuase I thought I was undeserving, but rather because my mind had played a trick on me, and I thought the 23rd was going to be a Tuesday. So, color me surprised when I glanced down at my phone on Monday morning and saw a Gmail notification with "GSoC" and "your proposal" in the subject line.

Ever the pragmatic (read, "anxious") pessimist, my first thought was, "Well, better get ready to see that they rejected my proposal." But, lo and behold, the full title was, "GSoC 2018: Congratulations, your proposal with NumFOCUS has been accepted!". The waterfall of emotion that crashed down on me was awesome. I hadn't known that I was actually dreaming for that moment, but there I was, feeling as though a dream of mine had come true; I was going to be able to spend a summer immersed in the Julia language community and working on speech recognition with deep learning, an emerging passion of mine.

In a word, I was giddy. I may or may not have (but definitely did) let out a few inaudible squeals. And maybe one semi-audible squeal. (Luckily, I was alone in my office at that time). My mind was racing with thoughts of who I needed to inform of this wonderful news, and how exactly I should share it with my extended social network on Instagram and Facebook. And, as if cosmic forces recognized that I was riding a wave of emotion and wanted it to continue, more emails, forum posts, and Slack messages of the informational and congratulatory sort poured in from NumFOCUS and the Julia community. I was a happy Matt. :)

Overall, I have to say, it was one of the warmest welcomes I've had for a program I've been a part of. But, more importantly, at the end of it all, one thought resounded in my mind: I can do this. Now, on with the work!