8:31 - Stratford - 25th Nov

The entire carriage breathes in so the train doors can close. Breathing synchronicity.

WDI - Week 8

It's Monday and I am on my way in to GA for the 8th week of WDI. The intensity of last week's project has subsided a little and I am looking forward to what they're going to throw at us this week.

Over the weekend we had no homework and it was great to get some real gaming time in, I finally assembled the full team in Mass Effect 2 and had to force myself to go to bed without doing Legions loyalty mission.

As the course has gone on the financial strain has been a factor, three months of no work would be hard anyway with all life's commitments carrying on as usual, it's compounded by the fact that I have to be out and about, as while I was unemployed staying at home was the best way to avoid spending money.

Sunday I went to London's biggest tech job fair, Silicon Milk Roundabout, that is held bi-annually. We were told about it a few weeks ago and everyone who applied got rejected because they were out of tickets. I wasn't able to make it to London Ruby Users Group (LRUG) a week or so ago, and not being one to be have ever been deterred from an event by a simple lack of tickets, I was determined to go.

After a morning of Mass Effect I drove into town and, after derping around a bit looking for parking, found a spot at 2:10 that was free after 2:30. Hoping that the shitty weather would keep the traffic wardens routes short I left it to fate and headed over there telling myself if I got a job from this, the £65 extortion from Hackney Council would have been entirely worth it!

After derping around on foot this time (I like to see it as taking the scenic route) I managed to find it and blag my way in the back door, which was no easy feat. After checking in with the GA team I was faced with a room of potential employers, I had my FEWD background as well as most the WDI course so far under my belt,  my masters degree was at home sobbing in a corner but it was time to take some steps towards a new job that I would wake up and want to do. Thinking that, I steeled myself, and jumped in there. The booths had signs saying what they were looking for, or which programming languages they wanted you to know, which was helpful in ascertaining who I needed to speak to so I made the rounds jumping on everyone who had 'Web Development' or any of the many languages that I had learnt so far. Although it was intimidating at first everyone was welcoming which made the 'selling yourself' aspect of it much easier.

When I started at GA I couldn't get rid of the little sceptic on my shoulder, always telling me that I'd never find a job after such a short time of programming and reminding me how hard it was to find a job when I first got back. Sunday, although not a guarantee of any job at all, was a really positive experience, because everyone was so enthusiastic about what they did and I was able to answer their questions.

Since I started this tech journey I had hoped that I would be able to somehow amalgamate my love for games into my job, and having not done that kind of programming it always seemed like something highly unlikely, but there were a few games companies there which was encouraging!

Just arrived at GA to hear that someone had their Amazon Web Services Key stolen from their git hub account, and they ran up a $14,000 bill! Those ENV variables are so important @.@

Looking forward to Angular.js today!!!

Starting WDI - Week 1

I've decided to hi-jack my personal blog for the next three months to document my time on the Intensive Web Development (WDI) course at General Assembly (GA) - I started this after finishing the Front End Web Development (FEWD) course earlier in the summer with a real enthusiasm for coding.

At some point over the last year while working as a Temporary Medical PA, I was half way through a conversation about bleeding varicose veins with a patient, when I was struck with the realisation that I would never buy a house, or (even more upsetting) a Mustang, unless I found a new profession. While it was a great job with flexible decent hours and alright pay, I needed to wake up in the morning with enthusiasm for what I did, and a career to be building. So I got the bank to give me the money for a shiny new macbook and began this (kinda)new path into the world of Technology and the Web.

Before class even started I received an email with details of an 'installfest' and pre-course work to be done. Installfest was for us to get our computers all on the same programming software set up and same software versions. I wondered if installfest was a cover for some kind of hipster initiation but it was exactly what they said it was. I had taken the Monday off (as I had done since FEWD to work on personal projects) I remember watching the little bars fill up and thinking about my last week of work in Colchester ahead, the whole situation was terrifying and exciting at the same time. They reminded me that we had to do all the pre-work and I avoided eye contact at this point because I still hadn't finished the final section of Ruby, "What!?.. I'm working full time with a 2 hour commute of over 50 miles! I'm tired!" I was thinking... Of course there were weekends.. "still tired.." yes.. That's right, people my age need sleep. I consoled myself and resolved to finish it before we started the next Monday. 

Of course the last week just flew by and I was seen off in Colchester with copious amounts of alcohol and subsequent hangover (bye bye Friday and most of Saturday day), then as it was my last weekend of freedom I had to get over to my mates place for some "Destiny" on his PS4 (bye bye Saturday evening and most of Sunday day), and I had a date back in Colchester that I couldn't turn down on Sunday (YOLO!)..next think I knew it was Monday morning and I was packing up my macbook and joining the morning commute.

Taking this two feet first with a 'failure is not an option' attitude the first two days were pretty awesome. TFL screwed me in various ways on the first few days because I had forgotten you have to add an extra 30 minutes to a reasonable journey time into the city in the morning to not be late. 

Following class wasn't too hard, and although the homework, being based on relatively novel to me was a welcome challenge. 

On day three shit got real.

We started on Ruby on day two I think and the extent I had covered in the pre-work quickly got passed and by day 4 we were starting 'object oriented programming' (OOP). I didn't really think the first week would be an 'easing in' to the course but shit really did get real, real fast. I'm not sure any more combinations of the words shit and real would even do the way I felt justice.

Our instructor J told us that if we got OOP on the first day we could have his job, I thought he was just trying to encourage us because I suspect he was faced with a class of blank faces trying, and failing, to convey an understanding of the material like mine. Thursdays class left me feeling..  Maaayybbeee I get it. Not 100% but in essence, 5 minutes into thinking about the homework I realised that my optimism must have been due to a post lunch sugar high because looking at it then I really had no idea how to express the methods I wanted to run. Thursday night I went home feeling defeated and utterly depressed. Wondering, if this is just day 4, what would day 5, week 5, month 3 be like..? I got on the train home after having sent in an unfinished program that was broken. 

Friday we were told that we weren't expected to have understood 100% of what we had done, which was a relief. That evening we went out for some welcome R&R and I had my graduation from FEWD. All I can say is that the first week was hard and they were dead serious when calling it the 'intensive' course.