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!!!