My new two favourite things

When my fat PS3 gave up on me, a friend lent me their PS3 to tide me over as I didn't have a job so splurging on a PS3 was not an option really. 

Eventually I found employment and bought a new playstation. I also found Ben and Jerry's Caramel Sutra Core ice cream. y.e.s

Playstation

At the height of my unemployment, when applying for jobs and doing interesting free online courses with Harvard was the main content of my day, if the weather was nice enough I used to escape to the park to lay on the grass and watch the clouds listening to music, sketching or reading. This was my time, to get out and see other people, get fresh air, try and be positive. 

When the weather was not so accommodating, I found escape in my PlayStation and I look forward to getting a PS4. It is my winter coping mechanism for sure. That winter stews and mulled wine. I can't understand how people can not like games.

Selling shoes..

I have big feet. Size 8. I occasionally make the mistake of thinking some size 7's will fit me but really I need to come to terms with the fact that this will never happen. 

I bought some cute shoes online and then they didn't fit, and ended up having to sell them on. 

I am a size 8... I am a size 8... 

WDI Week 10

The final week of lessons is upon us and we are thinking about our final projects. It has been an intense 9 and a bit weeks so far, and although waking up and not going to GA feels like a completely foreign concept, we only have three more weeks of that schedule.

Last week Angular was the dream. I wish I had known about it earlier, yesterday we covered 'High Voltage' which was a great tool to reduce the length of the process required to get a new static page in a site. You could just add the page in and it facilitates the routing and you don't need to build a controller. Great gem! I think I'll be using it again in the future :) We also covered 'Prawn' in the afternoon, a gem to convert pages into PDF files, handy when allowing users to download information or print pages and responsive design with media queries in the morning, although technically it was my second time doing that as it was covered on the FEWD course.

Yesterday evening we had to lend some serious thought to our final projects, the initial planning of our projects was usually a process consisting of us coming up with awesome ideas that are really complex and impressive, then being reminded of the allocated time frame and having to reign in our ambition a little. This process was noticeably more serious as this was the first time we had to completely come up with an app of our own, apart from Hackathon, and compared to that a lot more was riding on this as our final projects are the biggest thing we can bring to the table for our Meet and Greet in January. You could almost see the gears turning as everyone bounced ideas off each other.

This course has made me realise that I am a very visual person when it comes to planning and talking about databases and user journeys is so much easier when I have sketched it out.

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with, and I am also looking forward to having seen a (relatively?) original project from the conceptual stage to it being on-line.

The Death of Derp

This summer, one of our family members was involved in a hit and run accident and passed away.

This is an homage to Derp. A 2003 Nissan Micra and my first car. Gone but not forgotten.

Originally a gift from my parents, Derp was my first taste of real freedom. The little silver bug was exactly what I had wanted at the time. Small and cute he saw many an adventure. 

He was broken into in 2006 in the car park at Basildon Hospital, but never gave up my stereo. 

He hated winters even more than me, he'd have days when he just couldn't face going anywhere. All he needed was a little love and attention, and some extra power to the battery, and he would be as enthusiastic as ever.

He knew his limits, and would alert me with a gentle shudder if I ever accidentally ventured over the speed limit on the motorway. 

He was rowdy, never wanting to let a mere bollard stop him from getting where he needed to go, and wore his battle scar with pride. You had been through a lot, that I didn't even know about, and had lost your airbags in the process. Even in death he answered the question about the constant airbag warning light.

His gear box was tricky at times but he never let me down at the traffic lights, allowing me to sail past even the rudest rudeboy with the cuteness and elegance only a Micra could achieve.

His sounds would rival most clubs, with bass abilities capable of vibrating your brain, and other cars till their alarms went off. His charm started street dancing and head banging alike.

I miss u little Derp. I can only hope to give my future kids a little car as awesome as you were.

Ergo 4000

I have just received my beast of a keyboard and it is taking a little getting used to...

I usually touch type but this is quite a challenge to get used to, although it does feel really nice to type on.

I didn't learn the official way to touch-type so this is proving to be quite difficult, I keep typing in the space between the keys. How am I going to get my speed back up..? I must persevere because RSI is no joke and I don't get paid enough as a secretary/typist for the pain to be ok, and I don't want to take time off to go see a doctor.

EDIT. This keyboard is GREAT! Took some getting used to but it really helped with my wrist pain. I used it in the raised position, and this definitely felt the most comfortable. After a week or so my typing speed recovered from the change and I got great use from the hot keys too.

Microsoft Ergo 4000 

Christmas silliness

This Christmas was the first one with my family in over 7 years. My parents still weren't here.. but there were more of us together than usual. There was a great spread and so much food I ate myself into a coma. I loved it this year and I am not usually a person who cares about Christmas at all! I actually spent time with my cousin's and their children, which is unusual for me because I really avoid children as much as possible as they stress me out. Boxing day was fancy dress and we all got dressed up ridiculously.

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.