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.

Things I have learnt so far from 24

A few months ago my sister and I decided for old times sake, and because wanted to give my heart a work out, to revisit 24 with the hopes of watching a season in a day. We never really managed to pull this off however a braver friend of mine and I tried it with season 5 last week, rather unsuccessfully as we also didn't manage to complete it, lately I get tired at 11 and wake up at 6 so I am not surprised I couldn't match my marathon skills of my university days in my current condition. Watching it was quite a lot of fun as it just never stopped with the suspense, major plot twists and stupid actions of Kim that ended up causing everyone a ton of trouble. I find that as I have been going through the seasons I have learnt some very useful lessons from the show.

**Edit: I recently finished watching all the seasons.  I started this post ages ago but was distracted and recently I was reminded of it because they were filming parts of Season 9 in London.**

Things I have learnt from 24

1. As President you probably need to be more worried about people in your own administration than the terrorists.
2. As a terrorist, you will get away with pretty much everything, albeit by the skin of your teeth, until the small hours of the morning of your big attack. Then things will probably get a little shitty. (This rule applies less the lower down the food chain you go.. I'm looking at you Henchman 1).
3. If you decide to switch sides and help Jack with his investigation you will die.
4. If someone starts acting out of character, one of their loved ones has been held hostage and you are about to be ambushed.
5. If someone holds one of your loved ones hostage and threatens you, unless you tell Jack Bauer immediately, you will die.
6. The President and Cabinet will not understand the scale of a nuclear attack on Los Angeles until a stick man graph is presented to them.
7. If you think someone looks shady on first impression then they probably are.
8. There is always a mole.
9. If you are caught, just talk because Jack Bauer tortures everyone, even the President got tortured by Jack Bauer.
10. No body believes Jack until he has already basically done everything to stop the attack himself .
11. Everything that you try and cover up will come back to bite you in the ass.
12. Terrorists never pay for anything properly, If you perform a service for them you will probably die.
13. You can never trust your family, they will screw you over or show up at the most inappropriate time to  bug you, freak out, mug you, become a hostage, try to kill you.
14. Dating Jack Bauer will almost certainly land you as a hostage at some point.
15. If Jack tells you to do something just do it. Or you will probably die.
16. If Jack tells you not to do something don't to it for the same reason as above.
17. If you go on a mission with Jack you are quite likely to die.
18. If you are caught and questioned come clean immediately. They will find out one way or another.
19. The entire Whitehouse staff is waiting to cry incompetence and fire the President.
20. Jack has to get fired every season for a while to get the dirty bits of his job done.
21. Never run away from the Chinese.
22. No matter how shitty your phone is you can still view live satellite imagery and use complicated tracking programs.
23. Jack can come back from the worst situations.. Torture, gunshot wounds, deadly viruses, death.
24. If there is trouble Kim will find it.
25. A CTU car boot has everything you need to launch a minor assault on any establishment.
26. If Jack needs you passed out for whatever reason 'don't fight it'.

Survivors Guide

I've been watching horror movies, some good, many 'meh' and some so bad they're funny and therefore good.. And even I find myself yelling at the TV in frustration. I'm sure that if I did a Google search I'd get a ton of hits for 'how to survive a horror movie' not even counting the rules spelled out in the first 'Scary Movie', but maybe writing my thoughts will save my television abuse.

Lift your feet up when you're running through a forest

If someone wants to show you something, get them to bring it to you, don't follow them to some weird secluded location.

If you are with your partner just have normal sex in a bed, don't sneak off into the forest or try a secluded cabin.

If something/someone seems a bit off trust your instinct.

If a girl seems a little crazy, no matter how hot she is, do not take her to your hotel room.

If you see a scary as f@#k spider mannequin monster with multiple heads, ditch the girl you just found and get the hell out of there.

If you hear a sound don't investigate it just run the other way.

If you have a gun on someone who you don't trust.. shoot them in the leg just in case, before they start talking and edging towards you.

Never build on ancient Indian burial grounds.

Never split up.

Never enter a room filled with what seem like faceless nurse statues armed with surgical instruments. No matter how sexy in a sick way they are.

If you are left on an island and told to fight your classmates to the death they will never be your friends.. don't even try.. in fact start collecting weapons.

Omgwtf

So.. the people who made Dante's Inferno are delightfully sick. Lol thats what I took away from this game. Even though the gluttony level is so close to the puke line for me, with its enormous jiggling fat puke / poo demons, the sanctity of the nipple was destroyed with Cleopatra (pictured above) and her 'demon-baby-monster-making-mouth-nippIes'.

Bathtime

Bathtime unwinding.. I needed a creme bath for my skin..

Matte French manicure

Listening to; @4:33

I finally managed to do a French manicure on myself, in PINK. This may not be much of a feat to most people but I have huge man-hands and this is my left hand! and I am left handed! I am giving myself a pat on the back. :P

I went for a matte finish too, a little different and the end result was quite cute.

Brick lane vintage market

I visited some of the vintage stores on Brick Lane on Sunday. There were lots of colourful chunky sweaters and some great deals. If I weren't unemployed I would totally have bought something.. haha.

But... The food. OH yes, we all know how I love food and there was some great Moroccan curry, and tasty Chinese stir-fry at the food market. It was full of people too, all sampling the tasty treats..

Talk about vibrant, argh.. I want to eat it now, thank god I can't smell it or I think I would drown in a pool of my own saliva.

Some selca 1

Took some pics looking a little raggedy. See, I can integrate colour into my outfits!! 

There's blue red and camo there! I really love the military jacket I got, its huge so you can really layer up underneath.

my favourite moustache ring, from COEX in Seoul.

Mwah!

Peace

Listening to; drum&bass + vocals + piano = 

Korean BBQ

I finally got a fix of the Korean BBQ I was hankering for. I found a place near holborn, and I forget the name, but you can find it on the right if you walk from Holborn to Tottenham Court road.

It was authentic, with an ajumma and everything. Great meat and KIMCHI! While I was over there I didn't ever think twice about leaving all the kimchi I was given behind, because you get it with everything.. eeeeeeverything and sometimes you just don't want to eat kimchi.. but at about £5 a serving I ate all my kimchi this time. They weren't joking about getting charged for allllll the side dishes here.

My food coma face. yeah.

I am really trying to get out of wearing black all the time but I do have relapses!

Chilling with habeebee

During my days at home, I often chill with my royals. They are really curious about everything, constantly poking at everything and looking for little hidey-holes.

I have a breeding pair, and this is the male 'Habeebee' (which if you have ever heard Arabic music you have probably heard a lot. it means 'darling' in Arabic). He is about 10 years old now, little guy has just reached the other side of the hill, like his owner, so we have even more of a connection now.

Look at that cute little face!!

They make the cutest couple, always curled up together, and you can see that they sometimes have arguments, and he gets relegated to the other side of the tank (she is bigger than him), but they always get back together. It will be mating season very soon so they will probably be steaming up the tank window in the evenings. They just don't care.. they just don't care.. they just don't caaaaare... with their PDA.

I am listening to;

love the 'death-by-beach-ball' artwork.