Comical Nonsense

In general I've faced some setbacks and frustrations for pretty much the latter end of the week. I sort of expected that for a couple of the days. It's just learning what I need to know to ask the right questions and how to learn in coding. It's a weird thing to that I need to learn how to learn. I have a BA, MPA, lived in another country...and I need to learn how to learn for coding. It's a bit remarkable. I can say the biggest setbacks for work has essentially been the following: finding time. It's not a lack of a desire to do the work. It's just finding time. I'm not spending 20 hours this week watching television. It's just basic day to day things for a family life. If I didn't have a toddler it would give more time. If I wasn't married I would have more time. If I didn't have dogs I would have more time. I'm not blaming my family at all for the lack of time, I mean I'm doing this for them, it's just learning to adapt ...

So our homework for the night consisted of getting an HTML file and a CSS file along with a screenshot of the webpage. We were told NOT to update the HTML file but do everything in CSS. Sure. I hit a problem because I couldn't get the images to connect to CSS so I "sort of" cheated so that I could actually do the assignment.   More on the problem I experiences in struggles/understood. Struggles: I hit a wall with the homework assignment last night. I hit it hard. I got super frustrated over one single line of code. For whatever reason I could not for the life of me figure out how to get a single line of code to turn bold. I mean one line I just couldn't get. There was no singular selector I could use that just made me mad. If I could only say "use this class and these two siblings I'll get it". I reached out to the group and explained and nothing. Someone looked at my code and they offered some advice but that wasn't helpful. But after expla...

Our homework assignment was to create three html pages connected via links with a set of text for each. Fortunately the group activity we did a couple hours before was nearly identical but slightly more advanced. I finished it in pretty quick fashion. That being said one of the sites that I had to build bugs me. Creating a table in HTML is super painful to build row by row, cell by cell. Its not hard but time consuming with a single monitor. I understood it all and did it in a timely fashion but hated every second of that. Makes me want to know how to get data in faster from another source. So I guess that's the saving grace right? Our lessons to review last night were about CSS. Again…really blessed to have taken the Web Development Basics course previously. I, and a few others, have a bit of a head start on these topics. The following were my takeaways: Struggles: Continuous instructions in declaration. In CSS you can do all the content in the same row in the declara...

Yesterday afternoon/early evening we finally received our first four assignments and assessments, mainly focusing on HTML. I know the assessments and the assignments were pretty long and would likely take some people a good chunk of time to complete. Fortunately I took the Web Development Basics class that covered HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. I say fortunately because everything in the night’s work I understood and could probably teach to someone pretty easily the use of tags, different types of tags, and nesting. There was fortunately some new items that I got to grasp that I had seen but didn’t understand so that’s helpful. Also I think it would be helpful to record what I struggled with, understood (simply), and what I’m looking forward to. So I’ll try to keep that structure going forward. Struggles: Git. We spent a good chunk of the day yesterday getting everything set up correctly and I really struggled with Git. Not the commands or even merging. Tha...

So far the most we have really done is review the weekend assignment that we did prior to the beginning of class. Oddly this has been helpful as I struggled a bit with using Terminal, Shell, and Git. At this point during the break I understand Git, even though GitHub Desktop is available, and can probably actively use Git within Terminal. Terminal I mostly understand and will likely struggle a bit through this as I start to learn the command codes. Shell...whatever. I know the basics to some degree so I know I'll get there at some point soon-ish. We'll see how long it takes to pick up the new stuff. And on that note...individual assignments are looming over the horizon.

So things I kinda understood that I would be working on: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, SQL, C#, etc. All pretty much coding. Things I did not expect to start working on: Shell and Terminal.  I don't know why but creating local repositories, staging, and committing through a terminal seemed pretty much...something that wasn't going to be part of class. I was wrong. I'm starting to learn things, like stashing and git lists, that I will most likely forget. It's something that I'm sure in time I'll start using more frequently but man it was something I wasn't expecting to have to pick up. In some regards it makes sense to simply just go into the terminal and do a pull. But in a lot of ways it just seems like I could just do this from GitHub Desktop. I mean why open terminal to create a folder and then a file? Maybe it's faster than right clicking and doing New File and then create a document.  I guess we'll see what sticks in my head an...

So we had our orientation yesterday and for the most part I didn't take a lot from it. There were introductions and an idea for a schedule but nothing that went "wow I'm ramped up". That being said the best thing I took from the session was having a taco with a current student that's nearing the end. Got some really good advice. In a nutshell he said I could do the program 40 hours a week and be okay but if I really want to take a lot from it and get a better job then go in with the plan to be the best student and take on all the extra work. So that's the plan. Be the best.

So as I prepare for class it's got me thinking of future ideas to blog about that may be of interest for others or just an opportunity to share some thoughts. I've come up with the following list that hopefully I'll expand upon down the road. For example resources, I have a few really good resources at the moment and I hope to share all of those I come across with a quick blerb about why they are useful. Here's my initial list: General project ideas Whiteboarding Contract v. Employment Web v. Development Sites I'd like to work on Resources Orientation is coming up so that'll be awesome.

So I started on pre-work for class. Technically it's not required since I attended the Web Development Basics course but hey, I've got the time. I've learned the following so far: Most people aren't productive until they are late middle aged It's best to fail - as long as you learn Build yourself a brand - ie this blog Limit yourself from  distractions  while going through The Iron Yard  There are a couple things I want to make note of here. Ultimately the goal of this blog is actually see if the advice is right about using a Blog is helpful to building a brand for myself professionally. If it works then great! If it fails then I'll have something to read when I'm old and browsing the internet. The other item is limiting myself to distractions. I hate this but it's true. I spend way to much time on Facebook, Twitter, Meetup, Instagram, Netflix, YouTube, video games, etc. By limiting myself to one or two of these items while going through the...

I chose the wrong major while I was in college. I blame my parents, but that's easy to do. My mother wanted me to become a chef as I love cooking/baking and my father wanted me go into business. Naturally I didn't do either of those. As a high school student I wanted to become a lawyer and then become a politician. I think it all stemmed from a desire to make changes in the world. Then in college as a political science student I learned about lobbyists, payouts, and the severe split in political groups (or at least the presence of the split by the media). So it turns out I didn't want to become a politician but kept with the degree.  After some stumbling blocks and changes in my life I went from: graduate school studying Student Development in Higher Education at the University of Maine, Administrative Assistant at the Department of Education, Youth Development Volunteer with the Peace Corps, STEM Coordinator for AmeriCorps, Customer Service Representative for ...