Onward

Heh, so obviously I failed at posting everyday... I'm almost done with Coding Dojo. (Our cohort is going a bit long.) It's been a great experience. I've learned soooo much. I keep feeling like I haven't learned much until I start talking about each language and program I've done with people and I realize that it all would have been gibberish to me a few months ago so that's a cool feeling. The other thing I've realized is that coding isn't what I want to do with the rest of my life... yet. These few months I've been trying to figure out the plan. Do I go to Seattle? San Francisco? Do I want to work for a startup? an established company? Do I want a job where I go into the office so that I have structure or do I want a remote job so I can work anytime, anywhere? The answer I've come up with. I don't know. Maybe none of the above?! I'm not ready to pick a place I've only spent a few days in and settle there. I haven't experienced enough to pick a job to do for the rest of my life. And as much as I love the comfort of my laptop, staying in my comfort zone is boring. I want to meet people, see places, experience things. At least until I come across something that makes me want to stay. There are so few moments in my life where I loop back and feel that I was exactly where I should have been. Doing something that how ever many years later, feels worthwhile. So, right now I am looking at different volunteer opportunities abroad. Specifically volunteer opportunities that don't cost thousands of dollars as I'm basically broke. I don't have the money so I'll need something where I work my way. I feel like that will be more rewarding anyway.

That's my news. Sorry it's been so long since I posted!

Coding Dojo: Day 2

So apparently I saved it as a draft instead of posting it, but here is my post from yesterday.

Well, it's day two! The meeting yesterday went well. It was pretty basic orientation stuff. It seems that all the meetings are going to be via Skype with no video other than to see what's happening on out instructors screen. Not sure how I feel about that. I mean I get that it's good cause students don't have to buy webcams if their computer doesn't have it built in, but I was kind of planning on these meetings making up for my lost interactions. I don't know. Most of the time I am happy to be by myself, and I love my room. But I'm starting to feel like Rapunzel trapped in her tower. I need human interaction, and my mom isn't cutting it. Ah well, I'll figure something out. Onto my next concern...

We have group meetings twice a week, and one-on-one meetings twice a week. These one-on-one meetings only last half an hour. That means I'm only getting an hour a week working with my instructor on the things that I need to work on. Their program is well written, and I tend to be very self sufficient so I may not need more than that. Still, I am trying to use this to launch a career so I find the lack of face time with my instructor even though it's an online program to be concerning to say the least.

But like I said, their program is very well set up. I got through all of the current reading on CSS, so now I've moved onto the assignments. They involve writing out the source html and CSS code of images of websites. The html takes me 5-10 minutes. I've worked with html a long time and it's pretty straight forward so that part is easy. The CSS takes a lot longer. I have worked with CSS quite a bit in the past, but it wasn't taught well, and I would often end up with a really convoluted code to get the output I wanted. Trying to write things properly and still get them where I want them is proving to be more challenging. Anyway, I should get back to work.

Coding Dojo: Day 1

The day is finally here. The day my session officially starts. I finished all the beginning HTML work and am now on to CSS. I probably should have been able to get through all the CSS reading rather quickly, but reading all about CSS is excruciatingly tedious. (At least to me.) Especially considering the fact that I've already read all of this information in various forms when I have had to for other programs. The reading is quite simple, but I'm having trouble making myself focus on it. My mind keeps skipping over large amounts of it, and then I have to go back, and reread. I am determined however to read it the way they explain it so that I know I fully grasp the concepts the way they want me to. I am excited for when I get through the reading though. Then, after the quiz, I can get to the assignment. Despite my aversion to reading about it, I love writing CSS. So that is helping to motivate me to get through the reading.

I have a skype meeting in an hour for my orientation. I'm excited for that, and for getting to talk to my instructor. For now though, I think I'm going to take a lunch break. My parents brought me Olive Garden for my first day :)

One more day...

Well, my session at Coding Dojo starts tomorrow! Saying that I am super excited is an understatement. I have been working towards this ever since I left WSU a year ago. I've had a few setbacks along the way, but now I am here. It's going to be an amazing experience and jump start my career. I will admit though... A tiny bit of me is kind of dreading it. They say that their most successful students put in 90-95 hours a week. I intend to be one of those students. But that means if I take a day off a week, which they recommend, I will have to put in 15-16 hour days. Gross I know, but I'll be doing something I care about so I think I'll enjoy it. The problem lies in the fact that I won't have time to do anything else I enjoy; hang out with my friends, ski, play Magic, etc. That will be hard for me, but I know it will be worth it, and doing this program will open a lot of doors for me that are currently bolted shut. Anyway, I should go. I'm trying to get Netflix out of my system by getting one last good marathon in before tomorrow!!

5 days

Hello again,

As you may have noticed, I gave up on posting everyday. At least until my session actually starts. There just wasn't that much to say. I've been working on getting fully settled from the move, writing and rewriting algorithms, and watching CS lectures. On the bright side, my session starts in 5 days!! I'm excited. I've started to get in contact with other students in my cohort, and I just access to all the material so now I'm going to get back to work.

Waiting

Well it's been five days since I sent my email, and I have yet to get a response on my questions. It's now only 12 days until the sessions starts which means I've already lost nearly a third of the time that I had to spend on memorizing the algorithms. Therefore I am going to stop waiting. There are a few that I'm not 100% on, but most of them, I know my way is the most efficient way to go about it without using tools that we were specified not to use.

The good thing, is that I just redid all of the algorithms, and I'm already much faster than I was the first few times around to complete them. I love that my brain keeps working on problems even when I'm not focused on them. So I don't think this will be too much of a setback in that regard.

I have to admit, I'm at a loss when it comes to the projects. I do take solace in the fact that I have as much information as everyone else in my cohort so I shouldn't be behind, and if I am, I trust in my ability to catch up once the session starts. I will say that I am very much looking forward to when the session starts and the instructor will be readily available.

I'm back

Sorry for my absence. I've been really sick, but today I am feeling much better. There hasn't been much to report. For the most part I've been watching lectures of a CS class. I sent an email on Friday to the person at Coding Dojo who sent my acceptance, and all the information I needed for access to the pre-couse material. I knew she wasn't the person I should be sending my questions to, but I figured she could forward it to the right person. In the email I asked about three things.

The first was to ask for the answers to the algorithms I had solved. It's not hard to run code so I know that my answers are "correct", but I wanted to make sure they were the right answers. Normally I am all about solving things my own way as my way tends to be more efficient. That may sound bad to put it that way, but I've found through talking to people, and testing ways to do things that it's true. However, the point of these algorithms are to get you thinking about these problems in an efficient way. Get you thinking like a computer. I figure roughly 95% of my answers are about as efficient as possible using the tools we had, however I intend to memorize these algorithms to make things run quicker in the future, and It's a lot easier to not make a habit than to break it so I am waiting till I can check my answers before I memorize them.

The second thing I asked about was the projects. During the session, we will complete two projects. They recommend that you know what you want to build and start designing the blueprints for it before you start the session. I have no idea what I want to build. Nor do I know how advanced these projects should be. Should I build a website, a game, an operating system? Obviously not the latter since we only have like a week to work on each project, but I don't know how far along I will be when I start these projects. So I emailed and asked about those to get a better idea.

Lastly I asked about how to get in touch with the other members of my cohort. We will be working together, and helping each other along the way. They are the people who will be going through the same thing that I am, so I would like to contact them before the session starts.

Yesterday, I got an email back saying that she would forward the email to one of the instructors. This was followed by a copy of the forwarded email. I have since been added to the cohort email, but as far I can tell, that email is for the current session, and I have yet to hear back on my other points. Hopefully I'll hear back soon. I'm terrible at memorization, so I'm going to have to start working on those algorithms soon.

Sorting Algorithm

So I just completed a sorting algorithm that was an optional exercise for us to do. It said it would take us 2-10 hours to complete, and it only took me an hour and a half so I'm feeling pretty good about that. I'm feeling less good about the fact that I had written out the correct code over an hour ago. It was the first thing I typed, but I must have changed it before I tested the code so I thought it was wrong...

Despite that, this has me feeling really good about where I am to start the session in February!

Productivity

I gotta say, I love going to a coffee shop to work. At home I am surrounded by all my hobbies. There is a fridge full of food waiting to be cooked. Yes that is a hobby, but since eating is a neccessity, I put it in a different category than say Magic: The Gathering. Although some may argue that Magic is also a necessity, and I would not disagree with them. There are boxes waiting to be unpacked. Did I mention that I've had to move twice this month? There are ever growing piles of laundry and dishes.

The point being, I can have a very productive day at home, working hard, and yet get nothing that was on my list for that day done. That's what happened to me yesterday. I ended up spending the entire day getting moved in because I decided that I couldn't get any work done while surrounded by boxes. I got a lot done. I think it will only take one more day dedicated towards the moving process to get myself settled in. But that list of things I set for myself to spend the day getting done yesterday? Nada.

So today I dragged myself to bed at 8:30. (I am not a morning person. As in, I don't believe in being awake until morning is over.) And went to Starbucks where the only thing to distract me from my work is taking a drink of my coffee. And in the past three and a half hours I managed to finish everything that I was supposed to get done. All of it.

So obviously there are some changes I need to make to my home environment before I start Coding Dojo. Good to know. Until then, I've scheduled till around 5pm to be here so I can accomplish more.

Cold

My room is 22 degrees colder than the rest of the house. I may be an Alaskan girl at heart, but I've had seven years to acclimate to warmer weather. Also, there is no snow. This was actually my first Christmas without snow. Call me a purest, but if it's going to be cold, I want snow.

Day 3

Well it's day three of working on my precourse material for Coding Dojo. I don't have much to report. I slept in super late today, but when I woke up I felt infinitely better than I had the previous day so I guess I needed it. Thus far, all of the precourse material had been review for me. I take this as a good sign, and looking ahead I think I will be able to get done with both parts three and four as well as repeating part two to make sure that I've gotten it completely down tomorrow. I've been happy with the pace I've gone through the material. I know I'll slow down a lot once I get to things that I haven't done before so it's nice that I'm getting through this quickly so that I'll have more time to spend on the stuff I haven't already gotten down. Like I said, I don't have much to report so I'm just gonna get back to work, and maybe spend sometime reading tonight!

Another day, another post.

Hello lovelies,

Today is day two of my attempting to post everyday. So far so good. I haven't been feeling great. I had a caffeine headache till 6pm. I really need to start drinking tea again instead of coffee and redbulls. Shouldn't be too hard. These days tea is far more accessible for me. It will also save me money so win-win-win. I've only gotten in about three to four hours on my pre-course material today though I will certainly work on it more after I post this. Until I'm done at my job (my last day is the 26th) I'm going to be on a night schedule so I'm not concerned about how much time I've spent thus far. Additionally, I have the next three days off so I look forward to being productive while being able to relax a bit.

Despite not having spent as much time as I would have liked today, I have been happy with what I've gotten done thus far. I feel like I'm getting through the lists of things to do efficiently. I will say that I am developing a nice ever-growing list of things I need to look up. I will probably have to schedule a good six hours tomorrow or the next day to devote to that. School doesn't start for three weeks so I probably don't need to work as much as I'm planning to, but I'm excited to get a jump on things and find a good routine for myself.

I don't think I have anything more to say for now. So I guess I'll be off!

Coding Dojo

And once again, it has been almost a year since my last post. I truly am terrible at this. On the bright side, I now have something to make me post regularly, and hopefully get myself into the habit. A few days ago I received my acceptance letter from Coding Dojo. For those who don't know, this is a three month super intensive "coding bootcamp". It's basically a computer science degree compiled into a three month program. It takes less time than a CS degree, and less money, but requires persistence, determination, and focus. Luckily, those are my specialty. So as of February 2nd, I will be putting in roughly 15 hour days. I couldn't be more excited.

This also meant that I got to give my two weeks notice at my job today. I can't tell you how much stress that will relieve for me. It's not that I disliked the job itself, on the contrary, I love working hard, and would probably be happy in most any job as long as I was accomplishing something. The problem was that I was morally opposed to the way my employers ran their business and more specifically how they treat their staff. I won't go into specifics. The point is, I won't have to work their too much longer.

But back to Coding Dojo. Today I paid the $1000 security deposit to secure my seat and get access to the precourse material. This consists of lectures, articles, courses, lots of downloads, etc. to complete. One of the things on the list was to make a blog if we didn't already have one and to start posting about our experience. To be honest, I spent a long time debating if I should use this blog or not. If I should delete all of my old posts or not. People I actually know or will meet will be reading this blog. It's been almost two and a half years since I started this blog during which time I struggled with high school, an anxiety disorder, college, dropping out of college, and going back to finish my associates degree. I've grown a lot. I've experienced a lot. This blog doesn't show much of it since I hardly post, but it shows some. My past is a part of me, and I won't just erase it. In addition, I don't think people talk about their struggles with anxiety disorders enough. There isn't much awareness even though our society breeds it. I'm not going to remove what I've written about it.

For the at least the next three months I will be attempting to post everyday. Therefore I will be pretty happy if I end up posting once a week on here. I'm all about progress these days, and I view every post as progress. As for Coding Dojo, I was somewhat skeptical about their program when I first started the application process, but I've been nothing but impressed by the staff and what I've seen thus far of the program. I also love that they have given me work to do before the program actually starts. I'm ready to get a jump on things!

Till next time.

Moving Forward

It's been almost a year since I've posted on here. I didn't realize, or I would have posted a long time ago. So here is a quick overview of the past year. The last time I posted was about a week before I left for Washington State University. I won't go into specifics, but WSU ended up being a really bad experience for me that resulted in me dropping out after the first semester, and backtracking significantly in my depression and anxiety. I then spent the next few months working, and getting back to a safe emotional place.

I realized that moving back in with my parents wasn't conducive towards the personal growth that I was hoping to achieve, so I moved in with some friends about a forty five minute drive away. Once I had gotten myself to a healthier place, I enrolled in the spring quarter at the community college near where I live. I few weeks ago, I finished up my Associates Degree.

After that my parents had a far different reaction than I was anticipating. I expected them to want me to continue to move forward. Pick the next step, and take it. The reaction I got was almost the complete opposite. My mom talked about how since I got my Associates at 18, I was now two years ahead of everyone else, and that meant I had some time to explore my interests and just enjoy life.

So I guess we'll see where life takes me next.

Tattoos!

I finally got my tattoos!! Couldn't be more pleased with them :)

 Music has always been a huge part of my life. My dad is a music teacher and I have played the french horn for the past eight years. Music has gotten me through a ton, and has always been there for me.

I get a lot of questions about this one. (Prior to having it as a tattoo, I wrote it on my wrist all the time.) Many people think it is a literal reminder to breathe. It is not. It reminds me of the struggle I have gone through with my anxiety disorder my whole life. It reminds me of the pain and struggle I have dealt with. It reminds me of the progress that I have made. It reminds me that I have been at absolute rock bottom, and come out the other side. It reminds me that there is a tomorrow. Honestly, I don't even know why "Breathe" is what I use to represent all of this to me, it just is.

A Post

I try to write everyday. So far I'm averaging about twice a week. But that's improvement, which is good enough for me. I haven't however been writing on here, for the simple reason that I have no idea what to post. Since I haven't posted yet this month, I suppose I will.

Life has been...good. It's really strange actually. I wake up in the mornings content, and I am happy more often than I am not. That may sound like nothing to some who read this, but to me it is everything. For the past few years, I have made it my goal to be happy more often than I am not. This is something that I have never been. Never. Until now. Honestly, it has been far too short of a time period for me to conclusively say that I have succeeded. But I couldn't care less. I am happy, and that is something I am going to celebrate.

I got a job at a pizza place near where I live. I've been working about 40-50 hours a week. I only have one day off a week so I'm generally pretty busy on those days. And the people I work with are cool for the most part. It's tough to say if my insomnia has improved or not. I think it has? I average about 8 hours of sleep a night, however, I don't manage to fall asleep until 4 or 5 am. I finally got my belly button piercing. That took entirely too long to happen. I should also be getting my tattoos within the next couple weeks. Speaking of a couple of weeks, it is now exactly two weeks until I leave for college. It's about time! Though, I will miss work. Overall, I really like the atmosphere there. And tips are paying for my tattoos, so the more tip money I make, the more of my tattoos I can get. I should be able to afford the three main ones I want, and then I will probably wait until next summer to get any others I want.

There really is no point to this post. It's just an update because I haven't written in a long time. I still question myself a lot, but less than I used to, which is nice. I'm getting better at making and following through with decisions that are best for me. Two days ago my anxiety hit really bad. To the point where I almost had an anxiety attack at work. There was no reason for it. People were fine. We weren't that busy. I was just extremely anxious and there was nothing I could do about it, but go to the job that involved the least human interaction and keep myself working until I could go home for the night. This concerns me because I haven't had that sort of anxiety, especially without cause for a while.But like I said, I have been happy more often than not. My anxiety levels overall have been low for me. This incident concerns me a little, but I don't expect it to be repeated soon

So yeah. Here is a post. It consists of my ramblings, but what's new? I'll try to post more often, we'll see what happens.

Decisions

I hardly ever make decisions based on what I think will be most healthy for me. No decision I make ever affects only me, so I always worry about the impact on others. This leaves me making decisions based on the well being of others and not myself. It's not good for me, and it's something I need to work on. Yesterday I made a big decision based solely on my own well being, and not that of others. I truly believe it was the healthiest decision for me.

...So why does it hurt so much?

The Parasite

It takes over your life. Encompassing your every thought. It is a parasite, leaching the life from you until there is nothing left. Small tasks become insurmountable, and nothing is ever good enough. Though not diagnosed until last year, my whole life has been shaped by my anxiety disorder.

I have always expected perfection from myself because anxiety decided that nothing else is good enough. And, of course, perfection has always been far from my grasp. I know that it is not possible, and yet it is not optional. The constant struggle between what I need to achieve and what I can  achieve has left me in a constant state of unease.

I am unable to eat at restaurants if the pictures are crooked. Everything must be symmetrical. If being symmetrical is not a possibility, then it has to be very purposely asymmetrical. My silverware has to be perfectly straight relative to the napkin, table, and each other. I obsessively pop my knuckles.When I get really stressed about something, I have to sit for like an hour shuffling cards because I find it relaxing. I obsessively make lists so that I can keep track of the twenty things I am worrying about at one time. It is exhausting, but without doing these things, I would not be able to make it through each day.

The symptoms don't stop with the little quirks that get me weird looks. The constant anxiety eats away at every part of my life, leaving a carcass behind. Half the time I am only able to fall asleep if I stay awake till four or later until I am so tired that I am physically incapable of staying awake. The other half of the time I sleep fourteen-plus hours a day. For a while, I used exercise as a healthy way to manage my stress. But my obsessive need to push myself has led to countless injuries that will never fully heal. My shoulders are constantly tensed. These muscles then pull on my neck and back, causing constant pain. It got to the point for a while where I had to go to the chiropractor three times a week so that I could have basic motor function. I have spent countless mornings and nights doubled over in pain because anxiety has started to eat away at the lining of my stomach. It was a long time before I realized that my anxiety was the reason I lived in constant pain. Knowing helps, but I still have to deal with the consequences of what the stress has done to my body.

Anxiety is a strange character. Sometimes it decides that I must keep pushing myself far past anyone else’s expectations or what I am even capable of achieving. It dictates that I must take three math classes in one year because I didn't know enough when I attended the summer program at Stanford.

Other times it decides that since perfection is not possible, the only possible solution is complete avoidance. Most of the time I don't even realize it is happening. I will just stop. Stuck in a haze. There are months of my life that are only marked in my memory by being jerked out of that haze and spending the next week on a maximum of two hours of sleep a night so that I can begin to fix everything I messed up while I was gone.
Last year, in a desperate attempt to fix a relationship that had been destroyed by the effects of my anxiety, I finally agreed to go to a therapist. It didn't take long for the therapist to diagnose me with GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). I take Sertraline and use calming techniques that my therapist taught me to manage my anxiety disorder.

I still have trouble with my anxiety, but I have learned a lot since I started getting help. I now know that I don’t have to be perfect at everything. That it is okay for me to be myself. I now know that people won’t resent me if I ask for help when I need it. I now know that anxiety is a leech that sucks the life out of me. I don’t need to let anxiety run my life anymore. I can be free of the parasite that has ruled my life for so long.

To take a shower

Have you ever actually considered the phrase "take a shower"? It makes no sense. A shower is not a tangible object that can be taken. Unless you mean take the whole shower unit and move it, but since that is obviously not what anyone is saying when they say they are going to "take a shower", it seems like a ridiculous phrase.

Are you shitting me?

I was browsing This is why I'm broke when I found this.

Please tell me that people aren't actually paying to have flecks of gold show up in their crap. How does anyone benefit from this? No one is going to see it....at least I hope they aren't. And what are you going to do after you have decorated your crap? You have two choices. You can either flush it, or you can try to get your gold back. One option leaves you out over $400, and one is....well absolutely disgusting. If you have the money to shell out to decorate your shit, please consider all the better uses for this money. Donate the money to your local food bank, or animal shelter.  Or really, anything else would be a better investment than this.