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But I Get Up Again

| jaimelynschatz

The RailsConf speakers have been notified and …. I’m not one of them. Sadly, neither of my proposals were accepted this year. I’m taking it as a small consolation that each made it through several rounds of reviews. A very small consolation.

I also was not selected as a CodeNewbie apprentice. That program was absolutely perfect, but the woman who was selected is absolutely amazing and will do great things for the community.

So, I get knocked down but I get up again. I just wrapped up the prep work for Launch School as part of an application for a scholarship. It’s online and part-time and would be a great way to get some focus to my learning. While I wait for news, I thought I’d dip a toe into django (wow — talk about a quick and dirty way to build a site!)

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January Retrospective

| jaimelynschatz

Trying a little something new here. Here’s my January Retrospective

The Good:

  • New blog, new domain name and (counting this post) five blog posts in January.
  • Completed full-month streaks on GitHub and StackOverflow (my Seinfeld productivity tracker tools).
  • Submitted proposals to RailsConf on time! (woot!!).
  • Completed a big project for a client that snagged the CIOs attention.
  • Applied for the Launch School scholarship and to be a volunteer at WWC Connect 2016

The Bad:

  • Not accepted as a PT apprentice at CodeNewbies.
  • Rolling off my current client, which means I will stop working with a team I really like.
  • Still haven’t completed PokerHands.

What I Can Do Better

  • Have my resume ready at all times, no matter how secure I feel on a particular team.
  • FINISH POKER HANDS ALREADY (oh, look, a squirrel with a scholarship opportunity…) No, really — I will push the code in February.
  • When faced with an opportunity, I will jump in with both feet. For a lot of ventures (even the successful ones), I’ve hemmed and hawed, feeling uncertain if I was even good enough to consider it. I need to accept that no, I won’t get everything I go after. But I won’t get anything that I don’t actually try for.

 

Slight Detour May Lead to a Steadier Path

| jaimelynschatz

 

Last week, I learned about a special scholarship being jointly offered by Women Who Code and Launch School. I first uncovered Launch School a few years ago (when they were called Tea Leaf Academy) and thought their intention to teach code the right way and the slow way was just what I needed. They’re remote, part time and focus on the fundamentals. But they co$t, and while I never lack for ambition and drive, I do lack money to funnel into my studies. I jumped at the chance to apply.

I’m working through the Launch School preliminary work. One of the assignments is “What is Code” by Paul Ford. I’m developing a long list of future reading.

  • The Rosetta Code
  • Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python (which, to be fair, I first heard mentioned on a CodeNewbies podcast)
  • Re-read JavaScript the Good Parts (and actually write all of the code described within)

Wow – in the “languages” section, only really mentions JavaScript to say you don’t have to be particularly smart or good at math to be a JS programmer; mentions Ruby only to point out CoC violations and the Pr0n slidedeck. The author clearly adores Python.