Bye Bye, Java

February 20, 2023 — Kaye

After a long conversation with ChatGPT (yes, I talk to an AI about my problems; it’s nuanced and objective while being supportive and kind; in other words, it doesn’t judge me!), I made the decision to temporarily give up studying Java entirely. The truth is at this point, I’m more excited about completing my boot camp than getting into my job’s software development program. That’s not to say I no longer intend to try, but the current economy has affected the program so severely, it’s questionable if it’s still worth the investment of time for a chance of admission. At my request, Chat laid out a list of priorities for me, and I must admit it’s favorable.

  1. Take care of your mental and emotional health: Trauma can have long-lasting effects on a person’s mental and emotional well-being. It’s essential to prioritize self-care, including therapy, meditation, exercise, or anything else that helps you manage your mental health.
  2. Focus on your current interests: Given your current interest in front-end development, I suggest you concentrate on learning JavaScript, React, and other front-end technologies. These skills will help you achieve your short-term goal of becoming a front-end developer and help you create more complex web projects.
  3. Prepare for the technical assessment: The technical assessment is due on May 1st, and you have ample time to prepare for it. While you don’t need to rush, setting aside some time every week to study Java and practice coding problems can help you feel more confident and prepared when the time comes.
  4. Consider applying for the training program: If the training program still interests you, I recommend applying to it. However, it’s essential to keep in mind that the program is not the only path to a successful career in front-end development, and there are other opportunities out there.
  5. Explore other areas of interest: You mentioned an interest in mobile app development, which is something you could explore in the future. However, it’s essential to focus on one thing at a time to avoid becoming overwhelmed or feeling stuck.

I love Chat placed self-care at the top of the list. In any case, I’m more interested in building projects and learning about JavaScript and its frameworks (React, Angular, Vue, and Typescript seem to be the most popular ones) than Java simply because, as I said in my last post about priorities, I studied Java solely for the sake of my job’s program. I may use Java someday, but as of now, it’s not something of interest to me. A big part of my conversation with Chat was the “sunk cost fallacy” – the unwillingness to give up something because of the investment already made. The thing is Chat never told me what I should do (unless I asked it to), but gave understanding in addition to a balanced opinion.

My primary goals now are improving my skill and comprehension of JavaScript, and to begin learning React. I picked React because it’s seemingly the most popular of the frameworks, but I want to eventually be able to work with all of them.

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Cake Is A Serious Matter

January 31, 2023 — Kaye

This article is old news – late 2017, to be more specific – but it’s new to me. Frankly, I did not think I could discover anything more delusional than the MLM posts I mocked before. If only I could’ve foreseen how wrong I’d be.

A YouTube channel I’ve recently gotten into is how I was introduced to this extreme oddity. To be clear, I am referring to the post, not the person.

Take The Cake: No, I Won’t Cut You A Smaller Slice Of Cake

This article supposedly explicates the misogyny and “fatphobia” (I despise that word!) of… not wanting a large slice of cake. Yes, yes, I’m serious. And if you think I’m trolling, I don’t blame you. I thought this was the case as well. But no, this was written with one hundred percent seriousness.

Let’s see how far I read into this article with the remainder of my sanity in tact.

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“I Want To Be A…”

January 26, 2023 — Kaye

Author’s edit: I already had a post about this, and it’s not much older than this post. I doubt it’s the first time I’ve repeated myself, but I feel like it wasn’t so blatant before. And that’s why I don’t post much. My life is uninteresting and repetitive.

Designer and developer!

Specifically, a user interface designer and a front-end web developer.

Yes, at the not-young age of 28, I can finally answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Prior to my 27th birthday – also my golden/royal one – I created a post about how I hadn’t yet been able to answer that question. I went through several phases, but I always came back to something that revolved around creativity. I feel like being a UI design and front-end web dev combine my two of my biggest loves: art and technology.

However, something disappointing I learned some time again is in professional environments, designers and developers spend very little of their time designing and coding, and the majority of the time doing meetings and paperwork. For that reason, I want to get into freelance. Sure, that will require paperwork too, but hopefully, not more than designing and coding. I also want to do freelance between it’s rare for a UI designer to code or a front-end web dev to design. In other words, I want to do both. I wouldn’t oppose to doing one in a traditional job and the other as freelance.

But first things first. Tomorrow, I begin an accelerated course for front-end web dev. I guess school isn’t as boring as I claimed it was as a kid. I certainly don’t avoid. Granted, I didn’t pay for this course, but I am still willingly attending. That probably makes it very easy to be excited about.

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Reflecting On Kaye’s Days

January 16, 2023 — Kaye

We are all human. We all make mistakes. I try to be conscious of my flaws, but I believe there are flaws and poor qualities that are invisible to me simply because I can’t have a third-person view of myself.

However, I have changed to a degree over the decade of this blog’s existence, and I decided I want to reflect on some of my past posts. Because, in truth, several of my previous posts embarrass me today!

For the sake of not having an excessively long post, I stuck to five blog posts. These aren’t necessarily in the order of most shameful to least or vice versa. The order of them is merely how I chose to organize them.

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Learning Priorities

January 9, 2023 — Kaye

I seem to continually forget something: This is my blog.

I shouldn’t be shy here. This is my space to express my feelings and my thoughts. Yes, it’s public and people can give their opinions in return, but I control what’s here. Of all internet spaces, I should never be uncomfortable. So long as I keep in line with WordPress’s policy, I should never feel it’s unsafe or embarrassing to write something here.

So, I won’t.

Lately, I have talked about my goals. While I have never enjoyed school, I enjoy learning (I can’t get over the irony of a place intended to support learning destroying the love of it), and I want to learn several subjects. Human languages, programming languages, science, math, design. The list goes on, but those are at the top. However, I’ve realized there is such a thing as too much learning. Or at least, too much in a short amount of time.

My 29th birthday is this year and I can’t get over this mental/emotional crisis that I am “late”. However, overwhelming myself won’t slow down time or help my mental stability. A new friend who is helping me learn a certain subject advised me to prioritize what I want to learn that will help me now versus later. My fiance and a different friend also gave me this advice. I can’t say I disagree with them. However, I have decided only on two priorities, and am struggling to choose a third.

What I decided so far:

  • Spanish. I’m not dumb enough to think I can advance my skills to almost native-like in one year. I couldn’t do in twenty-two years, despite exposure to the language, so it certainly won’t happen in one! But at the bare minimum, I want to become conversational. This is mostly because my (future) in-laws are Hispanic and some do not speak English (or not do not speak it well enough to be understood). I also want to avoid embarrassing myself. I tried to tell my fiance’s mom I loved her Christmas dinner by saying “Yo lo amo (I love it)”. Not only is this not linguistically correct (it should be “Me lo encanta”), but my pronunciation utterly sucked and she may have heard it as “Yo te amo”, which means “I love you”. I do love her as my (future) mother-in-law, but that was not what I wanted to say! I’d say “awkward” in Spanish, but I don’t remember that and I will not look it up right now (“embarazada” means “pregnant”, not “embarrassed”!).
  • JavaScript. Since I want to be a front-end developer, and I can’t seem to learn much more from HTML and CSS, I want to advance my very minimal skills in JavaScript. I am taking a boot camp that focuses on front-end development, so I will need to prioritize this anyway. Now, those aren’t the only languages used front-end. Some others are React, Angular, Vue, jQuery, and Swift. JavaScript can also be used for back-end. But it HTML, CSS, and JavaScript seem to be the main “trifecta”.

I want to say the third priority is Java. However, my only reason for learning at this time is for software development boot camp my job offers. If not for that, I would have never bothered to learn this language for the time being. Java is more commonly used for back-end development and mobile development, and while I want to eventually learn the latter (which will probably go hand-in-hand with the former), it’s not my focus right now. If I don’t choose Java, my choice would be math. Specifically, pre-calculus since I plan to pursue a degree in computer science some years down the road. Of course, I can always change priorities.

In the end, my ultimate goal at the end of 2023 is to not be in the same position at work I am currently in. I want to prioritize whatever will get me out the fastest.

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