The Culture Was Lit and I Had A Ball

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"The Culture Was Lit and I Had A Ball"

I have discovered a new song by Lana del Rey. 

It's called "The greatest". It's simultaneously absolutely sad and stunningly beautiful. So naturally I love it. And the title is from this song. 

How can something be so heart-breaking and yet at the same time be so beautiufl?

Here is a little lyric from this song.



But I'm quite keen to get stuck in, actually.

'Learning Rust the wrong way'

Adam, the Engineering Manager from my team (feels so great to say that because it is initially thanks to this blog that this has happened!), reached out to me and sent me a video. He had been reading my blog, I guess, and had been seeing that I had been stressed about my learning - I kept on getting stuck on things and losing hope and falling into despair.

Initially I offered some resistance to the video - I don't normally watch things which are this long.

But I needn't have done this. Once I started watching the video, it was FASCINATING. So so funny and so well presented. I've paused at the 33 minute mark, just before he says about how everything he's said applies to programming.

I kind of want to write down my own thoughts on what he's said so far before he launches into the programming.

  • It's best to alternate learning. This is what Rosana said to me before, but it felt good to see this in practice.
    • E.g. I should be alternating JavaScript with CSS.
    • It's good to revisit things randomly. 
      • E.g. I really want to revisit chaining in HTML even though it's not required yet in the course - I just want to do it myself as a refresher.
    • I am not following any prescriptive approach. While I feel like doing CSS, I will do CSS. Then when I feel like it I will come back to JavaScript.
    • PROJECTS - projects don't follow the linear structure of the Codecademy course. So they are GREAT for learning.
  • Learning isn't supposed to feel good. You are supposed to feel stupid. If it's going to smoothly, or feeling too easy, then you are probably not doing it well. If I am struggling and feeling stuck then I am probably actually still learning.
    • That's good because JavaScript can feel like a kick in the shins sometimes.
    • It's literally impossible to just learn something as new and as different and as programming without having a few struggles and having to pause to reflect on things a bit  in the process.

Hackathon

I had a hackathon this weekend. Spoiler alert: I don't actually know what a hackathon means.

But I assume it's when you build a project very quickly in a short space of time.

So I built a project. Here it is. 

Let me know what you think of it! 


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