Susanna Codes

I’m so proud of what I do So on the walk home from the pylons and the Chinese restaurant (I have two local ones and was comparing vegan cuisines today and yesterday) I just met a wonderful young British family. Quite rare in Luxembourg - not too rare but still a coincidence. There had actually been another family too but they had gone another way.  They were so nice to me and so interested in what I did. The best way to make me happy is to be interested in what I do.  On my 30th birthday last month, when I went up to London, I sat next to the most incredible couple in the world. They were so interested in what I did. In particular the lady.  I have never seen anyone so fascinated in my life by what I did. She was a retired GP, too! It was the best present that I have ever received in my life. I later realised that this was life’s 30th birthday present to me, when I was talking to my dad. Let me tell you that it was the best present I have ever ever had. Nothing better tha...

Just Another Evening Of Pylon-Spotting I can’t help it. I feel like I am being called to the pylons. It just feels like a force greater than myself. Naturally. I see the pylons and I can’t help but walk over. Of course I am super far away - I just see them from a distance and try to get a good view. I am not your average software engineer. I am living out my story to the soundtracks of Taylor Swift and Lana del Rey and okay a lot of EDM when I am actually coding. And Sanskrit chanting okay.  I hope there will be many more software engineers like me. Girls. Feminine software engineers.  People who feel their feelings and are not afraid to feel them.  People who aren’t afraid to write. People who aren’t afraid to speak out. I have been through a lot of difficult stuff in my life. I feel like I will need to tell the full extent of my story one day but am not sure when I will be ready. I need people who have had the same experiences as me to know they can have been through wh...

Where Water Meets Electricity: The Magic of My Career ⚡️ ⚡️ ⚡️ It happened again. While I was playing Taylor Swift on the piano. And my favourite part two - the bit at the end of the song.  The bit she only does in the live version - which I will never again be able to sing the song without. The song of course being “seven.”  I saw the magic hydroelectric dam I visited in the mountains when I was 15 (twice - once at nearly 15 and once at nearly 16 - it is an autistic thing to want to be very precise about numbers and I will defend my right to do so). I saw deep inside of the hydroelectric dam or what I might imagine inside of a hydroelectric dam to be like. And then I saw all of the mountains in the south of France that I love so much.  But if someone wanted to really give their all to water and to energy tech then what would be the best thing to do? If someone really wanted to give their all to water and renewable energy tech then what would they need to do? If like me y...

When Emma Falls In Love - Interlude I am obsessed with this song by Taylor Swift. I don’t think she recorded it until she re-recorded all her songs. Apparently it’s about Emma Stone. “When Emma falls in love, she’s in it for keeps, she won’t walk away, unless she absolutely has to.” I hope you know that this is how I feel about my passion. This is why I am always quoting Yosemite. 🏞️ 🏞️ 🏞️  “Withstanding all the time, changes and seasons.” 🏞️  As I relax deeply on my break I realise that I have to find some kind of a work life balance.  There is only one problem. I just really really want to learn Python.  I really really want to learn more Python. But how do I do it? I want to do my course. I am learning on my day job but I really really went to do my course.  I guess the truth is that I am desperate to finish these three courses.  After that I might be done with courses. Of course there was Regex too - nooo. But there was intermediate Python, Django, ...

It’s an honour to be here: reflecting on the miracle of working in water tech There was always a street that I loved so much in my hometown and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know why. I just always thought that it was the most magical place on earth. I can clearly see why, having trekked there (trekked because it is far away and up a much steeper hill than the last wind farms I visited and even at 10 pm it is boiling). Still. But standing at the mouth of this street. As it is a one way cul de sac that tumbles and curves just like a river. I can see why. I can see EVERYTHING. I can see pylons, lit up by the golden sunset. And I can see wind farms. About five turbines. It takes me years to realise these beautiful things. Just like it took me years to realise why I always felt the most powerful on the new motorway in Luxembourg they spent over 20 years building - it is absolutely ADORNED with pylons. A Live Photo from the pylons.  I tried to take a photo of the wind farms but they were ...

He who curtails his ambitions does so because they are curtailable William Blake said something along the lines of this blog post title. I try to suppress my love for what I do but it’s just impossible.  I have been thinking a lot on my break about finding a work life balance. I maintain that a work life balance is good. I need to meditate. I need to find time to go out into nature and cook (or at least make smoothies) and you know take care of the flat I share and stuff. But nothing can ever stop me from caring like I do. As a student of non dual traditions and still to some extent of Buddhist traditions on the surface it might sound as if attachment is bad. But it’s the opposite.  Caring about what you do is a great thing. And today that care came from an unexpected thing. Once again, it was from Taylor Swift  Taylor Swift, one of the greatest artists on the planet, inspires us all to dream fearlessly. It was listening to her singing “seven” live the other day that made...

He Met Margaret On A Rooftop - Reflecting On My Current Software Engineering Goals, Thoughts and Progress I’m in Luxembourg City centre. Just waiting for my favourite shop to open.  It’s a stationary shop, of course. I grew up in Luxembourg. I went to school in the modern part of the capital. I lived in two different beautiful small villages and towns.  I might visit one of them later today.  “Place Guillaume” in Luxembourg where I am sitting  This blog post has been on my mind for a while.  ‘Cause Baby If Your Love Is In Trouble I had a real gift. In the depths of feeling depressed I was reminded of how lucky I am.  I don’t feel depressed much these days. Been there, done that. Nowadays I feel happy and inspired. Passionate.  But I got a bit overworked just before my break and so I was feeling really low. And in the depths of that despair I went to see a movie (I describe this in my last blog post btw). I went to see “Fly Me To The Moon” which is abou...

Two Recent Miracles That Have Helped Me To Keep The Faith On My Software Engineering Journey The last few months have been really hard. Wonderful, but hard. In fact they have been really, really wonderful. But they have been hard work as well. And so I wanted to reflect on two recent miracles that have helped me to really keep the faith with my software engineering and to really keep on going on my software engineering which is hard sometimes.  Which is really hard sometimes.  For context I have worked just about every single day since early June - including weekend self study most of most days.  I took two days off to go to the Isle of Wight but even then I was thinking very deeply about my passion all of the time. Margaret On Sunday last week I went to the cinema. I went to see “Fly Me To The Moon” with Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansen. Legendary actors.  I had just been writing my Python talk. It was just a way of forcing myself to not work too late. In the fi...

My Photo Album: My Happiest Memories (Many of Which are Software Engineering Memories) -Part 1 My Buddhist teacher Ajahn Brahm whose works I still follow and adore to this day (in spite of not being a practising Buddhist myself) says that our memories should be like photo albums.  We should only keep the happiest ones. So I wanted to go over the happiest memories of my life or some of them. A lot of them relate to software engineering. Spoiler alert. Okay here we go. The day I got my first software engineering job offer I was ecstatic. I was over the moon.  I had the offer made in front of the whole product team. It was so surreal. I almost cried on the call. I was ecstatic. I was just the happiest I have ever been ever. I had to go to the cinema that night to celebrate to see avatar 2: the way of water for the second time lol. Because I was very happy. Because avatar is all about saving the earth. And I do software engineering to save the earth.  I was elated. I don’t re...

Opening The Door To Your Heart One of the beautiful and friendly horses has come to say hello When I was 23, I knew everything. So much so that someone had recommended a book to me and I was going to read it and find all the answers. But then my mum rudely interrupted me.  She bought me two books by the Buddhist monk “Ajahn Brahm” and unsolicitedly sent them to my uni address.  They were called “Opening The Door To Your Heart” and “Who Ordered This Truckload Of Dung.”  They were actually the same book. One was the UK edition and one was the American edition. 🇺🇸 but interestingly it took me a long time to realise and I only read the American one - the spacing was easier for my neurodivergent brain and it made that much of a difference. This book changed my life.  If you’ve ever remarked on my positivity, this book was the start of a return to positivity after a long, long time in the clouds - the grey dark clouds. The book says you only need one story to take you in...

My love for the earth is “withstanding all the time, changes and seasons” Finding your passion means coming back to something again and again.  It means starting over again and again. Never afraid to start over too many times.  Never afraid to fall in love with what you do too many times.  Never afraid to ask yourself what your goals are too many times. So go on then. What are my goals? What are my priorities? When I come back from my holiday (currently at the airport), what are my goals? Here are my top priorities  I was working on a Django tutorial for my mentor to help me on my current (rather complex) ticket at work. I had finally gotten up to the lesson he really wanted me to get up to.  This one was on Django ORMs and methods like objects.get(), objects.filter(), and save() When I get back to work I will prioritise finishing up to this section of the tutorial (no need to finish the whole thing) - well I mean I can finish the whole thing if I want to althou...

I find my support in Python I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Writing on the train gets me inspired. I’m taking my usual ultra early morning train to work although instead I’m taking it to the airport. I feel like I’m still not done saying what I need to say so here I am writing.  Python focus  The last few weeks or months have been really tough for me. It’s a really scary thing to say aloud but I’m sure anyone can relate. The thing about passion is that it’s constantly changing and constantly evolving.  It doesn’t stay static. It doesn’t stand still. Passion needs to change, to be upgraded. To be evolved. I probably knew that and forgot. In the haze of almost constant fire I thought that my passion for software engineering on all levels would last forever. It’s not that it’s gone. I just need to fine tune it. I need to tweak it a bit. I need to keep refining it - always. Again those are very scary things to write down as well. But how lucky I am that my directio...

MY INSPIRATION NEVER STOPS: You’ll find me at the wind farms I can look around Brighton and see all the spots where I have had seizures. But I can look at Brighton and I can also see the wind farms.  And I think that that’s my turning point. Because what we focus on we become more of. And sometimes if something’s been our identity for a really long time then we become trapped in it. I don’t want to look around Brighton and see all the spots where I have lain on the floor publicly and either had people panic or not believe me.  I want to look out at the sea and see the wind farms. For that is who I truly am.  I want to look out at the sea and see the wind farms. I want to see my love.  I am the wind farms. I am the love that I feel when I see the wind farms.  I am universal, conscious love. And really I am just that. And so are you. I love the wind farms so much.  And in my love, I find my healing. And in my love, I find who I really am. Love My meditation t...

I'm Going Back To The Wind Farms I'm going back to the wind farms. I'm going back home. Beautiful beautiful wind farms and pylons in Luxembourg. I still have a lot to do. I need to pack and I need to practise my Python talk. And oh yeah - I need to GIVE my Python talk, whoops. I have to leave for my flight tomorrow at about 6 am. Looking back over the last 6 months, what am I the most happy about? 3 amazing achievements. Learning Python I am so proud of all the Python I did. I really have done amazing incredible work. I have done incredibly well. I did a lot. I did so so so much. I did so, so, so, so much. I did: I learned Python almost from scratch in February using a Codecademy course I consolidated EVERYTHING on my blog on here and using blog posts I consolidated EVERYTHING on LinkedIn I passed multiple technical tests in Python (for other companies too) I passed multiple interviews talking about Python code out loud But that was just the beginning, in fact I have done s...

I do my make-up in somebody else's car - More Late-Night Python  I am on the train.  On the train I get excited and want to start coding and start blogging. I am sorry, okay? The title is from Lorde's "Green Light". I haven't worn make-up since 2018 and that was a one-off. Literally. 100% this is true.  I might have worn it a few times before then but even then it had been a while. I write a lot of stuff - but the blog posts that I like the most are the ones where I actually write about code. One more image from the Shanklin Chine in the Isle of Wight. Can't believe it was a week; feels like eternity. Such a healing place omg. I have a few more photos stored up but it is getting harder to remember what I have and haven't used! So where am I at with the Python course? Intermediate Python 3 I am still watching the decorators video - I am about 7 minutes in out of 22 and so about 1/3 of the way through Videos are quite hard for me to w...

I Left My Body In Your Care - Django Objects ( quoting the song "Yellow Mile" by Marika Hackman because it's just so beautiful and you should listen to it omg). I learned a valuable lesson today. One that I have known for many years but it is still good to get a refresher. It's always worth opening your heart. We have plans and we go through life with them. But it's always good to open your heart. But when life gives you the opportunity to open your heart and to show some love and to show some love to someone and to help someone then you should always take it. Because   - that is where the real growth lies.  That is where the real progress lives. And it is always worth opening your heart to someone and helping them if and when you possibly can. If I think of my mentor - I see how ready and willing he always is to help me - I see how many software engineers he is always willing to help every single day. And he is one of the most amazing engineers I know. And I wish...

I Find My Support At The Offshore Wind Farms - Part 4 - But Also At The Onshore Ones Too Now that I've told my life story, can I get back to writing some Python Now that I've told my life story, can I get back to writing some Python? The above is such a mood omg that it is unreal. I'm on the 6 am train to London but so what? And who cares? I told myself I was going to chill so I packed a nice book. Lol. I don't read very much. But instead, I started blogging. Show me the bones that we buried outside Today is my last day before annual leave. It couldn't have come at a better time. I went way too hard over the last two months. But like way too hard. I haven't really stopped. I don't really have many regrets. I definitely upskilled my Python. I upskilled it a lot. But I also burned myself out quite a little bit. I do want to continue the Python going forward through; I just have to think a little bit better about this. I left my body in your care (Song lines ar...

I Find My Support At The Offshore Wind Farms - Part 3 It can be really lonely sometimes. Sometimes it is hard to keep on going this intensely.  It’s not a choice that I made. Actually I was never really drawn to blogging (lies; I tried but I could never pull it off) but it was suggested to me by one of my mentors. One of my many many former mentors. Back in the day. When I got serious about software engineering. When I say that it isn’t a choice I mean I just can’t stop. I really can’t stop. Of course I stop working.  I stop working  at a pretty reasonable time. And I even stop upskilling at a fairly reasonable time. And tried to reduce my upskilling on weekends. But I found that I could cap my python. But not my reflections and not my thoughts. I don’t think anyone can understand. Since I started doing this I can’t stop thinking about it but not in a bad way.  The kaiser chiefs once said “there’s more to this than passing by, there’s more to this than meets the eye....