Susanna Codes

All You Need To Do Is Remain Open Like The Sky I love Buddhism.  I love Buddhism so so so much.  In my small hometown in Luxembourg there is an HQ of the Luxembourg Buddhist centre. The centre itself is in the capital city. Idk why but it never occurred to me to go. I don’t like organised Buddhism very much.  I don’t like organised religion. But I LOVE Buddhist concepts. My meditation teacher once said “what’s the difference between Tibetan Buddhism and nonduality? If you take away everything that’s Tibetan and everything that’s Buddhist about Tibetan Buddhism - then they are the same.” Through many difficult times and ordeals I climbed a very steep hill just to look at the prayer flags coming out of that HQ. I walked round the town To get the best spots. I watched them from the train as I drove by noticing nothing else. All you have to do Is to remain  Open  Like the sky I love you all so much Thank you

Healing on a Game-Changing Level Look. I rode a bike today. I RODE A BIKE TODAY. It hasn’t felt safe for me to do that in years. And especially not alone. But today alone on the beach in Worthing - I felt into my body and brain.  And for the first time in years I felt so far from a seizure that I rented the bike, cycled very very far down the seafront  And cycled back up again.  Many years ago when I was first beginning to recover  My mother warned me: nobody will ever understand you. Nobody will ever understand how it feels To be able to walk down the street and not be afraid of collapsing - not only that but completely losing contact with reality for a few minutes To be able to ride a bike. To be able to work. And hopefully things like dating and driving will come too. So amazing. And hoping dance will continue I put today’s success down to many things; resting and conserving my energy. But I also put it down to my adrenal snacks Apple, celery and dates. The most s...

My wish for 31 is to continue to dance Really I should be past making wishes. All I want to do is to live out the rest of my life in the arms of God. Which btw it would be completely impossible not to do. There’s no way not to. And yes  I do have a personal life wish for fulfilling my goal as a software engineer. But there’s one more thing. On my 31st birthday on the way back to my bus stop after a final mocktail. I heard two drummers in the shadows (I live in Brighton okay). And I put down My sauna bag. And I took of my sandals. And then I danced to the beat of their two drums. I danced wild. Okay And I want to keep on dancing. And  When I eat a lot of fruit I have the energy to keep on dancing and to keep on dancing like a mad person When I eat lots of fruit I have less seizures and I can make it home okay - the snack on grapes or eat peelers  Can mean the difference between the safe trip home for me When I eat enough greens with my fruits I feel full for longer, I don’...

When I Dance Again How to phrase the impossible. The impossible is my longing for home. For the woods and for the trees and for the forests again.  For nature and the earth. I am longing for my power. I feel powerful again when I dance. When I dance I am the queen of the dance floor and nobody nobody nobody can take this from me. When I dance I feel connected to nature like never before. When I dance my impossible emotions can move through me. When I dance I become unblocked. After some unspeakable grief I only danced properly once in the last few weeks. Then the song “to build a home” got stuck in my head. I put it on. And I had to dance. I have resisted this side of me so much. The soft masculine side. I don’t really know what it means. But we all have soft masculinity within u After dancing just one song I feel alive again Thank God. There’s still more to dance. There’s still more to say

Coming Back To The Wind Farms Again I thought I had stopped blogging but evidently not. Apparently, there is still more to say. So I can say this. It ALWAYS comes back to the wind farms for me. It ALWAYS comes back to renewable energy. Wherever I go. Whatever I do. I can’t escape those visions  I can’t escape the visions of the wind farms over my village where I was born I don’t know when they arrived but they are there now. I can’t escape my love for renewable energy. The whole world can be standing upside down and I can be the most ungrounded person  In the world (usually the case tbh). (Except for when I am dancing with my bare feet which really helps) (or except for when I am hugging a tree). The wind farms can always ground me again The renewable energy can always ground me again Renewable energy can always ground me Thank you

A letter to myself 10 years ago, when I was dropping out of uni I know you don’t like formal beginnings so I won’t begin this formally. I know you don’t like corniness or cheesiness so this will not be corny or cheesy. I know you deserved so much better than this. I know you put in absolutely everything you could and I know that you did not deserve this outcome. But know this.  That which we deserve, finds those who deserve it. And I know you put in everything. I know your resilient spirit will not go away. And something bigger is coming. You know you will come back and get one, two and three degrees  But it’s really not about that. It’s about your ability to move when it’s time to move even when that involves being uncomfortable. It’s about your ability to stand up for what is good and what is right. To believe in yourself when few are believing in you. To keep on going when other people are saying no. Through three degrees and countless jobs you will keep on going when peopl...

No place, sometime, we’ll clear our eyes, and when you’re down, I’ll come around I made it home after the hottest day ever. I went to see my friend in Lancing. She is a lifelong Buddhist (to some degree) and she showed me her shrine. We sat and read poetry to each other. She made me an earl grey tea. We talked of the most beautiful things in the world. We planned my next moves. And she told me I had hit jackpot to have a job that I love so much. So that makes me a millionaire basically. Then I went to Worthing and had a pizza and got a new squishmallow This blog used to flow effortlessly. Now it is hard work. I want to tone it down.

The Love of My Life Is Renewable Energy I have hit the jackpot. To have a job I love as much as I do makes me the luckiest person alive. Sitting now on Worthing Beach, staring out to sea, and watching the wind farms I know that there cannot be anyone luckier out there than me. Every day I wake up and I thank God for the gift of my life. The beautiful gift of my life Because I love the way that electricity feels. I love the way that the grid feels. I love the way that pylons feel. I love the way that serving the grid feels. I love the way that taking care of the earth feels What does electricity feel like? Ah this I cannot tell you If you haven’t figured it out yet then this I cannot tell you All you have to do is really to feel it Thank you

Three Inches Above The Floor I have a golden opportunity in front of me. The most golden opportunity of my life. I have a fantastic team. Fantastic mentors  A fantastic manager. All I ever wanted when this blog started was to become a frontend engineer. I took the craziest journey through layoffs, boot camps, so many coding languages. Hours spent in offices. Through the backend and through AI. Tributes to Alan Turing. All I can do from here is fly

And if you’re homesick, give me your hand, and I’ll hold it My favourite quote of all time is: “there is no light at the end of the tunnel. You are the light.” That one or “the love we give away is the only love we keep.” I try to be there for everyone who needs me. Love arises and is spontaneous in the moment - we cannot plan for it. It is our job to be as empty as possible in the moment so that when love arises, we can act on it. When love calls us we can act on it. I am proud of myself at my own ability to love. We may sometimes think that in order to love and support others We have to be one kind of a person or another. We may think that to perform great acts of love we have to be one kind of a way or another. But love truly arises in the moment. And all great acts of love arise out of what comes out truly out of this moment only

Learning What A Git Revert Is Nobody is allowed to laugh. I am learning a new concept in git and so the best thing for me to do is write. "The git revert command is a forward-moving undo operation that offers a safe method of undoing changes. Instead of deleting or orphaning commits in the commit history, a revert will create a new commit that inverses the changes specified. Instead of deleting or orphaning commits in the commit history, a revert will create a new commit that inverses the changes specified." Hmmm so what does this mean then. This means that instead of deleting old commits, a new commit is created which inverts the new changes. Hmm. This is very cool. "Instead of removing the commit from the project history, it figures out how to invert the changes introduced by the commit and appends a new commit with the resulting inverse content. This prevents Git from losing history, which is important for the integrity of your revision history and for reliable collab...

Living With A Neurological Condition Maybe not the post people were expecting. I’ve always alluded to my seizures in these blog posts but never spoken about them explicitly. I feel ashamed for posting about them. But then I remember like disability rights and stuff. So it has to be okay for me to post. Tl;dr I have been living with non epileptic seizures  For 15 years. I’ll spare you the details of how bad it’s been  Or how messy it’s been. But  I don’t want to pose as an expert because I’m not. But from my experience alone the mix of life factors and physiological factors is fascinating. I have done most of what I can do on the life circumstances front although I need to get better at calming down and slowing down and resting (why do I have ADHD as well? Of course I do. Of course). And I am in the hands of an amazing doctor who I consult with on serious decisions including dietary changes. But I actually mostly want to talk about diet here Because diet to me is the one t...

In God’s House The title of this blog post is taken from a really great song by Bat for Lashes - 1000% recommend you should check it out. I want to quote Hafiz. Hafiz says “We can come to God, Dressed for Dancing, Or Be carried on a stretcher To God’s Ward.” This hits way too hard  Firstly I am a dancer. And there’s nowhere I like to dress up more than on the dancefloor. What I wear when I dance influences how I dance and I am always on the lookout for new outfits Secondly I have been on a lot of stretchers So the second part hits deep Rupert Spira once said in a meditation room I was in: everything is happening to draw us in. The good stuff and the bad staff. When I have a seizure and the paramedics misunderstand it and I am left crying by the side of a road - it opens my heart and I have to try and look inside and understand myself and therefore God deeper But when I get an amazing new job offer - something which has happened to me a LOT recently - and something which I seem to b...

Sensory Overload Strategy As a neurodivergent person And whose neurodivergence has evolved across my life due to various factors I have to spend a lifetime trying to understand my responses to senses  For example did you know I hate socks. If I could get away with it I would never wear another closed shoe in my life. I also hate the feeling of not having showered - I think we all hate that feeling - but it irks me on a level it has taken me years to understand. There are loads of things I don’t like. Bright artificial lighting. Absence of fresh air or windows. Closed windows unless it’s really cold. We all have our quirks. I have to try to understand the ones that are unbearable for me. Especially because of the whole seizure situation I am learning and learning that they will not go away and I simply just have to learn to manage them. That is not to say that they’re not getting better cos they are. And the baseline for what I have to deal with is getting better. Look last night I ...

Unless… People say that non epileptic seizures are a life sentence. That they cannot be healed. That they can only be managed. I am in the business of proving people wrong. Very wrong. I once met a neurological nurse just after a seizure.  She told me to keep on coding. Coding has definitely helped me a lot. Dancing helps as it helps me to learn  To listen to my body. But really it’s the holistic healing methods that I have enlisted in that have helped me the most. Worth every penny. Which reminds me I still need to pay for one session. I never deserved what happened to me in the first place to cause these.  I never deserved 15 years of being terrified to go outside and inevitably waking up on the floor. But most of all I didn’t deserve the people who didn’t believe me. Who thought that they were fake. But I forgive them.  Why? Because you can’t believe something you don’t understand. I thank the thousands and thousands of people who looked after me. And I let them g...

Processing For the amazing new manager who agreed to take me on. Thank you For the amazing lead engineer who is offering to support me in the transition  Thank you For the amazing senior who offered to mentor me  Thank you For the amazing other senior who offered to mentor me too Thank you For the amazing teammate who is offering me support Thank you To one more person who has offered me support  To each of these people Whose offer lifts me up. Who shines a light inside my heart that is so bright my eyes cannot see it and means more to me than they will ever know Thank you

My Secret Ingredient I’m heading north today. I’m on holiday. Not just to the north. But the real north.  Not even the midlands. Beyond. This is a very long way if you live where I do. And what is my favourite thing about travelling up north? Well I have so many. But one of them is all of the renewable energy infrastructure I get to see along the way. I love infrastructure. I love airports. I love pylons and internet towers. I love wind farms and turbines. I love water reservoirs and water treatment centres. It is my love that has taken me this far. When times where tough in my first job, it was my love for renewable energy that carried me through. When I felt that I needed a new more challenging opportunity, it was my love for renewable energy that got me there. When I wanted to code and when I needed to stay coding after I lost my first coding job - both times my love for renewable energy helped get me the jobs in question. Love is the secret ingredient in this universe. Follow y...

Righting Wrongs We all mess up. We all do some things wrong sometimes, right? And for all the things I have done wrong I am so so sorry. Time and time again one theme comes up for me. Not appreciating what I had enough. On the darkest and longest nights of my life I realise one thing: how lucky I am. That can be the hardest thing to understand and accept sometimes. My darkest and longest nights have often led me to this: understanding how grateful I am and how much I love my work. I am so lucky to be able to work. I know what it's like to feel like you won't be able to work. I know a lot of things happened that weren't my fault. But one thing I know for sure is that we can always be grateful for everything. Sometimes it's really hard to be grateful - when everything hurts and everything is difficult. I don't know how to say or who to say to How grateful I am for everything. I am so lucky to have a family. I am so lucky to have people who love me. I am so lucky to ha...

My Purpose In Life Is Love You can take away my software engineering career. You can take away my ability to code. You can even take away my ability to dance although I would be very very sad. But you can never take away my ability to love. That is because it is my own true innate nature. It is all of our true innate nature. And so it comes naturally that. There is nothing I desire more than to spread love in this universe. There is nothing I desire more than to share love at every single moment in every single day Because everything in the universe longs for your affection Everything in this universe loves you and longs to be loved by you And longs for your affection And wants to be told how loved it is by you With or without words

Holding Out With Love and Kindness in the Storm Our spaces are an expression of our mind. This is concerning. My space is a total mess. I’ve tried so hard and I cleared it out a lot while I was off with a burnout but I was never quite finished. And thus the job isn’t done. There’s nothing I find harder in the world than tidying a room. I have tried a lot of things and I am still waiting for a magic cure. But my room can tell you this Things are messy, things are disorganised. Things need attending to and clearing up. But in the middle of it all is my bed with my giant purple dragon. My prayer flags are up and my two postcards from my little sister are on my wall I realise that my room tells me this: no matter how bad things are, and no matter how messy things are, I hold out with love. I hold onto things with love. Because the Buddhists say: karma is a cake. You can get shitty ingredients and bake a beautiful cake with love. Or you can get fancy ingredients and waste them The result...

Poland and its Adventures I am half Polish and I haven't been to Poland in 7 years and something is very very wrong. Every time I try and go to Poland something goes wrong. I booked flights last year, I lost my job and had to stay in the country. I booked flights this year, the event got cancelled and with it my place to stay. I still have those flights though. I mean I could go. But what would I even do there and where would I even stay... I suppose I could book a hotel or youth hostel I'll talk to my family about it... but it would be weird to go to Poland and not visit my family (who will be away doing something else at that time). When I go back to Poland I feel like a part of me that I didn't even know was missing come back. I spent so much time in Poland as a kid and had so many things there - summer camps, internships.  I had my first kiss in Poland (awww). I had so many emotions. Climbed so many walls (literally - I did wall climbing). Surfed so many waves (I was in...

Reading "How To Make Your Code Reviewer Fall In Love With You", Part 2 Okay, so after what happened with the VSCode course yesterday (although that was the right thing for me to do - every blog post represents a segment of learning and so I have to limit them at a certain point and start a new one) I am going to try and keep this the second and last blog post for this task. Also because I just think that the rest of this article is on one topic. So let's go. First of all - the biggest takeaway from the article seems to be value and cherish your code reviewer's time. You will learn more if your PR is better. Your reviewer will put more effort in to your review when they know you value their time. Techniques This section looks familiar but THERE IS ALWAYS MORE TO LEARN. SO let's go. Review Your Own Code First "BEFORE SENDING CODE TO YOUR TEAMMATE, READ IT YOURSELF FIRST. IMAGINE READING THE CODE FOR THE FIRST TIME. WHAT MIGHT CONFUSE YOU?" Wow. Yes I used ...

Reading "How To Make Your Code Reviewer Fall In Love With You", Part 1 I have raised many PRs in my life. And I have had my code reviewed by some pretty strict reviewers (they wouldn't mind - I have said this to them and they know it). So I like to think that my PR can meet some high standards. But there's ALWAYS more to learn (for all of us - let alone at my level) - so let's go xxxx I like it these people think like I do xxx Why raise better PRs? You will learn faster It helps others to raise better PRs Better team atmosphere KEY TAKEAWAY: VALUE YOUR REVIEWER'S TIME THE PEOPLE REVIEWING YOUR PRS ARE BUSY AND IMPORTANT. "MAXIMISE THE VALUE OF THEIR TIME."  "YOUR REVIEWER PUTS IN MORE EFFORT WHEN THEY CAN COUNT ON YOU TO TAKE THEIR FEEDBACK SERIOUSLY."

Part 5 of the VSCode Mess Help. Please continue to send vibes. I'm trying. Watching a video and sitting still is really hard. He's talking about something and I don't know what. The audience seems to be asking questions but it's always the same guy, is he really giving a lecture to just one guy? I have no idea what's going on anymore. This talk is aimed at very nerdy software developers. I am not that nerdy yet. Will I ever be? Who knows. I just want to get the job done. I just need to get the job done. Oh no now he's dissing people who copy paste from the internet. Or talking about people who use really niche languages. I do not use niche languages. For now. He's talking about how he sticks to Mac because of the muscle memory value.  Valid. I like Mac too myself. I am so lost. What is he talking about now. Thanks. "Command k and w" closes a whole editor group - was that one of his own ones though? IDK. What's going on. Do we need to spend twen...

Part 4 of this VSCode disaster the best way to figure out what the shortcut is is using the command palette i wish i knew what section or chapter of the course i was in you can add key bindings to thingies not yet please omg this is way too advanced for me OKAY WHAT I HAVE FINISHED A CHAPTER. But which chapter have I finished? OMG I AM DOING BETTER THAN I THOUGHT. I AM MUCH MUCH FURTHER IN THIS THAN I THOUGHT I WAS  YAY YAY HOORAY YAY YAY YAY HOORAY. Oh no but by that I mean I have to watch 20 minutes of this next section - could skip but it might be useful. I prefer learning on the job but learning on the job takes tiiime. I can barely even watch a MOVIE. Watching a video tutorial is really, really hard for me. this is actually quite interesting  he is talking about how to set up your own keyboard shortcuts. and it makes sense. i don't want to do it yet. but it looks so super cool and super useful. and now i will know how to do it when i need to! you can also just see a whole...

Continuing with the absolute disaster that is attempting to sit still through a VSCode Video Course (Part 3) I repeat - I REPEAT - I CANNOT sit still and passively watch videos. I cannot. But I am doing my best. They don't even show the commands he's using so if you mishear them thats too bad. And with my neurodiversity if instructions aren't written down either by me or someone else they don't exist. But I'm doing my best. Okay what's gong on now. "Go to bracket". COMMAND SHIFT BACKSLASH. oh nice. that one jumps to the relative opening or closing bracket "HALF THE TIME WHEN YOU WISH VSCODE DID SOMETHING IT MIGHT" THEN WE GO TO THE COMMAND PALETTE. I AM DOING REALLY WELL. CAN I SPEED THIS GUY UP. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT SECTION OF THE COURSE I AM ON. THERE ARE NO CLEAR HEADINGS. HELP. I AM SURVIVING. OH THE TERMINAL - FINALLY. CONTROL BACKTICK! OH I KNEW IT! I KNEW THERE WAS A WAY! I KNEW IT. BUT HOW AM I GOING TO REMEMBER ALL OF THIS ...

Sitting Still Through A VSCode Course, Part 2 Ahem. After a year of Pycharm, I am learning to be good at VSCode. So here we are.  Part 2 of this series. As the most AuDHD person alive (well, one of them) it is going very very slowly. Let us continue then. Continuing Talking about the vs code built in terminal. And other buttons. Okay which section am I in? Which chapter am I in? This kind of things helps me to focus. Wait, lost. Totally lost. Oh so you can do command shift [ / commamd shift ] to move back and forth between files. Just like in Pycharm! Suffering on OMG YOU'VE GOT SWITCH EDITOR  AND SWITCH GROUP. The nice man instructor person  Says to just drop down menus and look at what the options are MY OPTIONS ARE OF COURSE DIFFERENT FROM THE DUDE'S IN THE RECORDING But I get the idea. Look at options. Hit tabs at the top and look at what the menu options are. Just to get an idea of what is possible. Okay so you can do some shit with like commands one and two. OMG THE...

Sitting Still Through A VSCode Course, Part 1 I am watching videos. NOT my Susanna AuDHD comfort zone. Actually, it's my idea of hell. I am an interactive learner. I am an active learner. I am a prosumer of knowledge. I cannot sit still. So I'm going to just write this during the parts when I have to listen and sit still. If I need to take notes by hand I'll do that. If I need to take a break I'll do that. If I need to alternate with other tasks I will Oh great so where is the course website. Found it After a year of Pycharm: Goals Getting around the editor Becoming familiar with repetitive tasks creating consistent development environments Right, here I am. Part 1 I have sped him up a bit at first as I am too bored. We are in a project but I don't know what's going on. What project is this? Anyway the first thing they are doing is exactly what I got stuck on yesterday. WHOOPS.  Command shift P is the command pallette. Okay great. There is a course repo but it i...

Paradise Woke up the morning after. Now you can’t get hungover from a banana, strawberry and elderflower smoothie. But I do feel the day of running around London with a heavy backpack. You’ve probably noticed I’m writing a lot atm. Why? Because I hate change. No matter how positive or exciting the change is. Change is one of the hardest things for me and after a year of familiarising with a team, with Python, with a repo (or a couple of repos), why would I move on? Because it was the right thing to do. Because that was where my passion and enthusiasm lay. Because that was where my growth and future and opportunities lay And I had to do it Thank you Leaving gift from my BFF in the team

Everything Changes, So What Can I Be? I am 15 years old and sitting in a biology class. I am 16 years old and sitting in a maths class. I am 16 years old and skiving a French class (whoops). I am 16 years old and skiving a maths class (whoops). I am 15 years old and skiving a physics class and a chemistry class back to back (double whoops - I swear to you that is all my skiving). I am 30 years old and running down  Green park tube station to the Victoria line. I did it this morning and I did it this evening twelve hours later. So what changes? And what doesn’t change? In every experience “I am”. “I am” 30 years old. “I am” 5 years old and climbing a tree. “I am” 15 years old and being wheeled into a hospital on a stretcher after my first seizure. “I am” 12 years old and getting “married” to my summer love interest on summer camp (it was a thing in Poland okay). I am 12 years old and deeply within the Polish woods with that same sweetheart. Everything changes. I am a glamorous woman...