Ms. Aspiring Programmer

Just moved to San Francisco! Up til now, I had been commuting from the East Bay, where I lived with my parents. This was planned, and it will only be for the middle 4 weeks of DBC.

I'm really excited though--I admit that this has been a nice "breath of air" after being stuck living with my parents for a little more than a year now. Today I got some groceries to be stocked up for the week. Can't have too many fruit! Got my boyfriend to try heirloom tomatoes for the first time :). I'm trying to have pizza as my main meal staple while I'm here (not the healthiest, I know), because it's easy to make and relatively cheap. I was going to order a pizza, but I went a step further and purchased frozen pizza for about $5. It's going to last me about 3 days though. We'll see how this pizza experiment will go...

My dad called me this evening. I guess he misses me being home, even though I'm less than an hour away from him. I admit that I miss my parents too. It's kind of like when I lived in France--you start to miss the little things, like your dogs, the comfort of living in your own home, and always being around your loved ones. The autonomy's nice though, and I'll definitely take advantage of it.

Last week, we learned about integrating CSV files into Ruby code, and we've started applying all our Ruby knowledge into our own apps! That was a nice step up and it just goes to show how much we are learning here. Very exciting! We also practiced working in a group project on Friday and we came up with the MVP of an idea of our choice, within a single day! Some people even integrated API's, which goes to show that as long as you're resourceful, you can go beyond the scope of what you're "supposed" to know.

I'm grateful for this first day. I felt a little lonely, but my boyfriend spent the day with me today which was really nice. Borrowed his Kindle so now I should be able to do the DBC readings on the go! Grateful for cheap frozen pizza, funny boyfriends who are excited by mugs, and Community to laze the day off.

It's already Week 3: let's do this.

Frozen pizza (obsession of the day): Waiting for the slices to cool off before putting them in my mini-fridge.

agenda:

how I mustn't compare myself to others. maybe better, compete.

Recently I've been spending more time listening to people's stories at DBC. People come from such different backgrounds here, and they all came for one single purpose, which is to code! I was talking to one of my cohort mates, who seems to have a stellar work ethic: he doesn't stay later than 9PM every night, I've never seen him seem frustrated or stressed, and his code seems so flawless!

First day of week 2. Some observations:

- I walk up a set of stairs every morning when I exit the BART station and enter The City. I noticed that if I focus on the stairs I'm on, I'm less tired than if I focused on the end result. I thought it was kind of reflective of what I'm doing here: I must focus on the present moment and not how many weeks are left. That way I'll get the most out of it. Live in the moment!

- I wonder if I'll get tired of SF. I still feel exhilarated by the tall buildings here and the flurry of people I encounter while trekking up to campus.

Hello there! This is the first real post I'm making here. Wasn't able to blog because of the overwhelming week I was having so far.

Anyway..

It was a great week! I am just blown away by everyone's kindness here. I think this is a great environment with phenomenally intelligent and motivated people. 

Here's a picture of the view I get when I walk to the DBC campus every morning. It's so exhilarating to be in the heart of San Francisco while taking part in this incredible journey. 

This week we went over some of the basics of Ruby: methods, objects, etc, while doing challenges that applied what we learned. One thing that stands out at DBC is their usage of "A-Ha! Moments" in their teaching: basically, if you find something interesting about Ruby and how it functions, or any shortcuts you found, you share it with the cohort so they could have "a-ha! moments" of their own.