#g school

Well. We did it. We survived our first week.

On day one, we were told to savor each day and make the most out of it because “the next 24 weeks were going to fly by in the blink of an eye”. On my first day I couldn’t fathom how six months would feel fast- but now I get it.

The amount of information  I’ve learned in one week is more than what I was able to teach myself in one year of self-instruction. It’s pretty crazy the amount of practical, applicable coding skills they can teach us in one week.

Last week, I was terrified of github and the command line. This week, it’s getting close to second nature. 

This week we learned about: - Navigating using the command line - Using github for version control and submitting code via the terminal - Cloning, forking, and workflows for best practice regarding github - HTML - CSS and Bootstrap Html was quite straightforward. I had plenty of experience and didn’t feel like I struggled. The *concept* of CSS was simple enough, but it’s challenging trying to make specific things happen when it comes to CSS formatting because you never know how moving one element will affect the elements around it. 

Today, we spent all day learning about Bootstrap - an open source collection of tools meant to simplify CSS development. Bootstrap presented its own unique set of challenges, but it certainly made it more intuitive to create and style beautiful looking pages.

I feel tired - even though I got a good amount of sleep every night this week. I can’t stress enough how staggering the sheer AMOUNT of information we learned was. My brain feels dense with new knowledge. It’s tough - but ultimately fun and rewarding.

Not quite finished with my first week yet, but the honeymoon is sure as hell over.

I don’t mean that in a bad way. However, it is clear now that the easier confidence-building sort of exercises are now over and we are quickly delving into more complicated material. It’s not frustrating. It is all explained very well at a great pace with great practice exercises that truly help you learn. Plus, if you get stuck along the way you have the instructors as a resource. This is very helpful versus practicing on my own at home and getting so stuck and frustrated that I just quit and go do something else.

Where this begins to feel foreign to me is the sheer amount of information I am learning every day as well as the way I feel so engaged and invested with it all. At university, I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. Here, I go hours without zoning out or checking social media. It’s unusual for me to not check Instagram every 5 minutes. 

My brain is starting to feel sore. But it’s a good feeling not unlike the way your body feels sore after a good workout.