Clarity : Dehydration

I was dehydrated Wednesday.

Dehydration can make you crazy.  I was so dizzy and nauseous, I literally thought I was going to die.  Funny thing about being on your death bed is that it gives you clarity.

I instantly saw myself as chasing a million different things, getting absolutely nowhere, and feeling lots of shame about it.  I saw, in my delusion what is ACTUALLY important in life...  And not what I think *should* be important.  I saw what is important to me.  

And it is.... (drum roll please)

.

.

.

ACCEPTANCE!!!  

When I was lying there, seeing myself going in a million directions, I didn't feel bad about my lack of focus.  I only felt bad ABOUT feeling bad...

Turns out, accepting myself and my current reality is actually the MOST important thing.  More important than "focusing on a goal" (I have way too many), "becoming financially independent" (my financial situation is sub par), "being a good mom"(I would love to stop yelling at my kids), "being liked"... or rather "caring about being liked" (I spend so much energy caring about what people think)

In my clarity, I saw that actually none of this stuff matters as much as accepting myself.  If I die, having reached zero of my current goals, with debt, fussing at my kids more than I would like, and unpopular - it would not be a tragic as my resisting it all (and myself in the process).

Sooooo....  This month, I am going to be SHAMELESS.  I am going to do everything I want, not holding back and sharing it all.

And also, I am going to drink water.  Lots and lots of water.

I love coffee

I tried to give up coffee about a week ago.

As you may have guessed, my coffee fast didn't last.  I blame it on the bookstore.  Something about drinking a sugary latte while sitting amongst thousands of books and perfect strangers while struggling with code is so... invigorating.

The reason I wanted to give up coffee is because I drink it with crap: sugar, syrup, soy, and whatever else they put in my white chocolate soy latte. Yum. Maybe one day I will learn to drink it black...  

Not today.

Oh, caffeine how I love you. ❤️ We've gone a week without being together... I thought you weren't good for me. The sugar and syrup that I usually consume with you surely isn't. But I have realized I love you too much to let you go. Let's be together again. #coffeemakesmeabetterperson #coffeefastover #odetocoffee 💜#codegirl #javascript

A post shared by Ayana (@mommywifecrafter) on Aug 24, 2017 at 10:00am PDT

Contrary to popular advice, I am attempting to learn 3 different programming languages:

I am studying:

-Java

-Python (with Django)

-JavaScript (along with HTML and CSS)

Python

I am doing Python because of my friend's husband, Dan, who is willing to help me.   He does what I would love to do which is work from home as a programmer.   He happens to use Python and the framework, Django.  Frameworks are super common amongst programmers.  Before I started working with him, I had no idea what a framework was. But now they are easy-peezy!  Just kidding.  I still barely know.

Aside (re frameworks): When doing common coding *stuff*, (building a mobile app, a web app, etc) there is a LOT of code that needs to be written.  Instead of rewriting the same code over and over again, there are frameworks out there that write a bunch of the code for you.  All you need to do is fill in the blanks.

Django - is a web framework that uses the Model-View-Template (MVT) architectural pattern.   (We will talk about MVT later on).

Dan is very patient and willing to answer my questions. Not to mention, kind of amazing at explaining stuff.  Unfortunately, I am self-conscious about what I don't know - so I am not as aggressive as I would need to be at asking good questions when he is helping me.  As a math tutor, I know that feeling self-conscious is the absolute worst way to learn.  It is far better to not mind looking like an ignoramus and ask as many *dumb* questions as necessary. Knowing this hardly helps the self-consciousness go away.  Also, he has a full-time job which doesn't include helping me.  He has about an hour per week to help me and the online documentation on Python is pretty horrid.  

Java - and Java.   Ahhhh.  I love Java.  I love the SUPERB documentation on it... I love the organization of code.  I love how if you create a method, you HAVE to state what it returns (if it returns anything at all!).  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that learning Java is a section on my vision board (vision boards are pretty magical).  Maybe it is because Java is the first programming language I ever learned.  Maybe because it is also my husband's language of choice so we can have extended in-depth conversations about it.  Maybe it is because it was named after my beverage of choice... Whatever the reason, java is my jam.  But even with as much time as I have with my husband, it is not enough.  Often when I want to work on a project, he is at work...

Which leads me to JavaScript.

JavaScript

I am doing JavaScript because there are TONS of resources on the web on it.   I can access everything I need anytime!  One of my favorite resources is on FreeCodeCamp.  I also found LamdaSchool's free mini bootcamp. Because JavaScript is a web-based language, it is typically taught along with HTML and CSS.

HTML - is a markup "language".  It really just tells the browser how the text should look.

CSS - does basically the same thing, just in a more cohesive manner.  

JavaScript - is not markup - it is a programming language that *does* stuff in the browser.  

I find myself going back and forth between the three languages every day.  I know that this hinders the depth that I can get with each of them...  But honestly, I can't choose just one to put down.

I try to be good.

Really.  But sometimes I have to let go a little.

A little background:

One of my old classmates from high school sent me a text message a while ago trying to "convert me" (or at least get me to explain to her why I am no longer a Christian). Not wanting to be rude, I proceeded to tell her (politely) that I have my own path and she has hers.  I told her that I am not interested in altering my path at this time.  The engagement lasted for HOURS.  I ended up telling her that I would rather have the conversation in person because it takes too long to text.  Also, communication is a lot smoother when there is a person-to-person energy exchange.  It is easier to let the other person know what you mean when they can see body language, have eye contact, etc.

Do you know that she told me that she didn't have *time* to hang out in person?!?  Really?  We can't sit and talk for an hour over tea, but you have time (+ energy) to text for HOURS?  I was pretty annoyed because I felt like I wasted my time.  I spent so much time and energy trying to be polite!

Well, today this happened:

I literally felt my vibration lowering when I wrote that.

But couldn't help myself.  She went on to claim that she just sent it to all the mothers in her contact list and that they all appreciate it; yada yada.  I can't help but disbelieve this.  Are there NO other scriptures in the bible that praise mothers and motherhood than one that says that (and I am paraphrasing a little here) you are basically worthless if you aren't bound by fear of being a free thinker?

Girl Bye.

I am learning to code

I did a little coding in college. I loved it. I actually changed my major from Education to Computer Engineering because I loved it so much... until I didn't like my teacher. As a people pleaser and a perfectionist, having a teacher that was nice and seemed to like me is very important. My CS 2 (Computer Science)  teacher resisted my charms. He came to class with an attitude and didn't cheer up. Also, it became clear that I would not get an A and maybe not even a B. I dropped the class and changed my major to Electrical Engineering.

Electrical Engineering was a joy in school.  I loved the labs.  I loved my teachers, and more importantly, my teachers seemed to like me.  When I got a job as a Research Engineer, I thought I hit jackpot!  Unfortunately, this was not the case.  My coworkers (mostly middle-aged white men)  were not used to having a young black girl bouncing around the office.  The only other black women in the office were the admin assistants.  They understood my plight and discomfort. I loved them, but I was told to restrict my interactions with them because the *engineers* would see me as being an admin as well.  I quit.

Now that my babies are school age and I need a full-time gig, I decided to change to coding. I have a background (albeit very small) in coding. I have the hyper-logical mindset that is necessary to work as a programmer. Also, my husband is a genius computer scientist. You would think that my journey to become a coder is paved in gold. Alas, it is not.

Maybe it is me (It is probably me), but whenever I am trying to look up a coding concept, it feels like any of the answers are saturated with jargon. For example, I did a couple of javascript tutorials and I would like to do some practice on some of my own projects. I downloaded WebStorm, a purportedly amazing IDE (Integrated Development Environment: really just a fancy piece of software that makes writing code and finding issues/problems with your code easier).  I decide to open a new project from scratch and I get about a billion options:

Okay, 14.   

I give myself a pep talk.  "Ayana, you can do this.  All you gotta do is google... "  I think that Web Starter Kit looks pretty good.  I will start with that.  

Well, according to google (specifically https://developers.google.com/web/tools/starter-kit/ ) Web Starter Kit is "an opinionated boilerplate for web development." Seriously!?!

I know what "opinionated" means.  I was called that since I was a little kid.  And I know what boilerplate is.  But opinionated boilerplate????  I have no idea.  

Again, I tell myself: "Just chill, Ayana".  You can just google "opinionated boilerplate". I do this.  No results for the definition.  There is an opinionated boilerplate for React libraries.  There is an opinionated boilerplate for Node.  There is an opinionated boilerplate for HTML5 (you can see that there is an HTML5 boilerplate in the options above - not "opinionated" apparently).  But there is no definition for it.  I scour Wikipedia.  Nope.

How am I supposed to learn what this terminology means if I can't find the friggin definition??? How???  Somebody, please tell me!

Ugh.  I will figure it out, eventually....hopefully.