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  <title><![CDATA[carojane @ Launch Academy]]></title>
  <link href="http://carojane.github.io/atom.xml" rel="self"/>
  <link href="http://carojane.github.io/"/>
  <updated>2014-10-08T08:48:16-04:00</updated>
  <id>http://carojane.github.io/</id>
  <author>
    <name><![CDATA[Carly J Pulver]]></name>
    
  </author>
  <generator uri="http://octopress.org/">Octopress</generator>

  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[A Group of Introverts]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/10/08/a-group-of-introverts/"/>
    <updated>2014-10-08T08:02:35-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/10/08/a-group-of-introverts</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>I had promised myself that no matter what, I would keep up my weekly blogging throughout the duration of Launch Academy. That, of course broke down when it came time for group projects.</p>

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<p>My group project was frustrating. From what I&rsquo;ve learned talking to the EEs, this is a normal reaction. Actually, reflecting on it now, now that it&rsquo;s over and done with, I&rsquo;m glad for the experience.</p>

<p>Somebody made a comment about my group, that the four of us were the biggest introverts in the entire cohort. Fair enough, though the phrase I used was &ldquo;independent workers&rdquo;. I enjoy being an introvert, even when I also enjoy working with others. Usually, I let more outgoing people take the lead and offer support, creativity and reliability. I know my strengths.</p>

<p>Being in a group with no natural leader forced me to step into the role - in my own way - and made me realize what I value in group work.</p>

<p>I like using collaborative brainstorming as a way to generate ideas and solve problems. In my group it felt like hitting a brick wall when we were coming up with our project idea - I was the only one offering suggestions and they were all torn apart with criticism. I&rsquo;m more inspired to work on a project when my coworkers are offering creative input as well.</p>

<p>I also appreciate structure in the workflow. Having set milestones and goals that everyone knows helps the entire team stay on track. For my individual project, I have a running to-do list and a daily list of objectives.</p>

<p>Communication is vital in group work. It has been something in the past that I&rsquo;ve had a hard time with, but I&rsquo;ve learned to make it a priority. A few times, we had a team member who would work on a feature, only to find out that someone else had already finished it. He was frequently absent and late, and didn&rsquo;t make much of an effort to communicate (mostly listen) so wasn&rsquo;t able to contribute much to the project.</p>

<p>In the same vein, feedback and self evaluation is important as well - both of the work and the group dynamics. I called a meeting to discuss our communication issues early in the second week, and while it didn&rsquo;t solve all the problems, it got the entire group on the same page.</p>

<p>I felt like I stepped into a leadership role for the project, though in a hands off way. I suppose I was just taking initiative and being proactive, which is what I would hope anyone working in a team would do. It was very frustrating dealing with a team member who refused to do that.</p>

<p>I do enjoy working alone. For bigger projects, I really do like working in a group, knowing that project features will be added while I can focus on my own task. A good group, in my opinion, is one where team members can come together collaboratively, but also can work independently.</p>

<p>So, while my group project was so very frustrating, and while I&rsquo;m proud but not ecstatic about the end result, I learned so much from the experience that I will take with me into my future jobs.</p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[Go Your Own Way]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/09/21/go-your-own-way/"/>
    <updated>2014-09-21T16:23:23-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/09/21/go-your-own-way</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>We have been notified that the formal learning portion of Launch Academy is now over. This doesn&rsquo;t mean that we won&rsquo;t be learning anything at all, because there is still so much to go over, but most of those will be learned through actually building apps at this point.</p>

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<p>We finally got to Rails this week. It&rsquo;s a bit confusing, remembering all the MVC steps necessary to make sure everything works, but it makes everything easier to build bigger and complicated apps. The forms builder is interesting - you can use ruby to populate a drop down menu through ActiveRecord easily. There&rsquo;s still a lot more to learn about all the Rails features, and there are so many gems out there to use, so it&rsquo;s a bit overwhelming, but I&rsquo;m excited!</p>

<p><img src="http://carojane.github.io/images/fox.jpg" title="What does the fox say?" alt="a fox" /></p>

<p>This weekend was awesome. I participated as a TA at RailsBridge Boston, which was so rewarding. There was a large group of women who are enthusiatic about coding and many of them are in the same situation as me: seeking a new career.</p>

<p>I led a breakout goup in the afternoon about changing careers and it was pretty popular. While I emphasized that there are many paths to follow, the other TAs in the group and I were all following the bootcamp path, so most of the questions were about Launch and other bootcamps. I actually hope that this weekend leads to more women going through Launch, because the ratio of men to women is a little depressing right now.</p>

<p>There were women from earlier Launch cohorts who were also acting as TAs and I got to bond with them, comparing notes on our experiences, and hearing about how far they have come since their cohort ended. They all have interesting jobs and seem to really enjoy where they are. It makes me very excited about getting a job after the program is over. Although the weather is a major deterrant, I think Boston would be an awesome town to end up in because of the great Ruby community that I&rsquo;m meeting here.</p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[Scaling the Mountain]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/09/15/scaling-the-mountain/"/>
    <updated>2014-09-15T07:34:32-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/09/15/scaling-the-mountain</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>It&rsquo;s official. Launch Academy is halfway through and over and done. That means only five more weeks of structured learning and guided projects before I&rsquo;m expected to go back out into the big bad world and actually be a Computer Programmer.</p>

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<p>This past week, I had to get over a lot of frustration with the program and with myself, as I feel like I am learning so much, am confident I am rocking the knowledge, and almost feel like things are moving too slow. Reality check, Carly. I am confident in my skills, but I am still a beginner (maybe Advanced Beginner?).</p>

<p>When I went to the EEs about my concerns, they challenged me to make my own projects and use what I&rsquo;ve learned so far to start building an app. Okay, scary. I didn&rsquo;t even realize how terrifying a prospect that was, until I was issued that challenge.</p>

<p>In just three weeks, I will be building my Breakable Toy, a full feature app to showcase my skills. And I have no idea what that app will be.</p>

<p>On Tuesday, in lieu of lecture, we had a brainstorming session for ideas of things we could build or work on the side to practice our skills, or to learn new things.</p>

<p>I now have a couple of ideas of projects to work on, and with a little more confidence behind me I built a site to log my work while here at Launch Academy. There are links to different projects that we have worked on, the names of the weekly Systems Checks, links to this blog, and a list of the side projects I have done as well. The formatting may have to change as we get into the group project and Breakable Toy weeks, but it works for now.</p>

<p><img src="http://carojane.github.io/images/alphacal.png" title="Alpha Calendar" alt="a alpha" /></p>

<p>Originally, I hardcoded all the data, but as we were learning about SQL and ActiveRecord, I changed moved it to a database. This way, I can update the info for the remaining weeks without going into the HTML each time. Even though I really enjoy playing around with the HTML and CSS. I used tables! In the way tables are actually meant to be used! (Not just in the annoying way n00bs use them.) And to facilitate me updating the site, I used forms to access the database.</p>

<p><img src="http://carojane.github.io/images/assignmentlog.png" title="Assignment Form" alt="a assignment" /></p>

<p>I&rsquo;m actually quite proud of myself, even if it is a relatively simple site and project. It really showcases what I have learned, while showcasing what I have actually learned!</p>

<p>This week, we FINALLY get to Rails. Also, I have two competing project ideas that are begging me to get started.</p>

<p>Halfway through means I still have five weeks left, and a whole lot to learn.</p>

<p>As 11 put it, Geronimo.</p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[Overheated]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/09/06/overheated/"/>
    <updated>2014-09-06T17:01:28-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/09/06/overheated</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>This week has been a little difficult, for a couple reasons. Personally, I&rsquo;m blaming it on the heat and humidity.</p>

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<p>Last weekend I went home, and it felt a little strange to be there. Half of me would love to still have the security blanket that living at home offers - especially the homecooked meals that are a part of that. But my momentum and excitment towards my new life is strong enough that I didn&rsquo;t feel entirely comfortable being home.</p>

<p>I didn&rsquo;t get back into Boston until 9 on Monday night and had trouble adjusting back to a single bed again.</p>

<p>This week felt almost too easy, and it has been annoying me. I sometimes I feel like I must be missing things but don&rsquo;t realize it. I don&rsquo;t feel like I could sit down and write an app or my breakable toy at all, yet, but I&rsquo;m finishing challenges easily and quickly.</p>

<p>I think that&rsquo;s something I should work on next week - coming up with my own challenges to practice. I also plan to talk to the EEs about extra problems or work. Maybe I can get a one-on-one with them to talk about how I&rsquo;m doing, what I need to work on, how I can push myself. Maybe I can even start working on planning my breakable toy.</p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[I Have Confidence in Me]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/08/29/i-have-confidence-in-me/"/>
    <updated>2014-08-29T23:14:59-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/08/29/i-have-confidence-in-me</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>This was a good week, because I really feel like I&rsquo;m doing well. I am getting everything they throw at me, and the challenges are feeling almost easy at times. It&rsquo;s dangerous, really, as I let myself get distracted and didn&rsquo;t engage enough with my cohort. Part of that may have been a little burnout, so I&rsquo;m glad that this weekend was a long weekend and that I took advantage of it by going home.</p>

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<p>One cool thing happend on the way home. My dad picked me up at the train station in Albany and we drove the rest of the way, which was fun. We were listening to the Radio Lab podcast and they did a piece on numbers, mentioning the Fibonacci sequence. Math geeks that we are, we tried to recite the sequence, but didn&rsquo;t very far. Having my laptop out, I wrote a quick program to output the fibonacci sequence up to a given didgit.</p>

<figure class='code'><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span>
<span class='line-number'>2</span>
<span class='line-number'>3</span>
<span class='line-number'>4</span>
<span class='line-number'>5</span>
<span class='line-number'>6</span>
<span class='line-number'>7</span>
<span class='line-number'>8</span>
</pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class=''><span class='line'>def fib(digit, array = [0, 1])
</span><span class='line'>  array = array
</span><span class='line'>  until array.length == digit
</span><span class='line'>    next_digit = array[-1] + array[-2]
</span><span class='line'>    array &lt;&lt; next_digit
</span><span class='line'>  end
</span><span class='line'>  array
</span><span class='line'>end
</span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure>


<p>I ran <code>fib(1000)</code> and it spit out all 1000 numbers (or 999 plus 0). This is the second fibonacci program I have written - the other only spat out the digit given, and since it used regression, it was a slow running program past 24 digits. Of course, I&rsquo;m not entirely sure how accurate the program is, since I don&rsquo;t know off hand the 1000th digit in the fibonacci sequence. Still, I&rsquo;m really proud that I&rsquo;ve become a programmer without even noticing.</p>

<p>While I have this high-flying confidence, I&rsquo;m still insanely aware of how much I don&rsquo;t know. I still have to work on javaScript and jQuery, which has been a side project this week, and is not clicking as well as I would like. I also want to start reading some books on Ruby to advance my knowledge a bit more.</p>

<p>SQL was super easy for me - mostly because I have worked with databases before. Who knew stats and SPSS would be good preparation for coding? I just hope that the ease I felt last week doesn&rsquo;t mean that I have missed something important.</p>

<p>It&rsquo;s a new month and we&rsquo;re like a quarter of the way through the program. Still feeling good.</p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[Practical Magic]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/08/23/practical-magic/"/>
    <updated>2014-08-23T15:30:11-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/08/23/practical-magic</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Woah, there. You thought things were going so well. You thought you knew your stuff. You thought, &lsquo;Maybe I&rsquo;ll actually make it as a web developer, after all.&rsquo;</p>

<p><strong>HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!</strong></p>

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<p>Okay, I&rsquo;m not really horribly discouraged, and I&rsquo;m not strugging completely, but I have to admit that the momentum has slowed down considerably this week.</p>

<p>It started out fine. We learned HTML and CSS, both of which I enjoy playing around with. I like frontend, though I&rsquo;m not strong at it, and I want to learn more about CSS (especially using frameworks) and javascript.</p>

<p>The trouble started when we were introduced to Sinatra. Keeping a Ruby file nice and clean is important, which is true about html and css files as well. It&rsquo;s important for readability and for making sure the program works by having matching variable names and calling the right methods. Keeping up with changes between the erb file and the ruby file in Sinatra, even when they are both nicely organized and clean, is a pain. Make one change here, the program crashes. Forget an argument here, the program crashes. And it&rsquo;s much more difficult to zero in on the problem than it was just running a ruby program in iTerm.</p>

<p>And then Heroku came into play.</p>

<p>Heroku, it seems, hates pry. If I have <code>require 'pry'</code> at the top of my server.rb file, the site gives me an error. I had to figure out what was wrong by digging through hundreds of lines in the logs.</p>

<p>Now that I think about it, it probably has to go into the Gemfile in order to work. So, there&rsquo;s that. The problem is that I set up Heroku by following a list of steps, which was more than problematic. Also, I&rsquo;m not entirely sure I understood what went into each step.</p>

<p>First, in order to install the redis-cli library, I had to change the settings of <code>usr/local/bin</code> to be writtable. I write that as if I knew how to do that before I did it. I figured it out and got redis installed and linked, and changed my server.rb file to refer to a redis directory instead of a csv. I&rsquo;m still not sure how it works, but it did, so I&rsquo;m not looking a gift horse in the mouth on that one.</p>

<p>There were a few hickups with installing the Gemfile (copying word for word from the instructions lead to things not working sometimes), but it worked.</p>

<p>So, next, I deployed to heroku. It was a mess. It didn&rsquo;t have css, so I had to go in and clean up where my files were linked, and then it stopped working altogether getting a &ldquo;<em>Internal Server Error</em>&rdquo;.</p>

<p>There was nothing in the logs that I could find that would explain it, so I went to the oracle (google.com) and searched there. The heroku faq had a step listed in its deployment instructions that weren&rsquo;t in the instructions I was following:</p>

<figure class='code'><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span>
</pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class=''><span class='line'>$ heroku ps:scale web=1</span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure>


<p>And it worked. At least, it mostly worked. I got my website deployed, and it looked okay. But for some reason, every so often, it will come back with &ldquo;<em>Internal Server Error</em>&rdquo;. I have no idea what&rsquo;s going on and the oracle isn&rsquo;t helping, so I&rsquo;m done playing for today.</p>

<p>Full disclosure, deploying to Heroku was an optional assignment, but I&rsquo;m glad I did it. We will be going over deploying to the web soon, and I&rsquo;m happy to have the learning experience out of the way. For the rest of the weekend, I&rsquo;m going to learn some javaScript and check out css frameworks.</p>

<p>We finished stage &lsquo;Alpha&rsquo; this week, which covered the fundimentals of Ruby, HTML and CSS, as well as Sinatra. The next two weeks are in stage &lsquo;Bravo&rsquo;, where we will be databasing it up, along with learning Object Oriented design. I&rsquo;m ready.</p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[One Week Closer]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/08/17/one-week-closer/"/>
    <updated>2014-08-17T22:06:13-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/08/17/one-week-closer</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>I&rsquo;ve been doing a lot of thinking this weekend about what comes next. I applied to Launch Academy to expand my opportunities in the future - to have a real marketable skill to take me places. And I&rsquo;m starting to realize that that is absolutely true. Just looking at job openings that are listed on different job boards, it&rsquo;s clear that there is definitely a demand for web developers. I need to focus on proving my chops these next 9 weeks, so that a job will be waiting for me on the other side.</p>

<!-- more -->


<p>I enjoyed this week so much. It is telling that I have woken up at 6AM every day this week, and was the first to &ldquo;Mission Control&rdquo; both on Tuesday and Friday. Earlier this summer, it was lucky if I got out of bed before noon, and when I was temping I rolled out of bed, into my car and to the office as close to start time as possible. It&rsquo;s hard to care when I&rsquo;m not being challenged, and it&rsquo;s very motivating when I am.</p>

<p>Everyday has been frustrating and rewarding. The coding challenges given are difficult, and force us to think, think again, and then try to think in a different way. When I was working on what now seems like a simple problem - create a method to calculate the factorial of any given digit - I got stuck. I kept trying picture it one way, with addition, when the complete oppisite was needed. When I finally created my method:</p>

<figure class='code'><div class="highlight"><table><tr><td class="gutter"><pre class="line-numbers"><span class='line-number'>1</span>
<span class='line-number'>2</span>
<span class='line-number'>3</span>
</pre></td><td class='code'><pre><code class=''><span class='line'>def factorial (x)
</span><span class='line'>  factorial (x - 1) * x
</span><span class='line'>end
</span></code></pre></td></tr></table></div></figure>


<p>it looked so elegant to me. I really enjoy recursive methods because they remind me of Russian nesting dolls. You can almost picture the <code>factorial (x)</code> opening up to reveal <code>factorial(x-1)</code> opening to reveal <code>factorial ((x-1) - 1)</code>, etc.</p>

<p>Coding is so much fun. There&rsquo;s a process everytime I&rsquo;m given a new coding challenge to work through. First, I read through it and gather as much information as possible that I may need, then I outline what the program I want to create will look like. It&rsquo;s a lot like outlining an essay for class, only for essays there&rsquo;s a structure that doesn&rsquo;t change much, while every code looks a little different and needs a different structure. I started using modelling in my notebook or on a whiteboard more at the end of the week, instead of - or before - writing #comments in the code itself, and I&rsquo;m very careful about organizing my code to make it look clean.</p>

<p>When I&rsquo;m tackling a new challenge, it&rsquo;s a little overwhelming sometimes to see the big picture, but modelling helps break it down in to small pieces, which can also be broken down into small pieces. Smaller, more managable pieces help me puzzle through one thing at a time, and also give me more victories when I get another little part of the code to work. The feeling that I get when I puzzle through a roadblock - it&rsquo;s amazing. And I get to feel it several times a day.</p>

<p>One thing I have to work on is working with others in my cohort. I made a concerted effort to do that by the end of last week, because I had discovered that I had a tendency to close off to other people and puzzle through the challenge on my own. I do like working on my own, but I also like bouncing ideas off other people, especially when I get stuck. Actually partnering on projects is more difficult, and is something that I&rsquo;m just going to have to get used to with practice. We were told that Launch Academy is supposed to be uncomfortable, and this is one aspect that is uncomfortable for me, but that is going to make me a better coder in time.</p>

<p>I think one problem is that there are so many different levels that people are on in the cohort, so some people are having trouble grappling through hashes and array, while others feel like the first week was way too slow and they learned nothing new. I&rsquo;m somewhere in the middle, where I was thouroughly challenged, but I quickly understood most of the material that we went through, thanks to the prework I did.</p>

<p>On Friday, I didn&rsquo;t really get anything done, but spent the morning helping others understand hashes and arrays. It was good review for me - it made me talk my thought processes out loud and explain them clearly. It was appreciated, as well, as I was voted &ldquo;Best Student Teacher&rdquo; for the weekly superlative awards. I can&rsquo;t do that all the time, though, because I need to work with people that can teach me when I&rsquo;m struggling with a concept. There are still things I don&rsquo;t get, that the internet doesn&rsquo;t explain well, like constants and local versus global veriables, that I wish I could look over with someone with stronger Ruby skills. I also want to show my code to someone who is a stronger coder than me, so that I get some good constructive criticism and mentoring.</p>

<p>Game plan, week 2: keep on keeping on! Work with new people (I have a couple people in mind), and help out the people I see struggling when I can. Get plenty of sleep and eat well - drink more water. Go for a walk at lunch or in the evening. Have fun! Get uncomfortable. Be amazing.</p>

<p><img src="http://carojane.github.io/images/week1.jpg" title="Me - Week 1" alt="a weekone" /></p>
]]></content>
  </entry>
  
  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[Creative Endeavors]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/07/17/creative-endeavors/"/>
    <updated>2014-07-17T13:52:49-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/07/17/creative-endeavors</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>Sleep has become somewhat of an annoyance lately. To blame is my persistant nature of generating fabulous ideas at 1 am and reaching my creative peak at 3 am. This is bad, considering I&rsquo;m 30 and I recuperate from all-nighters at a much slower than I did 10 years ago. So, I am sleeping, but recently only when the sun is out.</p>

<!-- more -->


<p>However! Much is to be said for 3 am creative streaks, and the compulisivity that comes with getting wrapped up in a project. Non-coding wise, I have (rather impusively) decided to sew a quilt. I hope to get it done in the next 2 weeks, so that I can take it with me to Boston, but that is a tall order when I have quite a lot of other things that need to get done. Luckily, I have chosen a pattern that is relatively easy, for a beginner like me. I just didn&rsquo;t know how exhausting cutting out 130 squares of fabric and 130 squares of muslin would be!</p>

<p>After getting distracted by worldly matters for a couple weeks, I&rsquo;m getting back on track with Launch Academy prework. On Treehouse, I have the Databases unit to get through, and I want to go over Javascript indepentantly. There is also a Ruby track that I&rsquo;m working my way through that is assigned through Launch Academy, but I think it would be good to review what I&rsquo;m learning in other places.</p>

<p>I moved this blog from Tumblr (way too many temptations for distraction there) and am using Octopress which is a little over my head, but forces me to practice using command line and git. I&rsquo;m trying to figure out how to host it on my own website (<a href="http://carojane.com">carojane.com</a>), but right now it&rsquo;s just one thing at a time.</p>

<p>Speaking of my website, I spent my entire 3 am creative streak working on it last night (or, you know, this morning) and have been working on learning CSS to make it look pretty. As opposed to the 90s-era-esque html only mess it is right now. It is nowhere near ready to launch, considering I need to hash out content and have no idea what will go on the front page. I&rsquo;m feeling somewhat competetant (though still a beginner) at CSS, at least when it comes to the simple stuff. Though, when I think about it, there&rsquo;s not really a lot I did with CSS, more than resizing images or changing fonts and colors. I really have no clue when it comes to layout, though, so that&rsquo;s my next step. It&rsquo;s another case of &lsquo;The More You Know, The More You Know You Don&rsquo;t Know&rsquo;.</p>

<p>There is something I&rsquo;m stuck on right now&hellip; I set up <code>heading</code> to stay permenantly on top with <code>position: fixed;</code> but I&rsquo;m not really happy with the outcome of it. My name is acting as the site icon, so has prominant placement, but it may be too large to stay at the top if the site, especially if the site is viewed on mobile devices. What I really want is the <code>nav</code> or navigation bar to scroll from its initial position to the top and then remain fixed. When I tried <code>nav {position: fixed;}</code>, it remained fixed at its initial position and the rest of the site moved under it looked horrible. I&rsquo;ve tried looking at the source code for sites with something similar to what I&rsquo;m attempting, but haven&rsquo;t figured it out yet. Google has been my friend and guide for troubleshooting, and some of the things I want to do seem to need JavaScript to opperate. So there&rsquo;s <strong>The Next Thing To Learn</strong> on my ever growing list.</p>

<p>Before I launch the new site, though, I want to figure out how incorporate this blog into it. That&rsquo;s going to be an undertaking, so I may moderate my goals a bit.</p>

<p>In bigger and better news, I&rsquo;m headed to Boston this weekend. So, ten summers ago, I was living and working on the MHC campus, reading <em>Lolita</em> and <em>House of Leaves</em>. In August, 2004, I left Stateside to live to Montpellier, France for the year with a group of amazing Mount Holyoke women. My memories from the time are a mashup of hookahs, Senegalese food, spring break in Russia, Polish friends getting engaged, trams, trams on strike, Haribo, Carnival, Irish pubs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This weekend, I am reunioning with Wakana, Joanna, Simar, Layne and Diva in Boston (with a side trip to NoHo and MHC) to reminisce and reconnect.</p>

<p>This is how I feel about that:  <img src="http://carojane.github.io/images/200.gif" title="Kermit Flail" alt="a kermit" /></p>

<p>And then, in just three weeks, I am off to Boston <em>again</em>. Launch Acadamy starts August 11! I finally have a place to stay squared away, and I am so ready to get down to business and get to some coding. In the meantime, I will be over here, practicing my CSS, grappling with Javascript, and playing with Ruby in preparation.</p>
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  <entry>
    <title type="html"><![CDATA[My New Addiction]]></title>
    <link href="http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/06/23/my-new-addiction/"/>
    <updated>2014-06-23T20:51:45-04:00</updated>
    <id>http://carojane.github.io/blog/2014/06/23/my-new-addiction</id>
    <content type="html"><![CDATA[<p>My first post is supposed to be one on “Why I Wanna Be a Web Developer”, but I’m still sifting through my thoughts on the subject, unable to articulate it well enough. All I know is that <em>I DO WANNA BE</em> a web developer, and <em>I AM GONNA BE</em> a web developer. It’s going to be a really hard and hopefully really rewarding process.</p>

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<p>Team Treehouse has proven to be a helpful, and addictive, place to start. I had previously been on the site and not found it helpful, but I think this time, I know that it is just giving me the basics so I can grow from there. When I was on it before, I don’t know if I knew what I was looking for.</p>

<p>What do I mean addictive? Well, on the “leaderboard” right now, I am #12 for number of points gained this week. And I’ve only been on the site 3 days.</p>

<p>So far, I have worked through a project to build a website from scratch. It was far more engaging when I actually worked along than just watching the videos. I also am working on improving my own website - one I bought a domain name (<a href="http://carojane.com">carojane.com</a>) when I was in the process of applying to Launch Academy.</p>

<p>Right now, the website is super basic html. I am figuring my way through the CSS styling and hope to relaunch a much better looking site this weekend.</p>

<p>On Treehouse, I’ve started on the “Intro to Programming” and am learning basic JavaScript, which is interesting, and will really help me understand Ruby even better. I’m on the “Front End Development” track and will move to the “Rails Development” track after I’m finished. I want to go back and and work on the “Web Design” track, too, though I think there’s a lot of overlap anyway.</p>

<p>I like that I can speed up and slow down the video. A lot of the html information was review for me and I got bored sitting through it again. So, I had the video going at 1.75 rate, slowing it down when I needed to pay closer attention to something.</p>

<p>Currently, I am also working my way through “Pragmatic Thinking and Learning” and “Pragmatic Programming”, so I need to step away from Team Treehouse some to finish those in the next week. I also really need to figure out Git, so that needs to be a priority coming up.</p>

<p>This is all so exciting and I hope to write more specifically what I’m working on. Right now my brand new computer (as of last Thursday) has more files and programs on it than my old computer ever had!</p>

<p>In the wise words of Ten, “Allons-y Alonzo!”</p>

<p><em>originally posted Jun 19th, 2014 4:52am</em> <a href="http://tmblr.co/ZGMBDn1J7SI3L">on tumblr</a></p>
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