Back from a huge week full of family, friends, love, travels, … and a freaking load of coding. It’s time to blog again.
Articles about the bootcamp are coming, I just did not have time to finish one yet.
So in the meantime, let me tell you more about my week, my planning, and a few other things…
My schedule
For a few weeks, I have been following a specific schedule.
4AM : Let’s do some coding. I have always wanted to adapt my sleeping schedule to an… earlier start-early end one.
Since DevBootcamp started and is asking us to pair as much as possible with others from the cohort… most of whom are in the US, 6 to 9 hours away from here, I had a choice between waking up earlier or getting to sleep later to pair with them. So I chose earlier, and … much earlier than I could have.
So every morning I pair with Armando, and go through DBC challenges. There may have been a difference in term of experience with coding on the very first time, but that went away very quickly. Plus, as I said earlier, DBC is not about coding, but about becoming a developper. When you don’t learn some code tricks, you learn how to explain what you did to other developpers, you learn how to reflect on your own code, how to handle your coding station, etc… No time spent on these challenges is a waste.
6.30 AM : I eat, take a shower, the usual stuff for most of us I guess.
At 7AM, I either do some more pair-programming with another cohort member, or take a small nap.
8AM to 9.30AM : Commute. Yes, I live far, and it does suck.
9.30AM - 6PM : Work. I still work from Monday to Friday. One month to go and I’ll be free of that…
6-8.30PM : Commute. Some would say “What? 1 more hour on the way back?”, and to those I would answer “Welcome to the french suburbs”.
8.30PM : Eating. Food is important kids!
9PM : Back to either some more programming with the early birds of my cohort in the states (or those available in the morning), or to a small TV show, movie, or any other entertainment before going to sleep. The idea is that you probably can’t keep the distance with no entertainment at all.
Then sleep, and go at it again. On weekends, I replace the “Work” with spending time with my girlfriend and/or family, but the schedule does not move that much.
One of the busiest weeks of my life
Now, The first and biggest concern I had when I thought about having a blog has always been : Will I be able to maintain it, write stuff, regularly?
Well, let me tell you that : If I could think about what to write last week, and write it now, the answer is and will always be : YES
Last week I was in Holidays. What a beautiful perk of working in France, right? But then on last week, instead of work, I found some more time and energy-needing occupations.
I told you I just got engaged 2 weeks ago… Well, I had the engagement party last week. So you can cross both saturdays for preparation and the party with everything that goes with it.
Then you can add one evening and the next day to going with my siblings and cousins to go meet our grandparents we got in kind of an argument (families…) some long years ago.
After that, we had a small plan to go meet some friend in Berlin and take a few days off with the fiancee on the way. That’s 3 days + 1 for preparation of that trip.
Now, one more day after the engagement party to clean up and cool off, and from 9 days off (From saturday to the monday 2 weeks later), I am left with… 1 day available for the challenges of the week, and the other matters like solving issues with the bank, with other banks, preparing stuff for the bootcamp etc.
Oh and of course : I did keep the 4AM to … late evenings schedule up (except one day, but I blame the hotel and the fact that we didn”t have wifi in our room)
All in all, let’s say it was a pretty busy week outside of DBC. Well, you wanna know the funny part? My opinion could be a bit … tricked by my own week but, I think DBC challenges for this week were huge compared to the others. There was a huge load of really small challenges. Not hard all in all, but definitely long.
Thank you
2 things to say before I go back to Dev Bootcamp-ing :
First : I love to say thanks for everything I am thankful for. If one day I get accepted in Dev Bootcamp because you taught me some strange things about a dead numeral system, I will hunt you down just to be able to thank you (Very specific but that did happen, thank you again Mr Khun… Who will most likely never read this). I never celebrated Thanksgiving, but I just can’t wait.
And one of the first things I think when I come out of such a week is : Thank god for the people around me that make it happy for me to do that without becoming crazy, or just simply exhausted to the point of no return (no idea if I can say that, but that sounded good in my mind, and guess what… Aye ame frensh, Aye donte spik vary wale ^.^).
So now, thank you again, dear family, friends, and of course special thanks to the fiancee that would go way out of her way to help me get stuff done. I just… love you ^.^
Second thing : I think blog posts are more fun with music, so everytime I’ll write one of these big walls of texts, I’ll try to add some that sets the mood. Some good music that you don’t necessarily know (or won’t necessarily like). This week I chose a Japanese from an artist that worked on some old manga I watched when I was younger. That track just… fits here. Peaceful, and thankful.
Thank you for reading that and see you tomorrow for a post about the bootcamp
Quentin