Month: February 2021

A simple word and often a simple place but for many it is exactly what we need. The ability to come home after a long day of work or school and just be I a place that is comfortable, known and safe is one that we often take for granted.

This week was a challenging week not just for me but for many others because home was no longer that place that we could go for complete refuge. We could go home and be in the structure of a home but without heat, or sometimes running water or other key things. I found that being without those things was not as much of a struggle because I could use other’s heat, electricity, internet, and house to be in, but that was not home. Even just coming home at night to be there in the cold and dark was nice at the end of the day. The difficult part was while doing all the things I do every day, I did not have the same feeling of being home and being comfortable.

I know I sit in a privileged position to even be able to go home and feel this way. I am grateful for what I have and don’t want to take it for granted. The beautiful part about this week was the reminder of exactly that, how blessed I am in getting to come home every night, while there are many others that don’t get to do that.

I noticed this week that I struggled to get stuff done; some of that was working on my laptop instead of my desktop with my office chair, but When I am at another place, I struggle to work as well, I want to be doing other things when I am in another place. Being home, I can focus and not be distracted as easily.

The challenge I can see for college students is finding that new sense of home or comfort, especially those from other states or countries. Even for those starting a new job, creating that environment that is yours, safe, comfortable is so important to being able to do the work you need to do.

I am thankful for being home, where it is warm, safe; I have internet, my computer (with two screens), my chair, and for those things today, I will be thankful. Do I wish I had accomplished more this week? Yes, but that just leads me to be thankful for teachers who are human beings and understand life happens. I hope that I can remember that the next time somebody is struggling, people are human beings, and life happens.

I know I said I would write about technical stuff eventually, not this week but soon.

There are days when we all feel a little stuck. Whether that is in the house since last March, stuck on an assignment, task, job, or just life in general. Being stuck is no fun. It makes it seem like there is nowhere to turn, and there is nothing that can be done. In fact, that is not true. Stuck is generally a frame of mind. For me, it often comes at the point when staring at the debugger, and all I see is just a bunch of characters on a screen, and my brain has had enough.

Stuck in life can come about when you feel like progress is being made. You aren’t learning anything, you don’t enjoy anything, or you simply do the exact same thing over and over again.
These ways of being stuck can and do take a serious toll on us. When you are hitting a wall, and you keep trying to punch through only to come back later and find the missing semicolon or misspelled variable, you find that with a simple change of perspective or a simple break, your eyes are open, and the problem is somehow easier to understand.

When you are stuck in life, you can’t help but have to do something different, whether that is taking a trip or buy a new toy, or talk to your friends or family that care about you, support, and encourage you. Other people are a vital tool that we can use to help us get unstuck. For me, that often means talking to my wife or just being around her. For others, that could be a close friend, or your pet, your mom, your therapist.

Being stuck literally immobilizes you and keeps you focused on only what you can’t do. Instead, look for what you can do. You can care about the people around you, even in just small ways. You can work on a different assignment, clean something, change your routine, try something new, or write a blog. 😀

Never let yourself be stuck for more than a short while. Ask for help, break up the routine, smile, have fun, find the joy in what you are doing; else, nothing you ever do will be fulfilling.

As a person, I have always loved to learn, and I can pick up most things pretty quickly. I can usually figure something out given enough information but what I have found speeds up my learning process is consistent and clear feedback. I can repeat the same things repeatedly, so if I am told to keep doing what I am doing, then I’ll do it. I won’t change once I figure something out unless I have a reason, and one of the best reasons to change is feedback. I find feedback helpful the more detailed, the better. I like getting into the details, but I can also miss details.
The best way to get me to do something just the way you want it is to tell me exactly how you want it done.
Now I know that may sound like a rant, but it is just me talking about why I think feedback is important and not just for me. Feedback takes the hard work that somebody has already put in and allows it to be improved upon. This process is vital to learning and especially to development. I love having the ability to learn from my mistakes, which is important for any person; without that, you will keep on making the same mistakes time and time again.
The iterative process for development, which mostly comes from the agile methodology, is one that is based on feedback by having built-in meetings to discuss what is going well and what isn’t or having code reviews, or pair programming you by adding a few extra hours of review work you can create a much better product and ultimately train better developers.
This week if you can’t tell for our project, we had a code review that means we have to switch off our niceties and just look at the code on the page in front of us. A daunting task because you don’t want to miss something, but it benefits both parties involved. It helps you because you have to think about if this is following all the best practices that you have been taught or the styling rules you have agreed upon which will make their way back into your work, and it help the others person see where they can improve without the client yelling at them.
Feedback is a vital thing in every element of work, sometimes we don’t get enough, or we don’t get good feedback but let’s take what we get and use it to grow, else we will probably just keep on messing up or crumble under the weight.
Grow as you Go.