So finally, I finished the first round. Yay. Today is going pretty slow for me and I’m just now getting into the studying, but I did manage to work out. Last weekend was my birthday and it was great seeing my family. I studied while I was there but only for about an hour. I came home on Wednesday and have been having a rough week and all I want is just to get through school and get a job already. This isn’t the most exciting post ever but it’s just another day. I have to finish the ‘pry’ video and then attempt the tic tac toe game again. It’s kicking my butt so I think going back to the Rock Paper Scissors game and reviewing would be a good idea. I have a lot of trouble putting all the logic of methods together so this should work. Hopefully.
That’s it for now, I’ll see if I have anything to say for the week.
After some time of constant struggling with the Small Ruby Problems, I decided yesterday to reread the Intro to Programming Book for Ruby. Even if it’s boring, I keep telling myself that I’m solidifying the information in my mind and strengthening my knowledge. Obviously it must be working because I’m able to solve the exercises with no problem, which I couldn’t do when I started, since I was so new to it. However, I realized that I’m still struggling with variable scope. It was an issue then, and continues to be so now. It’s strange because I feel like some days, it makes perfect sense, then when I read up on it again to recap, it starts to…not make sense. From now up until the assessment, it’s going to be something I’ll have to spend extra time on and maybe look at other resources as well. I think that maybe seeing the information in a different way could help it stick.
Yesterday I had the darnedest time trying to study, and eventually gave up before the third hour. My mind wasn’t having it, I wasn’t having it, and I spent the rest of the lovely rainy afternoon crocheting. By the way, I’m not sure about the hat. I think I made it too big, and it looks more like a beret. Vin keeps telling me to finish it because he’ll wear it regardless, but I’m not happy with it. Alas, it is only my second hat, and I’m definitely going to make more. My next project is going to be a scarf. I’m already thinking about winter, and Christmas gifts, so if this comes out decent, (I’m sure it will), I’ll make some things for my family. It’s more meaningful that way. Plus it’ll keep my hands busy. I like being able to say that I have a hobby, and a new skill!
I’ve also been keeping up with my German on the side, and even started Spanish. I kind of know basic spanish, as my family on my mom’s side is Puerto Rican and I’ve been to St. Croix a few times. I took two years in high school and also a year of German but stopped for whatever dumb reason. Now, I have decided to keep at it with both and let me tell you, it’s FUN. It’s keeping me sane, and like I said earlier, I’m gaining a new skill! I love the idea of being multilingual.
Yeet
Aside from all of that, Starbucks Happy Hour is going on and I need to get out of this apartment. Pizza is for dinner, and videogames is for fun, as it’s also National Video Games Day. Blasphemous is on sale, and I’m thinking of getting it. It looks brilliant. Gute Nacht everyone, Bis Morgen.
I went through the Easy 7 problems today and was surprised to find that some of the problems that I had trouble with before, were much easier to do this time around. I was even able to complete a couple that I couldn’t do last time without looking at the answer, and was confused as to why I couldn’t do it before! It’s a nice feeling. Since I’ve finished the array anki cards, I’ve also started reviewing them at night and before I do anything else.
On another note, I think I’m obsessed with crocheting. The last hat I made came out just alright, so obviously I want to make an even better one this time. The golden yellow yarn I used for the first one is nearly finished and won’t be enough for one hat so this time I’m using a maroon color. I noticed that I was extremely tense when making the yellow hat; the pain in the my shoulders got bad to the point that I had to put it down for a bit and then continue once the pain went away. I’m training myself to loosen up this time and not to worry too much about how the hat will come out. I want this one to actually fit Vin’s head, so I’m trying to figure out how to increase the crown size. I think I have it, so we’ll tomorrow how it looks. The circle pattern is so beautiful to me already and I hope it stays that way!
They say not to skip around problems in the ‘Small Problems’ section in Launch School, but the police aren’t going to get me. I was struggling so much with the Easy 8 problems and decided to change it up a bit by starting the ‘Debugging’ section. The problems contain code that obviously doesn’t work, so we have to look at it, run it, and try to figure out why it doesn’t work and fix it. I thought it would be a breeze, only to quickly find out that it was the opposite. Sometimes you don’t know why something doesn’t work, then when you figure out where the error is, you don’t know how to fix it! Maybe it’s just me and the two-layer problem. I hope that I become better at this skill because I heard that it’s pretty much a majority of what develops do at their jobs. It’s fun, like working out a puzzle, but still frustrating when you can’t figure out a solution. It’ll come with time, hopefully.
Last night I crocheted my first beanie hat thing and it came out well i think! It’s too small to fit Vin’s head though, and mine too. It’s alright because it’s only my first one. Tonight I’m going to try to make a bigger one. So far I’ve been learning off of videos on Youtube and their very helpful, especially since I’m left-handed. Eventually I would love to learn how to hand crochet blankets and scarfs for winter! For school, I ‘finished’ the Easy 8 problems but will have to review them tomorrow. I tried to do that today but somehow forgot how I solved those problems, so it’s definitely needed. They weren’t as difficult as previous problems and I was able to get through them much faster.
Anyway that’s it for tonight. I still have to study German/Spanish, crochet a hat and study Anki cards. Let’s see if I get it done!
I made two sets of Anki cards for Array and String over the past week. I plan to get very familiar with these methods to make my life a million times easier when I solve problems. I’m spending too much time reading the documentation anyway because I can’t remember all of these methods, so it only makes sense to me to just take whole days just getting familiar with them. I’m been very tired lately so I’m not able to spend a lot of hours learning Ruby. Hopefully that changes this week.
Sometime last year I bought Chris Pine’s Learn to Program book. I read a little bit of it, then put it down. I was still so new to Ruby then, and all the problems seemed extra difficult. Once in a while I’ll take a look at it, but it’s a little bit hard for me to code from a book, when I could go online and find hundreds of exercises to practice with. There was one problem in particular that stuck with me, called 99 Bottles of Beer. The exercise said to write code that would print the lyrics of that song. I had to look them up because I wasn’t familiar with them. Now, last year I looked at that problem and thought “I can’t solve it. I don’t know enough yet”. For whatever dumb reason I never attempted it after that, but still thought of that problem from time to time. A year later, on this day, I solved it. It happened in the shower, where all of my best ideas come from. It just suddenly came to me! People talk about this exact sort of thing: sometimes you can’t figure out a problem while sitting in front of it for hours, racking your brain for a solution. Apparently your brain is constantly working, even in the background, figuring things out. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep at night for this reason; my mind was constantly racing thinking about ways to solve my problems. I’ve since learned to stop that, so as to not exhaust myself. Today was different. I woke up late, and was bored of what I was doing and needed a break, so I went to do something that always makes me feel 100%. It just hit me so quick when the problem popped up in my mind: I could set a counter to start at 99, then enter a loop that will print out the appropriate lyrics for the song, while subtracting 1 to account for the number of bottles after the initial amount. I will decrement the counter by 1 until I reach 0, at which point I exit the loop and that’s it. That’s literally all it is. I’m sure there are a million ways to do it, but for me, this is easiest for me understand. I can glance at it, and understand what is happening at each step. It just flows, at least for me. I’m proud of myself for FINALLY solving it. It really gave me that boost that I needed today. I am learning.
It’s an uphill battle for me trying to learn ruby everyday. It’s incredibly frustrating when I don’t think that I’m making any progress and all I see are error messages for 5 hours. Rarely do I get a problem without having to look at the solution. Maybe my next go around will be better. I’m trying not to get too down about it all and just focus on growth and the path to mastery. I ‘kinda finished’ Easy 7 today but I’ll have to go over all of them again tomorrow. The last problem was fun, only because it was easy. That’s the problem in the picture. I even did the further exploration to be the best of my knowledge and ability, which is enough for me. Everyday I strive to improve myself from the day before, and I must be learning something because I can solve at least 1 problem in a set. I won’t tell anyone that because it’s embarrassing and disappointing, but hey, small victories. I did manage to start my Array Anki cards so hopefully that’ll help me to become more familiar with those methods.
Also, last night I made a half-double crochet square for the first time! It’s not the best, but it’s okay! I hope to learn how to make a beanie soon. Anyways, that’s it for tonight. Goodnight!
It always feels good when I ‘finish’ a section of problems. ‘Finish’ is in quotes because at this point, nothing is ever really finished. I have to redo all these problems again over and over until I understand them. Besides attempting them on my own and if I get really stuck, looking at the solution, I look at other people’s code to see what other ways are available to solve that problem. Ruby is great in the fact that it’s flexible and possible to come to a solution for a problem in many ways. I don’t ever feel bad when my solution doesn’t look as good as someone else’s; it made sense to me when I wrote it and that’s all that counts. I’m still a newbie at this stage so I’ll take any working solution at the moment; I’ll refactor later. The problem in the picture was fun! I like working with arrays and strings. I thought it would be too complex for me but my first attempt ended up working. I wrote out the LS solution and another one that I found to be open-minded to other ways of doing the same thing.
I almost met my goal of 6 hours. After 5 hours, my brain tends wants to shut down and I won’t fight it. After Ruby, I do my minimum of German practice then I do something fun, like crochet or Dark Souls. I stopped doing that stuff in the middle of my study session so that I may push myself harder to keep on with the Ruby and reward myself with playtime later. It works! The rest of the week will be pretty much the same: working on Ruby exercises until I’m blue in the face.
Mondays are usually the hardest days for me in terms of studying. I am learning not to stress myself out if i’m not able to get it done. Instead, I give myself a day off, but if I choose to spend an hour or less studying, I will do that, but it’s not mandatory. That way, I don’t get sick of seeing Ruby all week long, and I’m able to do other things that I enjoy. I picked up crocheting again, and it always surprises me how easy it is. You can pretty much learn anything on Youtube, and it’s easiest I think to learn how to do something like this that way. It’s free too, which is awesome. I play the video on half-speed, and pause when I need to. Right now I’m learning to how crochet a half double piece. The only thing that messes me up is keeping track of how many stitches I have but I can count them at the end. Other than that, it’s very relaxing to do, and I feel accomplished because I’m making something! I always have that urge to make things. It can be anything from cakes, to little crochet pieces, to paintings. It keeps the demons away 🙂
Tomorrow is when the hard works gets done. My goal is 6 hours, broken up using the pomodoro technique. On days that I feel more tired, I tend to do 30 minutes of work, 10 minutes of rest for the entirety of the study session. Otherwise, I’m able to do about a 45 minutes to an hour and then take a little longer break. Around the 2 or 3 hours mark is when I stop for lunch and doing something fun like play video games, after which I start again for the remainder of the 3 hours. If I get 6 hours a day everyday until Saturday, I’ll hit my weekly goal of 30 hours. I really want to start preparing for the assessment by the end of September so that I may take it sometime in October. I don’t want to rush it, that would be detrimental as I’d risk failing, but I don’t want to stagnant either when I put in the hard work now and progress steadily, but surely.
Anyways, that’s it for tonight. I’m going to learn that half-double stitch, then call it a night.
P.S. Hurricane Dorian has been monstrous in the Caribbean these past few days. It hit St. Croix, where my mom lives, as a Category 1 storm and it’s amazing how fast those things pick up speed. I saw so many videos of people trapped in their homes and cars, and even attics watching the waters flooding in on them. I know it’s even more terrifying at night. That must be scary. I’m grateful to be here in my bed and I wish there was something I could do. Goodnight.
Felicia Bacon 