On Friday, 21 folks graduated from the Northcoders Accelerate bootcamp, myself among them. Let’s get the mushy stuff out of the way first: I love everyone in this photo with all my heart. I was expecting to have my mind crammed full of JavaScript and development tech over the past twelve weeks (and boy did that happen), but I didn’t expect to gain a whole new family in the process. The care that everyone in this community has for one another blew my little mind and restored my wounded faith in humanity.
But what happens next?
Well, the advice we’ve all been given is to not take our foot of the gas. There are sprints to polish, katas to finish, CVs to perfect and jobs to apply for. But I need a day or two to recover first. The Graduation party in the Northern Quarter got appropriately messy and out of hand, and three of us (#TeamJPower represent!) went to MCM Comic Con the following morning. (I like to think that my superhuman resistance to hangovers and my joy at meeting Johnny Yong Bosch buoyed us through the experience.) Immediately afterwards I attended a buddy’s birthday celebrations, and racked up a record 18k steps on my Pebble for the day.
TL;DR: today is less #devlife, more #catlife. (Fair warning: I’m one of those hashtag wankers.)
Earlier on today, my NC tutor Harriet tweeted this link full of good advice for new junior devs, part of which talked about documenting your learnings in a blog. I knew my Tumblr wouldn’t be the appropriate place to talk code, so here’s this new WordPress of mine. My head is still fit to burst with everything I’ve learned over the past three months, so now that I have time to blog, it’ll be nice to get some of it out in my own words.
Tomorrow, I help my dear friend Tim move house. He’s a developer too, so we can call that being active in the coding community, right? I also need to get my glasses fixed. Told you graduation was messy. Tuesday, I’ll be working on my Reddit clone for my portfolio. It’s in writing now; you’ve read it, so I can’t go back on it. You hear me, Northcoders? My foot is firmly on the gas!
But for now, I’m going to make like my furry little boys, curled up asleep next to me, and have a little nap.
