Pre-revision time!!

Well, the assignment is packed up and on it's merry digital way.  So now it's onward, ever onward towards the exam.  But first I am allowing myself a week of 'just play', to take in all the learning on our project placements, get that straight in my head and to be allowed just to pick up a computer and get creative, playing nice with coding rather than being on a computer 'because I have to be'.

Hopefully that sounded less waffly on the virtual 'paper' than it did in my head cos my brains are addled I think.

There's been SO much information to take in this week, around how the Agile development environment is structured, how a real life project would work, and even new bits of languages creeping in there to mix it all up.

This time next week - start the revision plan and work out how all of that will fit together with my life once I get back into the training room.  Basically losing 2 days of 'daytime revision' a week to our training.  I think I need to keep reiterating the old mantra - 'good enough is good enough...'.  I just need to pass, how good a pass is almost irrelevant (only a matter of pride really).  As long as I feel as though I could get a good 40% out of the exam, then I will be happy.  I don't usually lose too many marks on the assignments so I feel fairly confident in that, despite the lack of enthusiasm and energy I've had to put towards this one.

And then.....eek!!  Almost time to sign up for the final course, the final piece of the BSc Hons jigsaw.  And beyond that - a graduation ceremony next October!!

OK enough waffle, I'll leave you to read any extras over on page 2!!

And today I get to play...

Only after a lot of hard work catching up on my assignment.  But today I got to play nice with bloggy stuff, and to fit in an extra bit of 'work' learning something called AngularJS.

Experimented with layouts of images and background stuff etc on my blog here, the purple is very much an experimental thing, not entirely convinced it will stay the course, that and the changes to layout.  But as a trainee IT Ninja Monkey, I need to be brave and experimental, and the purple was changed by directly accessing the source code of the page rather than clicking on pretty buttons, so it fits the criteria of 'learning' too.

Hoping that the real life IT stuff still allows a little 'playtime' as I think I cram in more learning when I play than I do sitting in a classroom situation.

Trying hard not to think yet about the OU exam which looms ever closer, or how I will need to structure life to fit in revision after the assignment is over.  I'm enjoying the real life stuff so much that it's getting increasingly hard to focus on the theory, however much I know it will benefit my journey in the long run.

Over the hills

..and far away!

Yes we have climbed to the top of Mount Project, and come back safely down the other side.  Feeling a good buzz at having finished it, combined with a hefty dose of 'argh now I have to get on with the OU again'.  OU assignment is due in 16 days, it's the final TMA so no extensions allowed, and I think I'm behind on not just the assignment but the work to catch up to it.

So it will be the old 'read what I need for the assignment and come back to the rest' workaround, I need to make a good plan for what to do and when to do it, make promises to myself about both achievements and rewards - and then stick to the plans and promises.

Next 'hill' to climb - we are shortly off to the big wide world of live development work.  How much we will get our hands on, how much of an Agile environment it will actually be, what do we put together for our 'show and tell' presentation afterwards?  There are a few of us going to the same team, so I know that I won't be alone, which is nice.  It's another of those 'unknowns' I guess - with as many questions as we have answers at the moment.  Looking forward to putting on my climbing boots and navigating the hill though, if it's been as much fun as the developer journey so far, it will be worth the climb....

A matter of timing

Feeling very arghy today - all my deadlines are approaching all at the same time and I am tired tired tired.

OU pre-assignment panic meeting up with Software Developer project week panic meeting up with 'why the heck do we have to complete annual reviews anyway they're c**p', how do I fit it all in and still even manage personal hygiene let alone a 'life'

Don't get me wrong I am loving every moment of the developer journey but it all feels like too many deadlines together today.  And meanwhile my friends and family get what's left of me....which to be honest isn't a lot at the minute.  (So I feel guilty about that too...go figure...).

Right that was a quicky to keep my blog up to date - go check out page 2 for an albeit brief update on the developer journey so far...

A little more balance perhaps

I think I've managed to find a little more balance over the weekend - yesterday I didn't actually do much coding at all, although I did do a little work to set up a webserver on my PC so that I can view and share my work between devices, particularly in order to see whether my designs have been responsive enough to cope with mobile devices.  No coding today either, just lots of blogging to catch up with the posting I didn't do last week - check out Beyond the Basket for more insight into the crazy world of the trainee Software Developer.

Yes - officially I am a 'trainee software developer', in conversation with someone at the folk club someone asked what do I do in the civil service, and I could say straight off "I'm a trainee software developer".  Eek - it's really real - little parts of me still can't quite believe it, even though my body is aching from all the extra time spent in front of a keyboard, and my brain reeling from two extra days in the week having to get up early.

Dunno if I'm going to suddenly have a realisation that things are harder than I expected, or whether my OU studies have just prepared me really well for the journey I'm on now.  Up to now I feel confident in my coding and my knowledge - yes sometimes I have those moments in 'practice' where I expect too much of myself, but in reality those moments are things that nobody else on the course would be expected to know at this stage, knowing how to put the different pieces of technology together and get them to talk to each other.  We've really been given just an introduction to most of the stuff that we'll be using in the 'real world', so I think most of the pressure I'm feeling is from within to be honest.

Looking forward to a couple of weeks 'revision' time, chance to do a bit of OU assignment, and take a bit of downtime too.  As well as no doubt cramming lots of coding work in.

Trying to balance - the tightrope of study-study-life

It's a tightrope....

Having a few of those moments where I'm feeling out of whack lately, new working pattern and my body don't entirely agree with one another just yet.

I'm loving the training, and I'm loving the chance to put into practice the skills I've learned in my OU journey, but with that comes a balance to be found which I've not yet quite managed.


So far the days pretty much look thus:

• Study OU on the train on the way to the office.
  
• Spend all morning training
  
• Spend lunchtime playing with the stuff we just studied or the 'play code' I've worked on the night before
  
• Spend all afternoon training
  
• Study OU on the train on the way home (nah who am I kidding, listen to an audiobook because the train is too busy to sit down)
  
• Get home, eat, wash up
  
• Upstairs in the study to 'play' with the things I've learned during the day.
  
• 9pm TV time with hubby
  
• 11pm bed.
  

And so on for 5 days in the week - the weekend looks pretty similar with lots of 'playing'.  Somewhere in the mix of all that I fit in church etc.

I'd like to find a balance between the desire to 'play' with code, and the need to study and complete assignment work etc for the OU.  Oh and somewhere in all that I would like to breathe and wash my hair!!

I expected that it was going to be a tricky balance to achieve, and I suspect that I may only master it after another couple of months when the OU exam has been and gone (eek where do I fit in revising for that?)

Thank you Open University!

Had a real booster of a day today - training was intense as ever,  but some of the concepts covered called once again on the knowledge I've gained from the OU courses.  We covered core programming concepts such as loops and conditional statements, and installed software and moved files etc from the Terminal.

Given how nervous I've been around the 'people skills', it was nice to feel like I had learned something besides the theory from my study years.  And at the end of the day (at home) I managed to solve a complex issue that had been bugging me in some of my 'play code', and which was a step or two further on from where we're currently studying in the 'day job'.

So thank you OU for managing to plant all these seeds of programming in my brain, somewhere there is a magic beanstalk beginning to germinate!

More days like today please!!