...still

Still working on my Ruby skills. I read something motivating today on reddit: If you feel overwhelmed! KEEP AT IT! So...I'm keeping at it.

I finished chapter 16 in The Book of Ruby. That chapter made a lot more sense, to me. I have 4 more chapters, after that, I'm going to reread it slowly whilst doing other Ruby shit. I've also finished my first set of lynda.com videos. The new plan is to get an overview and then go over the materials again until I understand. I'm also only going to study Ruby until at least the end of April. I think that I need to get really strong in one language, before I start trying to learn the others...irregardless of what my cousin says about me being able to do Ruby and Python at the same time.  However, I will take his advice and focus on Python, next.

It's a good thing that I've always enjoyed computers and programming.  I'm really learning a shitload and for me, this journey is more about being able to make a living doing something I like more than anything. I was a marketing consultant and I really didn't like that job for several reasons including: corporate processes, lack of respect for marketing, and the lack of a culture that was anything approaching a meritocracy.

Don't get me wrong: I love marketing, but if I had the choice to go back to school, knowing what I know now, I would have studied either computer science or engineering and then got an MBA.  But that's water under the bridge and I did study marketing because it taught an important field, that I'm interested in...I just really want to be in tech and I really enjoy programming and solving problems.

To be honest, I'm a couple of days behind where I thought that I would be in The Book of Ruby, but I'm not disappointed.  I'm taking all of these online classes, but I realized today that completing these classes with a good grade is not the goal. The goal is to learn programming and class performance means nothing: I have my degree already and getting a job in this field, at this point, will be based on what I can do and not showing potential employers that I can finish school.