A Developers Journey

When I first thought about writing an entry to sum up this this year I thought I hadn’t actually made any real achievements - primarily because, due to injuries and other circumstances I couldn’t hit my Muay Thai goals of 2017. And in fact, at the very end of the year I’d lost so much motivation that I also went off blogging and social media altogether.

Thinking back to the way that the start of the year seemed to go off with a hiss and a roar. I did so many cool things and had such big aspirations to work towards. I guess now that I’m writing about it, I have achieved a lot this year. It’s just that things took a turn somewhere along the line and I achieved different things to what I’d initially set out to.

I kicked off 2017 in recovery from a fractured eye socket, which I meant I couldn’t spar or focus too heavily on Muay Thai. Despite that I managed by March to compete in my first international K1 match, discovering that I am adverse to K1 style and that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to stepping in the ring. I made an embarrassment of myself that night and took the results pretty hard. At the end of the day, the way I have to look at it is that I got my chance on the world stage - that took hard work, skills and dedication and is something most people will never get to experience.

Just two weeks later I ran my first full marathon. Now, this was an achievement! The only option available at the time that I wanted to run was an off-road event in the Tauranga trail runner series. Having never previously run a half marathon and thinking to myself “There can’t be that much of a difference between an on-road and an off-road event”, I underestimated the event entirely and after just two months of training, I somehow smashed a smooth 5’03’00 hours, finishing with the second fastest time for the female division.

Another big success right at the beginning of the year is one which really confirmed for me that I am in the right profession. Having been in my job at the time for around 6 months, I’d completed and deployed the first iteration of an application which I’d designed and built from bottom to top. The project was originally delegated to me as a newbie so I could try and come up with a hacky quick fix for a one off problem. Instead I saw the potential and designed a fully fledged application to consider numerous instances where it could be used.

Knowing what I know now, that first iteration was not so amazing as I thought at the time. Regardless, deployment of the application was an achievement in itself - still being used today to manage an internal process fundamental to business operations.

I visited Phuket for the first time, meeting up with one of my best mates for a well deserved beach holiday where I trained at 6 different Muay Gyms, checked out the filthy city of Patong, did a Thai cooking class, attempted wake boarding in a wave pool and discovered that I have zero skills when it comes to stand up paddle boarding.

All of that was and I’m only three months into the year! From round April onward, all that success seemed to take a turn…

After returning from Phuket, I struggled to find Muay Thai matches - that coupled with severe pre-patellar bursitis put me out of action for a while so I made the most of my time trying out a few new things - watching UFC, trying out figure drawing, having a go at Salsa, going on a little road trip to do the Tongariro crossing with a very cool group of people, learning basic Espanol, saying goodbye to my Nana, voting for the first time in my life (it was totally my vote that swayed the decision, NZ ;) ), taking my first ride in the back of an ambulance to A&E and mastering simple TravisCI integration.

As hard as I tried to stay positive and keep coming up with new goals to focus my attention to wards, I just really felt my overall motivation lagging through most of winter - maybe I’m just getting old and it’s naive to still be chasing dreams at my age. Or maybe I just need to set more time aside for myself to relax and not go OTT making everything a chore by turning it into a goal. Who knows?

Oh, somewhere in there I also rebuilt my personal blog and reduced my annual bill by 94.73% by learning how I could redesign it and host it with Amazon’s S3 instead of an EC2 instance - this was around the time I decided to focus on my next career move.

After I fucking somehow managed to develop acne - WTF. I’m pretty sure I’m just allergic to Auckland… - the job hunt in Melbourne began! Quickly finding amazing opportunities, I hacked away almost an entire month producing premium candidate code and went through a number of interviews before settling on an incredible offer and preparing to jump the ditch! I didn’t really know what to expect when I took the job, other than it was going to be much harder than any job I’ve ever had before in my life. Well, I wasn’t wrong.

Luckily, I love a good challenge and I thoroughly enjoy what I do. I feel as though I’ve jumped on board at the right time with my new team and picked up enough to even be a useful contributor with my limited experience. I look forward to getting the most out of this pivotal career move in the coming year and seeing what future opportunities arise as a result.

I’ve been settled here in Melbourne now for just 2 months, keeping a low profile and in that time I’ve managed to secure the lease on a beautiful brand new apartment in a prime location - walking distance from work, I’ve found a new Muay Thai gym focussed on fighter training, I’ve attended Rails Camp for the first time, my team at this year’s Xmas party smashed an Escape Room in a record 23 minutes and after almost 10 years of Wellington weather I’ve finally rediscovered what sunbathing is!

Of course, no year is complete without a shout out to all the good friends and family who’ve been there along the way. I know at times I can become comsumed with what’s immediately infront of me but that doesn’t mean I’ll forget about the people I’ve met along the way. It’s only in recent years I’ve truely come to value genuine friendships and they’re what make some of any years biggest highlights!

All that said, this post stills seems to be nothing on what I wrote last year and I’m not sure what feats I’ll accomplish in 2018 now that I’ve officially joined the rat race but I do know that I’m ready to kick this new lifestyle into action as soon as the gym opens again on the 3rd of January (fingers crossed for my return to the ring in March) - until then I’ma be soakin’ up the rays on St Kilda’s sandy strip.

Peace, Love and Happy New Year to all! x

Turns out I’m driven by goals. I guess in the back of my mind I knew this all along but now that I’m exploring this realization, it’s time to confront the drive which at times, causes me what I would maybe call a mild state of depression.

Obviously, I don’t have depression or any other mental illness but I do know people who do genuinely suffer from one. I’m not trying to compare to people with real problems by any standards, I just don’t have another descriptor in my vocabulary to explain that sensation I sometimes feel.

When I look back at things I’ve accomplished, I’ve idolized each and every target as a goal that I’m on a specific mission to complete.

Whether it’s been getting clean, getting fit, running a marathon, a particular fight, recovering from an injury, getting employed as a developer, building a website, getting AWS certified - I’ve put a sole focus outside of work on accomplishing that goal by putting all my time and effort into completing the steps required to make it happen.

Some goals took longer than others but the key thing about all of them was that there was a specific point of completion, for example, ‘Getting fit’ for me, was complete at the point when I could run for 1 hour up Mt Victoria (including the uphill) continuously every day for 7 days.

Unlike goals such as ‘A particular fight’ which had a date of completion, there was no date specified, only a compliance check. Those goals, without specified dates, can be the hardest - especially if takes a while to see your progress - those are the easiest ones to fall away from.

At the completion of each goal, I’ve felt ecstatic. I’ve put in so much work and effort in, gone out there and absolutely nailed it! Who wouldn’t be over the moon?

Soon after though, that feeling turns into a sudden strong sense of emptiness and that I’m lost as if I don’t know where I am, what I’m doing here or what I should be doing next. Almost like ‘What is the point in getting up today? ‘But you just go through the motions cause it’s become a habit. And then as days go by, you gradually become lazier, snoozing for longer in the mornings, getting sloppy with meal prep and eating takeaways, skipping sessions at the gym, leaving dishes on the bench.

Jesus! It’s like you’ve just lost your life partner. Fucking pull yourself together!!

There have been occasions where I haven’t had time to fall into this downward spiral because either a new goal as immediately presented itself like when I finish a fight and then get another one confirmed a couple of days later, or because I have already planned ahead to the next goal like when I wanted to get fit so that I could join Jai and learn Muay Thai.

Each of these possibilities has a clear problem. First, a goal presenting itself immediately after the completion of another is pure chance and relying on that means the chance of falling into a post-goal depression is ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ - and I’m not much of a gambler.

Secondly, I can become easily overwhelmed by thinking up too many goals all at the same time and wind up trying to work on them all at once. Then crashing, accomplishing nothing and ultimately feeling sorrier for myself than I did in the first place.

I have diaries, pages, notes on my Mac, my phone, my iPad, on paper, all over the place of plans and possible goals that at various times I’ve intended to try and focus on. In some cases, I’ve even written down dates and planned out an entire year. I guess it’s good to have ideas but the timing of goals is also important.

In addition, all of my goals need to be things that I genuinely want to do. If I’m not all in, then, like these endless notes it’s just not going to happen. If you can relate to this in any way then trust me when I say the occasional purge can be one of the most satisfying feelings you’ve ever experienced.

Knowing what I know now about my psyche and that the euphoria of accomplishment has a limited life, the next question is ‘How can I smash out consecutive goals and feel a greater ongoing sense of fulfillment?’

Well, I hope I can work that out before my current targets are complete 😉

I’ve lost it. I’ve lost my drive, my motivation, my ambition. I’m not sure what’s wrong, but something feels different now.

All I know is that this time last year I had so much to live for and I was really starting to get places. And for the 3 years before that, getting to those places was the only thing set in my sight.

Now I just keep starting new things but not following through with them or writing off ideas altogether. I’ll easily slip away from side projects or become distracted with the crap that is bravo.tv

This year so far has overall been quite busy for me, with probably more weekends away than actually at home. As well as a couple of events which some might consider big but I’d say are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that’s why it’s hard to keep something extra moving on the side.

Even training isn’t as fulfilling as it once was and that motivation has started to wane too. I remember back when I was still new and the sensation of finishing a class or a PT, feeling like I’d really worked hard and given it my all in every combination. I’m sure my combinations are the same, or at least people still comment that I kick hard but something else has definitely changed.

Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my living situation, maybe it’s that being a developer wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, maybe I’m not where I’d though I’d be by now with my training, maybe it’s that I don’t make enough effort or that I can’t find my next direction.

I honestly don’t know. As much as I think about it, I have no definitive answer on one single thing that makes me unhappy in this moment.

Even writing this today I realise that I haven’t posted in over 3 months. And that’s just ridiculous for my standards! Have I done nothing in the last 3 months worth writing about? Or have I just become lazy and let it slide?

It’s time to make a change. Maybe if I leave the house, take my computer with me and sit somewhere. Then I can’t procrastinate and will eventually finished rebuilding this blog or get through enough study to finally sit my AWS solutions architect exam that I’ve been meaning to do for a year now.

That’s probably the issue actually. I don’t get out enough. I have a tendency to always set myself up where I conveniently have everything I need at hand and there’s no reason to leave the 2k radius I currently live within. I have started to consider this theory and am in fact out of the house right now, sitting at a small Thai place writing while I enjoy a delicious Penang curry.

It’s a start but it’s still not good enough. It’s the same place I eat at all the fricken time! Auckland is so big, there’s so much to explore, surely if I try hard enough I can find inspiration somewhere!!

Like, I mean, just the other day I was on Queen St thinking to myself “Wow, it’s so busy here and there’s so much going on, I should make an effort to come down more often!” – with thoughts like that, you wouldn’t think that I had been living just 1 block over for the past 12 months, huh?

That does it, I definitely need to start venturing further. I’m gonna get my mojo back.

Well… After last months post, you’d assume this one would be nothing but bragging about my goal smashing month of success! Well… you’re wrong.

This month did not go according to plan in any way, shape or form. I am not content with the way this month played out in way, shape or form. Where to even begin with what went wrong?

I trained my ass off. Like, 18hrs a week trained my ass off. Good training too, not a half arsed couple of punches on the bag with intermittent long breaks. Loads of focus on technique and perfecting my balance, kicks and footwork. I’ve never trained so hard in my life.

And then… On the 18th… I had my big chance to shine!

International K1 Debut

Prepped and ready, after the heaviest 3 weeks of training I’ve ever done. In front of millions of people I stood there and made a monumental embarrassment of myself. I completely froze. My mind went blank and I forgot how to fight. I can tell you for a fact, no one saw the result of that hard work. No one saw a single perfect kick or beautiful balance. There was no footwork, there was nothing.

How humiliating… I didn’t even look that bad the first time I ever got in the ring. Sure, people tell me “it happens” and “it was that bad” and “you’re your own worst critic” but I have to disagree. It was that bad, it shouldn’t have happened and my self-criticism is right on target. It was so bad in fact, that I’m still too embarrassed to go back to the gym.

But don’t worry! This doesn’t mean it’s the end!! It’s just a temporary set back. There’s no chance I’m walking away and leaving that as my final performance. I aim to be back in there and back to my old bad-ass self by the end of April. All I need is to relax for a bit on holiday and rediscover my confidence. I guess the upside of the whole experience is that I’ve now realised my biggest downfall. Which means I can fix it. And that’s just what I’ll do.

Ahead of the international opportunity to humiliate myself (sorry, it’s going to take me a while to get over this one), I had been hitting some long distances, training for my first ever marathon. And ohhh boy was I on track! Got right up to 32k and it looked like I was going to nail the full marathon in less than 4 hours. An epic time for a beginner!

My Frist Marathon

Unfortunately, along with embarrassing myself, I walked out of the ring with a severely inflamed kneecap which increasingly worsened after a couple of mild 20k stints.

After a rough week of trying to rest but also trying to run through the injury (I’m sure it’s not actually thaaaaat bad), I pushed myself last Wednesday to run 35k over one long 3.5 hour session. Granted, it was on a treadmill and was going to be nothing like the real thing but I had legit reasons for doing this.

• It was evening and would be dark by the time I finished
• I needed to be able to stop urgently in case my knee didn’t hold up
• I really just needed to hit at 35k once to ensure my muscles had been conditioned enough to maintain the stamina to go the full distance
• It was probably lucky I did it because I found some new locations highly susceptible to chauffeur after an even longer period of running. I realise, a 35k run 3 days before a full marathon goes against all training and preparation guidance but it had to be done. If I couldn’t hit this distance following my inability to walk properly the weekend before I don’t think I’d have the confidence to do the full run at all.

So anyway, I decided to go against what any ‘expert’ would probably recommend and do the run regardless.

Probably one of, if not the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. With a 5am start to the day and a 7.30am start to the race, I am pleased to say that I finished the off-road run coming in second place with a time of 5:03:00. I went into it with a injury and my knee locked about 25k into the run, and again every 2k until the end but I didn’t give up and I can happily tick a marathon off my bucket list. I finished feeling dehydrated, fatigued, exhausted and relieved. It’s not something that I’ll rush to do again but hopefully I can have another go before this time next year, hopefully with no injuries and most likely on a flat track, so I can crack that 4hr time I was on target for a month back! 😉

Up Next

And now here I am! Off to the Phuket on my next big adventure!! Okay, I’m only going for 10 days and I’m literally planning to lie on beaches, eat a lot of food and get massaged until I’m mush. Never-the-less, I believe it’s well deserved and I can’t wait to catch up with some good friends!

It’s certainly been an eventful kick start to the year and regardless of all my short-comings, I know this break is much needed in preparation to hit the ground running for my next big goal. Fingers crossed this’ll all result in a more positive story to tell next month along with a slick new qualification! 😉

The time to rest and reflect can never come soon enough. And it seems that every time I sit down and start writing, so much has happened that’s it’s actually worth writing about.

After clocking up 16.5hrs of training over 7 days last week, it was needless to say that I was relieved to be off on a long weekend get away before hitting it hard for two more weeks ahead of the biggest battle of my life.

I’ve worked hard to ensure my opportunities are kept open and my life remains interesting. And as it turns out, that hard work didn’t just stop when I successfully made the drastic relocation to jump into a career in IT.

Now that I’m in the position I’ve worked so hard for, writing code all day and fighting every month, I knew the time would soon come where I’d have to step it up. I just didn’t expect it to be this soon but that’s okay.

I kicked off January by deploying the first fully fledged application that I’ve built myself into production. It’s currently being used by an active company to assist in managing part of their international operations and will soon be upgraded by a newer release.

And now, just one month later, I’ve been presented with my first major kick boxing opportunity of the year, I’ll soon be stepping it out toe-to-toe with one of China’s best K1 fighters in my professional debut. It’s finally time to hit it and prove that I at least belong in the next league.

If not, I guess it’ll be back to the drawing board. Either way, this is only going to present even more opportunities in the long run. And of course, the more opportunities you take can, the more opportunities you ultimately create for yourself.

Having recently recovered from a fractured eye socket and severe double vision; a near broken nose and a sprained ankle, I’ve got two more weeks to work like never before and hope that the universe has finished setting out to prohibit me from following through.

I guess I should try to not be overwhelmed the stacked card showcasing nothing but talent with NZ title holders and title contenders. I should instead consider the perspective that my trainers and the promoter wouldn’t even take a second glance at me to fill the spot on this show if they didn’t have some faith in me.

But seriously though, the time now is to train my heart out. Like I said, this will be the biggest battle of my life to date. Not that any fight is easy by any stretch of the imagination but this time around I’m actually going to run every day and diet and train harder like I’m supposed to. This time around I’m actually going to take the lead up seriously and exclude boozy nights out and wine tastings.

You know when I’m sticking to the rules, I really mean business. Basically, I’ve got so many big goals and experiences lined up over the next 12 months that I really need to kick off the year on a high and if I don’t feel at the end of the match like I’ve given it everything I’ve got then I’m only going to disappoint myself.

Finished the year with a fractured eye socket and I couldn’t be happier!

Last New Year’s Day I woke up sober, went for a run and anticipated what I’d decided would be “My Year.” January started out with a hiss and roar, feeling optimistic that I would finally get to a place where I could be happy doing what I love every day. Anyone who followed that part of my journey or who was even around me at that time can confirm that it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing.

I had two missions on my agenda to begin the year, get back in the ring after disclosing my shoulder and get AWS certified to boost the chances of software employment. Well, I tell ya, I’ve be told in the past that I don’t do things by halves. And these ambitions are a testament to that. Needless to say, I set the bar extremely high and successfully managed to just miss on both counts. Probably doesn’t seem like much now but that is the most failure I have ever experienced in one go and boy, did it hit me hard. I remember feeling like my life was over and that I should just give up trying anything because it’s not going to work out anyway.

After failing the certification by literally 1 question, I drank myself stupid for two days straight and moaned to everyone who would listen over an increasingly miserable 3 weeks. I guess hindsight is ²⁰⁄₂₀ but looking now, man! What a drama queen! I generally don’t get overly excited when good things happen or show much emotion at all when bad things happen, I feel I have a tendency to just shrug a lot of feelings to the side. Well, this is the reason why!

And then of course, soon after my first failure of the year I stepped into the ring after 6 months off since dislocating my shoulder during a fight. Needless to say, I was scared and I psyched myself out. Ended up being a good fight and I only lost on a split decision but still. 2 big hits to my self-esteem in as many weeks, that’s not going to well for anyone ego.

Gosh, even looking back now it seems like the end of the world was imminent.

On the bright side, regardless of how the fight went, I still got to meet World Champ John Wayne Parr and make him have a photo with me. Not a bad consolation prize, eh? 😉

Despite all the failures, disillusionment and disappointment I still managed to somehow just keep trucking along. Maybe it was the support network I had around me, maybe it was the determination to get to where I’m going and finally be happy, maybe it was a combination of the two but after a very mundane few months which felt like ground-hog day, a faint light finally started seeping through in the distance and it would seem that my hard work was going to finally pay off.

A week of champagne, oysters and over indulgements on an all-expenses paid 5-star luxury trip in Melbourne was just the beginning. Not a bad way to kick off the next 6 months of success!

Feeling refreshed and a little more ambitious again, I’d decided it was time to get over myself and just go and re-sit the AWS exam. And this time I wasn’t going to fail. I spent a good 2 weeks locked in my room every night studying my heart out, barely sleeping and nearly even came close to a breakdown. This time round, the test seemed just as hard as it did the first time and posed new questions that I hadn’t prepared for. I felt nervous as I clicked the final submit button followed by a quick sudden sense of relief as the result came back with a successful PASS!

I thought this would gain me some attention and help fast track my career and I was right! A little later than I’d initially planned, but all of a sudden in July I was finally off to Auckland to start my career as a Web Developer! Exactly 3 years since I’d first explored the idea of pursuing a move into software, it was finally becoming a reality. Little did I know, it was going to get a whole lot harder before it got any easier.

Here I was, finally, in the position I’d only dreamed of. Coding all day and training every night with matches lined up for months!

Although the transition was smooth, the adjustment was fucking hard. Exhausted by the end of every day from trying to comprehend the mindfuck that is my new job, it takes it’s toll on your training after a while. Mental and physical fatigue are two very different things but they certainly have a massive impact on one another.

Still, I managed to find myself eventually balancing it all out and soon officially won my first ever Amateur Muay Thai match. It seemed I would now be unstoppable!

Luckily I am who I am and I didn’t work my arse off 3 years for no reason. You see, I threw my first ever punch at around the same I wrote my first ever line of code and two have sort of gone hand in hand ever since to set me on the path that I am currently walking along. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself without one or the other.

It turns out that the people I wound up working for are extremely supportive and not only back my potential to be a top developer but they also back my sporting ambitions and get just as amped as I do every time I find myself with another opportunity in the ring.

Moving to Auckland certainly has benefits, including anonymity, better weather and one of my year’s highlights! Living about 10 minutes walk away from Vector Arena makes it incredibly easy to jump at any concerts that make it across to NZ so as soon as the opportunity arose, I got to see one of all time favourites Live! Slipknot! OMG! This is probably what made my year. Not only were these guys amazing on the stage but by going to this concert in the first place I personally evolved. In the past would’ve been embarrassed to say that I love this music, man did I cop some shit for listening to them when I was 16, and I certainly would never have had the balls to go to a concert by myself. I’m so glad that I decided “Fuck it. I like them and I want to see them and don’t give a shit if I know anyone else who is a fan or not. I’m going.”

Life’s too short to be hung up on anyone who’s unsupportive in any way. We spend a huge part of our lives trying to work out who we are, what we like, where we belong and how we can be happy. Well, at least I did. But I finally feel like I’m in a place where I belong. Muay Thai people get me. Developers get me. My friends get me. I don’t feel like I need to worry about what anyone else thinks. I don’t feel like I need to try to impress anyone. And I don’t ever feel like I need to try and be someone I’m not.

I honestly couldn’t be in a better place right now, I live in a sunny city, I’m doing a challenging job every day that I love, I don’t have any work obligations on weekends, I get to train with the best Muay Thai gym in NZ, the opportunities for shows and matches seem to be endless and I’ve finally realised that I actually do have some the best friends that anyone could ask for. I got to see one my favourite bands perform Live, I’m in great shape, I feel good and I’ve finally found the confidence to go out and do exactly the things I want to do.

I’ve officially been in Auckland now for 5 months and in that time I’ve managed to land myself 5 fights, 5 wins, and even 2 KOs! One of those KO’s was even featured on a tv show aimed at increasing the exposure of fight sports in NZ.

See it here: http://www.maoritelevision.com/tv/shows/whawhai-fight-night/S01E016/whawhai-fight-night-series-1-episode-16

Even though I walked away from my last win with a fractured eye socket and I can’t train for around 2 months, it’s still pretty safe to say that Auckland so far, has brought out the best in my Muay Thai. And to be honest, that injury couldn’t have come at a better time since I’d already planned to take a short break and hopefully run a marathon over the summer anyway!

Not only has Muay Thai gone so incredibly well in the recent months, but I’ve also learned a great deal more about web systems and architecture having almost finished working on a project which I designed and (with some help of course) primarily built that will assist my company and all their clients as they expand in the future. I now have a greater understanding of one of the best web frameworks around, have learned the implementation for an interesting service which is completely new to me and the company and am about to launch using another fairly new, big player in modern deployment which again, has not yet been (but likely will be in the future) used by the company.

2016 finally saw my 3 year goal come into existence. Now I write code all day and compete in Muay Thai every other weekend! 😀 <3 Needless to say, I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for the help and support of a few really good people and I can only hope that 2017 brings more good laughs, good times and good people into my life. I can’t wait to see what the next 12 months has in store! x

So apparently the disillusionment doesn’t stop just because you’re technically now a professional.

Like, apparently I can’t be doing too badly. I just got through my first ever 90 day trial period and I’m still employed.

Regardless I still find myself sitting here feeling lost and confused about how the fuck, shit works. I find myself back at square one questioning everything I thought I knew already and again reconsidering my abilities.

Of course, there’s always a massive likelihood that nothing I ever thought I knew was right at any point in time but let’s not get into semantics. Anything you think you know, you can only know as far as the extent of everything else you think you know already, relative to anything.

So anyway, significantly more experienced people than I have reassured me over and over that all developers go through this time and time again, throughout the entirety of their careers. And those same people, keep saying that they always get through, they come out the other side better off and more knowledgeable. Obviously being the pessimist that I am, I just assumed they were saying that to be nice. Looks like there may be some truth in it after all.

Low and behold, a couple of days after writing that ^ and things are magically making sense and working now. I still can’t pinpoint the exact moment that everything seems to fall into place. It’s almost like you go to sleep a mess one day and wake up the next with a firm knowledge of something you’ve never looked at before. Do you remember the scene where Neo has his first training in The Matrix, he goes under and looks like he’s having a seizure on the chair, all of a sudden he wakes up, takes a deep breath as if he just nearly drowned and exclaims “I know Kung Fu!” Well, this is kind of like that.

I spend a week or two of sleepless nights, tossing and turning in bed at night, tearing my hair out in front of a computer screen and on the verge of tears every 10 minutes until one day I wake up, sit in front of my computer and everything just works. I can not wait for the day that learning new tech is not a complete mind fuck.

Sure, it’s not as easy as I originally anticipated but now I’m leading myself to ask “Why do I keep setting myself up for disaster in assuming things are less complicated than they are?” I mean, obviously I’m a go getter and the only way to really get is actually “Go and get.” Because let’s be realistic, everything isn’t always going to be handed to you on a silver platter and having any inkling of an expectation that it will is only going to lead to disappointment.

So I guess overall this post is a bit of a pointless loop. After a bit of a lull – popping my shoulder out again in my last fight, feeling immensely inferior in the office and unable to crack a new language – it seems the order of the universe has been restored once again.

I’m now certified with an understanding of implementing relational data warehouses, I have a small working app written in jQuery, a solid leap on a new project written in pure JS, I’m back at the gym training for my last fight of the year and basically the next six months of my life has been pre-organised, planned and booked up with some pretty exciting trips and adventures.

I’m astounded how I can feel so down about things one minute and then the next, look back at what I’ve done since the last time that “things were bad” and suddenly feel content – I guess it looks like I’m doing kind of okay.

You know it seems less interesting to write about since I made it here. I guess that’s because the reality is that I actually do this now. Every day. For a living.

You know that saying “the grass is always greener on the other side”?

Well, I’m on the other side and the grass is pretty damn green. I guess the question now is can it get greener?

I suppose I should really consider that just because I’m here doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve “made it”. There’s still a hell of a lot of work to go, this is really just the tip of the ice berg. And if this ice berg is anything like what sunk the titanic then I certainly do have my work cut out for me.

But the begging question always lurks “where to go next?”

So after thinking about it for a few days, it’s obvious my mind is still swimming with ideas and potential plans of action. And I’m stuck again with the age old question “What to tackle first?” – after all I don’t yet qualify as a fully fledged full stack dev and my name isn’t the number 1 hit all over Google (although Selena Gomez does present some pretty solid competition on that front).

It would seem that I have less time on my hands and yet I also have more time on my hands. Since I’m being paid during the day to essentially learn a lot with plenty of time up my sleeve for personal notes to remember everything I’m learning to implement (for now), I can essentially learn twice as fast and twice as many topics, right?

Well, I think so. The approach now is to broaden my focus with more front-end related development tasks during the day as they relate closer to my current role and a more infrastructure focussed path in the evenings and weekends. With that I hope to gain a high level understanding of a variety of topics as well as some in depth implementation techniques.

After all, I am endeavouring to be full stack capable so it only makes sense that the wider the variety of knowledge areas, the better my ability to quickly adapt and evolve, the better things will work out in the long run.

Currently the contrast there is keeping me interested, between doing my actual job which involves a lot of php, trying to master jQuery during the day and understanding how to build relational data warehouses at night. In the coming weeks I hope to have a simple, clean working application complete with jQuery animations as well as a certificate in data warehousing with Microsoft Azure.

Now, I know that jQuery is a relatively out of date library and I guess I’m somewhat behind the times a bit even bothering to learn that in 2016 but in my all fairness it is directly applicable to my day job where I’m the most Junior developer on the team and find myself being palmed monstrous legacy applications which have been built using libraries like jQuery.

It also seems to have been a very quick and easy way to pick up some javascript concepts that I just know will benefit me later when I tackle pure JS. If I just think back to my progression of learning Assembly language, to c++, to ruby, to php – the more high-level I went in terms of the language, the more it made sense.

I just don’t see the negative of learning the basics of any language or concept, even if it only loosely relates to the overall position I’d like to find myself in. The more you have knowledge of, the more valuable you’ll become. You will wind up having a stronger idea of what to use (or not use) and where to use it. So, although there may be topics other than jQuery to better spend my time on, it is not a waste to spend the time now.

On the other hand of current targets, I am working toward a certification in Data Warehousing. This is not a topic that is easy to wrap your head around and I do not expect any time soon to be building Relational Data Warehouses with Microsoft Azure, however, I would like to at least grasp the concept at a high-level so that in future when I work with a project or speak to someone in regards to heavy duty data storage and manipulation I can be a little more up wiht the play.

I also think that as a developer, the better your understanding of databases and architecture, the better you will ultimately be able to implement feasible strategies and deliver robust solutions.

But hey, it’s still early days for me to be forming hard and fast opinions that cannot be challenged. I do expect that these views will likely change with time. As everything does so, it’s all relatively to who and where you are at any time given.

One idea that is unlikely to change any time soon is the concept that surely, if I can keep up that sort of momentum for a year or two I can find myself well on the path to greatness.

Every time I reach a goal and achieve or think that I’ve achieved a reasonable feat, I feel a sense of emptiness. An empty void where I no longer need to continue working towards that specific goal and in turn winding up convincing myself that getting to that point of achievement was an easy task.

For a period, I forget about all the ups and downs of the journey, in particular the biggest struggles along the way and all of my near breaking points and somehow seem to convince myself that I have become invincible because during this period I’ve decided that if I have so much free time I should really be able to take on more than what I have been taking on!

I guess you could say there are ups and downs to this feeling of invincibility. The obvious up is that I’m always quick to look for a new challenge or challenges. The downside, in turn, is that because I have such a broad range of interest areas and I’m an overachiever since way back, I almost always wind up overextending myself.

I think that subconsciously, because I managed to do something relatively well in specific timeframe when I don’t feel as though I really tried my hardest to it, I wind up believing that if I really applied myself and gave everything to the activities taking place within that time frame that I could reasonably expect to achieve twice as much to an equally good standard.

Considering that now, there does seem to be some logic in the theory, however careful consideration must also be taken into account for the momentous occasions when I fall flat on my face and completely fail. These, luckily, do not occur too regularly, however, I know full well that when they do occur I generally wind up blindingly intoxicated for the next 24hrs and fall into a self-pitying depression for at least the next two weeks trying to convince myself that life’s not worth living and the world is pretty much over.

Sound dramatic? Well, you should consider my closest friends around this time, even I feel bad for them!

Obviously, at the time this entire logical view on things goes out the window and I revert back to that negative, deluded drama queen state.

Although I always eventually snap out of it and get myself back on track, too many consistent overachieving fails could really be the straw that broke the camels back. And I’m not really prepared to have a go and just see if I can take on the challenge of reaching the lowest of low points. Sure, it would be character building but I mean, I probably did enough of that in highschool so it might be best to play the game a bit safer. For sanity’s sake.

In a new city, it can be difficult to find a place where you fit in. Especially when you move to start working on your new career and have competitions lined up for the first few months which involve daily training.

I work in a small office, with five other developers on site. All of whom are men and almost all of whom are married and/or have children.

A vast majority of my closest friends are men and I hang out with them regularly, in one on one situations. I don’t really like being in large groups, even with girls. Especially with girls, in fact. But I mean, my guy mates and I go will go for a drink, dinner or coffee, watch a movie or get together and write code and it’s just normal. We’re mates, it’s what we do. Gender makes no difference.

However, coming from a background in hospitality which is kind of a lose industry when it comes to things like perceived appropriateness, I’ve never really had to think twice about who I spend time with or how we spend that time.

Now, though, in an environment with people who have only ever experience mainstream life, i.e. either corporate or study backgrounds, I feel as though I need to tread more carefully. For example, I’ve had to tone down my crass innuendoes and profanities quite significantly. Only writing this now I’ve realised that I’ve actually done that. I guess being surrounded by people who aren’t that way inclined themselves makes a difference.

Regardless of how things were for me in the past, you can see how it might come across detrimental if a young(ish) single woman was to spend any amount of time with the guys from the office outside of work. And understandably men who are married and/or have kids would have no business doing that anyway.

So, how then does one go out and meet people?

This has loosely been on my mind since planning the move but up until now, it is literally something that never in my life has occurred to me. The last time I moved cities was when I left my hometown and went to go and study at Victoria University in Wellington, where I lived for the first year in a hostel and seemed to just be surrounded by people all the time. From there, everything just sort of fell into place, right up until the day I left. And for a good long while there, I simply did not care about having any sort of interactions with any people at all.

Now I feel more determined. I have a better direction in my mind of where I need to be heading. And that direction is primarily focussed towards expanding my career and competing more and more. The competition side of things seems to have fallen into place quite well since I already knew the gym here and I’ve done enough before that I can just maintain the training. It’s not like when you first start something and you have to dedicate a more considerable amount of time towards learning the basics. Of course, when it comes to Muay Thai, you cannot revise the basics enough.

When it comes to expanding my career, though, just going to work every day isn’t enough. Well, maybe it is. But for me, it doesn’t feel enough. I’ve been developing 9-5 now for about two and half months and wow the learning curve has been steep! I have a significantly better understanding of web applications but the amount that I don’t know and the speed that new things are coming out makes me think I really am not learning enough, fast enough.

There are a huge number of meetup groups and tech talks in Auckland, many of which seem really interesting and relevant to modern development. I really want to go and check them out! But I really don’t have the balls to go on my own!

The people I work with don’t seem so interested in that sort of thing. Understandably, after a long day of coding the last thing you want to do is go and listen to monotonous talks about coding. In some cases. There are actually a number of passionate people out there who do want to go and do that and to be surrounded by other people with a similar interest. I like talking to devs. They get me, they have good chats and obviously, I’m interested in development.

So… you wouldn’t believe my luck! A friend from Wellington was visiting this week and dropped me a line to go and have a beer. Of course, with very few friends in this city, I’ll jump at any opportunity to go out and have a drink! And it’s a good thing I did because I was introduced to another developer in a (some ways) similar situation to me. Now, this guy is not starting out his development career by any means, in fact, he’s lightyears ahead of me. The similarity is that he hasn’t been in the city for too long and he’s really interested in tech talks and meeting other developers but needs to find someone to go along with!

What are the fucking chances?! Well, I guess it ultimately all comes down to good networks, right? That and I guess I just know some really cool people. It looks like my prayers have been answered and I’m finally heading off to an Auckland meet up next week – I’m excited to listen to the talks and I hope I soon meet some more people in the industry to share thoughts and ideas with.