02/11/2017

After reading a bit of New Code girl’s blogspot and Joshua Kemp’s blog from links I found on The Odin Project, I decided I finally have to start blogging ... AGAIN. Last time I started a blog, I was about to get married.

I used to journal as a preteen and teenager, I'm talking about bound books with paper and pen here. But whenever I reread all the journal entries I noticed a common thread: boys!

Having just come out of a divorce and being more focused than ever on NOT thinking about boys, I’ve decided now is the time to start journaling again. But this time I’m going to try to keep it focused on my exploits as a former creative writing student turned small-town newspaper journalist, turned waitress turned coder. Coder. What does that even mean? When I was little it was “computer programming.” Does that take too many keystrokes to type out? Maybe.

I have read that hard “c” and “k” sounds are more successful when it comes to business marketing. So the word code, because of its brevity and phonetics and the psychology behind phonetics might make it more "catchy" than the words "computer programming", I suppose. 

So I’ve researched a lot about how to learn computer programming specifically in order to get out of the “career” I’m in, which happens to be waitressing at the moment. (waitressing is very thankless, disenchanting, stressful and physically demanding ... and I hate to generalize but it seems most servers who stay in the business do so out of necessity because they don't know how to read and write English that well ... at least that's what I've observed. I don't know for sure. I do know that I see people with a lot of pathos in the industry and it's difficult to find restaurants that are run well. At least it has been for me. But they're' out there.)

But I digress ... I'm not looking for gold at the end of a rainbow ...

I’m not looking to be the founder of any kind of startup. I just want a more rewarding career than waitressing because I don't think I'm living up to my potential. I'm also continually frustrated as an employee, and I see pursuing some form of digital marketing or web development or aspect of internet technology as a means for me to become a solopreneur, be my own boss, have job flexibility, etc.

I’m thinking right now that I’d like to specialize in front end development, specifically HTML, CSS, JavaScript (I don’t even know the difference between Java and JS right now … ) and Python, or is it Perl? No it’s PHP! Ok, so why those languages? I might change my mind, but I’ve dabbled enough in Wordpress (WP) development to want to be able to really sink my teeth into web design. I have dabbled with the Divi theme on WP. But I was so agitated because I have a background as a copy editor and page layout designer at newspapers, so I’m incredibly detail oriented. And it killed me to not be able to know exactly how to make teeny tiny tweeks here and there with the design when I was building my site with Wordpress. For example, I simply wanted to change rounded edges instead of 90-degree edges on frames/boxes.

But I’m a little worried that if I only specialize in HTML, CSS and PHP, it might not be able to get me a job. Then again, my other thought is that I can work as a “freelancer” in web design. If I can get good enough at these languages and know how to tweek the crap out of Wordpress, then I can be like the Russians and Indians who go on fiverr and score web development jobs for FIVE BUCKS!!!!!! 

I mean, I don’t have kids, I have very little debt (about $12K in student loans from studying Creative Writing at Emory in Atlanta). Heck, I don’t even mind living overseas, so I know I can work for cheap. 

Then again, I also like the idea of becoming a digital marketer for small local businesses. But I'd still like to have more skill with web construction under my belt before I start to myself as that. 

I just want to be employable! And not just as a waitress. And, no offense, but no one seems to want to pay writers of the English language and copy editors living wages. Well, I could try to make a living on BlogMutt, but I’d rather write what I know. And I want to know code. I don’t even know why. Maybe I care too much about what people think, and when I tell someone what I do for a living, I want them to think, “Hm. She must be smart.” And I feel like if I learn a couple computer languages, then that will happen. Plus, why not pursue learning a useful skill? What's the word that could happen? I feel like learning to code is better than watching TV.