Week 13 (04.17 to 04.23)

This is the entry that sums up the Monday of that week.

Since the end of last week, I have been studying for long periods of time using Pomodoro. It’s incredibly effective. At the same time, to remain focused, I tend to leave my phone out of my sight and on Do not disturb mode.

I realized that the “drier” sections made me less motivated and I was about to give up or take even more time in my learning, by delaying my studying sessions. However, I pulled through and managed to get to really interesting sessions in my Udemy bootcamp. While my goal last week was to finish sections 24 and 25 that are about JavaScript concepts, in a couple of days, I managed to get to the end of section 34.

I learned about Node.js, NPM (Node Package Manager), how to install Node packages, setting up Express.js to learn about back-end, and even HTML templating using EJS. It’s really fun now how everything is coming together and I can even see great content.

A couple of months ago, I was trying to learn Django, a web framework for Python, kind of similar then to Express. At the time, because I was still learning the fundamentals languages of web development, I had trouble focusing on both. But now, the little knowledge I got from trying to learn Django is making my learning about back-end with Express a little easier.

So, no learning is useless.

I just completed the section about HTML templating at around 21:30 and I initially thought of continuing but with Pomodoro, I’ve been studying close to 4 hours. Even though it’s just learning stuff, I realize that I should try creating my own little projects on the side using that newfound knowledge. Applying knowledge is much more important than simply absorbing it. That’s what makes the difference.

I’m actually very happy with the tremendous progress I made just last weekend and today. Pages can start looking good. I noticed that this bootcamp is not teaching any React. The Odin Project and FreeCodeCamp however are touching upon it. So it makes sense that I should keep going with these other resources.

Maybe for the following days I’m going to continue with The Odin Project and trying to finish at least the JavaScript section, and at the same time the Foundations course. There are a couple of projects that seem very interesting that I can add to my GitHub and portfolio in the end.

I’m sure it will take some time. But with all that I’ve been learning as of late, my motivation came back and I want to complete it even more.

On that note, there are a few companies based in Tokyo that are currently hiring. And reading success stories about how their current employees joined the company makes me want to complete my courses and fill up my portfolio. Again, I have other companies too in my radar that I’m eager to join, and I realize how mastering Web Development can open so many doors. Language barrier can be an issue but I’m also working on my Japanese. It’s a lifelong process but I hope I can communicate quite clearly in the future.

Actually, I did not log any activity until the end of the week and the following 3 weeks, as I was feeling like I was burning out from all the studying, constantly learning without applying.

So I had to take a step back, move away from all the learning for a couple of weeks to reset. As I was going through tough moments in my personal life as well, I found it difficult to balance all of those things at once.