I must be some sort of masochist
Sep. 24th, 2001 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
geekchick(And no comments from the peanut gallery! ;P)
I managed to get caught up to where I'm working on week 5 of my PHP class (this is week 6), so what did I do? I signed up for PHP II - The Cool Stuff (meaning database access, xml, imap/pop, sockets, etc.). I think I'm probably crazy, as I had such a struggle the last week or two of this class. I understand in theory what needs to be done, but I'm not so good yet with putting that into practice.
I swore I wouldn't take two classes at a time again after my experience trying to keep up with the XML class and the number of assignments in the beginning PHP class, but these only overlap by a week. That won't kill me...right? And they're not offering it again until March, so I decided to take the plunge.
My brain has been atrophying. I haven't had any consistent work to do in about a year other than routine maintenance of our machines, and I'm finding it hard to get myself back into a habit of sitting down and saying "I need to do X, and it needs to be done by this date". I think having some background with Cold Fusion is making this class not quite as difficult as it could be otherwise, but I still feel like I shouldn't be having as hard a time with some of this stuff as I am. Maybe I'm really not cut out to be a web geek, at least not of the developer variety. I see Chris, who picks this kind of thing up in 15 minutes, and then I watch myself struggle with what seems like it ought to be a basic concept. Maybe my perception is just skewed though by the fact that I know so many geeks who pick up technical stuff so easily, or else have been programming for 15+ years.
I need an extra helping of self-confidence, please.
I managed to get caught up to where I'm working on week 5 of my PHP class (this is week 6), so what did I do? I signed up for PHP II - The Cool Stuff (meaning database access, xml, imap/pop, sockets, etc.). I think I'm probably crazy, as I had such a struggle the last week or two of this class. I understand in theory what needs to be done, but I'm not so good yet with putting that into practice.
I swore I wouldn't take two classes at a time again after my experience trying to keep up with the XML class and the number of assignments in the beginning PHP class, but these only overlap by a week. That won't kill me...right? And they're not offering it again until March, so I decided to take the plunge.
My brain has been atrophying. I haven't had any consistent work to do in about a year other than routine maintenance of our machines, and I'm finding it hard to get myself back into a habit of sitting down and saying "I need to do X, and it needs to be done by this date". I think having some background with Cold Fusion is making this class not quite as difficult as it could be otherwise, but I still feel like I shouldn't be having as hard a time with some of this stuff as I am. Maybe I'm really not cut out to be a web geek, at least not of the developer variety. I see Chris, who picks this kind of thing up in 15 minutes, and then I watch myself struggle with what seems like it ought to be a basic concept. Maybe my perception is just skewed though by the fact that I know so many geeks who pick up technical stuff so easily, or else have been programming for 15+ years.
I need an extra helping of self-confidence, please.
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no subject
Date: 2001-09-25 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2001-09-25 06:47 am (UTC)I actually understand where you're coming from.. I work with some people who can do the more elaborate C++ programming and so forth in their sleep and it kills me that it is so easy for them. My one ASP project was very frustrating because I was asking questions for almost every line of code.
However, that doesn't mean I can't do it, it just means I have to hammer away at it more. We all have our talents that come naturally, and others we have to work on. I realize that every time one of these programming masters comes to me because they can't get a color scheme to work in Photoshop.
Just think of all the stuff that comes naturally to you that doesn't come naturally to Chris or any of your other career programmer friends. It all evens out.
no subject
Date: 2001-09-25 12:24 pm (UTC)Every time I think I'm totally screwed and I'll never get another job, I hear from Chris that his recruiter says that just not being afraid to unpack a tarball and compile some source code is a valuable skill, or something else that implies that maybe I'm not as bad off as I think. I suffer a lot from "if I can do this, it must be pretty darn easy", which isn't always true.