We’re in the middle of Covid-19 crisis and bracing ourselves for it’s spread in Australia. The dance studio I work for is closing doors for an undetermined amount of time, which means technically I have no work. That’s not to mention gigs that have been cancelled. And before the announcement of the closure I had a heavy flu for a week, which prevented me from working, forcing me to use all my leave.
The worst part is that I have close to zero savings. Due to circumstances I was forced to dispose of my savings and I calculate in a couple of weeks time I’ll be hat in hand to make sure I have enough for subsistence. I’ve done many stupid things in my life, but I was never in debt. And now it looks like that will be the case, unless a cure or the vaccine is found very quick.
I’m aware that lots of people are going through the same and most probably worse than me, as I live in a rich country, I have good health and my family is ok. I’ve done a lot of work in that are to keep things in perspective and not to think I’m the unluckiest person in the world. However it’s a new low for me.
After a couple of months without visiting it, I’ve resorted to Jocko’s Podcast again. It’s a fantastic source of perspective, as it discusses the lives of people that went through tough times, with focus on military history. The last episode I listened to was with Rose Schindler, an Auschwitz survivor, co-author of “Two Who Survived”, which I still have to read. It’s impossible not to think that what I’m going through right now is nothing after hearing her story.
My Plan
Of course I’m not going to sit down and wait for the best. The positive side of all this is that I’ll have tons of time in my hands and I have to do something useful with it. My biggest plan for this period is to come out on the other end as a better programmer.
I’ve decided to focus on Java from now on. Not for any specific reason but mainly because after listening from advice from a friend and doing some research I realised that as much as Angular is awesome and I’ll keep diving into it as my Front-End framework, my possibilities in the long run will be better if I know a robust back-end language well. From what I understand, it doesn’t really matter which language it is, as long as you stick to it and become fluent. So I’m going to stick with Java.
I subscribed to Code Gym, and my progress has been relatively slow so far, but now I intend to really dive into it. It’s a very well structured course with a lot (really, a lot) of exercises, which I think is the best way for learning. I’ll work as hard as I can to get done with the first part of the course, the Syntax, in a week.
And because I have so much time in my hands I’ll post on the blog daily. The sole purpose is to create the discipline. As of now I don’t think anyone is reading this anyways. I’ll be posting at 9am Brisbane Time every day.
Back tomorrow!