_QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing”
As promised the first log from the inside (or from under the water, which would definitely be a better wording for my physical state at the moment)
TOPIC:
Today it was all about SHELL (which is the terminal, in simple words an alternative navigation and command execution space which is similar in logic to the graphic folders and click we are all used to with one big difference – it’s NOT GRAPHIC). So we had to learn all the shortcuts and commands to do the basic stuff like navigate, copy paste etc. But it wasn’t as simple as it sounds.
OVERALL:
Well, first I didn’t manage to stick to the planned schedule even for 1 day (surprise surprise 😂😂😂)). Time of exit is 21h06…
And so this first article is going to be written with 1/10 of normal operating capacity of my brain.
In the spirit of concentrating on the positive, the 30 extra minutes that I have stayed in turned out to be more productive than the 3h before that. And it was particularly rewarding to do that one as the 3-4-5 were done with an extensive help from my kind (and smart) neighbours and I had a strong feeling that I have only understood 30% of what I’ve done. And had no hopes for to get anywhere close to understand the following exercises. BUT will+focus+google+some other kind neighbours can do magic 🙂
This said, when I use the word “done, only means ’submitted’ which basically doesn’t mean much as there is machine correction and peer correction that will be actual judges of the final score.
RESULTS:
6/11 submitted (which does not mean much yet as the final score can still be 0…, but I stay optimistic.
And as per qualitative results I do feel very like a wizard of item (well, I maybe exaggerate a bit, but I’m not scared by the black screen and weird signs anymore haha).
HIGHLIGHTS:
- LOST & OVERWHELMED: the lesson number one of the day 1 (or 00 to be more precise) can be summarized in one word OVERWHELMING. There is a bit too much of everything and I must have caught myself on a though “I feel lost” at least 5 times a day. There is too much information, too many people around, too many things to learn, too fast of a pace… It was particularly pressuring overtime I realised that all the people around me are already ahead and when I was still stuck with the Ex02 out of 11. Being well w-aware that I will not manage to do them all. And between the videos, discussions on the right, discussions on the left, +300 new messages on Slack every 1h… Well, I did not exactly succeeded to manage well all of those. But hey there is always tomorrow.
- IT’S COOL TO BE A GIRL, aka a minority in the coders world. It would hardly come as a surprise but 90% of the Piscine’s (and 42’s) population are Men. So the 10% of Ladies do have certain very nice benefits. Which are separate room,separate bathroom, direct line of “let us know if guys bother you”, girls only “survival seminar” haha. Well, the room alone is very nice. Even though I don’t sleep at the school, it’s still nice to have the badge looking room to leave the bag or have a nap.
- PATIENCE: the most important notion of the DAY00 is to be patient and keep your cool. Having arrived to the computer at 9 a.m. it wasn’t before the 11.30 that the system have finally got to its course. Between the J00 and D00 that turned out to be a different thing, slooooooow (like 20min for a page) response from the intranet… Bref, the day started later than expected… But it’s all a part of the game.
CHALLENGES
Challenge #1 is to find a place! Me who has a particular trouble when it comes to picking of option… I did first pick up a row that was for some reason a favourite spot of the current 42 residents. Which seemed cool at first as I unexpectable found 2 “teachers” who did pass all this a year ago and didn’t have a pressure of the Piscine so they were ready to answer any questions A-Z. But after a while, I have realised that I wasn’t exactly moving in the right direction and by noon still haven’t started the ex01!! So the first life changing decision was to get a place among those who fight the same battle. And so I did. And it definitely turned out to be a good decision as people around were asking the same questions. Which was both reassuring and helpful (as the answers were found faster as well).
Challenge #2 Focus: goes back to the Overwhelming point of above. The biggest challenge I have personally had today is to decide what to do and when. As I got easily lost: between the videos, the questions around, the discussions (in particular unrelated ones), the staff’s announcements… It got a bit better by the end of the day though, but I should definitely work on this one!
Challenge #3 Attention to the details: so not my strong suit… BUT it’s by far the most crucial part to any exercise. What may look simple at the first sight can easily turn into a much more complicated (or simply long to do) by each detail you discover… And the exercise I though would take me 30 min tops turned out to take whole 2h… And then there are always the “-“ “/“ “-frg” and all the other abracadabras that just explode the brain..
Which is in fact the state in which it still is and I realised that this post got way too long (and overwhelming) as I have big trouble to structure and find the key elements that would describe it. But as I say there is always tomorrow, which I hope will start with a good 5k run for me. And looking at the clock (23:42) I need to go sleep NOW to leave a chance for it to actually happen! So I live you with a good night wished and the traditional quote:
“A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing”