More Than Just a Blogger Girl
I’m 23 years young, and frankly, sometimes I’m surprised that I am alive. Surprised, yet very, very fortunate and blessed. I’ve skydived over the scenery of Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, and bungee jumped off of the highest platform in Australasia. I’ve lost my passport while traveling through Thailand, and have gotten hit in the face with blazing flames while trying to fire jump rope. And as a native Texan, I recently survived my first Northeastern winter - this was by far the most frightening.
My mom might call them “stupid decisions,” my friends label these situations as “faux pas,” but I euphemize them as life’s great adventures. And through all these adrenaline-spiking moments, I’ve never been more scared than I am for Dev BootCamp.
Even now, working as an IT Business Analyst in a Technology Leadership Development Program, I’m seen as the blogger girl, the presenter, the writer, the girl that’s always drawing dinosaurs during development sessions – never the technical one. And this is the way it’s always been. It’s undeniable, I absolutely love writing, being creative, and filling the corners of my notes with doodles – but I’ve decided that’s not all that I want to be siloed as, so here I am.
Watching Shereef’s Fire Chat was an unexpected emotional rollercoaster between sighing with relief and chewing my nails off in absolute terror – thanks, man. He did a brilliant job in articulating the Dev BootCamp dynamic and mental expectation, which was reassuring. I’m not the most confident in my logical or technical capability, but I sure am confident in my fascination with people and my recalcitrance to not give up. I’ve learned a lot about myself through different relationships and experiences, and I one of the biggest realizations I had was that I am mad fickle. Forget committing to diets and gym memberships – even staying in one city for an extended period of time. But when I sift through all the havoc in my life, there are certain things – EDMTunes, Texas, church, for example – that are solid commitments in my life, the common thread is simple: groups of people that commit to me and that I commit to, a tenacious and honest support group that relies on me and that I rely on. And that is why I think Dev BootCamp will work for me – the people.
Many of us are scared of failing – of being a disappointment to someone or another, maybe disappointing yourself. But like Shereef said, the madness that is Dev BootCamp is a huge experiment, not a test. In my mind, that means as long as you try, and try your darn hardest, you can’t technically fail. Heck, I don’t even know if I’ll like coding. I might come out of this whole thing and turn to be a Go-Go dancer at music festivals, who knows…but that’s what’s absolutely alluring and thrilling! Every time I open GitHub, I get inundated with feelings of queasiness, doubt, utter fear, excitement, pride, and stress – basically I feel like there’s 5- pound bag of gummy worms squirming in my stomach up to my brain. But I reassure myself with this: no matter the outcome, I will come out knowing more – whether about myself, the world, or coding – than I did before,” and that is simply brilliant.
