I just built a jQuery carousel the other day. So why am I completely incapable of building one right now?
I actually built two carousels this week. The first was something simple I put together for homework. The second was one that I built following along with my instructor. It had mostly the same functionality, but with nicer transitions and better looking buttons. In my group project, my part of the work is to construct a carousel with autoplay. Just to start off, I tried using the code from those already-built carousels. They are manual image carousels but I didn't want to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. I could get some working code in there and then make a couple of changes...BAM! Done! Well, not quite. Not only did those two codes not work on my new page, but the other 3 tutorials that I found online could not produce a functioning carousel of any kind. As the day went on, my frustration just blew up and I couldn't get any kind of work done. So I went home, watched Family Guy for a few minutes, opened up my laptop, and produced a functioning carousel in about an hour.
The moral of the story is that taking brain breaks and clearing your head is definitely a key to success. Not THE key to success but its very helpful. This advice was repeated to me by my instructor in today's counseling session. Everyone says I'm doing good and to keep it up, but goddamn that carousel was a confidence-killer!
This weekend we are doing a group project. I've got a good group and I'm pretty stoked about this project because this is the kind of work I want to be doing in my career. Working with people remotely over Github and Slack, or whatever other tools I'll eventually end up using. My goal is to be able to travel and work, if I want to. Or sit at home on my couch and work, if I want to. Or go to the office and work, if I want to. So I'm getting my feet wet with this one. But as you can see I haven't gotten too far with my assignments...having spent an entire chunk of a day building a carousel and another huge part of a day using GIMP to design a logo.
On Friday the 13th our group is going on a field trip to a local tech firm to meet people and get some exposure. This is one of the benefits of going to a bootcamp: personal introductions to potential employers. I'm looking forward to more of these kinds of interactions. Unless they start asking me about my proficiency at building carousels in jQuery. Then I'm going to have to jump out the window.
