Okay, so checklist for week three of the Springboard software engineering bootcamp:

Enjoying content... ✔️

Start learning about testing content via Jasmine... ✔️

Wife takes daughter to visit grandfather in hospice care down in Florida... 🤔

Get an excruciating stomach virus a few days before she leaves and still dealing with it days later... 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

Nope, not how I saw week three going.

Of course, that's life in general, right? The majority of us who are starting some form of technology-based careerpath probably didn't imagine this is where we'd "end up" as adults. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a paleontologist or a marine biologist; dreams that have all but faded at this point. Now, my focus is less about following my ✨passions✨, and more on being faithful to the Lord and providing for my family.

This isn't to say passions are inherently wrong. With the right perspective, temperance, and humility, they can benefit our lives immensely. However, in our day and age where our role models tend to be influencers and public figures (even for those on LinkedIn), I see a lot of people focusing on ✨passions✨, which amounts to whatever someone feels good about in a particular day, something they find their identity in... Something that will inevitably change down the road, leading to, undoubtedly, another self-existential crisis.

Back to the point at hand- this week has been tough, with feeling exhausted and not getting as much work done as I'd like. There's something discouraging about only being a few weeks into a 36-week curriculum and already being behind schedule, but you know? Why stress about it? Stressing never solves a problem, and it only makes my stomach pain more intense.

The curriculum itself this week has been interesting, though. I've heard a lot about how bootcamp grads aren't always prepared for the testing side of engineering, so it's encouraging to already be learning how to work with Jasmine and purposefully design my code to be mindful of testing with others. That was also something my mentor talked to me about yesterday morning: writing code that is actually easy to read. Which, I guess that depends on who you are and your experience? But if you write your own code and struggle to read it afterwards... Probably not the greatest sign?

Anyway, I might not finish where I wanted to this week, but I'm glad my wife's grandfather was able to meet our daughter before he passed. I admire him a lot- he's a kind, gentle man who lived a very full life. There are people who probably don't understand why he doesn't want to be hooked up to tubes to "survive," but I mean, that's the gist of the quality vs. quantity of life, right? Thankfully, he's made it to a late age with a lot of life under his belt.

I'm hoping I can say the same when everything is said and done.