My project sneak peek reveal: I’m building a site to help users pick out potential rental property investments by comparing mortgage rates to average rental rates in the surrounding region.

Our second sprint is now almost over. I’ve eaten more chocolate bars in the last few weeks than I have since I was probably twelve. I’m coding about 10-12 hours a day, just about every day, unless something comes up or if I have something else planned. It’s probably not healthy… nope. The stress has driven me to the point of really, really, really disliking my project. I understand now why people have told me time and time again to pick something I’m really passionate about or like. While I think my project is pretty cool because of its potential usefulness, I don’t think I chose something I care about enough. I mean, the reality is, I just can’t afford a home right now anyway so why would I use my own product?

On the flip side, I am extremely lucky to have two very awesome advisors (Katie and Ahmad) at Hackbright to help me find the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve come a damn far way since I started just two months ago, from knowing only some front-end and SQL to actually being able to put together a robust full-stack app. I understand more of the computer science that goes on under the hood of what I’m coding, and I am more confident in my ability to navigate the unknown (because there will always be tons of that ahead). I am also beginning to see patterns across languages and I am starting to understand the importance of concepts like code organization and streamlining code for efficiency and reuse. Besides sleep, something to help me sort out logic problems is the old school way of drawing with pen on paper. Here’s a process I drew out a few times to help me think about how to merge several different event handlers in JavaSript. As soon as I drew this out, the complexity of the implementation immediately became simplified:

We’re now at the 3/4 mark and just about to start whiteboarding practice. Between practicing interviews, getting ready for product demo night, learning compsci fundamentals, meeting with our mentors, and balancing out project work… all I can say is yeah, it’s a pretty freaking busy and stressful time. Sometimes I don’t remember to check-in with myself until somebody or something else does. Earlier tonight at Hackbright, I had a weird moment in the restroom. (I know, TMI…) From across the toilet seat I looked up and saw J.K. Rowling. She winked at me. I did a double take before I decided it was time to go home.

And the project-ing continues…