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I keep lists all over the place and they’ve started to get a bit unwieldy so I’m giving Weeknotes a shot, as a way to align all my well-meaning catalogues and put them in one place. The idea is to reflect on the week just gone and keep a record of random thoughts, things I learnt, what I read, anything that I struggled with and, of course, the wins. In no set format.

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I’ve started redesigning my portfolio quietly in the background. I built my current one straight out of General Assembly and did it as speedily as I could, with the skills I had at the time, so that I could send it out to prospective employers ASAP - I was 6 months without a paycheque at that point and feeling rather desperate to get a job! Now that I’m employed I can afford a little more time on getting it to look how I want, using all the new skills I'm learning on the job.

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I’ve always clung onto the idea of becoming fluent in another (natural) language. French and Cantonese being the most attainable having done GCSE French and growing up in Hong Kong. I go through spurts of concentrating on learning new words but life always gets in the way. Inspired by the Ladybug podcast, I’ve added reading the French version of Harry Potter to my bucket list but have yet to make a goal for Cantonese. I was born in Bahrain so Arabic is another language I would love to learn. When I was a kid I had no idea the words ‘shukran’ (thank you) and ‘yalla’ (hurry up) were Arabic because my parents used them in their usual lexicon when we lived in Bahrain (I was born there).

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It helps me to see learning to code as similar to learning a natural language in this way:

• You discover a new word or phrase (a new programming concept or bit of code) that you’ve never come across and don’t understand
• You look it up in the dictionary or get someone to explain it to you, whether someone you know or online: Google / Stack Overflow / YouTube / medium.com / Ask a mentor
• Then you practice using it over and over until you understand how it works

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Listened to the Ladybug podcast’s 20 Tips for Developers in 2020 episode and loved it, they reminded me of the Advent of Code which I first discovered right when I was just thinking about learning to code - I found it impossible to understand. I’ve added this to my bucket list as something to tackle in the future.

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I’ve decided not to buy any new books this year because over the years I’ve purchased or been gifted so many books that I’ve never gotten round to reading. I will allow myself to go to the library, so that I can borrow Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez so that I can follow along with the Ladybug podcast bookclub.
n.b. - Perez was outspoken about the removal of the only woman from British banknotes, other than Queenie, which led to the Bank of England reinstating a woman (Jane Austen) on the £10 note, Perez was hounded and harassed online for standing up for women’s rights. Her first book Do it Like a Woman…and change the world is one of the many books on my shelf I have yet to read!