The most interesting thing that happened this past year was that I got hired by ServiceNow and then I got fired. I worked for the company for about a year doing Tech Support. I'm still processing being let go. There are still some lingering feelings. I don't feel enough emotional distance to say anything that wouldn't come off as bitter. But I definitely do want to talk about it, because I think I learned a few things working for such a huge application platform as a service aPaaS software company. I wasn't even aware of the acronym aPaaS. I might write some more about this, but one thing I can say now with certainty is that I'm not interested in a career in Tech Support.
What I'm still interested in is having a career in Software Development. I'm still still looking for that first "real" job as a coder. (I don't count my 2 to 3 weeks working at a startup as official since I don't feel like I gained any substantial experience there.) I signed up with Pathrise to see if that helps. The staff at Pathrise have been super nice and helpful, though it's probably gonna be a while until I start seeing any results being that the industry is in a big mood right now.
Another piece of news is that I'm a Teaching Assisting for the Bootcamp I attended. I landed the gig while working at ServiceNow. I actually landed two part-time cohorts, one of them with the University of Central Florida, which I finished a couple weeks ago, and the other with University of North Carolina at Charlotte, which I'm currently TA'ing. The job is great. I get to help out students and do a refresher in Full Stack Web Development.
Those have been the major things that kept me busy this year. Besides that I'm mostly taking some time to think. Getting back into doing things I enjoy doing like coding, reading, watching movies, listening music (we got a record player), and a little gaming (Tried Elden Ring, but playing Ori on Xbox). I'm doing Advent of Code for this year again and I kept up with solving the puzzles each day on my own until day 7. I'm a bit behind and I'll probably stay behind because I like giving it a shot on my own until I tried every possible thing I can think of. I'm nowhere near the level of being in the top 100. I'm doing #AoC for learning purposes. I find that I learn better after I've done enough research to have an idea on how to solve it. Then, watching someone solving it on YouTube (really enjoy this French dude) gives me those aha moments. The other day I learned an algorithm that builds a graph and I felt like a wizard.
That's a nice feeling. We should all strive to do things that make us feel like wizards.