Recovery

In my last installment, I had just broken my leg. I didn't know how long it would be until I would be able to go back to work, but I knew it would be at least a month. Luckily, it happened while I was at work, so I was able to collect worker's compensation, but that amount was only about two-thirds of what I usually make. I knew I had to get back to work as soon as I could, but I also knew I had to take advantage of the time I had. This was the second time I'd broken my leg pretty badly. The first time, I was in Colorado, snowboarding in the trees. I came to a fork in the road, with a tree in the middle of the fork. I was initially going to go to the right, and at the last minute, I decided to go to the left and didn't make it. This was a significant break that required surgery and about 4 months of physical therapy to recover from. At this time in my life, I didn't have anything I was striving towards, and I fell into a depression. Even after recovering, my depression stuck around for a while, and it took me some time to bounce back from that injury. This time around, I had something to do. I had something to work on every day, and I was excited to have some extra time to work on it. I capitalized.

During this time, I would spend nearly 8 to 10 hours every day working on my skills. I created the second version of my portfolio in React and was much more pleased with the results. It looked much more professional and was able to showcase what I wanted it to. On my portfolio, I have an about page, telling my whole story, a coursework page, detailing all of the courses I've taken, a skills page, listing out all of the soft and technical skills I've acquired, a projects page, showcasing all of my projects, and a contact page. To this day, I've stuck with this portfolio, making very few tweaks. At some point, I will completely redo it without using a components library, since I did use Semantic UI to create it. I also created several other projects during this time on my own, without the help of a tutorial, and this was a huge boost for me. Then, I turned to my blog. I was really getting into Gatsby at the time and I thought I could create something with this framework. I ended up using Gatsby, Contentful as a CMS, and Material UI as a components library. I loved it at first, but over time, the styling started to turn on me; I'll address that in a later installment, though. I spent just over a month at home, and all the while I was applying for jobs, trying to find something before I had to go back to my old job. On the last day of my extended vacation, I got an interview with a local company that led to an offer. The terms weren't where I wanted them, though, so I returned to working at the golf course.

I went back to work in early December, begrudgingly, but I had some tools in my tool belt for finding a new job that I didn't have before this: a great portfolio and a new version of my blog. During this time, I also decided to get out of my comfort zone a little bit. Will Sentance, my favorite instructor who helped me understand JavaScript at a deeper level, connected with me on LinkedIn. I sent him a message, letting him know how much I appreciated his courses on Frontend Masters and how awesome I thought his teaching style was. Surprisingly, he messaged me back. He let me know he actually has read my blog quite a bit and was inspired by my story. This blew me away. He runs a bootcamp that's world-renowned, Codesmith. He recommended that I take the preparation course for this bootcamp that lasts two weeks. He actually offered to pay for the whole thing, so I took him up on it. In the middle of December, I started this course, and deepened my JavaScript knowledge even further. I met a few people through this course on the same path as I'm on, and it was a great experience. I was honored to have this opportunity, and I actually got a chance to talk to him on the phone once, as well. For someone of his stature, I was astonished at how open and nice he was. In my next installment, I'll take you through one of the hardest times I faced in my entire journey, where my motivation started to wane and I was feeling a bit hopeless.

Until tomorrow!