Four-Year Anniversary Special
28 August 2024
I'm a little shocked that it's been four years since I started this blog. It feels like I just wrote the two-year anniversary post a couple months ago. But alas, it's been four years!
As you may know, I didn't write a three-year anniversary post. I'm not sure why. I don't think it even crossed my mind at the time. I must have been pre-occupied with whatever else was going on at the time. What was going on at that time? Well, one thing's for certain: I still had my job at that point. Yes, that's right. That's a hint for what's been going on in my life recently.
I was laid off on August 12th of this year. So it's been about two weeks that I've been jobless now. My company had been doing more and more rounds of layoffs for the past year or so; it wasn't a complete shock, but at the same time, it was still a shock. I'd been working at that company for three years, and then I was given barely one week's notice that my job was going to end. It sucks. It wasn't my favorite job in the world, as you may have gleaned from previous blog posts, but there were things I liked about it. I wasn't ready for it to end.
But maybe it was supposed to end. I'd been in this limbo of feeling like I should be doing something else, but not knowing what, for the longest time. (Spoiler: I still don't know what.) Maybe this is how God chose to tell me that I need to make a change. It's a pretty harsh and to-the-point way of doing so, but idk. I think He knows best. Anyway, I suppose I can share some news relating to what I've been doing since I was laid off.
I think, if I'm trying to get things done, I benefit from some kind of structure. So I developed a PLAN. I decided that, for the next couple months, I would devote the bulk of my time to taking courses and studying. See, how I view myself is sort of like a jack of all trades, but a master of none. I have a lot of interests and even a lot of skills, I'd say; but I don't feel like I can call myself anything close to a "master" in any of them. But I want to. So, while I might look good on paper to a potential employer, I think I need to focus in more on some specific thing.
I think I decided that I don't want that 'something' to be language technology / linguistics. I think I need to move on. I'm just not that interested in the field.
So, next on the list, if I was going to stay in the general "tech" space, was web development. I'd sort of alluded to my interest in web development in previous posts (it's even the topic of my first post ever, which was exactly four years ago today!) but I never really put much effort into trying to master it. So I thought, "maybe I should do that".
So that's where my PLAN comes in. I made a schedule in a calendar app that I wanted to test run for a week. It was the same for each weekday:
So I've been doing this schedule. It's been going pretty well so far. I wanted it to feel like I was in school again (and it kinda does, because I'm more mentally exhausted than I anticipated by the end of each day).
Right now, I'm trying to complete a web development bootcamp course on Udemy, and then study Python interview questions during my study hour. Depending on how I like everything by the end of the course, it's possible that I could switch gears a bit (still within the tech/software realm). I'm not anticipating that, I'm just saying it's an option.
The goal is that by the time I'm done with course, my qualifications will be a little more tuned to these "entry-level web developer" job listings. But we'll have to see.
It's crazy, actually, when I read the two-year anniversary post and then compare it to the things I'm still saying here, and the things that are on my mind all the time. Say what you will about me, but I'm very consistent. Consistently searching for meaning, or something.
I have the two-year post pulled up on my secondary monitor. I'm not making this up: I didn't even realize that I expressed the desire to be masterful at something in that post! And I just finished up writing about that "desire to be a master" in this very follow-up post, two years later. That's wild… I wonder if I'm trying to tell myself something, and these blog posts are my medium across time, and I am only just now piecing my message to myself together.
I noticed that in that post, I said,
"My hope is that over the next few months or years, I'll get closer to professional fulfillment."
Well… I didn't. But I still have that general sentiment, and I'm glad at least that sitting down to write this four-year post has brought me to review the two-year post and realize that.
Also in the two-year post, I mentioned that I wanted to do (and document, and share) more projects. Well, aside from a few spans of time during which I felt a little stunted creatively, I can proudly say that I have been doing that. If I'm particularly proud of a project, I will write a blog post about it. And I've done that several times since the two-year post. So that's good. makes a check mark gesture
And if you've kept up with my blog posts, you might remember a fairly recent post about game development — one where I expressed my lifelong desire to make games. So you probably see where this is going. Yes, I mentioned game development in the two-year post as well! I outlined a plan to collaborate with a friend on a small game development project using Godot. I did not follow through with that, unfortunately. But I still have the intention to do this, whether it's with my friend or by myself. I hope I can share updates with you regarding that project soon, but for right now, I'm working on a different project (the Pokémon romhack that I mentioned in my last post).
So, that's just about all I have to say this time. If you're someone who actually reads these, then I say thank you. But if you're not someone who reads these, then you won't see this anyway. Check mate.
I will continue to write blog posts as I have done for the past two years, and I really hope that by the time I get to write the five- or six-year anniversary post, I am in a better place in my search for fulfillment which I constantly (and consistently) seem to struggle with. Thanks for reading, and Happy Four Years to this blog.
— Derek Andersen