A Pause in the Grind: Reflecting on the Journey of My Heart
Published: 2024-06-22 00:04:46

Woke up at 5 am today and my boyfriend was still asleep, so I decided to take a vlog of me starting my day.

Made my coffee and sat at my PC, "Work na ko mahal!." I started, "Soooo, this is a day in the life of a..." and I got cut off. A moment of silence as years of hard work flashed before my eyes. That's when I realized—three more months, and it's freestyle—no more manual to follow.


I looked back on my JHS yearbook. Saw that I once wanted to become a softeng. I had that mindset before I entered senhigh. 
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/e1lke96m9ds9l6gv8azy.png)
Took STEM because I thought I could self-learn programming, as I couldn't abandon my love for science. A few days in STEM, I almost aced the post-test, and so on, but my heart was telling me something else. I shouldn't be here, I want to pursue programming, so I shifted to ICT Animation. I was so hesitant at first because I swore I couldn't draw. Back in JHS, if there was an option to choose between poster and slogan, I'd always go with slogan making.


But during my stay in ICT Animation, I learned how to draw—wow, amazing. I learned from there that you can work hard for a kill to be good at it. That time, I didn't just acquire a skill but also a mindset.
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/b59ne8ybjzjv1uldl5nr.png)
My love for programming blossomed during my senhigh. I loved Java soooo much. I was able to understand every corner of it. And before I graduated from senhigh, my friends and I created a user-admin price comparison website for retail stores for our research study. Damn. It was another "work hard to be good at it" milestone for me.
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bwem1lsuxih3qfxcsdrd.png)![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/mpnun9dh77rqho6frwew.png)
I couldn't forget that two-week grind of self-learning PHP and coding. I wasn't confident enough in my HTML and CSS skills back then, but I did it with them. We all did it. We just dived in and did what we needed to do. It was a peak for me.

Looking back, my first lines of code were HTML in Notepad++. Six years ago, in grade 9, I just knew how to change the background color and italicize text using inline styling.![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4jyz24dxmmxld257kj03.png)

I entered college with, i say, good programming skills. I learned Python and also enrolled myself in a full-stack developer boot camp. I invited my friends, but they thought it was risky. I took the risk because I knew I needed to push myself to code more, so I entered the boot camp. One week in, I learned so much already. I was doing the boot camp during my first year in college. I had five classes to attend and the boot camp. I had no good sleep. A student during the day and grinding coding at night. I barely had sleep. But around my second week in the boot camp, I woke up with a stinging pain in my left abdomen, high fever, and nausea. I couldn't bear the pain, so I was rushed to the hospital. We found out I had a kidney infection. It was quarantine, so I was confined at home, in my room. I still attended the boot camp even though I was on an IV drip. 
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ssiq1xhka16pvvtkxjqr.png)
 I forced my body to face my computer and do my modules in the boot camp because I didn't want to be delayed in the training. Everything in the training was scheduled. If I missed a module, it would pile up, making it harder for me to catch up. But then, my body got weaker, and the stinging pain got stronger. That's when I learned that, yes, I can work hard for something I want to achieve, but I must not ignore my health too. So then, I wrote a letter to my boot camp teacher that I quit and would be back the next batch. It was the best decision because my body healed. The kidney stone was gone, and I had a clearer mindset now. And I saw my fire of passion, what my heart is telling me.

From my second year of college to the third year, I forced myself to finish my data structures and algorithms certification which I have been crawling for pakking 4 years (but actually took me 70 days).
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/z00pm1pk0l9uc182ttmh.png)
This strengthened my knowledge of backend programming. It was good timing because I finished it before I entered another boot camp at Accenture. I knew I promised to go back to V88, but Accenture was right in front of me, and it was the exact plan I was going for for my internship. Even though I hesitated to take it because my friends wouldn't, I still took it because it aligned with my plan.

Two months of training at Accenture boosted my confidence in my skills. I'm somewhat finished with the boot camp and an offer came to me. I'm not coding now just to practice, but I'm now coding for others to benefit from what I can do.


Apparently, I've been offered two job offers, but in my heart, I don't want to risk these jobs for the next 2 years. I learned to love 3D modeling from our thesis, and I once loved Java, but my heart says something else. I'm currently freelancing 2 web development projects my way out of college, and even though it makes me cry and say I hate programming, at the end of the day, it works out, and I say, "I swear I love programming."