Kicking and Screaming

A year ago I was in Shanghai, China studying Chinese.

Today I'm in Dallas, Texas, studying a very different language.

That's right, folks, you heard it from here probably last: I've left Tennessee and driven myself to Texas to learn web development and also driven myself insane.

"But Mackenzie," you ask, "what could make you do something so crazy? I mean, you spent the last four years studying business, management, and Chinese!"

Yeah, you're right. I did. And I don't regret it. I loved my time at the University of Memphis. I loved my classes, my friends, and my major. And I still love Chinese.

So why the switch? Well, after I graduated, the job market wasn't super kind. I'm not a very patient person, so sitting around applying for jobs every day and either not hearing back or getting rejected was a bit taxing. One morning, I sent out an application and within thirty minutes I got rejected. It was a bit of a turning point for me. After laying on the floor for an undisclosed number of minutes, I sat down with my dad to talk about things.

I told him the truth: that I was applying jobs just so I could have one. I didn't really care about being a financial analyst or business analyst. No one wanted Chinese in Tennessee. I'd have to work with huge databases and number manipulation... if I found work at all. I didn't find meaning in any off the things I was finding. I was panicking. I felt backed into a corner. I thought everything would have fallen into place, that from the mist would emerge the next stepping stone, smooth and solid.

Unfortunately, there was no stone, and I was neck-deep in unknown waters.

So my dad suggested I try a coding bootcamp. Coding? Okay. Bootcamp? Err.... maybe. I didn't actually know what a coding bootcamp was. From my quick 15-minute research, I discerned that they're short, fast-paced programs meant to take people from zero to hero in the realm of web development. In college I took a coding class and really enjoyed it, so I thought, maybe this is right for me.

I decided within the day that I was going. Like I said, patience is not a virtue of mine.

I passed the initial interview. I completed the pre-bootcamp work with plenty of time to spare I passed the second interview with flying colors. Simultaneously time was slowing to a crawl and speeding up. In the moment, I couldn't wait to get out of the house and learning again-- looking back, it seems the time slipped between my fingers like sand from a broken hourglass.

The drive to Texas was a grueling eight and a half hours. About an hour away from the Texas border, my AC started to fizzle. I was undeterred-- I sailed down the highway with windows rolled down and hair tied up. I was playing with the big boys, swerving between skyscrapers and landing smack-dab in the middle of downtown Dallas. It reminded my a bit of Shanghai. Dallas is huge.

The office space is great, open, and inviting. The building is one of those vintage renovated warehouses with office space on the bottom and apartments on top. I live on the fifth floor with a welcoming view of the downtown lights from my living room window. Not that I'm upstairs too much anymore.  I eat, sleep, and code in the office, and drag myself upstairs to shower and sleep. I'm thriving here, I'm finding. Web development and the endless mazes behind it are laid out like maps to me, and the guide is in my hand. Day by day I'm swirling deeper and deeper through the corridors, to the prize at the center....

THAT SWEET SWEET DEVELOPER SALARY.

But honestly, I love what I'm doing here. As someone who is results-oriented, being able to punch through a puzzle and see the page do what you want it to do is extremely gratifying. The people here are motivated, kind, and friendly. The weather is amazing. There are dogs everywhere. Things are great.

Sometimes things are still hard. I still get nervous and sometimes paranoid. I freeze up. But every day it's easy to get out of bed, something which used to be very hard for me. Even though I still get mild anxiety, my mental health has been much, much better since I've come here.

As always, I say I'm going to try keeping my blog updated more. Yeah, you know how that goes. Something that I will probably keep updating is my work-in-progress portfolio site. It's not designed for mobile yet, and there's a lot to fill in, but it's a nice way for me to throw down what I've learned. You can find it here.

Things are good. The coffee is good. We go from 9-5 here, but I'm still in the lab till 10 some nights. It's not easy. But it's fun.

And isn't that the most important thing?