Shopping

So, I’ve always had mixed feelings about shopping in general. I’ve never had a lot of money, so it’s always been a balancing act between how much I feel like I can spend and what I want. Usually the “not shopping” won, and I’d save up for some piece of technology.

Since I’ve moved into the apartment with Sean, I have discovered a significant weakness in my shopping spirits. I love buying furniture and organizational things. I have spent literal hours on the internet stairing at different ways to organize counter space, revolutionary ways to maximize under counter storage, solutions to small apartment spaces. It’s like an addiction. I get legitimately excited when I see a package in front of the door, and I know it’s the over door pantry organizing solution I found for pretty cheap on amazon.

Yeah, I still will buy clothes for myself on occasion. Nothing like working in a business casual office to make you realize that your entire wardrobe is based around casual college life. It’s also depressing to wear literally the same thing every day every week. I will also buy games occasionally, like my recent purchase of Subnautica, since I’ve started really enjoying video games in my spare time.

But, it’s shopping to make our apartment more organized and cozy that makes me really excited. I’m trying to convince Sean to take me to the Container Store this weekend. I thought it was just a website, but then I discovered it is actually a physical store and Orlando is lucky enough to have one of it’s two Florida locations. I saved a portion of my last paycheck to make sure that I’ll actually be able to buy something. My excitement is tangible.

I am a weirdo.

Programming

I was sitting in a Firestone early on a Monday morning after getting a flat tire and another tire leaking air, and I came across an article on my phone. It spoke about a guy who quit his 8-5 government job for his dream. He now worked at a small start up, programming and loving his work every day.

I realize that having a job that you “love to go to every day” is basically a myth. Mark Mason, a blogger that I follow pretty closely, wrote an article on the matter that really spoke to me (click here to read the whole thing, I highly recommend it). Long story short, I what I got from the article is that he is working the job of his dreams but he still didn’t love it every day. Work is work, and few people always want to do work. I, with my many confidence issues, have never realistically pictured myself getting the job of my dreams. My goal has only ever really been working a job that doesn’t make me hate my life and that pays me enough to live how I wish to.

I thought I had found that in my current position. It was IT, which is not the most popular career area, but I loved my co-workers, the work was engaging, and most of all I was very good at it. I was content there until some staff changes upset my balance (see my last post for details), and then a new person started working there. At first he was just helping out, and he developed a program that helps with some data entry we were dealing with. Now he is more on the IT side, mainly helping with general Help Desk tickets, but he will still fix the program when it has issues. He sits right next to me, and walking by his desk and seeing the code open had made me start to realize something. I was jealous that he got to code. I would look at the dark screen with the bright syntax highlighting, and I felt legitimate envy.

Once I realized this, I started having the internal debate. There was a reason why I didn’t push really hard to get a programming job right out of college. I’ve never considered myself very good at it. But then, in that Firestone, I had a thought. I don’t care if I’m not the best programmer around. I don’t care if I have friends that program twice as fast as me. I want to program for my living, and I am too young to settle for the job I have because of silly fears. I can at least try.

So now I’m going to try. We’ll see where it gets me.

First project: teach myself Ruby on Rails. More soon to be coming to my new project domain: ButFirstCats.today.

Angela out