Drowning In a Sea of Parenthesis and Curly Brackets

function....span....append....element....$(this).....var... )}; .......?!

help.

Now, as some of you know, I have embarked on a new path. I'm taking lessons to become a web developer and it's been a struggle. In fact, this past week I feel like a fish out of water.

What possessed me to start this?! Why am I learning how to code?

Well, to be honest, I love this stuff....... I must if I'm up till 2am trying to debug my project.....yes, 2am....and guess what? After hours and hours of looking for the problem, I found the culprit. The reason my "code" wasn't working was due to a misplaced quotation mark! UGH!!!! Really???!

Anyway, no matter my level of interest and passion for learning all of this, it has been dwarfed by my feeling of total stupidity.

Apparently, not only did my vision go once I hit forty, but my brain as well. I cannot for the life of me retain the information that I've been reading. What once would have taken me minutes to comprehend in my youth, now takes me an hour.

It's so sad.

However, I'm not giving up. I've got a wonderful mentor and a supportive discussion group from taking my course at Thinkful......I will finish the course, ugly web pages and all......well, hopefully not really ugly.

So, bring it on O'mighty tech world.....I will learn to embrace you curly brackets and all.


Have you ever felt lost at what you are attempting to learn? Has your brain turned to mush too?

Taking the Plunge!

Well, I finally did it.

After learning that I'm considered a butterfly when it comes to resume reviews, I decided to sit down and think hard about what it is I want to do.

".....gee, what am I gonna be when I grow up?"

HELLO?!?!? Wake up! You're a mother of three and your well into your fo--orrr---ties.

While all this true...... what does it matter?

Honestly, it's really now or never. I have never been a big fan of my actual career path as a pharmacist and having taken years off to raise my children, I really don't want to head back to the healthcare arena in that capacity.

It's time to follow my dreams. Learn something new and start on a new path before I'm really too old! So, last week, I signed up for the Front-End-Web-Developement course offered by Thinkful.

How do I like it? Well, so far it's not too bad....I've only fallen asleep once while reading some text (reading always puts me to sleep) and I've had a couple of assignments that have lead to a little frustration on my part as I tried to do things not yet in my wheelhouse, but......I'm super excited.

I'm finally understanding how and why things are coded the way they are and I find it absolutely fascinating! Ok, you can say it.....NERD!!!!! GEEK!!!! But I don't care! I love it!!

I can now take a blank web page and make it look like something....of course at this time it's rather ugly, but hey it's my first week.....it can only get better. (if you want to see the real thing you can click here : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49988315/html-resume/resume.html )

This is a screenshot of the webpage I made for class.....it's ugly, I know.

It's still early to give an educated opinion on the course I'm taking, but the Thinkful FEWD program  seemed more comprehensive than some of the other courses out there - at least for me. I need a little more nudging....and knowing that I have to meet with my mentor every week and seeing what my "classmates" are doing, motivates me to get off the couch and get moving, or in my case throw my PTA and child rearing responsibilities to the side.

Have you ever thought about changing careers? If so, let me know..... I would love to hear your stories.

Listen, if I can do it after all these years, you can too.....follow your dreams and reach for the stars.

5 Things.....

I saw this little exercise on Stephanie's Life-Unexpectedly and thought that it would be fun to do. So here we go.... in no particular order

5 Things I have a passion for:

• family
• music
• lyrics
• computers/gadgets/graphics (that's the geek in me)
• cooking

5 Things I'd like to do before I die:

• enter a dance competition (Tango all the way!)
• learn another language - Italian or French --- or better yet, both
• write a book and have it published
• see my children grow up to be happy, responsible adults
• learn how to really code & start my own web design company

5 Things I say lot:

• Uh-huh....
• Did you hear what I just said?
• Hurry up!
• Love you honey (this is from my Baltimore days)
• I'm tired (because it's true)

5 Books I've recently read:

• Inferno by Dan Brown 
• Divergent by Veronica Roth (yes...... I heart teen paranormal romance books)
• The Host by Stephanie Meyer (better written than the Twilight series - I'm Team Edward!)
• Defending Jacob by William Landay
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (hated the ending!)

5 Favorite Movies:

• Under The Tuscan Sun (probably my all time favorite)
• Dirty Dancing
• Pretty Woman
• Independence Day
• Gladiator

5 Places I'd like to travel to:

• Italy - Tuscany
• Morocco
• Croatia
• Germany
• France

5 Blogs I'll tag: Like Stephanie, I would like to open this fun little game to everyone....so let me know if you decide to partake. I would love to see some of your 5's!!!!

All Things Techie

tech·nol·o·gy 

it's useful

        it's fun

              it's sexy

                    it's the future

                                I love it!

1. For the music lover....look what's coming down the road. Mico Headphones! (read about it here on CNet) It senses your mood and chooses a song for you based on the signals it receives.....very interesting....unless you're totally depressed and it then chooses a song that makes you feel even more depressed....hmmmm they may want to tweak that part! 

Don't go jogging with these on.....
Image courtesy of Neurowear

2. For the photo nut in you....If you are like me and LOVE playing with your images on your phone take a look at beFunky (it's also available on the computer, with more options). What I love about this is that I don't have to share my images once I'm done fiddling with it, as is the case with Instagram....I can if I want to, but sometimes....girls just wanna have fun...(which songstress gave us those famous lyrics?)

This is my crazy dog!

3. For the Facebook junkie.....see what the future holds for you! Try these out.....very cool, but kind of scary when you think about it. Price for Power and Take This Lollipop (this one is creepy...)

Click here to try

And that's all things techie from me today....

I Missed My Calling

Yes, I missed my calling. It has taken me 43 years to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

huh? Let me explain.

Now, some of you might already know this, but I am a pharmacist by trade. Well, I hate it. I absolutely, 100% hate being a pharmacist.

How did I end up with a RPh behind my name? Well, thanks to my stereotypical Asian upbringing, I falsely thought that the only job options out there for me were to either become a physician, an engineer or a lawyer. Since I couldn't stand the sight of blood, Physics would literally make my head explode and I never ever won an argument..... I decided that the reasonable choice was to became a pharmacist.

Big mistake. Big. Huge. (Do you know what movie this is from?)

Don't get me wrong, pharmacy is a great profession, especially for a mom.....but it's soooo NOT me.

I'm not the type that gets all giddy over drug interactions, glomerular filtration rates or what's new in the drug market....and this is not for the lack of trying.

If you were to take a look at my resume, you would see that I have done almost everything. I have worked in retail....I have worked in mail order....I have worked in a psych hospital....I have worked in a regular hospital....I have worked with insurance drug data and I have worked as a long term care consultant pharmacist....and guess what? I still hate it!

Nope, pharmacy is not for me.

So.....what tickles my fancy if not drugs and pharmacokinetics?

Simply put......computers and all things techie.

Geek? Yes, I'm a geek. I can spend hours upon hours on the computer looking at codes figuring things out and playing with different tools I come across when surfing the web.

Codes are so pretty.... :)

When I read about some new cool technology that's coming out......I get all giddy!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I listened with envy, as people talked about taking the Startup Bus to Austin with other techie entrepreneurs (it's 48 hours of brainstorming and development of possible startup ideas).....pouting....I wanted to go on that bus.....I wanted to attend the super techie South by Southwest convention.....I wanna be a techie!

SXSW 2013

Unfortunately for me, my interest in computers didn't occur until later in life. I grew up in the age of floppy disks and prime computers (you remember them right? ...the black screen and bright green flashy cursor that moved at a snails pace.....) I even remember my dad having stacks and stacks of the hole punched computer cards! Yuck! Computers back then just didn't do it for me.....

So, here I am years later... a reluctant pharmacist, who wishes she was a  techie, hacker computer gal....

Now that I know what it is I want to do when I grow up, I think I might look into taking some computer courses. Until then, I'm gonna start a new segment on my blog highlighting all things techie that I come across which piques my interests. So, keep an eye out for All Things Techie...you might find out you are a closet techie too!

Are you doing what you love?

Completely Wired

I have a dare for you, and should you decide to take the challenge, do so after you read this article. Deal? Good.

I dare you to unplug yourself for an entire 24 hours. You heard me. UNPLUG yourself. That means no computers, no i-touch, no Tablets or iPads, no smart phones or cell phones. Are you feeling uneasy? Nervous? Are ya shaking….making excuses in your head as to why you need to stay connected?

As I look around my house, I see desktop computers, laptops, game consoles, Nintendo DS game devices, ipods and cell phones allbeing used at the same time, not to mention the TV. This is the digital world. Technology has advanced so far that it's drastically improved our lives...or has it?

How many of you are like me....you get excited when you hear that little chime or buzz from your cell phone, telling you...hey, you've got a message. You eagerly pick it up, take a look...."wuu2"...you text back..."nmjc u?" (translation: What are you up to? Not much, just chillin' you?) ...and then you wait for the reply...waiting for something profound to be texted back...waiting for the next rush.

As I write this article, I have come to grips that I am a hypocrite. I'm constantly yelling at the kids to get off the computer, to stop playing with the DS, to turn off the TV and to hand over the iPhone...spewing sage advice, "You guys need to go do something productive, be creative, go play...go outside and have fun (ok, you get a pass on that due to the constant presence of snow blocking the door), but come on already. Get off the computer, I need to use it!" Hmmmmm...

What got me thinking about this subject was an incident that occurred just a few weeks back. Early Friday morning, my sister packed up her two kids and schlepped them all the way here so that the cousins could play. My niece (4) and nephew (2) were very excited about coming to play with their older cousins (ok, we assume, for this article, that my nephew was able to indicate his excitement). The point is that they came all the way from cow country Pennsylvania to visit. 

Once they finally arrived, there was a great show of affection, but within half an hour...silence. My sister and I turned around and saw that my son was back on the computer, watching someone play video games on YouTube (who would've thought that watching others play video games would be entertaining), my oldest daughter was watching Hulu on her iPhone while texting her friends and my youngest was glued to the TV (her reasoning...."I've only watched this 100 times"), leaving the two younger cousins with nothing to do but to climb on my sister.

I'm beginning to feel that all of this technology — the gaming, social networking, surfing, poking, pinging, texting, tweeting, blogging, digging, liking, friending or de-friending in some cases, is really not that great.

I don't think that our kids know how to just be themselves, enjoy life, unattached to the cyber world...what do you think?

Please don’t think that I’m anti-technology. It’s quite the opposite…I embrace technology...fine…I confess, I'm constantly plugged in…always online…I’m completely wired. Aren’t you? If you text me or email me, I usually respond in a nano second. At home, you can find me perched at the kitchen counter in front of my computer, listening to my playlist on Grooveshark while searching for something "important" online, cell phone within a few inches of my hand.

In fact, I think that my husband got jealous of my relationship with my computer, so he recently bought me an iPad . Foolish, foolish man....now I just go to bed with my iPad snuggled right next to me. What? At least now I'm in bed when the clock strikes twelve.

But in all seriousness, this 24/7 connectivity is not good for the developing brain. Researchers have found that all this constant distraction not only affects how our kids learn, but also how they absorb new information, so.....what is a good mother to do?

My plan: I'm gonna try and limit the time spent on the various devices and force the kids to interact with real human beings, like us (their parents), siblings or cousins who hail from PA.

Me? Well...I’m a lost cause. My brain is really not "developing" in that way anymore...and it's already a sieve (thanks to the three little humans that now reside with me), so I need my iPad, Google calendar and cell phone to remember things and get things done...I need to stay connected, plugged in...wired.

My advice to you: Do as I say, not as I do.

But before you unplug yourself, do me a favor….if you “Digg” this article, be sure to “Like” it on FB, and “Friend me” if you get the chance…you can also follow my Tweets for more upcoming blogs and I’ll make sure to “poke” you once in a while.

gtg cya l8r

ciao :) <3

* This is an article I wrote for an online news site