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Tauri StClaire
Tauri StClaire

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From Front Desk to Front End p.14 Beginning JS React

Hi I'm Tauri, a Front Desk Admin from an acupuncture clinic in San Diego, Cali and an aspiring Front End Developer!

This is a continuation of my series studying Front End Development thru a bootcamp with Skillcrush and utilizing many amazing resources across the internet like Front End Mentor and LinkedIn Learning and many many articles!

Right now I'm learning the React library for Javascript!

Every 3 weeks I do a deeper dive into a topic related to being a full time worker and bootcamp student!
Next week: stay tuned for my recommendations on blogging as a coding newbie! ✨ ✨

I hope you find content here that you can relate to and that inspires you to keep learning and growing. {:

Thank you for reading! 🌈

Wednesday 9/23/22:

Today I reviewed more fundamental SassScript like interpolation, each and for, operators and conditionals! I will definitely be revisiting these a lot as I learn to work with SASS, but I am very sold on variables (I know not exclusive to SASS, but I learned it here) and nesting for my next Front End Mentor Project for sure!
🌺Destress Activity: Twilight walk with my love

Thursday 9/24/22:

I had my third meeting with a Skillcrush mentor today, with one of my faves from the live Q&As: Ann 💖! As I said in previous posts, I've been thinking about cracking into Wordpress and wondered if she recommended that I do this BEFORE studying React or after? I always do research before these mentor meetings but it's always SO helpful to have someone to directly talk to. I've read a few blogs about being a Wordpress developer, and even poked around the Skillcrush lessons on Wordpress, but I think I was still operating from a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly being a Wordpress developer means VS an an admin. She really helped explain to me how Wordpress is an entirely different development environment, and she helped me refocus back on my fundamental lessons in front end first and foremost which is what is what's more important to me. I just wasn't grocking Wordpress from real experience! This is my third mentor meeting, and I've been talking with Skillcrush a bit behind the scenes, AND reading tons of blogs, but let me tell you that NOTHING replaces one-on-one personalized time that is able to change as you do throughout the journey!
She also helped quell my fears that I should divert to working on a portfolio before Lesbians Who Tech in October, the networking event I'm anticipating most! She again helped me to refocus on my main mission right now (like 80% of having a mentor, I'm sure) and she suggested using Github ReadMes to feature images and draw attention to important projects in the mean time.
Finally, I ran through a bunch of possible JS programs I could jump into next to keep my skills sharp. She said to focus on project oriented programs that generate skills that are important to front end, and not necessarily to just keep learning more functions etc. for the sake of it. She said that my best bet now that I have a foundation in the fundamentals is to now do pointed research as I continue to build projects. Excellent advice. 👌
Began learning React!! It is a party now!! Today I learned: React is a library, NOT a Framework, and they are NOT the same thing!.
🌺Destress Activity: made some popcorn and watched this fun horror short produced and edited by one of my close friends Building 13 https://youtu.be/IgWoIMt9Ccw

Friday 9/25/22:

I did another lesson in JS React today! I learned about how React speeds up loading times by only updating the virtual dom where our data models have changed!
And I just wanted to take some time to do a little throwback for review just to make sure I'm feeling strong on the DEEP fundamentals! From our Slack channel some time ago, one of the teacher's assistants went over a question regarding the role of normalize.css files and JSON files and reminded me that I need to make sure I don't let those important concepts slip thru the cracks! I love how thorough Ann always is!

Ann breaks it down to explain normalize files and json packages
🌺Destress Activity: Extra reading, we are almost thru The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss!

Monday 9/26/22:

Today I took some time to review my Guess the Word Project to make sure I understood everything as well as I can at this point.
I actually printed out all of my code, for a change of pace. I got a black pen, a highlighter for adjustments I made, and brought these silly expression stickers along that crack me up to make the review more fun. Listen, whatever increases salience is good for learning!
I used these to mark my weak points so I can do more review in the coming days.

Suspicious bird sticker saying "How does Math.floor work again...?

Drooling frog sticker saying "join vs push here"

🌺Destress Activity: Played Spiritfarer 🎮

Tuesday 9/27/22:

I had an interview early this morning for a nontech job in a tech company that I'm a very good fit for! It went really well and was an awesome experience!
But phew, there are a few reasons Skillcrush recommends focusing on fundamental language skills first and exclusively BEFORE starting to apply for jobs. One is obviously you have to HAVE the skills in order to get a job with those skills!
But I think a big one is to give each endeavor the space and prominence it deserves. Learning the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JS are epic undertakings (especially when you're working full time in something else!), but so is the task of searching for jobs. (Which is not to discourage practicing and working on projects while one is job hunting, OR to discourage beginning to network while one is learning the basics, but rather just to say that while you're learning the fundamentals it is to your benefit to focus exclusively on that and hold your horses on the job search).
So what I'm saying is, job searching takes a lot out of me and it's hard to do a full day of lessons while going thru an interview process too! Do you ever do that thing where you know that you need to wake up an hour+ earlier than usual for something important, so your brain decides to get you up and hour or two earlier than the new already earlier time just to, I dunno, be unhelpfully helpful? So yea, I took a nap after work instead of my normal study session today.
I did enter all of my adjustments to my Guess the Word project(repo), which was primarily to clarify notes but I did one adjustment to my variable names for better clarity for what it was referencing ("guessesLeftSpan" to "guessesLeftNumber") and I did catch that I had called my function to hide the word to be guessed behind some circles twice which didn't disrupt the code but was awkward and could've caused problems down the line! 😎
🌺Destress Activity: took a nap 💤

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