Andela Bootcamp 5 — Day Four
Today I woke up with a nerdy feeling…errrhh..ooops let me break it down for you folks..
FYI ….. Nerd (adjective: nerdy) is a descriptive term, often used pejoratively, indicating that a person is overly intellectual, obsessive, or lacking social skills. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, obscure, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities.
But well am not your typical nerd…Am I?
Well,back to the main character…Where was I?…Oh yeah.. I woke up feeling so energetic,you would have sworn that I had set up shop at the gym the whole night.I had a hunch the day was going to be so hands on.I did my usual housekeeping, checking whether I had packed everything and by everything I mean my new found love; love in literal sense; my core i3 HP laptop and well my one of a kind IBM back pack. After an hour that was 5:30am I was all set and ready for the ride to the one place where going to work was more like a hobby. Honestly let me put it straight, I was going to have fun…Yeah you heard me right…Yeah Have Fun!
On this particular day the ride to Andela was thrilling. Moments after I stepped into the ‘airbus’ AKA “Kenya Mpya”.
My ride of choice if I want to be in town within minutes.You know they kind of like glide along the highway. Not a joke you should try them out..
I had not even boarded my ‘flight’ when this furious lady shoved me aside “masaku style” and sat right where i had set my eyes on — the co-pilot’s seat. I thought that seat was always reserved for me ever since I started boarding the “Kenya Mpya airlines”.As if not enough she started hauling out words that I even couldn’t comprehend,I would have sworn she was speaking code — Of a language yet to be documented…She really got on everybody’s nerves except mine.Well ofcourse I took it with a grain of salt.
That not withstanding I boarded the next ‘flight’ to Nairobi.The ‘runway’ this time around was not congested and I was in town by 6:30am, where I took another ‘flight’ to Andela. I was a little bit behind my best-clocked arrival time 7:07am because I arrived at 7:45am. Nevertheless I was here and on time, ready for the another round fun.
The day as usual started with breakfast,not just any kind of breakfast the one that makes you want to make the kitchen your permanent residence.
When time came for the exercise session everyone was up and ready to shake up some nerves. Today's games were really thrilling — am not referring to the Games of Thrones here.But if that makes you feel at home,well then by all means go ahead.
I was a bit sloppy
‘Stand-by mode’ ,
at first when we started,but got up to speed — ‘booted’. This time round I outdid myself by participating in a mini marathon well it was for most — “racing to the gate and back” kinda like 50meters or so. Nandaa, our technical trainer had promised to give the first three people to finish the race before him some pretty much good amount of cash, good enough not to mention here. Guess who won?…Guess?…Yeah you got that right..yours truly, the one and only, so they call me. I was head and shoulders ahead of all of my contestants.And yeah it was payday for me. Now that’s what Icall having “Fun”.
Today’s class was exciting and tense,especially when our technical trainer told us that we were expected to have solved at least ten of the challenge questions on Andela Labs and as if that was not enough to make our nerves scream, Josh came in to clear things out, well the sad news. The next day, Friday was the day when we get to know our fate.Well, I was a little bit nervous not because I hadn’t heard of the news but because I was already having so much fun that I had forgotten that dreaded day would come. Andela’s culture had been ingrained in me and boy was I way better than I came. I am now a better developer and an individual than I came in the first day. If had to list how and why here, am pretty sure I would be the reason you buy that router for better connection speeds at your diggs.
Well, it gets better and better, I got introduced to two new tools at my disposal,to make me a better and productive software developer.
Gitter — Thanks To Nandaa
Grammarly — Thanks To Su
FYI am using Grammarly as I write this. So consider it handy if you haven’t yet tried it out. Gitter helped me improve how I write my python scripts,folks there were really helping each other which was a good thing for me, as I really saw the importance of collaborating remotely.That made me realize how important code repositories and code sharing sites are to software developers and the world at large.
In case you didn’t know “code not money makes the world go round”
That’s not a quote, so don’t wonder who’s that famous guy that coined it. I just did.
Since we did have “Food For Thought” topic the previous day — Day 3. I chose to reflect upon Nelson Mandela’s word:
“It always seems impossible until it’s done”
This reminded me of my mission here. You probably know that by now. But for those of you who just haven’t got it by now, here I go:
“Learn,get things done and above all have FUN while at it”
The day ended in style of course, with a game of pool. I thoroughly hammered my fellow ‘bootcamper’ 2 games in a row. Now that’s what I call style.
Recommendations
Well, had none for today, I was contented for most of the day. It was a great day I must say…ofcourse if you disagree you can as well let me know on gitter..write it in code please.
