2020-05-31

I've finished my tenure as a Team Lead at Lambda School, and am now back to being a regular student for the next few months as I finish up the coursework. Tomorrow (Monday, June 1st), I'll begin the Computer Science curriculum, to which I am eagerly looking forward. This unit is one of the main reasons I chose Lambda School over other options; most "code boot camps" stick to what's "practical" and avoid theory, which I think is a shame, as even if it doesn't show up on the job as obviously on the surface, I think if you take the lessons to heart, they can inform every single decision you make as a software developer. Working with Python will be a bit wild after spending so much time with Swift.

In the meantime, I'm still slowly chipping away at a number of projects, including the productivity app and game (using Godot game engine with my friend Simon) I mentioned last update. More to come on those when they're at a shareable place.

I'm still meditating a ton, and for the next two weekends I'll be participating in all-day meditation retreats Friday evening through Sunday evening. I'd love to talk more about how huge of an effect meditation has had on my life, but there's not really a place on this website that it fits well. I may revive the "spirit" of my old website Skeptical Spirit (though I don't like that name so much anymore), but that's a project for another day...

I've been playing Bloodborne once again lately; I'm currently attempting to get the platinum trophy, which has been proving rather difficult. Once I accomplish this, I'll be moving on at last. I plan to replay the Uncharted series and finally get to Uncharted 4, as well as replay The Last of Us in anticipation of the upcoming release of its sequel. Eventually I'll make my way back to Dark Souls III and Sekiro.

Recently there has been a wave of protests in response to the murderous violence of police officers towards black men. I feel it would be cowardly not to express my support for these protests and their message here. There's a bit of worry in my mind that some company would decide not to hire me if they saw some of my opinions, since I do not hold police, wealth, capitalism, or many aspects of the dominant tech culture in particularly high regard. If that were to happen, though, I think I would be dodging a proverbial bullet (as opposed to the literal bullets that I don't need to worry so much about due to the color of my skin). I do not want to work for a company that does not respect human life and dignity, the privacy of its customers, its employees' justice-&-equity-positive opinions, or the facts of institutional racism, patriarchy, and other forms of discrimination.