Out of the rut

Hello hello and welcome to the third issue of Building The Aerial Arts Hub — Journal of a Newbie Developer! Here’s what’s been happening over the past two weeks.

What I’ve done

I don’t have groundbreaking updates this week. Long story short, I’ve created some more mock-ups in Figma. 😅

I’m still not done designing all the views, partly because I haven’t spent as much time on them as I would like. Wedding planning has been taking up much of my free time, and then I went on a trip to Kuala Lumpur with my partner over the weekend, visiting an old university friend and exploring the city.

I was tempted to bring my laptop along but eventually chose to fully switch off and relax. I’m so glad I did because it was a lovely, much-needed weekend away from any type of work.

Here are some of the new views from Figma, showing the studio search and individual studio page. What do you think?

Mock-ups aside, something a little different I’ve recently done is to set up an Instagram account for The Aerial Arts Hub. It may seem too soon to do this (when the website isn’t even anywhere near existing) but I wanted to get ahead of things and set it up early.

Having a dedicated account also allows me to follow all the studios, performers, pole clothing brands, etc. that I eventually want to feature on The Aerial Arts Hub—which until now have been taking up my personal feed and hiding life updates from my friends in the process. 😶‍🌫️

A fun side-effect of setting it up has been that a couple of people in the community found out about this project when I followed them using the account. I’ve received some sweet messages asking me about The Aerial Arts Hub and expressing support, which has been much appreciated. 🫶

You can follow the new Instagram account here!

What I’m working on

I really need to get on top of creating the remaining mock-ups. I’ve been getting bored of this work because so many of them are almost identical, with just minor differences, and designing them gets repetitive.

Maybe I need to move along, stop creating all of these almost-the-same views, and instead focus on designing the ones with major differences.

We’ll see where I’m at with this in two weeks…

What I’m learning

My learning updates are a bit more exciting! I mentioned in the last issue that I was going to focus on freeCodeCamp, but I finally admitted to myself that I simply dislike the platform.

Lots of people love it, but the projects feel boring and draggy to me, and they essentially tell you what to code word for word, which means that my brain isn’t working very hard. Any time I’ve reached the end of a freeCodeCamp project, I’ve had the realisation that I didn’t retain anything I did. The one aspect of it that I find helpful is that it helps me practice syntax.

So, I decided I needed something different before returning to The Odin Project, something that would help me refine those pesky JavaScript concepts while also allowing me to practice syntax. The Scrimba curriculum didn’t work for me when I tried it, which was a shame because I liked the teaching style (I know, I’m fussy). The only platform I hadn’t tried yet was Codecademy, so I decided to finally give it a go. I’m really happy I did—I’m loving it so far.

It combines the bite-size lessons and exercises that I liked about Scrimba and apps like Sololearn (would not recommend), and allows me to practice the syntax quite a bit, yet doesn’t overwhelm me with huge, convoluted projects I couldn’t care less about (at least so far). I also LOVE the flashcards and practice sessions, they’ve been great for really making the knowledge stick.

I’m currently working through the free JavaScript course. I’ll report back in two weeks!

I also picked up the CodeNewbie podcast again (after binging Jennette McCurdy’s Hard Feelings podcast, which I loooooved). I always find Saron’s interviews really inspiring, they introduce me to new resources as well as interesting developers and projects, and they serve as a good reminder that if others have successfully taught themselves how to code, I can do it too! 🧚‍♀️

Aerial things

I mentioned two weeks ago that I was in a bit of a rut with aerial. It occurred to me that maybe what I needed was to do aerial around others again because I’d been practising solo for so long. The timing of this realisation was quite perfect because I had booked a class with Caitlin Mayhap in advance and it was coming up!

I had a great time in class. I always struggle being told what to do and often don’t vibe with my instructors so I am generally much more comfortable teaching myself. However, I like being around people, and I occasionally need an instructor to pull me out of a rut and bring that spark back.

As I was wondering what my next steps could be after this class, I saw a mini-term coming up at a studio in the city—four weeks of just static hoop. I have a love-hate relationship with spinning and much prefer static hoop, but it’s hard to find classes teaching just static, so when I saw it I knew I had to sign up. I’m apprehensive because I don’t like locking myself into a term (even if it’s just a mini-term), but I’m hopeful it will be just what I need. 🤞

See you in two weeks!