Hello World

personal February 12, 2018

I’ve always been strongly interested in certain things. I’ve always dived deep into subject matter that I find interesting, that captivates me in some way. I’ve loved and continue to love the process of learning about something or a group of topics and coming out the other side with competence, or at the very least slightly more competence. It is almost like venturing into the unknown, seeking something, finding it and confronting it, then returning with the spoils a better and more complete person.

I Need To Write More

I do not write enough. I have ideas swirling around my head all the time whether it be things I recently learned or perhaps habits I’ve taken upon myself to instil. Writing is intersting. It is a way of consolidating your thoughts, however ambiguous, incoherent, or vague they may be into something concrete. In doing so, you go through the strange but invetiable process of realizing that your ideas may be a lot crappier than you originally thought. The holes in your premises and arguments shine bright through the clear cut text. You realize that you should probably bolster an argument with more evidence or perhaps become more knowledgable about something before attempting to write about it.

Oppurtunitites & Writing

It’s really not all doom and gloom however. There’s another special thing happens when you expose your ideas and thoughts; is that you are presented the oppurtunity to correct and solidify your opinons, perhaps let the bad ideas die and double down on the good ones. It is an iterative process that transforms you into a more articulate, precise, and grounded individual. I’ll give you a recent example in my personal work of why this is the case. I had to debug a difficult task at work. I did not have domain knowledge of the problem or the code base itself. I knew immediately that in order to progress with the task and be able to figure out what is wrong, I had to write down my ideas on it. In particular, I needed to discuss my ideas in concrete terms with other senior engineers on the team. As I started writing about the problem and as I started to precisely and in detail desrcibe the issue; I realized more about the nature of the problem. More importantly, I realized where the gaps in my knowledge were. This translated in more concise technical discussions at meetings as well as a greater overall sense of ownership over the assignment since I could now formulate and articulate the issue.

What I’d Like To Do With This Site

I’d like this site to ideally serve as a platform for who I am, my brand, my content, my contact info, and boilerplate information about my experiences and about who I am. I decided to make a personal website for the same reason many proffessionals and developers do, the main one being: accountability. I am using this as a way to force myself to write more, put out more content, and establish who I am. If I can provide value to even a tiny amount of people (i.e. one person), then that would bring me a lot of meaning. It would help get me further in my aim to take on more and more repsonsibility.

Content, Content, Content

I’d like to document more of the experiences I round up. Whether that be problems I undertake, ideas I have, and tactics that have worked for me. Right now my focus is on being able to write up my ideas in the format of a blog. I aim to make the posts and writings availble on Medium as well as a redudant measure. Types of content could include technical writings (think tutorials, problem walk throughs), personal anecdotes, or perhaps new strategies or mindsets I’ve adopted which I find useful. However, as someone just starting out in the world of the personal brand, blogs, and content; anything is better than nothing right now. Starting out small :)

Looking foward

I am aiming high when it comes to engagment with my website and personal brand. I think the feedback I’ll receive as part of my posts and content is also going to be invaluable for me. Recieving exposure on my work will aid me significantly in validating the genuine interest or value of my work. I’m going to focus on just documenting vs. crafting meticulous, detailed, curated essay pieces at first, although those will come later.

A critic is your best friend

I need more eyes on my work as I find people will be extremely quick to point out the flaws in your ideas and opinions. Listening carefully to those criticisms is key in being able to determine whether or not your ideas and work really do need some refining or refactoring. I’d also like to share some proffessional experiences in this blog whether it be my internships, my living in different cities, and in which ways the companies I’ve worked for differ. This is my first blog and as is tradition in the tech world when you write your first program in a new language, I’ve named it “Hello World”. Thanks for stopping by.

def testing_the_code_highlighting():
    print("Bye for now, Olsi.")  # Okay the code highlighting works :D