lizblog

so I was feeling increasingly scared yesterday afternoon, and hit critical mass around 6.30pm when I left work and met up with my man friend. I started talking (ranting, perhaps might be closer to it) about whether or not I had made the right decision, and whether I’m royally screwing myself financially in the current recessionist climate (yes I made up a new word), when I got a call –

“Have I got a lead for you!”
… um, who is this?
“So, I was talking to my friend Bob, who I told you about earlier”

… oh, it’s Kim! My lovely, soon to be ex-coworker whom I had a great lunch talk with and who has been an endless fount of wisdom and sanity in an otherwise mostly unwise and crazy place. She has a friend (called Bob, yes, well done for paying attention) who is an entrepreneurial web app/design kinda guy, who has been looking for a way to get his foot in the door here at current place of employ. Turns out, he’s been bugging her for information on one of our programs, so she called him and mentioned me and my interest in getting back into coding, especially in web technologies. He said that apparently he has work already he can farm out to me, and would love to join forces on an idea he has for this program of ours! So we are meeting tomorrow and it seems like a great lead!

I also got an email from a company I’m SUPER excited about, and was putting off getting back to the guy when he asked me if I have any experience with:

• CSS
• XML/XSL
• PHP
• MySQL
• Linux/Debian/Ubuntu
• Drupal
• Javascript

but finally sat down and thought about it. Turns out I know more than I think I know, if you know what I mean. I spent a little time googling for tutorials and basic information about the items on that list I have zero knowledge of, and felt much better about my chances of picking them up really quickly. And then realised that I do, in fact, have knowledge of 4 out of those 6 items. So I emailed the guy back and was fairly candid about my minimal experience, but played up my fast learning curve (that came out as curse first time, Freudian typo?) and he invited me for a meeting next Wednesday.

I’m so excited about this, as my first email was basically asking for an informational interview with the company; I’m just happy to get in and talk with someone there, they are THAT cool. I’m serious! But then, I have to remind myself that it could just be that and not necessarily help me out of a hole I may have made for myself.

But yes, walking to the bus stop this morning, I was light of heart, and smiley of mouth, kicking up red and gold leaves along the pavement, bumping into a friend who is playing a show tonight and tomorrow night. What a good day! And it’s only 9.26am! And I haven’t even had coffee yet!!