A day in the life

[dias]

In this journal I will write about my daily life and some general thoughts. I like to write down my thoughts so a journal on ENA would be the ideal place. I will keep practicing my English too. Funny how easy is to forget something if you don’t practice it .

I got a good job as web developer the previous week .It’s my first serious job and it will affect my whole career as I am going to be in the IT field for the rest of my life. So, a new chapter is beginning. I haven’t been placed in a team yet but this will happen next week. Probably as a front end developer but it’s inevitable to work in the back end as well . The good thing about web development compared to other parts of the IT field is that you can create something alone from scratch and you can actually “see” what you develop . A guy at work told me about grails which is a really cool “tool” for web development because it’s very easy to connect the pages with the databases . But what we actually do at work is not web development. We just use a platform called ATG (created by Oracle) to make an online store (e-commerce) . Anyway enough with the these stuff .

I got accepted for a MSc in Finance at Kent and Reading universities but I don’t think I will go now that I found this job as work experience is way more important than studies plus it’s 40k-50k pounds .Pretty hefty fiscal burden for my parents. It would have been a nice experience though… I have been told Kent is really beautiful . I would have taken some cool photos haha .

Ok enough for today . I am tired …

[dias]

There was no public transportation today so the traffic was pretty horrible. I spent one hour to come home but it’s Friday so it’s ok. I did my workout , took a shower , ate 600 grams of yogurt and 3 apples and now I am relaxing in bed .

Today I found a tutorial online about how to write an online forum with grails . So I actually made a webpage of a forum with the basic functions like login etc. I made a section with some topics and every topic included some threads and each thread has comments by users. Pretty cool. Tomorrow I will write this program 2 more times to fathom the logic completely. I am still a newbie and thus repetition is essential. Plus I am a perfectionist.

I saw a girl at work that we studied together at the university . She is pretty and she was dressed very professionally and talked only to senior programmers. What a blow-hard . But the girl sitting next to me is a cool girl and we have a laugh in the morning before we start working. There are always some boastful, ostentatious people but generally most folks are good guys .

The influx of refugees has diminished the last days . It’s weird how we think when we are not in the same situation . We think partly consciously and partly subliminally : What are we going to do with all these refugees here when we ourselves are already bankrupt ?They will steal in order to feed themselves and they do it . But if we were in their position we would do the same. Sure many of them are not Syrians but what can we do? Nothing probably. Many many Syrians have money . They buy land in expensive neighborhoods and take driving lessons . They are intelligent and educated most of them ..…

It is starting to become hot here . Not that I despise sun and warm weather but when it becomes really hot is vexing . With all this upheaval in the neighbor countries tourists will come again this year . We already have plenty. Now that I am thinking about it , I haven’t been to many Greek islands for a Greek haha.

[dias]

Things didn’t go as planned today . I rewrote the program again alone and it went well till the moment that I wanted to add a registration form for the users of the forum . It took me many hours of search to find out that I can’t do it with the plug-in I used to make the login form . pfff . At least I found an article that has a solution . I will study it tomorrow and I hope I will figure it out eventually .

I went for a coffee in the evening with some friends . Same old , same old …. And then I took a stroll on the beach . I sat on a rock for an hour listening to the rustle of the sea and pondering what I am going to do with my life . I can’t accept that this will be my life forever … work then home then again work … it is tedious as it is already , I can’t imagine 10 years from now . I like adventures and adore travelling (who doesn’t on the other hand) . I always had three options in my mind for what I am going to do in my life. The first was entrepreneur, the second was archaeologist and the third was to find a good enough job and start a family and enjoy the daily life .

I had a strong inclination for commerce and business when I was a kid .I used to buy things that I could find in lower price in other markets and sell them in higher price to my classmates . But my parents pushed me to study and didn’t really foster that part of my character . I was a “bad “ and very insubordinate kid and my parents “chased “ me a lot to make me study which I really didn’t until the last two years of high school just to get accepted to the university . So now I feel bereft , I don’t know how to start /create something and make money . I have to get really good at programming and then open a business in the field .Yeh this could be a “getaway” . Regarding archaeology I am not interested in it anymore although I read history . About the family thing now , I am torn in half about this . I would like to start a family if and only if i find the right girl . If there is not “right” girl then I prefer to be alone …


I contemplate too much on the beach ….

[dias]

Hmm I did make a slight headway on this program . I achieved to pass the parameters from the register form to the controller and then store them in the database . The problem now is that the replies of the new user don’t emerge or to be more precise they don’t even get stored in the database . I couldn’t find anything so I gave up for today . It’s evening anyway .

I did my workout on my break . I have been doing calisthenics for one year and almost three months . I was lucky I got injured at the gym and did pull ups at home as an alternative for some days. I loved it .From thenceforth I don’t lift weights , I am more well rested , I eat less and have better muscle definition . I don’t gain muscle but I have a very good shape .

Tomorrow I should be placed in the front end team . I hope so .I will work in the front end at work and in the back end on weekends at home. I fathom that it’s very difficult and time consuming to learn both but learning only 50% of the whole project seems silly to me . How are you supposed to create something without having any notion of the other 50% ? You can only depend on someone else and I really hate depending on somebody else. From my experience and my observations it is needed 6 months to see a difference on what you do , 1 year to feel “comfortable” and have some satisfying results , 4 years to achieve the 85% of your goal , 7 -10 years to attain perfection(I mean to really master something).

While I was walking in the city center one day I encountered some peddlers selling very old books , the very cheap ones with stains etc . I found three books of Louis L’amour which are missing from my small Louis L’amour book collection . The old lady observed that I searched specifically for Louis L’amour and told me they cost twice as much as the rest. The amount was petty but I disliked her attitude and left . Probably I should order them from amazon .

[dias]

I just finished working .fff . More than 12 hours today . I can’t keep my eyes open . I haven’t been placed in a team yet (too newbie I surmise) but I have been given a pet project to play . I have to make the front end of the application .The application is already written and what it does is to test all the potential actions of a user at a web store .For instance if you add something to cart and then you cancel the order . The program makes this move and check if everything is ok . If not, someone has to fix it .

My grandma is in a sulky mood (even if she isn’t admitting it ) because I didn’t spend any time to see her . Well I came home at 7:30 pm and I had to workout for an hour and then work again . I do understand that she came for the Easter to see me and I did spend time with her in my days off but now I need to work a lot….

I read in a online newspaper that a conflagration is threatening people of Alberta. Hope nobody got hurt . It’s shame that so many hectares of forests and wetland habitats are burnt .

[dias]

It was a very good day today . I worked on this project and I did pretty well . (at least this is what I think hehe) . This is the first page :
[img]

Then when you click the “create test case project “ rectangular you get redirected on this page :


This loading circle is just for effect .haha
And at last you get redirected to the “official “ website . I just added the image slider.



For a programmer with experience of more than 6 months these stuff are a piece of cake but I get excited when I create something . The back end is more difficult and more vapid but the front end is for the creative type like me . I love it.

I sat on another desk today . I am lucky again as the girl sitting next to me is fit and we discuss for fitness and nutrition on the break .

It was just a good day today

[dias]

I got tired today.I did a lot of studying because they gave me to study the Java program of the back end. It’s difficult but on the weekend I will study it meticulously and write it alone. I will make some more pages because this program will be given to the client to test his website and therefore it’s needed to have a nice UI.

I was looking at the map and it happened to watch Argentina . It’s a big country. I would like to visit Buenos Aires but there are so many big cities in Argentina in the west part of the country . I live in Greece and my life rotates near this country and Europe generally . I look at the map and think who would live in the west part of Argentina or Brazil secluded from the rest of the world ? The funny thing is , somebody else is thinking the same thing right now from another part of the world for me . How bizarre and funny is that?haha …Daydreaming again…

[dias]

The time to commute to work is the most wasted time ever. Pfff . I need 50 minutes in the morning and 1 hour to come back . What a waste of time …

I talked with one of my uncles from the US . He is about to become a pensioner and he is thinking to rent a small apartment in Florida so he could benefit from the low taxation when he will get this “package “ to leave earlier (I don’t know how it’s called in English) . Very clever and quite common trick in the North East as he told me and it’s very reasonable since 10 percent difference is quite an amount when we are talking about 200K-250K .

One of the cool things in America is that if you don’t like your state you jump to another . So cool . A state gets bankrupt it opens casinos . Each state is almost independent . It rocks . And most people in the US want to live in NY and California . I never got that . I hated NYC but loved the country of NY and NJ . Country people were so cool with these cowboys hats haha and all these pools in the garden like the films haha. I spent one afternoon at a cousin’s friend home and it was like the films . The owner was a bubbly cute American –Irish girl who used to host parties in her garden . She invited me but we had to leave . I am not the party type whatsoever but I would like to attend an American party . It would have been an experience . hehe .
Anyway I have to sleep now …

[dias]

It was a hot day today and with a lot of traffic but I made headway with my program . The guy that supervises me helped me a lot and I am grateful for his patience and willingness to help me. I put an option in the User Interface so that the user can choose the browser he wants for the test. I put 3 options Chrome ,Firefox and IE but my Firefox version was incompatible with the program and IE sucks so I only kept Chrome. Tomorrow I will find some other browsers to put as an option. Then I made a test case in which I put 3 actions. The first and second action was to fill in the login form with the username and password respectively and then to click the “login” button . The last action didn’t work and the reason was that I had to put another action before clicking the login button which was to click the “Accept Cookies” button . Hmm I have many things to do tomorrow.

Once I watched on CNN a documentary about CEOs across the globe who claimed that being a good parent makes you a better leader . They underpinned their opinions saying that parenting makes you a better leader because you need to “serve” the family and it’s not about you from then on . Furthermore you have to be humble because nobody listens to you , make the right decision for you and your family and so on and so on . I have to concede that it’s true . I can observe it in the workplace. People with kids work more (I guess because they are afraid of losing their job) but more importantly they help more and collaborate better without gloating . I don’t want kids but I do see that being a good parent makes you a better person .

[Jibralta]

A state gets bankrupt it opens casinos

I didn't realize this, but it makes sense. Always interesting to get an outsider's opinion into this country!