#dgplug summer training

The Back story to my story

My husband has arm-twisted everyone in the family to use only Fedora on their computers and is dismissive of any other way of being. So I was aware of the open source way, used it, admired it but never got to doing much about it.

I was extremely happy with my cushy SAP consultant job which did not require me to tax my brain too much and allowed me to earn a decent, consistent pay package to take care of the luxuries of life. I wore the fire-fighting hat once in a while which also gave me the thrill to have problem-solved and been useful 🙂

The monotony

Eventually, the job became less and less about the work and more and more about the people doing the work. I started itching to do something on my own. Also large multinationals rarely gives you opportunities to do something new and doing something on your own is unthinkable. I was done with being a stooge for the company, however, lacked the courage to foray out on my own and after having taken the plunge to quit, I rejoined meekly (yes I did. Yes I am ashamed. Now can we move on?) in less than 3 months.

The game changer

The game changer for me was my forced-break during my pregnancy. My daughter, while still inside my womb, forced me to be on bed-rest for a good 2 months before she decided she had enough fun at my expense and wanted to make her appearance for everybody else. Takes after her dad, my little girl. This time I utilized to read and read I did about a lot of things including technology, discussed a myriad things with my ever-enthusiastic-husband. My thoughts aligned with the freedom granted by the open source culture and I decided to equip myself with some knowledge and contribute to the community from whom I have only gained so far. Jobless and opinionated, I was all geared up to learn till I realised parenting meant a lot of hard work and was time consuming. I learnt to count. I had only two hands and decided to take it slow.

#dgplug

I tried my hand at learning php, worked on a friend’s website. My husband casually mentioned that his friend (mine too!), Kushal, conducts a 3-months long summer training for students and I should take a look at their previous work. I did and even before they had updated their pages to reflect the calendar for 2016 I had registered for the summer training 🙂

My key take-aways from the sessions conducted so far(Mailing etiquettes, FHS, VIM, reST, Sphinx) –

* We are into the sixteenth year of the twenty-first century, knowing how-to solve a problem is not the major debate. Listing problems that can be solved and prioritizing them, in my opinion, is what will make us tick.

* Collaboration is another key factor and having the world open to learn from is as-good-as-it-can-get

* Mentorship is all about being effective, approachable and not spoon-feeding

I am looking forward to the remaining sessions over the next 3 months and take my journey of over a thousand steps forward.