The blank page battle

Hello Stranger!

It’s been ages since my last article! How have you been? I have missed you!

I can’t believe we are halfway through 2024 and I have no idea how time has passed so fast.

Seems the title of this article is rather fitting considering that I have been struggling to write anything these past few months and now I am trying to summarise seven months or at least some things in one article! 

Would you believe me if I told you that it took me almost three months to write this one?

It does not sound like me at all, but I kept writing, then deleting and all my words just seemed, well, not what I envisioned.

Now, let's talk about my apprenticeship.

In my previous article, I mentioned that I was about to start the final and most difficult stage of my apprenticeship and now it’s finally over! 

After I posted, I worked on polishing and finishing my portfolio. I went a little crazy and overboard and it was quite the struggle to format it properly to have fewer pages. I used Notion, and I ended up with multiple versions, all of them had too many pages and the least I could get it to be was 132 pages so I went with this one. I put a lot of time, effort, stress, and work into this. Literally, I was still working on the final bits half an hour before I had to submit it. Don’t be like me! 

When I submitted it, I had to attach the proposal for the work-based project as well. I was told it could take up to ten working days until I hear back, so silly me tried to book two days off in that week. Not even two days after the submission, I received the email that I needed to start the project so I cancelled the days off (which I absolutely needed, but my fault for not planning things on time).

Let’s remember briefly what this project was: 10 weeks to work on something that matches specific requirements and solves a problem or simply adds value, and then write a report about it following a specific format. 

Here is where things got a bit confusing as I was initially told that it’s meant to be an individual project, not something that you work on with other people. Guess in the end you could have done both, depending on your choice or the nature of the project, but it was too late for me to work with others on this. 

I ended up creating a small DevOps application from scratch which is working nicely and I will hopefully continue to make it better. 

I only worked with another person who was meant to guide and also supervise me as my new manager at the time was not aware of what the apprenticeship needed, while the wider team was just aware of what I was doing without being involved.

Did I struggle with the project? Yes, plenty of times because it was something I hadn’t tried before and since it was meant to become an internal tool, it got quickly complicated.

It was the first kind of this type of project for the web teams so it was uncharted territory even if it was nothing too big or complex.

I mostly struggled with motivation to get things done, literally, I was so tired and I just wanted some time off but I was not allowed to take any holiday during those ten weeks.

Again, I found myself even unable to write the report properly and on time. Instead, I could only get it done two days before the actual deadline. Luckily for me, the deadline was at the end of the day so at 10 pm I was still refining the report before submitting it. It ended up being 66 pages!

After this I finally booked a whole week off, which was the holiday from last year that I needed to take, and then the following week was study leave to prepare for the assessments.

Again, I struggled to do anything, I was not feeling well either physically or mentally and I barely slept, but this is irrelevant now. 

The whole plan of trying to prepare early for my assessments didn’t work out.

Of course, I ended up stressed doing everything at the very last minute.

Piece of advice, don’t be like me! I genuinely wonder why I can only fully function above and beyond when I am extremely stressed. Must be that I have had too much practice with this in the last few years. 

Think of my stress like it’s a roller coaster, when I am very close to important deadlines I get very stressed but high-performing, and then, after this passes and I can finally relax, I feel zero motivation to do anything, even the bare minimum. This is a big problem for me because there is no balance and it drains me.

The assessments were tiring, from two to five PM, I only had a 15-minute break and I talked a lot. Lots of the questions were not exactly what I expected so I am thankful for my ability to just blab and talk about anything because I can improvise, however, the trick is to not be completely clueless about things. I did my best to think in advance about possible hard questions and to at least prepare some bullet points to remember. I am not going to bore you with more details about this because my memory is kind of fuzzy now.

The big news is that I successfully completed my level 4 software engineering apprenticeship and my final grade was: distinction!!!

This is what I have always aimed for but in the last weeks before my assessments I genuinely only wanted to pass and nothing else.

Also in my last performance review, I received an exceptional rating because, turns out, I had been already performing as a junior, therefore above expectations!!! 

I was one of the three people to receive a conditional offer as a junior software engineer from my current company with the condition to pass my apprenticeship on the first attempt with no retakes permitted, otherwise, my conditional offer would have vanished.

That only added to the stress, plus they were so damn slow and late, they offered me the conditional offer one month before my assessments. It’s genuinely hard to express how stressed I was that maybe there would be nothing for me once my fixed-term contract expired. They also decided to move me to a new team with barely any notice when I was in the middle of trying to finish everything, but I officially joined the team after I finished my assessments. This team was exactly the opposite of my first one, with only two front-end devs and the rest back-end, all the work was rushed with little to no support for the front-end development projects while the team lead was back-end and not informed on the complexity of certain codebases and expecting things to be straightforward. Not even three weeks in they decided to downgrade and from two big teams, they merged it into a smaller and only back-end team, removing all the front-end development projects and developers.

Again, I was given pretty much just one day's notice and told I was joining a new team, however, I believe it was good riddance.

This time I didn’t even stress anymore because I was already too drained so my reaction was literally: whatever!

I have been with my current team for two months now, and it is a much better fit because finally there is a better focus, and no more insane context switching, overall it just seems easier because I don’t have to worry about learning so many things at once and I can finally focus on a few things and hopefully just get better at them.

My imposter syndrome was so bad, the apprenticeship also required learning full-stack development so you can just call me a jack of all trades right now, but this is not what I want. 

My first team tried to keep me after my first move and it was not possible, and even a few weeks ago they reached out and told me that there was a chance for me to come back if I was interested, however, I said no!

I want less stress and better work that allows me to truly improve my technical skills.

I want longer projects, more consistency, and fewer short-term goals that I can achieve.

The sum it up, I am officially a junior software engineer, I make a tad bit more money compared to when I was an apprentice so I can stop worrying so much, and they inaugurated my promotion by giving me a brand new MacBook M3 Pro which is nice, because I would never pay that much for a laptop.

Also, more great news: I had been asking for months if there is a chance for me to continue with an advanced apprenticeship since I now completed level 4 (I still need level 5 and level 6, if you are not familiar with these terms, it simply means different years of an undergraduate degree, level 6 means the final year of university), or get support to get a diploma for those levels. If you have been reading from the beginning of my blog journey, you know that despite wanting to finish my university studies, life has made sure that those plans would not work out for me. However, I am beyond happy to announce that my company decided to pay for that diploma in Information Technology!!!

I found it last year when I kept trying to find further options after I got my level 4, and I saved it, then I made a case for it with my former manager, then with my current manager and someone who handles everything related to apprentices and interns now.

Thankfully, the last person I mentioned is a lovely woman whom I met many times before, even had lunch with her, and she made sure to push for me to get the budget approved and even told me that if the diploma can't be paid from the learning and development budget, then she would make sure it would come out of the budget she has for tech talent.

I want to say that this diploma is not a bachelor's degree but it is equivalent to one, however without the added stress of attending live classes again. It is self-paced which is great because my schedule is packed and I don't want another tiring experience similar to my apprenticeship.

I am so grateful for all these opportunities and to finally be able to complete my studies, it means so much to me because I have always wanted to study more!

Another milestone, in April, this wonderful blog turned 4! It feels surreal to think about the fact that I have been writing for four years now (granted it’s on and off but my life is not that interesting).

I want to take the time to thank every single one of you for continuing to support my writing and always coming back to read, no matter how much time has passed since I last posted. This wonderful community has grown so much over the last couple of years, and I truly believe that I wouldn't be where I am today without all your support and kind wishes.

I apologise for my prolonged absence, my creativity has been evading me and as much as I wish I had written more so far this year, I think it’s better that I didn’t.

These past seven months, almost every single day, I was stressed, tired, and irritated and I doubt I could have written anything good.

Of course, I know that I could write some great and deep articles when I am upset and sad, but sometimes thoughts can not only cloud our judgement but also lie to us. I prefer to write with a clear head because at least I know that I had some time to process. Plus, there is no point in hearing me complain about the same things in so many articles, and when I am stressed that is exactly what I do and I can be quite intense, this is just a fancy way of saying annoying. 

I firmly believe in giving back, one way or another, and I want to start doing this again. Lately, I have been so preoccupied with my own life because I kept being surrounded by too much uncertainty that I forgot to try to do more things to help others just because I wanted to.

A lot of my interactions since I started working in tech have been transactional, also known as networking. It’s just superficial: so much small talk, so little essence, yet very important and it’s a skill I believe I still need to improve.

I have genuinely forgotten when was the last time I did something that simply brought me joy, something that has nothing to do with securing my career… 

I shouldn’t take such long breaks from writing because writing is one of the very few real things that I have in my life, it sets me free, and yet I kept hitting a wall every time I wanted to write. Perhaps unconsciously I conditioned myself to think that my articles should only reflect my progress, success, and so on, and not much about daily struggles, overthinking, feeling stuck in a vicious cycle with yourself, and simply being real and transparent that not every day is a good day.

This blog isn’t just about me and my life, nowadays I am quite boring, and if someone asks me what my hobbies are I have to stop and think because all I do is overwork, eat, read, make silly jokes, and sleep. 

I miss writing informative articles, it was not only great to compile and share all that knowledge in a special series, but I was learning a lot too. 

In May I turned 25! I normally dread birthdays, it's something that has been happening for a decade, but this year I simply said to myself that it is just a regular day.

I didn't even buy a proper cake, cooked some basic food, didn't start feeling overwhelmed like I usually do and instead, I felt calm and said to myself that it is what it is.

I took some time to think about how these past few years have been, and of course, I have shared a lot of my past experiences, traumas, struggles, lessons, and accomplishments.

Life has always been hard, and for the longest I can remember, I have always felt like everything I do is simply not enough.

The truth is, I am getting older and hopefully wiser too, and while it is great to have a career now finally, I don't want this to be the only thing that I remember about my 20s.

My life has become all work, and nothing else. I have neglected my sleep, and my health, and my knees are only getting worse. The last time I went to the hospital to see a doctor was four years ago and ever since I have just tried to ignore the pain, and honestly, at this point, this pain has been present in my life for way longer than the few years without it before I turned 6.

I have neglected myself entirely just to make sure that I have a job because I couldn't afford to take so much time off to keep going to hospitals and just start the whole investigation from scratch again while I didn't even know if I'd have a permanent work contract after.

It's been tough trying so hard, restlessly, to prove that I am worthy of this job.

On top of all this, I felt riddled with uncertainty, and all the bad memories of financial struggles, unemployment, and burning through my savings just to stay in this country kept creeping back, many nights kept me awake because I had been through this not long ago and I simply couldn't bear the thought of having to start over like this again.

I am not against starting over, I just want it to be on my terms, not being forced to do so by life's harsh slaps.

However, I also don't want to dwell on the past and constantly have to revisit these experiences, and most certainly I don't want to live with the victim's mentality.

Life can truly suck, there is no better way of saying it, but I don't want life to just happen to me. I want to also have some control, and I want to hold myself accountable for those things that I can indeed control and make them happen.

For example, the way I react. I used to be very reactive, to the point where I felt like my emotions were simply consuming me. I tried my best to not take it on others and just take it on myself. I could easily get upset or become sad, anything could set me off, and I just couldn't let it go. It used to affect me so badly that even my chest was aching with pain and I could cry for hours, even cry myself to sleep until I felt physically sick and then wake up with swollen eyes and debilitating migraines.

I would feel those negative emotions for days, yet happiness or being proud of myself? Maybe a good five minutes, and then it would just vanish.

I would focus so much on things that were not in my control that I would overlook what I could control. I cared too much about how people perceived me and tried my best to not upset anyone (granted this was also heavily influenced by my desire to avoid conflict and it was deeply rooted in people-pleasing), I cared about others and what they had to say about me and how I am not good enough, took me forever to realise that it was mainly their projection and most people around me didn't wish me anything good.

I took things personally, and I wanted external validation because I thought it would finally make me feel like I was good enough. In reality, all I ever wanted was to give myself that validation, to say that I am proud of myself and actually mean it. To look in the mirror and not hate my reflection with every single cell of my being. All I ever wanted was to feel worthy of love, especially self-love, and to believe that I deserved good things in my life.

Gosh, I really wish I could hug the younger version of me. Writing this was hard, being so openly vulnerable is hard, and finally being honest with myself is even harder!

When I think about all of this now, I find it both hilarious (sometimes this is just how I cope with things), and sad that I used to be like this.

All these experiences have molded me into the person that I am today but I refuse to keep letting trauma and the past define who I am. I have said it many times before, I don't really know who I am now, I just know I am no longer the person I used to be.

I don’t think I’m a good person, not always anyway. I try my best to be, but sometimes I fall short despite my efforts.

There is still a discrepancy between my present self and the person I want to be, I am not saying that I have fully transformed into someone else and I am completely in control of my emotions, I don't think that's even possible, but I am better than before in many ways, and I am actively trying to change, and that is more than good enough for me.

Some days I identify as a menace and my pronouns are: try/me!

I am joking, but I no longer put up with disrespect, I don't want to make myself small for others, or always try to be a nice girl! Life is too short to always be the nice and good girl who puts everyone else above herself.

If someone doesn't like me, guess what, it ain't my problem because all I do is mind my business, and I don't try to cause harm to anybody or put someone down.

Some time ago I read that you can't control the fact that there is suffering in the world, but you can control whether you contribute to it or help alleviate it, and it is true.

Life is made of choices, and while we don't have control over all of them and they might not all be our choices, we do have control over some of them at least.

Well, all of this really made me realise that I needed to take action and make sure that I was living for myself more.

I have been making some small changes in my life recently, and I want to slowly make some more to ensure they are sustainable.

I am excited to share that I will be starting a new series!!!

I have already started planning things, but long story short for now it will contain three articles, and I will post one each month.

I am determined to post this series consistently, and the main goal behind it is to build consistency, hold myself accountable, and perhaps help someone else do the same.

Before I conclude this article, I want to wish a happy belated birthday to my boyfriend!

If you are wondering why I am also mentioning it in this article, it is because he deserves to be celebrated, not only by me but also by this wonderful community.

He is the reason why the blog is working and you get to read everything I post, plus he is my biggest supporter, he gets excited every time I talk about writing or anything that makes me excited, and he celebrates all my achievements more than I ever do.

I know you are reading this now, and I want to remind you that you are a wonderful person!

I know I haven’t always been the best girlfriend, but I can truly be myself with you.

We have laughed, cried and grown together.

Life hasn’t treated either of us kindly and there are still many challenges, but in a life full of uncertainty, you are my certainty.

Your unconditional love and support have helped me more than I could ever put into words and I know what a lucky person I am to have in my life and to be loved by you!

I also want to thank my best friends, all three in three different countries, for never giving up on me when things got hard, always believing in me and being by my side through good and bad, and always wishing the best for me. I have the most incredible, genuine, and amazing friends, and I know how lucky I am to have you in my life!

We are all different in our ways but this is something that I genuinely love about us and our friendship!

Thank you for everything and for showing me what a true friendship is like!

And to you, my dear readers, thank you for your patience in reading this very long article, and for supporting my work!

I realize this might be a big request, but if you want to send me messages, you won't be able to do it using this chat. The best way is through email: lost.insidemyhead21@gmail.com.

I understand the importance of anonymity, especially given the nature of this blog, but you can always create an email address that doesn't include your name.

I'd love to hear from you and see how you're doing, and I promise you'll get a response from me.

I will forever be thankful to you for helping me become the person that I am today!

May your life be filled with light and happiness!

Take care!

Feeling a bit nostalgic so here is today's song (an old Romanian song that I still love): https://youtu.be/5JMiNzcXYMQ?si=R0k4-bn4MUXiigYN