The long haul.

[Backdated: 2014-12-14.]

That's what I'm in for.

After much long and hard deliberation, I have committed to staying at Hack Reactor. So many thanks go out the those who offered advice or a listening ear during the past week. 

There's no doubt that I could do it on my own. But, I am increasingly convinced that I will gain more by being at HR. On the whole I feel confident about my decision. Many talks revealed the broken hiring process, leading me to believe that I will have more opportunities with the backing of HR. I will engage with more project work than I would on my own. And I'll move at a faster pace to cover a broader swath of material than I would normally. (I'm a depth-first search kind of learner.) 

My conversations with many seniors whom came in with similar or greater experience than me sealed the deal. Each one of them loved the program and were gaining so much from it. Sure, there's confirmation bias in that I'm not talking with those that dropped, but at least those whom stuck around did not regret the decision. 

So now I have another 11 weeks of fast-paced learning to look forward to. I'm averaging 13 hrs a day at the space (including meal breaks, but those are usually spent talking a out code as well). 

Even today, I plan to code in the evening. It's just fun. Also, I spent south time deliberating and discussion my decision that I didn't have nearly as much coding time as everyone else. Sure I'm still ahead of the curve, but there's more advanced data structures in "nightmare mode" that I want to dig into. 

I also published a new tech article on productivity tips in Sublime Text 2 -- the de facto text editor for programmers (and blog writers these days). Took a solid two hours to put together. It's partly intended for my cohort, some of whom are completely new to Sublime. Putting together the "greatest hits" of productivity tips will hopefully get them working faster in short order. Customization is a tough thing to accomplish -- because it's such a massive potential time sink, most edge away from the gaping hole and never try. My hope was to provide a digestible amount for newcomers. 

Sunday has not been all work. I took the morning to have a breakfast of southern comfort food, I went for a walk while listening to a podcast, and I'm visiting a friend for lunch. It's been a quiet, peaceful day, with the sun shining to warm my spirits. Days like these make me think I have PV panels somewhere in my body, because I feel so happy when the sun hits me. 

I suspect my fitness will take a hit during my time at HR. They give an extra hour to exercise every other day, but I've taken those times for coding or deliberating or catching up on other work. Also, an hour is not quite long enough to comfortably fit in an Insanity session.

Meanwhile, my eating habits are subpar. With only an hour for lunch and never any time to buy groceries, I am eating out for all meals. There's a motion among the cohort to organize to have catered meals from healthier restaurants around town. Would be relatively cost-effective and happier on our diets.

I wouldn't be surprised if I lose noticeable fitness through this time. On some level I'm okay with it. I'm attending this school to be out of balance, to live and breathe code, even at the expense of other things. It's only three months, so it's reasonable in my book. So far, the pace and dedication of time has been sustainable. I easily maintain focus throughout these super long days. Hopefully that'll continue.