Abstract Languages
As the first child of a family of six, for some reason, ninety percent of the childhood stories that my mother remembered and loved to retell are about me. She would tell stories of me as a baby breaking apart household appliances, from phones, TVs, you name it. Anything electronic I could get my little hands on and keep my curious mind engaged was a magnet to me.
This curiosity grew to become a skill as I grew to become the family “troubleshooter”. Any technical problem that my family members had would be passed onto me to figure out. And as the problems complicated, my skills developed until “troubleshooting” became synonymous with “passion”.
Come high school. After taking the PSAT (preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test), high school students in Texas are required to take a questionnaire that would help them to narrow down potential future careers. I got Electrical/Computer Engineering and, after discussing with my parents, I was convinced that that was what I wanted to make of myself.
But life wouldn’t always agree with me.
For starters, my first coding class was an Intro to Java course. The best way for me to describe the experience is like how people say math was fun until they introduced letters into the mix. But coding was never really fun because, from the beginning, no matter how many grueling hours I spent studying and practicing, there was always something that wouldn’t click. Missing tracks that would derail the train and ruin all the progress and momentum that was building up. This pattern continued haunting me. In college, I would receive mediocre grades on classes and projects that should have come naturally to me.
Then one day, the missing puzzle piece was found and, one-by-one, the puzzle began to take shape and become more and more complete.
Besides troubleshooting, I also have a passion for travelling and to help me achieve my dream of travelling to every continent, I developed a skill for learning languages. And if you’ve noticed the pattern, that “skill” also became synonymous with “passion”.
Back to the missing puzzle piece. A tip for mastering a language is to immerse one’s self into the culture. So to master, say, Spanish, blast a reggaetón radio station on your commute to work, catch up on the latest telenovelas, take a salsa dance class. Feast on the history, soak up the slang, quench your thirst with the art. And most importantly, practice, practice, practice. Practice speaking while ordering from your favorite Salvadoran restaurant. Practice listening comprehension with an intriguing podcast. Practice reading from your favorite novels translated in your new tongue.
And all the above practices are translated to each new programming language I learn. Heck, it’s in the name. Programming language. I joined a Discord server where I’m able to discuss computer science-related topics. I’m subscribed to the Software Engineering radio. I’m in a coding bootcamp to re-sharpen my mind with past knowledge of programming and instill my mind with new knowledge as well.
With that, the train is chugging along smoother than ever.
