This is my final class, the last hurdle sitting between me and graduation. As one might expect, I was extremely excited to get started. That enthusiasm fadded quickly when I found out my mother had a stroke a week before the start of class. I was just winding down from working overtime over the summer, in order to build up finances. I went for as long as I could because the more savings I had, the more time I could put into the class assignments. Which meant I sacrificed my ability to practice coding and what I had learned up to that point. Now, I had to sacrifice even more. I dropped everything to be by my mother's side. Without going into detail, she was not good. For the next few weeks I put as much time as I could to help her recover. Thankfully, with extensive rehab, she is now doing much better. Unfortuanately, I was not. I found myself falling behind in class. With my mind still lingering on my mother's well-being, I started to wonder if this was just not the right time for me. Should I consider backing out and restarting class the following semester.

It always seems impossible until it's done.

I'm a big believer in anything is possible when you put your mind to it. I may be old but i'm still young at heart, and heart is what wins fights. Just ask Rocky Balboa.

The first week of class did start off smoothly considering the circumstances. I was mentally distracted, overtly tired, still finishing overtime hours at work, but stayed on course. There was a lot of reading. Documents that needed to be signed. We did a scavenger hunt to get familair with all of the neccessary information regarding the class. I remember the first time I had to do one of those scavanger hunts, it was the biggest mountain to climb. This time around, I was a veteran. This first week though, the mountain to climb, was just time management. Luckily, experience from previous classes helped speed up the process. Although I was wobbly from a first round knockdown, the first week was completed and under my belt. I was ready to dust myself off and make things happen in week two. The fight ain't over.

Week two begins and I'm off to another slow start. Ill prepared and trying to juggle too much at one time. This week we dive into signing up to Handshake, learn about LinkedIn Learning, continue blogging about our class experiences, and begin creating our resume and cover letter. A lot more reading again. The reading is what slowed me down, although it was helpful. I am a slow reader. I am working on improving though. A great source of help came from the Student Success Center. I've used it numerous times to help with better understanding and completing class work, as well as improving my reading strength and speed. To continue with the Rocky theme from the previous blog, I was still reeling from the previous punches but powered through this week. Looking forward to catching my breath and stabilizing by next week.

This week class really begins to delve into the meat and potatoes of it. We begin by polishing up our resumes and cover letters, then sharing them with our classmates, and the MPTC Employment Services. The MPTC Employment Services is a great resource for assistance in anything relating to employment after college. I unfortunately had trouble right out the oven. I chose to create my resume and cover letter on a template but each template that I tried, from different websites that said it was free, ended up not allowing me to save it without paying. Through trial and error, I finally stumbled over Word and was able to finish both items. This was definitely a learning lesson because I now know how to turn a document into a pdf and vice-versa, because: trial and error...multiple times. Along with the above mentioned assignments, we were to begin putting together our work samples - projects that we had completed in previous classes and on our free time. We were also tasked with creating a "Employment Seeking Website", a place where I could showcase all of my projects to future employers. Since I had already created a website that I could utilize for both of these assignments, I thought it would be an easy thing to just transform some of my already created pages into what I needed. That's when I discovered my website was having technical difficulties. At some point, I somehow had erased or lost files and folders related to the site. I thought it might be a simple fix after talking to the people at GoDaddy but nay, in the end I was forced to create the whole website from scratch. This week and next, turned into a major time consumer and I fell behind again as I tried to figure out why my website was not working.

This week we were to continue working on our work samples and employment seeking website. I however was playing catchup as I scrambled to figure out how to find and fix my missing folders and files to the website that I had previously created. My plan to turn this webste into my employment seeking website was not looking good. I found that the summer I spent catching up on finances, meant a bigger sacrifice than I had anticipated. I was now rusty on everything I had learned up to this point and had to refresh my coding skills. I unfortunately was short on time. So, to continue with the Rocky theme that I started in the very first blog: I had taking too many body blows, leaving me winded and staggering on wobbly legs.

You're a bum Rock. You're a BUM!

I began to doubt myself at this point. The mountain I had to climb was getting bigger and bigger as time went on. Inbetween the fustration of realizing I was going nowhere with my old website, I continued to work on my resume and cover letter but I felt defeated as Micks words rang in my ear.

This week we were to set up a LinkedIn profile and continue working on the website and samples. I unfortunately was still struggling with my old website. I didn't want to start over from scratch, yet, my assignments due required a website. So I reached out for help and my instructor answered the call. Together we walked through our options as we tried to fix the website. Turns out it was a mess. Moving onward, I created my LinkedIn profile but was denied access the next day. For some unforseen reason, there was a security issue and I was locked out. I did have a few options to consider but only one that I was willing to pursue. I had to go to a Notary Public to verify that I am who I am. This however ended up not working because it required me to log into my account; the one that I was locked out of.

This week was just a continuation of working on our blogs, samples, and website. After a rough start to this class, I let go of the past and began to work on my new website with a renewed sense of vigor. I am not a bum! Like the Bionic Man, this website will be better, stronger, faster...que the music! I used an old template and reshaped it to fit my needs for all of my assignments. I added pages for my resume, portfolio, and blog. This meant making sure all the coding matched, from file to file, folder to folder. I had a long way to go to get caught up but all I saw was opportunity. To get around the LinkedIn lockout, I decided to just create a whole new account. Amazing how much time can be consumed over seemingly simple tasks which end up being not so simple. That said, things are looking better and better, because I now have the opportunity to work with a company called FABOH for my internship. My energy levels are through the roof as I will begin working with them next week.

This week we discussed possible portfolio topics and content, while sharing optional resources. We continued to improve upon our work samples and employment seeking website, while getting feedback from our classmates. Due to my late start with setting up my LinkedIn account, I now began to work on the scoring guide. This week I was able connect with a company called FABOH, in regards to starting an internship with them. They are a company that works with communities and businesses to "help employers lower health care costs, increase employee engagement, and improve employee well-being".

This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. Due to my late start at the beginning of class, I am juggling many projects at once. I am working on the scoring guides for my LinkedIn, resume, and cover letter projects. All of which require feedback and the alterations from said feedback. I also am finishing up on the brand new website I started from scratch, so that I may begin to add the detailed information to the about me, resume, portfolio, and blog pages. At this point they are just the basic outlines of how the site will look theme wise. My internship is a work from home position, where I am to scan their website for any dates that may need to be updated, misspellings, non-functioning links, plus any other miscellaneous errors, and correct them. To begin this process, I made a word document similar to how we documented our scoring guides in class; noting the issue in text with a picture connected to showcase it visually.

This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. This week I get to chop away at the projects I have been working on by turning in the finally-finished LinkedIn scoring guide. My internship is a work in process as I learn on the go. It didn't take long to recognize the importance of establishing a systematic process to follow, as I go through the website page by page, link by link. I realized quickly that in order for the client and myself to follow along to my documentation, from website to page then back again, I'd have to follow a path similar to how someone might read a book. This required me to rearrange some of my documentation that I had already started. I began with the home page header, working from left to right, going through each link and dropdown menu, and then work my way down the page until I reached the footer where I will do the same left to right action. This can lead to a very long word document, so I made sure to treat each section like a college paper utilizing different sized headers, as well as include bold, and different sized fonts. This allows for an easier way to scroll through the document and still get at a quick glance where you are in relation to the website without looking at the website.

This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. This week I submitted the email and ready to print versions of my cover letter and resume. I also completed and submitted my URL to my website that displays my resume. I was also able to finish my home and about me page to personal satisfaction. I am continuing to work on my samples page on the website and my blog. I have been working on the blog as a word document until I am ready to transfer it to the website. At this point I am chipping away at the samples page. The internship is going well. It is a lot more involving than I had initially envisioned. I like the challenge of finding anything out of order as I scour the website, as well as learning how to improve my processes and way of approaching the project.

This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. This week I continued to work on my internship project, samples, and blog. I also completed the discussion work about professional development ideas for future improvement, online resources for future improvement, and other certification options. We then included our employment and graduation portfolio website for peer review. I am closing in on being fully caught up and it feels good.

This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. I however, went on a family get away in celebration of my father's second, fortieth birthday. Upon return I picked up where I left off and submitted my program outcome reflection statements.

This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. This week we continue to work on our blogs, samples, and website. I am all caught up on my blog now and am finishing up the samples page. All I have to do is complete the checklist for each sample and then submit them. Something I completely missed as I bounced back and forth from assignment to assignment trying to catch up. Yikes. Right now I am stuck as I need to figure out how to test if my spacing is optimal. I was hoping there was a free website that can check this by just adding the URL but I have had no luck finding one so far. Another time-management issue; do I research how to find a website that can find this for me or how to find it myself? In the meantime, I am making progress on the blogs. I have entered each weeks blog onto one page and only have the individual links for each blog left to complete. I did take a step back on the internship logging document. Some type of glitch would not allow me to save a good portion of the errors I was recording. I unfortunately did not notice this until the document was unresponsive. I at least didn't lose the whole document and require having to start from scratch. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with not shutting down my computer every night as I prefer to just put it in sleep mode. This causes this the updates to pile up a tad before I implementing them. I don't think this is the issue but it's the only thing I can think of. Either way, problem solving is a sort of scientific approach of elimination. So I will start to power down my machine every night and see if the problem occurs again.