Searching

It has been a few months since my last post and I do have a small update.

Sadly, I have not found a new role and company to call home since Blizzard; however, I remain optimistic in my search. It is a difficult market right now and many of us are trying to figure out how to navigate it. My hope for myself, and others in the same boat, is to find our way back to stability soon.

In the meantime, I have looked into volunteer positions with a couple of budding game studios. I have joined both Astrarium Games as a C# Programmer and LowKeyHighEntertainment as a Back-End Developer. So far everyone has been very kind and gracious! I am really looking forward to learning new technologies and diving more into gameplay engineering. 😁

As for my personal life, it still remains a little on the rough side. Shortly after my last post, my house ended up flooding! Looking back, it is a little humorous since I was playing Ubisoft's new Skull and Bones demo at the time. I was sailing the seven seas in-game and then suddenly my house became the eighth! 

Even though we got the water up quickly, the damage had already been done: All the floors had to be ripped out and replaced. Insurance luckily paid for most of the repairs, but the construction process was long and painful. I just have half of the living room and dining room that need further flooring -- both of which I plan on having put in when I am back on my feet again. So for now, my house does look a little silly with only about 88% new floors and a giant empty patch, but my dogs do not seem to mind and that is all that matters for the short while.

Now that (most) repairs are done and (most of) the after-construction cleaning is done, I am looking forward to finally fixing my website (in addition to my volunteer duties, of course). I last migrated the code over from Blazor Server to Blazor WebAssembly and that fixed the old Blazor Server bug mentioned in the previous post, but now there are a few other errors that are popping up. If you happen across a "reload" notification, please feel free to refresh the page to continue; I am going to try to get this fixed as soon as I can. I truly apologize for the inconvenience!

In summary, I can say that life has indeed been a little strenuous, but I continue to learn, grow, and persevere!

Hello Again

Hello again! 👋🏽😊 It has been a while since I have posted any updates here. 

Originally I left off with the hope of creating another tutorial -- specifically written for utilization of the Blogger API with Blazor Server. And start it, I did! But as you have probably noticed, it was never published. Not to make any excuses (if I may be honest, I am rather disappointed in myself), but life just got so out of hand.

First, I made the transition from Symetra to Blizzard Entertainment in November 2022. It had been a long-standing career goal of mine to enter the gaming industry and what a massive blessing to have made that leap with the Blizzard. I was (and still am) so incredibly grateful. Unfortunately, after the Microsoft acquisition last year, some roles had to be cut and mine was on the list; I was laid off this past January. The experience though, was immeasurable. I had so much fun and got to do a deep dive into Python, APIs, hardware, data manipulation, etc. I also, of course, met so many incredible people that I will be sure to carry with me moving forward. I am eternally thankful for all of it!

My personal life, though, has been a bit more difficult to process. Since my last post here, there has been so much loss in my family. In such a short time we have lost two aunts, two uncles, a cousin, and a grandmother. It felt like every other month someone was gone; I don't think I have ever been through so much heartbreak. 

Because of this, I can't say I have spent as much time updating my blog/website as I should have. A lot of things in my life have been put on hold (like house repairs, going back to school for a master's, etc.) I know there is a new Blazor Server bug introduced to my website (now updated to Blazor WebAssembly, but am still tinkering), for example, that I need to work on (it is a SignalR disconnection issue that forces the user to reload the page -- I deeply apologize if you have experienced this). Now that my schedule is a bit more open, I can try to fix that and restart my personal life again. Searching and applying for a new position is indeed a bit stressful, but I will make sure to keep my head up and use this extra bit of time wisely.

As for any more tutorials, I suppose I should remove the option from the "blog menu," so to speak, haha. I would love to post more of them, but I must be more honest with myself when it comes to my time going forward; I have so many plans and goals I want to achieve both in my career and personal life. I do, however, want to push myself to create more general posts here and keep this line of communication open (even if no one is actually reading this and I am just talking to myself 😂).

Here's hoping for a healthier year moving forward for all of us!

And We're Off!

 

amyshadixon.com is finally open for business -- if you're into the business of just reading and not buying anything that is (I don't know, maybe I'll have some random merch one day; I do indeed have the power to create stickers... Would anyone buy them, you ask?... Alas). 🤓 As promised, it is a custom-built skeleton site with a few basics, created with Blazor and .NET 6.0. Admittedly, it took a bit longer than I had hoped since it is now being hosted through Godaddy + Plesk instead of Azure. I loved Azure, but it was a pretty cool experience to try something new and a little bit lighter on the wallet. And I can say that I definitely learned quite a bit through the trial and error of trying to get the site up and running. 😂 

I have also knocked out a couple of Coursera courses as well! I currently have two down and two more to go of a full segment. Right now they are just refreshers in C# and Unity, but it is nice to re-practice some code and concepts I might have forgotten or just haven't gotten to use in some time. Along with these, I have been looking into online schools as well. Originally, I wanted to go for my master's, but now I am thinking more about doing another bachelor's. I do want to eventually go for my master's again, but I am wondering if it would be a better decision for me to take things a little more slowly and go the secondary route; I feel like I would learn and absorb way more content that way. The only issue is that a second bachelor's in my name wouldn't be nearly as cost-effective. Decisions, decisions.

Rambling aside, the point is that I have been making some light progress. I have a huge list of things to get done, including stuff for the house (I moved in back in November and still haven't painted anything or installed some much-needed shelves, curtains, etc. I am beginning to feel like I owe this house an apology...), more learning, and more coding. As such, my next post here will probably be the Blazor + Blogger API tutorial. I have already started planning it in my head, but I guess I should put it somewhere more accessible. That would be nice right? 😆

Guess it's full speed ahead! 

Burn Out

When was the last time I posted? I think it was 2020 -- over two years ago. 

Dear reader. 

I am tired and so burnt out, something I am sure a lot of people can resonate with right now. The pandemic is still going; in fact, it was my third Covid-19 birthday this year. A lot has happened in such a short, but extremely long, time. 

First off, I am still here at Symetra as an Associate Software Developer! ✌🏽😄 I am making sure to take advantage of the many opportunities Symetra has to offer. So far I have gained some hands-on experience in Angular, certificate management, AWS, Sharepoint, and even a bit of Google Analytics. In terms of soft skills, I have also been given several opportunities to lead interviews and sort through resumes for both incoming Symtra interns and full-time developers. Overall, it has been an amazing experience and I look forward to learning even more.

On the home front, I took in a new Samoyed puppy (although 1 year old now):

Her name is Turnip and she has definitely made the pandemic so much more bearable. She is a bit mischievous and a bit of a handful, but worth everything and more! So far she has been the "light at the end of the tunnel" each day. 😂

I also became a first-time homeowner! Since Symetra has been gracious enough to allow us to work from home permanently, I was able to widen my search and find a starter that both my family and I can enjoy. It was a perilous search, for sure -- the pandemic housing market was beyond unforgiving -- but after a year (yes, a year) of looking, 40+ applications, and endless rejections (well, I guess it did end eventually...), I was finally able to settle into my first home. One can say it has been a very busy and expensive ride.

And through it all, if I am going to be quite honest, it has been a lot. Dealing with the background stress of Covid-19 (being immunocompromised) all while finding a house, taking care of a puppy, working through the grief of loss, family illness, financial struggles, and moving forward down a fairly new career path, has taken a toll in a way that I never planned. And reader, I am so thankful for all of it (even through loss, I am so so happy to have known such incredible people in my life), so this is in no way a complaint. I just want to express the sheer magnitude of it all and how it became so easy to delay my goals and forget myself (or even this blog!).

Admittedly, I lost sight of all the things I wanted to accomplish and all of the material I wanted to take in (and hopefully master); I just lost focus. And while, yes, I am indeed still burnt out, I think I am starting to settle in and set sights on the future again. It's just one step at a time, right? 😌

So what am I working on?

I am currently converting my old personal website from React to Blazor (learning Blazor in the process) and am hoping to get it up and running within the next few weeks. I have some new ideas for it that may take longer to implement, but I want to at least get a functional and decent-looking skeleton up soon. My last website was hosted through Azure, but I am thinking about finding another, more cost-effective, option this time (I have a house now; I can't spend all willy-nilly!).

Goals for the soon-ish future?

I still so desperately want to get my masters, but as I mentioned before, I must consider my finances first. For now, I think I will stick to learning game development through Unity, perhaps on Coursera (post website deployment, of course). I have already taken some very small actions to get going again by investing in some Kickstarter projects to watch the process a little bit and get the proverbial programmer's blood pumping. I do say that it is working too; it has slowly been pushing me out of my burn-out slump. I am also hoping to be more active here on Blogger and am really thinking about posting a Blazor Server + Blogger API tutorial -- because why does everyone make it so complicated?! Learning on my own took a bit of looking around; I don't want anyone else to experience that much stress again 😂

Anyway, Tl; Dr: 

After a two-year hiatus and some heavy burnout, I can honestly say that I am finally looking forward to jumping in full force again.