We’re here for the second weekly installment of what I got up to this week!
Shaders (again)
So last week, I mentioned working on the shader. I’m still working on that, playing around with shader math and getting more familiar with those functions and just the thinking that goes into constructing visuals with mathematical primitives. I’ve been learning a bit about randomness and noise, once again from the excellent book of shaders.
Here are some screenshots of the as-yet-unpublished shaders.
An in-progress shader that makes use of 2d noise to produce more organic, wobbly looking edges
Another in-progress shader that makes use of 2d noise to produce an effect inspired by the shapes and movements of cells
I also ended up adding a few features to the website, including a reorganization of the UI and a screenshot button to make it easier to capture images of the shaders in action that, among other things, make it easier to capture images for this blog entry.
Rejections
So I’m currently in the process of looking for another software job, but this time in Canada. I am a bit too wary of the current situation ™️ in The U.S. to feel that it’s safe or otherwise advisable to be seeking to immigrate there (again, not that it was safe the first time around, but it’s a matter of degree).
To that end, that means sending my resume out into the void and grovelling to be noticed by whichever hiring manager is running the show at the companies I apply to. This often means getting ghosted, or an automated email to let you know that “We are carefully reviewing each application” or, if you’re lucky, a flat out rejection letting you know you didn’t make the cut. In the exceedingly rare case that you do make the cut, tech interviewing has evolved, in large part because of the tech oligarchs of the day, to be a long and draining series of humiliation rituals to prove that you have a stomach for bullshit.
I was fortunate enough to make it to a technical screen for a large payment processor that will remain unnamed here. I was excited at the prospect, so, in my usual fashion, began preparing for it by returning to that long-forsaken stomping ground of undergraduate software engineering ambition: Hackerrank. This wasn’t a decision that came out of nowhere: the technical screen was to be hosted on Hackerrank so I thought it might be prudent to both refamiliarize myself with the kind of thinking I’d need as well as to get accustomed to the user interface of the long-forsaken land overly complicated software puzzles.
I spent a few days brushing up on my problem solving and finally decided to get the technical screen out of the way. Despite my preparation though, when I came to the question, I froze. There was nothing particularly difficult about the question itself – a problem about log event detection and filtering – but I found myself utterly mentally paralyzed, watching in horror and frustration as the seconds ticked down while my mind did its best impression of an old CRT with a bad antenna.
Actual recording of my mind for the first 45 minutes of the technical screen
It wasn’t until the last 15 minutes of the technical screen that the paralysis abated and by that point, the clarity I had on the question was pretty much useless since I had no time to actually implement the solution.
All told, it was a supremely upsetting experience and likely a result of my putting too much weight on the importance of that one interview. I am trying to give myself grace for that, but the weight of still being unemployed, still living with my mom, still being closeted, all of it is bearing down on on me in a way that hasn’t necessarily been surfacing on a day to day basis because my default coping mechanism seems to be to project myself about 5cm to the left and proceed through the day like a slightly out-of-sync ghost. For better or for worse, the pain of bombing that tech screen snapped me back into myself for a little bit.
About a week after that, the expected email came in. I wasn’t going to be proceeding to the next round. Go figure, onto the next one. Not long after that though, I got another rejection letter from a different company and decided that I had to do something with the feelings that were accumulating, so I did this:
A screenshot from an in-progress website where I’ll be displaying blackout poems made from job rejection emails
So that’s another website in progress. I’m genuinely excited about that one and curious to see where I take it and what I can make with it.
Life really is funny that way. If you told me a couple years ago that not only would my main professional software experience be in JavaScript, but also that I was developing a strong and persistent interest in front-end web development as a means of personal expression, I would have told you you were crazy, but look at me now: Several websites in progress and looking like more on the way on a daily basis.
New Aspirations
Continuing the theme of surprising personal developments, I’m… looking at grad school. Between (what feels like) my current stagnation as a professional, the fact I just need to get out of here and my recent reflections on my undergraduates studies, I’m increasingly seeing grad school as a potential next step. And what’s remarkable is that assessment isn’t just coming from a viability-centred point of view, but also a genuine desire to become more educated. When I look back at my undergraduate study, the fact of the matter is that for a number of reasons, some within and others without my control, I spent undergrad with the explicit goal of surviving and getting a job. I was never really there to learn for my own sake. I very much was in the headspace of someone who had spent their whole life sacrificing their entire selfhood on the altar of achievement and, having made it to what I was working for that whole time, was starting to visibly crack under the pressure of it all.
Put simply I needed a break and that break did come when I had my little menty b last year. Having had said break, I realize ways in which I find myself wishing I knew more about a number of things, wishing I was in a position to be able to contribute more to the knowledge base in a number of fields as well as to create more art. I suppose that what I’m trying to say is that I’m feeling ambitious. The foreignness of that feeling must seem very strange from the outside as much of my life has been marked by external achievement, following the straight (ha) and narrow path to a life of comfort and privilege, but the fact is that if you’re not doing it for yourself, no matter how far down that road you walk, it will feel empty.
All told, I’m both excited and scared for this new development. It’s good that I’ve found something else that I Want. Now the hard part, letting myself continue to feel the want and acting on it.
I hope that some of my future weekly entries will talk about my applications and hopefully even acceptances. Here’s to trying.