I DID IT!
We all have had a time where we wanted to just throw in the towel and give up. We’ll I was at that point!
How it all went down!
Learning JavaScript is very up and down like a roller coaster ride. At first it seemed like ok I can do this. It should be no problem I can learn this and then the most stressful situation comes up. That is where I found myself in this latest project.
I started off with really good ideas and really did some great planning with my structure on my HTML and CSS. The code I thought would be a little complicated and looking for an API would be a challenge but I thought it wouldn’t be that bad. Boy was I in for a surprise! I even had a backup project. My first project was going to be Winter Wonderland. A site like Pandora but only for Christmas music. The CSS was so amazing I had to pat myself on the back. The HTML was also good. So now here is where the trouble came in.
API’s what can I say… Wow! What a hard time with API’s I had! Not only was I going through a hard time with finding out my cousin just passed away from cancer on April 26th, 2021. I couldn’t for the life of me find a music API that worked without a key or a token. I searched everywhere. After I heard the news about my cousin passing I was distraught and didn’t even go to work the next day. I eventually pulled myself together that Saturday afternoon and tried to focus on my project again.
When it rains it pours!
As I was still searching for a good API, I found a site that seemed to be an ok site to get the API from. Boy was I wrong! Not only did this site not have a working API, it gave my computer a little somethin’, somethin’. I kept getting popups of virus protection messages saying my computer was attacked by a virus and these popups were persistent. I tried to catch the virus with the antivirus software I already had on my computer but that didn’t work. By the way, I already knew that those antivirus popups WERE the virus. I ended up starting my computer over and trying to restart it only to find out I couldn’t restart my computer. I could not believe this! Why! I was already having trouble with knowing how to put the code together and searching for API’s, now this?!? I just could not win for loosing! I already felt dyslexic when it came to putting code together, now I have bigger fish to fry. After resetting my computer I found that I had none of my assignments on my computer, and yes of course that included my project! I didn’t even save it because I thought I was suppose to save and host it on Netlify and I didn’t know how to do that just yet. So I said to myself forget it I’m done for the night and went to sleep because my brain couldn’t take anymore.
Starting Over!
I was way behind and I knew I couldn’t get done with my project in time. First off I had to reinstall all my Ubuntu and Visual studio code and everything else that we installed to get our coding environment. That took all day. When I finally started on my project I was exhausted. While redoing my project all the way from the beginning my class was drawing nearer. I had only my HTML and my CSS working again and still no functional code and definitely no API. So I decided to talk to my teacher because I tried getting help from all other sources but no such luck. I sat in class and was in the middle of class when my sister rings the my cell phone. I didn’t answer. She then rings the house phone and my daughter picked up. She like usual wants someone to babysit. This was a definite NO! My daughters were going out and he is not the most well behaved kid at all. In fact I couldn’t even listen to a class recording because of his behavior in a previous time that he was over. My daughter obviously said no. So I thought everything was cool and I was going to talk to my teacher before the zoom meeting ended since this seemed to be my last resort.
Another Surprise!
NEAR THE END OF CLASS! My sister rings the doorbell and one of my daughters asked if she should answer it. I said yes and tell her she can’t leave her son here. So my daughter opens up the door and my sister barges in with her son saying that she needs me to watch her son. I told her no because I’m in class and my daughters are going out with their friends. Plus last time I was in class he was not behaving. She tried to argue that he was going to behave and I said no. So she left. As she left so did my class! I was furious! I have been waiting patiently for class to end and all for nothing.
An Almost Hopeless Attempt
I didn’t know what to do I was crying and upset. I then tried to email the teacher. I didn’t see a response. My friend Cordilia called me and I started pouring all that happened out to her. As I did, I looked online and saw that the teacher had responded and sent a zoom link. I missed the meeting telling my friend what was going on so I contacted him again by email. This time he set an appointment for an hour in advance. I felt the light at the end of the tunnel. I finally was able to tell the teacher what I was going through and get some help. He liked my CSS and thought it would be good if I can get the coding part down to go along with it BUT, also I was doing a project that might be way too much for me as we were not that advanced in JavaScript yet and I may need to start with something simpler, like just getting the album cover from an API. I settled for this notion and started just looking for API’s for album covers and artist info.
Still Not Happening!
It had been all week I still hadn’t found a working API and I finally tried following a code from the jam sessions that the teacher posted. I tried and tried but nope couldn’t do it. I started feeling defeated and started drifting from doing my project with my mind being pulled away with this funeral that landed on my birthday, which by the way is today, and the funeral is at 10. What a way to spend my birthday. Right! I just about gave up hope. But wait! I remember! Jeramiah! He always looked like he knew what he was doing! Maybe he could help me! So I messaged him on Slack. I asked him if he and I could meet in a zoom meeting because I needed help and I was way behind. He was willing to help. He tried to figure out what to do to get my API to work but he couldn’t. We tried different API’s. Finally he said “I hate to tell you this but you might have to do an easier project.” I was sad to hear this because my work that I put into it was so amazing. How could I possibly restart again! But at last I knew it had to be done.
On To The Next One!
I remembered I had a backup project ideal but Jeramiah already had pulled up other API’s that, some I liked and some I didn’t. So we tried to use the puppies API and the Kitties API and one didn’t work and the other took too long to work. He finally told me that I should do the quote API and I was sad. I didn’t like the fact that it was already what the teacher did in class and what Jerimiah also did and now ME! No originality at all! He explained that I still can do it differently. Give it something that the others don’t have. He explained that since I was really good at CSS I could make it my own that way. Besides its either get the project done or fail the class. I still was not ok with this but what else could I do. With his words still ringing in my head we worked on the project. Bingo a working code!
Add a touch of me!
now that I got my code to work I wanted a background. Something neat. Maybe a image background that changes! YES! Now we’re talking. Jeramiah had to go so I was on my own. I wanted my background to change along with my quotes so I tried to figure out how to do it. At first I tried copying and tweaking the code for the quotes and running it for the Unsplash API but that didn’t work. So then I googled how to use the Unsplash API. None of this worked. I finally had the bright ideal to maybe add it as a background image the way you normally do… By using in the link in the styles.CSS code. So there you have it. My project was a success! Oh but the letters on the page! I can’t see them. Well I can fix that! And so I did. Now my code is working, I have colorful words, and a great background!
Now Here We Are!
It had been torture. An almost quitting, almost defeated, almost hopeless feat but I made it. I am glad and proud to have been able to make it through this exhausting and sheer pain staking ordeal but I made it. And now I can face another adventure that will make my head spin!
