Week 6 @ Formation (Week 24 of Tech Journey!)

Hello World! I wanted to just post from the heart on this blog. It's been a great week, I can feel the fall season coming upon us, and football season, so these are all good signs for me! My son plays varisty RB for his school and they are starting off their new season under a new head coach! I am optimistic they will do well. My son Elijah is 16 these days, he wants to study Computer Science and play football at TEH UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA! Like pretty much anyone in the world right now, would play at Alabama! Hahaha.... My mother's birthday was August 13, she went out of town, so tomorrow we will take her to dinner somewhere in Pittsburgh! Exciting things happening!

I was very fortunate at Formation this week. I got a 1 on 1 with a Senior Amazon Engineer, and got a taste of WORK! I met a guy by the name of Victor Moreno. He took the time out to school me 1 on 1 with a particular problem that Formation gives us, that can be pretty tricky, using Hash Maps. Victor wanted perfection from me, and demanded it with fashion and grace. The reason this was my best session thus far, is because, Victor, on Monday had messaged our group session and apologized to us, because he had to reschedule as his mother was being hospitalized. So Wednesday, I'd imagine he was going through a rough batch, and I told him it's no big deal, if he did not want to have the session, he insisted we move on. No one else showed, so I got lucky, and Victor was not easy on me, it made me so much better as an engineer. He gave me so many tips that you can't buy from the store, or find online.... Everything had to be sharp. I won't share those secrets, but this is the power of Formation! He made it feel like he cared so much for me to get this concept, we had to off worked on this problem for about an 1 hour or so, and then we talked for a while afterwards. He is such a great person, and his daughter walks in on meetings, just like mines! He seeems to be a great father, and family person, as one day, I want to be like Victor! Not to mention, he did all this while his mother is experiencing health concerns? Some people are just amazing spirits. God works in these mysterious ways. THANKS VICTOR!

I failed my Hash Structure assessment, well, mainly because of timing, not that I haven't progressed. I love hashing, the concept of hashing, I read and watched lots of different material, trying to see the different approaches, and it's one of the best data structures we can use. We can average just about o(1) constant time on most operations, I believe all. In a session with Linked List, another good mentor I had, Tony Nguyen, reminded me, do not forget about Hash Maps. These things are like finding health in an adventure game. I am confident that I will pass my hash structures assessment next week. I dabbled a little with Linked List, but I am moving slow, trying to grasp things best as I can, I will study this stuff until I die regardless. It's such a great task to keep your mind sharp... learning Data Structures and Algorithms, you can never get enough!
Elijah, 2022, Lincoln Wolverines RB.

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