Introduction

Here we go, since this is my first post I'm going to present myself. My name is Raúl and I was born in Algeciras (Cádiz), maybe you wonder where is this place, it's at the end of the world,at least that's how I feel. Actually, it's at the end of Spain, just the last spot before taking a ferry to Africa. The end of Andalusia, the cross between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Right now I'm 33 years old and I'm living in a town a little bit more famous, Barcelona. Such a great city, but as all big cities is more intense and difficult. It's an expensive one too and you've got to work a lot, but It's also rewarding when you are looking for inspiring stuff.

When I was a teenager, back in the Geocities and Soulseek days, I used to make a punk rock webzine and began to learn basic HTML, it was a fun time. I knew a lot of people and my site was going great, I kept working on it for almost 3 or 4 years but then when the days of Blogspot were coming sooner or later I stopped and I forgot about web development until a year ago. In the mid time I made my studies at University, a degree in Library Sciences, I met my girlfriend and I played in some punk rock bands. I never worked as a librarian, instead when I moved to Barcelona looking for better oportunities I started working in a spanish bank, It was a fun time really, I never though I could enjoy it but I did, my work colleagues were great, I was very good at it and I got a lot of good memories but after some time the work itself became monotonous and I was looking for a change but I just didn't know what to do.

One day looking at random stuff on the Internet I read in 2018 (or a bit earlier, I don't really remember) that Windows Vista was coming out of support. I hated that, I had my laptop since almost 10 years ago, it still worked ok for what I was doing back then so I began to think what I could do. I was broke at the time and there were no chance that I was buying a new one, I also didn't want to, so I though about installing another OS.

After some time I decided to try Linux, I decided to go with Linux Mint XFCE, and I loved it, it really changed me, for some days I felt like a hacker with this beautiful Terminal thing, after some months I began to be more in control and I wanted more, more time in the Terminal, more stuff to learn, I needed coding so I decided maybe I had to learn a programming language. So I became in the search and decided the obvious, JavaScript seemed a good choice for a newbie. I already knew some basic html so It couldn't be that hard, and I liked making webs. I played around with Codecademy, it felt really good. I decided to go all by myself but after some months I realized I couldn't do it, I had very little free time and some days I was tired to keep going after work. I read a lot about all this bootcamps thing, It was scary, maybe it couldn't work but at the end of the day I jumped on the wagon. I entered at Ironhack, it was such a good and fun time. I studied a lot, I learnt a lot and just some weeks after finishing I began to work as a React / Redux frontend developer.

It was so scary, I had a basic level, I could handle the tasks but it was estressing. Now after 6 months I feel I made the right choice. I love coding, I love React and it's whole ecosystem, I love also
the whole community around it. I play with Gatsby in my freetime, I play with React, Redux at work and a lot of Canvas too, I also play with a lot of Javascript OOP. I'm still reading and learning everyday.
I'm getting great skills and doing things I couldn't dream about just one year ago. Such an excinting time, I even love CSS. Now I want to participate on this great community too, I want to return back to the community all I took, I want to try to help others with my writings.

So here I am, making a big change on my 30s. I guess nowadays it happens a lot but I feel proud about it. Never is too late.

See you on the next post.

Soundtrack while writing : Reigning Sound - Too Much Guitar.