I think I'm studying harder than I was back in my high school when I was doing IB diploma. For real. I have not ever studied like this in my life like this.
I go to a dokseosil almost everyday to study. I eat, I study. I take a short break. I start again. Infinite loop of that. I've been watching online lectures (thanks to the advent of MOOC) on udemy. As of now, I've taken 70 videos, and it took 5 days (from this Monday to Friday) to complete that. I really have got no time. Going back to the lecture again.
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started a free video course on CCNA. I really don't have a time-max four weeks.
bought a book on CCNA, 700 pages long. No time to play around. Dear pastor David,
Hi, it’s Joel-the guy you met at Soongsil University about a couple of weeks ago (hopefully you remember me…). Well, unfortunately, this is not an email to ask you about a question as I told you I was going to. But fortunately enough, this is an email that I send you because I want to share something that I got to deal with after I listened to your short sermon as well as other keynotes at Soongsil. So, before coming to ABSK conference, this was the fundamental problem for me: it is true that I have to have God as my first priority in my life, but it is also true that I have to work hard, and maintain human relationships, and do other things and so on, just like what the skit team showed to us(AKA keeping all the plates spinning), but doing all these are just too hard and in actuality, we cannot just do them all perfectly. So I went to the ABSK conference and asked a question about such problem that I had, and I had got several clear answers but to be honest, they did not really satisfy me to mark this question as ‘resolved’. And the conference was over. And this may sound like a whole new story, but it’s very relevant to the flow of the previous paragraphs, so please read on. So I am dreaming of becoming a full-stack developer, with a lot of knowledge in UI/UX design. And certainly, there are lots of bootcamps these days to kickstart aspiring individuals by teaching them how to program, (or how to program better), especially in the US, as you might have heard of. There are a handful of good bootcamps in Korea too. And I am only a student who just finished a second year at university, so by no chance I would have good working experiences in programming fields or hands-on programming skills for real work environments. And then I saw, one day in early May, that there will be a great coding bootcamp going on from July 3 to August 31. So obviously, I applied for it, then was admitted for the first phase, and then took an online coding test two days ago which was pretty easy for me (well yeah, I’m still a CS student). And now (assuming that I am admitted for the second phase update: I actually got admitted) the last phase of the application will be the face-to-face interview in person. If I get admitted for the interview, I get into that coding bootcamp. I really wanted, and want to go there, not just because of the fact that it is a great chance for me to boost up my skills for my career, but also because of the fact that it is probably the best coding bootcamp in Korea: yes. I was on the verge of getting into the bootcamp that is offered by one of the best startups in Korea and taught in affiliation with ex-Naver workers and such (Naver is the top IT company in Korea, so you can just think of it as Google for the US). So in other words, I will learn just about everything that is needed for my future career from the bootcamp and everything will be fine then. And I was pretty confident for the in-person interview as well, because I have been preparing hard for this kind of opportunities in advance. Oh, and one last thing: this bootcamp is a real bootcamp-if I get admitted, I would be paid 1,500,000 KRW monthly and be taught from 9AM to 6PM for weekdays, and of course I am not allowed to miss even just one day, because a lot of people (probably I guess hundreds) were desiring for the bootcamp and I would be the one who is selected for it (only 20-30 people are selected). But today, during the morning prayer at my church, I have decided to drop myself off from the bootcamp for the retreat. So my church, as I have told you so before, is kind of very passionate on learning God’s words, very faithful on prayers and so on. And every summer and winter of a year, we have a two-weeks long church retreat. The retreat will go on from June 26 to July 8 this summer, and that will make the 5th time of me going to the retreat. And it’s probably not the image of the ‘loose' retreat that you are thinking of, because at the retreat, we pray for like two hours, study and share the Bible with one another for hours, worship, take a rest some time taking a nap or walk, and sleep at the right time. All this happens daily, for two weeks. And the church has been doing this every year ever since it was founded-perhaps for more than 10 years. (And for your information, in the early years of the church, the retreat was a month long so that we could really dive into the Bible and apply what we learned from the Bible). And specially for this occasion, I was asked to serve the worship team to play a guitar. Do you see what would have been going on in my mind for a month since I applied for the bootcamp? Yes. It’s bootcamp vs retreat. The dates for bootcamp and retreat overlap on each other, so I would have to choose only one of them, or I would miss the second week for the retreat to join the bootcamp from July 3. I was very confused what to do, because the bootcamp was not only just about the bootcamp itself: if I get admitted and finish the course from there, I would have a wide range of good career opportunities, and also it’d put me at a strategic position to advertise myself as a good and recognised programmer when I have an interview for software development for the military, and build human connections with top tech people, and so on… just the biggest (worldly) success ever since I would make in my life (for real). So initially, I decided secretly in my mind to miss the second week of the church retreat. No problem, right? You know, focus on God for a week, and then go back to the work after that, be a cool tech guy, serve God well afterwards as well. Get all the plates spinning. But I live close to my church, so almost all weekdays, I wake up in dawn to go to church to do morning prayer. And of course, one of the prayer items was on this: ‘Lord, I mean, if I get admitted, I get money to pay back for my flats, and I can spend money on other things more freely without having to rely on my parents anymore, and I will learn all the programming languages like NodeJS and whatnot, and it will be so great for me in pursuing future career path.’ But for some reason, I had a bit of conscience before the Lord, so my prayer usually went on like this after saying that: ‘but Lord, that’s only my thought, and your thought might be different. So, if you find going to the bootcamp not good, please drop me off from the online coding test or in-person interview. That way, I could know what your thoughts are, because obviously you are not going to tell me in person what to do as you have not doing so until now.’ And then, as usual, I woke up in this morning, but some thought just struck my head: ‘What would I do if I value God the most?’ I was not really thinking deep into this until then. I was of course aware of that I have to value God the most, but I thought missing the second of the retreat would be a no problem to that. But what would I be supposed to do if I value God the most? Wouldn’t it be going to the retreat for full two weeks?? But then my brain shut that stream of thought, perhaps it was too complicated for it to maintain processing it. But it kept popping up in my head all the way from my flat to the church, going for the morning prayer, but I was yet to recognise what the real thing that I had to grasp is. After I entered the church and sat down to listen to the sermon and pray, I could not just concentrate on anything but that thought. That thought just entirely embraced me. And I came to think about the moment that I had given up something for God, because I valued God the most: To make the long story short, I was very passionate for God. And it was Sunday on which I reserved a seat for a flight in the morning from Korea to Hong Kong, at like 10AM. My mom told me to just miss the service at church and just go back, but I thought, if God is my first priority, I should, or more likely, must, miss the flight and go for Sunday service if that’s the only possible way to have the service. Alternatively, I also thought I could maybe find the church that offers the earliest service in Sunday morning, and try my best to get to the airport, but if the flight is gone before I arrive at the airport, God would do something for me. So I searched on the Internet and found a church that starts the service at 7:30AM (still late for me), but anyways I had a service at that church, finished the service at like 8:30AM and rushed to the airport. Surprisingly enough, when I got to the airport, it was about 9:30 AM and I sent off my baggage, got my tickets and do the immigration stuff as fast as possible (it was being announced at the airport that the check-in procedure for my flight was closing), and I could arrive at the gate in time, and moreover the flight was delayed for 40 mins when I just arrived at the gate. I thanked God. And then I woke up from that remembrance. And by then, I suddenly thought, ‘why am I trying to achieve some success on my own here? If God wants me to sit at a developer position at Naver or even Google, He could just let me do so it in a sec because He is the King of the kings all over this Universe. But I am missing the retreat and trying to do that on my own? Am I making any room for God to actually work or show himself here? Ok. So if I give up one some things that I desire (money, human connections, fully open career path, …), and instead go for the church retreat, it’s okay already because He’s got my back, and that’s already the greatest support, power and potential I can have in this world, more than money, more than human connections, more than the open and opportune career path. If I drop myself off from the bootcamp and fully pursue the Lord, and if I have some problem in my career or if I have some problem in finance, well, now I do not have to worry about them: Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. (Luke 12:26-31) What was I valuing most? If the church retreat for two weeks was equivalent to having a one-to-one lesson from Obama for two weeks, would I still miss Obama for one week and instead go for the bootcamp? Or, as another comparison, if I am offered a position at Harvard to research some high tech stuff for two years (not weeks) with full coverage of living expenses and so on, would I forsake that for the bootcamp? But it’s the greatest chance in my life to focus on God only for two weeks, and God is the only supreme one all over this world. In other words, He’s the greatest thing that I could ever experience. Now the equality is set correctly: God > everything else. If He’s the one I am loving the most, I would definitely forsake anything else to go for Him, and in doing so, I would rely on Him, and He would give me things that I forsook. And that’s still okay, if he would not give me things that I forsook, because I would have already enjoyed enough. So I am about to send an email to the bootcamp team to ask them to drop me off from the bootcamp. My career, my finance, my human connections, the ‘my stuffs’ are not the things that I should care about anymore. It’s only my Lord, my God who I have to care about, who will take care of the rest of my life instead. He will take care of my software development position at military (and as I said, it’s okay even if I don’t get accepted for that, because I’m already satisfied that I chose God), and he will take care of my career path. I put everything aside, and decide to follow God as the first thing in my life (and of course do my best at other things like studying as lower priorities). I will keep going to Sunday service in the morning even if I have a flight scheduled in Sunday morning. I will keep choosing to meet God even if I have a conflicting schedule with the best bootcamp in Korea. Please, I ask you to pray for me so that I could live my life in such way of valuing God most. I feel very grateful for God and you also, because your sermon especially reminded me of the things that were crucial in making the determination. As you said, only God knows when we are going to die, and if I die tomorrow, all my achievements will only be vain. I will not chase after the ‘Francs’, but the ‘Euros’ of my life. I will follow the master of my life, my Lord. : ) P.S. I’m sorry for such a long mail and there may be some grammatical errors in it because I cannot proofread them-my eyes hurt too much writing this long long email. Please understand them for me ; ) 쉬웠다. 쉬웠다. 예상보다 훨씬 쉬웠다. Time Complexity에 신경써서 문제 풀이를 준비했었는데 그런 건 별로 중요하지 않았던 거 같다. 문제의 난이도를 보아하니 얘가 프로그래밍의 기초가 있는지를 그냥 확인하신다는 생각이 들었다. 그래서 더 많이 체크했다..ㅋㅋ codility.com은 되게 edge case를 손질해야 되는 문제를 자주 줘서 테스트 케이스를 한 백 개는 테스트해 본 거 같다. 2-3시간 안에 문제 대충 다 끝내고 나머지 시간은 쫄려서 submit test는 못하고 계속 확인만 했다는... 연락 온라인 코딩 테스트 친 지 정확히 이틀만에 우아한형제들에서 문자가 왔다. 다음주 면접이라고.
면접은 문자로 연락이 오네. [Web 발신]이라고 뜨지만 친절하시군.. 근데 어쩐다. 언제 말씀드려야 되지? 난 어차피 못 간다고.. 교회 수련회때문에 취소해야되는데 이거 So I got an invitation to the online coding test from WooWaHanBrothers after getting admitted to the first batch of applications (for the first batch, they only looked at the documents like resume and statement of purpose). And then I kept practicing on codility.com because that's where I'm going to take the test.
.... Well, to be honest, first of all, because I haven't taken any data structures/algorithm classes in the university yet, I struggled a bit at first, because all the questions on codility.com are marked based on correctness and time&space complexity. So I'm still working on them. I'm trying to solve all of them, actually. The sample questions provided. They range up to about 30-40 questions, I think. |