At the moment, I have a website that I'm working on. I'm generally terrified of speaking publicly about it, since I'm taking my time with it, and anyone here would consider it a weekend project. Since it's the first major project I've undertaken, I'm absolutely paralyzed by design considerations, etc. since privately I'm quite the perfectionist. When I'm working for someone else, I know I don't have the luxury of being a perfectionist, so I've learned to make the necessary tradeoffs, but privately it doesn't work that way.

I want to be able to leverage this project to get a proper job ("hey look at this! I've shipped something!"), so that just drives my paranoia into overdrive. Literally hours spent messing about with colours ("Is this yellow ok, or should it be more muted?"), rather than coding an extra feature. The colour point is rather moot anyway, since I've got a touch of ye olde colourblindness.

I think I should set a target - I'll have it online by... the end of next week! We'll see how I do.

The rest of my, shall we say, "vacation" has been spent

a) terrified that I'll never get a job again:

I'd spent three years in COBOL-land and any pretense of actual skill had long since rusted over. I had pretty much no inclination to code anything after work, since the job sapped my energy so well.

Even before that job, I still didn't think I was really any good. A programmer-turned-sysadmin friend of mine from college seems to think I'm good. When he moved to England, he said something about maybe recommending me for the job he was leaving. When I expressed these concerns, he said I was smart and could pick things up fast, had faith in me, etc. Unfortunately, my self-esteem sucks, and it's reflected in the projects I start.

I tried to teach myself C#, Java, some python.. but I got so caught up in the details that I didn't get anywhere. I wasn't creative enough to come up with a solid "use it in anger" project, so I'd just give up.

Now, I've got the aforementioned web project, and I'm teaching myself PHP to get it done, but I still feel like a pretender.

b) RSI.

I had started seriously learning from UNSW's YouTube videos, and was reading lots of books, taking notes, etc. when my arm was engulfed in pain. For a couple months, I didn't type much, didn't do much.. I was convinced I was royally screwed and would never be able to code again... at age 25. The pain has mostly gone - I've typed this whole thing without pain - but it does come back from time to time, though the same friend I mentioned earlier is convinced it's psychosomatic at this point. He's probably right, to be honest.

c) Job offer.

I signed a conditional offer back in February, to do a job horribly similar to my last job. I figured I could take that job and use the money from it to take courses, etc. I thought the structure would help me maintain enough inertia. Instead, the job fell through when that company didn't get the contract they were hiring for. It took until June to get that notice. I'd used it as an excuse for being lazy during that time, thinking the problem was solved when it wasn't. Incidentally, the RSI started about the same time the job fell through, thus strengthening the case for the RSI being psychosomatic.

Sorry for ranting, but when I started writing this, I got self-conscious about how lazy/incompetent/whatever I am, and I think I'm being defensive when it isn't necessarily called for. I just.. I don't think things are actually going to work out, and it occasionally makes me contemplate suicide. I need to catch a break, but I haven't earned it yet.

/rant