Halfway in my New York adventure! What’s up so far?
Time to cry… We’re already halfway through the adventure! It’s been incredible so far and I don’t regret a single minute (or dollar) of this opportunity! I’m still surprised how much I learn every day at my internship. If I look back at my web development skills when I started here in New York and now… You could say I didn’t knew what I was doing. There are still three more months to go, so let’s do it!
First things first
Already halfway into my internship. This means that I have still three months left and then what? For the moment it is impossible for me to stay in New York to work here. The Visa prices are insane and they’re not even guaranteed. I think I looked up every visa there is. H1B, O, F, E, B, J1, … but none of them fit in my budget. This means I just go home after my internship and I’ll try my chances in the next few years. Let me gather some working experiences in Belgium first!
Another thing I’ve learned at my internship, is that if you want to be the best… You need to come to the States. All the big players are here. I’m really happy that I set the bar so high while I was applying for an internship. And I’m really lucky that I stranded at Night Owls! I love every minute I’m at work!
Some technical stuff
I applied for a front-end internship and I received more than I expected. My job as a front-end developer here is to create a working WordPress template from an Invision design. I didn’t thought that I would learn some new things in html or css, but I did learn some crazy tricks! Besides that I learned the most new stuff in vanilla javascript and jQuery. we don’t use external libraries, so we have full control of all the functionality and plugins we write. This is why I learned so much new stuff in javascript. I really fell in love with it and I would love to continue my journey as a Javascript and Angular developer.
All the websites that we built at Night Owls are build on WordPress. This means that I also need to program some functionalities of the website in PHP, which is a back-end language. Because you can’t see PHP-code in your browser, but it get’s stuff from the database that’s behind the beautiful website. Last week I needed to write a lot of functionalities in PHP as well, and guess what? I fell in love with PHP too…
Between my work and the extra work I get from my school, I’m still working on freelance projects from Belgium as well. Those freelance projects help me financing this whole adventure for me. This is only possible for me to do with the help of my amigo and colleague Yannick in Belgium. It’s a new adventure for us both, because I’m six hours behind on Belgium. But so far so good, except some sleepless nights everything still went smoothly!
What about New York?
What about it? Nothing special to see here. Skyline New York? Boring. Times Square? Boring.. Central Park? Boring… 5th Avenue? Guess what. I’m joking! I’m still impressed by everything this city has to offer! The Skyline is crazy! As well during the day as during the night. Whenever I’m admiring the Skyline and I ask my New York friends if they’re also impressed by it or not, they tell me they are not. But I guess if you’re born here you do see it almost every day of your life. They’re not planning on leaving New York any time soon, so I think I can understand them. But anyhow, I’m still drooling when I’m sightseeing the city of New York.
Let me think about some typical New York things… The famous yellow cabs of course (which they are changing to green at the moment…). The subway with all the street artists is something typical as well I guess. The people here also like to talk hands-free on the phone while they are walking, which still surprises me when the person next to me on the subway suddenly starts talking on the phone for the whole cart. People in the city are also very helpful. If you’re looking at the map on your phone for 2 minutes, chances are high there will be someone that’ll ask you if you need help to get somewhere. The chances of a homeless guy asking you for money is also relatively high. But I don’t have any money myself, so I can’t give them something. But they give me an uncomfortable feeling, because I’ll feel bad for not giving anything.
Something else?
Something I don’t like maybe? Yes! But there’s only one thing really. I don’t like the tipping system… at all. I think it’s good in some cases, like a delivery guy of 60 years old who delivers your pizza through a snowstorm. Be sure to tip him! But if you sit at the bar, where no service is provided and they just need to tap your drink… I don’t want to tip a phenomenal amount for that. Well I guess I’m starting to get used to it by now.
All righty, three more months to go!
Let’s see how they will fly by.
Cheers hombres x