Who is codingGinja?
- Hi, my name is Virginija Meilune. I introduce myself with silent “j” but my friends like to call me Ginja and hence the name of this blog.
- Lithuanian in Australia (6 years, hence, don’t judge my English pretty please).
- With husband and two kids (7 and 1).
- I came up with a name for the blog in a shower == best place for best ideas.
- Author of 4 novels (erotic if you must know, and no, you can’t read them unless you know Lithuanian).
- 10 years in Marketing; 2 years in Logistics and Customer Care; 1 year as Statistics Data Input officer.
- 2 Bachelor’s degrees: Cultural History and Anthropology; Economics; Diploma in Business.
- Freelancer in Web & Digital Design.
- Self-declared polymath or so-called Renaissance woman.
- And now a Software Engineer in training.
I am codingGinja, a nut who is transitioning careers to Software Engineering. I am 36 years old, yes, I do feel old to change my careers now, but not too old to study as I am a proud forever student, someone who believes in constant learning. To get to the Software Engineer title, I am using the self-taught route and Front-End Development as my starting point. Bouncing of my Web Design and Marketing experience I feel I can have baby steps with JavaScript. And hell, they are baby steps indeed, mainly because I have my actual baby to play with while I am trying to understand what’s the difference between == and ===, or var and let. Fun times…
How did I end up on this track? I believe that a lot of things were pointing me towards it since long ago. Since when I, as an eight-year-old, was playing with the computer at my mum’s workplace; it was unusual to have access to a computer in those days and in my country (just fresh after Soviet Occupation). Till the breakdown I had in 2020 when I realized, I don’t want another job in Marketing.
How did I end up with a life that looks like a tree branching out in different directions? Heck, do I know? Probably my ability to get interested and invested in various things. My primary teacher called me a Walking Encyclopedia because I was always very curious, I always wanted to experience things, to know more, to research, and to understand and I used to have a good memory for that (two kids later not so much anymore).
Why Software Engineering?
The title comes from the Australian Visa requirements. At some point this year we got to a big scare that my husband might not be able to ask for Permanent Residency visa for us to stay in Australia and we had to rethink what could help us (we have our lives here now and our kids don’t know anything else too, can’t imagine uprooting them from their friends, our friends, and having to move again). Looking through the Skills list for Australia I wondered how I can contribute to us staying here, and I can’t even remember when I realised that I should have gotten into Software Engineering career long ago, but once I did as if all my doubts about future and what I want from life have lifted. I never had a more freeing feeling in my life, suddenly everything started falling into place again, as if Universe itself has mastered all this plan just so I would get to the obvious conclusion I should have gone to years ago. Maybe I wouldn’t have done so much wandering in my life. And yet I believe I needed all of that experience so that my decision and determination would be so much stronger now. I don’t need to study for visa now, but it doesn’t alter my decision to change careers.
And yet even if I believe something guided me to this point, I am still scared like hell of what am I getting myself into. For me, this is the road less travelled by, and I feel a lot of resistance: fears that seed doubt and amotivation, and yet the unwillingness to proceed I used to have with some of my previous career choices has gone. Inside my heart I know that this is the road for me, that the plan I have in my heart is the right one. And I have power to stand against that resistance and persevere. This blog is a way of fighting my demons as much as putting down the things I learned so I can remember them better. If someone will find my journey close to their heart, I am happy to share it and I hope not to trash the overcrowded information age with my little journey blog.
Please don’t judge my English, I love this language but it isn’t my mother tongue even though I have spent the last 6 years in Australia and I have been consuming most of my content in English. I will get better, I promise.