<p><strong>FINAL Draft - Reflective Journal Week 5</strong></p>

<p>Week five has come and gone. We approached the midway point of The Iron Yard lectures, and having spent four weeks of non-stop work, study, frustration, and some accomplishment, it was stunning to recognize that our time here had gone so fast.</p>

<p>Generally, I have been so busy and immersed in the material that any time to reflect only presents itself in the form of our journal entries. A new reflection point emerged early in the week, as the cohort was presented with the choice of turning week five into a review week, or proceeding with the original plan of introducing new material and completing review week during week six. What to do?</p>

<p>Suddenly, this was a hard choice and the need to reflect and self evaluate was immediate. I initially embraced the idea of moving forward, but some self-doubt set in, and the thought of taking on a review was appealing. I was on the fence and wanted to gauge the feedback from the cohort. Ultimately, the decision was made to select week five as a review week. Turns out, review week was the most frustrating week since I started at The Iron Yard.</p>

<p>Frustration is very common in this program. It happens every hour of work and study. Certainly multiple times a day. I embraced the early review since I thought it would be an opportunity to boost my confidence and show progress in the core concepts of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Absent new material, this would be an opportunity to hone in on material I may have overlooked or hadn’t fully grasped. Not that it would be easy, but I thought, at least, that I could become more efficient in starting and completing the assignments. So wrong. So, so wrong.</p>

<p>I found myself making so many little mistakes - syntax errors, git errors, etc. - that took valuable time away from the review I wanted to accomplish. I was holding myself back and the realization that I was the cause of frustration - not the assignments or material - was difficult to accept. How could this be?</p>

<p>I have a high standard and want to complete quality work and do as much of it as possible. To not accomplish many of the tasks in my plan was disappointing. In comparison to week one, I have made progress. But at this point, are small errors acceptable? I feel like they are not. The bright side is that once I identified an error it took no time at all to correct it. The downside was that identifying these errors happened near our assignment deadline or during class, not when I needed it most the night before.</p>

<p>An infamous former coach of the Cleveland Browns said, “We made progress without winning, which means we didn’t make progress.” I am not sure that is possible but I still laugh at that comment. Week five was no laughing matter. I can do better. I need to do better.</p>
