Hi, I'm Zainab Fahim here. A 20 year old in-nine-days. Currently following the undergraduate degree program for Computer Science at IIT Sri Lanka, in affiliation with the university of Westminster

Description

Within me runs the blood of a Sri Lankan. Within me runs the blood of a survivor. Within me runs the blood of an artist. Within me runs the blood of all the people I've met.

ReadMe

To understand my code base, you need to go to my root directory. Both my parents are doctors, and I thought, scratch that, I knew, believed my destiny was to be a doctor as well. That worked well because that's what's the best you could ask for right? So I worked hard in school, I didn't think extra curricular activities were important, I opted for subjects only related to the medical field. I never knew the pain of not knowing your purpose, of being indecisive, of 'what next?' var me = wellDefined

All of the decisions that had to be made, pointed in unison to one goal. Get into med school. Be a child worthy of your parents. My obsession didn't let me ponder on plan B. Because think about it, I was a obedient, spiritual, hard-working child. Doesn't the world run like that? Do good, and good will be done onto you. do_good = good_done_unto_you

Except it didn't, I missed out on opportunities even though I gave my best, good wasn't considered cool, good wasn't making me feel good, so much didn't add up.

Error404(){
message="That's not how life works";
};

Needless to say my world was collapsing. I'd say that's the hardest time of my life. Things happened later on, but nothing comes close to that.

I think, we take adulthood too lightly. Especially that period of transitioning. Where real life doesn't meet what you've known your entire life. The whole system of morals and what is actually valued, of what's supposed to happen and what actually happens, of supposed reality and reality.

They said I wasn't up to get into medical school, that the stress of med-school will only make it all worse. Though I didn't agree on that, I was too numb to fight and do otherwise. me == lost

So at the point of choosing your majors, I opted to the 'easiet' of the lot. I choose two languages and ICT as my main subjects.

2020 I wrote my first Hello World

Admittedly it was not love at first sight. After all we spoke different languages. But soon enough it slithered it's way into my heart. There was so much in common between poetry and python. I still stand by it. There is the meter, the syntax, the loop, the callback. There was so much order.

Everyone around me questioned my choice of subjects (Arabic, English, ICT) that it didn't co-relate with each other and was a mesh of fields. But surprisingly I found it very similar, there was harmony and so much beauty in all three subjects.

The spirit in me was determined to excel in ICT, because so many told it's not a woman's strength to pursue logic. Also since I had little background to maths, ICT was deemed too much for me.

programming != (woman | non-math)

So I started to take things into my hands, I Googled and YouTubed every single step of my journey. If you've chosen English as a field, you'd know it's about reading things which doesn't make sense, and if you wish to stay in the field you've simply got to make sense. That was what I was doing, I'd read, watch, listen and try to make sense of everything. me == found Slowly everything made much more sense, there was order, there was coherence, there was structure, there were rules that never breaks. There was a clear relationship between cause and causation. I loved the tight structure and rules that run within a code base. That the program never lies. I loved the feeling of making things come alive. I love the feeling to building with mere words.

Then open source comes into the scene, where it's about making a difference. Making things alot more clean, making something feel better, look better. The whole concept is simply amazing.

I may not be the life I always dreamed, but I'm really grateful that I'm living a life that excites me. A life that's fulfilling and blooming. I've always got something to learn, something to grow, something do contribute to. The field of technology is ever growing, and it's so exciting at every step of the way.

Most of all I've learned to be kind, I learned that every person has their own codebase. Some part more than others were harder to write. But all of it is what makes the program, person they are now.

console.log("Thank You for reading")

Happy Coding!