I'm a shy person. I always have been. As a child I had some selective mutism going on. That was always fun in school, being called on randomly by a teacher when my hand was clearly not up, and just freezing. I knew the answer. Heck, I could talk circles around the answer, I just couldn't bring myself to say it. It's hard to describe.

Around second or third grade, I started rationalizing the anxiety away, telling myself I had no reason to be afraid. Since there was no physical harm being threatened, I shouldn't feel so scared, and I should just ignore it. After some time, the rationalizations became more natural, and I got used to forcing myself out of my comfort zone. Being anxious when interacting with others became the new norm.

When I read that we would have to constantly work with strangers at Dev Bootcamp, I almost didn't apply. I pushed myself with my rationalization again, though, and I am very, very glad I did.

When it came time for my first pair, I was super anxious that he would think I was just some dumb girl who didn't belong there because honestly, I'm not very good at communicating my ideas. That, and I'm not sure if I do belong here. However, my first pairing buddy was super amazing and was able to put me at ease quite easily. That seems to be one of the many things he's good at since he seems to make friends naturally. I'm really, really jealous of people like that. Not "omg I hate you" kind of jealous, but "man, I wish I coud do that," kind of jealous. It's cool, though. I've used him as inspiration to step up and talk to complete strangers and so far it's worked out awesomely!

That's been one of the best things about the pairing experience- learning from others. I don't know about any of you other geeks out there, but I get this almost-euphoric feeling when I learn a new approach to coding or something novel that I can assimilate into my knowledge system. Again, it's hard to describe, but pairing with my cohorts has been freaking fantastic because of it. It's amazing to see how other people can obtain the same information that I do, and then see how they apply it to solve problems in ways I would never have thought of. Not one session goes by where I don't learn something mind-blowing. And more often than not, their way ends up being better than mine.

I do have to point out that I am super-blessed with an amazing cohort. Everyone in it is crazy-smart in their own way and I think we all complement each other very well. Well, they all do, anyway. Maybe they could do without me, since I'm not sure what niche I fill, yet. But I am learning from each and every one of them, and they're all so very open to my questions, even the dumb ones I should probably know. I only hope to one day be good enough to maybe be as helpful to them as they have been to me.

The problem with pairing with such awesome people, though, is the part where I have to give feedback. As I understand it, we're supposed to give our pairing buddy something they can improve on for next time. You may have noticed, but I am pretty critical of myself. When I try to be critical of others, it always turns into, "Who am I to judge them? They're actually not too bad, because I'm guiltier of that same thing and probably even worse things by miles!" Because of that, feedback is hard enough on its own. But trying to give critical feedback to folks who blow your mind and leave you in the dust? That's practically an impossible task for me. I'm still working on getting better at leaving feedback for amazing people, but I'm not quite sure where to start. If any of you nonexistent readers out there have any pointers, I am quite open to them!

Receiving feedback has been pretty awesome, so far. Everyone has been extremely kind to me. I do see a common theme of my apologizing too much. Yeah, I recognize I do that. It's just a reflex whenever I think I've given anyone reason to be annoyed with me. But now I see it's probably pretty annoying on it's own, turning me into a spiral of never-ending annoyances. Perhaps it would be best if I never entered the spiral in the first place? I don't want to never apologize, though. That'd be exchanging one problem for another! I will make an attempt to cut it down, but I'm not too confident that I'll be able to. It's second nature to me at this point.

So, to anyone out there who's hesitant to try pair programming, don't heistate- just jump right into it! I know that doesn't sound too helpful; it's like telling people who are struggling to breathe to just breathe. Trust me, I've been there. But please know that the programming world is full of amazing non-judgmental people who have so much to teach you. You have a lot more to gain than to lose. And to anyone who's been on the receiving end of my spiral of annoyances, I apologize... And thus the sprial continues. *sigh* Clearly, I have my work cut out for me.