Do you guys have any hard but not too hard ideas for projects or some suggestions of learning certain modules or whatever to put me in the direction of knowing and being able to program professionally.

I started here. I was energetic, enthusiastic and ready to go. I was Perl, all in. I fucking delved deep. I read the likes of Merlyn to learn how references work. I still didn't understand. I worked my ass off on doing simple things, contemplating "what can I do to move forward".

What I did, was go to the main CPAN page, look for projects that I liked, and started writing patches. I started writing my own things, but was afraid to publish them. With many Monks behind me, I started gaining confidence. I started answering questions here. I then learned how to publish my own work, which I finally did, getting out of my comfort zone. It took some time to be confident, but here I am.

OP, I see in you what I saw in me back in the day. Back then, I had nothing; no clout, no help.

Want to learn Perl? Get a hold of me and I will finance you to be at the conference in Toronto in July. I offer to you what I could have wished for myself.

-stevieb