Tabletop

Yesterday was a surprisingly good day. I cooked a Mexican-inspired “hash”—basically beans, potatoes, and other veggies fried with a bit of bacon. It tasted fine but was a bit dry. Considering how simple it was and the fact that I didn’t use a recipe, I was happy with it.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of difficulty sleeping. It was probably partially because I found a fanfiction about Worm characters in Westeros. The characters are real and interesting, and the plot is gripping even though it lacks the overwhelming power that usually draws me into fanfiction. I should really exercise today, but I anticipate that I’ll be too tired. Is that a good thing to anticipate? Probably not.

SCHOOLWORK
I exceeded my time goal and made decent progress. One assignment was frustrating me a bit, but having slept on it I was more able to do it, and I took care of it this morning. It really makes a big difference to be able to sleep and return later after hitting a block—I need to remember this to stay motivated about being ahead on my schoolwork.

JOB

Maybe I should just write this section once or twice a week? It feels like padding to always include it when I’m not even trying to make daily progress. Yeah, maybe I’ll include it on Mondays only.

EXERCISE
The planking is getting ridiculous, and I’m looking forward to being done with it. I should have done another set of decline push-ups yesterday.

SPANISH
I had a little trouble distinguishing the preterite and imperfect, particularly in translating the sentences “I was a carpenter for three years” vs. “I once was a carpenter.” The answers claimed that the former was preterite and the latter was imperfect, but the latter definitely sounds like a completed action to me, which (I thought) would make it perfect. So I wonder if my confusion stems from a misapprehension about the imperfect, or from a pedantic reading of the translation, or from an ambiguity in the translation itself. In other news, I didn’t read El Nombre del Viento or listen to a podcast, so I need to do that for sure today.

DIY

I feel like I’ve reached the final stretch! I sanded the bottom of the legs again with the electric sander so that the wobbling is so slight it’s barely even audible. However, I did this because when I tried demonstrating the lack of wobble to my parents, it was a lot more significant than I remembered. In other words, I suspect that the wobble is being affected by the climate. More excitingly, I started putting together the tabletop! It took me a long time to figure out how to space the boards, but I finally just decided to drive screws in the side boards which are up against the edges. With that done, the two support boards won’t be moving, so I only have to worry about keeping one board in place at a time. I wish I could use a clamp somehow, but I don’t see how, and I think this will work fine. So I’ll probably finish the table top today and maybe even attach it. The next steps will just be sanding and painting/staining.

PROGRAMMING

I made slow progress on my idle game, really not even enough to mention. I think I need to make a product backlog to give myself a better idea of where I’m going and what the logical and/or easy step is. My website deadline is tomorrow though, so I really need to work on that during my programming time.

PEOPLE JOURNAL

I really don’t feel like it today.

BIBLE MEMORY
Psalm 19 still does not come easily for me, even though I’ve reviewed it probably more times than any other in the past couple of months. I even like the Psalm pretty well and it’s unusual, but the words and their order are confusing. I think I need to read it in a different version and maybe read a commentary about it.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
Woke up late and sleepy, so I skipped.

Brotherly visits

On Saturday Jared came over and we played cornhole. On Sunday he came over again (after doing his merchandising job) and we watched a little TV and youtube and chatted. Hence, my free time this weekend was kind of short. I finally finished Timon of Athens this morning. Act 1 was painful, and act 2 was predictable and unhappy, but I enjoyed the rest of the play. Timon becomes misanthropic (even calling himself Misanthropos) and while I recognize that it isn’t viable, I can sympathize with the view.

SCHOOLWORK
I worked very well on Saturday and finished my assignments for the week. In the end, my slump didn’t sabotage me too much.

JOB

Nada.

EXERCISE
On Saturday I rowed again, only for 18 minutes. I felt exhausted after that time and incapable of pushing myself, which is silly. I think I need a better goal than “row for 25 minutes.” It would also be beneficial to change up my form of exercise. The planking program is getting ridiculous—the workout I’m in the middle of now started out with 2:40 of straight arm planking, continued to 2:30 minutes of normal planking, and there were still nine exercises left. Can anyone (who isn’t a pro athlete or some kind of ironman) actually do this whole workout in a single session? I doubt it. I should see it as a challenge, and I do, but it’s one that I’m not close to achieving.

SPANISH
I started studying preterite and imperfect, which was extremely helpful and not terribly difficult. I’m looking forward to learning other verb voices and tenses.

DIY
I attached supports to the legs so that the table is sturdier. The table was flat on the ground with the supports clamped, but after I attached the second support it wobbled considerably. Yesterday I put the table upside down and used an electric sander to grind down the length, so now it wobbles only a slight amount. I’m almost ready to attach the top of the table, but I need to find something that is a quarter inch thick to put under the boards so that I can make the tabletop slightly recessed. My search yesterday didn’t turn up anything, but I’m hoping that consulting with Dad will give me an idea. All of the tabletop boards were too long to fit, so I had to saw off very small pieces at the end and sand them again. Thanks to this, I’ve decided that in the future I will figure out when I need boards cut and not do so before that time, so that I can make sure the length is practical. Doing a better job of measuring would probably help too, but I don’t have any ideas for how I could do that differently.

PROGRAMMING

I had more ideas for idle incrementals, but there’s so much that I don’t know how to do and my progress is so slow that I’m easily distracted. I got started converting the little I had written for the coding idle game to use bootstrap, but I don’t think I’ve even tested it yet.

PEOPLE JOURNAL

I wrote about someone at church whose name escapes me at the moment. It's on the tip of my tongue though.

BIBLE MEMORY
I’m up to 27:8 now, but ended up skipping yesterday, contrary to my intentions.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
Actually skipped this today, I guess because I was home alone and I wanted to prove to myself I could get up and going early even when no one else is around. It’s not a good excuse.

As a bird to my mountain or to my high tower and God of my salvation?

I’ve had a rough few days since Tuesday. I think it started because I felt overconfidently ahead on my schoolwork, and combined with procrastination for one school assignment in particular (a forum post), I ended up fleeing to a rather absorbing idle game that was not very idle at all. It inspired me to work harder on my own idle game, though I wasn’t inspired enough to actually drop it. I was negligent in most of my other projects, and I got an email from my bank in Japan that makes me extremely anxious every time that I think about it. I need to contact some people, mostly from church but also a few others, and that makes me nervous because it’s a stressful thing. Furthermore, Mom started hinting this week that I should get a job. I need these anxieties to light a fire under me but without disturbing my sleep like they did last night. I’ve also determined that while I can skip a day without a schedule, it’s better not to, and two days is out of the question. Furthermore, starting the day with exercise rather than putting it off gives me a better frame of mind.

I did finally register for my public speaking class, and I cooked a couple of things that were quite tasty. On Monday I made cajun shrimp and vegetables. It probably would have been fine like that, but I mentioned to Mom that I had also planned to put sausage in it, so she whipped that up real quick and added it. With the sausage it was a little too fatty, but still quite good. Last night I made General Tso’s chickpeas. It was about as good as I could expect.

SCHOOLWORK
I got my assignments done for this week except for a couple of short ones that I’m confident I can finish today. Next week is kind of a heavy week though, so I need to maintain discipline. Furthermore, my public speaking class will start on Wednesday.

JOB

Hmm, nothing. I’m going to have to work very hard to meet the goal I set on Tuesday, because I haven’t made progress since.

EXERCISE

On Tuesday I rowed. Since then I’ve done one planking session per day.

SPANISH
I finished unit five and finally will soon start the preterite case. I’ve been wanting to reread the Name of the Wind because it’s a good book and apparently the third one is coming out this summer, so I bought the Spanish version for Kindle. I read the first (very short) chapter.

DIY
On Tuesday I attached pieces to the bottom of the square, but then I realized that my screws were too close to the end. On Wednesday I removed them and put them back in closer to the center so that I could drive the legs into those pieces. So I now have a table without a top. The top requires 1¼ inch screws that I thought we had but we don’t, so I can’t do anything with that yet. I’m also going to attach supports to the legs though, which I can do at any time. I’ll plan to do that today, after a bit of research about how to minimally adjust the length of a piece of wood, since I suspect that the length may not be quite ideal.

PROGRAMMING
Eventually I fixed the component (called a scrollspy) that I mentioned in the last entry. That’s pretty much the only thing I did, though.

PEOPLE JOURNAL
I wrote one more entry this morning and was again convicted of the importance of it.

BIBLE MEMORY

Psalm 27 has some really long verses. I haven’t had difficulty remembering them though. I’ve studied up to verse four, so it’s going slowly.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER

I read Luke 22 today and was confused because of recently hearing about John’s account of the crucifixion, but when I remembered the source, the differences intrigued me. I read an article recently on Yahoo that talked about how Jesus didn’t give any sign of believing in heaven or hell, so I keep finding examples to disprove that. The devotionals talked about how we like to control our lives even though only God is in control, and that really spoke to me given my recent failings in control. Prayer was a pressing need—I was convicted.

Wooden square

I woke up late today. It’s a beautifully dreary day, my favorite kind, but it also makes me sleepy. I drank a lot of coffee.

SCHOOLWORK
I met my time goal, and enjoyed studying professional ethics, even if I disagreed with some of the answers. The philosophy reading is fatiguing and long—about 25 pages per chapter, and I have to read three chapters per week. 75 textbook pages is a whole lot of philosophy. Also, I’m not enthusiastic about the forum topic for this week, which is due on Thursday. But I’m going to take it one step at a time.

JOB
I worked on my website. If I’m going to meet my goal of ten applications for the month, I need to hurry and finish it, then find some places to apply. Okay, I’ll make a goal (and write it down somewhere that I can see it)—I’ll have a working website and a few places to apply by the 27^th. This is the day that my public speaking class should start, and thus will signify a reduction in my free time.

EXERCISE
I did the usual two reps of my daily exercises.

SPANISH
So at the moment I’m doing 15-20 minutes of grammar study, and possibly listening to a podcast. I need to do more. It would be nice if I could find a book that I was interested in reading—I’ll use the extra time in my half hour of Spanish to look for possibilities there. I’m also thinking about using a website to practice conversation. The idea is to agree to meet and speak half in one language and half in the other. If I found the right partner, I think it would be a very useful tool, but getting started will undoubtedly be difficult. I’ll make setting this up one of my free time activities.

DIY
Mom bought me some pipe clamps, so I was able to put screws in with confidence and made a square! The drill battery ran out (surprise!) and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do next, but at least I finally got started putting something together. I’m actually excited about this hobby, especially since I watched the video. However, some of the equipment seems like it will be quite expensive. I guess I’ll just make projects that don’t require table saws or miter saws until I’m confident that purchasing them will be worthwhile.

PROGRAMMING
I worked on my website for about half an hour, but got frustrated with a component that was not working as it should. It was a bad time of day to be programming, and I was tired from lack of sleep, too.

PEOPLE JOURNAL
Yay! I forgot to do this yesterday, but today I wrote about a friend from church. I decided that I need to do it at the beginning of my blogging/planning session, before I get fired up about getting back to work.

BIBLE MEMORY
The first half of Psalm 26 is okay. Psalm 25 is good up until the last three verses. Today I start Psalm 27, possibly my favorite.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
I agreed with the devotionals today, but I didn’t have any particular thoughts about them. Both of the prayers seemed almost irrelevant to the actual devotional.

Emotional Dreams

I went to church yesterday. Once I turned off the highway, it got more and more difficult to breathe. By the time I parked at the church, I was sweating, shaking, and forcing myself to take deep breaths. Was it because it had been so long since I met these people? Or because it had been a couple of months since I interacted with people I wasn’t so comfortable with, or in such a great multitude? I don’t know. It was difficult to talk to all those people, and maybe I’ll feel better knowing that not as many people will be approaching me. If I wanted to go to a church where I don’t have to talk to people, there are plenty of those, or I could stay at home and watch online/TV broadcasts. I wonder how much of it is psychosomatic, too. I think it comes down to the fact that I’m entirely too worried about other people’s opinions—that’s the spiritual component of the condition.

I didn’t sleep very well last night because I was reading and I ate junk food late. I had an emotionally charged dream in which I was reunited with students that I had taught. When I first awoke, I was trying to remember their names, but as the dream got more distant, I decided that the whole idea that I had taught them before was a fiction. In other words, I dreamed up students, met them for the first time, but at the same time created a memory that I had taught them before and therefore my meeting them was a joyful reunion. The emotion was so strong that it nearly swayed my perspective on reality, making me think that I really had interned somewhere several years ago and taught ESL classes to middle and high school students. Although the emotion was completely different, it reminded me of the romantically charged dreams that I’ve had in the past. I can only remember three specifically. They were the most wonderful dreams, but I was actually heartbroken when I woke up. My emotions were so strong that I might even use them as my standard for the definition of romantic love.

SCHOOLWORK
On Saturday I quickly and efficiently dispatched my forum responses. I got started with this week’s forum post, but it’s going to be a doozy. In the end I met my time goal for the week’s schoolwork.

JOB
Nothing new

EXERCISE
I rowed on Saturday for 23 minutes and did my usual bicep curls, decline push-ups and planks. I also signed up for Fitocracy, but I wasn’t impressed with any of the eight or so pre-made workouts. Most of them required barbells, which I have no desire to obtain. I might look for other workouts and create my own on the website, which would be my replacement for the planking app. On Sunday I rested.

SPANISH
I studied more grammar. My enthusiasm is not very high, and I’m tired of doing the Drops app. It uses some obscure vocabulary, doesn’t do refreshing well, trains recognition more than production, among other things. The five minutes is a nice and approachable time limit, but I think I’m at the point of giving it up.

DIY
On Saturday I put some screws in the wood, but joints ended up being very uneven. Yesterday I watched a bunch of woodworking videos, which was enjoyable. I learned that clamps are very important, and right now I only have one that I can use. Mom went to get me two pipe clamps which should serve my purpose.

PROGRAMMING
I looked at some samples, made notes, then started working on my website. I also redesigned the browser window of my Bible memory program. I’m mostly happy with it, but in the end I decided that my indices need to be created elsewhere. In my new design I have an “add” button which pops up a submenu to allow the selection of adding a new text or importing. I was going to have this also allow adding indices, but since I’m putting that elsewhere, a pop-up menu with two options seems silly. So, I’ll probably add an import button and take out the popup menu. That’s my next step, and then I’ll work on creating the ability to make indices.

BIBLE MEMORY
I finished Psalm 26. On Sunday I reviewed 1-18 in the car, and I meant to review 25-26 on the computer, but I forgot.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
Luke hasn’t gotten less strange yet. Something stood out to me in Luke 18 or in the devotionals for today, but I can’t remember what it was. I need to keep some small sticky notes on my bedside table so that I can jot down a word or two to help me recall my thoughts.

Block and reorientation

I worked a good hour on my Bible memory project and more or less achieved my goals, reaching a good stopping point. For the rest of the night I wanted to work on Javascript. Here’s what happened: I’m not very familiar with javascript in the first place, but I really want to learn react, so I installed that as the base of the project. I know that it’s easier to make things look good if I use bootstrap, so I installed that too. Then I realized that I have no idea how to synthesize the two, and the base of my project (what I’ve already done) uses html, while react apparently has no need for that.

What can I do? I’m pretty sure that I can use the base that I have, add bootstrap and jquery, and make a decent game with that. In fact, I think that Kittens Game uses jquery and nothing else. Alternatively, I could write the program in react, more or less starting from scratch. Or, I could write it the first and then convert it to the second, which would allow me to learn how to do things without having to waste time on design. That sounds like a clear winner to me.

This year, I’m all about reflection. Can I use that as a part of my personal brand? There’s also analysis. I wasn’t sure that that was the right word, but it does involve breaking things down so that their distinctive parts can be identified, which is what I’m talking about. Analysis alone isn’t what I’m interested in, though.

Programming creativity

I’m feeling really pumped today, bizarrely. I only got about 6 hours of sleep, and I didn’t even exercise yesterday. It could be because I was productive and felt motivated yesterday, or it could be that I just resolved last night that I was going to be positive and active today. I played some Tales of Maj’Eyal and tried out Stellaris briefly, but I spent a lot of time on programming. I also started a new Harry Potter fanfiction that was inspired by one of my all-time favorites. In most ways, it’s a lot better quality, but it’s not quite as much fun. I’m enjoying reading it, but I’m not obsessing over it, which is good.

SCHOOLWORK
I took it easy on schoolwork yesterday, but still worked for over an hour, which was my goal. I struggled writing a forum post response. I could have worked on something different, but I think the more pressing assignment would have led to decreased concentration.

JOB
Nothing new.

EXERCISE
I resumed going through the intermediate planking course. The day was really rough though—it started out with 100 seconds of straight arm planking, followed by two minutes of regular planking. I couldn’t even do those two back to back, much less continue on to more exercises. I finished it by the end of the day though. I can tell that I have more definition in my abs, though I’ve still gone a long way to go to be happy with them. The happy point is, I guess, when my abs are defined even when I’m relaxed. I’m not sure that this is even possible.

I expect that at the end of this month, I will have finished the intermediate course, so I’ve started looking for a replacement. I’m considering programming one—similar to the app I use now, but one that adapts the difficulty to the user’s progress and consistency.

SPANISH
I skipped this for no good reason.

DIY
I’ll definitely work on this today.

PROGRAMMING
For my Bible memorization program, I can now save and load settings. I also talked to Mom about the window I need to redesign and made a solid plan for it. There’s one part that I’ve never done before, but I have an idea about how to do it nonetheless.

I also finished the Javascript React tutorial that creates a tic tac toe game. I set up the whole thing on my computer, too. I’m not completely comfortable with all of it, but I think I’ll give it a shot and maybe once I’ve made some progress in another program I’ll come back and be able to understand it all.

BIBLE MEMORY
I studied Psalm 26:8-10.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
I read and stayed awake, but nothing really stuck out to me today.

Programming wizard

I’m not sure where the time went yesterday. I did play some Groundhog Life and Tales of Maj’Eyal, but neither for very long. I made some effort to make a writing outline, but I decided (for probably the tenth time) that my time and willpower would be better spent on something else.

For example, I’d really like to become a programming wizard. There’s so much to learn, but I could at least learn enough to be knowledgeable. What’s preventing me? I think the big thing is that unlike most school knowledge which I am confident about, programming knowledge is only really proved through application. My problem is, then, in what form can I apply this knowledge? There are tutorials, which are nice, but the ones I’ve seen give me a final product which is completely divorced from my own ability. They can be made through careful copying and pasting. When I don’t use a tutorial, it’s so easy to get lost, either in the blank page or the intimidating planning stage (which is time-consuming and doesn’t produce direct results). Also, since there is so much to learn, I feel impatient about getting stuck on something stupid like a graphical bug when I don’t even know the first thing about REST APIs.

SCHOOLWORK
I met my goals! I found that having a specific goal for what I wanted to get done gave me the motivation that I needed to work for my target amount of time, as well as to achieve the goal itself.

JOB
I looked for jobs on Monster, more or less nationwide. It was still pretty depressing. I think I would feel better with a narrower search, but Monster seems to have restricted search parameters. Maybe if I logged into the site, I would have access to more search controls.

EXERCISE
I rowed for about 18 minutes, and then the program that I was doing ended. So, then I had to reset it, but it didn’t come easily, and by the time I got back into rowing I had lost my rhythm and ended up stopping a minute later. I’ll be more careful about choosing a program in the future. I am hoping that this short session will guilt me into rowing again tomorrow.

SPANISH
I learned about numbers, telling time, and saber vs. conocer and pedir vs. preguntar. It was all familiar to me except for the verb pedir. I enjoyed listening to the podcast, although the hosts were clearly flirting heavily throughout.

DIY
No progress.

PROGRAMMING
Surprisingly, no progress. I started reading about REST APIs, but they’re only slightly less vague than they were before.

BIBLE MEMORY
I studied Psalm 26:4-7.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER
Luke has a lot of difficult parables that the other gospels don’t. Throughout Matthew and Mark there were a couple of verses that made me pause, which I didn’t feel like I really understood, but on the whole these books were understandable. In Luke, I feel more lost than not, at least in this section of the book. A commentary seems to be essential.

Easy tasks for momentum

I didn’t blog or plan yesterday, partially because I wanted to waste time, and partially because I wanted to see if I could still be productive without writing. I didn’t spend quite as much time on schoolwork as I would have liked, and I should have done cardio or DIY and didn’t, but I was unable to get absorbed in wasting time so it wasn’t a complete loss.

I’ve probably written this before, but as of yesterday I was even more strongly convinced that the reason I play video games is because I want to feel a sense of achievement without having to work too hard at it. I gave myself permission to do whatever I wanted yesterday, and yet anything worth doing seemed too hard, and anything too easy (most video games) didn’t seem worth doing, i.e. wouldn’t give me any sense of achievement. How do I overcome this limbo? I decided that I need to start with doing something quick and/or easy that still gives me a sense of achievement. Push-ups or bicep curls, for example, take only a minute or two, and yet the difference after doing them is definitely noticeable. That will build my momentum to tackle more difficult problems. This is what happens in video games: you get an item or improve a skill, and the next goal becomes more and more difficult but because you have momentum, you are motivated to work hard for it.

Since I wanted to waste time and was having difficulty with it, I ended up looking for more fanfiction, specifically ones with powerful Harry Potter. I’ve gone through about six, reading at least one chapter in each, but I’ve yet to find one that’s even remotely well-written. Once again I’m thinking about trying my hand at it, and I spend most of my breakfast contemplating things that I would do differently from the poor attempts that I’ve been reading. I don’t anticipate having a lot of free time today, but this weekend I might revisit this idea.

I had a peculiar dream last night in which I went back to study at GCC. This typically turns into a nightmare in which I realize that I’ve passed an entire semester without showing up for a class and that I won’t be able to pass it. This time was no different in the antecedent, but instead of a resulting sense of failure, I just thought, “eh, it probably wasn’t that important anyway.” I’m not sure what warranted the switch in attitude, but I’m quite amused by it.

SCHOOLWORK
My time was a little short yesterday but was productive. I finished all the work for the philosophy class for this week and got started on the work for week 2 in my other class.

JOB
I did another search on Linkedin, which was more depressing than anything. Today I’m going to look for a different job search website and I’m going to expand my parameters to include Virginia. If that still doesn’t look promising, I might expand further to Atlanta. It’s reasonable, especially since I have family there, but it still makes me cringe.

EXERCISE
No cardio. I’ve been reviewing planking from the middle of the beginner course on my planking app, but that’s getting stale, so I’m going to return to the intermediate course and just try to do the workout over the course of an entire day.

SPANISH
I skipped yesterday in honor of finishing unit 4 (>.>). I noticed that indirect pronouns are really useful. Spanish was really in my head for a lot of the day yesterday, even though I didn’t study it.

DIY
I need Dad’s help, and he was busy, so I skipped again. Oh, but on Tuesday I cut a board to replace the one that I split and sanded it. I tried to drill the screw further into the board to join the pieces of wood, but I had no luck, which is the problem that I need Dad to help me solve.

PROGRAMMING
I actually made some progress on my Bible verse program, woohoo! I changed the correction delay to 0 (making correction instant) which helped me find a stupid bug that was easy to fix. On the other hand, I beat my head against the wall for about an hour trying to figure out why the program wouldn’t load my icons. It claims that it can’t find them, and I tried several different paths with no success. Today I’ll try using a dialog box to open them, and if that doesn’t stick, maybe I’ll try saving them in different formats and putting them in many different places throughout the code folder. I could also write a junit case to load one, which would save me a little time, though I’m not sure it would be worthwhile.

I also watched a couple of videos about programming. First about junit testing, and then a couple of others about becoming a programmer in general. The latter were more inspirational than informative, but that might be just as well, as they inspired me to work more diligently on my own programming.

PEOPLE JOURNAL
I forgot. I need to stop making excuses. It’s not difficult to do, but for some reason I feel like five minutes is more time than I can afford to invest in this simple activity. Bah.

BIBLE MEMORY
I studied the first three verses of Psalm 26 yesterday. They seemed completely unfamiliar. Psalm 30 by the end of the month seems a bit optimistic, but I’m still going to give it a try.

READING AND PRAYER
Today’s readings were short. I read the parable of the prodigal son. I think I should revisit Keller’s book about this. The devotional was about temptation, but nothing stuck out to me there.

Reflecting on reflection

I felt really good yesterday and was very productive. At the end of the day I had so much free time that I wanted to play video games. That was not so good. However, I never actually did so, and in fact I watched a couple of youtube videos about programming. Actually, my main timewaster became the anime Castlevania. It kept my attention for four episodes, and while it was an intriguing story, it didn’t captivate me. I might recommend it to Jared and if he gets interested in it, I’ll watch some more.

Studying about reflection yesterday had me think about the effects of my own reflection. When I talk about myself, I say that I like reading and studying foreign languages. How much time do I actually do that? Thanks to reflection I know that, left to my own devices, I’m more likely to veg out with video games than study Japanese grammatical structures. And yet, I would still say that I prefer language learning, and reflection does help me stay accountable to that belief about myself to some extent. From whence comes the disparity between my preferences and my actions? Is it a habit? Is it a lack of resolve? When was the last time I actually enjoyed a video game anyway? Well, probably a month ago with Subnautica, but by the end I was more desperate to finish so that I could move on and I wasn’t enjoying it much at all.

I watched a video about reflection, and although the ten minutes was mostly a waste, the speaker made a good point that reflection involves considering a specific scenario, thereby seeing it as a solvable situation, whereas worrying looks at general problems and sees only impossibly grand and difficult solutions. Well, that’s not exactly what she said, but that’s what I got out of it. I wonder if I could apply that to my approach to socializing. What exactly do I struggle with when dealing with people? What can I do to make it better? It’s something to consider once socializing becomes a thing again. Which mayb e as early as Sunday, so I’ll prepare myself.

SCHOOLWORK
I worked a good amount of time yesterday. If I can keep up this pace, I think I can even get ahead on assignments even while avoiding studying on Sunday.

JOB
Nothing new.

EXERCISE
Planking seems to have gotten harder recently, though I can’t understand why. I’m having more difficulty holding it for over a minute. I read today though that sixty seconds is probably the most optimum amount of time, and after two minutes the gains are greatly diminished. I rowed yesterday, but I tired quickly and stopped around 23 minutes.

SPANISH
I studied more indirect object pronouns, and then putting indirect objects and direct objects together at the end of a verb; for example: “necesito enviarselo”. The use of se confused me because it can replace “le”, but I got the hang of it easily enough. It seems easily forgettable though.

DIY
I should have done this after exercising, but some people were coming over and might have invaded the garage, so I didn’t.

PROGRAMMING
I only worked on this for about 30 minutes, but I was fairly productive. I thought I had fixed my icon problems, but now they’re causing null pointer exceptions, so I need to investigate that. Once I can get the program running again, I need to redesign the browser window. It currently has six buttons and I need to add two more, which is unreasonable. I’m thinking about using drag and drop to replace two of the buttons, and right click for two more. That still leaves four. Three of them could be combined, but I don’t know a way to make that happen that would make their use intuitive.

PEOPLE JOURNAL
I forgot.

BIBLE MEMORY
Psalm 25 went as well as expected. I’ll do another review today before starting Psalm 26 tomorrow.

READING AND PRAYER
The devotionals today talk about two of four priorities that we often place before God. They were physical pleasure and fear of men. I’ve been thinking about the latter a lot, both in terms of cultural engagement and my personal fears and challenges with human interaction.

Back after these few messages

I said that I was going to take advantage of my vacation, but the lack of accountability allowed my descent into idleness. I worked on programming, but without urgency or motivation, and by the end I had little to show for my efforts. I also gave up a few of my regular activities like Spanish and memorization—not good. But it’s a new week and I’m excited about schoolwork and getting back on track.

This morning I finished reading King John. The story was lackluster, but there are some great interchanges. It just goes to show that Shakespeare should be performed. I enjoyed the character of the bastard, Philip Faulconbridge, and was impressed with Constance, whose name fit her quite well. Both of these characters would be great parts to play, as they can demonstrate a great depth of acting ability. I’m not sure what I will read next in Shakespeare. Of the ones I haven’t read, I figured out that there are two or three comedies, two tragedies, five histories, and three romances.

SCHOOLWORK:
Like I said, I’m looking forward to getting into these new classes. I did find out yesterday that my transfer credit request was denied, so I’ll have to take another class, hopefully in the second part of the summer. I think the class will be beneficial, but I’m unhappy about the loss of time and money, as well as the fact that my hard work in the other class came to nothing.

JOB:
No updates here. I should have worked on this a bit and I didn’t. Actually, I did ask Dad about the skill that I most enjoy, and he just called it analysis. I guess that gives me something of a direction.

EXERCISE:
I was lazy—although I kept up my planks, I skipped push-ups and only did one set of bicep curls.

SPANISH:
No updates.

DIY:
On Wednesday (or Thursday?) I tried putting in a screw, only to have the board split on me. That was really discouraging—it turned out that I should have drilled holes first. I did so before my next attempt. While the board didn’t split, the drill couldn’t seem to get the screw all the way into the wood, so the boards had a gap between them and the screw stuck out. Dad told me that to fix this I just need to increase the torque. I don’t know how to do that, but I’ll work on it today or tomorrow.

PROGRAMMING:
I got my panels for Foodmaster worked out. The next step is probably saving data that I input.

PEOPLE JOURNAL:
I wrote about my Japanese friend, although it was difficult. Had I gone to church yesterday I would have plenty to write about, but as I didn’t I guess I’ll just write about Dad.

BIBLE MEMORY:

I never did my review of Psalm 25, so I’ll do that at least today and tomorrow before starting Psalm 26.

READING AND PRAYER:
I did skip a few times, but not every day. Today I prayed too, though not out loud like I want to. The first devotional that I read today was really good and kept me thinking about priorities. I don’t remember well enough to write about it anymore, though.

Spring semester complete!

I finished my schoolwork for the semester! Sadly (well, it might be a good thing too), my next classes start on Monday, so I only get five days of vacation. I intend to profiter-en/時間を生かす, mainly by doing a lot of programming and building a professional profile. I’m also hoping to do some correspondence with friends in Japan and family members and study some programming concepts and terms as well.

I finished the book about oil this morning, and I’m going to start King John. However, I decided to read a book about household chemicals so that I don’t get overwhelmed the Shakespeare. It’s more reference than narrative, but so was the book about the periodic table which I loved.

SCHOOLWORK:
This week’s assignments were even less daunting that they seemed at first, and although it was closer than I would like, I’m confident that I passed the classes. I won’t be updating this section again until Monday.

JOB:
I searched for more jobs yesterday and didn’t see anything. I did resolve to branch out regarding companies that I apply to. I don’t want to work in the financial sector, but the main thing is to get experience, and I can do that just as well there as elsewhere—it just may be more difficult to write a cover letter. I also realized just now that my search criteria are probably limited by location, so if I branch out to include Atlanta and DC, I will have better prospects.

EXERCISE:
I rowed for 26 minutes and did two sets of each of my other exercises. My core is definitely sore today.

SPANISH:
I learned about indirect object pronouns. The podcast that I listened to was an interview with a Mexican professor, and I only understood about 60% of it instead of the usual 95% or so. I did feel accomplished that I understood that much, though.

DIY:
I spent 30 minutes searching for the screws and brackets, and then when I finally tried to use them, the screwdriver battery died. Hopefully, I’ll have more luck today.

PROGRAMMING:
I’m still wrestling with using panels in Foodmaster. I’m hoping to work on all three of my projects today though.

PEOPLE JOURNAL:
I wrote about my brother, since I had visited him the night before. Today I’ll write about a friend in Japan whose email I just read.

BIBLE MEMORY:
Today I’ll finish memorizing Psalm 25! It’s quite shaky though so I’ll wait at least one day before moving on to Psalm 26.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER:
I read Luke 10. Most interesting was verse 21: “In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.’”

Shakespeare Order

I had a few special items on my agenda yesterday which took time away from my normal goals. Also, I cooked a dinner which was supposed to be massaman curry but was much closer to panang thanks to the peanut butter. The flavor was mild, but it was delicious even so. It took a long time to make and I’m not sure why, but that’s a recurring theme in my cooking experience—where did the time go?

I’m almost finished reading about oil—I’ll probably finish the book tomorrow. For my next reading adventure, I decided to restart my project of reading all Shakespeare’s plays. I spent an excessive amount of time looking for a good reading order, one that shuffles the genres and preserves the internal chronology of the history plays. I never found one, so I decided to read the early plays and then the late plays, with the history plays in order. That’s still not a precise order, so I’m going to start with the plays that I’ve never read before—first with King John, which apparently stands alone from the other history plays. Sometime soon I’ll try to finalize my reading order and post it here.

SCHOOLWORK:
I was extremely focused and productive yesterday and finished my last assignment for my language arts class. Even though I was just short of three hours, I decided to call it a day. I also finished the CLEP course and requested a voucher for the test, so if that comes through it will be exciting.

JOB:
I didn’t talk to Dad, but I did talk to my brother, who gave me some names of people he knows in the computer science industry.

EXERCISE:
I did the normal bicep curls, planks, and decline push-ups. My arms are feeling ever so slightly sore today, so I guess I pushed myself a little bit, which is good.

SPANISH:
I learned about direct object pronouns. The concept is simple, but I was completely unfamiliar with the word “consigo”, and it sounds really strange to have a sentence like “las lee.” I also read a few pages of El Libro de los Seres Imaginarios by Borges. It’s easy to read an entry or two, so I’ll try to do so regularly before bed.

DIY:
I did important school administration related stuff instead.

PROGRAMMING:
I think I worked on my Foodmaster program for an hour, and yet at the end of it I had barely anything to show for it—the base panel loads in the home window, and that’s all. I did a lot of google research and I set up some other things, but still, it’s slightly discouraging how little progress I made. Today I’d like to work on my javascript program, but I would also like to get further in what I already have… ugh, too many things! Hopefully I’ll finish my schoolwork early and be able to devote more time to this later in the week.

PEOPLE JOURNAL:
I’m going to keep track of this so that maybe I’ll write in it consistently. I think it will be difficult since I won’t really be meeting people, but it’s only five minutes—worth a shot.

BIBLE MEMORY:
Four more verses of Psalm 25. It’s not coming as easily as 22, that’s for sure. I should probably work harder on reviewing it, or maybe memorize fewer verses at a time, but if I do that then I probably won’t meet my monthly goal.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER:
I did this when I woke up at 4:30 this morning, and later I went back to sleep, so I’ve forgotten what my thoughts were.

Reevaluating difficult assignments

I really struggled with my schoolwork this past week. I think it was a combination of a strange new (and intimidatingly important) assignment, the frustration of not having decent examples, and a feeling of incompetence—that I didn’t have the needed experience to do a good job. I did break the tasks down well, but in the end, it didn’t help me a whole lot. Maybe there were too many tasks, or maybe I could do a better job of making the tasks objective. I did spend plenty of time on schoolwork, but it wasn’t sufficient. Yesterday I decided that I should have emailed the professor for some guidance about one section in particular, but with less than 8 hours to go before the deadline, it was really too late.

Strategies to improve this: work ahead. Write particular actions that I can do. And if I’m stuck, look at the sample and adapt it as much as possible. I also think I did too much work on the planning, which made me panic when I looked at how much I had to write. There were several sections that were mostly independent, which I could have written days before. So: identify isolated parts that I might be able to complete without feeling the weight of the whole assignment on its quality and do them first.

I finally got tired of fanfiction and decided to download a Shakespeare app and attempt reading through the works of Shakespeare again. I might maintain my progress here, since it feels like too much of a hassle to update my book blog independently.

SCHOOLWORK:
It’s a new week, the last one in the semester, and the assignments have to be done by Friday. I feel pretty good about getting them done, though—the expectations are clear, I have multiple examples of the difficult assignment, and for the other big assignment I’m already half done with the planning.

JOB:
I applied to the educational technology place, even though I wasn’t completely happy with my cover letter. I updated my resume and LinkedIn profile. I hope to be able to have a website before I apply anywhere else. I’m going to talk with Dad about my branding worksheet today, I hope.

EXERCISE:
No cardio recently, but I did a lot of pushups, planks, and bicep curls over the weekend. I’m not sure that I’m doing some of the tripod plank exercises correctly—one arm and one leg planks sometimes don’t seem to be as difficult as they should.

SPANISH:
I finished unit three with comparatives and superlatives, but no podcast since Friday means that the Spanish hasn’t been floating around in my head.

DIY:
No progress. I will start attaching pieces today, I hope.

PROGRAMMING:
I designed the visual forms of my Foodmaster program, then I was inspired to write a javascript idle program (see last post). At the moment it has a progress bar that increases upon a button click. That’s about it, and it’s rather ugly too.

BIBLE MEMORY:
Up to Psalm 25:11, halfway finished. Like I said, it’s more difficult than expected, but I do really love this Psalm.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER:
Not so good on the prayer, but I haven’t skipped reading in the past four days. There were several thought-provoking passages in today’s reading. I’m feeling too impatient to write much about them, but one was Luke 8:10 “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.” This is a reference to Isaiah 6:9-10, and it’s very interesting.

Programming Frustrations

I’m a bit frustrated because I really want to become a programmer, and I think I would be good at it if I found my niche, but I don’t feel a strong motivation to program independently, even though I think that that is an important trait to be a successful programmer. I attribute my lack of motivation in part to schoolwork and the associated stress. I’m particularly worried about finishing my assignments this week, so they’re weighing on me too heavily for me to concentrate on my projects. I can’t get lost in programming because it’s not that easy in the first place, but also because in the back of my mind I’m thinking that I might ought to be working on schoolwork instead of something else. Ugh. My plan to deal with this is to limit myself to working a certain number of hours per day on schoolwork and not allowing myself to work other times. This is fine as long as I can get everything done in those hours, but since I’m not ahead in my schoolwork I don’t feel that assurance. Next semester will be better.

Yesterday evening I felt the desire to play an idle game because I was so frustrated with my progress in real life. Idle games have the potential to suck up a lot of time, but it’s uncommon in my experience. Usually they only need about 2% of my time, so I don’t feel too guilty about playing them. Thinking about how games influence my learning motivation, I was inspired to look into writing one myself. I think the key is to not only use names (which is the tendency in idle games), but also require some knowledge or at least have it available in the game. For example, first I thought about a game based on the periodic table of elements/chemistry, which would be fun and probably quite game-like, but not exactly relevant to me at this point in my life. Much more useful would be a game about learning to program, in which you learn the meaning of many concepts, the characteristics of languages, etc. I really need this to feel like a competent programmer, and researching for a game would make that knowledge immediately useful. The most discouraging thing about this idea is that I would have to write it in Javascript. This is a very useful and important language, but I don’t feel comfortable with it at all, so it would probably be a while before I felt like I was making progress. But what I could do is code when I feel motivated, and plan when I feel less motivated. Okay, I’m going to do it!

April Review

Here’s a review of my goals and achievements in April (wow, there were a lot of them) with a somewhat arbitrary rating out of five and a brief description of my goals for next month. I rearranged them into a new order which I intend to follow for May’s entries. It’s gonna be a great month!

NO VIDEO GAMES: 3/5

I haven’t played a lot of video games this month, aside from my Subnautica binge after I got my new computer. In fact, I think it’s been over a week since I’ve touched any. I’m not strictly prohibiting myself anymore (though I would like to), but I’m trying to tell myself that I’m not the kind of person who likes video games, or rather that the things I like in video games can be achieved in real life, I just have to work at finding out how. We’ll see how long that works. My stopgap measure is going to be to tell Mom when I think I’ll be tempted to play too much (e.g. when the new Terraria update comes out). I might even set up my workstation downstairs.

GOAL: before resorting to video games in my boredom, make a list of other things that I enjoy and can do, and then read my identity mantra. If I have reason to suspect that I might get sucked in, I’ll tell Mom.

NO FANFICTION: 2/5

I’ve found that when I’m interested in the book that I’m reading, like when I was reading Pride and Prejudice or the books about chemistry, I’m not so tempted by fanfiction. In the past week I’ve tried to read two difficult books of fiction—Gone with the Wind and The Power and the Glory—which just led me back to trying fanfiction. From now on I’m going to read a book long enough to feel if it can hook me or not (at least 20 pages, depending on the type of book), and if it fails I’ll tell myself to move on to another book. I’m a completionist when it comes to reading, especially when I feel that the book is worth it, but I’ll cover more ground and be more productive if I drop things that don’t keep my attention. Besides, since college, how many books have I managed to finish through willpower which I still appreciate? I can’t think of a single book in English that meets that description.

GOAL: give each book a 20 to 30-minute trial (probably at breakfast and lunch). If, at my next reading opportunity, I don’t want to continue reading it, I can choose a new book. If I can’t find a book that I want to read, only then can I read fanfiction.

COOKING: 4/5

I’m not exactly happy with this, but I’ve cooked when Mom requested it. The situation is still unfamiliar to us all, and it will hopefully change in the near future, so I’m not sure it’s worth trying to set up a schedule. I’ve only found one recipe to keep this month, the others being only tolerable.

GOAL: Continue cooking as requested.

WRITING AND REFLECTION: 4/5

I skipped the week after my birthday because I was obsessing over Subnautica, but April’s post count is the highest of any month aside from January, so I think I did quite well. The structure of my format is helpful, but I’m considering setting up a more dynamic version that I might be able to use on my website.

GOAL: Write at least 20 entries in May.

SCHOOLWORK: 3.5/5

My goal was to use 15-45 minutes sessions to work four hours a day. The sessions have worked well. As for four hours, I’ve only managed that about once a week. However, it’s looking more plausible in the future as I get accustomed to three-hour days. For this week (probably from today), I’ll probably do four-hour days just to be able to finish the work. Next week will be lighter though, and then I’ll probably have a break. Honestly, I think three-hour days should be sufficient most weeks, but four hours would help me work ahead, so I might still aim for it when I start the next semester.

GOAL: maintain a 3-hour-day (but 4 hours for the next few days).

JOB: 4/5

This area was kind of vague, but I still worked on it and made some progress. The virus situation isn’t exactly calming down yet, but the deadline is a lot closer than it was when I wrote my original goal. Anyway, I’ve made satisfactory progress on this because I’ve worked on application materials which will soon be ready.

GOAL: Apply to at least 10 companies. Update social media profiles. Set up a personal website.

EXERCISE: 2.5/5

My rating for this goal is based on my consistent planking, and the fact that I haven’t completely neglected cardio. I never set a concrete goal despite writing that I would. That’s something to remember—don’t write a goal to write a goal because it doesn’t work. Ah, one goal was to do a five-minute plank. I did 2:35 today. I might have been able to hold out until 3:00, but at 2:30 I felt myself unable to maintain proper form. Planking for five minutes is apparently a lot more difficult than I expected, considering that I have worked on it consistently for the last three weeks and before that on and off for almost two more months. It’s more of a long-term goal than I thought, so I’ll give it up for the near future.

GOAL: Continue planking every day, using app. Be able to complete beginner day 30 in a single workout by the end of the month. Do cardio three times a week.

CLEANING: 3/5

I vacuumed a few times and cleaned bathrooms, but on the whole, I felt a bit uncomfortable cleaning after exercising. I should request a list of things to do from Mom so that I don’t have to think about it, which leads to inaction.

GOAL: Get a list of tasks from Mom. Work on them at least twice a week after exercising.

SPANISH: 4/5

I worked fairly consistently on this. Not to the extent that I was hoping, but well enough. I also formulated a few short-term goals which I’m pursuing diligently. I need to find a way to exercise production, but nothing that I will be able to maintain comes to mind.

GOAL: Finish up to unit 6 on studyspanish.com. Start studying for the CLEP test. For the fifth point, find a productive way to use Spanish and use it consistently.

DIY:

I got started on a patio table and reached the point where I will start putting it together the next time I work on it. I learned how to sand wood for this kind of project (hopefully) and how to use a miter saw.

GOAL: Finish the patio table. Choose my next project.

PROGRAMMING:

I only decided to start working on this a week and a half ago, so I haven’t made a lot of progress. I did set up the environment on my new computer and start working on the Foodmaster project, and I wrote two very basic apps in Android Studio by following tutorials.

GOAL: Adjust and improve functionality of Bible Memory program so that it has no bugs in a certain mode. Write Foodmaster program to the point that it can save and load dishes and generate menus based on these dishes.

BIBLE MEMORY: 4/5

My goal was to review up to Psalm 31. I fell far short of that—reviewing the old verses took longer and I wasn’t satisfied with barely making 90% accuracy. Even so, I was quite consistent with my reviewing, and I don’t think I could have made much more progress while still achieving such good accuracy. This month I reviewed up to Psalm 24.

GOAL: Review up to Psalm 30. Psalm 31 will give me the fifth point.

BIBLE READING AND PRAYER: 2/5

I would say that the rating reflects the ratio of days that I did this. I finished Mark and I’m nearing the end of March in the Tim Keller devotional. I had a few really good days of prayer. I’m making progress—I just need to be more consistent.

GOAL: Read and pray, every day! No limitations, just do it.

Say goodbye to:

MUSIC: 0/5

I gave up on this because of technical difficulties, lack of time, and lack of motivation. I don’t intend to work on this in any regular capacity any time soon.

RUBIK’S CUBE: 3/5

I am a lot more familiar with OLL algorithms and can use them without much hesitation, so the most well-defined goal was accomplished. My next step is getting better at F2L, but I don’t have a concrete plan for doing this. Hence, this month I think I’ll take it casual and improve imperceptibly. I might post about cubing in my intro, but I won’t have it as a separate goal.