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.