One might have expected a person such as myself to turn towards the programming path at an earlier age.  I have had a multitude of boyfriends with high mathematics, and engineering programming skills/capabilities that exposed me to programming.  They all taught me tidbits of information that gave me a higher understanding of what programming even meant.  

However I come from a poorer family originating in the US south that moved to Oregon around 1989.  We didn’t have a computer in my household until I was 16 (currently 28 years old). The focus of most of my education is regarding medieval literature and language.  I’ve studied over 6 different languages, several of those being dead languages. None of those languages were formal, i.e. programming languages.  Therefore after my recent debacle as an ‘employee’ I’ve decided to reinvent myself. I get languages, I enjoy computers and computer games, so I'll learn to program.
 
I’ve been steered towards an online MIT course in Computer Science (basing itself in Python).  It has 24 lectures available online, reading materials, exercises and tests.  I’m hoping to grasp some basic understanding of Python, as well as HTML, Java, Javascript and some SQL for data-crunching.  Luckily my ‘partner in crime’ is already a programmer.  He’s done a variety of work, and will serve as my mentor in this effort.  I hope, however, to also receive input from places like Reddit, Lifehacker, and honestly anyone else who happens to read this blog. Here I am, a 20 something, frustrated with the general workplace, wanting to make something of myself and learn at the same time.  
 
As I’m not sufficiently educated to do serious programming at this time, I will be conducting an experiment instead.  In trying to learn how to use Twitter to aid our business, I noticed that there are a variety of ways to create more ‘followers’ and raise awareness for FlamingLunchbox.net.  Each one takes a fair amount of time, and I’m not certain as to which one will be most effective.  
Thus my twitter experiment.  
Based on the research I’ve done I’ve found that commenting on others pages, using hashmarks, along with increasing your comments on twitter can be effective means.  Taking those ideas into account, but not worrying about scientific method, I’ve developed this:
 
Twitter Experiment (pythonliving):
 
First week: 50 tweets of varying caliber, add 50 people to ‘following’  - log increase in followers
Second week: 10 tweets of very high caliber with hashmarks - 100 comments - log increase
Third week: 150 tweets of mediocre caliber with hashmarks in all of them - log increase
Fourth week: 300 tweets of low caliber, no hashmarks/comments - log increase
Fifth Week: 10 tweets of very high caliber, Start following 100 new people
Sixth Week: Review results and determine where highest yield comes from
Seventh Week: Establish best combination and publish

Week Total Followers Total Following Total Tweets
Zero Week 12 28 34
First Week      
Second Week      
Third Week      
Fourth Week      
Fifth Week      
Sixth Week      
Seventh Week