better living through python

I am very busy right now. I’ve picked up rock climbing again (along with my regularly scheduled soccer games), I’m working on learning to program almost everyday, and I’m trying to get everything ready for the trip to Germany.

I’m making Robey and I some new flannel pajamas and booties (read: crocheted imitation socks), and I have to get all christmas gifts completed before we go. That means lots of crocheting, sewing, and stress.

I’m continuing to have issues with the weather. Getting outside helps with my mood, however it’s so wet, raining and dreary that it makes me a different kind of grumpy. I’m trying to write up some actual programming entries, but work is also busy with having to get everything ready for the month I’ll be gone. All in all keeping up is about all I can do right now.

Luckily I’m still programming, and Codecademy is still increasing their course offerings. I’m falling behind on the Mechanical MOOC coursework, but I’m keeping up with learning python via Codecademy so I’m not falling too far behind.

I’m super sad about one thing though. I wanted to visit with a cousin of mine who was in town this past weekend, but wasn’t able to simply because I had to keep making things for the trip to Germany. This was the last totally empty weekend I had to get any work done on sewing projects related to the trip.

Does anyone else find it hard to keep up with all your friends? I certainly feel that way, all the time. Oh, on a side note I am now certified to drive a forklift. Now I get to go and move around heavy drums of dangerous chemicals with large machinery. Next up, motorcycle.

Much of election day was spent refreshing the NPR and New York Times websites for election day results. I also enjoyed two soccer games last night, which meant I didn’t get to do any nail biting as the final results were coming in. I was, as you can imagine, getting sweaty playing soccer instead.

On election day I did much reflecting. Thinking about where I wanted the country to go had me thinking about my own personal goals. Many of these goals have been changing over the past couple of years. As years have past I am starting to recognize how some goals are plausible and some are simply dreams.

By dreams I don’t mean they’re impossible to reach, I simply know that I want to do different things in my life now. I know how much time it takes to accomplish some goals and I realize that some of those I did have conflicted with other higher priorities. Yesterday, I spent much of my time thinking about what I actually want to accomplish with my life with what I felt like was more possible.

In learning to program and learning to create websites/HTML5 games I realized that I want to keep creating things. Mainly, I want to finish my game Science Fiction Tower Power, that I know for sure. Other than that life has changed enough I’ve had to go back and start writing up another Life Goals 2012 list.

It used to be so easy for me to fill up these lists. I loved making them. Now as I work on this one I keep asking myself…“Is that something I really want to do?” I wonder, have I really ever asked myself that before?

This is a very familiar topic. One familiar to almost all who enter in the Startup or Bootstrapping world. The excitement of building and creation met with the recognition that there is just so much to be done and how on earth are you going to do it all? For those who just want to start a business, not a Startup but Bootstrapping it until they make it, depression is sometimes the name of the game.

On top of that, once temporary or minimal depression sets in your brain goes numb. It’s not just an idea either, it’s a fact. It’s not all in your head, which is ridiculously fuzzy to begin with. What does a brain look like on depression?

There are quite a few prominent VC’s who blog and write about this. I was recently struck by an entry on Feld Thoughts, Depression and Entrepreneurs. Another blog entry linked to on this blog really hit home by BenHuh, When death feels like a good option.

While I may connect with these entries, they are still talking about something foreign to me. Losing millions or simply lots of money, when trying to make a Startup succeed. For me, making ANY money is a win.

Before I chose to get involved in FlamingLunchbox, I couldn’t imagine how it was possible that I could support myself off of my own creations. Part of that is a combination of my totally non-inspiring self-esteem at that time in my life, and part is a good dollop of coming from a family with little to no experience in entrepreneurship.

It’s hard to explain to others that making $50 dollars a month sometimes still feels like a win. I still made that money, on my own, from something I made. But it’s still not enough money to live off of. Thus shame, embarrassment and self loathing can set in.

How do you fight against that, when you’re trying to make something happen on your own? Should you actually fight it, or simply acknowledge it? Depression and the Bootstrapper, more emotionally difficult than many Startups can understand.

How do you keep trying when you can’t even pay rent?
Faith in yourself, with plenty of love and support from others. Most Bootstrappers take at least 4 years to get on their feet. We’re barely on year 2.

Today I watched a couple of interesting videos from TED, ideas worth spreading. The first was a talk done by Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams. This talk was one I’d heard before, partially out of my own mouth. It’s the idea that creativity is being stifled by the education system and the increase in standardized testing.

I had a conversation with my sister when I was 16, before I left for my exchange trip to Germany. It was about a class she was taking and a book she was reading, a book which discussed how ineffective standardized testing is at actually determining capabilities and intelligence, how it doesn’t really prove anything. Ever since that conversation I’ve never really cared about them.

The second video was by Sir Ken Robinson Bring on the learning revolution!. His conversation touched me specifically, particularly with his comments regarding ADHD. He discussed how 100 years ago people wouldn’t have been given a ‘disorder’, they would have been told they learn differently, or that they were more inherently dancers and creators. Being able to sit and learn doesn’t prove anything either.

I don’t think intelligence or ability has anything to do with how much formalized education you have. Sure, a certificate is great and all, but only because educational institutions say they have value. How many people do you know who get a college education, even a PhD who don’t realize how little it really means in the end?

For me, my diploma is only important because it reminds me of the awesome things I had the opportunity to learn in school. Amazing things about Germany, Scandinavia and the Medieval Ages. I think the only thing a diploma can mean to the outside world is that I’m able to finish projects I start. You can also prove that by simply creating something and sharing it with the world.

I have a good friend who paints. She’s awesome. She didn’t know much about painting when she started, but she’s kept with it. Now she’s creating awesome pieces, and continuously expanding her knowledge. She’s creating and doing things, and she completes things. I like to think that part of that is comparable to what a degree means to many college graduates. The difference is, she does this all of her own volition. She’s not being told by some professor that it’s a requirement, she’s choosing to do it. How many college graduates can say the same?

Over the past two weeks I’ve been slowly getting more and more closed in. I don’t want to leave the house, I don’t want to do anything really. It’s been cloudy Oregon, but more so than normal. It’s been dreary, damp, warmer than it should be, and dark.

I’ve also been really tight on money for the past two weeks, and by tight I mean my money has been almost non-existent. It’s amazing how much not having any money can affect your self-esteem. How it can make you feel ashamed like it’s your fault, when sometimes that’s just the way the things go.

I’ve also been a little obsessive about playing Torchlight 2. All of those things combined have made me a bit of a shut in and a bit depressed. So I started taking 4000 IU’s of Vitamin D this week.

I also started rock climbing again! It’s awesome, and a heck of a lot easier than I remember. I think that might have something to do with the amount of pushups I’ve been doing and the upper body workout I get from work, moving heavier objects around all the time.

However, today is Halloween! An excuse to dress up, eat candy, be silly and have a good time. This also means that tomorrow is the day one of 50% to 75% of the halloween goods at the thrift stores!! Yes, that gets me excited.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

I’ve been working on the first two week’s lessons for the Mechanical MOOC. Going fairly smooth, especially after finishing the javascript fundamentals track on Codecademy. Despite the fact that some of the courses were not quite awesome, it was still an amazing resource that I’m glad I used.

Part of the greatness in Codecademy’s various lessons not being perfect, is that so much of coding and programming is interacting in an imperfect world. So much of the documentation out there is still being created and processed. You can’t expect to find a site with all your answers. Learning how to find the solutions to your problems online is part of being a programmer. Having to create work-arounds or temporary solutions, and Codecademy’s imperfect courses (as they are provided by the community) provide a good gateway into that world.

The MOOC is building upon that. Here you’re presented with a variety of learning tools already present online, and you use the online community and yourself to find the answers. The online learning tools you’re provided don’t often answer the questions you’re given. But, they give you something to start with.

On a side note, however, Codecademy has this restriction on it regarding python programming that’s making it a bit difficult. I’d already completed about half of their courses, but now I’m having consistent problems with accessing the python shell in their python coursework.

With javascript it’s not as difficult to test your code, as you can use the console, which is provided more directly. For Codecademy to provide a testing box (or shell) for python, they have to run it on their own servers. The accessibility of that can be heavily affected by the traffic on their site. Which, considering the recent start of the MOOC, I can imagine has greatly increased. This has probably put a strain on their site they might not have planned for.

Luckily, you can install python locally and then you have no issues programming away. You can’t then, however, test your code in the Codecademy courses. Perhaps Codecademy will improve their connection so it’s no longer an issue, but at this time it’s keeping me from the badges I love so dearly.

I’ve now finished the entire javascript track on Codecademy. Coding in javascript is now easier than python, I’m sad to say. Not that I’m not (like my double negative?) getting right back on track with the Mechanical MOOC here, in learning to program in python. Still, when I start to code my auto syntax is now set to javascript in my head.

Luckily I have enough experience with other languages that learning to do the switch is old news. After learning German, Middle-High German, Old English/Anglo Saxon, Old Norse, Norwegian, bits of Swedish and Danish and random words in Dutch I’ve gotten very used to seeing similar things next to each other and being able to see connections and similarities. Also sad, this last sentence reminds me how much I miss learning languages.

As I venture forth into python you’ll be seeing lots of mentions of Codecademy, MIT OCW, P2PU and the Mechanical MOOC. But for now, goodbye javascript. I’ll see you soon.

About two weeks ago I attempted to post an entry on my blog. It would show up in my log history on Github, would show up in dropbox where I store my posts, but wouldn’t be visible on the site. I wasn’t receiving any error messages from Github; I also wasn’t receiving any messages regarding a successful page build.

Robey thought it might be that the site was unable to post it, due to the fact that it was rendering every single one of my 200+ blog entries on the main page. That was a problem I’d been meaning to fix for a while, but hadn’t gotten around to it because I knew it meant diving into aspects of jekyll I still was unfamiliar with. Looks like it caught up with me.

Last night Robey and I went through the jekyll documentation and inserted in the necessary code to make pagination. For those who don’t know, pagination is the process of dividing (content) into discrete pages, either electronic pages or printed pages(see wikipedia for more info).

Now my main page only renders 10 blog posts per page, and at the bottom of the page there are Previous and Next buttons. This is super awesome, it’s really hard to explain how happy it made me to finally get this added to my blog. Not to mention I was feeling wretched at not being able to post, considering I had already written several entries.

And without meaning to I found the limit of posts per page for jekyll via github, being at around 280 posts for my site. I don’t know where the limit came from exactly, but it feels like research somehow. Always feels good to see progress on your blog.

At my previous place of work, where I felt I was bullied by my boss, I learned something critical. Something I feel that all people should learn, especially those who are particularly interested in going somewhere in their careers and are lower on the totem pole than their intelligence would merit.

Sometimes, Don’t try so hard. If you think your boss maybe feels threatened by you, perhaps because they try to pick your work apart to make you look less capable, you might think about acting dumb.

I know, for those of us in those situations in the first place we really want to do a good job. We want to be effective, we want to get ahead, and we want to be successful. Let’s face it, you’re not going to do that under this boss. The moment you notice that you and your boss may not be on the same page, or the moment you feel your boss may not have your best interests at heart, GET OUT.

Your boss is going to pick your work apart, put on too many tasks, and in general make your life hell. The moment you think your boss isn’t thinking about what’s good for you, you need to understand you’ll be lucky to get out of that work situation with a good recommendation. It’s best to cut your losses and find a job where you’re appreciated for your drive and hard work.

The sooner you leave from a bad work situation, the sooner the next sucker can get in there. The sooner that person will leave because hey, your old boss sucks, and the sooner the higher-ups will realize they have a problem they can’t ignore anymore.

So don’t worry about your boss telling everyone else about how horrid you are. They are going to continue doing that until you leave, so the sooner you leave the better.

Don’t worry about how acting dumb and not working as hard might get ingrained into your work ethic. It’s not. The moment you find a place where you’re appreciated you’ll reboot into that excited, driven individual that you are.

Also, have faith in yourself and who you are. If you don’t, your boss from hell wins.

While stressing and worrying about things yesterday I came upon a revelation. While the information may not be all that new, it helped me to deal with something that’s been an issue of mine for a long time.

I used to be afraid of my thoughts. I was so afraid that what I thought, and what my brain came up with, was who I was. Because of this I identified myself with some of the crazy, horrid things my brain let pop into existence. What I never bothered realizing, was that the brain, like so many other things with your body, is simply something that is on autopilot and reacts based on what it’s been trained to do.

As when you’re learning, you develop pathways in your brain. The more you study or work on learning different things, supposedly, the stronger the pathways get between one section of your brain and the other become.

As we all know, it’s hard to shake a habit. Obviously if your body has been trained to react a certain way, it happens more often. But what about your thoughts? If you grew up in certain environments, surrounded by certain groups of thinking, you’ll have more pathways ingrained and you’ll have a tendency to have certain thoughts pop up more often.

The great part about that? These thoughts might show up more often, because you’ve been programmed more to think about toast with jam instead of toast with peanut butter, but these thoughts are just that, thoughts. You have the choice to allow those thoughts more time in your brain.

I thought of the brain as this mass that would create these clouds of ideas. These ideas, or as Robey thinks of it webs of thought, are created in reaction to outside stimuli. These webs are simply your brain’s reaction. You make the choice on which part of the web to dwell on.

Recognizing that thinking doesn’t mean who you are is a big step for me. It’s simply a knee jerk brain creation, and one that you can push away. A thought, like a dream, is not always reality.