Post 17: I Got Sidetracked...

One of the things I hoped to achieve during this winter break was to be productive. I like to have a structured day wherein I would have specific periods of time dedicated to something. Sort of like how school had those 40-minute periods for each class. On my private wiki I've developed for myself a master schedule that accounts for typical deviations from a normal day. I have three "classes" if you will on there: Devotional, which is when I do my Bible studying; Programming, when I teach myself some programming language (currently PHP); and Creative Writing, when I let my creative side run. The Devotional period lasted a half hour while the other two were an hour long.

I was satisfied with this and started going with it. My first task in Programming was to complete my knowledge of JavaScript, which I did by learning about the many properties and methods for various object types. I also spent a day learning some basic and not-so-basic SQL, which is used to play with databases. Now I'm slowly crawling through PHP, which is used to put things on a Web page before the user sees it. In Creative Writing I completed the first chapter of "After Adults", a sort of post-apocalyptic series. Check it out at http://afteradults.blogspot.com. Then I moved on to a "Ben 10" fan-fiction that's been in my head for a long time.

Yet somehow, I fell out of the schedule after a little over a week. This seems to happen to me a lot. Without some external source giving me a schedule, like they did in school, I just can't seem to stay in a self-imposed routine for more than a week. In this case, I believe I know why. I got writer's block and decided, "I'll take a couple days off to refresh myself, then come back and continue." It's been six days now and I haven't gone back to it. I also ran into a bunch of things in PHP that I couldn't wrap my brain around. Instead of letting those slow me down I figured I'd come back to those when I was done going through the rest of the methods. I'm learning about the various commands that PHP has for arrays (arrays are difficult for me to explain in layman's terms - Google it) and well, compared to JavaScript, there are a lot. So many that it's getting monotonous for me to write each one down and learn it when I can't see myself ever being done.

My devotional period has not disappeared, though. It's of vital importance for me to study my Bible and I just about always spend a half hour daily on it.

With the disappearance of these two periods from my schedule, distractions have very quickly set in. Right now my days are being absorbed by the mind crack that is called Minecraft. I'm even getting bored with that as well, yet I usually log in once a day or so in order to build some experiment. I also have a blog going with my adventures in that: http://mineventures.blogspot.com. (That's right, I have three active blogs. The fourth is hosted on Xanga but was only ever made for a school assignment.) Otherwise, I just feel bored. A lot.

So, I think it's time for that to be fixed. I've had enough time to relax, now is my time to get back on track. I don't like wasting days because I'm not guaranteed the next one and I have things I would like to accomplish in my life. Time to get going!

Of course, I certainly picked a heck of a time to kick myself in the rear. Spring semester of college starts in one week and now I need to start collecting textbooks. Last semester I made several mistakes. One was deciding to do all of my notes on loose-leaf paper and then put it all in a binder. Why was that a mistakes? Although I prefer to be organized, as clearly evidenced I don't do a good job of it in the long run. Eventually I started leaving papers with notes on them lying around and they got mingled with other papers and lost. Also, they were wide ruled, meaning the space between lines was the size that most paper appears to be. I prefer college ruled paper, because it gives me more lines to write on. Apparently, I don't write with very big letters. In fact, I can fit two lines of writing into the top and bottoms halves of a wide ruled paper by writing just slightly smaller. So this semester I'm stocked up on college ruled spiral notebooks. With these I will be able to keep my notes and my room tidy while cramming information in microscopic text. Anyway, to get the textbooks I'm not sure what I have to do. I may e-mail my advisor to see how to do this. I think I can just print a copy of my schedule and show the bookstore lady. She'll know what to do from there.

Any advice on how to prep myself for another four months of school?

Post 16: Christmas 2010

I'll bet you're expecting a "Merry Christmas" somewhere in this post. Well, you won't find one except in this sentence. I don't have the holiday spirit, and I don't really get it very much. Although I'm mainly an ISTJ, I believe I also have several INTJ traits, and one of them is a bent for practicality. (ISTJ and INTJ are personality types; look them up on WikiPedia.) Holidays don't really mean much to me now that I'm in my early adult years.

However, I do recognize some significance of this day. It's when we celebrate the birth of Yeshua Hanozri the Messiah (or, if you speak English, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ/Anointed One). This date isn't actually the one Jesus was born on, but it was established as such by the Roman Catholic church. My memory is a bit hazy as to the reason, but I recall reading something like it was set as such to make it fall on the same day as an important pagan day, thus making it easier to transition them to Christianity.

This holiday has all but lost its meaning to me. As a Christian, I probably should esteem this day pretty highly. After all, it's celebrating the birth of the Christ, of the Savior of the world. However, I grew up in an atheist home and wasn't often exposed to it. No, I didn't hear the story of the infant Jesus. I heard the story of Santa Claus. For me, Christmas was about the tree, the candy, the food, and the presents. I knew early on that Christmas involved Jesus's birth, but that for me was one of two equal meanings to the day. I preferred the presents, though. In addition, the fact that it's not really Jesus's birthday also makes it sort of pointless.

Last night my parents decided to give me my presents early. I had given them a list of things I wanted for Christmas.

Things I needed: new work shoes, new work pants.
Things I wanted: "The Colony" DVDs seasons 1 and 2; new computer (I ended up buying it on my own); bass guitar.

What did I get? Anitvirus software and a Wal-Mart gift card. At work a couple days ago there was a sorry excuse of a gift exchange party where I received some candy, popcorn and a Blockbuster gift card. The antivirus would actually be useful. I use AVG Free right now but what they got for me would offer more features and protection. The gift card, if I ever activate it, would give me enough money to buy my work apparel. As for the other stuff... I'll probably just go ahead and buy it myself one of these days.

After they gave me my presents I decided to give them theirs. It was a small box of glass picture cup coasters. I had gotten them from an event at church a week or so before Christmas. I felt a little conflicted about giving them the present early since it would take away from the next day's meaning but I figured, one half of the exchange is over, may as well do the rest. They actually seemed to rather enjoy the present and we all exchanged hugs.

For Christmas, we ate around 2 PM (14:00 for international readers). I stuffed my face with ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and buns. When we finished, I was given the task of cleaning up. After that, everything returned to normal. I spent much of the afternoon watching people play Minecraft on LiveStream, as well as brushing up on my JavaScript/PHP skills.

Also, my grandparents sent me their usual holiday card and check for the holiday. I'll have to send them a thank-you e-mail eventually.

Post 15: Inspirations to Succeed

One of my passions in life is to be a computer programmer. In the field of computer programming, like any area, there are those who made it big - Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Jobs with Apple, Linus Torvalds with  Linux, etc. Then there are the smaller ones who don't get as much recognition. I've encountered a couple of these in the past year. They really inspire me to get serious again about programming.

Blue Frog Gaming (http://www.bluefroggaming.com) is a small Ohio-based company with about 15 members. They don't make fancy games like World of Warcraft or Halo. Instead, they write browser games, and most of their creations are Facebook applications. I play two of their games: "Starfleet Commander", which is their cash cow; and "Hockey Tycoon", which is sort of a sports game. Consider this. They have something like 5 or 6 games in the Tycoon series, and each one is identical to the other except the interface is tailored to fit the sport it's designed after, be it hockey, baseball, soccer, etc. Then there is "Samurai Warrior", which is like the Tycoon games but with the style of samurai combat. These are instant-action, button clicking games. Facebook applications. Free to play, people only give them money for in-game credits that expedite game play. And they make money off of this!

Now their biggest success is "Starfleet Commander". Again, free-to-play, Facebook application that can also be played from its own website. You only spend money if you want in-game credits to temporarily boost game play. Despite the simplicity of the game, there are somewhere around fifty thousand people playing this game, probably more. And this game is raking in the dough. They have made enough to hire 15 people! They are essentially doing something that I could do! For a college essay I decided to ask their CEO some questions about the company and he happily obliged. They started off as three friends with an idea and are now a successful company.

Another interesting example is Markus Persson, aka Notch. He is the writer of "Minecraft" (http://www.minecraft.net), a sandbox game written in Java where one uses the surrounding world to build things while fighting off enemy monsters. On December 20, it will go into beta meaning it will be in the phase before completion. This game is not yet finished and the code hasn't been optimized... and he has made over 5 million dollars! Enough to start his own company (Mojang Specifications) with five people including himself. 

Can you imagine being one of these people? Making millions for relatively simple games, or even incomplete ones? The field of computer programming is one full of possibility. I'm into programming because, when I made my first webpage using HTML, it amazed me how a few lines of sort-of-English code could do so much. It's also a lucrative field of expertise and one I want to make a career out of. Who knows? I could make a game or a suite of games and it could be like these - major successes with lots of people who play them and sources of revenue in the thousands or millions. Such simple things, yet they are big hits. This is what inspires me to be a programmer.