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Actually Programming
Jan. 24th, 2015 06:42 pmHoly shit do I have a lot of catching up to do here! It's been almost two weeks so hopefully I can remember everything worth remembering. And a fucking lot has gone on since. So I started the class. Did a week with that and the agreed-on hours at my job. By Tuesday I was fucking exhausted. I could barely stand at work that night. I knew keeping that 8 am to 11:30 pm schedule was not going to be good for me. When I went back to work on Friday I talked to my supervisor about getting off at 10 and he was fine with it so I texted my manager the next morning. He just replied back "It's only for 8 weeks" with a fucking smiley face. That smiley face pissed me off (I'm here talking about my exhaustion and something serious...). Also pissed off how he tried to put it off on someone else might not want me to have that schedule, when it was him. I feel confident about the class if I don't have anything else going on, but I was starting to look at the possiblity of blowing this chance all because of a stupid job that I don't want. Talked to my dad about borrowing money for the interrim so when I campe in on Saturday I put in my notice that "tomorrow" was my last day. Surprisingly, a lot of people seemed sad I was going. A few times I heard that I as one of the only people who actually worked. I heard shock from a few that they weren't willing to work with me for a schedule, especially for such a good worker as me. But man, it has felt good being free from that. I know I probably could have physically made it through the motions of the schedule, but not having time to work on my code and study was really going to hurt me. Even if I was getting off at 10, I'm not sure I'd have the time I need to dedicate to it. I mean, I'm in class for 45 hours a week as it is. As I was leaving Sunday night, I was dropping off my badge and this parking keycard I barely had to use on my manager's desk. The parking thing had been in my pocket all day. I pull it out and noticed something stuck to it, peel it off and read a fortune from two weeks earlier, "Your current plans will be successful." Now, I don't actually remotely believe in anything that supports meaning or validity from that, but c'mon, it is pretty cool.
Okay, so I haven't gone into the actual class. It started off with fifteen of us. A lot of people from all over the country (and a few freshly arrived from other countries). Four of us were local (though one guy left after the first week). Quite a few from Atlanta. But there's someone from Phoenix and someone from San Francisco. Mostly the others seem younger, fresh out of college. But there are a few my age. We of course did the personal introductions (several times when different people were in the room). One time I was asked where I taught when I said I was a teacher. Turns out one of the guys in my class graduated from Whitehaven in 2010 (right before I started teaching anywhere). Then another guy is the son of one Mrs. Abernathy, who was a coworker at Whitehaven. Small small world. Anyway, the class has been going pretty well so far. I feel I've learned so fucking much and I can already program far better than I ever could in college. Early on, the instructor did seem to waste time a good bit. And one day I asked if we could have small assignments to work on as we went to get ready for the bigger assignments at the end of the day. He said something along the lines of the class being fast-paced and there not really being enough time. Internally I was getting annoyed thinking about all the time he spends talking about videogames. But it's gotten better since then since programming is most of what we do all day now anyway. There were a couple places I got really stuck on something, but have managed to get past whatever. I think it was early in the day this Tuesday that I started peering into a dark chasm of despair, but got help during lunch and pulled through! I got stuck and I'm just thinking, I just quit my job and I can't do this and I'm fucked. But I'm feeling pretty good about myself now. Let's see, two dropped out the first week or so. The instructor's best friend who also went through the program (they both did in the same class together, the program's actually only like two years old) sometimes comes and hangs out with him during lunch. He started talking about making music and so I asked a little about what he uses, etc and he's actually heard of synthesizers.com so that's cool. I followed him on soundcloud. His stuff's pretty melodic. There's a chiptuneish soundtrack to an rpg (imaginary?) that I enjoyed. The worst part about all of it is the traffic (the place is right on the border of Memphis and Germantown) especially coming home in rush hour. Ugh. Working on refining my escape route. I haven't had to deal with real rush hour traffic since...?...
There's no homework and the assignments in class aren't graded or anything, but of course I always want to finish and get shit done because I need to know how to do this shit if I'm gonna success. There are two assessments and the final. We had our first assessment this week. He gave us what it was Wednesday afternoon. We had all day Thursday to work on it and we had to present it Friday morning. The project was a file transfer client and server and there were a few extra requirements about stuff it had to do. Anyway, worked a little Wednesday night when I got home (though I was kinda tired and wasted time a bit, I did get a little into it). And I was working steadily throughout the day on Thursday. I'm actually super-proud of myself. I felt I was working kinda slow, but I kept thinking of what to do and then just fucking doing it. Continual progress. I was really on a role and actually building something complex and functional. Towards the end of the day, maybe around 4, I finally got stuck on something. This was really about the last thing I had left, though of course the most fundamental part of the whole thing, actually transfering the files! It kept freezing up when I clicked on a file to download it. Then I'm working on this damn thing for hours and hours and hours. I finally get something that fixes it and so I'm able to get to bed, late but at least I wasn't up ALL night or anything like that. Get there in the morning and start working on a bell and/or whistle (a progress bar that I didn't get to work right...didn't spend too long on it before I got called in).
Okay, new paragraph for the big day! We had to go into a separate room to show our work and answer questions about it and all that. I was the first person that was called. Normally that might make me nervous, but I was feeling good about it. I ran the program. Then walked through my code. Fine and good, but then he notices something and apparently the thing I did to finally fix my big problem was something bad. And apparently it would not work if I had connected to someone else and I was lucky it even worked at all. Well, damn. I was a little deflated, but I think it went well overall. I spent the rest of the day reworking that while others were having their thing. I FINALLY got it and got it working perfectly. Great. But then we start connecting to each other and my shit just fell apart. People could download from my server just fine, but my client froze when I connected to anyone else. Hell, it locked up when I connected to myself using the actual ip address instead of "localhost." Maybe my code's fine and it's something wrong with the laptop I was using? I dunno. Gonna test it out here on my computers. Maybe I'm just really not getting sockets. Waiting to work on it more as I needed a buffer of some downtime. So at the end of the day they take out a few people to talk to separately. Two of them I'm pretty sure were asked if they're sure continuing with this class is the right move for them. Not kicked out or anything, but think long and hard about it. I said "pertty sure" because one of them said that's what they told him. One guy was flat kicked out. Could see that coming though. Feel bad, don't wanna think this way, but he was starting to get annoying. The day of the big assessment, while we're trying to work real hard on this not-easy and involved project, he starts asking the instructor about videogames (though at least he didn't give in too much so it didn't last long) and it was a bit distracting. We sat on opposite ends of the front row and the guys who were close said he was watching cartoons at some point. It's also been the case that the instructor's spent quite a bit of time answering questions from him about classwork at points which said questions really should not have been asked. Like, we'll have been working on something a few hours and he'll come out with a question that MAYBE should have been asked in the first couple minutes (and many questions that really should never have been asked at all). Now I've had to ask some dumb questions and have felt way behind the others at times, but this was another level. Also, Thursday night he took his laptop home (the laptop we use in class that we were expressly told on several occassions we couldn't take with us). Several of us were like, you can't take that but he said it was alright and he could just put it in his backpack. Okay. He did bring it back the next day so I guess all was well on that front, but that gives you a weird feeling about someone. Oh and the guy who's his roommate said he has a computer of his own with him anyway. I think he didn't understand that's what the usb drives THEY GAVE ALL OF US were for (he actually did ask questions about how to back up his work). I feel bad for him, but it was a relief when he was finally asked to go (though really awkward when he came back in the room and told us they asked him to go and he was still around for a little while). Okay, so that's it! I did well enough to not even be talked to! And I know I got more of my project done than some of the others who didn't need to be talked to either! So I don't feel like the dunce I've felt from time to time during the past two weeks. I feel really good. I know it's far from over and they say it's only getting harder from here, but I've very confident in myself (for once in my life about this stuff). Caught up on the current season of Parks and Recreation last night before passing out.
The Family Ghost practiced today and also Sunday. Getting ready for that show in, what, a month now or so. Did I mention that on here? The 27th of February opening for Karaoke Underground. Should be fun. A lot of progress has been made on "Cameras." I'm almost to where I can play it without fucking up. Nice! It feels like there should be more to say, but man I guess if I think about it I'll add it to next post if I can fucking remember.
RIP Edgar Froese. You will be missed.
Okay, so I haven't gone into the actual class. It started off with fifteen of us. A lot of people from all over the country (and a few freshly arrived from other countries). Four of us were local (though one guy left after the first week). Quite a few from Atlanta. But there's someone from Phoenix and someone from San Francisco. Mostly the others seem younger, fresh out of college. But there are a few my age. We of course did the personal introductions (several times when different people were in the room). One time I was asked where I taught when I said I was a teacher. Turns out one of the guys in my class graduated from Whitehaven in 2010 (right before I started teaching anywhere). Then another guy is the son of one Mrs. Abernathy, who was a coworker at Whitehaven. Small small world. Anyway, the class has been going pretty well so far. I feel I've learned so fucking much and I can already program far better than I ever could in college. Early on, the instructor did seem to waste time a good bit. And one day I asked if we could have small assignments to work on as we went to get ready for the bigger assignments at the end of the day. He said something along the lines of the class being fast-paced and there not really being enough time. Internally I was getting annoyed thinking about all the time he spends talking about videogames. But it's gotten better since then since programming is most of what we do all day now anyway. There were a couple places I got really stuck on something, but have managed to get past whatever. I think it was early in the day this Tuesday that I started peering into a dark chasm of despair, but got help during lunch and pulled through! I got stuck and I'm just thinking, I just quit my job and I can't do this and I'm fucked. But I'm feeling pretty good about myself now. Let's see, two dropped out the first week or so. The instructor's best friend who also went through the program (they both did in the same class together, the program's actually only like two years old) sometimes comes and hangs out with him during lunch. He started talking about making music and so I asked a little about what he uses, etc and he's actually heard of synthesizers.com so that's cool. I followed him on soundcloud. His stuff's pretty melodic. There's a chiptuneish soundtrack to an rpg (imaginary?) that I enjoyed. The worst part about all of it is the traffic (the place is right on the border of Memphis and Germantown) especially coming home in rush hour. Ugh. Working on refining my escape route. I haven't had to deal with real rush hour traffic since...?...
There's no homework and the assignments in class aren't graded or anything, but of course I always want to finish and get shit done because I need to know how to do this shit if I'm gonna success. There are two assessments and the final. We had our first assessment this week. He gave us what it was Wednesday afternoon. We had all day Thursday to work on it and we had to present it Friday morning. The project was a file transfer client and server and there were a few extra requirements about stuff it had to do. Anyway, worked a little Wednesday night when I got home (though I was kinda tired and wasted time a bit, I did get a little into it). And I was working steadily throughout the day on Thursday. I'm actually super-proud of myself. I felt I was working kinda slow, but I kept thinking of what to do and then just fucking doing it. Continual progress. I was really on a role and actually building something complex and functional. Towards the end of the day, maybe around 4, I finally got stuck on something. This was really about the last thing I had left, though of course the most fundamental part of the whole thing, actually transfering the files! It kept freezing up when I clicked on a file to download it. Then I'm working on this damn thing for hours and hours and hours. I finally get something that fixes it and so I'm able to get to bed, late but at least I wasn't up ALL night or anything like that. Get there in the morning and start working on a bell and/or whistle (a progress bar that I didn't get to work right...didn't spend too long on it before I got called in).
Okay, new paragraph for the big day! We had to go into a separate room to show our work and answer questions about it and all that. I was the first person that was called. Normally that might make me nervous, but I was feeling good about it. I ran the program. Then walked through my code. Fine and good, but then he notices something and apparently the thing I did to finally fix my big problem was something bad. And apparently it would not work if I had connected to someone else and I was lucky it even worked at all. Well, damn. I was a little deflated, but I think it went well overall. I spent the rest of the day reworking that while others were having their thing. I FINALLY got it and got it working perfectly. Great. But then we start connecting to each other and my shit just fell apart. People could download from my server just fine, but my client froze when I connected to anyone else. Hell, it locked up when I connected to myself using the actual ip address instead of "localhost." Maybe my code's fine and it's something wrong with the laptop I was using? I dunno. Gonna test it out here on my computers. Maybe I'm just really not getting sockets. Waiting to work on it more as I needed a buffer of some downtime. So at the end of the day they take out a few people to talk to separately. Two of them I'm pretty sure were asked if they're sure continuing with this class is the right move for them. Not kicked out or anything, but think long and hard about it. I said "pertty sure" because one of them said that's what they told him. One guy was flat kicked out. Could see that coming though. Feel bad, don't wanna think this way, but he was starting to get annoying. The day of the big assessment, while we're trying to work real hard on this not-easy and involved project, he starts asking the instructor about videogames (though at least he didn't give in too much so it didn't last long) and it was a bit distracting. We sat on opposite ends of the front row and the guys who were close said he was watching cartoons at some point. It's also been the case that the instructor's spent quite a bit of time answering questions from him about classwork at points which said questions really should not have been asked. Like, we'll have been working on something a few hours and he'll come out with a question that MAYBE should have been asked in the first couple minutes (and many questions that really should never have been asked at all). Now I've had to ask some dumb questions and have felt way behind the others at times, but this was another level. Also, Thursday night he took his laptop home (the laptop we use in class that we were expressly told on several occassions we couldn't take with us). Several of us were like, you can't take that but he said it was alright and he could just put it in his backpack. Okay. He did bring it back the next day so I guess all was well on that front, but that gives you a weird feeling about someone. Oh and the guy who's his roommate said he has a computer of his own with him anyway. I think he didn't understand that's what the usb drives THEY GAVE ALL OF US were for (he actually did ask questions about how to back up his work). I feel bad for him, but it was a relief when he was finally asked to go (though really awkward when he came back in the room and told us they asked him to go and he was still around for a little while). Okay, so that's it! I did well enough to not even be talked to! And I know I got more of my project done than some of the others who didn't need to be talked to either! So I don't feel like the dunce I've felt from time to time during the past two weeks. I feel really good. I know it's far from over and they say it's only getting harder from here, but I've very confident in myself (for once in my life about this stuff). Caught up on the current season of Parks and Recreation last night before passing out.
The Family Ghost practiced today and also Sunday. Getting ready for that show in, what, a month now or so. Did I mention that on here? The 27th of February opening for Karaoke Underground. Should be fun. A lot of progress has been made on "Cameras." I'm almost to where I can play it without fucking up. Nice! It feels like there should be more to say, but man I guess if I think about it I'll add it to next post if I can fucking remember.
RIP Edgar Froese. You will be missed.
