Once I got a smartphone I was instantly hooked on the convenience and power that that little piece of tech afforded me. As I’ve grown in my usage, upgraded my hardware, and navigated the ups and downs of being able to do just about any aspect of computing on this thing I’ve got in my pocket, one thing I haven’t found myself doing from it is blogging.
#nerdlution has been killing me this week. I. Am. Tired. As my “nerd resolution” I’m trying to write every day for 50 days. I suppose there’s been a reason (up until now) that I haven’t been writing regularly, and it isn’t because it’s not important. Trying to work in writing every day has (re)reminded me that my life is full. Sometimes things just don’t get done, and being a perfectionist, I have a hard time letting things go. Over the past few years I’ve worked towards focusing on what’s important though, not over-extending myself, and just letting things go when I can. No one’s judging me but me, and I’m pretty sure no one would look at my life and think I’m slacking off.
Late night is my favorite time, always has been. I love when everyone goes to bed and I’m left alone with my thoughts and a place to type. The problem is, I have three young children and they basically have no concept of “sleeping in.” So what I need to do is rearrange some priorities and time during the day, and get my writing done at a more sane hour. This will be good practice for making sure I do the things that are important to me before it gets too late, so I can still get some sleep and not be a grouchy bear when those adorable, sweet children come do back-flips on me when the sun rises. (And yes, they basically just see my sleeping body as a lumpy extension to the bed/trampoline.)
I love me a good conspiracy theory. Some I actually believe and some I just want to believe—I guess one might just say I have a subversive side. And today, I read this article from The Telegraph: “The internet mystery that has the world baffled.”
The article introduced me to a series of internet puzzles, or tests, that have come to be known as “Cicada 3301” and they’re puzzles that basically only skilled cryptographers and hackers can decode. In 2012 some people found these secret puzzles or messages in “underground forums” that began with
“Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck.”
Today, for work, I had the pleasure of watching a webinar on Connectedlearning.tv (also embedded above) where a panel of people heavily involved in making/coding/connected learning discussed the +/- of the “learning to code movement.” On the panel were some Writing Project folks (and friends of the Writing Project)—Mia Zamora, Joe Dillon, Doug Belshaw, and Mitch Resnick—and they had some really smart things to say about why learning to code is important.
One thing I’ve come to believe in lately is the power of 15 minutes. When I taught private trumpet lessons years ago, I told my students that even practicing for 15 minutes a day was better than nothing. Ironically, at the time, I didn’t believe that rule for myself—I had to practice at least an hour a day or it wasn’t any good—but I saw the benefit for them every week they came to my studio. Kids that even practiced a little every day did better than those that practiced once or twice for longer periods of time.
Today, I often have excuses for not doing things, including things that are good for me, and probably the number one excuse I have is “there’s not enough time.” But what I’ve learned is that no matter what it is, just spending 15 minutes on it will be beneficial. Of course not everything can get done in 15 minutes, but I’ve been surprised on what I can accomplish in 15-minute intervals.
Tonight during dinner I got a call from a coworker. This never happens so I knew it must be an emergency. When I answered I was greeted by a very apologetic, very worried person who had basically pushed a button they shouldn’t have pushed. We’ve all done it, right? Pushed that one button that somehow erases hours (or God forbid, days) of work. Lucky for this person I’ve had enough “oh shit” moments of my own to push me to make copies of code, saving revisions as I go, just for instances like this. Within a few minutes I was able to restore what was lost. Just like that.
I started my transition to minimalist running (sans traditional shoes) back in April and wrestled with injuries and setbacks until July. Since July I’ve been able to stay consistent (and injury free!), gradually increasing my mileage from 0.25mi up to where I’m at now: ~4mi with no pain. Well, no pain until I decided to get frisky on Thanksgiving and run 5.5mi, my farthest distance by a lot.
I’m in sort of an after-Thanksgiving reflective state and it’s interesting how focusing on gratitude seems to get many of us in such a state. Maybe being thoughtful about what we’re grateful for leads us to take stock in what’s important to us in general, where we’re at in our lives, and where we want to go. Maybe being around (or not being around) family reminds us of our place in the world, our relationships, and pushes us to consider what really matters to us.