Goals: Conclusion

Yes, yes, yes!!

Daily goals definitely squeeze the most productivity out of me.

My calendar is empty, but I’m doing so much.

I am almost done iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. About a week left and I can start making my own apps. The book has given me so much knowledge! I’ve built many of their apps. The big one is Homepwner where you can add a list of items in your home in case a fire burns them all. I’ve learned how to make the data persistent between application runs. It’s all really cool.

Another app is TouchTracker. It’s a drawing app. Learned gestures with this one.

I’ve been setting a lot of different goals every day and I’m getting a lot done. For example, it takes less than a day for laundry to get done from when I decide to do laundry. I put it on my to-do list for the day, and it gets done. It’s like magic (but not really)!

I’ve also been really strict about my physical activity. 4555 steps per day and if I don’t meet it, +111 steps for the step goal – permanently (I started with 4444). I also have to do either DDR, treadmill, or crunches. Haven’t done crunches once! But I’ve been on the treadmill every day because it’s the easiest to start doing. Sometimes I get on there and I’m jogging, and I can’t stop! I’ll jog for 20 minutes straight and be like: “WHO AM I?!?” (because I am an actual potato). 

My main hobby right now is making DIY stickers. I make precise measurements, Photoshop, print on shipping labels, apply magic tape, and cut. BAM! Lots of cool stickers are created. I realized that I really enjoy making DIY anything because it allows my mind to imagine what I could make with materials that I have or could have. I started making stickers for my keyboard. Only did 1 key so far, but will do more!!!

 

I am really excited to be making more stickers and to start making my own apps! I’ve got so many ideas lined up (for both).

soupy twist!

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Goals

What was I thinking? I need to stop treating this time off as a job. A set schedule won’t motivate me for long. I only lasted two days with the new schedule. Every “work” hour was filled with anticipation for the break hour. And every break was unnecessarily long.

Life has been dull for the past two weeks. The first week was fine because I was working on my website. I was doing something. I set goals and I just kept going. That’s what I need to be doing now. I need to set goals and strive to finish them. That’s how I function. That’s what gives me a sense of accomplishment. That’s how I get high on life. Nothing beats watching a season of a TV show in a day or two. I set a goal to finish as fast as I can and I do it. That’s what makes me happy.

So I need to set seemingly impossible goals to create a challenge for myself. A challenge is better than taking it slow. When you take it slow with no checkpoints in mind, everything just seems meh. Life needs to be an infinite amount of levels that you complete. Life is a game. Get addicted. Play till it’s game over.

I’ve been doing it all wrong. That saying about loving what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life. I’ve been trying to make what I love to do into work. It’s all wrong!! I just need to do what I love and let that grow. Maybe it will evolve into “work”, maybe it won’t. I’m still an egg. When I hatch, I may be an ordinary duckling who will become an ordinary duck, or I could be the ugly duckling that does so much more. Let’s hope I’m the ugly duckling.

I told myself I didn’t need to set chapter goals for reading this book, but I think I do. Yes, it’s difficult to set realistic goals, but maybe what I need isn’t realistic goals. I’m supposed to push myself, right? I didn’t take a term off so I could have my last summer break. I took it so I could get somewhere in life. This is my last chance to ready myself for the world. I don’t want to be late to the game. I want to be ready and fully capable to take on anything. “That’s what co-op is for.” Well, if you’re going to rely on something that depends on yourself, then… I don’t know. I can’t take that risk. If I don’t put myself ahead of the game, I fear I may never even get into the game. So this is why I’m here. This is why I’m not in school, I’m not working. I’m just here in my room. Late at night. Reflecting on my mistakes, on who I am, and on who I am going to be.

I’ve been empty for a while now. Hoping that someone would drag me out of this hopelessness. That someone would motivate me. But that someone is me. No one is going to save me. I was Harry Potter on the opposite side of the lake, thinking that someone else would come save me. But, no, it wasn’t James Potter, it was me all along.

I need to stop “working” and be Steve Jobs in his garage.

Deep down, I know I can do something with my life. The power is in me, I just need to learn how to use it. I won’t just know how, I have to learn how. All the greatest superheroes had to go through so much shit to harness their power. It’s my turn now.

And it’s good to be frustrated. It means you have a problem that you need to fix and you will do whatever it takes to solve it. I need to always remember this. FRUSTRATION IS GOOD!

If you’re not killing yourself trying, you’re not trying at all.

soupy twist.

Second

We got ourselves a 2nd app!

I am now on Chapter 5 of iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide. They taught how to make the circles in Chapter 4 and now how to change the colour of the circles when the screen is tapped.

So when you tap anywhere, the colour changes. Pretty cool!!

I was getting frustrated because it wasn’t working since the book was written for Xcode 5 and I’m using Xcode 7. It was also hard to find a solution since the people asking questions online for Xcode 7 are using Swift instead of Objective-C. But I found the solution on the Big Nerd Ranch Forums. Then it just worked!

I have a long way to go, but I’m learning so much day by day.

soupy twist!

First

I made my first finished app! Complete with icons and a launch screen. It successfully works on my iPod.

I also found out that Apple Developer membership is NOT free. What is free is getting it onto your device which is pretty awesome too. I thought I was free from the $99, but I was wrong. Plus tax and the conversion rate, it’s probably $200. Oh, Canada.

And did you know that you only get 70% of the sales? For some reason I thought you got 100% of it. So for every dollar you make, you actually only make 70 cents. So it sucks to be either a woman, a Canadian, or an app developer. Triple the suck if you’re all three!

soupy twist!

Schedule

So I’m at the point of procrastination.

Things are starting to get hard and my work ethic is going down.

I’ve devised a new schedule taking into account how many breaks I need throughout the day. With this model, I would get used to scattered studying. I usually do things in big chunks of time. Especially assignments and stuff. I’ll reserve several hours in a day to complete it. But I somehow end up taking breaks in between… So I guess this model should work?

Also, I feel dull not watching TV. It’s only been a week of just watching a movie a day, but I already feel lifeless. TV keeps me going because there’s more to look forward to, but films just end. The biggest problem is the dinner block since it depends on my mom. I’ll have to delay dinner until 8 if she doesn’t make it by 6:30. She’ll get mad, but I’ll stay on schedule. If I deviate from this schedule just once, it’ll break. I’ll break. Hopefully that won’t happen 🙂 …

This only ensures 6 hours of work a day, but that’s better than doing 1-2 and then wasting the rest of the day because I don’t feel like doing more.

I’ll test this tomorrow and see if it works!

soupy twist!

Try Objective-C (Code School)

I just completed the Try Objective-C course by Code School.

It was fun. Mr. Higgie was hilarious. I’m glad I stopped watching Stanford’s CS193p lectures to go through this. Highly recommend.

I now know Objective-C syntax. Now I must make my brain think object-oriented.

Influence

Getting distracted right now.

Remembering all the people who put me on this path…

If it weren’t for Mr. Harris and Mrs. Vickers, I don’t think we would have had Computer Science or Communications Technology. I would not have fallen in love with web development or even discovered what the heck Computer Science was. They were there >20 years, helping students get into the technical field. I would be pursuing business. Maybe GBDA with a minor in psychology. Then I would switch to Psychology as a major. It just would not be the same… It would not be right.

All it takes is one person to point you in the direction you were meant to go in.

Motivation

It’s hard to get up in the mornings knowing that it’s another day where I have to get myself to do stuff that will benefit me in the future. It’s the fear of not knowing whether I can do something. What if I’m too stupid? What if I can’t do it? There’s another part of me saying, “You can do this. You won’t know until you try.” What if I try and I never get very far? I’ve always dabbled in things, but I’ve never been really good at one thing. I used to be good at art, until high school. I lacked the skills and technique. All I ever had was meaning in my art. It’s like having something to tell the world, but you have no idea how to express it. I suck at words. I wish I was a talented writer or something, but I can’t. If I could, I would write TV scripts. All I can do is write code. Code is logic. Code isn’t meaning. It’s you want it to do something, it does it. There is no such thing as sophisticated syntax. There is no thesaurus for code. It is what it is. There’s clean code, but that’s so it’s easier to read for yourself and others — purely logical to do. The problem with programming is that you have to do so much to create something. Yes, you can write code, but even if you write hundreds of lines, it does so little. If you’re working for a company, you only write a small part. It’s nothing like writing an entire TV episode or an entire film.

I guess what I’m trying to do is write that entire film by myself. But programming is way different than writing. Writing, you need a pen, paper, and talent. Coding, you need a language, skills, and experience. You have to learn so much in order to produce something. You can’t just be sitting in a coffee shop and let your imagination run. There’s two parts of me: the logical and the creative. Math and Art were my favourite subjects growing up. Tell me to choose between the two and I can’t tell you. To me, programming is the combination of the two. You need the logic to create something, and then the art to make it useful and worth something to someone. The problem I face is the first part. The logic. The knowledge. Before I can get creative, I have to be purely logical. If I don’t produce the structure, how can I add all the pretty things to it? I don’t know. It’s just my dilemma. Me telling myself I can do it just isn’t enough. My biggest motivators are my parents, but they can’t even begin to understand the stuff I’m trying to do.

I completed my website last week, but mainly because it was CSS. The javascript parts were fun because it pertained to how it looked. I love coding websites because you get to see what you make immediately. I love that. I guess I’m more of a front-end developer when it comes to web. I also feel like because I did so much last week, I don’t have to do that much this week… I took a nap yesterday after two hours of Stanford’s CS193p lectures and then didn’t do anything for the rest of the day. I said I would make up the 1 hour and 15 minutes I skipped out on last week on the weekend, but I never did. When I break rules, I tend to break more. I am disciplined until I am not.

This week, I hope to at least understand the way Objective-C works. I’m really not used to the syntax. I don’t know why they changed the syntax from C so much. It will take time, but my brain will wrap around that syntax like the Scranton Strangler. Also, I need to re-design my resume. My resume is literally from a template that I copied in Grade 10 for Careers class. I don’t know how I got jobs with that thing. I know I’m not going for UI jobs, but I think an attractive resume wouldn’t hurt.

 

soupy twist!

officesandy

Making History

I now begin to record my life in proper English.

It helps to write things down, whether it is after trauma or not.