Cassie Learns to Code: The First Three Months

I've alluded to my limited pool of patience and when it comes to doing something, I have practically no skill at making myself wait. So, though I said I would not take on another project until I wrapped up Summer of Austen, there just was no stopping me on my new project: Cassie Learns to Code. This is one project that will certainly take more than three months, so we'll just call this installment The First Three Months.

Last week, I signed onto Codecademy after a five month break and have now spent probably twenty hours over the last five days learning JavaScript. I spent most of my Friday night (fun night!) making flash cards so I could study vocabulary while on the bus, watching tv, whenever. My notebook is slowly filling up with scribbles as I process more conceptual information, e.g., figuring out why a semi-colon is used, not just when.

What, you didn't spend your Friday night studying?

This weekend has been full of mini-triumphs and some anecdotal evidence that this is something I can learn. I am a huge fan of the way Codecademy is structured - a combination of teaching, learning by doing, and poking around to find the answer. It's a community and everyone is excited about coding!

I took this screenshot on Saturday after finishing an exercise successfully: fairly quickly and without having to look elsewhere for definitions or hints. Several things started to come together in my brain here - the whole if/elseif/else concept, the aforementioned eureka moment on semi-colons, and a more thorough understanding of functions.

This morning, Sunday, I flipped through my flash cards while procrastinating on the whole get up and get going thing. Within ten minutes, I had to abandon that plan and pull out a notebook to start jotting down questions and musings. Tiny bits of information are starting to form complete pictures in my brain AND I'm able to use my current professional position to put things in context.

After running errands (and finally getting in to a Ballerina Bum class at MaZi), I came home to work out a problem. I didn't want to launch into another lesson; I'm afraid of moving through concepts too quickly and not letting them percolate in my brain long enough. And though it took a little bit of trial and error, I did this today without use of note cards or Codecademy's (very helpful) glossary.

I'm not delusional. This is all very basic, I know, but there is nowhere else for me to start than getting down the basics. You may be concerned (er, mildly interested) that this will take time away from Summer of Austen and Project Ukulele and that might be true. I find the busier I am, the better I am at managing my time, though, and I made significant progress with Pride and Prejudice this weekend. (And tomorrow I will write about how happy I am I stuck with the book.)

This is certainly a multi-year, maybe a lifelong, project but three-month chunks seem like a great way to document and measure my progress.

Up next: WordPress 101 with Nicole Crimaldi and Dabble, Tuesday evening.

Project Ukulele

Originally, I had assumed I'd only take on a new project after I finished one. And then my doctor sentenced me to six weeks in a walking boot to heal a stress fracture (that I had made significantly worse by "working through the pain" for several months). I'm taking my recovery seriously - better six weeks of no activity (even if it's the absolute best six weeks of the year to be a Chicagoan) than several more months of pain, or possible injury beyond repair.

As one of my most significant hobbies has been dance and dance-fitness, I now have an overwhelming amount of free time available. I love to read and I have been doing so much reading and writing - but my brain needs a break. From the written word, at least. (I have not given up on Summer of Austen! I'm starting Sense and Sensibility on my flight to Boston tomorrow night.)

I don't want to get too carried away with overlapping projects - and I realize not every undertaking in my life is a "project," but this one is worthy. Project Ukulele. Tonight, I will take my first ukulele class, really my first music class since compulsory elementary classes. The extent of my musical instrument experience is a four-month stint with the violin at age ten and the permanently etched memory of how to play "Mary had a Little Lamb" (3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3...).

I was going to write in this paragraph about how nervous I am. But I'm really not. I watched some YouTube videos last night and practiced the basic chords. I have no doubt that the instructor and other participants will be lovely, welcoming people. (I'm taking the class through Dabble, a lovely Chicago start-up.) And if it doesn't go well, if I can't play the ukulele even after hours and hours of practice? All I've lost is somewhere around $60 and some time - worse things have happened.

Project Ukulele has a specific goal: "Moon River." (You recreate your favorite movie scenes and I'll recreate mine.)

It's not an overly ambitious goal, and I might not-so-secretly hope I can master the song in something closer to a month. But it's so new to me, I have no idea!

I make no promises for the quality of my singing though. Here's a sneak peek (ha, kidding - she's fantastic.)

Summer of Austen Begins

When Clueless came out, DMC (my then-very-best-friend) and I were the very first people at the local theater for the very first showing. (This surely betrays my age a bit since we were allowed to go alone and did not need chaperones.) Of course, we then spent the entire summer quoting the film (as if!) and pining for a closet like Cher’s. 

Oh, how I wanted that yellow plaid skirt!

And so it came to be that my first Jane Austen novel was Emma. Truly, I did not fall in love with the book upon this reading. I’m not even certain that I finished it. This is not a story of an adolescent love affair with the love affairs of Jane Austen’s imagination. But I’ve always held on to the book, and I did re-read it sometime in college - at which time, I guess liked it.

And then I read it again. And again. And somewhere along the way, I realized that I truly love this book. Recently, I exaggerated to a friend that I read Emma every summer, in August. That’s not entirely true (confession!) But I have read it several times, and typically in the late summer: those hot, lazy days when reading in your home with the curtains drawn to plead for some kind of relief from the sun is about all you can manage to do. The idea of reading Austen annually triggered a romantic curiosity though, and an idea - surely, reading any Austen novel in the summer is an enjoyable way to pass the time.
And so begins my first three-month project: Summer of Austen. I have read Emma, of course, and Pride and Prejudice (though I’ve seen the BBC miniseries countless more times than I’ve read the novel). I have not read any other Austen novels though and really know little about her life and contemporaries, beyond common popular knowledge.

I will immerse myself in Austen for the next three months: her novels, film adaptations, biographies, contemporary and current reviews and criticisms. I will read (and watch) with the eye of a historian, an amateur literary critic, an easily amused hopeful romantic.
First up: Northanger Abbey.