Staving Off Winter Break Boredom
Thank goodness winter break is finally here.
Most students are probably already on their winter break but I’m in an “accelerated degree program” so the lashings we take are twice as hard :)
Just kidding.
Soon I’ll be traveling for the holidays, so that I can partake in ole traditions like The Harry Potter Marathon and The New Years’ Homewrecking.
What I’m looking forward to most isn’t under the carcass of a dead pine tree, however.
I’m really happy about my time off so that I can LEARN. Of course, I do that normally but there are only so many hours in the day and now, I can use those class/study hours to learn about other stuff that I normally can’t get around to.
In particular, there are two things I’m going to try to learn this break: jazz and Flash games.
Jazz is an ongoing pursuit - it has taken years to begin understanding modal harmonies, altered and sustained chord progressions, deceptive cadence, etc. In particular though, I’ve been getting better about giving each of my hands something to do on the piano. There was a time when playing things with both hands simultaneously was like trying to teach a dog and a cat to get along. Things have been clicking lately and I’m excited to see what kind of stuff I can play for my family’s get together this year.
The second is more of a personal challenge, in that I have very little programming knowledge. I just recently learned HTML/CSS - one hour, every morning I went to a YouTube channel called Traversy Media and followed along with his tutorial series. I feel like I learned a lot, although I’m not sure how much of it will stick in the long run. I really need to find a way to apply this knowledge so that I can retain it.
The main reason I have been learning these mockup languages is to gently introduce myself into programming, so that I could make my own video games eventually. If you’ve read some of my other posts/comments, you’d know that I’m proud to consider myself a geek.
I’m not necessarily a nerd yet but I’m working on it.
I figured Flash games should be relatively easy to create and I’m hoping that I can create a least one good one by the end of my break. I guess I’ll update my Steemit on my progress whenever I make a game or cover a song, or whatever I end up creating in that time.
In the meanwhile, I am still pacing myself with the short story ideas. I’m thinking of maybe reading a mummy book by an author named Jane Lourden, to get myself more acquainted with the medium. Apparently she wrote the first mummy-themed book which happened to be a horror/science fiction book, encouraging feminist ideology. Sounds interesting…
Anywho
Keep up
IQ