I got a bit caught-up in my studies the past few days, and just did not get around to checking in. But I have some stuff I do want to mention, so let’s go ahead and do that.
Okay, I am finally in the last part of Anna Karenina, and the penultimate part ended astonishingly. Not wanting to spoil anything and also not being entirely sure what just happened, I’ll skip over that. Just know, I am definitely finishing this book this year. At this point, I don’t care how it ends, it’s already been amazing. The exploration of human experience, the depth of feeling, the economy of writing, they’re all just so wonderful. I am truly blown away by the author’s understanding of people and skill in describing them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write like that, but I will be holding Tolstoy as an example. A dragon worthy of chasing.
So all of my writing outside of my immediate academic needs is on hold until I can clear these first few credits. After that, I think I’ll be keeping my Sci-Fi story on hold, at least to some degree, while I do some writing practice. I’ve had an idea to write a shorter story in a fantasy world, and I’m thinking maybe modern fantasy or anachronistic, like the mix-ups of eras and technologies in Final Fantasy games or steampunk. But not steampunk. I haven’t really worked out the aesthetic, but in this case, i think that might be a little less important. I don’t know, we’ll see when I actually start writing it.
That leads me to another project that I’m interested in. I have a bunch of projects that I want to do, and this has been a problem in my past. I’d have so many on the docket, and such a huge proportion of those requiring skills that I simply don’t have, that I’d end up not only unable to finish projects, often I’d end up with a bunch of projects that I’ve barely even started. I have a few projects on my bench right now, which I don’t feel so bad about. They use skills I mostly already have and just need refreshing on. They also aren’t super timely, although some of the skills that will be needed align with some of the learning I’m trying to do. I don’t need to be coy – it’s music gear stuff. I used to do some amateur instrument and gear making. To get back into the swing of that, I picked up some kits a while back. Longer back than I care to admit, to be honest, which is part of why I’m anxious to get started. But shortly after I put them on my bench, I realized that, while I’d love the distraction, I really need to stay focused for the time being. And there will be time for me to do them, even when continuing the education load, in the not too distant future. So that’s fine.
But the other projects, the ones that will take more work, more learning, and have many unknowns, those are more complicated. What I’d like to do is to line my prospective projects up in an order that logically stacks. That’s was loosely the idea with these kits, to be honest. Some will take some woodworking, some others will take some electronics work, and they all take some project management. The woodworking is, at least as of now, just a hobby, but I think I’m going to need to continue studying electronics, and I’ll definitely need to practice my soldering. Those skills, and especially the project management practice, should serve me well in both hobbies and career. Really, I’d love to pair projects up with all of my learning, if I can. The writing fits in perfectly, though I suppose that came about more organically.
So I picked up a cheapish robot car and I think a friend of mine might have talked me into trying to make a visual novel.
The robot car has been a regular recommendation from a bunch of directions. Some version of engineering is making more and more sense to me, though I do continue to fear some of the math. But I hit a rough patch in my Stats class, and I seem to have overcome it. And that’s a great boost to my moral, so maybe it’ll be alright. The robot car rolls a whole bunch of skills and disciplines together to pull it off, and I’m really excited about that. I’ll get to practice more of that soldering, which I’m way into. It will also require me to be more care with my overall wiring, my cable management. It will also give me more practice with programming, and that’s what’s up with the visual novel. I had mentioned that I want to make a game, a small one, nothing special. And my friend told me that, with the right game engine, I can basically make one with the skills that I have right now. That was exciting enough news that I almost got started that weekend. But after a little bit of thought, it seemed a little too foolish even for me.
So I think that as an end of year project, I’m going to try and get a handle on the projects that I want to do next year, and try to line some of them up in an order that would be useful.
I’m going to give an abbreviated check-in on health, fitness, and academics this week.
Fitness first – I got in a few more runs, and they’ve been pretty good. But I have become far more sensitive to cold weather in the past few years, and it has felt so fucking cold out. I’m going to need to upgrade my winter workout gear.
Health is up next – I got back blood work and ultrasound results, though it’ll be in January when I have a full follow-up. From what I understand of the results, things seem to be going well, but I should also stop holding out hope for any miraculous recovery of either my liver or heart. Not that I’m really holding out hope for either, really, but you know. It would be nice.
Finally on Academics – I turned in that third essay for my English Comp. class and got another good grade. I think it works out to a mid-A. 230-something out of 240-ish. With the perfect score on the second essay and the first essay being, as it turns out, an F, that brings my overall score up to a solid B. So I probably won’t finish this class with an overall A, but that’s fine. I wasn’t sure I could even do it, and I still haven’t. So the real focus is still to just try and finish it before the end of the year. And I haven’t picked a topic yet, so… tic-toc. I mentioned the Stats class before, and that’s going well if a little slower than I’d like. Same with the Computer Science intro, though since getting to modern languages, things have definitely become easier. Python is a real dream compared to C. You know what? Fuck C, actually. If you are still programming in C in 2025, you deserve a medal. Fuck C. Oh, and I’m on SQL now, which is gratifying. I think after this class, I’m going to line up more in depth classes for both Python and SQL, as I’m pretty sure I’ll need both in where ever my career ends up taking me.
Alright, I’ve got some reading to do, and also I need to piss. And I think I’m getting a cold, that’s not fun.