Marmalade, Jam & Java

As I wait for feedback on my first draft, I've been busy knocking a few things off my list that have been hanging around for a while.

image courtesy SimplyRecipes
For instance, the 2 dozen+ Seville oranges I bought back in late January, early February. Well, the contractors for some crazy reason, decided to eat 3 -- and realized that they were bitter and sour (HELLO!). Then, byyesterday, 3 had rotted. So that left about 18-20. Made the first batch and wow - are they sour or what! It's marmalade alright. Pete should like it. Next batch I'll adjust for my sweeter tastes -- less rind, more sugar. Yum!

It's also the beginning of strawberry season in California. There was someone selling half-dozen pints by the side of the road, so a friend and I split them. About a 1/3 were perfectly ripe and delicious for eating (shared with the contractors, they liked.) The rest were a little tart - perfect for jam. So I made a quickie strawberry jam. Didn't quite set right -- fruit to sugar ratio was probably off -- and wowser -- so sweet. Will adjust down. Maybe I should try a strawberry orange mix...will let you know.

7 jars of marmalade so far, 7 jars of strawberry jam.

And Java -- as in the programming language. Restarted my studying and realized I would just die if I had to do another moment of the online course -- so incredibly tedious and boring. It puts me to sleep with 20 minutes. Better than Ambien. So I bought a recommended book and will slam through that -- just need to get this certification done in 2-3 weeks or so.

Hmmmm...what else can I make into a jam?

Draft 1 - sent!!

Whew! Tired.

First draft of paper and first draft of games sent for review. This was huge for me. Next up Java certification and revisions. Recommendation for graduation has to be handed in April 30.

Celebrate with me.

In the midst of it

Just a quick note this week as I'm in the midst of writing the MA thesis. The programming on my project is at a good point -- it still needs 2-3 days more work. I'm hoping to complete the writing portion by March 17th -- slightly behind schedule -- and the entire project by end of this upcoming week.

The writing process

The writing is going well, I can get about 6-7 good hours of writing in per day. I'm not a fast writer and I tend to write once, revise modestly as the real work is in organizing the thoughts. I've become familiar with this process having written many essays over the past few years: re-read my key articles, take notes and quotes, re-read a few past essays - pull out relevant quotes -- that takes about a day. Then I start writing after puttering and forcing myself to sit. Take break, putter, sit. On and on. Occasionally take breaks to detail the shower, do yoga, or get some food shopping done (and yes, get distracted by a Netflix movie maybe ONCE).

What interesting about my process now is how much less anxiety I have around doing the writing, which I had even last spring. I let go of something - my job, expectations I had for myself, who knows. All that matters now is that I can see the end and a new future beyond it.

Back to it.

Haikus: Green Dot & DukeCE

Often when I work on essays and programming, poetry emerges spontaneously. Today in celebration of a programming victory I write this haiku:

Green Dot Haiku:

the green dot is freed
possibilities abound
to become all things

Getting a green dot to move between 2 black boxes seems like such a trivial thing when I write it out. What is not seen is the work in understanding the architecture of the language, getting the grammar just right, to do what you imagine is possible. Once I was able to write the lines of code that did this one simple thing, all things become possible now. I have emerged victorious.

An older haiku for DukeCE:

Duke CE the dream
we had once big ideas
changing others, changed me

Onwards.

Climbing the Mountain

When you have what seems to be an insurmountable task, how do you begin? How do you begin to climb the mountain? You've been looking at, dreaming about the mountain for weeks and it keeps getting bigger everyday.

"Bird by bird" as hickcity said. But what if you don't even know what the "bird" is in your mountain? How do you break it down?

Halfway up this mountain and I'm still not sure how I got here.

Something like this: Game by game. Interaction by interaction.

p.s. Yes that is me doing indoor rock climbing. Hand over hand, don't look down.