Weekly Wisby 1: I scream at a book and take off my shirt

Adam my teacher, not to be confused with “wrong-about-pizza” Adam, wants us to keep reports of our week so we may learn by reflection. A prime convenience to work more hours into my blog. And he’ll be happy to learn that in my first week I thrust myself into a great networking opportunity! Now, the term “networking” gets thrown around an awful lot, so it wouldn’t be amiss for you to find yourself confused as to what it means, but it roughly translates to “party”.

The bees are buzzing, the wind is whistling, and it’s the first day of school. Usually a joyous occasion where you get to meet a lot of new people and make friends, this one felt more akin to an empty playground mid-fall. Sadly, our first 2 weeks of school are spent at home and I think we’ve all felt that the sickness of loneliness can sometimes be more unbearable than the thought of catching the actual death-threatening virus. Still, 2 weeks I can manage and I’ve got my friend Julius to help me through it.

 

Game Design in Practice is a 6-month course in which we’ll be starting a company that will generate $500 a month in profit. Hopefully. You don’t actually have to meet this goal as long as you shoot for it and keep a record of your progress. A reading list with 4 promising books to help you get your start up started up is provided, one of which Adam was speaking particularly highly of:

"Austin would be proud of me and my blog."

As a 3-year-old HKU student, 1 year of IT school and another year of self-learning behind his back, I can’t help but find the Programming with C/C++ 1 course to get on rather slow. This to no one’s detriment, but allow me to explain my situation. My background is in C#, a widely used OOP language that is in fact intended as an increment of C++ (C++ in turn is an increment of C). So, a lot of things are similar, but not enough so that I can skip the basics to C++. Imagine having to redo your car exam because you’re switching from an automatic to a stick-shift.

Not to imply the pace isn’t welcoming. It’s rather nice that I can take things more slowly for now, especially since I’m interweaving all this with my adventure of living on my own. And, it will give me some extra time to explore nature one of these days.

Our first assignment was to draw a portrait of ourselves in code using circles and rectangles. Piece of cake, right? So I made this handsome devil:

I managed to get mine so that all body parts are relative to the previous body parts, yada yada the short of it is it’s really easy for me to change stuff around like making the body larger or moving it and the rest will update correctly. It also allowed me to write a line of code that I think even the layman will understand:

... bool shirtless = false ...

 

Now… Jerry our teacher is awfully nice and he has a good sense of humor to him. You’ll also have to keep in mind that, unlike you, Jerry will be the own initiator of the jest. Through his code review, it is by his eyes the joke is discovered, by his mind to decide whether he wants to see the joke, and by his hand that the joke is delivered. Nevertheless… well you be the judge.

"Professional with a capital P."

I read the first 2 chapters of “Show Your Work!”. The trouble is, after every chapter I feel the need to write my blog. For a book with a name like that, that’s probably the best promotion it can receive. Therefore some may find it slightly peculiar that in the remainder of this block I shall be harshly tearing it down.

“Show Your Work!” I get the impression is written by a public speaker who found work in giving unsolicited advice to rich entrepreneurs who get off on quotes by successful people. As I’m writing this, I have actually just confirmed he’s a speaker for Pixar and Google among others, and pathetically so I can’t help but feel proud about myself.

You’ll find the book to provide you with such helpful advice as which celebrity said what amazingly insightful stuff that one time and he’ll share stories of people that became SucCeSsFulL through a YouTube or blog. There’s nothing wrong with a book that tells others’ stories or shares quotes, but I find it written in such an arrogant manner, by a writer who truly believes his book is some Apple of Eden that is going to change your life, that I can’t help but feel my blood pressure rising with every sentence.

“You don't need to know what celebrity said it to listen to this advice.”

My major gripe with it is that as of yet I have found no practical advice on actually starting a blog or selling a pitch. He just talks about how ‘he’ set up a quick website, or that you can always hire webbies to do the job for you. If I wanted people to write a blog, I would give them an exercise. Something like “don’t even think about the technical side of things, just sit down and write as if you are writing your first blog post.” If they then do that and hate it, they know it’s not for them. You follow Austin, you’ll be 3 weeks in arguing with a graphic designer over font sizes before you put pen to paper.

We’ll have to see if it gets better in chapter 3, otherwise I’ll probably be switching over to a new book next week.

Last but not least, wrapping up the week was the all-important shindig. A third-year had organized a “start of the year" party and it was awfully nice of him to invite Julius and I, since to him we were just “those exchange students”. All kidding aside, it actually was very educational and easily the best way I could have spent my Friday evening. I made a lot of friends and got a lot of numbers.

"It was exactly like this. Not once did we put up loud music, talk disruptively or all leave prematurely because someone had phoned the police for noise disturbance."

Here’s something for the avid reader; in Sweden, people expect you to bring your own alcohol to parties. In the Netherlands it’s custom that the host gets beer for everyone and you just chip in, sometimes mandatorily and sometimes only if you like. Then again, we can get a crate of good beer below 150 kr. That’s 24 beers, and if you don’t care for quality there’s crates below 100 kr, all before deposit money. Anyway, it was fine this time and I could have some from some charitable souls. You’ll also want to install Snapchat. It’s funny how App preference can be so different for different places.

One more thing… you’ll have to prepare yourself for how stunning everybody looks. I’m not kidding when I say you'll find nothing less than a solid 8 in both directions, so you've gotta look your best. In fact, I myself was prepared for this by my niece, who has also studied in Sweden… can’t believe I haven't talked to her yet. I think I'll do that...

See you next week!