Virus

There is no doubt that the summer had given me more than I had ever expected. However, with the good experiences come the bad. Earlier this year, the H1N1 Virus (aka Swine Flu) spread across the globe.

Seemingly originating from Mexico, it was not a good news topic for dad to see. Even though many people have died from it, I honestly had no fear of it. The chances of death are still pretty remote. It wasn't going to change my plans for going to Mexico.

Earlier this year, I lost a cousin from the virus and it has changed the way I think about it. No one is really safe and it's just a matter of time before everyone is exposed to it. Already, there are over 100 suspected cases of the virus at Georgia Tech alone.

Last week, over half of the people I work with at our college gymnasium have been out due to sickness. On August 27th, the college also sent a lengthy email to all students, faculty, and staff about being aware of the flu, and where to go for additional information.

In fact, the friend who was going to come over and help and meet my father became very ill the previous night and wasn't able to come over for the day. Since I had already committed to going over to help dad, I headed out that way alone and helped put up the sheet rock on the ceiling in his new building.

Two days later, I also became ill. All of us at the college are getting better as of lately though, so I'm glad we'll be getting back on track.

As with my friend meeting my father - Monday is labor day and is pretty much the only day where he can come over and help out in the morning (the time of day that my father really works). If we miss this day, I don't think things are going to work out as well as. I'm confident though that a simple day of work will greatly allow things to go better later.

Trust is everything.

Next time, I want to talk about some of the things I've done to try and improve my image, outgoingness, and trying to really connect with people while fighting to keep my bank account in the positive numbers. I think a lot of it has been a psychological battle, but with some assistance, I think I'm winning the war.

A Desire to Need

I've realized that in order to really learn a language there must be a need to learn it, not a desire. Textbooks, audio tapes, and other learning materials can only prepare you to a certain extent. There has to be something more to really succeed.

I was talking to my friend around the time I began the quest and Mexico became a topic of discussion. To make a long story short, he visits a lot of his family in Mexico around the winter break and we decided that I could go with him if the conditions were safe enough. As of that day, I had a pretty big incentive to continue to learn the language. That is my need.

This also comes with some problems. Never have I not been home for Christmas break - and me going on a trip to Mexico is not exactly the excuse my father is going to want to hear. His mind is bent around all of the stories he hears on the news about how dangerous and corrupt the country is. There have been countless times that he speaks this way about Mexico.

I decided that informing him from the start would be a bad choice. I'm sure he would dread the whole thing for months. However, I must tell him sometime so that he has the chance to let it sink in. I've decided to do this around the beginning of November.

In the meantime, I need to help break the ice by getting him to trust my friend. If that happened, there wouldn't be as much of a shock. I believe this can be accomplished by getting my friend to come over to help with the construction of dad's shop building, which we are going to try and come over on Monday.

I'll phone in the verdict.

The Language Obsession

It's been six months since I've started learning spanish. At first, I wasn't quite sure what really made me interested in it, but when I got into it I couldn't stop. In fact, since I started learning I quit my job as well as all other personal projects I had going on to make the most out of my learning experience.

I started learning by viewing a few YouTube videos. However, they usually skipped from topic to topic, with only really beginning lessons. It just wasn't having the effect that I wanted. I then visited a website that listed the most commonly used words in spanish. From there, I wrote each word on a post-it note and put the english meaning on the other, and then posted it on my wall. Still though, if I wanted to be able to speak to people in spanish, I needed to actually speak and hear the words for myself. I had to move on to something better.

Later, I downloaded audio tracks that had many months worth of learning the language. There were many technicalities that I had to work out, but I listened to them everyday for weeks at a time - in the house, in the car, and wherever I could bring my laptop.

These lessons were more helpful, and I wrote down everything I had the slightest confusion about, which eventually made it's way to being posted on my bedroom wall. Post-it notes were being placed all over the place - along with other notes I had printed off from the college. There was a time when I ran out of room on two of my walls and had to move on to a third.

Throughout the entire ordeal so far, I've had a friend to help me along the way in every way possible. There have been so many times I wanted to turn back from learning the language, but the encouragement from him always kept me in the game.

With only a couple of weeks worth of the audio lessons, I obtained Rosetta Stone. It has a completely different learning style, using many angles to allow the person to learn, obtain, and naturally speak spanish. It works well, but takes hours to finish even one lesson. There are 80 lessons total and as of today, I am on number 13.

I'd like to stop the story around here for now. Next time, I'll get into how some of my wants have turned into needs, as well as why there is a huge day to dread in the future because of it all.

My Online Journal

Welcome Back

I have not used this blog is quite some time, but I am going to make it a point to get back into the swing of things. The last few months of my life have probably been the most exciting months of my life and I feel the need to record them.

Comments

Previously, I had a forum to allow people to communicate with each other. This was mainly used for people who had an interest in my game projects. However, the activity went to zero when the project ended, but I still want to allow some sort of discussion.

That being said, please feel free to comment on any posts I make or replies to other comments. You don't need an account to do this, but if you do have an account, then it will make it that much easier.

In addition, you are also able to let me (and others) know if you find a post interesting or not by clicking on a check box below each post.

Other Changes

On the right menu you will see several different things, such as links to projects that I find inspiring and a lot of free software. I've always found my list to be useful whenever I setup a computer, so I'll continue this trend.

Post Topics

I want to have the topics from this blog to be more about my adventures than anything else, but I will also add things I find interesting - innovative software, videos, whatever comes to mind. If there are many "No"s clicked in the interesting rating, I'll stop with those postings though.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the new blog style and content.