Week 002: Progress Report

Hi there, conscience.

Amazing how fast a week goes by. I'll note developments in the relevant areas rather than attempt to fabricate wholly unnecessary paragraphs. I've given myself a rather generous five years target deadline to learn all of these 'talents' and their various offshoots or logical further developments (i.e. ANSI/ISO standard C++ is just a foundation for the non-standard, often platform-specific additions to the language, but just learning standard C++ wouldn't let me do a great deal), so I don't expect to see massive progress from week-to-week!
Nice to have it documented, all the same.

Ambidextrous

Started drawing practice! Y'know, lines and circles and squares, etc! Fun stuff.

Acoustic Guitar & Singing

Shelled out for a better capo, started learning to play/sing Only You, inspired by Joshua Radin's cover. Will probably work through some of his other acoustic pieces, such as Star Mile. I'm aware that I'll need to record/video myself at some point, if only so I can see where I need to improve!

Digital Art

Completed a rough concept/painting of a female character from the old Amiga/SNES videogame Syndicate. Working on a detailed concept/portrait of Rinoa Heartily from Final Fantasy VIII portrayed by the actress Camilla Belle, who happens to look a lot like the videogame persona. Yet to upload any existing artwork, but it will be done in the near future.

C++

Pushing Japanese to the backburner for a little while, I'm now spending more time with C++.

Literature


Currenly reading Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds, the last in his three-part Revelation Space series.





Running

Added downhill running to my routine!

Week 001: Progress Report

I've been considering for a little while about what format this blog should take on, and I've decided to go with weekly 'progress reports' combined with intermittent entries focusing on specific projects, tutorials or whatever I feel the desire to share, essentially.

The progress reports basically list the subjects being learnt along with my recent developments in each field. It's an accountability thing, I guess. That's not to say that learning should be rushed just to have something new to report. My methodology usually implies re-reading a chapter of a book several times over the course of a week, taking notes, testing myself on what I've learnt and generally being happy that I fully understand what has been presented to me - before then moving on to the next chapter. I've read programming books in the distant past over a few scant days, and wondered why I couldn't remember any of it a few months down the line.

Differing somewhat from standard entries on points of interest, the projects entries will be more of a culmination of study areas as opposed to being directly applicable to one single field. Constructing a piece of software - a game, for example, is more than just C++ (or an alternative language), it also incorporates software design, graphic design, mathematics and so on. Other conjunctions will be more deliberate; like pairing ventures into history with something of an art class, and learning songs with guitar accompaniment.

This first(!!!11) progress report basically brings the reader up to date with what I've been doing in each area for the past month, and is probably a bit more in-depth than would be common in the future (or I'd spend more time reporting on learning than actually learning!)

Ambidextrous

There's more to becoming ambidextrous than just learning to write with your weaker hand, but it's a good enough place to start. I'll have to scan in some sheets or something, but I've basically been filling an A5 page, both sides of the paper each day. Doesn't sound much, but it's enough apparently to see an improvement. I'm also learning cursive handwriting (I started with block text). The line weight is still a bit heavy, and the pen angle feels a little awkward at times; I imagine it won't start to feel natural for a while yet.

Japanese


I'm working through Japanese From Zero! 1 by George Trombley and Yukari Takenaka. The chapters are organised so that you learn in rather small chunks, with the writing of the first phonetic albabet of Hiragana taught in stages along with vocabulary and grammar and a few pages of exercises at the end of each chapter to test what you've learnt so far. I'm currently half way through this book, with my Japanese vocabularly falling at around ~350 words and enough grammar to know how to greet and ask/answer basic questions in the present tense. I've been using DreamKana, which is a flash card program that aims to boost your knowledge of the Hiragana and Katakana (though I have the Katakana turned off atm), and I take word lists of about 20-30 words to work with me and regularly test myself by covering up the English or Japanese. I find that first thing in the morning is a good time to sift through word lists, because your brain is more receptive to stimulae after you've just woken up.

Acoustic Guitar & Singing

Bought a bunch of different shaped picks to try out, since my other kept slipping around my fingers whilst strumming. Never really had that problem with electric. Also bought a cheap capo to try out some songs that apparently required it, but I think it doesn't really hold down the strings at first fret well enough to do the job. Elastic-type capo seems a no-no at this stage. Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. I've been following these online lessons at about.com, so I generally play several scales each day, practice the basic chord shapes and work on my barre chords (which hurt!) whilst also learning my first song which is apparently going to be Mike & The Mechanics - Over My Shoulder, because, hey, it fits my vocal range and I heard it on the radio a few weeks back and thought it wouldn't be too hard. The bridge features an F barre chord however, so that's the only real stumbling block at present. I hope to have the song nailed over the next few weeks!

As for the singing, well, I guess I can't really be the judge of that. But I've recorded myself a few times, and it seems average enough. I'll need to start looking into breathing excercises and such, but apparently just practicing regularly will encourage improvement. Just like an instrument, then.

Digital Art

Ok, so, showing artwork is something of a leap of faith. I'm aware that I've got a long way to go before I'm producing anything worthy of being put up on deviantart, which is the immediate goal, I guess.
I bought a graphics tablet some six months ago. Quite an expensive bit of kit, I must admit, but drawing with a mouse isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world. There are, of course, cheaper tablets available to purchase, and I whole-heartedly recommend such an investment to any would-be digital artist. I'm using Photoshop CS3 as my painting software of choice at the moment, although cheaper solutions do exist for those on a budget. The outlay for getting into digital work can be substantial compared to traditional types, and printing can present a problem, especially if you've gone and produced a piece at too small a resolution!
I read several monthly publications, ImagineFX and Advanced Photoshop to name probably the best two, and generally absorb as much as I can :D The step-by-step tutorials you find both there and across the internet (if you know what you're looking for) are invaluable.
To set the ball rolling, I'll try and get some existing artwork uploaded somewhere during the week...

C++

I'm working through Accelerated C++ by Andrew Koenig and Barbara E. Moo. Even though it covers enough material to cater for the absolute beginner, I would say that you're going to get more out of this book if you were already familiar with the language to a certain degree. Something like Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days is probably a more common starting ground. I've been focusing more on Japanese presently, but I should be able to move faster through this particular text seeing as I've read it before (although some time ago). Fortunately, I already have several other books to move straight onto, which cover similar ground, but more oriented towards developing simple games. Basically, I'm brushing up on my C++; I've never really used any of the more useful features, and I can't do anything too far past a console prompt. Back in the day, I used Visual Basic whenever I needed a window. Graphics programming, most notably the DirectX technology, is virtually a whole language to be learnt in itself.

Literature

Well, I consider this blog to be writing practice! I have some ideas for some short stories, but nothing concrete as of yet. As far as studying history goes, I'm thinking of working through the ages of Japan, which also gives the opportunity to try out some Japanese-style painting to complement what I'm reading about. I like the idea of travelling to a country having already picked out what you want to see based on the history surrounding it. When I was very young, I would travel overseas with my parents once or twice a year. We would go and see tombs and various ruins, but we didn't really know anything concerning the origin of those places, how they were linked or about the people that lived and died there. I've always been fascinated by the prospects of the future, but when you think about it, the intrique of the largely-unrecorded past isn't really any different.

Martial Arts

Since I appear to be taking a country-by-country approach to learning, I guess it makes sense to choose a Japanese martial art to top it off. I'll need to do some reading to find out which style would best suit me, and then work on the assumption that I'm fit enough to get started asap.

Running

I'm currently running 4-5 miles, three times a week, focusing on uphill training to strengthen my leg muscles (hamstrings, quads). Although, apparently, you need to do an equal amount of downhill running to strengthen the muscles on the other side (quadriceps) :\

Pen Flipping

Nothing in the whole world makes me angry. Except trying to flip a pen around my thumb. I love how these guys claim it took them three years to learn their moves. I believe them.


Okay, so my posts get longer with each entry. I hope I can break this vicious cycle :\

I don't get it. 31 point... what?

/sigh

Okay, you're not likely to catch the blog-title reference unless you're an MMO'er, but it's not important. What I'm doing here is merely learning what is out there to be learnt. There are likely many massively talented folk out there who have done just that, yet didn't feel the need to blog their respective misadventures. For reasons that I have yet to conjure, I felt inclined to create and maintain such a blog. Am I attempting to be inspirational? Big-headed? To preach some new-age gospel? To encourage people to burn their TV sets and actually do something with their lives? To enrapture an audience that I can eventually sell novelty beer-mats to? Form your own conclusions, of course, but I fancy I'm just doing it because I can.

I think it may be a line from Star Trek: First Contact that first inspired my current philosophy towards personal development. Jean Luc Picard is explaining to a disorientated Lily Sloane about the economics of the future as they traverse a Borg-infested Enterprise;

"The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives; we work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity."

We could debate how that works in practice for the best part of forever. The global economy, though fickle, is here to stay. As long as you have a need for a limited resource, you in turn create a need for a monetary system. But that wasn't even what I was getting at. I'm talking about complacency amongst humanity; about turning a blind eye to the world beyond your neighbourhood and only partaking in the activities that have secured exclusive rights to the 'cool' byword. So, basically, getting pissed every other night and hopefully getting laid on the weekend. Oh, and pretending you had something to do with the victories amongst the teams of your favourite sports.

Is it a coping mechanism? Is humanity silenty depressed that this is all there is; that we've essentially documented the better part of our world and that the nearest solar system is 4.3 light years away, which leaves us with virtually nothing to discover that we can't claim to have already seen on a television screen. And so we lose ourselves in our social intermingling, worship celebrity icons (because it's so much better to admire someone who wasn't lazy than to do it ourselves) and attempt - in some minor fashion - to shadow the hectic and wholly unattainable lives of our favourite soap stars.

Or maybe it's me. And people like me. Maybe being outcast from the whole global soap opera is whats producing this very shout-out, and I'm the one holding the coping mechanism card. Maybe I'm only learning these things because I seek a more prominent position amongst the elitist cast and secure myself a more resounding voice within the great script. It's all open to interpretation at the end of the day, but I guess the best middle-ground is to just let humanity get on with doing whatever it wants, right? Fine.

I'm going to quit with this self-indulgence rambling and put it blunty. Skills open doors. There are so very many ways to embrace life - most of us just embrace a partner or a career and reflect on life from that vantage point. But you needn't be so confined. Why live one life when you could live so many more? My chosen list of talents are largely related. Learning languages lets you travel the world as more than just a tourist, perhaps the closest you can come in our age to journeying to another world and becoming part of that world. Learning to defend yourself lets you travel to less hospitable regions. I could become an artist, an animator, a graphic designer, a conceptual designer. Throw in programming abilities and I could make my own software, graphics training opening the route to game development, an exploration of mathematics and physics aiding in the creation of virtual worlds. Anything that you learn is everything that you are.

I haven't picked randomly, I am yet to settle on a career path, and I'd like to expand my options. Five years from now (or sooner?), I hope to have a new batch of skills waiting to be learnt that reflect my progression into the next era of my life. Will it be gardening and DIY? Will I be tinkering under the hood of cars? Learning bricklaying and plumbing? Dancing and Poetry? Arabic or the romantic tongue de la francais? The mandolin, the violin, maybe something from the brass family? Will my ongoing quest to become a novelist later in life (and typically have a huge budget film based on my works announced a few months after I've died) ever see the light of day?

And so we come at last to the bread and butter of the blog. From this point on, I will endeavour to report on my progress across each field and throw out advice and guidance, maybe even full-on tutorials, or videos. It's nice to share the progress of a fellow learner, but that doesn't really make me an ideal teacher - a good teacher speaks from experience, after all - and you'd be surprised how many books and tutorials invalidate one-another and leave you wondering whether you're learning something in the correct manner or not. So I'll refrain from adding yet another extensive (and potentially conflicting) approach to a particular study and attempt instead to play the role of a guide, ushering others past the hurdles that slowed me down or outright confused the hell out of me.

Let's see how this story pans out.

The story so far... Pt3

And so finally onto the third branch of my hypothetical talent tree: Performance talents. So far, it's all been about sitting down and flipping through a book (or more likely, a pile of books) in order to learn.

Running - I've been going to the gym for a few years, roughly three times a week. However, recently, the idea of doing some fun runs or marathon holds a certain appeal, and I've stepped up my treadmill activity accordingly (though I should probably get myself out on the streets asap!). Can you actually be talented at running - a motor function so inherently gifted at birth? I don't know, I guess it's akin to something like swimming; plenty of people can swim just fine. but that doesn't necessarily mean that they could swim the Channel. Yeah, stating the blatant obvious, that's me.

Martial Arts - Something I'm yet to look in to. I do feel strongly that the kind of world we live in warrants some basic self-defence training at the very least. I hear about so many people being mugged and knifed to death afterwards; could the result have been any different if they had learnt to defend themselves? I've never been in such a situation myself, so I realise the hypocrisy of my suggestion, but we've become such a retroactive society, only learning things when we have a specific goal in mind or an obstacle to overcome. Well, hey, you really can't know when someone is going to come along and decide to take your life. I don't think I've ever read in the media about anyone thwarting would-be-attackers - is this because the media only ever reports succesful muggings/killings or that self-defence doesn't really live up to its name?

Singing - Apparently anyone can sing if they try hard enough! This talent goes hand-in-hand with my first instrument of choice: acoustic guitar (though I'd love to try my hand at the piano eventually). I'm not talking about wanting to be some kind of superstar or something, I'm merely talking about using singing as an extension to the existing means of self-expression. Basically, something that can be highly personal, that you can choose with whom to share. Denying yourself a potentially fundamental means of communicating your more intimate or passionate self seems kind of silly when you look at it from a certain perspective.

I also want to learn Pen Flipping! But the very first thumb trick still eludes me after a week of attempts, so I may have to admit defeat :(

The story so far... Pt2

Okay, that about covers the learning of things that could potentially aid learning/creativity. This brings us to the 'hobby' class of talents;

Digital artwork - My Wacom A5 Wide tablet has seen plenty of action of late, but I'm still refining my style and subject matter, whilst spending plenty of time browsing the works and technique of others. Ultimately, I'd be moving away from (fine art) painting and on to more concept-type work.

Programming - I've done a touch of programming over the years - software (VB, C++) and web (HTML, CSS, WYSIWYG) variants, but it's very easy to fall behind in the fast-moving IT world. I'm going to take a C++ fresher course, then see about learning MFC/.net/CL and produce an array of simple games, starting with clones of the old classics. I'm less interested in web development these days, but I figure I'll get around to it at some point.

Literature - I'd like to write sci-fi/fantasy fiction at some point in the future, but personally I feel that I don't have enough overall experience to call upon to write believable stories. I don't know if that sounds ridiculous or not, but I've been reading novels lately and can't help noticing that certain threads of the story are superbly written and others merely skimmed over, as if the author was more comfortable addressing certain subjects and dutifully filling in the gaps whenever the story deviated from his or her comfort zone. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books? The Lord of the Rings is a good example of a far more solid endeavour in my opinion, though I guess the sheer depth doesn't necessarily appeal to everyone. I'm not only trying to expand my vocabulary by reading other books, but I also intend to study various chapters of history (which pairs nicely with building an artwork portfolio imo), physics (Reading Revelation Space made me realise just how little I know about space) and of course, writing short stories.

I'll be concluding this list tomorrow!

The story so far...

I'll go right ahead and skip the 26 years prior to broaching this particular chapter. Like a poorly concieved screenplay, I'll no doubt resort to snippets of flashbacks to illuminate past events where required, but suffice to say - you didn't miss much.

Let's cut to the chase, everything else is just eye strain after all. Apparently my brain got hooked on larger doses of oxygen and decided to let me be intelligent again. Been a while since I had a proper taste of that. Roughly before I attended some piece-a-shit high school, I think it was. Y'know, those ones where the more mentally handicapped amongst us flush out the smarter folk and bring them plummeting back down to their own meagre level all in the name of complacency. Hey, I digress.

Learning is suddenly a whole lot easier. So, I figured I'd try some of it. Naturally, I assumed I was going through yet another short-lived phase. Apparently not. If anything, I'm actually looking forward to getting down to my various studies after the day job is done with.

Wait, why the blog? Doubles as my conscience and incentive should I have a need for it (and in due time, I have no doubt that I will). I'd have preffered Matrix style injection-learning, but I guess I'll just have to go with the good old-fashioned self-studying for half a decade or so. I intend to chronicle the results of my developments, for whatever purpose that might serve. Inspiration to others, perhaps? Seems like people only learn enough to get by these days. The path of least resistance, you could say.

/shrug

I figured I'd start with (potentially) brain nurturing talents;

Becoming Ambidextrous - I'm left-handed, though only for writing. Learning cursive with my right hand is coming along nicely already, but that doesn't necessarily make me ambidextrous just yet. Left- and right-handnesses implies use of only one hemisphere of your brain. Being ambidextrous allegedly 'balances' it out. Is that a good thing? One way to find out. Einstein was ambidextrous!

Becoming Bilingual - I've chosen Japanese as my future second language for various reasons, not least my love of anime in its original form. Probably more logical to have gone with French or Dutch, seeing that I'm based in the UK, and I can see learning the Kanji taking some serious time to master. Apparently you can dream and even sub-vocalise in your non-native tongue once you reach a certain fluency threshold. I'm intriqued on that point alone, but being bilingual apparenly has other more prominent advantages due to the way it 're-maps' the brain. I don't claim to be a brain expert, I've only read bits and pieces, but it does at least seem that educational chiefs would like to press foreign language studies on to children at an earlier stage of their development in recognition of the advantages to brain function.

Learning an instrument - I've been playing electric guitar for a few years, but I've never actually learned to play it, and certainly can't read music and such. I've switched to acoustic (stolen my fathers) regrown my delightful calluses, learnt my scales and find myself busily progressing through the chords. Brain science is hardly an exact science, but they claim that musicians use different parts of their brains than non-musicians. It also has a zen-like quality in that you can effectively lose yourself in your music, which is apparently a great stress-reliever. Not that i have any stress to worry about these days.

I'm wrapping up for the night; will continue tomorrow!