Oh Yea, I Forgot I’m A Coder

When I was writing my post for The Blueprint, I realised that there was something that I put on my bucket list back when I left teaching and could have been crossed off 2-3 years ago.

List Item: Code something
Progress: Completed

It’s so weird to have this as a crossing off now because this is my job now. I code using SPSS, VBA in Excel and, occasionally R. I dabble in some Python every now and then, but it nearly always goes wrong so I really need to have time to actually improve on that.

So not only have I written lines of code, I have written it in multiple languages. I wonder what the me from back at the beginning of the blog would think of this. Hell, I wonder what my Computing teacher from 15 years ago would think of this. We did some Visual Basic coding back then, but because young, dumb me was so fixated on doing Psychology at university that I dropped coding when I entered the final years of school.

Part of me does wonder how different my life would be if I continued with coding at school. I was one of the best in my year too. It’s a regret for sure, but at least I am doing it now and I am continuing to grow.

I’m Folding Me Some Butterflies

List item: Make something from origami
Progress: Completed

I am not exactly artistic. I mean, sure, I completed NaNoWriMo a few months ago and I leave weird Post-It doodles on my co-workers’ desks…but my point still stands.

Origami kinda appeals to me for the fact that it’s creative, it can look really nice and there are sets of instructions that can be followed much like a recipe. In essence it’s like making macaroni cheese but with paper. Yes, I know it makes no sense.

The first thing  tried was a dolphin… which was so bad I got annoyed part-way through and binned it.

I then got onto butterflies. I actually began to have real fun making these and have since internalised how to make them. This alone would have checked this item off of my bucket list but I wanted to try more.

As you can see above I have tried my hand at other animals. I managed to make a successful dolphin in the end as well as a swan and (a stab at) a pig. Not pictured are two cranes that I have made.

I have a developing flock of butterflies. They are pretty and I want to decorate a corner of the room with them… I may need to put it to the engagement partner though… I am liking this idea.

Naming The Fifty States of America

List Item: Be able to name all the American States in under 10 minutes
Progress: Completed

As a Brit the ability to name the 50 U.S. States never really featured as part of geography lessons (which I quit as early as I could because physical geography bored me). But, I remember from an episode of Friends that the ability to name all 50 states was something that was hard to do so this was something I wanted to be able to do.

Now, I apologise for the quality of the video below (and the giant watermark) but you will both see and hear me complete this item from my bucket list. It took a lot of self control to not swear whenever I got stuck….

So, as you can see, I managed to name all 50 states after not practising for almost a year. If you have any related thing that you think I should try and aim towards please leave me a comment.