irimiko

I'm doing alright so far with my goal of less mindless scrolling and making the internet a physical place again. Not perfect but alright.

The main issue I've run into is that, naturally, my closet doesn't have an outlet and the extension cord I thought I had turned out to be half of an old computer power cord. So, Chad can't be plugged in whilst put up in there. In another world, this would be fine. "Computer time" would just be the length of his battery life. But his battery life isn't all that it used to be. And between classes, writing/digital art and checking in with news/people, I can go through it without doomscrolling ever coming into the picture.

So, that's a problem that'll need to be solved. Should be easy enough-- just get an extension cord-- but I've not had the opportunity to go get one just yet. I'm trying to hold myself to a rule that I can only use Chad when he's in his spot but waiting for him to charge can be a bit too much of a waste of time, depending on what I'm actually doing and what needs done. I can honestly say, though, that I already feel a difference when I use him in his designated place vs in bed or on the couch. Once I get the charging situation taken care of, I think this new setup is going to serve me well.

I've decided to do weekly updates on my personal curriculum progress, just to help keep me honest.

Since this was a short week, as far as the new year and therefore my curriculum schedule are concerned, I haven't got much to report. I've stuck to my daily Korean lessons so far and I'm on track, per the program's recommended rate of progress. I'm gonna try to come up with quarterly "field trips" for this course. I've seen a few people do that and it's a fun idea. There's an Asian culture fest in the summer that always has a Korean booth and attractions, so that's the third quarter trip settled. I only thought about it today and I've had other stuff to do, so I still need to look around at what else might work. Since the course itself has inbuilt examinations, I'm not worrying about coming up with a final project. Might think of doing something self-assigned, though, just to spice it up.

Clarinet practice guidelines I've looked up suggested thirty-minute practices for beginners, forty-five-minute practices for intermediate and sixty-minute practices for advanced, all at least five days a week. My plan is to stick with thirty minute sessions for the first month, go on to forty-five for the second and then sixty for the third. I'd actually intended to keep clarinet practice a weekday thing but I went ahead and put in a session today since I wasn't really where I wanted to be after the first two days of reacquainting myself. I'm still having trouble maintaining proper breathing and sight-reading notes, both of which I'll work on without the instrument on weekends going forward. I'm sticking with self-learning for at least this first quarter but I've decided to look into formal lessons to continue after that, so we'll see what I find. I've also decided that my final project for this quarter will be a small "concert" for my family (or as many of them as I can get in one place at that time, anyway).

I think coding and algebra are going well but I also think I'm going to change my schedule a bit. I'm going to cut my coding down to just Saturday and Sunday, really just to give myself more time for other things on Friday. That might change again in the future but at this point, I'm pretty confident I can make the progress I want with HTML and CSS in a few hours per weekend. I'll still do small reviews through the rest of the week, of course. I've decided that this class will also have a final project-- naturally, a website. The topic of which I'm tasking myself with coming up with by the end of this month, so I can plan out how I want it to look. It'll probably be a fansite of some kind or something to showcase my crochet but we'll see. I need to figure out what free hosting is still available in this day and age too.

As for algebra, it occurred to me that doing it on Friday, Saturday and the following Sunday is a bit weird for something I'd planned to break up into weeks, seeing as I'm working on an American calendar. I mean, I guess I could read through the lessons on Sunday, give myself homework to be checked on Friday and then review and take a test, if available, on Saturday... Actually, now that I say that out loud-- so to speak-- I'm not sure why I shouldn't just do that. So, uh. Disregard what I said about changing the schedule for this one, lol. The website I'm using for guidance actually breaks their algebra resources into thirteen sections but the first of these is for prerequisites, so I went through that section for this shortened week and the plan now is to cover one of each of the other twelve sections for each of the next twelve weeks. I glanced at the worksheets available on the site and it looks like there's at least one available per section. And even if there's not or the provided worksheets prove to be inadequate, I don't think it'll be difficult to find more elsewhere on the internet. I feel like this class should have some kind of final project, too, since the site provides tests but no exams, but I've not come up with anything yet. Which does seem silly, tbh, since algebra has plenty of practical applications. Might google about it, Idk.

Side note: I added three whole unrounded three-digit numbers in my head today and got the correct answer. You may clap uwu