I started an online degree! Well a Nanodegree as they
(Udacity) call it. I’m studying to be a Front End Web Developer! I’ve dabbled in Web Dev before, but it’ll be nice to have a formal education and a paper
that says I know it endorsed by a bundle of people I’ve never met.
I think online degrees are the way of the future. It’s probs
a little weird and might not carry a ton of weight with employers right now,
but I do think that it’ll be more the norm in a decade or so. It’s more way
more efficient than a traditional classroom, allows more people to get an
education, and is fractions of fractions cheaper than my Pitt degree. And I’m
actually learning and applying and thinking with this degree. I’ll have skills
to pay bills.
You might say that online learning lacks the kind of interaction
that classroom learning affords. And I’d say yea, but studying anything,
especially coding, is pretty much just practicing. And nine times outta ten you’re
doing that alone anyway. How interactive is your average Ochem class anyway? You
getting a lot of hands on time with your prof? (sexy???)
And electronic communication is getting more advanced all
the time. You can chat with the profs, and there’s Google groups (guess who
Udacity is owned by) for the class and they really emphasize collaboration.
There’s also a Q&A with a hiring manager coming up so they’re like pretty
gung ho on getting you career ready.
Got a job interview for a real boy job as a marketing
coordinator for a real estate company! In Darwin though. So yea, not going to
that thank you very much.
Also hey who let me get this far without knowing this was a
song?! That’s somebody’s responsibility! I can’t get this excited by music
anymore! I’ve been on the earth for 22 years, I can’t go around giddy as a goat
because I just now listened to some 40 year old song.
Sometimes people will ask me if I like I band. “Hey Taylor
do you like Angel Olsen?” I’ll be like “No”. But there’s like a problem with
the English language. Cuz it’s not that I dislike Angel Olsen, it’s just that I
don’t have enough information to say “Yes I like her”. You’re also not allowed
a medium response. You can’t answer “maybe”, that’s weird. Even though you
totally may like them!
So someone go restructure the language based on my needs.
You know what was cool? I got to talking to some old friend because
they wanted to talk about my last blog post. That’s cool, that something I
thought, made someone else think, and then they shared their thoughts and made
me think. And it wasn’t about something stupid like sex or drugs. Real people
real thoughts. Real world Atlanta.
There’s a market that happens at night here. It’s called the
night market. And I went.
While walking noticed that I’m impatient and I’m super-fast.
Like I’m the fastest. So instead of considering that I’m the problem I will
turn the issue inside out and blame everyone else with an effective rhetoric.
Walking is something I do kind of a lot. I consider myself a
near professional and on the faster end of the walking spectrum. Usually I’ll
pace myself somewhere between “it’s dark and there’s something behind me” and
“trying to catch a plane”. I guess I’m a hurried person. But that’s how I walk.
Being something of a fulltime full speed walker, I notice whenever people
interrupt my flow. I’m constantly parsing the potential pathways in the market
and I’m juking and dodging and I’m slipping and sliding. And then bam, some
klutz decides to stop to stare at a super unique T-shirt of Che Guevara in a
beret.
I think there’s a general stigma around people who think
others are in their way. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I am trying to be
somewhere. I don’t think of myself as better or more deserving to get ahead.
But I think it’s reasonable to expect your fellow humans to “first, do no
harm”. They certainly don’t have to help me but please don’t slow me down.
So maybe we can think about the way we walk and the impact
it has on others.
If nobody was on earth and I had to walk across the market and
down the road to the Mex Food stall it would take like 30 seconds, because I
wouldn’t have to think about traffic, vehicular or human. If everyone existed
in a similar no traffic life, then everyone would minimize their travel time,
and maximize their travel speed. Whatever their speed may be.
But we don’t live alone. We coexist. So there’s going to be
traffic. And that’s going to hinder everyone’s burrito acquisition time. It might be hard to swallow but maybe some people’s time is actually more valuable than
other’s. Sometimes you really need to get to a bathroom. Other times you’re
just going to be a little late to a movie. But time does have value. A highly
variable rate based on situation. I think it’s valid to be aware of the current
value of your time as well as others.
People are limited by
others walking styles. There’s lost productivity there. And productivity could
be a measure of dollars, but for some reason people hate thinking about money
as a reason to do or not do something. Productivity as a function of time
though could also be developing a relationship with your daughter or practicing
an instrument. Sometimes you’re just chilling out and walking around, but
someone else is trying to do something.
So certainly stop and smell the roses, but don’t hang your
fat butt out and block people trying to get to the next bush (which might be
burritos).
