Wow, crazy week! My wife and I are moving this weekend, so between that, a new job, and a two year old with a Tesseract (the Marvel comics kind) for a heart, things have been exceptionally chaotic. It’s no wonder I forgot to hit the submit button on my learning journal last Wednesday :/
So, what I did this week in school was mostly regret my mistake. But more importantly I moved on and made a simple graphics program for this week’s assignment. We were required to make a graphic show up in a window with some text underneath it. Nothing too complicated, but probably the most challenging assignment for me thus far – only because I haven’t worked with GUI applications in Java since I first learned it 2 years ago.
What was challenging was learning the syntax for making GUI programs with Java, while also learning a new API for my new contract position at Khan Academy. Not everything is documented, so I’ve been reading a lot of source code to figure out how each function works. I also had a hard time juggling school and work while getting ready for our move. My biggest struggle right now is definitely time management – and not having a work space.
I’m going to go about this learning journal slightly different I guess. I have more challenges to reflect on then skills or knowledge. Not having a work space for school and work has been very hard. If time management wasn’t hard enough it’s made more difficult because I have to plan my hours around the hours of the public spaces I use for a Wi-Fi connection. Not to mention the fact that I don’t always have the luxury of finding a seat with an outlet – meaning once my laptop dies I have to pack up and go find another place with an outlet.
Noise has been a major distraction for me too. While working in public places I’m constantly interrupted by people, or distracted by people’s conversations carrying across the room. The public library is a good place to get some quite and a solid internet connection with a nice table and a plug – except a) it’s NOT quite, and b) their hours don’t suit my schedule at all!
The library is under construction right now, so all day you hear hammer drills, concrete chippers, skill saws, hammers, and the beeping from the skid steers and telehandlers. It’s somewhat doable for me actually – I find it a lot less distracting then over hearing other peoples conversations, but the problem of their hours remains the same.
Although I hope my grades don’t show it, I’ve really been struggling to keep up with school. I posted my shortest contribution to the discussion assignment this term. I feel bad because I’ve posted such high quality posts all term, and my peers really enjoy seeing my examples and analogies. However I’m just so strapped for time I couldn’t make the quality post I normally do. Especially because for the first time, this unit I actually had to read the chapter in our text book before posting in the discussion.
Despite my thoughts though, the feedback from my peers has been good. One peer did make note of the sudden decline in length compared with my previous posts, but was still happy with what I produced.
Although I’m a little overwhelmed right now, my feelings and attitudes are still good. After the move we’ll have less financial stress (since we’re moving in with my dad). I’ll also have a dedicated work space with a proper desk, which is going to make a very, very big difference in my routine!
This week, and most likely next week too, will be challenging, however once we get through it there is going to be a lot of positive things happening 
Cheers everyone.