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My 2016 Projects and Plans |
What do I want to do in 2016? I thought I'd collect all my notes in one place and organize them, and then I thought: why not make it public? A little accountability always helps! I'll be updating this page once a week.
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- Make learning and teaching a regular part of my life.
- Main area of study for the year: math and computer science!
- By the end of the year, decide what career I'd like to pursue next. (Currently leaning towards software dev, as of 1/1/2016.)
- Continue to grow the Learn to Code LA community and turn it into a real nonprofit organization.
- Experiment with creative projects and documentation to share what I'm learning.
- Make two or three close friends.
- Reduce the frequency and severity of my anxiety.
- Do everything I can to prevent a relapse of depression.
- Decrease my reliance on my family for emotional support and take deliberate steps towards being more independent.
Updated as of January 10th, 2016. (See changelog below for a record of all changes.)
- DONE: finished making 100 video blogs in 100 days, woohoo!
- Gradually transition to less frequent video blogs to share my learning process. To decide: do I want to put more time into each video, or spend less time overall on the videos?
- Start the NAND2Tetris course to learn how to build a computer from first principles.
- January 4th and 18th: Teach two JavaScript workshops for Learn to Code LA and continue to find more volunteers and partners.
- DONE: January 8th: Give a talk at a local high school for girls interested in computer science.
- January 21st - 24th: Go to my very first tech conference, the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE)!
Extending the software development metaphor for cognitive behavioral therapy, I thought it would be fun to create an actual changelog for my self-improvement project! I will update this every week, with changes in reverse-chronological order:
- New rule: instead of using words like "fix", "bug", "wrong", "fail" or "broken" when discussing my self-improvement project, I will only use positive or neutral words like "experiment", "observe", "accept" and improve". I don't need to change anything about myself; I just want to improve because I enjoy the process. Self-acceptance means being able to say about any of my attributes, "That's not a bug, it's a feature!"
- New rule: plan to arrive 30 minutes early to any event that makes me nervous so I can meditate before leaving my car.
- New habit: morning routine now includes a walk to another location for my first work session.
- Removed: volunteer math tutoring commitment. (Focusing on computer science related volunteer work instead.)
- Postponed: side project idea to relearn sections of Rhapsody in Blue, documenting it and reviewing old video footage of my 2014 practice sessions.
- Added: This CHANGELOG (inspired by Keep a Changelog), to track the project of reprogramming Liz's brain and to serve as a fun example of the confluence between software development (especially open source) and cognitive behavioral therapy. (Not sure how well I can follow Semantic Versioning, though.)
- New rule: schedule shared activities with my family prior to visiting them.
- New rule: schedule something fun or social for the day after my planned family visit.
- New habit: publish a daily blog post to share what I'm learning.
- New habit: weekly check-in and self-therapy vlog.
- New habit: morning routine: exercise, meditate, laugh, do a short personal check-in.
- New guideline: 36 hours of focused work per week: 15 hours studying computer science, 15 hours for video production, 6 hours for meetup group organizing.
- Practice piano 15 minutes a day. (As of 1/1/2014)
- Practice math problems for 15 minutes a day. (As of December, 2015)
- Evening routine: shower, stretches, read a book in bed.
- Commitment to be a volunteer math tutor for 2 hours per week. (As of December, 2015)