Tag: learning

Quizlet

I have been using my first Quizlet and the first shared with me the past two days. A fellow classmate shared his Chinese flash cards with me, and I then went and added pronunciations to them to make my own set. Now, I can practice them as both just characters and meanings and with pronunciations, too.

I still need to make my own hard copy set, but this is good practice for now, and it took minimal time to ‘create’ them, so I accept the do-for.

Thank you, God, for this wonderful chance to learn and expand and improve myself, both as a person and student, but also as a teacher, too. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. Please, keep my man and the dog and their stuff all safe, please. Give him the confidence and the words he most needs. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Mandarin

So, I go to Mandarin class now on one of my off periods. Originally, it was because I was stressed after one particular class, and it helped me to release the stress by learning something new right afterward, just across the hall. However, that class is loads better and stresses me barely at all these days, and I’ve just continued going to Mandarin class, because I actually like learning the language. Not to mention that Houston is filled with Chinese folks, and Mandarin is not a useless skill to have here.

Anyway, so, I go. And I do as much of the work as I can, including the quizzes and such. I don’t always make it, but I go when I can. The teacher was at a conference last week, so I didn’t attend the class with a sub there, and I also totally forgot to look at whatever they were assigned while the teacher was gone. So, I only found out yesterday that there is an oral quiz tomorrow.

If I had known a week and a half ago, like the others, obviously, I would have done my intense studying and preparation a week ago, and be merely reviewing gently last night and tonight. However, I didn’t know. So, I’ve been doing some big studying the past two nights. Not crazy or anything, but enough to have a reasonable grasp of the questions and answers.

If the teacher does the regular questions and vocabulary in the interview, I should be fine. I seem to know my answers for all of that stuff. But I don’t know lots of vocabulary that don’t apply to my life much, so that could prove to be a struggle point. Naturally, I have back-up plans, though.

For example, there are only two vocabulary words that are for things I dislike. I have learned one decently and am working on the other a bit more in the morning. So, if he asks if I like or want to do something, so long as it isn’t one of those two things, even if I have no idea what it means, my answer can be a ‘yes’. So, yeah, I’m reasonably prepared.

I just wish I were more prepared. I don’t like the feeling of floundering. In another week, I could be very comfortable with these questions. But the quiz is tomorrow, so we roll with it.

With that, I go to sleep, so my brain can process and remember the stuff even better tomorrow. And so I can do well at my job, of course, though that doesn’t require the same level of sleep right now. 😛

Post-a-day 2023

Accomplishments come in many forms

Today, I was mostly busy tidying, and it felt really good. I’ve been so focused on doing my course lately – so that I can get a job and start earning money and saving money, so that my man can do the training he needs to pursue a job as a pilot instead of his current job – that I’ve felt bad anytime I’ve wanted to tidy instead. Even tidying in the evening for a bit has felt unfair, somehow, not to mention exhausting after a day filled with working hard mentally and avoiding thinking about how much I want to tidy the house.

Today, for whatever reason, I just chose to let it all go and to do the tidying I desperately wanted to do.

And I’m so glad I did it that way. It made all the difference. And I even went and coded a little teensy bit just before bed, which was satisfying in its own way, since it wasn’t required (by me) today, yet I did it anyway.

I just feel so… accomplished… after today. Yeah. My whole body viscerally feels the sense of accomplishment from today, and it is awesome. I am incredibly grateful.

Tomorrow, I genuinely want to do more coding work, but I still want to have a day similar to today in terms of tidying. I have a few little things I want to finish up and one bigger project involving sorting through and creating a storing method for all the bathroom stuff (for both bathrooms, really). A third of it is in the living room, a third is split between the bedroom and the other bathroom, and the final third is sitting in the guest room right now. I am getting sick of seeing all that stuff around and having to avoid using this or that because it’s too much of a hassle to go pull out. We have our bathroom vanity and drawers put together now, so I can go ahead and sort everything out for actual everyday storage. Time to find places for everything, at last.

Oh… I also have a ton of laundry to fold. Ugh. Hahaha. Hey, perhaps my man will decide to lend a hand there and learn how to fold his different clothes so they all store properly in his drawers. That would be cool. However, the likelihood is rather slim, so I won’t hope too hard on it. Rather, I’ll hope plenty hard in it; I just won’t expect it actually to happen. That’s the one. 😛

Anyway, off to sleep now, way later than wanted. But much was accomplished today. Much.

Thank you, God. Your will be done. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Nerds

My man and I just unintentionally got into a Duolingo battle to win the family scoreboard for the week, simply by coincidence. We both happened to do a lesson, and also happened to see how the score had changed for the other.

In the last seconds of the timer, he passed me up and got first place. I had a 30-point lead on him, but he eeked it out, nonetheless, by completing half a legendary round with bonus right before the time ran out for the day. So, even though he hadn’t finished the lesson, he’d gotten halfway through it, and it gave him the first 40 points for today and the next 40 points for tomorrow’s scoreboard. Ridiculous.

It was a fun little event.

I love this man.

Even though we have really been passing each other off lately, I remember that I love him despite it all, and even because of most of it.

Thank you, God, for our idiocy and nerdiness. Thank you for, even after all this time, giving me someone who can enjoy this adventure so well with me. Thank you for all of it. Also, please, heal all my mosquito bites, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

But Why Guns?

Okay, to clarify, as I realized I might never have done so:

I am working on my comfort around and with guns. Why? Because I noticed how utterly uncomfortable and incapable I was with them. Let me explain.

***Note: If you don’t want spoilers for Fifty Shades of Grey, don’t read the following.***

When I read the Fifty Shades of Grey books – yes, I read them eventually, and as audiobooks… not sure I could have continued reading if I’d been reading them as text! – I eventually got to the part where Anna opens Christian’s desk drawer and finds a gun sitting there. Her immediate reaction is that she proceeds to pick up the gun, she checks if it’s loaded, and then she sets it back down in the drawer. At no point does she express any nerves or unease at doing any of this. Her only thoughts are of why he might have the gun in the first place, as it surprised her to find one in his desk drawer.

Initially, I was panicking. I felt like some accident would ensue from her unintentionally mishandling the firearm. But then I remembered that her stepdad, who helped raise her, was a military man who had taught her everything he knew how to do. So, she likely had grown up knowing guns very well and using them comfortably and with ease. She wasn’t being unsafe by picking up this handgun. She was actually been even safer than Christian had likely been with the gun, as she truly knew what she was doing with it and how to handle it safely.

I was awed. When I thought about it, I was certain that I could not have done what she had done – check if it was loaded – even though that was about as simple as it gets with firearms. If I ever were to come across a gun or, God forbid, please, have to fight one away from an attacker, I wouldn’t even know how to pick it up and know that it wouldn’t fire as soon as I touched it. I knew not to touch the trigger itself, but that’s about all I knew. I couldn’t even turn a weapon in to the police if I crossed one. So, how would I make sure no one else came across it on accident, if I didn’t even know how to pick it up and unload it? And, God forbid, if someone were to attack and have a gun, if the gun got loose, how I could pick it up safely and keep it away from the perpetrator, let alone use it for defense, if needed?

What’s more, later in the book, she actually carries the gun with her, fully concealed, and then saves her own life by using it at the right time as she is being attacked by a man who means, likely, to kill her.

My mind was doubly blown by that part, especially considering we the readers don’t even know she has it until she draws it… I think, anyway… Nonetheless, this again brought up that I wouldn’t even know how to go about any single part of that whole scenario, let alone the whole thing. In addition to everything else about it, I just kept wondering how on Earth she knew she wouldn’t accidentally get shot with the gun in her waistband…

This determined for me that I knew too little about firearms and weapons handling.

And, for whatever reason, this weighed heavily on me for years after reading the book. Eventually, I knew I had to do something about it, and somewhat soon.

Last year, I had the opportunity for someone, in the comfort of a home, to show me how to take apart a semi-automatic handgun – think of the most typical black handgun you can imagine, and that’s what that means – and to guide me to do it all myself and put it all back together myself, including unloading and loading each bullet into the magazine.

Once I finished it all, I set the weapon down on the counter and declared I was finished for the day. The weapon was put away directly, and we raked some more about what all we had just done and discussed. It was absolutely terrifying for me, but extremely informative and good for me to do. Talk about having courage… courage was what got me through it all, along with the grace of God. This was important to me to learn – truly learning and getting to know something removes a great deal of fear from it, as history has shown us often, especially with peoples*.

I went through a similar thing with makeup. Once I learned how to do all the fancy stuff – and I do mean all of it – and I was comfortable with it all, I no longer was afraid of wearing make-up. Sure, I actually wear make-up even less now than before all of that, but I have no anxiety around make-up anymore. And I truly only wear it when I want to wear it. And I can pick it up on the fly and do it easily, every time. Basically, that’s how I want to be with guns. I’m not trying to become a competitive shooter and gun-hoarder for any zombie apocalypse or anything. I just want to be able, should the need ever arise, to handle and, if needed, use a firearm both safely and effectively.

Thus my reasons for working on my relationship with guns. I highly encourage everyone to lean into those intense fears that could change your life for the better, let alone possibly save it one day. I believe that, when we learn about what we fear, we have the potential to transform for the better the world that we face every day.

*Yes, I mean that plural use exactly as I wrote it.

A different day

It was very difficult to get out of bed this morning. Very difficult. I didn’t make the first workout’s alarm, as I was way too heavy with exhaustion. However, I snoozed the second workout’s alarm twice and then got myself up before it went off the third sounding… something like that. It might have been only one snooze… Whatever the case, it took a lot of effort to get up, even then, but I did it and I exercised.

Afterward, I made breakfast tacos for me and for my man, and I even weight and measured for his macro and calorie counts for his food. Then, though I wanted to sleep, I showered and got to work on my coding courses. Early afternoon, while he went to the gym, I finally lay down for a nap for about an hour. I needed it at that point, as my brain was starting to take breaks all on its own.

Afterward, I got back to work. One of the things I learned in the history but I was reading was about the original NASA computers – real people who did mathematical computations, before machines existed for it – and about the original IBM used at NASA, which took up an entire large room and required a whole slew of people just to make it work at any given time. It was a massive advancement at the time, though it is comical to consider that it could do less than just about any digital device we have today.

Nonetheless, reading that bit of history finally put me over the edge for wanting to see the movie it briefly referenced, “Hidden Figures”. I’ve known about the movie since it came out in 2016, but never quite worked up the full desire to sit and watch it. But now was the perfect time. I could appreciate – and understand! – so much more about it now than I would have even several weeks ago, let alone years ago. The movie was quite cool and was well done. Though, my man and I both chuckled at the part where a new reporter in the film said some absolute bogus info, stating the craft and man, Alan Shepard, would be traveling “at an altitude of 116 miles per hour.” Because altitude is measured in miles per hour, and all… 😛 That was rather funny to us, and we both enjoyed that we both caught it, especially since it was more of a filler kind of shot than a main one.

Anyway, I’m really glad we watched the film tonight. Now, however, I just go to sleep. Much more to do tomorrow! (Including that 7:30am workout that I always dread, somehow. Haha)

Post-a-day 2023

Another day

I had caffeine yesterday, and, due to my long mid-morning nap, I hadn’t realized how late in the day it was when I was having it. Therefore, as I lay in bed last night, just after 9pm, though I was exhausted, I never could truly fall asleep. I was doomed to dose for most of the night. By the time my alarm sounded just before six, I had deemed it smarter for me to go back to sleep than to go to the gym. I was, after all, finally able to sleep, and I still would be going to the gym four days in the week by the end of the week. So, I went back to sleep.

I ended up sleeping well for another three and a quarter hours, then got up just after nine and got to work.

Mid-afternoon, I met my mom to pick up a couple books, and ran a couple other errands before heading back home and doing more work.

At the end of it all, we even watched an episode of “Friends” before I came to bed, and it is only now just after 10pm. I feel very accomplished from today, and I am grateful for all the progress in my studies, as well as having been able to make the other errands work in the schedule and still get work done.

Thank you, God. Help me to continue in being satisfyingly productive each day, always pursuing your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Goodnight.

Post-a-day 2023

Productive again

Today, my body woke me at my 4:30-ish hour. I got up and went the bathroom, fully intending to go back to sleep. As I got back to bed, I considered that I might just want to stay up and go work out at the 5:15am class, instead of the 6:30am class, since I was already awake. But I didn’t want to take away sleep if I could still sleep well.

So, I agreed that I would lie down and see what happened. If I fell asleep, I needed the sleep. If I didn’t, then the rest would do me good, and I could get up in another 20 minutes to get ready for and go to the gym.

Sure enough, I was awake 20 minutes later, and so got up and got ready and headed to the gym. It was a great workout, and I was glad I had gone so early. I came home and ate protein and showered in the guest bathroom, then I went back to bed. I slept another four and a half hours – clearly, I still needed sleep, but just not anymore at 4:30 this morning.

And I slept hard. When I finally got up later, my man asked if I was going to the noon workout (in five minutes). He hadn’t even realized that I’d gone this morning. 😛

All that being said, I still had an extremely productive day, and am going to bed satisfied with my accomplishments.

I got a good amount done with my current project in my computer programming course, though not as much as I would have preferred. However, I am still so new to it all, I can’t expect to have it all figured out so quickly. These projects get me every time, the ones that are fully self-led, with no guidance whatsoever.

I ended up hitting a point where I knew I just needed to ask someone for some explanations, so I reached out to the meager few contacts I have in the world of computer programming. One of them told me to come on over to the house, so he could take a look and also show me some fun new stuff in the industry. I did, and the conversation was super helpful for me. It was only minimally helpful regarding the project itself, because he doesn’t do that work in particular (though, he was still helpful there, nonetheless). However, it was extremely helpful for me in terms of the mental doubts and struggles I’ve had about what I’m doing in general. He looked over the course syllabus and said it all looked really good. He agreed that I was on a good path and said that what I was doing was all right, that I had all the right instincts, and that he knew I would do very well in this industry. He mentioned, not for the first time, today that there are even people who go to school for this and get a full bachelor’s degree in it, but still can’t code – their brains just don’t have whatever it takes, don’t function in quite the right way. When I sent him a message of thanks later on, he replied, “Glad to hear it. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got it.”

It was a very encouraging meeting. He genuinely believes that I won’t even have to wait six months to find work. “You can code!” And he was right – I can code. I just need to find the right place that will let me start where I am and continue to learn, because most people don’t start working in the industry, I think, with so little education in it as I currently have. But I am learning quickly and well – my brain truly is made for this kind of stuff – and that can make all the difference.

Anyway, not quite 9pm and I’m about to go finish my stretched and go to bed. It feels good.

Dear God, please, help me to follow the right path with all of this. Make my way clear for me, that I may pursue and fulfill your will in all that I do and that I may keep you present in all of my steps and in all of my successes. Help me to be the person I can be and want to be. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Improvemeh…

Well, the coughing proved to be a big problem last night. After hours of being in bed, I had barely slept a wink – I just couldn’t stop coughing, even when on the brink of exhaustion. My man came through for me and delivered some specific single-ingredient medicine – typically the only kind I want going into my system – to help stop the coughing. Well, not to stop the coughing, but to lessen it significantly. And it did just that. It took a bit to kick in, but I finally fell asleep around 3:30 or 4:00 this morning. And I actually slept. Thank you, God, for some real sleep, at last.

I had hoped only to take that medicine at night, but my coughing grew so terrible by late afternoon, I couldn’t even function. I’m still taking it easy as a whole, but I don’t like having to be on medicines like this. My body can’t truly tell where it is in recovery and what it may most need. Tomorrow is the last day of the antibiotics, and I hope I will be able to back off the rest by tomorrow night or the morning after, too.

Oh, and I hope I have a voice to use again soon, too. That would be helpful… though, I have very much appreciated this opportunity not to speak. It has been frustrating at times, but very good as a whole… a great lesson in patience for me and for my family. Makes me really want to get us into some ASL classes asap, though. You never know when you might need or want to use another language.

Prayers for healing, if you are willing and able, please, for me and for all the world.

Dear God, heal us all, please. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Lessons and Tears

Today, I learned a lot about guns. I’ve wanted to learn as much as I could for many years now, but I never really had anyone nearby who was reliable in helping me to that. However, my man is of the hunting variety, and has connections with people who’s re very much in the know about guns. So, today, I took a class on guns.

It was, basically, all day, but it included lessons on the guns and things about and around them, as well as actual time shooting guns at a gun range. I was mostly totally okay for the lesson parts in the classroom. I had, obviously, some research ahead of time to familiarize myself with the general information that might be covered. I had studied more than we covered specifically, but it was a perfect foundation for understanding what was taught in the lesson.

We had a little quiz/test at the end of the lessons to test our grasp of the material. Without using any notes at all, I scored confidently a 100% on the test. I like to know my material, and I did.

However, things took a turn once we were at the range itself. As the others started taking out handgun after handgun, picking them up and setting them down again on this wooden table at our area – all unloaded and taken apart, of course – I started to grow increasingly nervous. Within maybe five to seven minutes, I was standing back from the group, full-on crying. Quietly, but crying, nonetheless.

My man tried to comfort me physically with touch, which is usually the go-to way to comfort me. However, something about the whole situation had me not want to be touched… at all. It doesn’t happen often, but, when it does, I seriously do not want to be touched or crowded in any way. I feel almost claustrophobic if anyone tried to touch me or get too close to me in these times. Today was one of these times. My man asked how he could support me – great job, honey! – and I told him just not to touch me and to let me be, away from abetting, him included. He allowed it, though clearly still concerned for me, and went back to the gun table fun. (Think little kids all showing off their cool TechDecks or Hot Wheels…)

When the instructor saw me, he very easily and, obviously, knowledgeably stated that I was nervous, with the edge of a question on the end. I nodded. “Okay, you and I are gonna go work on this together, all on our own, away from everyone else, okay?” I nodded, as a new wave of tears began to pour out freely. He told me he’d do the one thing with the first group first, then would work one-on-one with me. I nodded more.

Once the tears started, I just allowed myself to feel the feelings coursing through my veins. I never fought it, tried to hold it back. I just let it be, allowed it to express itself.

The instructor had me help load magazines for the guns, using this cool little tool that makes it a million times easier than doing it just with one’s fingers alone. That way, I got to be nearby for the shooting, and could see the drill he was having us all do, but didn’t have to do it myself yet. And I got to grow more comfortable with the guns simply by doing the simple activity of loading the magazines.

I had to step away, though, when the firing started. It amazed me how freaked out and panicked I was. I looked into the panic.

It was an outdoor range without any dividers in our specific area – just single barrels to ‘define’ the lanes. Was it that?

A little bit. But it wasn’t enough for my level of panic. So, what else?

Eventually, a thought popped up, and I began to see very clearly what was going on for me.

*****Warning: very sad material is about to follow. I am safe and well, but this is sadness from my past. You have been warned.*****

On Christmas Eve, many years ago, my uncle shot and killed himself, intentionally. It was unexpected on every level for me, and the delivery method and manner of the news didn’t help anything for me. This uncle was my godfather. Yes, he had been dealing with alcoholism in a bad way lately, the previous few years or so, and had even divorced because of it. But he was still a man whom I loved and respected, who had taught me many things and whom I had always longed to impress with all I learned. He never needed to be impressed, which was probably why I so wanted to do it. He was great… when he was himself. Alcoholism can truly remove a person from the world, however, long before his or her conscious body leaves this world. He was certainly progressing on that path. But I still loved him.

Now, back to the class.

Seeing the guns, seeing so many moving hands and parts all at once – despite it all being done to the book and as safely as possible – really got me thinking about that incident for my uncle. I got a little lost in the swirl of thoughts and brain patterns that could lead a person to choosing that as a path, as well as the ones that then actually pursued such a path. Even now, it hurts so much just to say this, though I’m somewhat avoiding going any deeper than my words right now. Anyway, it really got to me there at the range.

When a rifle was pulled out, I noticed that I felt little fear, almost a feeling of ease around it. Okay, I thought, so guns don’t necessarily terrify me into a panic by being guns. Handguns, however, do.

When I talked with my mom about it later, I was describing the different feeling between using two different handguns. One was heavy and reliably helped people hit their target consistently. The other was smaller and lighter, but still roughly the average size of a handgun. The smaller, I told her, filled me with much more ease when I used it, though it was quite so easy to hit the target precisely. It felt like a gun to me. The larger, however, could only be described by my head as, “a (definitive) killing device”. It was funny how the thoughts were so different, and the corresponding feelings were so strong yet clear. Guns themselves aren’t petrifying for me. But certain ones – the killing device-type ones – are.

Our instructor mentioned a man who has a pink handgun. Perhaps, if I ever want to get a gun, I might get something like that. The typical black handgun can be really rough for me…

And so, after trying the both handguns with a lot of coaching and near-constant crying, I used the smaller one to do the actual exercise he’d intended for us all to do.

For one thing, I cried almost the whole time. For another, I somehow got the crazy luck of the draw today that the casings from the person to my left kept hitting me. Never hard or anything, but, boy, were they a definite surprise while I was aiming on focusing my breathing to shoot effectively myself. In addition to those two factors, my hands were shaking almost constantly.

What’s more, my eyes, as they cried a bunch, struggled to hold focus. They kept doing their, ‘Hey, I don’t really feel like working right now,’ thing, making me have to work extra hard to get them to focus back. Usually, it takes a second or two to get them back focused when they decide to relax. However, the exercise was intended to be with time limits on each round or set of rounds. It took a lot in the pre-practice I did with the instructor just to fire more than once in a row without putting down the gun and shaking all over while crying some more.

And, finally, my hands kept sweating up a storm, and my glasses would fog in if I had them too far against my face.

Despite all of this, the instructor said afterward that I didn’t an amazing job. And he wasn’t being generous. I have a whole – there were two, both very much alike with their hole locations, but I only kept the second – target sheet of a person who had clearly been gutted and shattered in the center torso by my shots. I had a total of four shots that didn’t hit right in the center area, and they were when I moved back to farther distances to shoot. Out of roughly a hundred+ rounds fired, only four weren’t in the target tires area. Even the other four, though, were still very clearly on the target’s body, just not properly centered like the rest.

I’d say I was blown away by how well I did, but I guess that was more the targets… 😛

The final gun I shot was a really cool, really light one, and it had much smaller bullets than the 9mm guns had used. I actually really enjoyed shooting that one. The kickback wasn’t so scary, nor was the bang, and it was great. Granted, this one actually burned my finger. However, it was pennies compared to how great and comfortable I felt using it as a whole. Plus, this one was green(!). I shot well with that one, too, but I didn’t have an official target, and so attacked one of the extra backstop signs, the letter O, using it as a target, as well as a small bit of bluebonnets on the sign. It was great. I kind of destroyed them both, really.

The instructor told me that it happens every so often, that someone will cry when learning to shoot. It he was proud of me for how I stayed calm and just kept going. He also commended me for the fact that, even though casings kept flying on my way, even hitting me multiple times while shooting, I never once reacted dangerously. I always remained calm – shaking and crying aside, of course – and stayed focused on what I was doing. Any time I had to pause my shooting, from getting hit in the face or hand or whatever, I always kept the gun pointed perfectly down-range and downward – I never turned it in a dangerous direction… not even a little bit.

So, suffice it to say that I am so glad and grateful that I went to this today and that my man got me connected there. The instructor invited us to go shooting with him and his daughter when they go monthly to a certain range, and I accepted the offer. I told him that I am still terrified, but that I want to keep going with it all.

Yes, it was a very good day, tears and all.

Thank you, God. And thank you for the blessing in my childhood that was Uncle B—. Thank you for that love, for exactly as much as it lasted. And thank you for helping me grow through the pains. Please, bless those who helped us in the class today. Give them comfort, grace, and ease, through your love. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022