Nearing the End of the Semester: A look back

A semester has already past, that sure was fast, but then again no one really notices. A semester in Computer Programming, looking back on it, how did I ever survive? First of all, I'm not that good at problem solving by myself, which is why I'm more like a rock who does great in group work. Working in HTML was sort of fun because we made a basic web page with links, those were the days. Then we moved onto Scratch, another irksome program cause someone here had a problem with it. However, that was when we were introduced to "and" and "or" which made things a little easier to comprehend when we eventually moved onto Jeroo and eventually onto Python. However, I say "a little easier" because I still had difficulty with the program. My luck with computers has still not gotten any better. Yet I'm trying and getting the hang of it. I pray one day when I'll be able to do things without an error. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm going to get a bunch of errors in one line. But I can still dream. Talking of dreaming, working in Jeroo has made me dream of flowers, water and nets. Although, to be honest, the nets look like brick walls in my opinion. How they ever came to be known as nets is a mystery to me. Jeroo is my worst enemy at times and at other times, it's that jerk of a friend who occasionally helps me and then leaves me on my own, but helps me out again. I shall tame you Jeroo, one day. By the way, I still do not know what a Jeroo looks like, I've been imagining it as a kangaroo except it has an arrow for a head instead. That is also very creepy now that I realize it. Back on the topic, the final exam on Jeroo is coming up, and my nerves have not gotten any better. I'm just hoping it isn't too hard of a problem, cause if it is, I'm just going to cry or yell, although I probably won't. Events sure pass by in computer programming don't it? The most vivid thing that I can remember is David saying "ghost mouse," I swear if he says that one more time, I am going to revenge, that or keep calling him a jerk. Hmmm, I wonder if Python is going to be just as hard as Jeroo? It uses the same language, so I guess it will be similar, although I doubt that there is going to be an arrowhead, flowers, nets and water. After Python, I really want to start working on Java, mainly because it seems to be the most well known mainstream language. I guess that's it for this week, and of my reflection of the fall semester.

This week is stressful

My goodness, I almost forgot to do this week's blog post, good thing I remembered. Jeroo is becoming a major pain in my side, sometimes it's easy and other times it is harder. Sometimes, now in my dreams, I see flowers and nets in front of me. What's worse is that I keep running in a circle! I can not seem to get this ineptitude out of my head. At least I am almost done with lab 5. Frankly, I do not know I even got this far. It's probably thanks to David, and Sam. However, I managed to do some labs without them which makes me proud of myself. I just wish I could do that more often like at the time of the Final. Dear lord, I hope it isn't too hard. Lab 5C is difficult by itself, I think I'll have to think my way around this. The only thing that's really hard is that I have to have those preconditions which is really screwing me over. I got so close, but then the Jeroo turns around. I wanted to scream and then kill my Jeroo by making it drown. The funny thing was that it took me 5 minutes to do that. Jeroo is obviously not my strong suit, but I'll try to get it done, and hopefully it won't turn out so bad. Let's just keep believing in that.... Alright that's it for this week.

Short Week

Man, my body feels like it has been dragged by a car. My joints are hurting from Field Day, granted I didn't do much to help my team, but then again I rarely do anything physical in the first place. Field Day went from good to bad when my forum started to lose some events. We'll do better next year, granted I'll be a senior and seniors rarely go to Field Day anyway, we'll have a better chance. Now on to CP, this week we didn't do much other than watching TED videos and a spaghetti video. I thought my problem solving skills weren't bad, but my idea to use the spaghetti tower was based on stability not on height. I thought using a triangular pyramid would be enough, but it would seem that I forgot one of the most important rules of walls. You need to have braces to reinforce the walls or else the structure will fall down. The TED videos then made me curious about why every other country uses more advanced Capcha's than 1+1. I feel a little more stupid. Argh, I also didn't finish all of the Jeroo labs either which means I have to do them over the break. All right that's it for this week.

11/18

My god, this week is finally over. I can't wait till Field Day and then Thanksgiving! I need a break. The weekends aren't enough anymore. Okay, onto Computer Programming, we are continuing with Jeroo. I finally finished with lab 3B, pinball island or something, the name escapes me, but there was pinball in there. It was super annoying, because every time I wrote a piece of code, it wouldn't work and I had to scrap it. If this is what Python is, then I'm already a little apprehensive about my ability to work with it. On to the next one, 3C, I am actually making more progress on it than 3B. I already cleared one circle of flowers and one circle of net, although I'm stuck at that part. Sad, isn't it? In any case, I am surprised that some people already past Labs 3 and 4 and on to lab 5. Whatever, I'll be there one day, perhaps after thanksgiving break. Ah, life, you can be so cruel sometimes. Oh yeah, another thing we did was that Jeroo While loops quiz. It was pretty funny, I scored a 50 on the first attempt and then a 90 on the second attempt. But the cool thing was that I forgot about the answers and I actually answered from what I knew. It's really different when you go from memory and by application. One day, I'll be able to do well in those quizzes. Well, I guess that it for this week.

11-11-11

Woohoo, another week is over and better yet I found out that I am staying in AISD. That means I won't leave LASA and my friends. That sure was a load off my chest. Now on to computer programming, this week we're having more fun with Jeroo. This program is slightly annoying because of the syntax. I can not seem to visualize the movement of the Jeroo sometimes and to fix the problem. My brain sort of hurts after going through each lab. Labs 1 were sort of easy, labs 2 slightly more difficult, and labs 3 so far has been more difficult. Methods, and loops sound the same to me, but loops require "whiles" and "ifs." My main problem is with direction and movement, which is basically the point of Jeroo. More and more each day, Jeroo seems to be more like building/doing a game. It's fun when I solve them but even then I need help which sort of takes away some of my pride. But that does not matter because I will surely find out how to do that stupid "pinball island" lab. Curse you Bob for not being able to move like a snake and just go down row by row collecting those flowers. At least I didn't do anything like David, that was weird. I guess that's it for now because it was a 4 day week. Hooray for 3 day weekends!

Finishing Scratch and Beginning Jeroo

Ahhh, we are finally done with Scratch which in retrospect was not that bad. What is better is that I finished with all of the assignments that we were meant to do. Hooray for me, today was sort of cool after all. The easiest one was probably the Guess that secret number, that one was more intuitive rather than that Random Character program. I had so much trouble with that. Maybe it's because we needed to add Random X + Current X and vice versa with Y as well. RockPaperScissors was also a pain, well mainly because my head was spinning and I was dizzy while I was making it and the numbers got scrambled up. Apparently I did not know that I put 1 as rock, 2 as rock and 3 as scissors. I am an idiot sometimes. Fortunately I feel much better afterwards and could finish it today. Oh yeah, the new thing we are working with is Jeroo, apparently named after an animal living near (please forgive my spelling) the "Sangot" islands? I still can't find a picture of it, I got a picture of a woman instead, and art too. Jeroo is about arrows, islands, flowers, nets and water. The jeroo is in the shape of an arrow and you guide it around the island using syntax like Bob= Jeroo(). Your jeroo's name is Bob and the () signify that it is at the location of (0,0), the island also uses a (y,x) coordinate system which messed me up at first but got better later. I also finished the 3 assignments, yay. But it was mainly hops, turns, plant, and toss. Hope it stays like this....That's it for today.

Worst Week of My Life

Ugh, if ever a moment in my life where I felt like I wanted to die is this week. But that is another issue, not about computer programming. Now I will talk about computer programming, let's see it was mainly about working with Scratch in more complicated areas, primarily working with variables. I have no idea how I even got through all of this. All I know is that variables are blocks that we make and can customize it to other blocks. We have mainly used variables with loops but I am sure that we'll get to more complicated topics later. Another thing is that we took a quiz over Scratch, and I did not do as well as I wanted to. I missed 3 out of 10, so that means I got a 70. 2 of the questions I would have gotten right if I had just noticed that "say" was at the very end, so the output would have only said the last number said. Darn it. Darn it. Argh, I hate you so much right now scratch. I am stuck on the character not moving outside of a 100x100x100x100 box. The only thing that I think can happen is that the sprite is going to hate to move back and forth repeatedly. The only problem is that that is probably not going to go well since I can't even do that. Curse you my ineptitude. I guess that is as much as I got to this week and that is it.