Tag: learning

Growth

Daily writing prompt
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
View all responses

You want one? How about I give you two? Maybe even two and a half? I’m crazy like that. Also, the stuff that I give you today also happen to be things that I’ve written about in daily prompts very recently so… yeah. Repetition is good for growth and shit. I don’t know, whatever.

First, we travel back in time to the 20th century. The early 1990’s saw a certain tall red head dropping out of college. A dumb ass move, for sure, but at the time it was the only move that made sense to me. A job followed, then a year in a tech school, followed by a failure to get a job in that field, followed by a crap job in a warehouse. That’s when we get to the point of the decision that helped me learn and grow. I was making like $8.00/hour working in a retail chain’s warehouse as the guy in charge of customer returns and I just got fed up and decided to give college another try. This time I wouldn’t be a music major, this time I would take classes that might actually lead to a job someday. Going back to school was the big decision, but a secondary decision was to rig my classes so that I started from as close to the lowest level math subject that my new school would allow me to take. My primary hang up the first time through college was my shitty math skills, and the second time around I was going to major in a study that leaned heavily on math. I put myself into the lowest level course I could and basically started from scratch. It totally paid off. By the time I was through the mathematical pipeline I was acing high level courses and it felt great.

The second growth worthy decision happened on May 20, 2008. Jen and I were in the little postage stamp sized back yard at the duplex we were renting, cooking dinner on our gas grill. I reached a point where I just couldn’t stand waiting anymore and I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She said yes. Best. Decision. Ever. That lead to me learning how to be a husband, learning how to be a better human, learning how to be an adult, learning how to be a step father, learning how to be really happy, and basically learning how to be me at my best. Like I said, best decision ever.

The extra bonus decision is the choice to pursue weight loss surgery. I don’t know how much actual learning and growing have come from it. That’s probably a question for future Rob to ponder. It’s been two years (almost) but I will need more time to pass before I can pin down exactly what the differences are, apart from the number on the scale of course. That and the sizes on my clothes.

So there you go, folks. Two plus answers to the question of the day. No surprises here. Hope you all have a good Wednesday, unless you are reading this at some point in the future, in which case here’s hoping you’re having a good whatever weekday it happens to be on your timeline. Good day.

Perspective

Daily writing prompt
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
View all responses

Every time I hear the word “perspective” I hear Peter Gabriel’s voice*. 

I don’t know how to answer today’s question. I am a human being living in the physical universe. Things happen in the world around me and I react to them. Physically and emotionally. I think the show Futurama explained this aspect of humanity best…

(Fry and Bender are watching All my Circuits)
Fry: So, who’s that weird-looking guy?
Bender: That’s a human.
Fry: What’s he do?
Bender: Eh, the usual human stuff. He laughs, he learns, he loves.
Fry: Boring.

From the Futurama episode “I, Roommate”

So how do events and time effect my perspective on life? When good things happen I learn from them and want more stuff like that to happen. When bad stuff happens I learn from them and want less stuff like that to happen.

I’m not sure there is any other way to look at this one. Maybe everyone else will come up with a better response, but not me. Not today, at least. Sorry to disappoint. 

*Perspective by Peter Gabriel:

You get a TV quote and a song in this post. Am I over compensating for something?

Yup.

Admirable Traits

Daily writing prompt
What is something others do that sparks your admiration?
View all responses

This is a tough one for me. There are a lot of things I could mention, but explaining them are somewhat beyond me. Maybe I’m just suffering from some minor brain fry today. Maybe I’m just letting the cold, damp weather get to me. I don’t know.

The one thing that comes to mind is focus. I am such a procrastinator that focus is an issue for me. Is work ethic a better term in this case? I don’t think so. I think my work ethic is okay, I just feel like I need a jump start now and then to get me out of procrastination mode.

Speaking of procrastination… it has more or less taken me three tries (and counting) to write the prior two paragraphs. Ugh.

What are some other things? I admire people who don’t have to eat all the time. Even post-gastric bypass, I feel like I am snacking on something all the time. I also feel like the length of time I can go in between snacks is getting shorter. Yesterday my stomach was yelling at me to eat all day long and it was annoying.

I admire people who are decisive. I am not decisive. I am Mr Indecisive. I constantly second guess myself. When other people do that I get upset because I have faith in their decisions, even if they are just gut reactions. I don’t feel that way about my own decisions though. I doubt and doubt and doubt.

I admire musicians who have the discipline to practice. I just can’t do it. I can’t sit down and practice scales or picking patterns or anything like that. I have to come up with a project and work on it. That’s one of the reasons I do so many song writing challenges. I feel like I won’t play at all if I don’t have a project to work on. I wish I could just sit down with my guitar and practice for the sake of practicing. I admire people who can do that.

Okay, there are a few examples. It took me almost an hour to write this because I am in full procrastination mode today. How’s that for irony?

Things I’ve Learned Today

I have learned two things since getting my four rolls of film scans today. Both are very important.

First, the Ebay Nikon works fine. The lens feels like it’s starting to fall apart, which is concerning, and there is a little bit of a rattle in there somewhere when you’re moving around. Both concerning. I half expected all of the images to be destroyed by light leaks. I was seriously nervous.

Nope, most of the pictures look fine. Some are way better than just fine. Some are blurry messes. I think that might have been due to me fumbling with low light and slow shutter speeds. It is legitimately hard to focus that lens. That’s part of it too. User error to the max. Those failures are a statistically relevant percentage of the whole, but for the most part things look great. $17.50 well spent. Now if I can just get a 50mm prime with a really wide aperture. Nikon Acquisition Syndrome rears it’s ugly head.

The second thing I’ve learned is kinda stereotypical, kinda infuriating, and kinda really freakin’ funny.

I may be the King of sticking my finger in front of the lens. There are a bunch of pictures from both cameras where there is something in the way in the lower right hand corner of the image. It’s a bit of my left index finger. Most likely my knuckle. I picked up the Nikon and focused on a couple of things and then stopped myself to review where my left hand was sitting, and sure enough my big fat knuckle was sticking up and in the shot. Dumb ass. It doesn’t really ruin any of the pictures, but it’s something I am going to work on never ever doing again.

One bonus thing that I learned, setting the camera’s ISO to 200 when you’re using 400 is not really the end of the world. The first time I changed film in the Nikon I took out a roll of Kodak Gold 200 and put in a roll of FujiFilm 400 and forgot to change the ISO setting. I didn’t notice until after I had taken 6-7 pictures. I expected them to be train wrecks. They weren’t. They seem a little overexposed, but not terribly. They all look pretty good.

Overall, I am pleased with what I see. I’ll post them on the other page and then reblog them here. I am going to try and limit myself to one or two a day. These puppies need to last for a while.