New week, New lessons

Last week we were taking classes on how to code. It was really difficult, and if I’m being honest, I was worse at it than expected. While I have been learning some coding stuff this year, I’m still pretty new to it and I felt that the pace of the course was not set with beginners in mind. This said, I learned a ton and can definitely say that while I am not where I want to be with coding, I am much further along than I was before.

But, this week we’re learning other things, specifically SolidWorks and Blender, which are two different types of modeling software. I thought that being an artist would give me a leg up in this area, but again I find myself struggling. Our SolidWorks instructor said that while an art background will probably help in Blender, it won’t do much for SolidWorks, which – go figure- is all we’ve worked on so far. I’m trying not to let the difficulty of these courses discourage me. I am learning a lot, and much faster than I would in other places, but it is very difficult.

We also started working on designing a t-shirt for our program. Yesterday we brainstormed and I’ve been mocking up one of our concept ideas. I don’t want to say too much about the specifics because I’m not sure who all is reading this and I think the design is meant to be somewhat of a secret. We were advised not to look at past REU’s t-shirt designs because it might influence the design we chose, and it’s meant to be unique. A few people looked anyway in order to “make sure we didn’t accidentally come up with the same idea”.

Tonight we are going to a park. I don’t know what we’re doing there but I’m hoping it doesn’t involve too much exercise. Thus far, the programs attempts at making me exercise have not gone well. We played volleyball in an unairconditioned gym, which would have been fine if I wasn’t still in my work clothes and also- as I learned that day- deeply afraid of the volleyball. Let’s just say I would have killed it if we were playing dodgeball. They also had us do yoga, but it was like speed-running a yoga class. We kept switching poses faster than I could keep up, and as a larger individual, some of the poses required levels of flexibility my body just isn’t capable of. My knees were killing me by the end because of the hardwood floors, but it wasn’t all bad. Towards the end we spent about 10 minutes just lying on the floor. That I was good at.

Anyway -yoga and volleyball aside- I’m having a good time. I’m learning a lot about myself and my limits and where I can push myself. I’m going to keep pushing myself as much as possible and learning new things. I recognize that my desire to be the best at everything can occasionally cause me to want to give up prematurely, but I won’t do that here. I am going to learn all that I can and remind myself I don’t have to be the best, I just have to be better than I was before. That I can do. I’m glad to be here and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings.