So my plan to expand on some of the things I brought up was derailed by my lovely experience with the Art dept. I did want to come back and expand on some of those things now, here on the last day of class.
It was really interesting prepairing the packet which we will submit for grading in CS 345. It really forced me to sit down and think about exactly what we did as a team, what worked and what didn't. I hadn't given it a lot of deep consideration before. One of the things I realized was that for the majority of our time, we didn't really know what we were doing. Sure, we had a loose model for the way things were supposed to go, and we had an idea for the app we were trying to design, but we didn't follow those roles to the letter.
So much the better for us too, I think. Because this was the first semester long group project that most of us had worked on, we allowed a framework to help shape us, but didn't let it get in the way. I think adherence to a rigid structure would have really stifiled the vibrant personalities in the group and sapped our morale.
So what did I learn? That it's ok not to know what the hell I'm doing. I still don't know, to a certain degree, but I also know that I'll never know. Ugh, how convoluted.
I'm comfortable with the knowledge that I'll never be totally at home with programming and group work. How can I be? There are so many different ways to do something, so many ways to program something. There will always be great challenges, but the trick is to not get too nervous about it all.
There is no way to express properly how important learning this is to me. I've always let fear stifile me and halt my progress. Having made comfortable friends with fear and uncertainty this semester, I'm much more used to what they bring to the table.
Reading "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning" was also a great experience for me. It helped hit home some of the principles discussed above. It also gave great suggestions on how to cultivate ideas and how to be more comfortable with your brain. I have since started writing all of my ideas down, no matter how trivial. For a while, I was starting my day by writing 3 pages of...whatever in my journal. I didn't stick with that, unfortunately, but will be going back to it soon. It was really fascinating to see the stream of consciousness that flowed out of my hand on to those pages.
The book also re-ignited my desire to start meditating again. This is something that I was doing often last year and loved dearly, but somehow lost sight of. I always enjoyed the silence to my mind that the practice would bring, and have every intention to begin again (possibly dragging Parker along for the ride).
So there it is, I suppose. The bulk of what I got out of this semester. It was an eye opening experience and one that I hope is repeated in the semester to come.
