The first week of AIC is over. What have they learned? The first day we reviewed HTML forms. On Wednesday, they learned the syntax for PHP. On Friday, they learned how to process forms using the PHP superglobals. Back in my day, we didn’t have superglobals. We just had regular globals. No really. It’s true. PHP would just automagically create variables; we were way too trusting back when I was their age. I also went over JavaScript on Friday, but they didn’t do any exercises with it.

In general, the thing I was most worried about was pacing. This is a new class, so I wasn’t sure how much material would be appropriate. In general, I feel as if the exercises are taking longer than I thought they would (well, for most students). I think most of my overestimation came from expecting them to be better programmers. I’ve been programming almost non-stop. While I’ve forgotten a lot (entire languages and libraries), I never forgot about programming itself. My students, on the other hand, my have taken Java summer, or two summers, ago and then never used it. Next year, Dev and I decided that the first HW assignment should include some programming review. We already had HTML review for the first assignment.

Maybe tomorrow (ach, not tomorrow, way too busy… class prep, lunch, class, then house night), I will post some of the assignments we’ve done.

Still, the overall structure we have for learning the material is still in place. At least that pacing has gone okay.

So, wow, they’ve learned two programming languages already.

I remain excited. The students are fun. Some of their assignments cracked me up. I brought Resistance for break (and somehow managed to lose track of one of my other spies, oops… I’m usually so good at that game). No great stories from that, but one student seemed to be a natural spy.

The first project has now been assigned and I can’t wait to see what they do with that.

Next week is jQuery and form validation.

Obama continues to prove how terrible he is when it comes to civil liberties. I keep bringing this up, but it’s more relevant now than ever. Obama betrayed everyone in 2008 with FISA. He voted to give the telcos immunity for breaking the law and spying on us. That was 5 years ago. I don’t know what I can do. I feel like it’ll just be worse in another 5 years.

We have bamboo floors at our apartment. They look great, like wood floors. However, bamboo is soft, so it dents easily. It is a stupid material for a floor because you stomp on it and put furniture on it. It’s a freakin’ floor. Of course it’s going to end up with dents. Floors should be durable.

I suppose bamboo’s main advantage is that it’s cheap. If you assume a tenant is going to treat a floor like a floor and you’re going to have to replace it anyway, it might be best to go with a cheaper alternative.

It does look really nice, though. Way better than the old carpet.

[Spoilerrific, as is pretty much anything I write.]

Because the book is currently being made into a movie, some of my friends have started reading/re-reading Ender’s Game. The movie is coming out in November. I read Ender’s Game so long ago that almost everything was fresh in the re-read. I only remembered the ending and some of the battle tactics. It was a quick read. I wish I could compare my thoughts on it now to my thoughts on it then, but I have no idea what I thought. I think that I wasn’t as interested in some of the deeper ideas. I mean, I never bothered to read any of the sequels and was happy with the book as it was. Now, I’m kind of interested in what happens afterward.

But instead of going to the future, I’m currently reading Ender’s Shadow, which I’ve never read. I feel like there’s a lot more action going on inside Bean’s head than inside Ender’s. Bean does a lot more observing. A lot of scenes in Ender’s Game you could easily see being translated to the screen, but it seems Ender’s Shadow would be harder to translate. Bean is also much weirder than Ender, which makes it harder to relate to him as a protagonist.

Stevie loves Bean. She should write about him.

I felt very sorry for Ender. He didn’t want to be a killer, but he was tricked into being one. It’s such a weird tension with how they used him. He did have a killer instinct. However, his empathy made him a better strategist. It makes him a better killer, but it makes him not want to kill. So, they had to trick him to use all his best traits. I just felt so bad because the whole time he’s afraid of being like Peter, and in the end, he wipes out an entire sentient species.

Robb Stark: ” … I’ve made a huge terrible mistake.”

What a cute callback with Gilly calling Sam a wizard. Too bad no one will ever remember it because of all the other shit in this episode.

Just tweeted this: It was the leeches. #TeamStannis

Orientation was today. It seemed like it went okay.

Also, I almost missed the bus, but I think that will be a comic instead of a blog post.