Semester Reflection

Katie Fullerton

Semester Reflection:

What I remember from the beginning of the semester are the HTML pages that I created. I enjoyed learning a little bit of the code behind the webpages that I use everyday. Obviously, it was an incredibly simplified version of websites like that the one I am using now but I liked being able to concretely see the changes I was making on the webpage I created.
I’m feel like we did something between HTML and Scratch but I don’t really remember it. As far as Scratch goes, I think that has been my least favorite part of the class so far. That’s not to say that I hated it. I just like writing the code instead of using pre-made building blocks. Scratch also felt very tedious, especially towards the end when we were embedding numerous blocks inside other blocks. However, I do feel like it helped me in the transition from HTML to Jeroo.
Jeroo has been favorite so far. At times, it is frustrating but most of the time it feels like a puzzle or a game and it is incredibly rewarding when I finally finish a lab. And, to be honest, I like the ones with storylines best. The Prince Jeroo rescuing the Princess Jeroo in lab 5C made me really happy. Recently, Christmas spirit has been taking over my life so my Jeroos have had names like Rudolph and Santa. Jeroo is the kind of thing that I could see myself getting addicted to if it was an app on the Iphone.
Overall, I am enjoying this class much more than I thought I would. I like how the labs we do are like puzzles and I like that there aren’t really lectures. Having the freedom to work on our own makes working on the computer much more interesting. After switching into this class desperately in need of a tech credit, I was not expecting to enjoy it at all. Honestly, I was expecting to hate it but I have been impressed. This class is perfect for LASA students. Teach us the basics and set us loose; offer help but don’t stand over our shoulders; let us work through the problems and they will get solved one way or another.

Now for the Weekend...

      This Saturday, my rowing team as Field Day instead of practice (which is especially nice because I'm still sore from yesterday's practice). After Field Day, I'm going out to lunch before coming home to watch the UT game and put of Christmas lights. My mom has Saturday labelled as "Exterior Illumination Day" on her calender and I think it's hilarious.
      Sunday after church, my mom, sister, and I are going to the Sprint store to get Iphones. We've all been saying we're going to get them for almost a year now and it's finally on the calender now. My sister and I are especially excited. My mom, on the other hand, is rather apprehensive. She doesn't think anything is wrong with her old phone but we've convinced her that she'll want to know how to use the Iphone by the time I go to college so we can talk on Facetime and/or Skype. I think she'll adjust well but it might take some time.
     Only one more full week before finals and then WINTER BREAK! : )

Life is Fantastic

     I've been in a ridiculously good mood all week so the Jeroo programming we've been doing has bordered on fun. They're like puzzles: super frustrating until you solve them, at which point they turn out really cool and rewarding. I even feel like I'm making progress. I only have one lab left and then I'm done until the final. Which, by the way, I'm a little concerned about. I think I might get really frustrated and not think straight. I usually get a lot of help from the people around me on the labs so I'm worried that I might not be able to do a really complicated one like the final on my own. I guess we'll see.
      Last week I forgot to do a blog post so here's what I did over Thanksgiving Break. My family and I drove to Dallas to see my dad's family. His is the big side of the family so there were 22 people in one house on Thanksgiving. I ran the Dallas Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning and it was first time I had ever run eight miles. I felt like a cripple old woman afterwards; my knees hurt and my ankles hurt and my toenail hurt. Essentially everything hurt until Friday night. It was fun while I was doing it but, in hindsight, I probably should have walked some of it.
     The highlight of my Break was watching the final UT vs. A&M game on my uncle's enormous TV. My uncle is an Aggie and we always watch the Thanksgiving game together and try and out-cheer each other. It was absolutely wonderful to beat them in College Station and send them off with a great, exciting game and a last-second field goal. My sister and I has some serious breathing problems in the last minute and half of the game, after we got the ball back and has to drive down the field to win. I didn't have much faith at the point, to be honest, which made our comeback even better. Once the Aggies scored that last touchdown, I was pretty sure we were going to lose but my Longhorns came through for me! Needless to say, life is fantastic.

3 Day Weekend

      First off, let me say that I am really liking Jeroo. I was skeptical of writing my own code again (as opposed to dragging little blocks to make commands) but I feel like the Jeroo labs are like simple computer games. Often, I will sit down at the beginning of class and think that an hour and half seems like a long time. An hour and half later, I feel like the time flew by. It is nice to have a class like that at the end of the day.


    I couldn't believe the other day when I realized that we have less than two weeks until Thanksgiving and, to top it off, we have a three-day weekend this week. Tomorrow, my friend and I are getting together to make T-shirts for a paintball game we're playing in December (though neither of us have ever been paintballing before). On Saturday, I plan to go to the Farmers' Market, which I haven't been able to do for a few weeks because of rowing. After the Farmers' Market, I'll be watching copious amounts of football, including the UT game which should (I emphasize, should) be an easy win.

    Sunday morning is the Race for the Cure, which I have done almost every year for about 10 years. I'm organizing a pre-race breakfast for a small group from our neighborhood. We have done the race in a group since one of the mothers on our street was diagnosed with a terminal case of breast cancer. This is the 10th anniversary of our first race as a neighborhood so my sister and I thought a breakfast would be nice. I'm especially excited to walk/run this year because the organizers moved it back downtown.

Here's hoping for an awesome three-day weekend!

Scratch

This week in class, we have worked on Scratch. I have finally caught up to the rest of the class after missing two class periods for my visit to Colorado.

Scratch has been growing on me, surprisingly enough. Apparently, we're going to stop working with Scratch today, though.

Yesterday, we played our Senior/Freshman vs. Sophomore/Junior Powderpuff Football Games. It was awesome and super-intense. We won in overtime after a great showing by both teams and the cheerleaders on both sides (although, I must say I was impressed with the Freshmen guys' cheerleading led by Jes Martinez).

Tonight, I'm going to the Reagan game (first football game of the year for me!) and tomorrow, I am going to the UT vs. Tech game with my dad. I'm desperately hoping that we win, especially considering that Tech beat Oklahoma and Oklahoma beat us (three-way tie all over again?). I've been in football withdrawl for the last two weekends because I've been to busy to watch. It's going to be great to watch a bunch of games this weekend.

Adios until next week!

Catching Up

       This week in class I've just been trying to complete the work I missed last week when I went to Colorado. I'm (kind of) close to being done but I should probably come in during lunch or before school one day to work on it. I just keep hoping I can be super-efficient during class and get it all done. The stuff that we're doing on Scratch is not my favorite. It seems so formulaic. The commands are all already written so it seems like I'm not really involved in the process of telling the computer what to do. This also doesn't seem to have a real-life application, like HTML did. I can't make a webpage with Scratch. I can only make a little cat or a flying hippo draw a square or turn in circles.

     This weekend I competed in a regatta with my rowing team and I raced a four and quad. Both boats have four rowers but, in a quad, each rower has two oars and in a four, each rower has one oar. I won my first medals because we got 2nd place in both of my races. The regatta was on Saturday and it was a perfect rowing day: sunny but not hot with barely any wind. Saturday night, the Longhorns had a blowout game against Kansas, which just topped the day off perfectly.

     Yesterday, we carved pumpkins (mine is a Longhorn, believe it or not) in preparation for Halloween tonight. My friend and I are dressing up as Winnie the Pooh and Piglet and yes, we are going trick-or-treating.

Colorado

     I'm in Colorado Springs this weekend visiting Colorado College. The surrounding area and the campus are absolutely gorgeous but the college wasn't my favorite. The people were not nearly as hospitable as the people at Guilford and the campus was more complicated. Despite that though, my dad and I have had a great time hiking some of the trails around here.

    Today we were planning to hike a trail by the Air Force Academy but, once we got there, we found out that the trail had been closed after Bin Laden was killed (not sure why). So we changed our plans and hiked up to this section of amazing rock formations called the Crags. Afterwards, we found a trail that offered some beautiful views of the city and the mountains. We could also see the Garden of the Gods, an group of rock formations that we visited yesterday.

    We are about to head to dinner at a sports bar where we can watch the Rangers in the World Series. Although, given that the score is 5-0 St. Louis right now, it isn't looking like a very good game.

    I'm hoping that I will be able to catch up on the work that I missed during class this week by working super-efficiently. We'll see how that goes!