Spent a while on the phone with Time Warner Cable last night before going to bed. Since rent here is under what I had budgeted, but the apartment doesn’t have internet (I’ve been using my phone), so tomorrow between 2-4, I’m getting 15MBps internet installed. Still well within my budget, and now I can play StarCraft at night 😀

Last night I decided to put my phone on the other side of the room when I go to sleep, so that I have to get out of bed to turn off my alarm in the morning. It worked – I was on the subway right on time this morning to get to Hacker School at 10:30.

Every morning at Hacker School we meet with a group of 6 people and tell them about our projects and goals for the day. I met with my morning check-in group for the last time today, at least in its current form; we’ll be meeting with new morning check-in groups starting tomorrow. My check in group was really cool, but I’m also excited to get to know new people through the morning check-in groups. I like the check in groups – for one, it keeps me honest about at least trying to show up on time, because I know that there are people expecting me there at 10:30. It’s also great to have a place where we can talk about our accomplishments without feeling like we’re bragging. It’s important for people who are learning to have encouragement from their peers, and the morning meeting groups are a great place for positive feedback.

After morning meeting I made a breakfast run to Jazzy’s where I got a bacon egg and cheese bagel. It was delicious – they make it right in front of you with just the basic ingredients, which at least feels healthier than getting the same thing from a fast food stop. Mainly because the egg is actually egg, I think.

Mel, the current resident, gave a talk starting at 11 about learning styles and how they relate to programming and hacker school. We started out by taking a survey about learning styles (you can take it yourself at http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html). I scored Global/Intuitive/Visual/Active, which I pretty much already knew, but it was good to get the words to attach to it.

Afterward I spent some time working with Derek on his website, mainly updating the CSS to reflect a more modern and clean design.

Then I spent at least 2.5 hours working with Jade on the collision detection, mostly bugfixes.

At that point, I was totally burned out, and put out a call on the internal chat for anyone who might want to hang out with me, play chess, get dinner, etc.. Nabil answered the call and we played chess (I won but only barely – and he let me take-backsies a couple of moves), and then we played portal chess (I won the demo game and he won the real game). It was a lot of fun, and it was great to get to know Nabil; he taught high school math before coming to Hacker School, which is something I might end up doing some day.

I ate a Chipotle burrito and watched some WCS (StarCraft 2), then played some games with Javier, Dan, Nick, Pedro, Alan, and Sunil. We chatted and had a beer, which was a lot of fun. Headed home on the D train afterward, which makes my walking a lot shorter on the Manhattan side, but longer on the Brooklyn side. The Brooklyn walking is a lot quieter though, so I think this might be my new route. The D only makes two stops before mine as well, so no more worrying about express/local trains.

Got off at Barclays Center / Atlantic, and walked to Target (running into Alyssa on the way in!). Bought a table and a wifi router for the new internet, and walked home with the table on my head.

Chatted with Greta and Evan, blogged, derped on the internet, and now it is time for bed. Internet tomorrow!

From Brooklyn,

— Erty