You don't need to travel to grow

I recently had an epiphany.

I hadn't been at home for the last 4 months. And it is only this last month, September have I realized I've been slacking on everything.  It was August and I had not gotten a job and I wasn't volunteering or meeting new people. During my travels in Central America I was constantly meeting new people and practicing Spanish.

So around the end of August, I became bored and started looking for things to do. I settled on learning programming (again). I had begin Udacity's Intro to Computer Science last year but had not finished. I heard about this new one month rails course and learned that Code School had some great classes too. I looked into these options but decided that I need a b beginner course first. So I started with tryruby.com and Codeacademy.

I finished both of those in August. Now I'm on to one month rails. After I finish that I will be moving onto Code School's courses.

While I finished these classes I noticed I could also do some outside activities as well. I began looking and found that every thursday a group of people meet to talk about web development about an hour away from me. Then I found that a startup weekend event read occurring less than 2 hours away from me.  I also discovered that I could couchsurf while I attended these events.

Bam. Right there I had recreated all the experiences of traveling. Without going more than 3 hours from my home.

My friends and I talk about needing to travel to develop yourself, but I've just realized you don't need to go further than a few bucks of gas worth to broaden yourself.

Don't get me wrong. Traveling us a great way to grow. You're thrust into unfamiliar situations and you're forced to meet new people. But if you're persistent, the same can be done here at home.

Gamification cooking

Why hasn't anyone made a gamified version for cooking a la Codeacademy.com or duolingo.com ?

Review of One Month Rails

So far I'm about 10 lessons into One Month Rails, and I'm not exactly liking what I'm seeing.  Basically this website is showing me how to create a pinterest type website in a few hours.  The biggest problem I have is that the site is "showing" me, not "teaching me how to do so.

Mattan seems to know his stuff, but the issue is that Mattan regularly tells you to do this or that, but does not tell you what for.  Regularly I am confused as to whether the code Mattan is writing in is CSS, HTML, Ruby, or PHP, or even some other code.  Mattan never really teaches you what the functions or methods are, he just basically says "now do this, because it uploads this to the website."

That all being said, I'm still going to the finish the course. I'm about half way through so I might as well keep at it.  I'm off to Code School next so we'll see what I learn there.

Quick note, here is my discount plan for learning Ruby on Rails.  I finished Codeacademy's course for free first.  Then I noticed that after googling OneMonthRails.com, I kept getting a discount code on Facebook.  I took the discount code and started the first kind of lessons.  Then I noticed that New Relic will give you a free month of Code School if you sign up and deploy at this address.  Now that I have a free month I'm going to get started on Code School and try to finish up what I can in a month.

If you have any questions about anything let me know!

Startup Weekend Idea

I just came back from a 3 month stay in Guatemala where I studied Spanish in an immersive environment.  I wanted to learn Spanish because I knew it would be a good skill to have.  However, I haven't been the best at using my Spanish since returning to the states.  That's how I came up with my idea for Startup Weekend.

I want to create a way for two people to chat on their phones with each other in a language that the person is learning.  This can connect a native speaker to a person learning a language or connect 2 persons learning the same language.  This service can be a check in for both persons so that the both hold the other person accountable.

I'm thinking I might be able to use Twilio for this service. Twilio has an API and Codeacademy.com has a quick course teaching you how to use their API.

This service can be expanded to include a notification that alerts you if you have not talked to your language buddy in a few days.

Perhaps this service can be expanded to also include anyone learning anything.

Users may be able to sign up for the service, or perhaps the service can be a freemium service where bonus are included if the person pays an extra fee.

I'm not sure what to call the service, but perhaps Digital Penpals!

PS. This reminds me once of a service I requested of reddit.  I asked if anyone wanted to be my anonymous texting friend.  Here's what I posted to reddit. It ended up being pretty fun! My "void texter" and I talked mainly about our accomplishments, friends, and work mainly.

Mi abuela

My grandmother came to this country from the Dominican Republic at the age of 21.  She learned English on her own while she was here.  She earned a living by cutting hair and mending clothes.  Once she amassed enough skills she then opened up her own salon where she employed many other stylists and an accountant.  Because of her, this country received more taxes and had more more employed persons.  I appreciate the work that she did and I am proud to call her my abuela.