Roaches, Code, and Dirty Dishes
There comes a certain strangeness to writing daily blogs in the manner I have been lately. I don’t know if you’ve ever written a daily journal, but it’s sort of like that. Of course, the one key difference is the fact that you’re reading this. I can’t say as I know anyone who’s read my personal journals. At least not with my consent.
That’s why I call it strange. Every day, I sit down and reveal a small piece of my soul to whomever may chance across my words. Not only you reading this right now, but those who have and those who will. It’s a fascinating idea that someone besides myself may read these posts years from now.
But that’s enough introspection for one post. I had a few thoughts about today, and I want to capture a few of them before they flutter away. Thoughts do that you know. Try as you might to hold them, they will disappear forever if they go unwritten. I suppose that’s a big reason I write. To capture the fluttering thoughts.
Fluttering thought number one:
My classroom had at least eight dead cockroaches in it when I arrived this morning. Better than live ones, I suppose, but still… When my students arrived, they went on a roach hunt and cleaned them all up for me, and I didn’t even ask them to! I guess that makes them good students. Of course, when they asked me why I had so many roaches in my room, I couldn’t resist trying a more creative answer, so I told them they were my friends and that this was a day of mourning.
Fluttering thought number two:
I’m a STEM teacher. Right now, all I teach is Game Design. In other words, I teach basic coding, strategy, and some of the more artistic sides to game design. Today I taught my students what a programming language was, and I got the most excited I’ve been yet to teach. Afterwards, it dawned on me why that was. I’m an English major, and languages are kind of my thing.
Yes, programming languages are vastly different from how we speak, but they’re still languages. Even though computers don’t handle English very well, they still have their own rules, vocab, and systems—just like the languages humans use. That comparison made the lesson quite enjoyable to teach. To demonstrate, I showed my students how removing the letter “r” from the word “right” completely removed its meaning. When you remove or add even one element, it changes the meaning. In most cases, it changes it to gibberish. That’s the case for English as much as it is for Python, HTML, or any one of the thousands of other programming languages.
Fluttering thought number three:
I’m missing having a dishwasher. I love cooking, but that comes with a bucket and a half of dirty dishes. Since my wife is tirelessly tending to the baby, I’ve been handling all the chores when I get home. Today, I made sweet potato and asparagus wraps with taco meat. When we finished eating, our sink was piled high.
I’m not trying to complain too much. There are benefits to hand washing dishes. If nothing else, it’s a great time to catch up on your latest podcast. (My current choice is called Legends of the Stinky Dragon. If you’re not a nerd, don’t look into it.) Anyways, the point is that dishwashers are nice—don’t take them for granted.
Fluttering thought number four:
I thought about stopping it at three. That would be nice, wouldn’t it. Too bad I don’t feel like being conventional right now, so you get four—I know what you’re thinking: “You just talked about how words last through time and that’s why you write. Why choose these random thoughts though?”
The answer is that I don’t know. Sometimes, writers just gotta write. Maybe I’ll look back on those thoughts some day and smile at them. Maybe someone else will read them and get distracted from their own worries for a few minutes. Perhaps they’ll simply sit here unread, to be used a fuel for my ever developing skill as a writer.
Does my writing even need a purpose? I don’t think so. These thoughts could have flown away into the void, yet they landed here for you to read, and I think that’s worth something.
