My Impressions: The Well-Grounded Rubyist

So, I have been “trying” to learn Ruby on Rails for a long time now.  Like a few years.  I’m like a super failure at this task.  One excuse I have is that Ruby on Rails is a newer language and the learning material are not as developed and mature as others, such as VBA and SQL.  I’ve come across a lot of shitty tutorials for VBA and SQL, but also some really good ones (see at end).  But so far, I have not come across good ROR tutorials, maybe because it is too broad…  I’m still hopeful though, and trying different ways of learning at a snail pace. 

Honestly though, I a real class or tutor will help a lot more in ROR learning than trying a book or online tutorial…  I mean, take it from one that’s failed at this for many times.

The Well-Grounded Rubyist

After going through the first 15 pages of google search on how to learn ROR, I came across this book.  Many people suggested on forums that this is a must-have book for ROR n00bs.  That would be me.  So, I ordered the book. 

Anyway, this book is pretty thick.  I got through the first ¼ understanding it fairly well.  The middle half was like, I “kind of got it theoretically,” and the last ¼ was just like…  Still in English?  No idea. 

The truth is, this book was not meant to be a tutorial.  It would be unfair for me to treat it like one.  This book is a manual.  The author tries to balance that appropriate details from something “a three year old would know” to “this could really help even an advanced person.”  That’s a hard task, and I have no idea if he accomplished it or not, because I’m not even a three year old. 

I do “feel” the book will be a very important reference as my experience continues to grow (provided I don’t just say fuck it and quit – recently I’m debating this). 

I bought another ROR book, one that is meant to be a tutorial.  If I remember correctly there are over 600+ pages.   Will be back here when I’m done with it………….

Now, the best tutorials I've come across: 

Best VBA tutorial ever: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNIs-AWhQzckr8Dgmgb3akx_gFMnpxTN5

Best SQL tutorial ever: 
https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/sql

My Impressions: Innumeracy

The title intrigued me.  Often times we hear people throw out illiteracy a lot, but not so much innumeracy.  As someone who tries to be precise and accurate, the frequent inaccurate claims make me uncomfortable.  I tend to take communication very literal and numerical.  If I could, I would even try to group my communication thoughts in a binary way: yes or no, black or white.  Not always a good idea to do that, but there is some appreciation to see I’m not the only one like this.

In a world where overemphasis and exaggeration is focused on very select topics while everything else is being masked, our inherent expectations on how the world operates is also constantly changing unconsciously.  Further adding to this is the constant bombardment of our self-select filters in social media.  Parts of this book provide big data results on situations we may be way off.  I think this is important because it helps realign our benchmarks…  And if our expectations were way off “reality,” then we can finally start asking questions again, being truth to oneself, and the world we live in.  

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

The book wasn’t as nerdy as I expected.  I would label the exercises and tricks in the book in two labels: The easier level and the harder level. 

The easier level consists of cute tricks that appear often in intro-math courses or brainteasers online.   An example would be what are the chances of two people having the same birthday in a room full of people?  Questions similar to this often have answers that are very different from “most people’s” expectations, and the math is easy enough to kind of get it. 

The more complex questions walk through some calculations – like in school we have to “show our work” to demonstrate our thought process and how we arrived to our answers.  I assume most people for the most part would just be bored and skip right over………  Then there are some parts I would think of as more “philosophical” like whether extraterrestrial beings exist, or, if we each share Julius Caesar’s last breathe, and try to use math to calculate an answer.  At that point, I’m still kind of curious, but more at “Ok, so what?  Who cares?” 

One important mention in the book is we were taught basic math in grade school, but we were never taught how to apply them.  If we stop and think about that for a second, and really think about all the other subjects we were taught and if we could apply them in real life…  The thought scares me.  Of course, there is the easy blame – the education system.  But the same time, we should also be responsible for our own education, shouldn’t we?  Nobody has responsibility over our own learnings and maybe we should take more ownership of it. 

Yeah, this is an odd post.  I’m just going to stop abruptly because my thought process just shut down.  

My Impressions: The Purpose Driven Life

I am rather cynical, narrow, and shallow.  Reading this book has been tough.  Writing about my thoughts about it, as it relates to religion makes it even tougher.  

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?

 

Previously, I had Christian friends.  But I understood very little about the religion.  There were words and phrases that constantly got on my nerves.  What do you mean XXX!!  Why you say/do that!!  Since this book is in a way, a how-to-be-Christian book, it helped me understand the religion and mindset of Christians better.  A lot of the same “words” being used by Christians versus non-Christians actually mean very different things.  This is something we easily overlook when we take the meanings of words literally, when the context is very important. 

In terms of morals and the way to live life…  What bothers me is when friends ask me for advice and they may first ignore/refuse my suggestions.  But later on, they would do them because it is the right thing a Christian would do, or God and the Bible says so.  How come the same actions seem to be so much more profound if we add “God says so” or “the Bible” says so.  I did them long before I read the Bible…  This is really frustrating for me.  Anyway, some of these things include:

• Forgiving people (or, God has a plan for everything that happens)
• Stop worrying/resenting
• You’re not persuasive if you’re abrasive
• We were all created uniquely with our own flaws and strengths (or, God gave us our own unique identity)
• Screw nagging
• If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem
• Being the best version of you (or, God has not called you to be the best in the world at anything!  He has called you to be the best you can be.) 

This book is probably useful for two types of people.  First, people like me that are very new to Christianity and constantly getting angry talking to a Christian due to the lack of mutual understanding.  Second, this book is also very useful to strong Christian believers.  A lot of these motivational/finding your strengths type of self-help tools sound so much better and convincing to a Christian when God says it is the right thing to do. 

Religion is such a tough subject like politics and martial arts.  One of my old teachers used to say, “People seek confirmation, not information.”  How many people that argue about these topics really have an open mind and could change their stances?  Instead, we just add a lot of abrasion and noise and damage a lot of relationships.  Live and let live.  

My Impressions: Strengths Finder 2.0

I took the survey for a company training.  HR sent out an e-mail saying we’d get a free book if we joined the training, and anything free is appealing to me so I jumped on the opportunity.  At first, I read through the results of my testing.  I had some preconceived thoughts.  Then I went through the 30-some pages in the book, and had slightly different thoughts.  

StrengthsFinder 2.0

 

The main theme of the book is: Focus on strength, not on “fixing” weaknesses. 

My results are values I hold highly and strive to be.  I hope and aspire to these strengths, but I guess it is hard to measure if I actually own them.  I’m not sure if the survey actually measures my “strengths,” or measures what “I want my strengths to be.”

Some very important points the book briefly mentions:

• Overcoming deficits is an essential part of the fabric of our culture.  Underdog who beats one-in-a-million odds is always inspirational and motivational.  However, it masks a lot of problems, and it blindly leads you down a path where you naively think you can be a better someone you’re not, rather than focusing on being that super good someone you could be. 
• You cannot be anything you want to be – but you can be a lot more of who you already are. 

Not like Myers Briggs where they actual have something more specific to the top.  Instead of reading all my top 5 strengths separately, I’d like to read about them combined.  What specific advantages does this combination of strengths build me up for?  Of course, it would be super difficult.  With 34 listed strengths and listing out all combinations for groups of five would be a super huge undertaking. 

Also, there is no “intensity” measure on the strengths.  What I mean by intensity is how strong are these strengths?  If for example, if each strength attribute is rated from 1 to 100…  Person A may have all their strengths scoring in the range from 50 to 60.  And his top 5 strengths would be scored 59 and 60.  However, Person B may have his strength attributes ranging from 0 to 100.   I would’ve liked to see a more in depth relative scoring system.  Instead of scoring the top five strengths among these attributes “relative to myself,” I want to see how my strengths score relative to others.  Is my analytical ability the top 5 percentile? Top 20 percentile?  Or it is actually below average compared with the general population, just that all my other attributes are worse.  But I guess if we are just doubling down on our strengths and being the best me I can be, that relevance doesn’t matter.  Because not like I would get far either if I tried capitalizing on other attributes…

34 strengths in total.  I read through them for my own benefit – to understand other strengths and how to work with people of different strengths.  I do think having 34 of these strengths is too many and a lot of the strengths are variations of the same theme.  For example, I would group these following:

• Discipline/deliberate/focus
• Individualization/arranger/empathy/harmony
• Ideation/futuristic
• Connectedness/include
• Input/intellection/learner

So taking a step back, I’ve read a lot of books and articles on “How to…XYZ” such as how to run a business, how to be an entrepreneur, how to study for an exam, how to lose weight…etc.  There are so many different ways.  Some seem so out of whack, and make me think, “How the hell would anybody do that?”  After reading the different strengths, I visualize a lot of people with these different strengths that I don’t have, and the aha-moment struck.  “YES!!  That is sooooooooooooo her!!”  This gives me a little more insight on the person and how to interact with them.  I realize how some tips that will NEVER work for me seems to be the only way it would work for someone else.  I’ve learned not to dismiss so easily, but take into context. 

Finally, a lot of the improvement suggestions for people of a specific strength also rings a bell to me, “Yes, that person really needs to do more of that.”  This gives me more confidence in “working with people with X strength.”  The familiarity also empowers me to be aware of the potential downfalls associated with my strengths. 

The interesting thing is, perhaps due to self-awareness - the past 2 years I’ve made adjustments that cover 80% of suggested actions for me.  The value of the book is that now I have more ideas for the other 20%. 

My Impressions: Fluent in 3 Months

So…  I’ve been trying to learn Japanese for more than half of my life.  Literally.  Since 5^th grade, my grandfather wanted to teach me Japanese.  I never got all the alphabets.  I got a Japanese minor in college after taking it for 3 years.  Then, I kind of just let it go.  Never understood television shows, never understood manga (my main purpose), never understood what they were saying in Japanese porno (my second purpose).

So about 1.5 years ago, a friend wanted to learn Japanese.  She wanted to set it as a goal.  Then somehow…  Instead of her learning, it became me learning again.  About 1.25 years ago, I went to Japan for vacation.  I found out I couldn’t communicate even on a basic level with the locals.  The locals understood nothing I was saying.  I understood everything they were saying.  They were saying to me, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Anyway, long story short…  I’ve reignited my passion to learn Japanese.  I’ve tried to commit and allocate time on a daily basis.  I read this book hoping to find any tips or tricks that could help me. 

Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World

I still can’t speak fluently.  But a lot of the methods of learning in the book, I wish I would’ve known earlier.  Like…  More than half my life ago, earlier.  

Here are some of the things I wish I knew:

1. It’s not about the perfect tool

I’ve spent countless hours, days, weeks, months looking for that perfect tool.  Researching the different tools available, comparing the pros and cons, even making my own tool…  Just dive into it.  You know too little to know the difference in the beginning.  Readjust your learning later, when you know what to focus on. 

2. Don’t hold unrealistic expectations on fluency

I always want to be good at what I do – at EVERYTHING I do.  I don’t like to do something and suck at it.  I don’t like embarrassment.  So, the goal of course was to speak Japanese like a native.  But the truth is, my mother tongue (Mandarin) sucks.  My fellow Taiwanese don’t even think I sound Taiwanese.  The Chinese don’t think I’m Chinese.  How can I have a higher expectation at my second foreign language if my native tongue already sucks that bad?

2. 1 Speak from day one

The expectations of being fluent also helps masks the embarrassment when you sound like a n00b when you make that move to talk to people and are not yet fluent.  The truth is, you can’t “speak well” if you’ve never gave it real world experience. 

I used to think experience is overrated (in terms of learning, work, everything).  Now, I start to understand the value of experience.  Looking back at my other learnings – Swimming.  I probably drank 2 pools’ worth of water while learning how to swim.  Of course, I was embarrassed, it sucked, and it felt like failure…  But to learn to swim, it was inevitable that I had to drink the water myself.  Nobody else could drink it for me, or suffer it for me.  It’s the only way to go.  Drink quickly, and learn quickly.  Kind of disgusting to think how much pee was in there.  But anyway.  There is a lot of latent learning from just constantly doing and speaking.  The improvements from speaking right away and speaking daily are also non-linear and very difficult to measure.  Instead of trying to measure it, just start doing it. 

Oh, point on experience: 15 years of experience is not the same as one year of experience done 15 times.  

3. Actual Tricks and Tools

If you want to take a class, I suggest taking the very basic class at the beginning of your learning, and near the mid-end.  I’ve took courses in college, courses outside, courses online…  I recommend take a course to setup the basics, then run hard on your own, then come back to the courses when you have a wide reach.  The formal system will stick better that way.   Now here are some actual tools and tricks:

3. 1 Mnemonics

Use mnemonics for vocabs.  Make a story or a phrase out of it.  Use your imagination and creativity.   

3.2 Anki app

There are only two apps I actually paid money for (thank God to the gift card from my internship).  For someone as cheap as me to whip out money and buy an app, it is very difficult.  Anki is also not one of those $0.99 apps.  Bitch costs $24.99!!  I use it every day.  I recommend it.  That should mean something.  The tool is not perfect and there are a lot of things that could be improved…  But so far nothing else comes close. 

Anki is an SRS tool -> think of it as flash cards on steroids.  Instead of practicing every card equally, the app exposes the cards you are not familiar with more often.  Learn some basic coding if you can, and learn some excel if you can.  I’ve created thousands of Anki cards for myself incorporating my own mnemonics. 

I use Anki for Japanese (Kanji, vocab), Acupuncture, and plan to use it for Esperanto. 

3.3 Esperanto

Consider learning this new language created about a century ago.  The aim of this language is to be the easiest among all, and serve as a milestone/connector in learning a new language.  Using the skills of acquiring such an easy language, practicing these skills, then step up to the big boy league and learn your target language.  I just started at duolingo.com.  So far it’s been pretty fun. 

Now go learn that new language and go pick up some cute gals/guys.