step42.com

So recently I got switched over to do mac development at work.  Being that I’ve only ever written anything worthwhile in C++/C#, it’s a pretty big step to switch over to writing production code in a language that I only first saw code of a few weeks ago.    The syntax of Objective-C is pretty counter-intuitive to a C++ developer even though objc is a C derivative.  For the non-programmers out there, its kinda like going from eating with a fork to eating with chopsticks.

I’ve been procrastinating learning obj-c for about a year now.  I’ve been planning to learn objective C to write a media organizer for my mac media center but have never actually gotten off my ass to start.  Now that I have an artificially imposed outside deadline, however, I’m sitting at a coffee shop after work trying to figure this shit out.  If only I could find some sort of similar outside motivators for other stuff I’m trying to do since I’m pretty terrible at self-motivation.

After an hour or so (including learning curve), here’s what I came up with: http://screencast.com/t/w8kRupWcuAm.   That’s after a day of programming exercises at work.  Hopefully learning the rest of this stuff starts speeding up as I keep going.  So far the biggest hurdle has been getting used to the new syntax.

Tomorrow I get to head out to Purdue for to participate in a career fair for my company.  My job there will be to actively engage the students there and sell the company to them in an effort to recruit kids to the amazing Lansing area (or at least the mediocre area which is made up for by an amazing job).

What better way to chip away at my social inhibitions than with a monetary motivator?  Get out there and talk to people or suck at your job.  Personally, I’ve always taken pride in all the jobs I’ve had when interacting with people and this should be no different.  Practice makes perfect afterall.  And hell, I’m getting paid for it too.

Looking back, I was always incredibly outgoing when working at the movie theater in high school.  When I was in that uniform I became a different person.  That simple change of appearance gave me extraordinary amounts of self-esteem and I could say anything to anyone there without flinching.  (Probably part of the reason why I got so many more girls there than from just meeting people as myself in college).

Either way, it’s nice to have more motivation than just myself to dive into more and more social situations. And if all else fails, there’s at least a really good brewery on the way in which i can down my sorrows.

A couple days ago I went in to Best Buy to try to find a eyecup for my camera (mine seems to have been broken somehow).  On the way in, I get the same old greeting as always at best buy.  After I’m about 10 feet into the store, the greeter says “Hi.”  So I do my usual and turn my head back and give a nod.  They didn’t have what I was looking for, so I left after about 3 min in the store.  On the way out, I get a “Have a nice day.” from behind after I’m 10 feet out the door.  At that point, I just keep walking; screw responding.  Then I realized what gets on my nerves about the greeters at best buy:  they always talk to you from behind, never giving you a chance to respond without awkwardly turning around.

Most of the time I’m out and about, I try to be at least somewhat friendly with strangers.  If I make eye-contact, I generally smile or say hello.  At best buy however, I’ve noticed that even when I walk in and purposefully make eyecontact with the greeters, they dont do or say anything until I’m at least 10 feet into the store.  At that point I feel the obligation to respond but am unable to without turning around to say something.  Anyone else get this there?

Apologies for being lame with this.  Too many things came up in a row and I fell out of habit.  Fortunately, I have actual content this time.

So, throughout my endeavour to become more social and grow beyond the shyness that defined me through much of growing up I have only been able to measure my success through my own point of view.  I had to rely on comparing memories to tell if I was actually being more social or if it was just something i’d convinced myself of.  Over the last month though, I’ve found two different instances where my perception of progress was reinforced by other people.

First, a couple weeks ago I was at a concert with a friend.  We got there about an hour before the bands went on, so we had time to waste talking.  After a while, she mentioned reading my blog before and asked about my endeavours of self improvement.  Of course this led to a discussion of how I got on the road I am currently travelling, and she was really surprised as I told her how shy I really was growing up.  She always thought I was a really social person from the day I met her.  Granted, I met her after I was a few months into this experiment and she’s a cute girl, so that may have factored into why I came off as so social.  Either way, I’ve managed to keep up the ‘new me’ and supress the typical shyness I have with people.

Second, in late July I was up visiting family and having breakfast with my aunt and grandma.  After talking for a bit, my aunt made a comment to my grandma which hit me pretty hard.  “He never used to talk.”  It was so true.  Growing up, I always shied away from talking with anyone but my close friends unless pressed.  I never worked to keep conversations going and often just found it to hard to.  But now, I had been having a conversation with family that I’ve never talked to for more than 10 minutes at a time for more than an hour.  Talk about signs of progress.

Now that students are back around campus, it seems like a great time to ramp up the social skydiving.  Practice has been my greatest tool so far.  Might as well push a bit harder than usual while it’s easy to do.