I have been in a funk lately, watching episodes of Hawaii Five-0 non-stop. I think I’m more attracted to the idea of living in Hawaii than anything. I mean, the show is very badly written, and it has ruined two very interesting actors for me: Grace Park and Daniel Dae-Kim. Both of these actors have had fascinating characters on other shows: Park played Boomer on the remake of Battlestar Gallactica and Kim played one of the more fascinating characters on the show Lost (I’m forgetting his character’s name). For some reason, though, I can’t stop watching Hawaii Five-0. Places like Hawaii and Alaska appeal to me because they are so far away from here. I would love to be able to go somewhere and begin my life over again. Part of me hopes I get a job a long way from here.

But I don’t want to miss any part of Zanaya growing up. I suppose Valerie and I could discuss Zanaya coming with me if I had to move somewhere. No matter what, though, I need out of the situation I am in. I am broke, unemployed, and depressed with no prospects on the horizon. Life feels like a big shit sandwich just now, and I wish I could at least see my way out of it.

Let me change the subject - writing about my life is just depression compounded upon depression. Let me write a bit about coding. I have re-started learning Python a bit since yesterday. It is a shit-simple programming language that I have a feeling will be very useful, but for now I have no idea how server-side programs like Python can be used to create websites. At least with JavaScript and jQuery I know how to create and link to .js files. I’m not sure of the procedures for including .py files. Maybe the python.com site has something in its documentation.

My ultimate goal with my coding skills is to be able to create websites that help me with my work, both as a showcase for my skills as well as a repository for my teaching materials. It would be nice to have one central place on the internet that I can use for teaching and homework assignments. For this reason I do need to get Moodle set up on the internet. Moodle is tailor made for online teaching, so it would be nice to set up something that I can re-use. It could be useful especially for student assignments. Let me make sure I can sort out my Moodle site on MAMP first, and then I can think about finding a web service provider who can upload the site for me.

What I really need to do is to start with plans for my online classes. I have several books on creating online teaching materials, and I know that they recommend creating a highly planned outline of each class, laying out goals and objectives before settling on teaching materials. I have never been able to be that organized when it comes to creating my classes. I usually decide on the readings and then divide up the semester according to the outline of the book. Just once I would like to do a class right. I have a feeling my classes would be more dynamically complete if I were able to stick to a proper course outline procedure. In the end, it’s all about teaching.