So this is where I am forced to admit that I would have had extreme difficulty making it out of week two without the help of Nathaniel Bell and David Nowak. I am thoroughly impressed by the patience of these two individuals, and I’m hoping they’re getting something out of teaching/looking over my coding, although I’m unsure of precisely what that “something” is.

While I certainly haven’t “taught” coding, I have worked closely with Aden Jordan and Kelly Polasek these last two weeks. We’ve hunkered down in the ninth floor computer lab – sometimes for hours – and attempted to work our way through the dailies (yes, I know they’re not supposed to take that long, but they can be goddamn hard . . . and time-consuming . . . sorry Scott). Yes, there’s obviously something about working collaboratively that’s more enjoyable. We can all, for instance, laugh at Daniel Schiffman together. But there’s also something about it that feels productive, even when none of us have a clue what’s going on. There’s something about three people staring at a computer screen, silently, that ultimately compels you to ask what feels obvious (“Ok, so is this a function? Or is this an object?” “Do we put a comma or a semicolon here?”). Because starting with the obvious is sometimes the best place to start.

Further confession: I can’t help but feel like we’re manipulating some work-arounds in some of the dailies and I don’t know if that’s okay. It feels a little like cheating. For instance, I can make the ball bounce in multiple directions, but I still don’t know how to make a vector. I know that if I write down some code making the ball go left and right, it will do so, but I don’t know/can’t envision why it’s hitting a certain place on the wall (or maybe it’s just random). Still, even if it’s cheating, it feels good. I feel like I’m not that far away from recreating my own version of Arkanoid.

Same with the movable-object. This was probably the first coding we were able to do (semi) successfully without using a lifeline. We got the rocket to move. And it was amazing. But the term “movableobject” doesn’t exist anywhere in our code. Whoops. Looks like I may have to phone a friend after all (looking at you [Joe Torok] (http://joetorok.github.io/)).