Values Activity

Leave a Comment

I think just about everyone has, at some point, done the values activity.  The general idea is that you write down your top N values on sheets of paper and continuously narrow them down until you are left with only M values remaining.  I first did this when I was in High School at a Key Leader event and since then have done it quite a few times.  I am going to talk about some of the ways it has been done and comment on what worked and what did not.

The first way I did it, at the Key Leader event, worked fairly well.  There was a paper at the front of the room with the values on them and you were asked to walk up and put your values in the ring.  We started with the outer rings and moved towards the center after each round of giving up values.  After it was over the facilitator pointed out how willing we were to give up our values at first and how much harder it became.  She also pointed out that we still were willing to give them up despite her never using language that said it was mandatory.  Everything was done well, but nothing was done spectacularly.

The most recent time I did this activity was at a student-let event for Circle K.  This honestly was the worst time I have ever seen this done.  We wrote each value on a sheet of paper (lead up was similar to “write your values on these ten slips of paper”) and were then told to keep choosing a smaller number of values.  At the end, we were simply asked to hand our remaining value to someone walking around the room collecting them.  This activity did not create though, it did not encourage us to reflect on what it was we valued, it simply got a sample of what it was that many people in our club valued and allowed for a word cloud to be shown at the end.  This is an activity that is capable of having a lot of impact upon people and I really did not like seeing us go through it so hastily.

The best time I have ever seen the activity done was at Circle K Leadership Academy.  We started with the normal writing of the values, but there was an added emphasis of how we selected each value.  After we had the values written, we moved into discarding them, into a large bin.  We wandered around the room, dropping our values into the bin as we did so.  While we were doing this, the facilitator read off some of the values stating, for example, “Someone chose to give up honesty”, really giving us a chance to think about what we personally treasure.  As he read off values I still had, it gave me pause knowing that there were people for whom these were not important.  At the end, we had a chance to think about what we had done.  Everything at that event worked perfectly and it is the example of how the activity should be run.

This is an outstanding activity that can get a lot of thought out of people.  If you are leading it, please make sure that you give it the attention it deserves and put a lot of effort into how it can impact people.

First Letter Autocompletion

Leave a Comment

So, I needed a short break from actual work and I saw a cool experiment done by John Scalzi over at whatever.com and decided I would do the same and show what each letter of the alphabet autocompletes to in Chrome.  I do use Firefox as well for a lot of my browsing but I have no good autocomplete there so these are probably not perfect.

a: amazon.com – I do pretty much all my shopping there
b: bitbucket.org – code hosting seems reasonable
c: calendar.google.com – I check my calendar, a lot.  I have no idea what I would do without it.
d: docs.google.com – I feel like there are going to be a lot of google websites in here…
e: eecs.umich.edu/~pmchen/eecs482/ – not sure why this is so high up, but it is
f: facebook.com – this does not get that much usage anymore, it did once though
g: google.com – no surprise
h: hulu.com – I do not have a problem, I swear!
i: iphone 5 (after a pause, apparently I do not look at websites starting with i often in chrome)
j: jpevarnek.net – actually not a heavily visited site
k: kuler.adobe.com – a friend showed this to me, it is kind of useful
l: localhost – not that surprising
m: mail.google.com – email is cool
n: nwcal.micirclek.org – this is cool
o: officedepot.com – this probably would not have been here a week ago
p: plus.google.com – more google…
q: qrcode.kaywa.com – I used this kind of recently
r: reader.google.com – the last google link
s: stackoverflow.com – it would be kind of terrible if I was not on this a lot
t: trello.com – this is a really cool todo list site, you should try it
u: umcirclek.org/calendar_bs.php – I like looking at the calendar
v: voice.google.com – oh, forgot about that one
w: whenisgood.net – planning meetings is important, so is checking when people are good
x: xkcd.com – xkcd is awesome!
y: youtube.com – I did not know I looked at videos that often
z: zalman.com – I bought a hard drive case from them a while ago

rlwrap

Leave a Comment

Working in Linux, we normally have fairly well-made shell programs to work with.  Convenient libraries such as GNU readline (http://tiswww.case.edu/php/chet/readline/rltop.html) developers are able to quickly and effortlessly add command history, movement within the line, and all the other nice things we have been taught to expect.  Unfortunately, some programs do not do this, something I unfortunately found I would have to deal with while using sqlplus for my databases class this semester.  Fortunately, with a little help from google, I was able to find a nice wrapper program that would add the expected readline functionality to any other program!  rlwrap (http://utopia.knoware.nl/~hlub/rlwrap/#rlwrap) has so far been an absolute lifesaver and I am reasonably sure it alone will be making this class bearable for me.  I have no idea how it works (I will be checking the source code at some point…maybe…) so I am just going to say it uses magic to add the functionality I expect every program to have to the programs that do not have it.

Linux Coding Standard

Leave a Comment

I have been looking at a few coding standards recently and for the most part, I am happy with the Linux kernel coding style (http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/CodingStyle).  It has a very nice description of how to code everything in a terse but clear way which is something a lot of other guides lack.  There are two items with it though that I definitely do not agree with: the indentation for switch statements and the use of braces in if/else statements.

For switch statements, the coding style recommends having the case statements at the same indentation level as the switch statement (see below)

switch (suffix) {
case a:
	break;
default:
	break;
}

In my opinion, this is hard to read and the case statements should all be indented by another level (see below)

switch (suffix) {
	case a:
		break;
	default:
		break;
}

The style also specifies that curly braces should not be used with conditional statements unless one branch consists of multiple statements.  I completely agree with this concept for a single if statement, however, I think it looks a lot cleaner to use braces if there are multiple branches in the if statement.  This does not add a significant amount of white space (only a single line thanks to the inline braces), gives a cleaner separation, and prevents people from stupidly adding an extra statement they think is in a branch but really is not.  The change I am proposing is below.

if (cond)
	action();
else
	other_action();

would become

if (cond) {
	action();
} else {
	other_action();
}

With these two changes (and adaptations for things like classes and other non-C language features), I will be using the Linux Kernel Coding Style as my personal coding style.  There are times when I do things wrong (for example, I often do not put spaces around “*” and “/” just because my Engineering 101 professor instructed us not to) but overall this is a nice sound style guide and one I will be happy trying to follow.

Awkward Conversations

Leave a Comment

I just had a conversation with a friend and I thought it deserved a lot more attention than I was able to give it during the last couple blocks of a car ride.  The general idea of the conversation (okay, I am going to distort it a bit here, sorry) was that she could not understand why it was that some people had trouble being outgoing, and I decided to try to explain it.  The problem was, I realized quickly enough that I have no idea why I would often choose not to talk to people at an event and just sit by myself (actually, it was far more likely that I would either talk to one other person I knew or try to get some work done despite the social nature of the event).

Eventually, after a couple more blocks of driving, I decided it was probably just my way of looking at potential conversations.  For me, most conversations are going to end up becoming awkward within a minute.  They will start fine with normal greetings, me asking a question, receiving an answer, possibly the other person asking a question (and me giving an answer if so)…but then they will just stop.  Either I have no idea what to say or the other person just seems to not have a real interest in continuing the conversation.  This will then either lead to me having to wander away or trying to just find a way to end the conversation.  I do not like that conversations tend to end up that way more often than not, but they do and I therefore am always expecting a conversation to end that way.  When conversations go better than that, I really do love it (assuming I do not get annoyed with the other person).

Anyways, as was pointed out, this can result in me ignoring meeting new people and possibly not meeting someone who could possibly be my new best friend.  I know that failing at a conversation really would not matter and that is why lately I have been trying to force myself to just talk to a lot of people knowing that I am going to hate most of the conversations.  I do not accept failure well and setting myself up for so many failures is not an easy task, but it is one that really is worth it.  If during an entire week you end up meeting one person you end up liking but end up having awkward conversations with a hundred people you would not have talked to otherwise, you came out ahead.

There is no reason not to just go and talk to people: the worst that could happen is that you end up not being friends with a person you would not have met before while the best that could happen is you make a new friend.  Unfortunately, life is not always this simple and emotions force us (i.e. me) to miss out on these opportunities.  I wish talking to people was easier but for the moment I guess I am just going to have to accept a lot of failure and hope for that tiny bit of success.

Pre-LA Thoughts

Leave a Comment

On Monday, I am going to be leaving for Leadership Academy.  This is a week long leadership conference designed specifically for members of Circle K (on a side note, it is based off of a book by Brendon Burchard (I have read one book written by him and have another that I am meaning to read)).  Everyone I know who has gone through the program says it is a life-changing experience and that they would not trade it for anything.  Wth that in mind, I am extremely excited and cannot wait to experience what they have described.  The rush of positive energy surrounding the program is overwhelming and it is incredibly difficult for me to avoid deciding how the event went before even going (and judging from the Facebook page for this year, I am not the only one having trouble avoiding that).  At this point, I am just trying to put off my judgement until after the event and keep up my excitement for it at the same time.

While I am undoubtedly excited for the event, there are still a couple things I am worried about.  The first of these is the fact that I will have absolutely no access to technology for a week.  This could not came at a worse time for me work-wise with my boss having been gone the past two weeks and just returning on Monday.  I know that logically I will probably not be needed but I would still like to be there if for no reason other than to make sure everything we did on Friday gets finished correctly.  Outside of work, the general backlog of email that I expect to see after being gone for a week is just terrifying and something that I am not looking forward to.  Finally, it seems like there might be a problem with the passwords on the University of Michigan Circle K website at the moment and I am not sure I completely tracked down the problem before leaving.

I am hoping I can avoid focusing on all of these trivial concerns and be able to just throw myself into LA.  Precedent indicates that I will not be able to avoid focusing upon my day-to-day concerns but I am trusting in this week to be different and I am trusting in myself to be better than I am.  I hope I end up looking back on it with the same level of enthusiasm that past attendees do (maybe towards the less cult-like side of the spectrum) and I hope I gain as much from it as I think is possible.

Discovery Flight

Leave a Comment

Today, I went on a discovery flight with Michigan Flyers.

Before I talk about the flight itself, I am going to give a bit of background for why I decided to go on the flight.  I first became interested in flying sometime in middle school, I unfortunately do not remember exactly when or exactly why.  I took a discovery flight back then, courtesy of my father, and at that point became set on eventually learning how to fly.  The past few years, it has been a bit hard not to think of flying with airports so close and student groups mentioning it, but I avoided giving it serious consideration until this summer when it began to be discussed at my work.  Aside from being one of the most knowledgeable, capable, and supportive people I know in general, my boss at Barracuda Networks has been a pilot for the past couple years and absolutely loves flying and will not hesitate to share his enthusiasm about it.  Avoiding the conversations would have been pretty close to impossible but it still took me a while to formally decide I would take the lessons.  My main reason for not wanting to schedule the lessons immediately was the time commitment I thought it would take.  When a coworker pointed out that it would not take more than a few hours a week of actual flying, and that it really could be quite flexibly scheduled, I was sold.  It took me a couple weeks after that to get the discovery flight set up and a couple more weeks to get in but now I have finally signed up for flight lessons!

Getting back to the flight itself, it was one of the most exhilarating experiences I have had in my life.  We started with doing a pre-flight check of the Skycatcher.  These always take a while and for good reason: when you are not able to pull over to check on a problem or fix it you want to make sure that everything really is working flawlessly.  We took a bit longer than normal since Joe (my flight instructor) was also using this as a chance to show me the plane but this was definitely time well spent.

As we were taxiing to take off, I got to see the new UofM helicopters flying around.  In addition to looking much more awesome than the old helicopters, they have really awesome specs being able to travel about twice as fast as the plane I was flying.  After watching them for a bit (and me having some issues steering the plane) we took off right in front of one of the helicopters we proceeded on course for a while.  I took over the controls and we began flying out of Ann Arbor, executing a few small turns on the way.  We watched the helicopter land on the roof of the hospital (I missed seeing the actual landing unfortunately) and then continued out of the city.

We continued flying with a few turns and eventually decided to turn back around and return to the airport.  We flew back over campus (I flew pretty much right over the Barracuda Networks building) at which point Joe took over flying for the rest of the time (I had been feeling a bit sick for a while and it started to reach the point where I was having issues).  Everything became a lot smoother after he took over.  We landed right behind one of the UofM helicopters (without any problems) and taxied back to the terminal.  I signed up immediately for the flight instruction program and should be starting that in a couple weeks after I get back from Leadership Academy.  For now, I have an online Cessna course to start with along with a padfolio containing operation handbooks for the 152 and 172 and a three hundred dollar pen (no, not really, but it is called that).  As far as what plane I will be flying in, I am going to be training in the Cesna 152.  The Skycatcher is a plane I would love to fly for fun one day but it was a bit cramped, hard to control on the ground, and Joe recommended learning in the 152.  Once I actually get my license, the Skycatcher will most likely be the first plane I get an endorsement on just because it does seem like it would be fun to fly (if I actually knew what I was doing).

Going flying today was one of the more fun things I have done and is definitely something I would love to repeat.  In fact, I will probably be repeating it many times throughout the next year and expect to have a blast!  I cannot wait to have a license and be able to go for flights on my own and the best part is I get to spend the next year learning how to fly, by flying!  I cannot imagine something more fun to do and hope I will love this as much as I think I will!

Accepting Help

Leave a Comment

I have always been fine with helping other people.  I have no idea why but I have become so accustomed to treating the needs of almost anyone above my own needs that I am willing to go out of my way to help complete strangers.  When someone offers me help me however, my first reaction is to question why it is that person would do that which usually just leads to me deciding I do not need/deserve that person’s help or to believe that that person has other motives.  After this, I just move into being irrational and confrontational: definitely not the best way to react to someone trying to be helpful.

About a month ago, I screwed up worse than I have in a long time and that is when I started giving this a lot of though.  In the moment, my train of thought was “why should I let this person go out of her way to do a favor for me, I am undeserving of this favor and her comfort is more important”.  That was all very well for that moment but when she went out of her way to be helpful to me, my immediate reaction was to just remain stubborn, not to take the logical route and just be gracious and accept the help.  I think I severely damaged my friendship with this person by screwing up there (okay, probably through other things I do not yet realize as well) and I want to make sure I do not wrock any other relationships in the future the same way.

As was pointed out to me a week later, learning how to accept help is just as important as helping other people.  To accept help is to let other people help me and let them experience what it is that I want for myself.  I accept that helping other people is the right thing to do but sometimes I do it in a selfish way, doing what makes me feel best and ignoring what other people really think would be best.  It is hard for me to realize what other people are thinking, to realize what they want, but that is something I am going to try to work towards.  At the very least, I am going to make sure I do what is right in situations that are obvious afterwards and try to avoid being stubborn and letting that blind me in the moment.

Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.
–Richard Gillard

The Real Purpose

Leave a Comment

I realized that in the previous post I made one very simple assumption: that it was good to have a blog.  For the longest time, I would have disagreed with that statement so I thought it would be good to talk about why I now think that it is important.

In high school, I wrote a lot.  In every class, I was accustomed to writing many papers and would normally also write outside of class for fun (I think I deleted all my drafts for novels…).  Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to do much writing since coming to college and because of that I have seen my ability to record my thoughts decline as my writing has become both less eloquent and less expressive.  I think the worst moment for me last year was when I read a paper I wrote and realized that all I had managed to do was regurgitate facts not even making it sound nice, the thing I hated the most in high school.  Having a blog I post to semi-regularly will hopefully give me enough of a reason to write, and about interesting things, that I keep doing it.  Additionally, it does seem nice sometimes to have a place to write when I just want to talk about something.

Anyways, this should be the last meta post I make for a while (though I could very easily be wrong about that).

Purpose

2 Comments

I have tried to make a blog a few times before and, without fail, I have just given up on each one.  For a while now, I have been telling myself I would take the time to try again and this time I would have a lot of fun with it.  My main goal for a while was that I would make a very simple platform for the blogging and would try to pick up a few skills while doing that but I think it should be obvious by this point that I did not do that.  While I could create a nice minimal platform that would do exactly what I needed and no more, I really am not interested in web apps as a primary focus.  Even with this very small focus I have on web apps (i.e. Circle K stuff) I still am getting to spend a lot of time on them and will probably just leave it that way and get all of my experience through there.

Anyways, I have finally stopped using making a platform as an excuse to not have a blog so here is a completely WordPress based blog!  I cannot guarantee that I will not stop posting (history shows that would be a very idiotic guarantee for me to make) but I will be attempting to post something every week here.  There will probably be a bunch of items about various technology projects within Circle K as well as some items about what it is I do outside of Circle K (yeah, not as many items exist in that category) but other than that, I really have no idea where I am going to go with this.