What I learned from a semester of night and online classes

Don't. Just don't.

While the prospect of being able to sleep in as late as you want and not having to go to classes is very appealing, it gets old pretty fast. And 4 hour lectures at 8pm are REALLY hard to pay attention to.

There's a lot of external things at play here besides just the classes. Maybe some people could do it, but the lack of social interaction was very tough for me. Being alone is nice, but not week after week. Some of this was self-imposed, but in general, I think it was a bad idea.

So why did I do it? Basically, that is when and how the classes I needed/wanted were offered. This, in part, was due to my not taking one of those classes the semester before, but you do what you have to. I learned a lot, more about myself and school than topics at school, but I survived.

The Pros:
-Sleep in
-Set your own schedule
-Finish 2 semesters' worth of classes in 1
-Free time

The Cons:
-4 hour class periods
-Socially withdrawn
-Darkness, my old friend

The Bottom Line:
Don't do it. If you want to take a night class or some online classes, go for it! But go outside, talk to people, have fun, and don't isolate yourself.

--Spring 2017. Yes, I realize it's basically fall now, but I'm really lazy and procrastinate and honestly forget about this blog. Expect more stuff in the future.--

Learning Curve

Over Black Friday, I bought a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe CC has a lot of great applications, but those applications also have a high learning curve.

Over the last few days, I have been messing around in some of these apps, mostly in graphic design.

But why should YOU care?

Good question. My aim is to produce high quality content for you guys, and hopefully some of this will help me to do so.

Some of the things I hope Adobe CC will help me do include:

• Create new/better channel art
• Better edited videos
• Expand my creativity

At this point, I still have a LOT to learn, across several different applications, and the struggle is knowing what to focus on. It's also difficult working on an old, slow computer, but I'm also looking into upgrading that. That, however, is a story for another time.

Hope Among Hate

The recent election results were all but expected, and with those results came a storm of anger, insults, distress, joy, and excitement. One look at social media will show how divided people are on the topic. From the #NotMyPresident tweets to people blocking each other because of who they voted for, it's clear that the results of this election were all but unifying.

Do I find all this anger, outrage, name-calling, and fear absurd and sad? Yes.

Am I worried by the violent division our nation seems to be facing? Yes.

Am I surprised by any of it? Sadly, no.

Like many others, I am worried. I'm worried about how this whole mess plays out. I'm worried about what Trump will do with our great nation. I'm worried about how divided we are. But I'm also hopeful.

In the last few weeks, Trump seems to have put a fresh foot forward. After watching his victory speech, Hillary's concession speech, President Obama's short speech, and the results of Trump's visit to the White House and talk with the President, I am hopeful for what is to come. Trump seems willing to work with people and take their advice.

To echo a common theme of many of the recent speeches, we need to unite behind our new President, for better or for worse, and give him our support. Only when we are united can we stand strong and show the world what we are capable of.

Life Gets Busy

Since starting school, I have a lot of things competing for my time. 

• Homework
• Videos I want to make and edit
• Friends that want to get together
• TF2
• Did I mention homework?

Now let me explain a few of these:

• Homework is fairly obvious, but now starting week 4 of the semester, it's starting to get busy with tests, quizzes, and assignments, not to mention all the reading.

• I'm trying to produce higher quality video content for Youtube, and this means more work. Don't get me wrong, it is something that I truly love, but I just can't find the time to sit down and edit for a few hours.

• Team Fortress 2. In case you didn't know(and I'm not sure how you would), I joined a competitive TF2 team last spring called Panomonium. We played 6v6 and Highlander(9v9) this summer and it was a lot of fun. We are planning on playing in the upcoming fall season as well, but I am struggling to find the time to play and practice.

So what does all of this mean?

Nothing. I am just going to have to work on my self-discipline and time management. I promise I'm not going to stop making videos(like I did last year). I'm shooting for at least 1 video per week, but the bigger, more time intensive videos like Skyrim will probably take 2 weeks. 

Homework is the biggest priority. But after that, I just have to balance my time between everything else.

Update

It's been a while hasn't it? I almost forgot that this thing existed except for the fact that I keep posting the link in the description of my videos.

Let's clear a few things up:

• I want to use this blog to discuss things I don't necessarily talk about in my videos. I might come back to some topics in future videos, but I want to use this to explore other conversations.
  


• I am not going to be posting videos from my YouTube on this blog. If you want to keep up to date with my videos, I tweet about them on my Twitter and you can subscribe to my channel or even turn notifications on.
  


• This blog will probably change and update as I learn more about HTML and web development. I want to expand and make it the best that I can.

I'm really excited to dive into blogging as this is something that I haven't tried before. I hope you'll come and join me as we explore some of the interesting (but mostly not) stories of my life!

Welcome to the Noobtrix

What is up Party Animals! And welcome to my new blog/website/thingy.

I'm hoping to use this as a way to let you know what's going on with me when I'm not uploading videos.

As always, I love feedback, so let me know any thoughts or suggestions you have for or about this, or things you'd like to see in the future.

I've got a lot planned for the next few months so I hope you'll join me for some fun and games.

Thank you for all of your support, and as always, behave yo butts, stay smexy ya'll, and until next time

Deuces!

-JDawg

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Here's a list of useful links:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDawgManiac23
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/jdawgmaniac23/

Steam Group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/suckinoobgaming
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JDawgManiac

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