Back from vacation and Test Day

Personal

July 8, 2019

This past week I went to Aspen, Colorado with my family, and it was one of the most tremendous vacations ever. From white water rafting to biking down Maroon Bells, we did just about every major Colorado Summer activity! Not only did we have all that fun outside, I exclusively worked on learning the material I missed in my Summer B Nonparametric Statistics class. I also missed a test on wednesday of last week, however I was able to work on the take-home portion in Colorado and make-up the in-class portion this morning.

I felt very confident going into the makeup test this morning at 8am. Nonparametric Stats was the only academic thing on my mind, and really the only thing I was distracted by while I wasn't enjoying my time in Colorado. It felt good to learn new material and review the unit as thoroughly as I did during my Aspen offtime. It seems that I learn best when I give myself 2-3 hours to truly go through material and make connections between concepts, methods, the R programming language, and the textbook material.

For those interested, I will link the book the professor has chosen for this class.

The grades for the in-class portion have been posted and I received a 54/60, which I'm very happy about! We'll see how my grade for the take-home portion factors into the full exam grade, but I'm confident I'll remain around a 90%.........I almost slipped into confidence interval lingo but blog-lingo Brett is back!

My creative urges have been strong, and the created content has been pretty substantial in my opinion.

I got home from campus around noon and proceeded to clean the litter boxes, finish laundry, and catch the trash truck just in time to put out the new bin. I'm still not entirely sure when trash days are at the new house, but I'm guessing Monday is one of them. After this, I played some guitar and wrote a really cool new riff. It kind of reminds me of island in the sun but not as catchy and repetitive. I am planning to meet with Austin and Freddy tonight so maybe we can make it into a song. This writing has also felt great. It seems as if the vacation has been a good reset for my mental health. Am I naïve to say this before the existential dread comes creeping back from the pockets of uneventfulness?

While writing this post, an idea popped into my head. I've been fumbling around with the idea of bot-assisted research and therapies in various psychological fields. I just now thought of the idea for a bot-assisted creative writing service. Imagine a little helper that suggests not only words, but structure and syntax. This helper-bot would be able to steer the user out of creative blocks, while still encouraging them to be true to their personal style. I would love to explore this idea further.

TL;DR ... Went to Colorado ... Had Fun ... Self-Studied the first unit of Nonparametric Statistics class ...

Had a great day today.

My girlfriend and I near the lake at Maroon Bells in Aspen, Colorado