I’ve been thinking, there are a lot of things that I want to do that I keep putting off. And I’m not talking about big things like circumnavigating the world in a yacht, but little things. Or not so little but do-able things. Really, after cancer, almost everything is a little thing.
A lot of my life has had to be put on hold until after I’m better. I can’t start grad classes, I can’t make any big travel plans, I can’t even bring myself to think all too much about the future. But there are things I can do for myself right now that don’t have to wait.
1. Teach myself programming.
I have these lonely looking books on C and Python sitting in my room. After a failed C class my senior year of college, I gave up for a little while. However, I bought the Python book hoping that the purchase would spark me into teaching myself to program. Nothing but laziness has stopped me. And I know I’m going to feel more lazy than usual, but I need to exercise my brain.
2. Learn to play piano.
Growing up, I used to beg to have music lessons. My parents often gave me gifts of instruments I could not play- a recorder for my 5th birthday, a keyboard for my 6th (which I used to play Disney songs by ear), a guitar for my 10th. I began playing the clarinet when I was 11 and played through high school and occasionally in college, but I’ve always really wanted to play the piano. I have no idea how I will accomplish this, what with not having either a piano or a keyboard, but it’s something I want to do.
3. Do pottery.
There’s no reason I haven’t done this before. Brandeis has an awesome little studio that no one uses. I even lived practically next door my sophomore year and never went. Now my roommate is very involved in pottery. All I have to do is bug him on nights where I have the energy. This is a thing.
4. Make sourdough bread.
It’s a weird fascination I have had for awhile. Bread baking has always eluded my cooking extravaganzas. That should change.
Little goals. Living day to day is all some people can muster, and that’s fine. Not having any long or short term goals beyond beating cancer is driving me nuts and leaving me feeling very depressed. My entire life does not need to be on hold- and it can’t be for me to feel emotionally with it.
Allie E. Morse 
Sweetie, do what comforts you and gives you joy. And KEEP doing it. I just splurged on a vegan dark chocolate truffle…and some antique postcards.
Start a collection of something…….. , read more, learn that stuff you mentioned….all IF YOU WANT TO. That’s the key: nourish yourself with foolishness too because if it pleases you it isn’t foolish. Velvet anything against your cheek, fresh flower(s) once a week, whatever it is.
Hugs, Max
Unfortunately I don’t have a keyboard or anything, but I do know how to play piano and I think I still have my beginner books somewhere that you can borrow if you’d like. Also, I’m in the process of making sourdough starter and if it works I’d be happy to share some with you.
Forget Python it’s borderline antiquated, put off C for now and try VB or Java.
Isn’t the Piano a little high-brow for you? 😛
hey, I’m Doug from the HL board, just wanteed to echo what Jon said. I’ve been a C programmer for years but I wouldn’t recommend learning it today. Like python, it is being used less and less for new stuff. I’d recomend learning .NET with either C# or VB. Java would be good too. If you want to do website stuff PHP, HTML, mysql. There are plenty of free tutorials on the internet, one is http://www.w3schools.com/.
Oh, and keep hanging in there and get well!
Doug
I have been toying with the idea of doing a post-bach in computer science at the university I work at (or at least getting in some higher level classes) but they require proficiency in C as a pre-req. That’s the motivation there. The Python motivation is because I want to work at Google on day. 😛 No plans to do so as a programmer but that’s my ideal.