I especially loved how it was taught — James, Adrian, Mark and co. are trying to instill that instinctive curiosity that makes a good programmer. They’re teaching problem-solving as much as how to code HTML or whatever. They’re actively fielding project ideas from the crowd and they’re interacting with very young children and still effectively communicating and teaching. A bunch of highly-skilled people make up Coder Dojo, it’s fantastic.

Picture: James Whelton teaching HTML in the Limerick Coder Dojo, September 3rd.

James Whelton • Coder Dojo

Disruptive Dev

For Junior Cert. music, about a quarter of your overall grade goes for performance. For that, four pieces have to be performed. Because I play two “instruments” (singing is counted as an instrument), I split my four pieces into two singing pieces and two pieces on drums. I chose American Idiot and Hitchin’ A Ride on drums, and Losing My Religion and Sunset Boulevard for singing. I couldn’t think of a good song to sing for my second singing piece, so I settled on the utterly mediocre Sunset Boulevard. Ah well.

I remember the day of our practicals quite well. The music room had been turned upside down, the desks all shoved outside, a microphone set up in the middle of the room next to the piano that our music teacher would be accompanying us on, my drums in a corner.

I excused myself from class 40 minutes before my scheduled time so I could get ready. When I went up to the alcove outside the music room, I found four or five friends there, and shared that nice moment you have when you’re all pleasantly nervous, all waiting for the same thing. We were all performing at different times, so one by one we filtered into the music room. An external examiner was in there, grading us on our performance.

At one stage, our music teacher came out of the room to see that we were all ready. With a kind, open face where a passion for her work was self-evident, she really made Music my favorite class, and genuinely cared about this performance.

“Hey, what song do you want to do first?” She asked me, eyeing my sheet-music spread haphazardly over a nearby table.
“Can we do Losing My Religion first?” I asked, “I’m surer of it than the other”.

Of course, that was no problem — because that’s how she operated, nothing ever posed a problem.

Eventually, it was my turn to go in, and I approached the examiner’s desk with my music and a cover sheet, detailing what I’d be singing. I exchanged a nervous greeting, trying to get a hold of my nervous energy. I’d heard a great description of nervous energy, how you had to get it under control or it’d spin you off your axis. And, after all — nervous energy was still energy.

“What are we going to start with?” the examiner asked brightly.
“Losing My Religion” I responded.
“Oh! Great tune, great tune” she said. That response boded well.

“Ready?” my music teacher asked. I noded, and she began.

I’d always loved the opening chords of Losing My Religion. So iconic, so hummable. I found myself liking my music teacher’s heavy piano version more than the cheerily melodic mandolin version of the original. I tapped my thigh in time to the music then launched into the words.

Ohhhhhh life, it’s bigger
It’s bigger than you
And you are not me

I’d heard so many different versions of the song, Justin Murphy, Anthony Rapp as well as, of course, Michael Stipe’s, that I felt as if I knew this song much better than any other of my favorite songs. I’d read in a book somewhere that down south, where R.E.M. are from, “Losing My Religion” meant falling in love. In another interview, it claimed that the phrase meant getting angry, while yet another one reported that the phrase meant losing one’s composure. I liked that description best, not least because it seemed to encompass the first two.

I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

I found myself in the middle of the song, biting into the words, feeling my hands involuntarily gesticulating to the phrases. My friends Chris and Niall had always teased me about how my hands and fingers never stood still while I sang, splaying out or twisting as I sang. I’d never paid much attention to it, but as I found myself disconnecting from the song itself, almost singing on auto-pilot (a phenomenon I was well used to from being onstage), I saw that there were right. I stole a glance at the examiner, and saw she was smiling slightly.

Relieved and encouraged, I powered into the final verse.

But that was just a dream
Try, cry, why try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream

And just like that, it was over. I glanced, grinning, at my music teacher, who gave me an encouraging smile. I’d forgotten just how much I loved getting up and singing my favorite songs.

After that, it was time to change tack, slow down and get in the right frame-of-mind for Sunset Boulevard. Once that was done, it was time to fit into my familiar groove and play drums for two of my favorite Green Day songs. Nothing compares to my elation after singing Losing My Religion, though.

I think the best way of summing up why the last two weeks rocked is that I didn’t feel like an intern. I wasn’t just making tea or doing research for other people’s articles. I was writing my own articles, doing my own research and conducting my own interviews. One of the others would suggest an article and I’d have to decide what best angle to approach it from, and who’d be the best people to talk to. As I wrote it, Adrian or Dick would have a read over it and offer advice as to how to improve it. It sounds better if you do this, rather than that. House style is “15 per cent”, not “15%”, just a note.

I stayed at the Harrington Hall Hotel on Harcourt St., which turned out to be a brilliant decision. At some stage, I recommend you all try staying A) 4 doors down from your office and/or B) in the middle of Dublin City Centre. Although with that last one, not staying opposite Copper Face Jack’s, a scuzzy nightclub, is recommended. Especially on Leaving Cert. night. Funny story about that night coming up, actually.

To say that I learnt a lot about journalism would be a gross understatement. You can read books or webpages, you can talk to real journalists, but going into their place of work and doing what they do is nothing short of sublime. Every student should do work experience at some stage. I’d say most offices wouldn’t mind taking an unpaid intern on in some capacity. Plus, how can someone choose a college course or a career based on no experience? Why should they have to?

It’ll be weird going from an office back to a classroom as I start 5th Year in September, but that’s what I’ll be doing. Starting the Leaving Cert. should probably be more daunting than it is for me, but I’m sure that’ll change once I actually start. Of my three best friends from 3rd year, all three are skipping Transition Year, as I am. Score!

In any case, I was asked to speak at the KLCK (Kildare, Laois, Carlow, Kilkenny) bloggers’ meeting last Monday. Founded by Lorna Sixsmith of Garrendenny Lane Interiors and Amanda Webb of Spiderworking.com, KLCK is a monthly meet-up of internet users from four counties in Ireland. I spoke at the August meet-up, based in Kildare.

I spoke about a couple of different things. Digital story-telling, documenting life and being aware of real-life implications of things you write. I used the example of my recent CTYI post to illustrate this last point.

I was really pleased with how responsive the audience was. Maybe that’s because of the type of people who made up the audience, but they were attentive, and always asking questions and probing further — building on what I was saying and I think both the audience and I went away with a better understanding of what was talked about.

Thanks again to Lorna and Amanda, the founders, and to Beatrice Whelan of Website Extraordinaire. I had a great time speaking at KLCK, and wish it the best of luck in the future!

As an experiment, I’ve decided to stop using the crutch for a few days, and see what happens. According to the surgeon last year, the surgery I had in Minnesota last fall would leave me walking independently after 8-24 months, depending on how quickly the rehab got done. The Junior Cert, the big exams I had last June, delayed that rehab slightly, but we’re back on track now. I’m interested to see how I fare without the crutch. If nothing else, it’ll cause me to put more weight through my right leg, which is good for it.

On a slightly unimportant tangent, these few days are the first time I’ve walked without a walking aid of some description in a couple of years. Having two hands free while walking down the street is a simultaneously alien and wonderful feeling.

Finally, I got an iPad the other night, and I’ve been playing with it since then. Full post on its merits to come.

The problem is that swimming is awfully boring. I mean, it’s repetitive and you’ve no company. Heck, even having quiet time to mull things over gets tiring after about 10 lengths.

So these headphones seemed to be the logical choice, in that I was marrying probably the two things I loved most in life: swimming and listening to music. After some deliberation, I got the H2O armband and water-resistant headphones. To keep the bulk of the armband down, I also got an iPod Shuffle to provide the tunes.

After the first swim, I can say that I’ve fallen in love. Swimming is no longer boring and the monotony is now broken. I’m joined by Michael Stipe, Billie Joe Armstrong, Daft Punk, Adam Duritz and many others. Somehow, the headphone cable doesn’t get tangled while I’m swimming and the bulky armband is manageable. I didn’t have to adjust the ear-plugs once.

It reminds me a bit of an old episode of Sherlock Holmes I once watched. I can’t remember the exact quote, but it goes something like: “…what’s it like to not be me? Must be awfully boring…”

That’s sorta how I look at swimming with headphones. I see people who don’t have them and wonder how I ever managed to swim like that, with nothing to entertain them.

As said in one of the old James Bond films, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship :)

This pic was taken back in 2008, the day before I started secondary school. He was teaching me how to tie a tie :)

One of the most interesting parts of the talk was when privacy was brought up. One of the people was asked how I draw the line between what’s online and what I keep private. I had to think about this one for a moment. I’d never really given a lot of thought to managing privacy because how I operate has never created any problems.

We also talked about creating a good balance between the online and offline ‘world’. I talked about how I could switch off Twitter when I have to go and study, but also utilizing computers to make my school life easier.

Photos and videos were also discussed, and I learnt a lot about podcasting. My love of documenting things gels with Bernie Goldbach’s love of video, audio and the like. Conn Ó Muíneacháin also made an excellent point regarding interaction. Conn and I both gave talks, engaging offline with a group of people. It led to interesting discussions on how engaging offline is similar to engaging online, and how the two often go hand-in-hand.

All in all, giving the talk was a really interesting and informative experience, and one which I really hope to repeat sometime.

Photo owned by Robert Bejil Photography (cc)

The dress-code for the night was ‘debs-ey’, so I dug out the suit I wear for weddings. It hadn’t seen the light of day for about 18 months but luckily still fitted me. As I tweeted, every time I wear a suit, I’m reminded why these occasions are rare. I’m too used to wearing jeans and converse to be able to comfortably pull off a suit.

I did one solo, The Kite from You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. It’s a definite kids’ song, but I enjoyed doing something quite different this show.

Once again, I experienced the weird sensation of being on auto-pilot while on-stage. The song I was doing was quite fast with a lot of similar-sounding verses and I found myself tripping over them a lot in rehearsals. However, once I got on-stage, I found muscle memory kicking in and my mind freeing up.

The song is supposed to be be accompanied by some sort of kite prop but I felt that a physical prop would be too distracting. Not having a prop in the end didn’t bother me, because I enjoyed the miming aspect of the invisible kite. Because singing went on auto-pilot, I was able to devote a lot of effort to actions, facial expressions and the like, which was great.

All in all, I was pleased with how the show went; the show overall as well as my solo. It was a great experience that reminded me why I love musical theatre. :)