Obligatory “Hello World” Post August 1, 2006
Posted by LearningNerd in Personal.trackback
Allow me to introduce myself.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I graduated high school on May 25th, 2006. I’m taking a year off before college – a gap year, as you lovable Brits say.
Why? No, not to go out drinking and partying every night. No, not to travel around Europe. No, not to teach ceramics to orphaned, physically disabled Inuit children in Tanzania. I took a break from school to learn more!
Sounds crazy, I know, but I’m an autodidact; I love self-education as much as I hate school. The only problem is I’ve never been able to choose a single hobby to pursue. With a billion and one things to learn, how can I decide? Well, with all this free time (and no life), I don’t have to. I’ll simply learn everything.
Now, when I think of learning everything, I imagine someone with thick, nerdy glasses reading an encyclopedia from cover to cover. I may be a LearningNerd, but I don’t intend to do that. I want to understand everything, not necessarily know everything.
And right here’s the perfect place to learn: the internet. Ah, Internet, you’ve always been my best friend. We’ve played video games together, we’ve laughed and cried together, and with you, I’ll find every free resource that exists (and a few that don’t).
Could I actually learn everything for free?
This blog will answer that question, detailing my learning process step-by-step as I discover what works and what doesn’t. Yup, folks, I’m in for the long haul. I’ll post an update every other day, and I plan to continue long after my gap year ends – during college, after college, maybe even forever!
After all, that is how long it’ll take to learn everything.
Okay, Liz, we’re watching ya! : ) Happy blogging!
[...] Visit her Obligatory Hello World Post to find out more about her approach. Comments » [...]
Hi Liz
This is one of theose personal commnets that you may feel free to delete after reading.
I have a very good feeling about for blog. I think it’s going to be a really useful resource for new bloggers so I’ve added you to my blogroll at http://coyotes.wordpress.com. I also wanted to let you know about drmike’s unofficial community forum that just starting up as a place for chat
Thanks so much for your kind comments, timethief! I’ll certainly try to be blogroll-worthy.
Hi Liz,
I couldn’t find anywhere out there in the rest of your blog to leave you a hello message, so I thought I would just leave it here!
My name is Chris, and I really have enjoyed your posts to date. I am also a sort of learning nerd myself, focusing heavily on english and web-related topics (you wouldn’t guess by reading my site, I tend to ramble and lose grammar consciousness).
Right now I am feverishly trying to catch myself up on all the web 2.0 nonsense going on, which is exciting. I wrote a post about it (titled “who says the internet makes us lazy?”). If you get time, check it out at http://veritastic.wordpress.com
Thanks!
Chris
Hi Liz,
Thanks for your comment on my Problogger project post. BTW, the semicolon cartoon is my work–if you’d like to use it on your blog, let’s talk! Your blog is fantastic.
Great idea for a blog, Liz.
I have a passion for life too - although a great deal older than yourself.
I wish you well on your journey!
- Solo.
http://www.ultimateinfluence.wordpress.com
Really neat idea for a blog. I’m a bit of a learning geek myself, so I can relate.
I just found your blog, so I haven’t dug through the archives yet, but I think you’ll find that as you learn more, you’ll discover more (and more, and more) that you want to learn about. That’s how it’s been with me, anyway. One interest leads to another, then that leads to three more, then that leads to…
Much to my chagrin, time doesn’t seem to expand with my number of interests, so I’ve had to pick a few to focus on.
daunting task. I wish you the best of luck.
sounds like you’d like to be a renaissance woman. nice goal!
I just hope you understand that understanding everything is a deeper level than knowing everything… =)
is there a particular approach you will take to cover the topics?
for instance, there’s:
music, art, science, math, politics, business, technology, entertainment, law, education, health, travel/culture.
I’d imagine you’d want to learn about languages, too.
have fun and let us know!
Thanks for your lovely comments!
To AK: Yes, it is a bit overwhelming! I guess you could say my approach is simply to start from the bottom up. Right now I’m mostly reviewing what I learned in school (though I’ve already learned a number of new things, too). I do hope to eventually touch upon all of those topics you listed, but I’ll be focusing on what’s most relevant to me first.
As Josh pointed out, “one interest leads to another”; by the time I cover what I’m especially interested in, I’ll have even more ahead of me! I obviously won’t be able to actually cover everything, but hey, we’ll see how far I can get.
I have a tip on usability because I noticed the fonts on your site are not resizable in IE. I am amazed this happens on the design-fancy wordpress.com. Anyway, try and fix it and if you fail I can come to the rescue.
Nice goals. It looks like you have mostly learned English grammar and spelling though in two months, so you’d better hurry up on ‘everything else’.
Thanks for pointing that out about the font — I had no idea! I can’t seem to do anything to change it, though. I might just switch to a different template.
And yes, I have a long way to go. Right now I’m thinking about how I can pick up the pace by learning about a couple subjects at once. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that soon.
You said you were inspired by my website and I am doubly in awe of yours. Thank you for your lovely letter and I will write back when I have a minute.