Lots Happening – if only that meant for the blog. Unfortunately though I have been busy with other activities this week and last week which meant that I had to miss the last weekly update – despite PROMISING I would not miss one of them. Luckily a blogpost still went up on Thursday last week… but still…
For whatever reason I completely forgot to take into account an event that took place for me on Friday evening which made it impossible to schedule a weekly update post which meant I should have done it earlier on that week. My bad!
But hopefully from now I shall be back on schedule with the Weekly Update. Lots has been happening.
My Friday Event
So, what was the event that took place on Friday? Well my young film programmers group finally had their big film screening event at our local independent cinema/theatre. In total 55 tickets were sold for the event which is really great for our local cinema as that’s pretty much I’d say over half its capacity.
The film event was to celebrate Sir Christopher Lee’s 100th anniversary as if he were still alive today he would be 100 years old. The film event included a presentation about Sir Christopher Lee, a screening of his 1958 Dracula movie (some of you may know it as Horror of Dracula), and Dracula-themed costume competition which included a prize.
We also collaborated with a local drama group who themselves are doing plays of Dracula at one of our historical sites and they did a QnA at our film event after the movie had finished.
We also decorated up the cinema to look a little spooky… giving it a little atmosphere including dramatic organ music playing as people filtered in.
We also collaborated with one of the local pubs to do a Sir Christopher Lee quiz as well to promote the film event before it took place. So a lot of planning and prep had gone into this over the last few weeks… on top of the course I am currently doing.
Luckily the film event did not begin until 7pm so I was able to make it – I left to get there by 6pm following my course finishing for the day so I could help put some of the decorations up.
I am very happy that it went so well. It is likely I will remain a part of the group to do more film events in our local cinema for the future.
I Got an Award
Yesterday was also a big day for me. I came one of three Runner Ups in one of the award categories at the Suffolk Adult Learners Awards 2022 in the Health and Wellbeing Impact Award category.
This was following a course I did in Adult Social Care with the West Suffolk College (connected to it via the Prince’s Trust) – it was a short course for getting into the subject area and was done entirely online, but it was an interesting experience and I got nominated for trying hard and building up my confidence – especially in the social area.
I took the course as it was during a time I was looking into what area I wanted to get into. Although I do not plan to pursue Adult Social Care further (as IT is a much stronger interest) I am still very happy I took the course and obtained this Runner Up award.
It has certainly boosted my confidence. I went to the ceremony yesterday with my sister and aunt and when I collected my award I even had the courage to say a few words to the audience – specifically thanking my tutor for nominating me and thanking my aunt and sister for supporting me on to independence.
I cannot understate enough how much me actually saying something in front of dozens and dozens of people was a big step forward for me – considering I have Autism and Selective Mutism the social area and specifically public speaking are things I would never have touched with a yard pole once upon a time.
There were photos so once they arrive in the post I may show the picture of me with the certificate.
Oh… and there was also a nice buffet before the actual award ceremony begun so that made it all the more worth it, and there were leftovers afterwards as well. So, no need to have a late dinner.
Speaking of buffets I am also going to be having another one on Tuesday next week at my art club – celebrating the conclusion of the art exhibition (which I hope to go and see on Sunday, it’s last day, as doing the ServiceNow course I have not had a chance thus far). Lotta food lately… may need to diet a bit after all this.
Since the award ceremony was at 6:30pm (arrival from 6pm) I had enough time to get there after my current ServiceNow course had concluded for the day, so good all round… and a busy day!
Speaking of the Course…
It remains to be a lot of fun. Last week we looked into the Service Portal itself, which is the part the customers get to see and use basically. We learned its ins and outs and also got to try our hand at creating our own Service Portal on Now Learning (it’s not easy).
But I have been pushing through (research on the web goes a long way) and managed to use some existing knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript to push through parts that even others could not. But the vast majority of it is low code/no code (built without needing to use any coding) – One of ServiceNow’s specialities.
Then this week was learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript itself or at least getting a base-level knowledge of them. Obviously it is impossible to learn something like JavaScript in such time as the course will run – but I plan to continue learning it in my own time and doing little projects in Visual Studio Code.
HTML and CSS on the other hand I was already fairly confident with having gotten a good hand with it via FreeCodeCamp so I actually skipped learning that and just went straight on to building my website after finishing with JavaScript.
Building a website is this week’s final project to show what we have learned and I have been having a lot of fun with it. I am going for a 90s style looking website (which fits my ametuer designing skill anyway so is a perfect disguise).
The website is satirical – on the subject of the unexplained and conspiracies – and I’ve given it a spooky black and green decoration. I even challenged myself to code a dynamic navbar menu which included a very simple two-line bit of JavaScript. I also copy-pasted a JavaScript rock-paper-scissors game on to my website as well.
I wanted to code it myself but 1. I am no where near experienced enough yet with JS to do that 2. It would have taken way too long considering we have less than a week. 3. It is not as simple as I thought it would be (far beyond just two lines of JS). It just goes to show you how tough programming is!
I did change the CSS of the game though to match the website so I am taking that as a win.
But really – it has been so much fun building the website and I am looking forward to showing it off on Monday afternoon next week. I am now even more confident with HTML and CSS. Practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to coding.
Hopefully one day I’ll get good enough with it to make this blog look a lot better (either that or I’ll just buy a nice looking theme). We’ll see, but I would like to challenge myself when I have more time.
Well that’s it for this week. Lots and lots has happened and I am having a great time at the moment. See you next week.
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