2015 is the year that I . . .
Re-devoted myself to learning about things that interest me
I have never been a stranger to learning. Since college I have taken up improv comedy, read books on philosophy, and traveled to some wonderful places. But in 2015, I became more serious about actively pursuing new knowledge about things that interest me.
It actually began in December of 2014, when I happened upon a book in the bookstore titled, "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die." Having recently discovered Spotify as a way to listen to music at work, I was struck by a realization: I could easily work through that list over time. Instead of just listening to the same music I already knew 100 more times over the next year, I could go through that list and learn more about popular music and its evolution over time, and maybe even find some new favorite artists. And so, my journey begin. Starting where the list begins in 1955, I gradually worked through a couple albums a day. Now, I couldn't exactly listen closely to most of them, since the only way I could get through the list in good time would be playing the albums as background music at work. But I figured I would at least get a feel for the sound of each album, and I could take note of any albums that particularly captured my interest. Twelve months later, I still have a lot of the list to work through, but I've made it to 1991 (quite an important year for my musical taste, since Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden all had breakthrough albums that year). I have found a new appreciation for musical genres that I didn't really care for before, such as jazz, punk, and even hip hop.
I also spent some time in 2015 learning languages. The first language was Italian. I had never studied it before, but after finding out I would be going to Italy for work (with only a month's advance notice), I decided to learn as much of the language as I could. I downloaded the free iPhone app, Duolingo, and practiced with it nearly every day for a month. Italian was surprisingly easy to pick up, having many similarities to Spanish, which I studied for four years in high school. By the time I arrived in Rome, I had a basic familiarity with the language that actually came in handy while trying to navigate the city. Once I got back from my trip, I decided to switch my focus to refreshing my Spanish skills. Living in Southern California, Spanish is a more practical choice and could even theoretically come in handy at my job. Studying it for the first time in 14 years definitely brought back memories of Spanish class. Some things even made a little more sense this time around. After I finished all of the Duolingo lessons my practice frequency went down a bit, but I definitely plan to continue practicing. It helps that I work alongside several fluent Spanish speakers, and also live with someone who studied it in college!
Music and Spanish were fun to learn about, but there was one subject I learned about in 2015 that was completely new to me: coding. After reading online about websites that could teach you coding, I decided to sign up for one: Codecademy. The idea of coding was fascinating to me for several reasons: it was a skill that could theoretically give me a new creative outlet if I went far enough with it and it could theoretically open doors for me if I became proficient at it, I spent several months going through lessons on the website, learning the basics of HTML, CSS, Javascript and JQuery. I found it all rather fun, and regretted not taking any computer science classes in college (the subject seemed too dry and impersonal to me back then). I plan to continue learning about it, for there is no down side to learning new skills!
Being a life long learner is an important value to me, and I am pleased with how I expressed this aspect of myself in 2015. I hope to continue this trend into the new year and beyond!
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