New Year's Resolutions

So many people treat New Year's resolutions as annual goals. As with any solid goal, they have a specified limit frame: they start on January first and conclude on December 31st. In theory. But most resolutions never make it past the first few months.

This has been my experience with resolutions. There was one year that I committed to practicing yoga every day for at least a month, and I did make it into February (with a few skipped days). But otherwise, nary a resolution has been kept by yours truly. 

Two thousand twenty-two has been different. The two goals I made this past year maybe didn't meet all of the successful goal-setting criteria (S.M.A.R.T.), but they did provide a framework for me to work on self-improvement. While I didn't accomplish them in the strictest sense, I did make progress toward my goals, and I count that as a massive win.

At this point, dear reader, you may be wondering what my goals were. I'll go ahead and satisfy your curiosity: I wanted to read, on average, a book a month, and I wanted to improve my health.

So, did I read twelve books this year? No, I only finished six. I did, however, accomplish the purpose of the goal: I read more. I used to read quite a bit as a kid, but during college and grad school, I only read the assigned readings, and, in the process, I lost the joy of reading for pleasure. This year, I've started a journey to reclaim that joy. Sure, some of the books I read were related to my health and financial journeys, so maybe they seem a bit like work, but I chose to read them because I wanted to, not because I had to. And I'm thankful I did. I learned a lot from these books and I'm glad I read each and every one.

I suppose you might also want to know, dear reader, what books I read in 2022. Here's the list:

• Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
• Brave New Medicine by Cynthia Li
• Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• Rich Dad's Prophecy by Robert Kiyosaki
• The Paleo Approach by Sarah Ballantyne
• Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Are there any on this list that you've read or would like to read? I'd love to hear your thoughts down in the comments!

My second goal ties in to the blog you are reading right now. When I started the year, I wanted to improve my health. At the time, I thought the best way to do that was to start allergy immunotherapy (i.e. allergy shots). My experience with receiving injections led me down a very different path that ultimately inspired me to rebrand this blog and share my story with you, dear reader. After six months or so traveling this new path, I've realized my journey is just beginning. I certainly have a lot more work ahead of me in the coming year!

And speaking of the new year, inscribed here for posterity are my goals for twenty twenty-three:

1. to read at least 12 books this year.
2. to continue to work on my health and wellness.
3. to increase my financial education and start on a path to financial freedom.

As we be begin this new year, I look forward to continuing what I began last year and sharing each half step taken with you. Happy New Year's!

- Kristen

What are your goals for 2023?

Captaining the Ship

Thus far all my recent posts have been related to my health journey, and for good reason: I am much further along in my quest to improve my health than in my journey to financial freedom. I have tried so many different things to address my allergies and digestive issues, but I'm still growing my knowledge base of investing through reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching YouTube videos. But as I'm taking small half steps to improving these aspects of my life, one theme has become common in both.

I am the captain of my own ship.

From the beginning, my functional medicine doctor explained that I am captaining my ship through the seas and the ship as become lodged in shoals off the coast of Island A. I know where I want to go. I can see Island B off in the distance, but no matter how much I work to dislodge from the rocks, I am indubitably stuck. The goal of my doctor is is to give me the tools and resources to be able to push off and get my ship underway to Island B once again. He will give me what I need, but in the end, it's up to me to put those tools and resources into practice and run my own ship.

The same is true when it comes to finances. I recently finished reading Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Prophecy. He was advocating for individuals to take control of their financial future and build their own ark. In particular, he was speaking in the context of a possible stock market crash, resulting from a piece of legislation, ERISA, that passed in 1974. Whether or not that crash is pending, his advice still stands: if I want to eventually become financially independent, I need to build a watertight ship.

So where do I begin with my ship? Health-wise, I am improving my diet, sleep, and activity level. And, as mentioned above, I am also working with a functional medicine doctor. So far, I've learned some interesting things about my body (I'll elaborate in a future post) and I now have more guidance on what I can do. Financially, I'll continue to learn and research and start to explore investing options. As with all worthwhile ventures, taking small steps, one at a time, builds a strong foundation.

- Kristen

What small step can you take right now as the captain of your ship?

Invisibility

So I broke my promise to you, dear reader, to post every two weeks on Sunday. Life has been pretty busy and stressful the last few weeks, and writing a blog post fell pretty far down the priority list. I keep reminding myself that part of healing and building wellness is giving myself grace when I can't do all the things I want to do. Sometimes, focusing on self-care has to take precedence so I can remain a mostly functioning human.

For me personally, that can be hard because I am a chronically stressed person and also a bit perfectionist. I put so much pressure on myself. I also feel the pressure of others, whether imagined or real. And I think anyone who deals with chronic or persistent health issues feels the same way, especially when the issues you are dealing with aren't visible to those around you.

It's especially hard when that external pressure isn't imagined. It hurts when someone makes comments to your face like "You're too young to be sick" or "You just need to do X, Y, and Z and you'll feel better", as if such statements will make all your problems go away. If only words could solve all of life's problems.

Hearing these sorts of words, (along with the words, "You're fine" when all your bloodwork looks "normal"), are damaging. They make you feel like it's all in your head. "I must just be making it up.  Everyone else thinks I'm fine."

But I'm here to remind you (and myself) that even if you look fine, you are not ok. You do look ok because you put all of your energy into looking "fine" when out shopping, at work, at church. But when you get home, the façade comes crumbing down. You allow yourself to remember that your sinuses feel awful for 27th day in a row, you are tired and you know it'll be difficult to drag yourself out of bed for work tomorrow morning, and you want to do nothing more than stay at home and rest.

You are not alone. It is ok to feel unwell and admit to yourself and others that you feel such. And if someone tries to tell you otherwise, don't let their pressure get to you. I see your invisibility and I'm here for you.

-Kristen

What is something you struggle with that you wish others could see? 

The Kindness of a Stranger

I wanted to write a brief post about an experience I had today. This morning, I took some time out of my work day to drive a bit outside of the city I live in for medical appointment. It was a bit of a stressful morning because I was running a tad late, as always, and I had forgotten I needed gas. On days like these, I'm thankful I have a small car that takes only a short time to fill up. I made it to my appointment and it went well, until I was ready to leave.

As I left the office, I frantically shuffled through my bag, trying to find my keys. Out in the parking lot, peeking through my window, my suspicion was confirmed: there sat my keys in the center console, draped unceremoniously over the emergency brake.

After gathering my wits (and chasing some of my papers across the parking lot because it was quite gusty), I submitted a request for a lock-out rescue through my car insurance app. Of course I found out when I did that I apparently don't have roadside assistance added to my policy anymore, so payment was out-of-pocket. (Adding this to my policy is now on my TODO list and I encourage you, dear readers, to go check your policy!) And I mentioned I was a ways outside of town right? "We'll notify you when we've assigned someone to go to your location." I waited at least thirty minutes and the message never changed to "Hang in there! Someone is on the way!"

Thankfully, one of the office staff stepped out of the building, and noticing me pacing the parking lot, was perplexed as to why I was still there. After explaining my situation, he offered to get a fellow he knew from across the road who might be able to break in to my car.

And so it came to pass that a complete stranger made enough of a gap in my car door to slide in a metal rod and with patient precision, flip a toggle, allowing unimpeded access to the resident of the center console. I returned to work an hour later than expected, but many hours sooner than had I waited for a locksmith. I am so grateful to this fellow who took a few minutes out of his busy day to assist me.

The reason I'm sharing this story is because it is a good reminder that it is ok to let someone else help you. It's a tip that I've heard many in the autoimmune community repeat. I know I was raised to be independent and self-reliant, so asking for help, even in the best of circumstances, is difficult. But when you struggle with health issues that aren't apparent to someone looking at you from the outside, it can be hard to admit you need help. You can feel guilty for asking, because you know you should be able to do it yourself. And as a Christian, I think there's an unspoken belief that we should be the ones offering help, not receiving it. But it's ok to ask for help and it's ok to accept help when it's offered to you. It's through giving and receiving that we build a stronger community.  For those with health issues, that community, that support-system, can be vital to healing. Even if it's a small act of kindness coming from a stranger.

- Kristen

What is something in which you've asked for help
or what is something in which you know you should ask for help?

Sweet Potato Noodles Stir-Fry

When I first started the strict elimination diet I've been on for the last five months, it was really overwhelming. It was a zero-to-360 change that required me, because food additives, preservatives, off-limit oils are in everything, to make almost everything from scratch. When you don't feel good and have low energy, this is a task of monumental proportions.

Thankfully, we are living in a time when there are so many resources online, making my complete dietary change a little bit more manageable. Many of the resources I've been using started sharing their stories in blogs and on YouTube in the late 2010s. They have talked about how much harder it was to find information and resources years earlier when they started their journeys. Their experiences and expertise have made my transition from a standard American diet (SAD) to a restrictive form of Paleo (specifically the Autoimmune Protocol or AIP) that much easier.

While I do still use recipes from sites like Real World AIP and Unbound Wellness, I've also used several non-AIP recipes that I've modified to fit the restrictions, including the one I'm sharing today. This one is inspired by a recipe from Maangchi. If you've been around the Korean food-sphere at all, I'm sure you already know who she is, but if not, you should go check out her website and YouTube channel!

So, without further ado, here is my AIP-friendly version of Japchae.

- Kristen

AIP Japchae (sweet potato noodle stir-fry)

Marinated Beef:
grass-fed stir-fry beef (usually packaged in the 0.5 - 1 pounds range)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. grated ginger (or some ground ginger if you prefer; optional)
1 tsp. honey
2 tsp. coconut aminos
1 tsp. avocado oil

1 - 3.5 oz. package of sweet potato glass noodles

Veggies:
oil for sautéing
8 oz. sliced mushrooms
1 thinly sliced yellow onion
1 head chopped broccoli (or an equivalent portion of frozen chopped broccoli)
a handful of carrots, thinly sliced on the diagonal
12 oz. bag of shredded cabbage (any kind will do, but I prefer the purple)
a handful of green onions, sliced

Sauce:
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. grated ginger (optional)
2 tbsp. coconut aminos
1 tbsp. honey
1.5 tbsp. avocado oil
1/3 c. stock or broth
1 tbsp. arrowroot starch

Mix the beef with the rest of the marinade ingredients. This can be done far in advance, but I usually do it about 30 minutes before I plan start cooking, while I'm prepping the veggies.

Heat some cooking oil (I usually use avocado) in a 5-qt. pan and start a pot of water to boil for the noodles. Cook the marinated beef in the pan until cooked through. Remove and set aside. Cook the noodles according to the package instructions. When finished, add a little oil to prevent sticking and set aside.

Using the same pan the beef was cooked in, add all the veggies except the cabbage and green onions. Once the veggies have softened, add in the cabbage. Meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients together.

Sauté until the veggies have reached the desired level of doneness. Add in the green onions, beef, noodles, and sauce. Let cook a few more minutes to allow the flavors to combine and the sauce to thicken.

Enjoy!

What's your favorite recipe that you've make modifications to?

Food Sensitivities Don't Exist

I did not consider myself a very picky eater growing up, although my family was never very adventurous when it came to food. There were two foods that I absolutely hated: hot dogs and cheese-filled sandwich crackers. Both these foods are common, kid-friendly, delicacies, at least in the U.S., so it seems odd for a kid to hate them. I had a very good reason for scorning them though. Every time I consumed them, they made my stomach hurt. While I never got sick and I don't recall having any other symptoms, something in those bologna sausages and powdered cheese centers didn't agree with my body.

Fast forward to 2016. This was the first year that I, as an adult, noticed some foods didn't set well with my system and this time, they weren't in the highly processed category. At this point in time I knew I was allergic to grapes and I occasionally had an allergic reaction to an unknown ingredient in something new I tried, but that happened only a handful of times.

While I generally ate what was put in front of me, there were foods that I was never particularly fond of. One of those was bell peppers. For some reason I just didn't enjoy their flavor. They were not something I intentionally reached for, but I did enjoy dishes they were added to. Over the course of 2016, I started to notice that I did not feel good after consuming bell peppers. Usually several hours after a meal, I would become very gassy, crampy, and bloated and I would experience some abdominal pain.

At first, I didn't really believe it. For several months, I continued to eat bell peppers, trying to convince myself it was all in my head. After one particularly bad episode involving pizza, I had to accept it: bell peppers were not my friend.

Over the next few years, I started to notice that first cayenne, and then jalapenos, joined the list. For both these peppers, the reaction was more intense: pain, diarrhea, and nausea (I managed to avoid puking, but only just barely). I was officially done with anything that smacked of peppers.

Fast forward a few more years to 2021. I had moved to a new city and needed to find a new allergist. And what's the first thing you typically (at least in my experience) have to do with a new doctor?  Allergy testing! Having gone through patch testing and spirometry the previous year when I was first diagnosed with allergies and asthma, I knew the drill: no antihistamines for a while, set aside two hours for a doctor's appointment, prepare to pay a pretty penny, and plan on taking it easy for the rest of the day.

During that appointment, when I mentioned my inability to properly digest peppers, I was greeted by an unexpected response:

food sensitivities don't exist.

I was a bit taken aback by this statement. As a patient who had spent years carefully observing my symptoms, it felt like an insult. I wasn't being heard and my experience living in my own body was being dismissed.

The more I've learned over the last six months about autoimmune disease and immune-related issues, the more I've come to realize that medicine is broken. Broken because the human body is complex and medical research has barely even scratched the surface of understanding the intricate workings of the human body. What works for one person does not work another, and that includes foods. So since my first appointment with that allergist, I've learned food sensitivities are real. The ways in which they manifest in individuals are varied and sometimes surprising. I'm still trying to learn and understand my food sensitivities and discover the best ways to nourish and take care of my body. It's journey taken in half steps and it's one I'm excited to share with you, dear reader.

- Kristen

Have you noticed any foods that affect
your body differently, whether positively or negatively?

A New Beginning

I've had this blog for quite a while now, and I've mostly just used it as a personal journal in a public sphere. Over the years, it's become an unorganized collection of thoughts, short church articles, brief pieces of fiction, and book reviews. I wrote a post several years ago indicating that I wanted to rename this blog (college was more than a few years ago!), but I never could figure out a fitting name. Part of that is I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted it to be and what content I wanted to focus on. Recently, I've gained clarity on the direction I want to take this blog.

My focus will be on on my health and personal finance journey. The new name: Half Steps.

The name is an homage to my music background. In music, the smallest difference between two notes (at least in Western music) is the half step. In both my financial journey and my health journey, I'm taking small, incremental steps to improving my life. I intend to document here the half steps (sometimes forward and sometimes backward) that I'm taking. I hope that my story will be of benefit to those who are also struggling with their health or those who are interested in financial education.

With this new purpose for my blog comes a new goal: I want to grow this blog beyond just me or the few family and friends who have on occasion read it. I know one of the important things with growing a presence in any sort of public space is consistency. I intend to post every other week on Sunday, starting with today!

Now I know some of you, my dear readers, may be thinking, "Great, you've renamed your blog, but your URL still says Lutheran in college." Yes, that's true. I am planning on moving to a new URL and adding social media accounts, but not right away. I'm taking some time to get those accounts set up and to make sure all the appropriate redirects happen with the new domain. And I would like to give the handful of people who do read my blog a chance to prepare for the move. Not that it's necessary. After all, isn't that what redirects are for?

- Kristen

Coding Challenges and Job Searching

I know I missed posting last weekend and for good reason. Not only was it a busy weekend at the house I'm living at, but I also was stressed preparing for my first coding challenge that one of the companies I applied with asked me to complete.

I'm admittedly somewhat self-taught when it comes to computer science concepts. I have a limited background in algorithms. What object oriented programming I know is mostly what I've picked up learning Python, which allows for, but doesn't require, an object oriented paradigm. I'm familiar with big O notation from my math studies, but still have difficulty knowing what the time complexity of various common functions and operations is.

Needless to say, I quickly realized that I was unprepared for the typical algorithmic coding challenges companies use as part of their interviewing and hiring process. The challenge I completed was administered through a platform called CodeSignal. Once I signed up for an account, I started working through some of their arcade and interview prep problems. In addition to providing practice, it also allowed me to become familiar with their in-browser IDE (integrated development environment) and allowed me to test out a few programming languages I might use. I was initially torn between using either Python or MATLAB (I don't feel comfortable enough with perl to attempt a timed test). Since MATLAB is proprietary software, it isn't supported on CodeSignal's platform. Octave, an open-source language similar to MATLAB, is, but I am not familiar with or comfortable navigating the differences between the two. Plus, it's been a while since I've used MATLAB, so I'm a bit rusty. Ultimately, I chose to proceed with Python.

I didn't do horribly on the coding challenge, but neither did I do super well. This will likely not be the last challenge I'm asked to complete, so I have decided that going forward I will try to complete one practice problem a day. This was initially a goal I was intending to pursue with Leetcode, but I've settled on using CodeSignal for now. This has a few advantages. First, you must either spend some hard earned coins, gained through completion of exercises, or successfully solve the problem in order to view hints or other users' solutions. This removes the temptation to look at the solution the moment you become stuck. Second, the organization of problem sets on CodeSignal makes it easy to progress from simpler problems through to more challenging ones.

One recommendation I have for anyone seeking to expand their coding abilities this way is to do the problem, and if you get royally stuck, do a quick Google search and read through a few forum threads or search the language's documentation to discover some unknown-to-you function, package, or syntax that may be helpful. Once you've solved the problem in its entirety, look at a few of the solutions for your chosen language and look up pieces of code that are unfamiliar to you. I've been doing this and have learned new things I wouldn't have discovered otherwise. For example, I learned this past week about list (and dictionary) comprehension in Python. This technique is a way of constructing lists (or dictionaries) more quickly than using something like a straight-forward for loop, which constructs entries one by one. I've been able to implement it in other problems I've worked on and it's helped to speed up the execution of my code.

One last thing I wanted to briefly touch on this week: job searching. I know I mentioned a while back that I'm looking for my first professional job. One thing I've discovered is that colleges by and large don't do a good job of preparing students to job search. I think the expectation is that you go to a school job fair, you get a job. Eazy-peazy. In reality, it's not that simple. I've spend the better part of my job search fumbling my way around job boards and reading job posting that make me feel depressed about not having any experience. This is a topic I hope to elaborate on in the future, but for now, I just wanted to mention that if you are feeling lost in your search for a job, you are not alone. I've watched enough videos and read enough forum posts to know that no one really knows what they are doing, but they hope that they get noticed by the right recruiter or hiring manager. I think sometimes there is this misconception that once you become an adult, you know how to do adult things, like getting a job. That couldn't be further from the true: we are all pretending and hoping that those around us believe we know what we are doing until we've got it figured out.

Regexes and Sizers

 As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been learning Perl using the infamous llama book.  My first introduction to Perl was by a friend of mine when I was working on a class project using MATLAB (which was a mistake, but that's a story for another time).  I didn't try picking it up at that time, but it's been on my list of languages to learn since then.  

There are few things I've learned that Perl is good for: it's really good at processing text and it's goal is to allow for quick and dirty programming.  This means it doesn't take a lot of time or typing to write short little snippets of code that are pretty powerful.  Even though I'm a tad more than half-way through the llama book, I still feel like a noob because some of the syntax feels so obtuse, particularly when it comes to regular expressions.

Several of the more recent chapters I've gone though give an intro to regular expressions and it's the first time I've really had any exposure to said concept.  So what are regular expressions (or regexes) anyway and why are they useful?  They are a way of matching parts of text (in geek-speak: matching patterns in strings) and their existence and robustness in Perl is why it's a great language for text processing. Anytime you have to do some sort of searching there's probably some regexes (although maybe not in Perl) being utilized in the background.

Regexes are going to be useful for me in one of the later coding projects I have planned, but they may also come in handy in my current project.  The llama book alluded to the fact that Perl supports some Python-style regexes, so I know such objects (because everything in Python is an object) exist in Python.  In the coming weeks I'll need to look into their syntax and usage in Python as I look to adding search functionality into my catalog application.

And speaking of my music catalog app, I'm in the middle of prototyping, but I'm no where near as finished with this step as I had hoped to be.  I definitely underestimated how long it would take me to implement the layouts I had sketched in my design step.  This is mainly because I start doing something I think is simple and then quickly run into problems because it's a bit more complex than I anticipated. One of the coding issues I've had is using sizers to create the layout of buttons, text fields, and other visual elements in windows.  I now understand that if you're using horizontal sizers, their inputs (flags) determine how the elements are placed vertically and vice versa.  And sizers embedded inside other sizers also influence how elements are placed, so you've got to be extra careful with the flags you've used on various levels of sizers.  I've only completed two, simple layouts as of yet, but it took me the better part of a day to figure out enough to successfully do even that.  So instead of focusing on building one dialog window or panel at the time, I started by just making skeletons of many of these elements so when it comes time to coding the layouts, I can focus more on playing with the sizers themselves.

The other issue that roadblocked me earlier in the week was figuring out how to break up my code so it wasn't all in one long, hard-to-read file.  I was operating under the assumption that this should be part of the design phase, but a friend of mine advised me otherwise.  He said that at least initially (especially when you don't have very many projects under your belt), you don't always have a good feel for the architecture of your code. As such, it may change several times in the early phases as you figure out the best place for classes and methods in the structure of your code.  He recommended writing it all in one file at first and make clear section breaks to group pieces of code together.  This has a few advantages.  First, as you work, you can rearrange things as many times as you'd like as you begin to figure out where stuff should go.  Second, because everything is still in one file, it's easier to test your code and not accidentally break it since you don't have to worry about dependencies. Then, once you've gotten several hundred lines of code written, you can break it up into different files and make sure all the dependencies work before continuing along your merry way.  I imagine I'll get to this point before the end of next week, but we'll see how well the layouts go.

Now that I've actually begun coding for my project, I've started practicing using Git. I read several threads this week trying learn how often I should be committing changes to my repository (repo).  Different people have slightly different suggestions, but I've settled on doing a commit anytime I've added a thing that works.  So this week, that's been any time I've added code for a new dialog window and successfully tied its opening to a button or menu item click (in code-speak, that's binding a method to open said window once an event is triggered by the user clicking on something).  I do all these commits locally and then when I'm finished for the day, I push everything to the remote repo on my GitHub.  Right now this repo is private, but I will probably make it public once I release my app (which will hopefully be later this year).  I should also mention I'm doing this all on a different branch than the master.  I figured this is probably a good habit to get into for two reasons.  In the event I work on projects with other people, it's good to work on your own independent branch so as to minimize conflicts in code several people may be working on.  Working on a separate branch is also a good thing to do once an application is released into the wild, as it will mean changes only get made to the code once a new version is ready to be released to users, and that is something I may need to contend with in the future.

Dynamic Programming with Python and More!

Last week I alluded to the fact that I've been working to improve and increase my Python skills using resources I've found online. One of those resources has been using Leetcode. I was initially inspired by an article, which I can't seem to find, that had a handful of recommended Leetcode exercises to try as part of preparation for a technical interview. While I haven't been working on any recently, I was finding that, by attempting them in Python and reading the comments on the exercise when I got stuck, I was expanding my knowledge of both Python and algorithms. In the coming weeks I hope to start working on more Leetcode problems.

freeCodeCamp is another resource that I highly recommend.  I think initially they started with courses in web development, covering HTML5, CSS, Java, and Javascript, among other things.  They've greatly expanded their resources in the time since I've discovered them.  I'm signed up for their weekly email digest and it includes links to five different articles and videos covering a variety of topics.  Their main YouTube channel now has a bunch of full-length courses.  One such course covers two dynamic programming techniques:  memoization and tabulation.  So far I've only finished the exercises in the memoization part of course and it has taken a bit of effort to translate from the Javascript code that is presented in the course to Python.

So what is dynamic programming?  In short, it is a way of optimizing recursive problems.  In the case of memoization, it allows a recursive program to remember values it learned in previous steps so that it doesn't have to find them again.  This method allows a programmer to reduce what is known as the time complexity of a problem, allowing larger initial inputs to run through the recursion faster.  And faster is better: everyone would prefer to sit waiting at a computer screen for less than a minute instead of an hour.

In Python, memoization can be a little tricky to implement, as I discovered.  The technique requires a memo dictionary to be added as an optional input to the recursive method.  The problem I encountered seems to have to do with how Python initializes keyword parameters, which didn't cause issues in the first few exercises of the course, but started interfering with later results.  After doing some googling, I discovered a work-around, which might not be the cleanest way of doing it, but it worked for me.  Instead of adding a keyword parameter that was an empty dictionary upon initialization, I set it to be a Nonetype.  Then, the first thing I checked for in the method was if it had a value of None. If it did, I created a empty dictionary; if not, I left it alone.

I have yet to finish the tabulation portion of the dynamic programming video course, but I'll keep you posted if I learn anything interesting. There are a few other videos on freeCodeCamp's channel covering algorithms that I would like to go through as well.  In the meantime, I've also started working on one of my Python projects.

This first project is a bit of a pet project that I've been wanting to do for a long time, and my learning goals for it have evolved over the years. Initially, I was just going to learn a database program, specifically Microsoft Assess, to build a searchable catalog for my own personal music library. I knew of an organist that had a note card catalog that he used to quickly search through his music. After giving it some thought, I decided I wanted a little more functionality than what note cards give, so I thought an electronic format might better serve my needs. I never got any further than that (being in grad school and all). Now, with my explorations in programming, I've decided I might as well go whole hog and write my own user interface.  (Did you know you can create GUIs in Python?  Neither did I.  Now we know!)  The added benefit of this is that I can distribute my program to my fellow church musicians for them to use as well.

Right now, I'm trying to finish up the design phase. I've laid out a top-down design chart with the functionality my program needs to have. There's a list of the information I need to include for each record. I have a couple of logic flowcharts describing what needs to happen for some of the functionality to work. Now I just need to finish sketching what various parts of the GUI should look like. This coming week I hope to have a GUI prototype finished so I can get feedback on the design from some friends of mine. How do I plan to build the GUI? As hinted above, I'm going to be using a toolkit (wxPython) to build it out. I already completed a toy application earlier this week to get a feel for how things are constructed.

Next week, in addition to my application's progress, I will share a little bit about what I'm picking up in perl.  Until then, I'll keep on coding!

My Coding Journey

I've been out of school for about a year and a half now, and I'm still struggling with the whole job hunt business. After looking at an untold number of jobs postings, at this point I see how valuable coding skills are in a wide variety of fields. I also happen to enjoy learning about programming and trying my hand at what I pick up. Since I don't have a formal computer science background, I'm trying to learn as I go and hope the skills I'm picking up will be valuable in my job search.

I have also recently seen other people, through various platforms, talk about their own coding journeys. One thing I've gathered is that a lot of software engineers and developers are self-taught and came from a wide variety of backgrounds. For my own sake, to both document my journey and to process and retain what I'm learning, I thought I'd share a weekly digest of I'm discovering.

This week, being week number one, is going to be a brief overview of where I'm coming from. Next week, I'll cover some of the highlights of knowledge I've acquired in more recent months. From there, hopefully I can go into detail about the things I'm learning week by week.

The first exposure to programming that I can recall was in high school. I don't remember what class it was for, but I remember one of my teachers was offering extra credit if we could write a little calculator program to compute solutions to the quadratic equation. I had a friend at church who taught me how to do it. With the TI-89 I had at the time, it only took a few lines to create a little function that would take a quadratic equation as input and spit out two solutions for the given variable.

My next real coding experience came when I took an intro programming class in early college. The class was taught in C. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to write programming labs and the exhilaration of finally working out all of the bugs. I think I enjoy it for the same reason I enjoy math: there is nothing like that feeling of satisfaction when you've solved a problem after having struggled with it. So even though I enjoyed the class, I wasn't convinced I wanted to change my major to CS and spend the rest of my life behind a computer.

In my early years of college, I also had exposure to MATLAB and Maple. Aside from one math lab class, I never used Maple again.  In the same way, I didn't ever program in C after the lone programming class I took. MATLAB became a staple of programming for me, perhaps to a fault, as it was just about all I used in grad school.  

I transferred schools part way through college, and my second undergrad institute was where I had my first experience using LaTeX. LaTeX is another tool, alongside MATLAB, that became indispensable to me in grad school. It's still something I use occasionally, as I find it to be superior to word processors for writing and formatting certain documents.

While in grad school, I tried at one point to pick up some Mathematica. It can be a powerful teaching tool, but since I wasn't planning on teaching after graduating and I didn't really need it for any of my own coursework and research, I ended up not spending a lot of time on it. In part it's because I found it rather obtuse. It's also heavily symbolic, which works great for some things, but I really just didn't like using it.

It took me long enough to realize, but finally at the end of grad school, I knew I needed to expand my coding horizons, especially since I knew it would make me more marketable. I started with Python. Python can be used for a variety of applications, and I figured the best starting place for me would be through data science. I signed-up for edX and worked my way through a Python for data science course taught by a fellow from MIT. Since my completion of the class, I've tried to continue to expand my knowledge through coding exercises on Leetcode and by working through additional material I find out on the interwebs. More on this next week.

I've dabbled in a few other things along the way. For the internship I had one summer in grad school, I had to pick up some Visual Basic, which I haven't used since. I tried a bit of HTML5 and CSS at some point and later started an edX course on basic SQL. Neither of these things are things I stuck with. I was thinking about doing some mobile app development. Dart and flutter were going to be my weapons of choice. I might yet endeavor this pursuit.

Git and perl are two things I have been working on. I really wish I would have learned some basic Git early in grad school. It will come in handy as I start a few personal coding projects. Perl is currently what I'm focusing most of my energy on. Of course, I feel like I would be doing it wrong if I wasn't using the llama book. If you're looking for an entertaining technical read, the llama book is it. It's also not bad as a learning tool.

Taking a look back on my coding journey up to this point in time, I notice I have a lot of aspirations, languages and skills I think it would be neat to learn, but the depth of my knowledge is still very much lacking. One of my goals this year is to change that. A tangible measure of my progress will be the completion of, or at least actual progress on, some personal projects. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for discussions on Python and perl topics and descriptions of two projects I will be kicking off with.

Lemons and Roses: Part II

A bouquet of half wilted roses.  A cheap silicone coated whisk.  A pint of heavy whipping cream.  A package of fresh basil.

John couldn't believe he forgot the basil.  The whipping cream, he was OK with, he hadn't figured out what to do for desert until late this afternoon, but basil?  He'd had the recipe pinned to his fridge for the last two weeks, had skimmed the ingredients list every morning when he pulled out the milk jug.  Oh well, he had forgotten it, but the important thing now was that he remembered it.  He shouldn't spend so much time chiding himself.  He had more pressing matters to focus on.

He had tried not to think about tonight all day.  Actually, he had tried not to think about it all week.  His nerves were all twisted in knots.  It was exactly one year tonight since he first met Jenny.

Peter had invited him out on his parents' boat.  The weather had cooled a bit, and Peter wanted to get some friends together before summer ended and everyone went their separate ways again.  It was just an casual day trip.  Everyone was asked to bring a potluck dish, and Peter told John he should bring his fishing gear.  "Maybe we could have a fish fry?  Kara makes a batter that is the bomb."

Jenny was Kara's best friend from high school.  Peter knew Kara was still a little uncomfortable around his friends and had encouraged her to bring one of hers.  John was thankful to Peter for that.  Peter drove him nuts sometimes, but he always watched out for the people close to him.  John was selfishly glad that Kara had someone to look out for her because he never would have met Jenny any other way.

The two hadn't really hit it off right away.  Jenny was a chemistry major at a small university the the northeast.  Although he had taken a few chem classes as an undergrad, he never really liked the subject.  He didn't really like any of the hard sciences.  He was much more content to sit at a computer, writing code, than he was working in a lab.  Jenny never could, and still couldn't, understand how he could stare at a screen that long, deciphering gibberish.

About a month after Peter's party, Jenny messaged him out of the blue.  "A friend asked me if I knew anyone who could answer a programming question she has. Would you be willing to take a look?"  She attached a screenshot of the code snippet in question.  After emailing back and forth about the problem over the next couple of days, their conversation quickly expanded into unrelated topics, and before he knew what he was doing, he wrote, "Would you like to Skype tomorrow night?  I have some time between my discussion sections and I figured we could continue our discussion then."

That was the start of weekly Skype sessions that soon became almost daily.  They got to see each other maybe once a month, although the winter break had afforded them several weeks together.  Jenny had been working all summer at a lab in Tennessee. She had just gotten into town this afternoon, while he was meeting with his advisor. Under the pretense of needing to spend a few more hours on his dissertation, he had finished cleaning his apartment and rearranging the furniture.  Now, he just had to finish dinner and arrange the roses on the table before he went to pick her up from Kara's apartment.  He just needed to not dwell on tonight for a few more hours.

Part III coming December 9th!

Thought of the Day

Perhaps it a product of no longer being inside academia, or perhaps it is a part of being a working adult, but it seems to me that critical thought becomes lacking unless one explicitly seeks to practice and hone the skill.  Or perhaps it is just something I have noticed in my own life and am projecting onto those I observe around me purely as a result of the season of life through which I am traversing.  At any rate, I recently moved away from where I had been living for six years in an effort to injection some life into the hunt for my first professional job after grad school.  Since this move, I have noticed an re-awakening in myself a desire to read and learn and engage my critical faculties.  It's a desire I'm now realizing I've lost touch with in the last couple of years.

That brings me to the point of this post.  I know I've said for years that I want to be more active and post more frequently on this blog.  Perhaps this time I actually will. I'm not going to commit to posting every day or x times a week.  I would just like to try posting more stream-of-conscientiousness type of posts with some regularity in order to get the cogwheels turning.  I suppose I am envisioning it as the written equivalent of the YouTube sit-down-and-chat style of vlog.  Or you could think of it as digital inscribed word vomit.  I think I like that description of it best.  Please enjoy more of my digital inscribed word vomit (DIWoVo) in the coming weeks!

Lemons and Roses: Part I

One chocolate cake.  A package of white socks, girls' size 7.  Oh, and a box of crayons.  The biggest one, with more colors than one could possibly need.

Jen was always miscalculating or forgetting something.  He wished she, for once in their marriage, would just get something done right from the start.  After all, how long had she been planning this?  A week?  A month?  Either way, there was no reason he should be here right now picking up last minute supplies.

He was tired of it, tired of all of it, not just the incomplete party preparations.  They had been trying to hold on for too long, for Sarah's sake.  Sure, she was getting to the age when some of her friends spent weekends at dad's.  He knew that she actually could understand now that that meant their moms and dads were not living together. He and Jen had hoped to not subject her to the same fate:  "Oh, I can't go to the park this weekend, I'm going to my dad's."

They never should have gotten married in the first place.  Jen was his best friend in college.  They did everything together:  attend university plays, plan spring break ski trips with friends, and crash the frat parties down the street from their apartment building (watching the drunks made for comedic study breaks).  They talked about most everything too:  both wanted to get married and raise a family, and both solemnly promised to make their spouses agree to get together for a double date at least once a month.  Twice a week was more desirable.

After college, Jen moved clear across the country for work, but it didn't last very long.  She claimed she and the company weren't a good fit.  He knew that in reality, Jen missed home, and 1,500 miles made the separation all the more difficult.  When she moved back to their home state a year later, they agreed to never live more than a few hundred miles from each other.

He still remembers the day they had that conversation.  Jen had just been to her parents house the night before.  "Do you want to get married?  To me, I mean."

"What?  No!"  He paused.  "Why?  I mean, you're my best friend, but . . ."

"I didn't think so.  My parents seem to think we should.  'You're always talking about him.  He's your best friend.  Why not?'" She could mimic her mother quite well.

Once the seed was planted, neither of them could quite forget it.  Two weeks later, it was decided.  Six months.  That would be long enough to plan things out satisfactorily for both their mothers.  It would be a simple wedding.  Jen didn't want a lot of bells and whistles.

Their friendship died on the day of their wedding.  Things were never the same once they both said "I do."  At first, they tried to make it work, to mimic their married friends.  Then they tried to do things their own way, to maintain their relationship as they had when they were just friends.  Then Jen found out she was pregnant.  They had given up on their relationship by that point, but both agreed that with a kid now in the picture, they would pretend for her sake.  Now, he wasn't so sure he could pretend anymore.  But he would pretend for one more chocolate cake.

Part II

Waves of Change

I think one of the things adults have to contend with is finding a balance between planning and going with the flow.  The older I've gotten, the more I've realized that different adults maintain different balances between these two opposites.  I am certainly more spontaneous than I used to be, but I still find that I personally function best with a bit more of a structured plan.  It helps me remain focused, prevents me from getting too distracted, and helps to reduce stress and anxiety surrounding certain tasks.

While I find creating semi-detailed plans helpful, I also allow myself to change plans or go off course when the need or opportunity arises.  And that happened with the journey I started the end of last year.  I was unable to continue along the trajectory I had set for myself because I got a job.  Now this job is not in my field.  It's a temporary job that is allowing me to pay bills (and have health insurance!) while I continue my job search.  Starting a full-time job rather unexpectedly has meant that life has suddenly started to look quite different than I anticipated:  I have not able to stick with the work-out schedule I laid out in my last post and I certainly haven't been able to post to this blog like I had intended.  And to be honest, it has made finding the time and energy to job search much more difficult.

At some point, I did manage to start to get into a gym routine (twice a week).  And then the COVID-19 pandemic, and panic, hit.   Gyms, libraries, coffee shops. . . everything is now closed or has changed how business is done.  In the midst of all of this, I came down with a respiratory infection that has forced me to take some time off of work.  In many ways, this has been a blessing.  It's allowed me to hit the pause button and reset some aspects of my life.  I have a different plan now than I did just a few months ago.  It will likely change again in the next couple of weeks as I settle back into a work routine.  Regardless, I will aim to keep the guidelines I set back in December in mind as I continue on a journey this year to improve my overall health and to accomplish some of the other goals I've set for myself.

The Workout

In addition to blogging more, another major change I am implementing at the start of my 30 day journey is to become more active and physically fit, specifically by adding in weightlifting into my workout routine.  In fact I've never able been able to consistently do any sort of physical activity on my own for more than a month or so.  Here's an overview of my workout history:

My first experience with weightlifting was in high school, when I took a semester-long class to fulfill a physical education requirement.  I was one of only a handful of girls to take the class and many of the other students were taking the class as supplemental training to their after-school sports.  As such, it was an intimidating class to be a part of, especially when I felt I was weaker than all of my peers.

Also in high school, my family took Tae Kwon Do classes for roughly two years.  We didn't always consistently attend class, especially towards the end.  Our dojang had a friendly and relaxed environment: while some people took their training very seriously, others approached it more casually.  Someday, perhaps when I am more settled in the next chapter of my life, I would like to pick it up again and eventually get my black belt.

When I was in undergrad, I never really developed any sort of fitness routine.  I did take a racquetball class for a half-semester, and on very infrequent occasions attempted running or weightlifting at the university gym with some friends.  In my early college years, I attended a weekly swing dance, but that is about the most consistent thing I ever did.

During my grad school years, I again attempted running on several occasions.  My most successful athletic adventures as an adult occurred during this time.  There was one year where I embarked on a 30(ish) day journey of completing 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups almost every day.  I was able to notice some definition in my shoulders during this time and went from only being able to do crunches to being able to do full range-of-motion sit-ups.  I have also done a 30(ish) day daily yoga workout.  I did notice positive changes to my flexibility and posture, and I actually like yoga.  The problem has been with actually keeping the habit of doing it.  In part, this has been complicated by a series of wrist injuries last winter that have impeded my ability to perform body weight exercises.

Reflecting on this brief fitness history, I realize a big challenge for me has been forming a regular habit.  So, to keep myself accountable, here's my workout plan, at least for now:

• Sundays:  rest day
• Mondays: full body weight training
• Tuesdays: yoga or running or HIIT-style workout
• Wednesdays: full body weight training
• Thursdays: yoga
• Fridays: full body weight training
• Saturdays: yoga or running or HIIT-style workout

My plan is to run or do a HIIT-style workout once a week, which will give me two days of yoga.  A major reason I plan on three days of weightlifting is because I would like to lose body fat and research has suggested it can be very beneficial for this goal.  The stress of grad school and other things happening in my personal life in the last year or year and a half has contributed to a less-than ideal diet and has meant I have gained weight.  It might not be enough for most people in my life to have noticed, but for the first time in my adult life I have needed to buy larger clothes.  Maybe that doesn't sound bad to some people, but I've been the same size my entire adult life, so it's been a little disconcerting for me.

I also know it can be helpful to include various types of exercises in your routine, hence why the added yoga.  And in terms of the running/HIIT workouts, well, I'm not sold on the part yet.  I know some cardio is beneficial, but I've had problems with running in the past.  I do have family that wants me to run a half-marathon with them in March, so I figured I'd start slowly and see how it goes.

Today is day four of my journey, and thus far I've only been to the gym once (Friday).  I had an unusually busy schedule on Saturday and wasn't able to workout, and yesterday was my rest day.  I am getting ready to head to the gym shortly, so we'll see how it goes!

The Return

Hello, Internet!  It sure has been quite a long time (almost three years!).  In that time, I've finished grad school and I am currently looking for a job.

When I first started this blog back in two thousand nine, I'm not sure I ever really had a clear vision of what I wanted it to be.  I had a friend who had one and was encouraging me to start one as well.  When I got my own laptop after graduating high school, it seemed like an excellent time to start a blog and use it to write more for myself outside of school assignments.  And that is what I did:  I wrote short posts on and off on whatever I felt like writing about.

In April two thousand fourteen, I tried the A to Z Challenge, where I wrote a new post every day (except Sundays) with each post title beginning with a new letter of the alphabet.  That is perhaps the most consistent I've ever been with blogging.  During this time, I realized that the name of my blog was no longer relevant to where I was in my life.  I was finished with my undergraduate eduction.  If I wanted to continue, changing the name of my blog might better fit any long-term blogging plans.  There is still a name change in the future, and perhaps that will happen before the end of the year.  At any rate, this post is an announcement that I am back to try the whole blogging thing again.  I have several pieces that have been in the works for a while now that will hopefully be published in the near future.

So why now?  It's not because I'm gradumacated, although it certainly helps to no longer be in the middle of writing my dissertation.  It has been a combination of knowing that I need to make a few changes in my life to improve my physical and metal health and being inspired by two YouTube videos I recently watched.

The first is by fitness YouTuber Blogilates.  She reflects on her 90 day fitness and health journey, the changes she made, and the outcomes she noticed along the way.  One of the things that she did was tracking her weight daily and tracking other measurements on a regular basis.  While the frequency is a little much for me, having never consistently used a scale, I am inspired to try doing this on a weekly basis, simply to have a tangible way of marking my progress as I start my weightlifting journey.  While agreeing to a 90 day journey is a bit much for me right now, I am making a 30 day commitment.

And second is Simon and Martina's video where Simon discusses some of the changes he's made in the last year.  As with Cassie from Blogilates, he took a holistic approach to his well being.  One of the things he changed in terms of his physical fitness was to add running into his routine in addition to weightlifting.  I've been considering something like this as well as I plan my workout routine.  I hope to elaborate on what I am doing in another post.

So this return marks the start of my 30 day journey.  To whatever small readership I may have, I will be accountable to you on this journey, sharing a bit of my progress along the way along with other literary adventures.  I will likely not post every single day (in fact, today is really day two since my first gym visit was yesterday), but I will be posting much more often.  To end, here are a few principles I will operate by during this time.

• I will not make all the changes I want to make at once.  That is a good way to become overwhelmed and want to quit before making it very far.


• I will give myself permission to fail.  If I miss a day of doing whatever it is I intended to do, it's O.K.  I can get up tomorrow and try again.


• Even if I don't accomplish all that I want to, I have still gone further than I would have.  Even small amounts of progress should be celebrated and not forgotten.

The Setting of the Jewel

Today, we celebrated Psalm Sunday.  You may have noticed your organist playing the hymns and liturgy a little more joyously today than on many of the other Sundays in Lent.  This is in stark contrast to how the music will sound latter in the week as we remember Christ's suffering and death for our redemption.  And of course, nothing will compare to the unbridled joyful noise that will fill our churches on Easter morn!

Since this week provides the perfect opportunity to hear how music is used to support the text, I thought I'd share an article I wrote that discusses this very topic.

God's Word is our crown jewel: it is the most beautiful thing that we have. It is our treasure, and by it, we know of our salvation by Christ's death and resurrection. This is why Lutheran worship is so beautiful. It is not about what we do or what we can offer to God; rather, it is about hearing His Word and receiving the forgiveness of sins that comes through Word and Sacrament. And so we keep God's Word at the center of our liturgy and everything else is built around it: the setting highlights the jewel.

Part of this setting is the music. As an organist, it is the Word that informs what I play during Divine Service and how I play it. As you sit in the pew, you may not be paying attention to the music as you sing. You may not notice how this stanza is played differently from that stanza, or why the organist does this or that when playing the Gloria. I invite you, yes you, dear brother or sister, to listen to what your organist plays. Is he or she playing a stanza light and airily? Does it suddenly seem as if all the voices of the organ are joining together as one? What are you hearing? As you begin to pick these things out, notice how they connect to the text you are singing. Does what you hear reflect what you speak?

As an example, let us consider together LSB 621 Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. In the first stanza, when the text says "and with fear and trembling stand" one might hear a fluttering as the organ waivers back and forth between two notes. Later, in the lowest notes, the bass pitches, we might hear notes descending stepwise as we sing "Christ our God to earth descending". In stanza two, we might notice that the aural texture becomes lighter, as the organist removes stops, or sets of organ pipes, so that we can contemplate how Christ took on our flesh and blood by being born as a little babe. Yet in the very next stanza, we might hear the organ grow in volume and grandeur as more and more pipes of varying colors get added to the ensemble, representing the whole host of heaven. As the stanza progresses and speaks of "the pow'rs of hell", the organ might become increasingly dissonant, only to wither away to near silence "as the darkness clears away." The final stanza is triumphant as we join our voices with the heavenly host and cry "Alleluia, Alleluia! Alleluia, Lord Most High!" We might notice the organist adds bright trumpets and fills out the voices of the organ to land finally on a major chord, though this hymn otherwise sounds a bit somber in its minor key.

These are just a sampling of the techniques that organists use to highlight the text of hymns and the liturgy. Now that we've explored some of these techniques by considering Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, you are equipped to continue to explore how an organist aurally supports God's Word. Now go, rejoice in God's Word, our jewel, by joining your voice with your brothers and sisters throughout the ages!

Where Has All the Rum Gone?

I attend a campus church, so there are generally various activities, including fellowship events, that occur throughout the week. Usually, about once a semester,  we have a night where we hold an Iron Chef -style competition.  Contestants must use a required ingredient that is made known in advance, and they have approximately an hour to make their creations before presenting their dishes to a panel of judges.  At last night's competition, the required ingredient was "alcohol", with the added requirement that it must be cooked into something, no drinks allowed.

My entry was a version of an apple bread recipe I've been making for a while now and have slowly modified over the years.  I made last night's recipe into muffins with a spiced glaze.  These tasty treats won me the titles of best overall and best presentation.  They are definitely make-again worth and I thought I'd share my scrumptious creation with you, o internet.

Spiced Rum Apple Muffins

Muffins
1/2 c. soften butter
1/2 c. total combination blackstrap molasses and honey (with a bit more molasses than honey)
2 eggs
1 single-serve bottle (50 mL) of spiced rum
1 c. whole white wheat flour
1 c. AP flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/3 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 small apples, one pealed and grated and two diced

Glaze
powdered sugar; vanilla; ground cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, and ginger; water

Mash butter with a fork and then mix in the sugars, eggs, and rum one by one. Stir in the flours, powder, soda, and salt until mostly combined.  Add in all of the apple and mix until fully combined.  Drop by spoonfuls into a buttered muffin tin (makes about 1 1/2 dozen muffins).  Bake at 375° F for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

I didn't really measure when I made the glaze.  I dumped powdered sugar into a small bowl along with some vanilla, and the five spices in roughly a 3:1:1:1:1 ratio.  I slowly whisked in a little bit of water until the mixture was smooth and runny.

Drizzle a little bit of glaze over a warm muffin and enjoy!

Political Reflection

I sometimes write blog posts that I never end up posting.  As I was going through some of those posts today, I came a across one that I wrote around the Forth of July several years ago.  Some of what I wrote wasn't worth keeping around, but the following paragraph caught my attention and seemed apropos for the current political climate:

A big deal is made out of events that celebrate our nation, and as a Christian, I wonder why.  This country, and our government, are both temporal.  They will pass away someday.  Look at any of the great civilizations that came before.  How many have survived the test of time?  Why do we put so much stock in national pride? Our government is not perfect; it is flawed.  So why do we place our fear, love, and trust in it?  I am by no means saying we should ignore our government and its laws.  We are called to be respectful of those in authority, including the government (see Luther's Table of Duties regarding citizens).  However, it seems that sometimes we make an idol out of being a citizen of a certain country.

It seems to me that people on both sides of the aisle have made an idol out of the presidency and the federal government.  If they can't have it their way, well, then the world is coming to an end.  News flash:  the world has been coming to an end since the fall of mankind.  A president is not going to fix it.