Yesterday morning I spent a few hours working on our group project. I wanted to make sure I knew how to properly pull from, and push to, GitHub so the others could see my changes. I also wanted to experiment more with CSS.

CSS still feels mostly like trial and error to me. I imagine the way I want the page to look, then search on Google for possible solutions. Most of the time there is no one stock answer. Which is good. Because even if there were, I don’t want to simply copy and paste without understanding.

I want to understand why certain attributes and values have the effect they do. I want to understand the architecture of the page. Not just get the results I’m looking for.

That seems to be the whole point of the class. To teach us how to learn. To teach us how to be persistent in finding solutions.

I’m finding that I really enjoy the process of problem solving. Of being thrown into a problem, and having to figure it out. Maybe because I’ve been out of school for ten years, and it reflects real life.

As a father, husband, friend. Whatever our role is, we’re often thrown into fires with little to no preparation. We are forced — more or less — to figure it out. Or even, at times, to just sit with the problem until the solution reveals itself.

This morning my plan is to do as much JavaScript training and review as possible, since we’re just diving in. That way what we go over in class this week can (hopefully) feel like a second time through.

It’s the repetition I need to help it sink in.