Arduinos and other such stuff

The past 6 weeks has been a hell for me.  Don’t want to complain or even get downright personal so I won’t and I will bypass those particular thoughts and talk about my hell from a school and practical point of view.  New Media has been a most interesting program.  I have never in my life had to think about concepts such as we have been learning about.  I do not learn things quickly and the best way for me to learn something is to read a “how to manual” not a conceptual, philosophical read.  Or as I used to refer to it waaaaaay back in my old days, back of the bus philosophical crap.  That comes from going home on the Montreal bus and listening to McGill students wax poetic about nothing in particular.  It was all about thoughts, angst, the horrors, the naysayers and the yessayers.  But I was cynical in a carefree way back then and really only worried about whether or not I should go to Woodstock, or do some spring/summer skiing at Mt. Washington.  (I chose Mt. Washington by the way).  I now wish I had gone to Woodstock because I skied every weekend May/June and how often does Woodstock happen?  Maybe I would have brought a camera, even though I was not into photography, but maybe I would have and ended up being a photographer on the cover of Rolling Stone.  And then waaaaaay back then just for the hell of it changed my name to Annie Leibovitz or something like that and not have to be worried about arduino boards.  Now you may be asking yourself, why am I worried about a petty thing like that especially after seeing the most simplified explanation of what it is and what it does on Google.  Why am I worried?  I’ll tell you why – I am worried because I don’t “get it”….I don’t understand how the path happens, evolves, gets hooked up to the patch, then lights go on, a sensor works and all of a sudden doors are opening, windows are closing and eyelids snapping up and down.  I do believe that I understand how a car engine works better than I understand the arduino concept.  And that’s what this 6 week program has been all about for me.  Listening to two highly intelligent, one could say brilliant, professors show and tell and all I can do is write blogs, and try to get my two avatars off that @#!% island.  I even tried to get my two avatars to meet so we could have fun together but Second Life claimed that they didn’t know who Lettuce Muircastle or Gail Hellshank were – sad but true.  Maybe I deserved the rebuff.  I am in a wonderful group who I admire greatly because they get it and not only do they get it, but they are able to think about these things and create them.  I have been trying to list in my mind the things that I do know which has given me a bit of comfort.  I do understand the relationship between f-stops and aperture speed, and I can do basic photoshop in a half decent way, I’m a good cook and understand that there is chemistry in baking and that one shouldn’t throw stuff into a cake without understanding that bad stuff might happen.  All this I understand, but an arduino board and a max patch has brought me to my knees.