Counting myself in

Now that I am feeling better, I have taken steps to ‘count myself in’ at the Midland Public Library MakerPlace rather than being stuck on the idea that I have included myself out. I have volunteered to do a couple of (short) presentations in August on topics that are more ’techie’ (including one that will make use of an A.I. project I did many years ago, while in university, along with other notes I am digging out from various A.I. courses of that era). I am also hopeful that once the physical space is open to the public again, that this will help the new MakerPlace Coordinator have more opportunities for tech talk.

It is my hope that when physical meetings reconvene that there will be more folks with computer and electronics interests showing up and having interesting projects on which they’ve been working, or which they want to start. A large point of the MakerPlace, for me, is the meeting others with interests and skills that give us an opportunity to ’talk shop’ outside of a work setting, which, in this area, is rare for computing at the level I am involved in. I also enjoy electronics, but there I am definitely a hobbyist, especially analog electronics.

All in all, as I write in A Glass Half Empty, now that I’m feeling better, I’m trying to view this is ‘a glass half full’ that I can help become ‘a fountain overflowing’. Of course, without effective anti-depressants, I could not genuinely get to this place. When one is depressed and trying to ‘be positive’ to try to improve mood, it often fails, and just feels like one is being fake, and ‘fake it until you make it’ doesn’t work for real mental health.

Now all I have to do is ‘rock those presentations’ (or at least be somewhat interesting).