+1. CSS we salute you.

After 2 tiring mornings of physical exercise, today I have decided to stay at home and continue learning how to create a website. In this second lesson I have learned the rules when programming with CSS language. 

This second lesson has been a little bit boring (too much theory), however it is necessary in terms of doing things in the right way and avoiding amateur mistakes. I have linked the Html file with the CSS one, so from now, everything I change in the CSS document will be applied into the Html worksheet. 

In the next class I am going to learn how to organize contents in a website, how to choose font colors, sizes, etc. Hopefully it will be funnier. This next picture shows how my website looks so far. Obviously it is just an experiment and day by day it will look much better and more sophisticated. 

I have also downloaded a CSS manual (handbook) that could be quite useful and profitable:

CSS Manual

New phrasal verbs for today:

Hang up: For example hanging clothes up after washing it. It also means: suddenly ending a conversation.
To be hung up: Being anxious about something and don't stop thinking about that. 
Join in: Become involved into an activity.
Live up to: Being as good as we expected. Example: Our hotel was amazing and lived up to our expectations. 
Look after = Take care of
Look me up or look up somebody:  To locate and visit someone you haven't seen in a long time.
Look up something: Try and find a piece of information in a book, dictionary, etc. 

Tomorrow I officially start this amazing and quirky project, although I have done some staff so far... So I gues I'll go running and I will study some English vocabulary. Then I think I will spend the evening enjoying my free time with my friends and my girlfriend.

By the way my oven is "sick" ( :( ) but I believe we will be able to fix it.

DaniR

+2. The final countdown.

2 days and I officially start the project. 

I have started this sunny and wonderful Tuesday running for 45 minutes trough the beach. There were few people so I haven't had to run carefully to avoid cyclists and children. 

Afterwards I have taken a look to the phrasal verbs. I know lots of them, but some others are new for me or at least I was not sure about their meaning. 

In this next list I show the ones I have started learning:

Call off: To Cancel a plan or asking someone to stop.

Call round: Quick visit, for a few time.

Fall out: Get angry. Falling out is a kind of argument.

Fall over: Fall to the ground. Falling over means being really dedicated and motivated to do something, giving your 100%. I felt over myself to be as rich as I could.

Get up: Wake up or stand up, from the floor.

Give up: Stop doing something bad or difficult.

Hang around: Keep walking around without any concrete direction, in Spanish would be: "Vagar".

Blue in the face: I have also learned that this expression means that even you get blue in the face, something will happen. 

DaniR

+3. My first strawberry cake

This weekend I have baked (with the collaboration of my girlfriend) a really tasty and fresh (and overall very healthy) Strawberry cake that we all enjoyed afterwards. 

Firstly I would like to show how it looked. What do you think?


It looks more or less like it should do, taking as an example the one in the website where I found the receipt. Anyway the base was a little bit soft because we didn't put any nuts being that my girlfriend can not tolerate that. So we only used a mix of biscuits and butter. Another problem we had was the fact that the top was too liquid at first. We thought we had put not enough gelatin or perhaps the water was too hot when we ad it. Fortunately it worked how it was supposed to and it became less liquid. 


After on night in the fridge one hour else after finishing the gelatin top, we ate that in the afternoon and even my father was kind of impressed. You can see him taking some pictures. I feel very well because they were proud of the result, they enjoyed it and I am learning new ways of cooking and baking. 

About the other goals: 
- Running: 30 minutes at 10 km/h, at the gym. 
- I am reading chapter 4 of "Market Research".
- I will start watching the second HTML5 video.
- I have printed lot of information about Phrasal verbs, how to use them and a list with the most popular ones. 
- I continue practicing with my guitar. Soon I will learn the first of the 20 songs I want to learn this year. 

Nice way to start a week.

DaniR

+4. First HMTL5 steps.

Today I have started my HTML5 course. It doesn’t look very complicated and so far it’s simple to understand. I have only created the basic structure of a HTML5 file, observing the differences with its last version and applying some tricks.

This first HTML course consists in 15 videos. Some of them last more than an hour. Afterwards I will start with the CSS tutorial and in the end the Java language. Once I have learned the basics of these 3 languages I will begin doing harder and more complex things.

Running:

-          Distance: 8 kilometers.

-          Speed: 10 km/h.

-          Place: Gym.

Baking:

During the weekend I will prepare this next strawberry cake (Erdbeeretorte in Deutsch).

Strawberrycake

I will show the result on Monday. Hopefully nobody will get intoxicated.

DaniR

+5. At the weekend.

Finally the weekend is here. Perhaps these are my lasts free days before officially starting this project, although I have already started preparing everything or reading and printing some documents I may need.

I will probably train a little at the gym, trying to run a bit more than 7 kilometers and having a therapeutic sauna afterwards. Actually I am looking forward to seeing my progress in every field however the fact of being my own evaluator is kind of weird.

I have signed in some Facebook groups whose members are also studying the CAE so I will have some support and it is always pleasant being part of a community and sharing the same interests. I have asked for information about different ways to prepare the test and books or documents that could be helpful.   

Lesson: By the way I have a doubt related with the preposition we may use before the word weekend. I will use: At the weekend. 

Possible answer.

Ps: Yesterday died Tito Vilanova, a F.C. Barcelona ex-trainer. I just want to wish the best for his family and friends. Rest in peace Mister. 

DaniR

+6. The Planning.

In the last post I wrote about how I will distribute the time so I can prepare every mission. I will show you now how my timetable looks right now. I will make some changes depending on which priority I have. For instance, I will spend more hours studying for the CAE exam the closer the date is. As well as before the Marathon I will concentrate my efforts into this goal.  

The idea is:

During the mornings my tasks will be running and reading or studying English either German. On the train I will read Marketing, English and German books. During my working hours I will listen to the radio in English and German. Once I am at home I will relax myself playing guitar one or two days every week.

Then, during the weekend, I will try to prepare the Marathon on Saturday morning and baking on Sunday as the final price.  During the weekend I will also do some programming stuff and writing the Marketing Blog.

I will try to do at least 2 different things everyday so I will not fed up with anything. As I said, I enjoy doing all that, it is not a matter of passing an exam, I want also to learn, interiorize everything I do and improve.

DaniR

+7. Just a week

Everything is ready. I already have my running shoes prepared, my notebooks and pens in position, my guitar is well tuned and my computer has the software I need in order to achieve my 6 goals.

I also count on my family, friends and girlfriend to support me in those moments when stress, weakness or need to quit come. It will take more than 360 days of hard work, but I notice I have lot of energy and my motivation makes me unstoppable.

I do not know if someone, a part of me, will read all these lines, however I feel that writing all that make my goals more real and it helps me organizing my mind. Someone could think that these goals are not too much. But when you have not so much time, I feel that I will really give my best to do that.

In my opinion, I consider I will need around:

- More than 5 hours every week for the Marathon.

- Around 7 or 8 hours to pass the Advanced test.

- I will need more than 3 hours every week to achieve the guitar goal.

- 2 or 3 hours per week to bake good cakes and making good bread.

- 5 hours to write a good Marketing Blog

- 2 hours a week to create the website.

It means that I will dedicate, approximately, around 26 hours every week. So, everyday I should spent almost 4 hours working on my year I advanced project. Anyway there are things I can do at the same time, like baking and reading or programming. I also will use my time in the train, more or less 2 hours, to read and do some homework or studying some tablatures.

In the end I will try to dedicate 2 hours during the morning before going to work, plus the 2 hours in the train and maybe half an hour before going to sleep. Then during the weekend, a part of studying German and having free time I will do something like baking (as a price), going running through the mountain, hiking, etc.

Hopefully I will be able to do all that without troubles,

DaniR

+8. Status

Here I am, 8 days before my official training starts. I will explain how my current situation in every field is.

I went running on Sunday, followed by my girlfriend who was riding a bicycle, trough my village beach.  I ran around 8 kilometers and I ended quite tired even running more slowly than I usually do. So I should start running a bit more and perhaps a change in my diet could help.

On Friday I baked a chocolate cake for my nephew. I added some vanilla as well and we ate it yesterday and it was really tasty. I had been supervised by my father during the process, so I will have to do it 100% by my own next time. It will be first step I will take.

About English… Yesterday I was a bit upset because I watched a movie called “Shutter Island” and there were scenes where I barely understand something. Perhaps American accent in this movie was too hard or maybe the vocabulary they used was not very common.  Anyway, I need no watch more American movies or series (last one I watched, “How I met your mother”, I have been able to understand almost everything).

About websites creation. I had a meeting with a friend last Saturday and we started creating a website with HTML 5 code. I will keep practicing and next time we will start with CSS. It doesn’t look very complicated once you understand the basis of every language. Hopefully we will create something quite good.

I am reading the book about Market Research I told you some days ago. It is very interesting and with very good content and information. I have written 2 posts so far and I continue creating my first tutorial about Marketing.

Finally, I have not time to practice with my guitar; anyway I will dedicate one day next week only to learn a song. Perhaps I will start with an easy one. It will be a kind of warming up.

By the way today is St Jordi so I will be working during the morning with my animal protection association. And for sure, I will give a rose to my treasure.

DaniR

+9. Sixth goal: Baking cakes and bread

Four years ago my father started making his own bread at home and baking all kind of cakes. He does that very well and he always has tried to teach me all that too. I have started doing some stuff about however he has been always supervising me.

So, my last goal is to do all that by my own, improving step by step and someday being able to surprise my father with an excellent bread and cake, even better than those he does.  

I also think that cooking requires some specific skills that you can train meanwhile you are learning like: organization, creativity and ability. Cooking also fits into one of my principles about life: You have some ingredients, sometimes worst, sometimes better, and you try (or you should) to do the best with that.

Now that I have all these 6 goals summarized, I will start preparing and planning everything in order to achieved all.

DaniR   

+10. Fifth goal: Playing 20 entire songs with my guitar

Since I was a child, guitar has been my favorite music instrument. 

Once I was a teenager I started playing it in my free time. I have never had a teacher so I have had to learn by myself, reading books and using Internet sources. 

Nowadays I am able to play quite well, however I want to improve and play entire songs, from the beginning until the end (solos included). I have learned so far to play with different rhythms, lots of chords and some difficult melodies. So I think it's time to go further and have a set-list of really well played songs. 

The first one I would like to learn is: 

I hope someone will enjoy my music. 

DaniR

+ 11. Fourth goal: Creating a Website

Let's talk about the fourth goal: Creating a Website. 

I have coursed a Master in Online Marketing and Website Placement. It was some years ago and I have been practicing what I learned by analyzing friends websites, Blogs, etc. And advising associations in fields related with SEM, SEO and SMM. 

I have some knowledge of HTML, CSS and platforms like Wordpress. Anyway I wanted to start from zero, just writing code so I could better understand how a website works. 

To do that I'm taking free online courses about programming and I have watched some tutorials. 

I will start from zero, as I said, and my idea is to create a really simple site but with different kind of elements and content. I will try to make it easy and fun, so probably I will work with a friend together so we can learn at the same time and help each other with any problem we could (and for sure, will) have. 

Source: Online Channel to Create Websites

We will start watching and practicing with these videos and afterwards we will go further and doing more complex things. 

DaniR

+12. Third goal: Blog about Marketing for small Businesses

It was an idea I had some months ago and almost a reality. Now I reopen the project and I am already working on it. I am creating a Blog that everyone will be able to consult, in order to offer advices and little helps for small businesses employees or freelances.

I wanted to create an easy manual with general vision about what Marketing is and how can help the fact of knowing how "to play" with that". 

I will read again and take notes from the books: 

- Marketing Direction, Philip Kotler.

- Market Research, Naresh K. Malhotra.

By summarizing some of the most relevant points from these books, synthesizing information from articles and writing posts using my Market Research experience and knowledge, I will create a Blog with useful sources in order to help businesses in fields like the followings: 

- Looking for information in secondary sources.

- Elaborating simple researches (prizing comparison, client satisfaction, segmentation, etc.).

- Helping them to identify problems about their products, prices, promotions or placement.

- Finding business opportunities. 

- Statistical and Business software support. 

These are the main points I will write about. Anyway, I would like to add, step by step, new types of content and make a really useful and complete Blog. 

The Blog is called "Save your Business" and here you have a preview:

+13. Second goal: Running a Marathon

So far I have been able to run a Half Marathon. Since 2010 I run and participate in popular competitions. In less than 4 years I have progressed from the point of running only 5 minutes in the Gym, to run more than 2 hours trough the mountain. 

Anyway I consider that it is not enough. I feel I can go one step further and I want to try it. I haven't still decided which Marathon I want to do. Probably I will try the Barcelona Zurich Marathon; however I may change my opinion. 

In order to do that, I will prepare myself to run again a half Marathon in November and with the goal of doing that in less than 1 hour and 35 minutes. 

If you ask me why I run, I would answer that I enjoy competing against myself. I like the feeling of being part of a group of runners with the same goals and sharing experiences between us. I enjoy calculating how much energy left I have or how fast should I run. It's also a hobby that I share with my brother and my girlfriend, and moreover it's very healthy. Finally it's also a good reason to have a great lunch afterwards.

Here I have a good plan to prepare that:

Marathon Training

DaniR

+14. First goal: Passing the CAE

Firstly, I would like to explain why I want to take the CAE exam:

Last time I officially studied English was almost four years ago, when I was in Norway. I know that my level is quite high, so I can communicate with everyone and I understand almost everything when I listen to the radio or I read a book. Anyway, I would like to refresh my knowledge and correct some mistakes I probably do and I am not aware of that. I should also learn more vocabulary.  

It's also a way to prove recruiters and companies that I have a really good command in English. And finally I could need the official certificate if I decide to work abroad. 

Once we have the reasons clarified, let's see how I am going to organize my time. 

I work 8 hours a day and I travel by train around 2. I don't work in the weekend so then I would have time to study. Anyway, I have no the intention of studying in a traditional way (you know: opening books, memorizing and doing exercises). I will do what I have been doing until today (reading, listening to the radio and talking with my English speaker friends), but also I will study some grammar (perhaps I read it in the train), I will watch more TV series in English and in some months I will start doing tests. 

As I said, I'm able to speak good English and I do not want to study to pass an exam. I want to pass an exam to prove what I really know. 

My sources will be, at this moment: 

Free online course

Online TV Series

Books from the library 

BBC Worldservice

I probably add some more during these next weeks. But so far, I think it would be enough.

By the way, one of the problems I will have would be the fact that I'm also studying German (level B1). 

DaniR

+ 15. The Idea

The year I Advanced.

What is it about?

It is a project I have been elaborating since last February. The purpose of it is to show how in 365 days from the first of May I achieve some of the most important goals I promised one day I would. These goals are the following ones:

- Passing the Advanced English level exam (I'm spanish).

- Running a Marathon.

- Creating a Blog where I can show my Marketing and Market Research knowledge in order to help small businesses.

- Creating a website from zero.

- Playing 20 entire songs with my guitar.

- Being able to bake delicious cakes and cooking my own bread.

In this Blog I'll explain, day by day, how I prepare all this. Sometimes I will focus into the Advanced Exam, some other days I'll talk about running, guitar, etc. Anyway, in order to do that, I'll have to prove these next skills:

- Perseverance.

- Plan.

- Time optimization.

- Writing.

- Information synthesis.

- Self Motivation.

- Creativity.

Hopefully in less than a year all that will be not an idea or challenge, but a reality.

In the next 6 entries I will talk about every goal.

DaniR