CMPUT 410

This semester, I'm in a web development class.  Operating and developing my own site over the years has definitely prepared me a bit for this course.  For instance, when we covered HTML, JavaScript, PHP and mySQL I already knew them.  

But I'm still having a bit of trouble.  The trouble isn't that I don't understand the material.  No, my problem is something I struggle with a lot in university but for some reason don't imagine many of my classmates dealing with.  This problem also gets in the way occasionally in my psych classes (my minor is psych), believe it or not.

I know what you're thinking (aside from "come on, what's this problem you're having!?  The suspense is killing me! AAAARGH!"), why are we learning about HTML in a 400-level course?  That is due entirely to weird structure in the CS program.  Believe it or not, there's no earlier courses which cover HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.  Some projects in earlier courses required us to use them, but we never had to know them.

Academic strangeness aside, the problem I'm having is this: I'm over-anxious to apply the material to game design.  As soon as I learn a new concept/technique/language/whatever, my brain is drifting off imagining a way to apply it to games and experiment with it.  A course on web development is especially nasty for this, because it's just so damn applicable to my hobby.  As we're learning HTML and CSS, I'm thinking of redesigning my site.  As we're going over PHP and mySQL, I'm dreaming up all sorts of community-centered browser games.  

I could make the game in Flash, and users could exchange their content with the server in XML files!  I could do monthly updates, adding new functionality!  What's that?  The assignment's due tomorrow?  Well I'd love to work on it, but I'm really caught up in this other thing...  I'll just make sure to do well on the midterm.

What's that, the midterm's tomorrow?  Ah, crap.