Rubiking

So I got this Rubik's cube last week from my Google buddy. Ordinarily, that's the sort of thing that frustrates me too much to spend a whole lot of time on. I twisted it up a bit, and then left it alone. But then the next day, Misha came by our office, picked up Kimmy's cube, and started twisting it around until he had two layers solved. That impressed me, so I got him to show me how to solve one layer. It actually wasn't that bad, once I got the concept for it in my head. But after a couple days, I started wanting more. Google turned up lots of sites with solutions, but I chose Lars Petrus' page since it has nice, animated diagrams of all the steps. It was still really confusing, but the thought of having a solution all laid out and within reach kept me going for a while yesterday afternoon and this morning. I liked the steps that were limited to twisting only two or three sides, since that way even if I was flailing a bit, I couldn't mess up the parts I had already gotten right. I also had an easier time grasping what exactly was going on. The steps that effectively said "here is a long sequence that will magically work" were a lot trickier. I still don't get exactly how they all work, and if I messed up somewhere in the middle then I'd just be completely lost. Twice I got all the way to the last step (two layers, and the face of the last layer solved) and totally screwed it up and had to start all over. But in the end, I actually managed to get it solved, so I am rather proud of myself now, even if I did have to follow instructions all the way. Now I'm just debating whether to leave my cube all solved and beautiful, or to mess it up again, so I can have another go at it. Hmmmm.