Sometimes I wish I could change the world as easily as I can change a computer program.
I don’t think the time will ever come that we can do this to change the world… However, I will always hope there will be new releases every few weeks that make more progress and make it better.
Thanks Elvis for the concept.
I have the flu. I don’t have time to sleep. I have major projects to finish.
This sucks.
I hope to post again when I am through this hell.
I have been going to RIT for a while. Grad school is still fairly new to me, and it really has been the first time I have been challenged. The work isn’t particularly hard, but the most difficult part is the intense amount of work expected. Throw in the 20 hours of tutoring and teaching I do, and I start running out of time fast.
What does this mean? It means that I spent last night’s exciting superbowl in my living room with my laptop coding (although, to be fair, I was pretty much only paying attention to football by the 4th quarter). I was hoping to draw a comic last night after the game, but since I was experiencing a delightful bug with glassfish, I was unable to get to it. This is a direct side effect of “crunch time”.
Weekends are assumed to be spent in the labs now, be it for tutoring or to try to get my projects done. I knew this coming in, but it starts to get worse and worse as the quarter ends. Since RIT has 10 week quarters, when the crunch starts to come, the best students are the ones that are adept at the art of triage. Which assignment is worth most? Which assignment has the closest due date? How much will not doing this assignment hurt me? These are not good questions to have to ask, but in a student-academic setting it happens a lot.
(several paragraph rant on homework assignments deleted, perhaps I will write an post on it another day)
So, it is crunch time here at RIT. You can see it in the eyes of the students, you can start to hear the sense of urgency in their voices. General grumpiness levels are up due to lack of sleep, and labs are starting to get more and more crowded as the final weeks tick away. Not much can be done to prevent the inevitable, but some thing can be done to keep yourself sane.
Making sure that you get to at least spend a little bit of time a day to do something fun (be it playing pool, playing a video game, watching TV, or hanging out with a friend for a meal) is vital to keep yourself from burning out, and burn out is the worst thing that can happen here. Shutting down at the worst possible moment, the last week of the quarter, is what needs to be avoided at all costs. So, grab that cup of coffee with a friend, let your brain reset before getting back to work.
Do at least one big thing that is fun a week. If it is going to a party on Friday night, or maybe going out bowling with friends, it is what you have to use to drive yourself to make it through the week. Think of it as the reward for accomplishing the work you have been doing all week. Make sure you don’t get too crazy, because I know programming with a hangover sucks, but make sure you relax.
Smile. Please Smile. This is the toughest one for me. Despite the scientific proof that smiling is actually good for you, this is just as much about keeping everyone around you from getting more and more down. Seeing someone smile is… rare… here at RIT. Try to make the last few weeks of the quarter as painless as possible for yourself and everyone around you - if you smile, it adds that little bit of happiness to the environment you are in… and if enough people do it, maybe the end of the quarter will just be busy and stressful, but not depressing and painful.
I ordered Chinese food today for when I was working in the labs. I finished it off then broke open the fortune cookie.
Be direct, usually one can accomplish more that way.
Now, lately I have been getting some pretty lame fortunes, but for some reason this one didn’t seem too bad. Sure, you can usually get better advice from a good friend then from a cookie (although, that can be iffy!), but sometimes hearing a ‘wise’ saying kinda gets your mind ticking.
Beating around the bush never helped anything. Of course, sometimes it is tactful to be subtle, but usually being direct is an appreciated change to todays really passive, polite culture. I personally can’t think of time where it is truly better to be indirect with someone… short term yes, but nothing really in the long term. Anyone have any ideas?
….and I just got an idea for a comic.. hmmm. Stay tuned!
Classes here started back up this week, and I have become frustrated at how little time I have to do my side projects. It’s not that I really should be working on these side projects, but it gives me a much needed release from the constant thinking about current classwork that my brain really needs.
I find that in my standard day at school (which is about 10-14 hours a day), I am tutoring about 30-50% of the time - even if I don’t have tutoring hours. The rest of the time is me fighting to try to stay ahead in a course. This is frustrating. Even after getting ‘ahead’, I fall behind in another. This constant back and forth is definitely not good for my stress levels!
Perhaps the bigger problem can be explained by this crappy graph I drew.
As clearly shown, when I get more and more work to do, I have a larger and larger urge to blog. However, since I have less and less time to spend on side projects, I get less blogging done. Shame really. I have a few articles that I really want to write.. particularly about Hyperconnection (that article is about 1/3 done actually) and the differences between Business People and Technology People.
Luckily, this quarter I have a programming class that is letting me get my programming fix out of the way (last quarter was rough without writing any code), so I really just look forward to having time to devote to writing and drawing. We shall see if I am able to find the time to write and draw more though. Even now I am writing this entry while I TA for a class, and have been pulled away several times to help students. I just hope I have some time to sit down and write!
After spending a few days in Boston - and more importantly, spending a few minutes at home resting after the long ride back - it’s time to write about the trip! Overall it was an excellent experience… it was nice to see a few of my friends that are living out in Boston, and it was also nice to bring a few of my friends out there with me to experience First Night!
Boston was pretty awesome today - except for when I fucked up plans with Jay (which got fixed)…
I was able to hang out with Morgan! We went to a bar and grill for lunch and saw the new National Treasure movie (overall, the movie was alright).
I also got to see Jay - after a serious snafu that I feel really bad about! Next time I will be sure to do a better job of communication with everyone when we try to meet up!
Again - I’ll write more about the whole Boston trip - but not until I get back to Rochester (Jan 1st).
Tomorrow will be a blast I hope… First Night in Boston!
I got home from Buffalo Wild Wings tonight in an, amused mood, to say the least. Sure, I was a little tipsy from the beer, and sure, it was past 2am and I was beginning to get a little lethargic. However, something interesting happened tonight… I finally got up the courage to talk to a waitress I had a class with years ago. Don’t shun me yet, I really am not that creepy. I told her she looked familiar, she replied that I looked familiar as well, and we eventually struck up conversation about it. Yes, I knew exactly how I knew her, but I couldn’t come out and say it - that would be … awkward - but I was able to maintain nice chatting for a while. By the end of the night, we had determined that it was the class that we were in together. Ok cool. Not much of a story though right? Right.
Yes, I facebooked the waitress, and her status was engaged (I was a bit sad, but whatever). However, Discussion about tonight sparked an interesting conversation with a friend. My friend is a great guy, but he is jaded. He says it is just real life that caused him to be this way, but he brought up a good point.
Girls today aren’t what girls were when we were growing up.
Well, of course there is normal cultural change, but, my friend argues that most women are (paraphrasing) loose, crazy, cheaters, bitches, unwilling to have true relationships, self-serving, slutty, (and he goes on..). Well, I wasn’t quite ready to swallow that. I have lots of female friends that don’t fall into any of those categories.
Well. Several.
Ok, Ok… a couple.
I am not kidding. I tried to think about all the girls I am friends with… and to be honest I can count on my hand the ones that do not fit into ANY of those categories, or haven’t since I’ve known them. Why is this?
What an hour to still be awake. Here comes the stream of consciousness
I kind of have to look at this past week and describe it as one stupid event after another. I put my foot in my mouth several times, I upset my best friend, Had other friends stop talking to me all together, and of course, I got even more behind on all my classwork.
However, I also used this week to try to really continue with my ‘reinvention‘. I was notably more outgoing at no voice zone. I also forced myself to just talk to people. Sure, all of the things I did may have caused some of the undesirable consequences mentioned before, but… it was worth it?
I find I haven’t been able to sleep lately. I need to listen to music to lull me to sleep - and it has never been that way before. Not totally sure if this will get better when break hits at the end of the week.
Speaking of. Is it Friday yet?
I have been programming in JAVA again as of late. My XML class project seems interesting, and in my excitement I have been putting that assignment on the top of my queue…. much to the dismay of my other courses (if they cared?). I wrote a pretty nifty drag tool. Maybe if I get some time when its not so late to post the logic behind it.. I will.
I think I may withdraw from my Beers of the World class right before the last day to withdraw… only so I can spend more time on other homework than it… because seriously, even an hour of working on homework for a class that is of no credit value to me as a grad student is silly when I have hours of other work to do.
I’ve been listening to music I haven’t listened to in a while, including Lucky Boys Confusion, Bon Jovi and Shades Apart.
I think I need to leave Rochester. I already know I am going to Boston over the break to work on TAP, but I really don’t know if that will quench my thirst. It might be time to throw a dart at a map and just do it.
I need to meet someone new that intrigues me.
I also need to sleep. So, here goes attempt 2.
I have decided, it is time to reinvent myself. No, I am not going to be any different then my friends know me. In fact, I will be more like me than ever before. I am just going to make sure I stay that way.
Goals
It’s been a long time coming, but maybe this will be what I need to do to get me out of my recent funk. I will force myself to work out every day. If I can’t get to the gym (since I usually can’t), I will at very least do push-ups or sit-ups when I wake up. I will start wearing cologne more. I will dress so I look good, every day I can.
I will not be afraid to blow it around a pretty girl, I will act myself, if I crash and burn… so be it. It never bothered me before RIT, why should it bother me now?
Most importantly, I will be myself. I always put up a slightly different facade around different people… it is time to tear that down.
This moment marks the start of my reinvention. My reinvention, to the way I used to be.
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