20031210   

I Feel Awful

Michael considered fate at 15:30   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

I Feel awful because I have not posted here for five days, and more significantly, I have had way more to post about in the last five days than I have had in a long time. Mostly stuff up in the head that's been bouncing around like balls of flubber in a rubber room but also a few stuff out in the real world that's worth sharing.

I Feel awful because I had to (read: made myself) take the latest incarnation of the GREs - the computerized GREs - the evvvvvil GREs. You see, I generally don't mind standardized tests. In fact, I like them. I'm one of those folks you hated in high school - jokers who had some sort of innate reasoning ability that allowed them to excel on these tests that were most likely written by like-minded test writers. Nevermind that a good SAT score will not help one change their tire in a snow storm, fix a clogged toilet, or eat healthy. Well.. sort of.. in an abstract way.. but not directly. Anyhow, this test was on a computer and I didn't like it.. despite being a computer programmer. There is something uncomfortable about trying to work out math problems on a screen. Something unhealthy. So I didn't much like taking the test and I didn't much feel good about it afterwards. The whole rest of the day I was queasy and on edge. I try to self-medicate with caffeine but that didn't seem to help. I slept close to 12 hours last night. I figure I deserve a sick day after taking that monstrosity of a quiz.

I Feel even more awful because I have to (read: am making myself) take the GRE Computer Science subject test. I imagine it's going to be worse than the regular one and it's on a Saturday. I think it's at 8am in the morning. I think I won't do very well since it's been close to three years since I've been involved with any sort of computer science on an academic level and that is exactly what this test is about. DFAs. Data Structures. Running Times. Crap us people in the real world of business machines do not worry ourselves about. Look at Windows - no faster now than it was 5 years ago despite the fact that computers now are easily 10 times the speed they were 5 years ago. What's that say? It says Billy Gates isn't too concerned about running time. It means he isn't too worried about using the most efficient data structure for a given task.

I Feel awful because something is nagging at me in the back of my brain. It's the sort of nagging feeling you get around Finals time at college.. That impending sense that something big is going to happen soon and it's going to effect you a lot. The only problem is I am not taking any finals. I am not at school. What am I waiting for? What is it that is coming? What's with the uneasy feeling? It's not the GREs because it's been building for a lot longer than that. It's not graduate school applications either. I couldn't say what it is, though.. I just know it's there, it's nagging, and it's driving me crazy.

Also, I haven't been eating great.