(no subject)
Aaron, my sort-of boss, called me Wednesday afternoon with a list of tasks to be completed by Thursday morning. Before I could even start, I had to download the new Visual Studio for Web Dev and SQL Server Management Studio - each of which took about an hour to download and install. After installing, I had to set up a new database and fill it with sample patient data so that I could use it to test my application (a web app that displays patient information from a medical database, including MR scans). Setting up the database, of course, was a 3-hour adventure involving lots of googling for error messages as I learned how to use the new SQL Server manager, until I finally set all the permissions and myriad options correctly.
So, at that point it was late-ish, and I hadn't even wrote a single line of code. And, as I brewed some extra-strong tea for the long night ahead, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be working till dawn. And I did. But - it was FUN, in a way I forgot was fun. Lately, my job hasn't been challenging me enough, and I rarely have strict deadlines to motivate me to push myself. But as I wrote code, and tested, and rewrote, I remembered why I love my job, or at least my profession.
Dawn came, and I was exhausted, but finished. Finished, despite a database that corrupted around 4am and had to be reinitialized, and despite having only a vague knowledge of ASP .NET. Aaron logged on to MSN messenger at around 8am, as Marc was beginning to wake up beside me, and I told him I had finished the methods he asked me to write. Then - and I KNEW this was coming - he sent back: "great. now can you write the StudyRepeater and SeriesRepeater and update the SqlHandler class and have those done by midnight. kthx bye." I just shut my laptop and groaned.
I took a four-hour nap, then dove back into the coding, surfacing only to eat a smoked salmon omelete and to make more tea. I finished all the new modifications by 11pm, checked them in, then got ready to luxuriate in well-earned laziness.
And yet. I was wired from the caffeine, but also from productivity. I couldn't sleep. So, I decided that the best way to get my sleep schedule back to more "normal" hours was to stay up until the next night.
So, at that point it was late-ish, and I hadn't even wrote a single line of code. And, as I brewed some extra-strong tea for the long night ahead, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be working till dawn. And I did. But - it was FUN, in a way I forgot was fun. Lately, my job hasn't been challenging me enough, and I rarely have strict deadlines to motivate me to push myself. But as I wrote code, and tested, and rewrote, I remembered why I love my job, or at least my profession.
Dawn came, and I was exhausted, but finished. Finished, despite a database that corrupted around 4am and had to be reinitialized, and despite having only a vague knowledge of ASP .NET. Aaron logged on to MSN messenger at around 8am, as Marc was beginning to wake up beside me, and I told him I had finished the methods he asked me to write. Then - and I KNEW this was coming - he sent back: "great. now can you write the StudyRepeater and SeriesRepeater and update the SqlHandler class and have those done by midnight. kthx bye." I just shut my laptop and groaned.
I took a four-hour nap, then dove back into the coding, surfacing only to eat a smoked salmon omelete and to make more tea. I finished all the new modifications by 11pm, checked them in, then got ready to luxuriate in well-earned laziness.
And yet. I was wired from the caffeine, but also from productivity. I couldn't sleep. So, I decided that the best way to get my sleep schedule back to more "normal" hours was to stay up until the next night.