Can't sleep...
Not surprising, since, for the past 2 weeks, I've stayed up nearly consistently 'till 6 am. I don't know why I thought I could go to bed at 2 am today >.<
I've been in bed for about an hour, just thinking about things.
Firstly, I want to know when I'm going to die. You know, just... from a hypothetical standpoint, if I had the choice between knowing when I am going to die and leaving it a mystery (with neither choice actually affecting the date), I'd choose to know when. If I let it sneak up on me, I can imagine that, no matter what part of my life it is, I'd look back and wish I'd done things differently or tried something that I no longer had time to try. You know... lots of regrets. But one thing that's remained consistent for these past couple of years - although plenty of things about me have changed - the goal of my life is to end it with no regrets. So, along those lines, if I knew when I was going to die, I could plan things accordingly. I'd try pot and heroine or whatever, if I still felt like it, during the last couple of weeks of my life. I'd be less procrastinatory - I wouldn't say "I'll do it ... later" if I knew I was going to die before that "later" happened. Or, further, if I knew when I was going to die, I wouldn't stress out so much over due dates and things that are impossible to accomplish. I'd just mark them off as a loss and move on with my life, because regretting them would be just that much more time wasted.
Meh, I dunno if that was as well-said as I'd wished, but whatever.
I also laid in bed wondering what to do with my life. Mostly in the future... what am I going to do? Am I going to program for Blizzard or become an experimental scientist? What steps do I need to take to reach those goals? Should I decide now, to maximize the time spent in my chosen field, or should I just... let time pass and see where it takes me? There's nothing that says, though, that I'll know what I want to do after I finish Grad School... and I don't wanna spend 8 years in college just to start flipping burgers. It seems to me that if I want to start up a bakery, then I should start aiming for that now. If I want to start programming for Blizzard (or a similar company), then I should point myself in that direction. If I want to become a scientist, then I suppose I should start picking up more science courses and learning more about the science I'm interested in - Physics - instead of letting the difficult subjects get the better of me.
The thing is, though, if I'm going to be a programmer, I have no real need for Physics or even math. Most - if not all - of the programming I'd be likely doing would involve math I fully understand and can figure out mostly on my own (with maybe a little help from my Calc books). If I want to start programming, then the biggest obstacle in my way is... programming. I feel that I have all of the basic ideas I need, I just need to learn to implement them and start getting my toes wet in the "problems of programmers" so to speak. I need to start programming things and building my experience, learning what obstacles I'm likely to encounter and figuring out how to overcome them with the mathematical and logical tools I currently have. I seriously doubt that there are too many mathematical/logical tools that I don't have at my disposal that would be useful to a programmer.
But I don't really want to give up on the potentially awesome status points of a Ph.D. in Mathematics. But... I don't want to waste time striving for a difficult goal if it's not going to help me in life, either. Basically I'm back to the "Full Sail or Grad School" debate. I don't know... I've decided to graduate from FAU, for sure. I just don't KNOW with any certainty what I want to do after that. I mean... theoretically, I could get my Ph.D. later in life; of course, I could just as well go to Full Sail after I get my Ph. D.
*sighs* My right leg hurts, and has been hurting for some while... and I don't know why. Stretching doesn't help. Ugh... growing pains? Doubtful.
I can't get over thinking that I'm not smart enough for any career I choose, though. I know lots of people think I'm smart, and I don't deny that. I just don't think I'm "talented." Par exemple, when I think about my career at Blizzard, the first thing that pops into my head is "find out how other people got their jobs there." I don't know if that's a good thing or not... on the one hand, it implies that I'm a follower; I like to know how to do something and then just follow the steps they took to achieve the same goal. It implies that I don't have a knack for figuring out new ways to solve problems, just that I'm really good at learning methods to solve problems, storing them in the back of my head, and re-hasing them when the proper situation occurs.
On the other hand, I kind of just want to know how hard it is to get a job there. If they hire just really nice people who communicate well and solve problems well (even if they don't figure out new ways to solve them) then it should be relatively easy to get in... and that's all I want to know. If they only hire geniuses who Microsoft competes for, then I know to either set my standards really high and my hopes really low or to just look elsewhere. Part of me just wants to know what my chances are, not necessarily a path to cardboard success.
But... of course, this kind of thinking makes me question my currently educational plan. It's pretty obvious to me that I want to be a programmer of some sort. The idea of staying up late at night, drinking Dr. Pepper and talking with friends about how to make an awesome game (and then staying up even later and coding those ideas into reality) still sounds amazingly awesome. I get all ... excited just from the thought of that. And thus, if my dream is really so vivid and solid... why am I wasting my time in college? I could save plenty of time and money if I started on the path to Blizzard Programmer next Fall. But... of course... what precisely is that course? Again, it comes back to me wanting to know what other Blizzard Programmers have done... I just want to know if it'll be more useful for me to get a Ph. D. in math or if I'd be better off going to Full Sail and learning all of the current techniques.
And, of course, it cycles back to the first hypothetical situation... I'd rather know than find out later. I want to KNOW the path to take, I don't want to follow some arbitrary path and find out where it takes me. I want to know the path, so I can decide whether to take it, alter it, or avoid it altogether. I don't necessarily want to follow it... maybe I can spy one that's easier, or one that's more fun, or one that takes some interesting side-trips through areas that I'm interested in. But that's what I want: I want a template.
The next quest(ion) is, of course, to figure out how to get that template. Do I call Blizzard? Do I drive over there? Will and e-mail suffice? I don't know. I just wish I were friends with a developer. More generally, I wish I had a better clue on how to get what I want... and, of course, most generally... I wish I knew exactly what I wanted.
Whatever I want, though... it remains abundantly clear that I need to stop slacking. I need to remind myself of this more often... because if I continue on this path of slacking through everything and just barely breezing by, I don't think I'll make it in the professional world that I'm interested in participating in. Sure, I may get a second-rate programming job at a company that I despise (but pays well), but without a true commitment to quality and a dependable attitude, I doubt I'll ever succeed at landing a job in the pristine working quarters at Blizzard.
Right now, the only real thing I wish I could do is sit here and program something worthwhile. But... the thing is I feel limited by my artistic capabilities in regards to creating my own game. I could create all of the mechanics for the game, but without a good artist to supply me with custom images (or without sitting down and learning a heluva lot about art and computer-rendering it) I don't feel like I could make a finished product worth looking at. Of course, if that's my only problem, and I feel that my grasp of the mechanics on how to create the game are sound, then I clearly don't need to waste my time "practicing" those, and should instead spend time learning new techniques... like graphical rendering. That way I'm even more useful all-around. Then comes the problem that learning graphical rendering is not easy to do alone... I've tried and failed pretty miserably. I really need a course so that I can sit down and have someone teach me the techniques of 3d Graphical Design. And, of course, they don't offer those at FAU ever or at USF over the summer (and I clearly can't attend USF over the not-summer). So, basically, I can't learn to make art unless I'm at a school that teaches such a thing during the regular school year... a school like Full Sail. But I'm not attending Full Sail until after my Bachelor's Degree, right? That means I can't start combining my programming with graphics until after I get my Bachelor's. Which means that I can't do ANYTHING except practice skills I already feel are well-tuned until I get out of FAU. Basically, then, I can't do anything at FAU for the next two years to get me closer to my goals in life... which makes me wonder if I should bother with these next two years at FAU. If they're not helping me get closer to my goals, why should I stay? To get a Bachelor's degree that's basically going to be a safety net if the whole "Programmer" thing doesn't work?
What kind of life would I lead if I preluded every major move in my life with a huge safety net? A relatively boring, long drawn-out life, with lots of time spent doing things that I'd rather not be doing. So... again... should I just give all this the shaft and go to Full Sail next year?
Last year, the main argument against Full Sail were the people. I liked the people at FAU, and I felt at home here. This has changed, somewhat. I still like all the same people I did last year... but I've not made any new friends or strong bonds. I'd definitely prefer to go to the same school as Cass and Sean, because they're really awesome people... but Cass and Sean won't really help me toward my long-term goals. Further, most of the interaction I currently have with them is over the on-line or in the rare classes that I attend. I don't feel that my relationship with Cass would be terribly diminished as a result of me going to a different college. It'd suck not to be able to see him as much, but I'm fairly certain I could cope. We'd still talk online and play WOW together. Sean... I dunno about Sean. He doesn't have a computer, anymore, so we don't talk online (not that we really did, in the first place). Sean and I have been friends in a surprising fashion... the "typical" way. I'd call him, we'd do HW together. He'd wake me up for class when I slept in too late... he'd come over to my room if he needed reassurance that HW didn't matter. We'd lose that if I left... and that's about all we have. I can't see myself really talking to Sean if I leave... not because I don't want to but because there's no other way for me to talk to him. As for everyone else... it'd be like King, as much as it may hurt anyone reading this to hear... but, yeah, I don't exactly want to leave, but I wouldn't terribly miss them either. I don't know a better way to put it, because I'm not that good with words. I enjoy the friendships that I have hear, and I enjoyed the friendships I had at King... but I imagine I'd miss Katie, Glenn, Garreth, and Yuliy just about as much as I miss Shuo, Alex, Nick, and Meera. Atalia, Sean, and Cass would probably earn a place in my heart closer to Minoo, Amanda, and Reese... but, yeah. I didn't have any PROBLEMS leaving any of the people from King, and I doubt I'll have any problems leaving people here. Again, it's not something that I'd do without serious consideration or without good reason, but I believe I could emerge psychologically healthy if I left FAU... I guess that's what I mean.
This is why sometimes I wish I spoke without concern for what it meant. Please, if you read the paragraph above and were offended in any way, please please please reconsider your emotion and accept the reasoning that I'm not good with words and that I typed something that was only tangentially true to what I meant. If you feel it necessary, of course, to hate me after that, I guess that's fine too. Just know that I didn't MEAN to offend anyone.
So... FAU or Full Sail next year? The question remains... and, at least for the moment, Full Sail isn't sounding like such a bad option as it was last year. I need to talk to someone about this, I think. I'll see what my parents think... mostly my mom, since my dad is likely to belittle my choice and assume that I'm acting irrationally and impulsively.
I'm thinking about quitting WOW. Not seriously, but considering its effects. It seems to me that if I quit WOW, it's likely that I'll be more inclined to be productive. I consider writing this entry productive, by the way. I had to make the conscious effort to not start WOW up, which led me to type this entry.
I think that's about it for this entry, though. I've said enough for one early morning, and I'm fairly certain Sara will be late for school if she reads this and wakes up late (which is likely, since she stayed up late).
I've been in bed for about an hour, just thinking about things.
Firstly, I want to know when I'm going to die. You know, just... from a hypothetical standpoint, if I had the choice between knowing when I am going to die and leaving it a mystery (with neither choice actually affecting the date), I'd choose to know when. If I let it sneak up on me, I can imagine that, no matter what part of my life it is, I'd look back and wish I'd done things differently or tried something that I no longer had time to try. You know... lots of regrets. But one thing that's remained consistent for these past couple of years - although plenty of things about me have changed - the goal of my life is to end it with no regrets. So, along those lines, if I knew when I was going to die, I could plan things accordingly. I'd try pot and heroine or whatever, if I still felt like it, during the last couple of weeks of my life. I'd be less procrastinatory - I wouldn't say "I'll do it ... later" if I knew I was going to die before that "later" happened. Or, further, if I knew when I was going to die, I wouldn't stress out so much over due dates and things that are impossible to accomplish. I'd just mark them off as a loss and move on with my life, because regretting them would be just that much more time wasted.
Meh, I dunno if that was as well-said as I'd wished, but whatever.
I also laid in bed wondering what to do with my life. Mostly in the future... what am I going to do? Am I going to program for Blizzard or become an experimental scientist? What steps do I need to take to reach those goals? Should I decide now, to maximize the time spent in my chosen field, or should I just... let time pass and see where it takes me? There's nothing that says, though, that I'll know what I want to do after I finish Grad School... and I don't wanna spend 8 years in college just to start flipping burgers. It seems to me that if I want to start up a bakery, then I should start aiming for that now. If I want to start programming for Blizzard (or a similar company), then I should point myself in that direction. If I want to become a scientist, then I suppose I should start picking up more science courses and learning more about the science I'm interested in - Physics - instead of letting the difficult subjects get the better of me.
The thing is, though, if I'm going to be a programmer, I have no real need for Physics or even math. Most - if not all - of the programming I'd be likely doing would involve math I fully understand and can figure out mostly on my own (with maybe a little help from my Calc books). If I want to start programming, then the biggest obstacle in my way is... programming. I feel that I have all of the basic ideas I need, I just need to learn to implement them and start getting my toes wet in the "problems of programmers" so to speak. I need to start programming things and building my experience, learning what obstacles I'm likely to encounter and figuring out how to overcome them with the mathematical and logical tools I currently have. I seriously doubt that there are too many mathematical/logical tools that I don't have at my disposal that would be useful to a programmer.
But I don't really want to give up on the potentially awesome status points of a Ph.D. in Mathematics. But... I don't want to waste time striving for a difficult goal if it's not going to help me in life, either. Basically I'm back to the "Full Sail or Grad School" debate. I don't know... I've decided to graduate from FAU, for sure. I just don't KNOW with any certainty what I want to do after that. I mean... theoretically, I could get my Ph.D. later in life; of course, I could just as well go to Full Sail after I get my Ph. D.
*sighs* My right leg hurts, and has been hurting for some while... and I don't know why. Stretching doesn't help. Ugh... growing pains? Doubtful.
I can't get over thinking that I'm not smart enough for any career I choose, though. I know lots of people think I'm smart, and I don't deny that. I just don't think I'm "talented." Par exemple, when I think about my career at Blizzard, the first thing that pops into my head is "find out how other people got their jobs there." I don't know if that's a good thing or not... on the one hand, it implies that I'm a follower; I like to know how to do something and then just follow the steps they took to achieve the same goal. It implies that I don't have a knack for figuring out new ways to solve problems, just that I'm really good at learning methods to solve problems, storing them in the back of my head, and re-hasing them when the proper situation occurs.
On the other hand, I kind of just want to know how hard it is to get a job there. If they hire just really nice people who communicate well and solve problems well (even if they don't figure out new ways to solve them) then it should be relatively easy to get in... and that's all I want to know. If they only hire geniuses who Microsoft competes for, then I know to either set my standards really high and my hopes really low or to just look elsewhere. Part of me just wants to know what my chances are, not necessarily a path to cardboard success.
But... of course, this kind of thinking makes me question my currently educational plan. It's pretty obvious to me that I want to be a programmer of some sort. The idea of staying up late at night, drinking Dr. Pepper and talking with friends about how to make an awesome game (and then staying up even later and coding those ideas into reality) still sounds amazingly awesome. I get all ... excited just from the thought of that. And thus, if my dream is really so vivid and solid... why am I wasting my time in college? I could save plenty of time and money if I started on the path to Blizzard Programmer next Fall. But... of course... what precisely is that course? Again, it comes back to me wanting to know what other Blizzard Programmers have done... I just want to know if it'll be more useful for me to get a Ph. D. in math or if I'd be better off going to Full Sail and learning all of the current techniques.
And, of course, it cycles back to the first hypothetical situation... I'd rather know than find out later. I want to KNOW the path to take, I don't want to follow some arbitrary path and find out where it takes me. I want to know the path, so I can decide whether to take it, alter it, or avoid it altogether. I don't necessarily want to follow it... maybe I can spy one that's easier, or one that's more fun, or one that takes some interesting side-trips through areas that I'm interested in. But that's what I want: I want a template.
The next quest(ion) is, of course, to figure out how to get that template. Do I call Blizzard? Do I drive over there? Will and e-mail suffice? I don't know. I just wish I were friends with a developer. More generally, I wish I had a better clue on how to get what I want... and, of course, most generally... I wish I knew exactly what I wanted.
Whatever I want, though... it remains abundantly clear that I need to stop slacking. I need to remind myself of this more often... because if I continue on this path of slacking through everything and just barely breezing by, I don't think I'll make it in the professional world that I'm interested in participating in. Sure, I may get a second-rate programming job at a company that I despise (but pays well), but without a true commitment to quality and a dependable attitude, I doubt I'll ever succeed at landing a job in the pristine working quarters at Blizzard.
Right now, the only real thing I wish I could do is sit here and program something worthwhile. But... the thing is I feel limited by my artistic capabilities in regards to creating my own game. I could create all of the mechanics for the game, but without a good artist to supply me with custom images (or without sitting down and learning a heluva lot about art and computer-rendering it) I don't feel like I could make a finished product worth looking at. Of course, if that's my only problem, and I feel that my grasp of the mechanics on how to create the game are sound, then I clearly don't need to waste my time "practicing" those, and should instead spend time learning new techniques... like graphical rendering. That way I'm even more useful all-around. Then comes the problem that learning graphical rendering is not easy to do alone... I've tried and failed pretty miserably. I really need a course so that I can sit down and have someone teach me the techniques of 3d Graphical Design. And, of course, they don't offer those at FAU ever or at USF over the summer (and I clearly can't attend USF over the not-summer). So, basically, I can't learn to make art unless I'm at a school that teaches such a thing during the regular school year... a school like Full Sail. But I'm not attending Full Sail until after my Bachelor's Degree, right? That means I can't start combining my programming with graphics until after I get my Bachelor's. Which means that I can't do ANYTHING except practice skills I already feel are well-tuned until I get out of FAU. Basically, then, I can't do anything at FAU for the next two years to get me closer to my goals in life... which makes me wonder if I should bother with these next two years at FAU. If they're not helping me get closer to my goals, why should I stay? To get a Bachelor's degree that's basically going to be a safety net if the whole "Programmer" thing doesn't work?
What kind of life would I lead if I preluded every major move in my life with a huge safety net? A relatively boring, long drawn-out life, with lots of time spent doing things that I'd rather not be doing. So... again... should I just give all this the shaft and go to Full Sail next year?
Last year, the main argument against Full Sail were the people. I liked the people at FAU, and I felt at home here. This has changed, somewhat. I still like all the same people I did last year... but I've not made any new friends or strong bonds. I'd definitely prefer to go to the same school as Cass and Sean, because they're really awesome people... but Cass and Sean won't really help me toward my long-term goals. Further, most of the interaction I currently have with them is over the on-line or in the rare classes that I attend. I don't feel that my relationship with Cass would be terribly diminished as a result of me going to a different college. It'd suck not to be able to see him as much, but I'm fairly certain I could cope. We'd still talk online and play WOW together. Sean... I dunno about Sean. He doesn't have a computer, anymore, so we don't talk online (not that we really did, in the first place). Sean and I have been friends in a surprising fashion... the "typical" way. I'd call him, we'd do HW together. He'd wake me up for class when I slept in too late... he'd come over to my room if he needed reassurance that HW didn't matter. We'd lose that if I left... and that's about all we have. I can't see myself really talking to Sean if I leave... not because I don't want to but because there's no other way for me to talk to him. As for everyone else... it'd be like King, as much as it may hurt anyone reading this to hear... but, yeah, I don't exactly want to leave, but I wouldn't terribly miss them either. I don't know a better way to put it, because I'm not that good with words. I enjoy the friendships that I have hear, and I enjoyed the friendships I had at King... but I imagine I'd miss Katie, Glenn, Garreth, and Yuliy just about as much as I miss Shuo, Alex, Nick, and Meera. Atalia, Sean, and Cass would probably earn a place in my heart closer to Minoo, Amanda, and Reese... but, yeah. I didn't have any PROBLEMS leaving any of the people from King, and I doubt I'll have any problems leaving people here. Again, it's not something that I'd do without serious consideration or without good reason, but I believe I could emerge psychologically healthy if I left FAU... I guess that's what I mean.
This is why sometimes I wish I spoke without concern for what it meant. Please, if you read the paragraph above and were offended in any way, please please please reconsider your emotion and accept the reasoning that I'm not good with words and that I typed something that was only tangentially true to what I meant. If you feel it necessary, of course, to hate me after that, I guess that's fine too. Just know that I didn't MEAN to offend anyone.
So... FAU or Full Sail next year? The question remains... and, at least for the moment, Full Sail isn't sounding like such a bad option as it was last year. I need to talk to someone about this, I think. I'll see what my parents think... mostly my mom, since my dad is likely to belittle my choice and assume that I'm acting irrationally and impulsively.
I'm thinking about quitting WOW. Not seriously, but considering its effects. It seems to me that if I quit WOW, it's likely that I'll be more inclined to be productive. I consider writing this entry productive, by the way. I had to make the conscious effort to not start WOW up, which led me to type this entry.
I think that's about it for this entry, though. I've said enough for one early morning, and I'm fairly certain Sara will be late for school if she reads this and wakes up late (which is likely, since she stayed up late).