Now I'm Here

I've reached a tipping point--in fact I may already be moving past it. I can barely recollect, just a bit less than two months ago, when I first started working at CreditKarma. My memory isn't strong, so perhaps I am crossing this line earlier than most--or perhaps others, when they cross this line, have a greater appreciation for what's been left behind. Regardless, I'm feeling the newness slip away, and I don't yet know what's come to take its place. It's some kind of bad timing (that I hope will seem, in hindsight, to be perfect fate) that this was when I should break up with Sabrina. She bridged the gap between college, job-seeking, and my entrance into "real life", and I am incredibly grateful for the way she eased that transition. It feels cruel of me to reward her only by moving on... but I must stop thinking this way. It wasn't something I chose, and I certainly would have chosen differently if it had been in my power to decide.

In any case, it symbolically if not literally cuts my last tie to the past that feels so distant, and so recent. And although at the moment I feel rather lost, I can't say it left me with nothing. I have a job, one which I don't have to merely tolerate, which brings me more security and material comforts than I have ever experienced. And I have in her a friend, at the very least, who if time allows may even provide guidance in finding a more fitting, fulfilling relationship. I have other friends as well, here and there, and with time and luck I may even find out what makes that so crucial. I have everything I need, and more, and all I had to exchange for it was everything that I held close, and found comfort in. If only I could remember my past self, maybe he could convince me of how lucky I am.

Eureka, Again...

I was walking around Eureka today, taking some photos with my new camera, and as usual I got to thinking--this time about digital cameras. I've noticed them explode in popularity in just the last six years or so, concurrent with their meteoric rise in capability, to the extent that there is now hardly anything film can do that digital can't do better. The digital method is, although I admit some prejudice here, a much more logical (if not quite as straightforward) method of recording visual input, and it crossed my mind that if digital cameras came first, the analog method, when it surfaced, would seem quite unconventional and marvelously clever. Rather than interpreting the input and distilling it into data, the analog input is instead transferred directly to another physical format, one which is static and long-lasting. It is, when it comes down to it, another method of storage, but it is a method particularly suited to its domain.

This line of thought brought me to the wholly unoriginal insight that digital processing is designed to be domain-general. It still exists in the physical world, of course, but the physical has been distilled out of it to the greatest extent possible. The majority of processing is done by clever arrangements of a single physical object--the transistor--with domain-specific hardware needed only for the interfaces to the outside world (the buttons, the displays, the light sensors, etc.). "Processing" has been purified and commoditized, and in doing so has taken the concept of "economy of scale" to a level never before seen in human history. Like most commodities, there is a healthy amount of competition in processor development, and the product has been further refined and expanded upon... but it's still the same basic product.

Processing, as a concept, need not be limited to how we think of it today. Film cameras, after all, still process and store information in their own way, and although it is a highly domain-specific method, it is also highly efficient. By thinking of processing as a theoretical task, rather than a uniform commodity, I realized that the super-fast single-stream CPU that dominates computing today is not the only option--and that its monopoly may leave other potential approaches withering in the shadows. Multi-core processors are a step in a new direction, but they are still merely an adaptation of the existing paradigm, weighted down by the heavy burden of their pedigree. The tortured adaptation of popular programming languages in an attempt to ease parallelism is evidence that a fresh start is needed.

I'm aware, or at least I suspect, that stripping "processing" of some of its uniformity will injure one of computing's greatest strengths. Nevertheless I think it might be just what is needed to wring more concrete benefits from Moore's law. Even exponential advancement in single-stream processing will only produce minimal benefits for problems best suited to a parallel approach, and meanwhile the problems best suited to linear, step-by-step processing already have more than enough speed. Moore's law is creating a surplus of a currency we can't spend, and the exchange rates are usurious.

I should note, for the record, that this post was not researched, and there's a chance that all of this blathering might be nothing more than me reinventing a square wheel. I know that parallelism is not a new concept, and frankly I'd be surprised if a dedicated parallel programming language hadn't been invented by now (albeit perhaps an ancient, user-unfriendly language like Lisp or Haskell). I'm also not aware of the state of processing hardware, but there certainly seems to be something of a monoculture going on--at least in the commercial sphere. But I'm no stranger to intuiting existing insights, and it's actually kind of fun. If anything might be new in all of this rambling, it's the realization that processing is treated as a commodity, and that this unspoken assumption may be the root of today's difficulties in transitioning towards parallelism. Also, this post was not initially all about parallel processing--that's just the example that sprung to mind. My aim is to conceive of processing, even digital processing, as a broader concept than just the classic CPU. That's an insight... isn't it?

Discontempointment

(Alternative title: Discontinuity, disappointment, contentment.)

After I graduated, I expected some amount of discontinuity. I was hoping it wouldn't be a tumultuous change, but I knew that I was in for a whole lot of change, and I was even looking forward to it. But it hasn't come yet. I'm back at home--although it's not "going home", of course--and still trying to figure out how this new life will start. My old life seems to have ended, and thankfully it was gradual, but at the same time it lacks certainty. Oddly enough... I think Lost may have played a big role, too.

The show ended on Sunday night, by the way, and I ended up pretty disappointed in the writers. It was a great show, and the ending was equally great, but they don't match up--I feel like I watched the finale of some other show, that didn't have any big mysteries or sci-fi elements, but just characters interacting and going about their lives with some small amount of drama. Cheers, maybe. I suspected for some time that it would leave me disappointed, but... well, a major theme in Lost has been faith vs. reason, and you can probably guess which side I tend to fall on. Nevertheless, I kept watching in hopes that it would all make sense by the end--and if nothing else, Lost has certainly taught us the reward for faith.

But anyway, I had watched Lost pretty devotedly for the last four years or so, which was coincidentally the majority of my time at college. So the ending of Lost, if nothing else, at least provided a bit of discontinuity to mark the end of my college years. I wonder if that's enough.

Nothing New Under the Sun

You can consider this a wrap-up post for my academic career. I don't mean that I intend to stop learning, or even stop attending classes, but I've been going to school since I can remember, and in three weeks I won't be going to school anymore. I'm finally graduating from college, and at this point in my life I'd like to take a break--by which I mean I intend to enter the working world, rather than continue on to graduate school. It's only fitting that I should be reminded, now, about something I've noticed more and more frequently as I accumulated knowledge.

Don't take the title too literally--I am certain that there are things yet to be discovered. But as history piles up behind us, there seems to be less and less to discover. Humanity certainly knows more now than any single human could figure out on his own, even over an entire lifetime. As a result, a person's level of knowledge is more a measure of how exhaustively he has gathered up the lessons that others have learned. This isn't directly linked to years of formal education, of course... but it's not far off, either.

I speak from experience. Many times in the past, I have discovered something clever or insightful (often about philosophy, psychology, or the human condition), only to find out, sometimes years later, that it had already been discovered centuries ago, and written down for everyone to know. I'm not opposed to sharing knowledge... but the results of it can be disenchanting, sometimes.

I haven't mentioned it before because I could never recall a specific example. But in this case, it happened moments ago. I'm pretty sure I just figured out the Sieve of Eratosthenes.

There I was, moments ago, sitting around thinking about primes. (Not my usual occupation, I can assure you.) I started thinking about the quest for a pattern behind primes--a way to predict them. It occurred to me that there was a pattern, but it wasn't a pattern of primes. It was a pattern of factors. Imagine a number line of integers, with a line (like a sine wave) going along it, passing through 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. The integers it passes through are even numbers, and the gaps are not. The next number that occurs in a gap has another line starting at it, and recurring at 6, 9, 12, etc. There are now some overlaps (which may have significance, but not at the moment), but fewer gaps. Now repeat. It becomes a cornucopia of interwoven patterns, and the patterns are all very simple... but their interaction is not. No matter how many lines there are, there are always gaps. And as thick as the nest becomes, there's always another line arising from the prime in the gap, to add its pattern to the rest.

Which is a much better visual than the GIF in that Wikipedia page (just imagine all the primes glowing... and maybe the lines start out thick and taper as they go... isn't that pretty?). But I'm still kind of disappointed that someone else thought of it first. Rational or not... I feel as if I've arrived at a party thousands of years late, and all the beer's gone.

Searching for a Clearer View

I'm running on four hours of sleep, and not a whole lot from the previous few nights either, so at the moment (and probably for the rest of the day) I am wracked with the symptoms of sleep deprivation. Nevertheless, I have just caught a glimpse of what it might mean to be a "morning person".

Two things to note here: The first is my penprevious post, in which I used the term "incredible lucid solitude". The second is that I have resolved (only incidentally in January) to wake up at 6 am every day for the entire semester, on the grounds that I will adjust, and it will be easier than waking up at 6 am (thoroughly unadjusted) two days a week. Today was the first day in weeks that I've woken up so early, and I am quite emphatically Not Adjusted yet.

Anyhow, my point is that I have just experienced something akin to the normal lucidity that for me is more common to staying up incredibly late, not waking up incredibly early. The drowsiness has dulled it, of course, but I get the feeling that once I have adjusted, I'll have five days a week containing several hours of clearheadedness, insight, and inner peace. Assuming, of course, that I am capable of adjusting. I've never been a morning person, but I'm starting to see that it might not be so different from being a night owl, after all. Just colder.

Clam's Search for Meaning

Sometimes I feel as if I lead a charmed life. I feel privileged, knowing that I can achieve anything I put my mind to, and I remind myself not to take that privilege for granted.

But sometimes I get the feeling that I've been spending my life diligently avoiding any desires that can't be fulfilled. I can always have anything I want, as long as I'm careful about not wanting what I can't have. Far from being uplifting, this is really very sad. What it means is that I can't fail, so not only do I stop before attempting risky-but-surmountable heights, but I also avoid the learning experiences of failure. It's kind of a fox and the grapes thing, although I don't think I'm bitter about it.

This is an exaggeration, of course. I have taken risks before, and I have not led a life entirely free of failure. The degree of it, though, is really quite humbling. I've been trying to write my resume, and I've got it pretty well sorted out now, but I am choking on the "personal statement" part. I know that my first job out of college doesn't determine my entire career, but I'm expected to have some idea of what I want to do in life... a passion. And right now, I'm feeling pretty dispassionate.

It seems to me that the reason for this lack of passion is fear. What I'm going to do in a job is very different from what I've been doing in school, so by necessity my passion will be something I've never done before--I need to be moving forward, essentially. What that means is that I need to want something that hasn't been shown (through experience) to be achievable... so I feel like I'm taking a leap of faith. Yes, I know I've been learning this stuff in school, and I've even been pretty successful doing actual work at my internships. But it's still just far enough out there to give me fear, and we all know what the Bene Gesserit say about fear.

So what are my options? Well, if I'm opposed to stagnation (which, for the record, I am), it seems like there's no option but to face the fear and overcome it. Kind of platitudinous, I admit, but it's much easier said than done. How to face it is the real question. I'll get back to you when I figure out an answer.

Waking Up Is Hard to Do

Whenever I find myself scheduling an activity before 6 am (or, more likely, being scheduled), I generally choose to go without sleep rather than wake up that early. Funny that I've never noticed the pattern before, or at least never noticed how tenacious it is. It's not surprising, given that falling asleep can be a difficult thing to do on demand, while waking up on demand is merely painful, not hard to accomplish. In some cases it is the only sane option (as tonight, when the potential sleeping time was between drinking champagne at midnight and heading out at 4 am), and in some cases it can be insanely inadvisable (as my weekend trip to London, when I tried to save a night's hostel money by simply strolling around until my 6 am flight out). There ought to be something profound about the fact that I so despise waking up... or more importantly, the incredible lucid solitude only found at 5 am, when all the world's asleep.

At the moment, though, I can't think of what it is, and I'm just writing this down so I won't forget. I'm awfully tired, you see...

High Anxiety

I have a suspicion. I don't know how deeply I've gone into it on this blog, if at all, but the fact is I have a piercing fear of disapproval. Most people do, to some extent--humans are social animals, and being cast out of a group used to be a life and death thing during the long period over which we evolved. Stage fright is probably the most common manifestation. But I've got it bad. Recall the fear you feel while, say, giving a job interview. Now imagine if that sort of fear gripped you about such trifling matters as whether or not to make eye contact while walking past someone you recognize, but don't really know. Yeah, not fun.

Anywhoo, I've been plagued with this for all my life, it seems, and I've had no luck freeing myself from it, and precious little insight into it in the first place. But I've just had the suspicion of an idea. Perhaps this fear is not as maddeningly insubstantial as it seems. What if, instead of being a general fear of "doing it wrong" in any social situation, it was merely a fear of not knowing what it would be to do it right or wrong in the first place? This could explain the intensity of it; for me, at least, there is nothing worse than uncertainty. This could also be a first step towards easing it, as well. If it were merely a fear of failure, then there would be no defense besides mere conditioning: training myself to be less afraid of the possibility of failure; to accept it. But if it were merely the result of ignorance--of not knowing what to do--then the solution is simply education, which is much easier than training. It makes sense, too. I've always been a shy person, so it's no surprise that I find myself lacking the normal experience most people have with social situations. I had no idea the ramifications were so extreme, though.

Even assuming this suspicion is correct, there's still one problem. The rules of social interaction are not fixed, and they vary from person to person. There is no single set of rules to be learned, and I would also have to learn to gauge situations, to find out which set of rules applies at any given time. That's no easy task, and I'm not sure if it can be learned without a whole lot of hands-on experience... which, naturally, would be hard for me to acquire. After all, I'm not just afraid of social situations--I also don't care much for them to begin with. Maybe I should go to finishing school.

Jumping to Conclusions

Just a moment ago I was kind of frazzled. I was handing in the first assignment in Calculus, and it was almost painfully easy--just a single problem, that required nothing more complicated than an application of the Pythagorean theorem. In fact as I was writing it, the math teachers from my past were chiding me in my head that I wasn't "showing my work". The paper looked awfully bare... but there was nothing to show, really. There was no work involved. But the professor rejected the assignment as I was handing it in, saying that I should have written out the question (it was a word problem, by the way, three or four sentences of text describing a single equation), and I shouldn't have written it in pen, and that she would give me a low grade for that reason if I handed it in as-is.

As I was walking out of class, I was feeling kind of upset by this, and briefly considered writing a three-page essay with nested footnotes describing in all possible detail (and then some) the thought processes that went on behind the solving of this problem. In the end all I did was write a blog post about professors who value style over substance--or perhaps are unable to appreciate substance without the proper style. And as I was typing away on my laptop, the professor walked up to me out of the blue, and apologized. She said that she was just trying to set an example, more for the other students than for me (because she had been my precalc teacher and she knew that I wasn't at the same level as most of the other students), and that what seems silly now is necessary to get coherent assignments back from the class when the problems started getting harder.

Needless to say I was mollified, and as I thought about it more I realized that I had noticed that earlier in class the professor was kind of put-off by the questions that other students asked, and the deep lack of understanding thereby revealed. Her response as I tried to turn in the assignment was likely colored by some amount of frustration, and frankly the paper looked pretty desolate. So, once again, I'm simply trying to get through the day, and I nevertheless find myself thrown on an emotional rollercoaster, and learning a valuable lesson besides. And there's a little synchronicity thrown in to take the point home.

The post I started writing was titled "little tyrants". I thought that I remembered the phrase from somewhere, and I decided to look it up to give proper credit, or at least not mangle the original intent of the phrase. I never found out where it came from, but the first Google search that came up was a conservative echo chamber. Please read the post--it's short, and your eyes won't melt a whole lot. Here's the key phrase:

"I am not willing to assume the presence of facts not in evidence that would have recast their behavior in an acceptable light."

This phrase struck a chord with me, because I've known for a long time that this position is thoroughly inadvisable. This particular event was just one in a long string of experiences which taught me the importance of reserving judgement. It's very easy to hear about a situation, or even be in one, and think you know all the facts. If you look at the other side of an issue, there is almost always more information that you weren't aware of. It's very easy to be convinced of something if you're entirely unaware of the facts of the other side. And once you're convinced of something, it's just one small step away from rejecting contradictory evidence, and then you have a feedback loop.

Open your mind from the start, and do your darndest to keep it that way. It needs the fresh air.

In Absentia

It's difficult to appreciate something in its absence. Ironically enough, this also applies to the appreciation of the absence of something. Say an annoyance, or physical pain. It's easy to look forward to relief, and enjoy the relief as it comes, but once it is gone we quickly return to base levels of happiness. This is true for just about everything, but it seems to happen even faster with negative stimuli.

Specifically I am referring to the dormitory I was living in this summer. It was a pretty awful place, and I couldn't wait to leave. But I have to say that the pleasant, warm feeling I got from being away from that place was more intense while I was still there, merely anticipating it. It was nice for the first hour or so, but a mere day or two after leaving, I find it difficult to enjoy the simple pleasures of quiet, companionship, and sanitation to the extent that I had expected. I'm not going to define myself by what I've left, but I would like it if I could remember it well enough to be thankful.

Return to Bremen

Last year I spent a semester in Bremen. When I found out I was going back to Germany this summer, I decided I couldn't pass up the chance to visit friends that I had met, and see Bremen again. But things came up, and time went by, as it is wont to do, and it was starting to look like I wouldn't get to visit at all. With that in mind, I decided last Thursday that I should travel to Bremen on Saturday, just for a day, because it was the last day that could possibly work. So I did, and... well, it was at once exactly what I expected, and nothing like I had expected. And I think I'm glad that I went, but I'm not sure how I feel about it, even now.

When I arrived in Bremen it was just like I expected. Everything looked familiar, as if I had never left, and I wandered around the city center like a local (or maybe a local with a camera). It was nice to see the city again, the weather was pleasant, and I took some good photographs. I went for a walk in the park, ate at a cafe, and generally had a nice time. But because of the scheduling rush, and various other coincidences, I never ended up meeting anyone I met last year. Some fell out of touch a long time back, some more recently, and others simply couldn't make it that day... but I just realized that the same applies for this entire summer. I haven't met a single person that I met last year. Not one. It was a strange experience. And then, just a few hours later, I got on the train and left town again. Lately it seems like I can't go anywhere without leaving somewhere else.

Crowded Life

(How about a little original fiction to spice things up?)

It was hard at first. The food was awful, and the living space was cramped. Each resident could clearly hear every word uttered by the neighbors; there was no privacy at all. And there was precious little social atmosphere, either--each resident kept to himself, appearing almost fearful of making eye contact, of stepping outside of their own little boxes. They each had their own little distractions, and whether it be a book, an electrical gadget, or merely one's own mind, it kept the fear of human contact and the boredom of the long waking hours at bay. Beyond this there wasn't much to say. At night they slept: a difficult, uncomfortable task made easy only by long repetition.

It was hard at first, harder than anyone had expected it to be. No one had expected to spend their lives this way... it's simply how things worked out. And if they could find no comfort in this life, then at least there was the certainty that their children would be better off. The childless were the most resistant, and it was months before their mourning was no longer heard. Living in such a packed mass of humanity, although it set up rebellious thoughts in some, had over time a profound homogenizing effect. When one is faced with a situation one cannot change, one simply must adapt. Even an impossible reality must be accepted as reality. Although unspoken, this was the consensus they had all reached, in the first few months after they discovered that their plane was not going to land. It hadn't crashed, either, after approximately three years... although by now everyone had stopped counting. The food kept coming in little sealed trays, and they never ran out of crushed ice or cola. It wasn't so bad, once they got used to it.

It was hard at first. But it got easier.

Students

Recently I've been in Heidelberg for a meeting of all the RISE students in Germany. And I have to say, it feels like I'm a high school student again. I'm surrounded by stereotypical examples of my age group, universities are vying for my attention, and we're all being herded extremely inefficiently to our crowded rooms, halfhearted events, and cheap food. That sounds very negative, but it wasn't entirely intentional... that really is a pretty accurate description of what happens when one tries to wrangle students. But it's not all bad. Thursday was fun--I saw one or two graduate programs that looked intriguing, and it was nice to feel wanted again. But today was kind of a dud. You see, this program generally caters to the hard sciences, such as biology, chemistry, and particularly engineering. The reasons for this are obvious--the grant money comes from the German government and various German industries, and they are all interested in gaining the most profitable talent for their country/company. There were a few computer science opportunities grouped under "software engineering", and I snuck in on one of those, but today when we did our company visits, I was lumped in with the engineering group. We went to visit Bosch, where we saw an assembly line making fuel injectors, and we also visited the Porsche museum. I got the feeling the engineers were happy enough, but I was bored out of my mind.

Afterwards we went to a dinner, which was nothing special... had some good conversations and okay food, at least. But then, as students do, we all got separated and wandered around the city looking for bars. Our group wound up fragmenting and reforming in some very organic ways, and the entire time everyone was talking intently about where to go, without any decisions being reached. It was my intent from the very beginning to simply find the next bus back to the youth hostel, and I was merely following the other students because I thought, naively, that the general direction of the group might head that way. I was right, as it turned out, but it took almost two hours, and meanwhile I was treated to an endless monologue about every aspect of getting shitfaced drunk for as cheap as possible. (It wasn't just one person, but I hesitate to use the word "dialogue", because everyone just seemed to be shouting into the crowd and waiting for an echo to come back on a close enough subject to continue the "conversation". Amoebalogue, maybe?)

I'd like the emphasize that this... there, now I'm hesitating to even use the word "activity"... that this state of being was not restricted to the hours after dinner and before breakfast. Every waking hour I have been with these students has been the same loop playing over and over. Usually in the same order, too: how drunk we were last night... how drunk we're going to be tonight... how we can get as drunk as possible for as cheap as possible... how hung over we're going to be tomorrow morning. The different hours of the day are like the different states of matter--different behaviors emerge, and reactions are different, but in the end it's all just a bunch of atoms. Or, in this case, alcohols.

To summarize... this trip has been alright, except for all the students. And I am looking forward to having a nice restful Sunday.

Update: The last day was very similar to the second--the tour (this time of the castle overlooking Heidelberg) was quite boring to me, and when it was all over it just sort of... ended. We got together for a group picture, everyone applauded, and then the huge lump of 300 students slowly dissolved into the city. There was one thing that helped a bit, though. The "debriefing" on Saturday morning consisted mostly of a summary of how things went, and a lot of talking about how we were less rowdy than the previous group, and about how difficult it was for them to organize all of this. (Apparently they've only had like two full-time staff members organizing everything and answering emails for the last three months or so.) It may not sound like much of a motivational speech, but it was very humanizing. I think it really did a lot to prevent us from walking away griping about how shoddily this was all planned.

Theis Schmesis

For about a year now I've been actively contemplating graduate school. I'm getting my Bachelor's degree (barring misfortune) in just two more semesters. After that, the rules go away. Oh, they've been fading for a while, and college has been a great way to gradually transition into the concept of actual responsibility. But up to now I've always had a pretty well-defined "roadmap" for success. Every year a new class, every week a new assignment, every summer a few grades and a long vacation. This pattern has structured my years for literally my entire life--I can't remember a time when I wasn't in school. And it's been something of a crutch, too, at least for me. I crave structure. I fear making decisions. And although I've had to make a few vague choices about my future when applying to college, choosing my major, and taking classes, in one year I'm about to fall out of the structured, comfortable, predictable, guaranteed, reliable system, and into... what? Whatever it is, the transition isn't going to be structured, and it isn't guaranteed to be smooth.

So for about a year I've been contemplating the steep cliff in front of me. And I can see two options: get a job (career?), or go to graduate school. (I can't help but notice here that I've implicitly defined failure as "not an option". I wonder if I'll be chuckling about this in 12 months...) And I'm really not very familiar with either of them. I'm afraid that at some level the primary reason I want to go to graduate school is just to stay within a structured system--if true, I would consider that a "wrong reason", perhaps even a character flaw. But I can't tell if it's true. What I can say is that the thing that frightens me most about graduate school is the concept of the Thesis. And despite the two rambling introductory paragraphs, that's actually what I started this post intending to talk about.

You see, the Thesis scares me. But it just occurred to me that I don't know why. I hardly even know what it is! I suspect that all this "thinking about my future" that I've been doing has been nothing more than rehashing the precious little I know about what my future could be, rather than going out and actually researching what it would be like. My concept of a Thesis was only vaguely defined as being something along the lines of a 100+ page paper. I doubt anyone really enjoys writing papers, and in many cases it's been nothing more than drudgery. What's more, the drudgery has been directly linked to the length of the paper. Strangely enough, it only just occurred to me to look behind the mere stimulus-response of this learned aversion to paper writing, and figure out what was causing it. It's not all that surprising when looked at carefully: When taking six classes a semester, there's only so much time/effort/interest one can put into each class. And the greater the amount of work that an individual professor assigns, the more strained that already-small amount of time/effort/interet becomes. The result is often a whole lot of disingenuous boilerplate, which can quickly sour the entire paper-writing process.

But is a thesis different? I never asked myself that question before, but I think the answer is yes. I love to learn, and I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that having only one thing to learn at once, instead of seven, might make a huge difference in my motivation level. So far, in the last few weeks, I've been working on this code almost nonstop--partially because I don't have anything else to do with my free time, but also because I really am interested in improving it. I think this is a good sign, because hopefully this will be similar to what I could be employed to do... but something tells me that I might be better served by staying in a university setting, where I'd have more freedom to choose a topic to learn about, and spend my time producing knowledge, rather than being heavily focused on producing a product. Maybe the thesis is just an extension of this concept--I could learn and learn to my heart's content, and the "proof" of that learning, in the form of expounding on the topic at length in a paper (and in a verbal defense), would come naturally.

This gives me hope. But I have to make sure I'm not forgetting any key details... like teaching classes. Is that an inherent part of graduate school? I'll have to do some more research...

(Word to the wise: In case you couldn't tell, the verbosity of this post (both in length of individual words and number of words written) is a dead giveaway that I'm writing this post at or around midnight, frantically typing out a half-formed idea before I fall asleep and forget it entirely. I suspect that's the entire point of blogging, but I just thought I should warn you nonetheless. Hmm. Maybe I should just put that in my profile and save time.)