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A Short Intermission

2014.04.27 18:12:19
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image It is once more time for a personal blog entry. I'm not sure why I'm writing it, as is usual for the kind of mood I find myself in when embarking on a writing task such as this. In fact, the essence of the rambling that will follow is that I don't know a lot of things that I should know.

As you may or may not be aware, or may or may not admit, I have not been doing a stellar job at keeping up with university. I would even go so far as to say that I have done an absolutely, inexcusably miserable job. For some reason I always have to struggle with people to make them accept that I do in fact perform very, very poorly at school and this realization never seems to completely stick, so I feel like I have to make it very clear.

I have not been doing the exercises I should've done. I have not been keeping up with lecture scripts or theory books. I haven't even visited all the lectures. Of those that I did visit, I squandered a lot by either writing programs or doing whatever else. Even without a laptop I've mostly just been drawing or thinking about unrelated things. And all this despite this semester being much more lax and less stressful than the last.

The reasons for this behaviour are many. I'll begin with listing those of which I feel that the flaws are attributable to the subjects or lectures, rather than myself. For many of the lectures here I find myself unable to uphold the interest in what the professor is saying for long enough. Depending on the subject, this can be attributed to them not explaining things clearly, not following a clear enough outline, or leaving out vital information that would bridge over the gap between theory and reality. The latter is especially a problem in the Physics lecture, I often feel like the formulae are not properly introduced. It isn't explained how the formula really came to be or why it matters. The lack of proper clarity is mostly a problem in Analysis and Chemistry.

While these issues are very much real, they are definitely not the sole and probably not even the biggest contributor to my deficiency.

For the Analysis lecture I am too occupied with copying the blackboard to LaTeX for the most part to be able to properly understand what's going on. I'm not convinced that I would understand much better if I were to pay attention fully though. This hasn't been that much of an issue in any case though as I was able to keep up mostly fine thanks to my father going over the exercises with me and explaining what I couldn't follow.

At the beginning of the semester I did visit the Chemistry lecture, but due to my knowledge lying almost four years back, I barely understood what was going on. Coupling this with the fact that the professor doesn't seem to be much use for explaining things and likes to ramble on about seemingly inconsequential topics, the amount of students visiting the lecture dropped by about 50% in around a month. I then decided to not bother anymore either.

Physics has been a real source of frustration for me. I want to like the subject, I really do. But I just cannot get myself to pay enough attention to the lecture, mostly for the aforementioned issue. This wouldn't be all too bad if the script wasn't a complete disaster in my eyes as well. Even just writing this blog entry about it makes me really frustrated at how inconceivably annoying and difficult it is for me to follow the lecture, despite really wanting to.

It's also at this point that I'm unsure if my past years of experience with programming are doing me a disservice. Datastructures and Algorithms has mostly been a really good lecture, if it weren't for my inability to pay attention and get sidetracked almost immediately. I am guessing that a large part of the cause for this is that in my mind I have the false impression that it'll be no problem anyway. But it is a problem! And I know that it is a problem! I know, fully admit and completely realize that I do not know much about algorithms or optimization. It is not an area I have invested any time into prior to this. And yet this sort of double thinking though-knot prevails and makes me turn into a time-squandering and space-wasting idiot.

The last lecture of this semester would be Complex Analysis, which is something that I can barely even keep remembering that I'd even have to do anything about it. It is only last week that I started reading up on the script and I've barely visited any of the lectures. I really don't know what the hell is even going on there, aside from the most likely cause of my mind deeming it a negligible subject. And yet, I know it isn't.

But the problems don't end here! Aside from having attention problems with almost every lecture, I just haven't been doing the exercises at all. The only subject in which I've kept up with exercises at all is Analysis. The rest I've either not done at all (Chemistry, Complex Analysis) or only partially (Physics, Datastructures). Chemistry I can at least somewhat justify by wanting to read through its textbook completely (which was a complete and utter waste of time and energy) which took me a long time, but I've finished that and since still haven't done any of the exercises. Complex Analysis I cannot at all justify. Somehow, despite assigning a day of the week for it, I have not done a single thing. Datastructures just seemed too boring to me, I suppose.

Oh and hold on, there's even more. Aside from keeping up with the current semester (which should really not be a problem whatsoever, it has been extremely lax) I should've been keeping up with the previous one, revise what I know I couldn't do during the time, redo exercises to keep it in my memory and write summaries so I wouldn't get stressed out before the exams. Of this I've of course done nothing at all.

Now that I've explained in long and grinding detail about how I've been slacking off like the dumbass I am, let me go on to the biggest issue that's been slumbering within me for a long time now. This issue is that I don't know what to do. I really don't know what the hell to do. I have absolutely no clue whatsoever what I could or should be doing with any part of my life. I don't know how to change myself to be able to pay attention during lectures. I don't know how I can make the scripts interesting for me to read. I don't know how I can get myself to solve the exercises. But then I also don't know if university is even the right thing for me to do. I don't know what kind of future it would bring me if I were to continue down this path, nor do I know if it would at all be one that I would like.

But then on the other hand I also don't know what I should be doing if I was going to quit university. I would probably be able to find some sort of job as a software developer at some company, but that's not looking like a future I would want. The few aspects that make all of the work I do enjoyable are ones that don't coincide with a standard job. Mostly it's the requirement for freedom to experiment and switch around different tasks a lot, which basically no software engineering job would really offer that I know of. And if it weren't for a normal job, I have no idea how I could go about selling myself so I could earn any money and frankly even thinking about it makes me weirded out. Living off donations or freelance work doesn't seem like any kind of viable option either given that I'm not even close to recognized enough to be able to sustain that kind of line of work.

And even pushing aside all these thoughts about what path I should choose for my future, I don't know what to do in the now either. Mostly I just float about from one thing to another, without forming a plan or strategy that I would follow. Attempting to create such a strategy on purpose does usually work out at first, but always completely breaks down to nothing again before too long.

I feel very lost and it's incredibly frustrating. I can't seem to move forward at all and I'm just continuously stumbling about in this mist of uncertainty and anxiety, without any concept of progress.

I just don't know.

All I know is the vicious and alluring feeling of solitude. image

Written by shinmera