Uncanny. I’m almost proud of myself.

The thing that always did me in during 11th grade was my distractibility. I had x amount of work do in y number of hours, but damn this and that website was fascinating, and maybe I should check this one again, and, and…

Damn, it’s already 04:00, and I’m not going to be able to finish.

I’ve found a new level of efficiency this year that surprises me. (Of course, as I say this, I’m writing a blog post, but the gist can be gotten.)

Despite the shit that was my first two weeks, and the sheer lack of sleep and academic hell-hole that was last week, I’ve found this new ability to just sit and work, with barely a flicker as I change radio stations. I still have trouble when other people are present, because I want to socialize, but when I have the office to myself (from about 18:00 until classes in the morning), I can just work with barely a halt to see new e-mail or post blog posts. (Hence the lack of lengthy or meaningful updates until this weekend.)

Never in my life, unless doing some mad programming, have I been able to work twelve hours non-stop, day after day. I don’t know how I’m not running on “E” right now. Lack of sleep, not enough running, funky food schedule, academic stress ever-increasing, personal stress spiking violently weekly.

But I feel fine. I don’t feel like complaining. I’m learning to hit my peak efficiency during these night hours and to ride the wave smoothly, despite the fact that there really aren’t enough hours in a day for what’s on my plate. I’m tired, but not… fatigued, I guess. Luke made a joke last week about me running 90 hour weeks, but I hadn’t counted. 24 h/day * 6 days/week – 3.5 h sleep [avg]/day * 6 days = 123 h/week. A little more than 90 hours, even with padding for the downtime I usually take in the afternoons when people come in the office.

(Watch me end up wailing and ranting about my life/schedule by the end of this week when the administration finally responds to the latest developments and I need to crunch in research time and Thorn. Haha.)

Of course, I crash about 09:00 every morning, just in time to miss the crux of my Computer Architecture class and to blur my way through my maths. Funny anecdote:

Last week, before the Comp Arch exam, we went over the design of an 32-bit arithmetic logic unit (ALU). J.P. got through the addition of two bits and said, “Now we’re going to do the set-less-than function,” just as I zoned out/fell asleep.

I awoke to “And there’s the set-less-than function! Any questions?”

Guess what function of the ALU was examined and modified on the exam Thursday night? Yeah.

Kinda funny, but then again not. I caught on enough that I was able to get much partial credit on the exam, but my score was only slightly above the class average of 67 or 70 or whatever it was. (I’m officially only average.)

But back to the original idea: these lengthier blog posts (and this weekend in general) aside, I’m going to make mad use of this new focus while I have it. For all I know, it’ll only last this quarter and I won’t be able to overload [successfully] next quarter because I’ll be burned out. Given that I’m wanting to overload to take Anal Chem, I’d seriously better watch my ass, too.

Back to Comp Arch. My team (the “C-Biscuits”–don’t ask) is a trip, and it deserves an entire blog post one of these days…